Archaeology and Folklore of Material Culture, Ritual, and Everyday Life

Archaeologists often make distinctions between ritual material culture and everyday or utilitarian material culture. I examine this differentiation model for understanding the complex relationships among material culture, ritual, and everyday life. Using folklore recorded in Scotland in the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, I suggest another, continuum-based model, and suggest how this model can enrich archaeological understanding of the meanings and beliefs that form the cultural contexts for the artifacts, features, sites, and landscapes we study.     

On the possible ritual marking of a young XVIIIth dynasty pig skull from Tell el‐Amarna,Middle Egypt

A young pig skull, excavated from an ancient Egyptian village near Tell el‐Amarna, Middle Egypt, presents a number of unusual features which are suggestive of ante‐mortem human intervention with subsequent localised infection of the bone. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A strontium and oxygen isotope assessment of a possible fourth century immigrant population in a Hampshire cemetery,southern England

The aim of the project was to test the hypothesis, using oxygen and strontium isotopes, that a group of burials in the Late Roman cemetery of Lankhills, Winchester, southern England, were migrants from the Danube region of central Europe. The method assumes that the oxygen isotope composition of immigrants from this locale would be significantly more depleted that any one British origin and that the restricted range in Sr isotope compositions produced by chalk in the overlying biosphere of southern England would discriminate between the local population and settlers from elsewhere. As a control for the immigrant group a sample of Romano-British individuals were examined to provide a comparative data set. The results showed that the majority of the individuals used to define the “local” control group plotted in a restricted field of strontium and oxygen isotope composition that was consistent with the values expected for the Hampshire area of southern England. By contrast, the “exotic”, putatively immigrant population generated a much more dispersed field including four with δ¹⁸O drinking water values of −10‰ or less, which supports a non-British origin for these individuals. The study shows that the archaeological data suggesting that there is an exotic population buried at the Lankhills cemetery is generally supported by the isotope work, although the “exotic” group appears to a rather dispersed set of individuals rather than a single population from a restricted overseas location.     

北齐徐显秀、娄叡墓中的火坛和礼器

本文论述了北齐徐显秀墓和娄墓中的“灯”本是拜火祭坛,鸡首壶、尊、瓶等器则是礼器。隋虞弘墓中的石“灯”也应是火坛。由此说明祆教信众沿袭中国古来以礼器随葬的传统,将火坛及其礼器放入墓室作为祆教葬礼的一部分。     

一部规范清代社会成员行为的图谱——有关《皇朝礼器图式》的几个问题

《皇朝礼器图式》是乾隆帝钦命绘制的一部与清礼息息相关的器物图谱。本文通过对该图所绘器物的含义及乾隆礼制思想确立的梳理,分析了乾隆绘制《礼器图》的本意是在表达一种治国理念,以期用图谱的形式为社会各等级人士设立行为规范,从而达到上下有序、尊卑有别的治国目的。透过这些器物,我们可以看到以服饰为代表的满汉文化的融合,以军器为代表的中国开始落后于西方的历史,以仪器为代表的中西文化的冲突等等很多重要的清朝社会波澜。此图不但是我们今天认识200年前天文地理仪器、冠袍带履、车马轿舆、枪炮军械、民族乐器等文物的重要参考文献,也是我们了解18世纪中国社会变化的一份珍贵的形象资料。     

良渚文化礼仪用玉的文化特征

良渚文化是中国新石器时代长江下游地区的一种重要的考古文化类型 ,以出土大量制作精美的玉器而闻名 ,尤以大型玉制礼器著称。礼器 ,通常指用于祭祀、丧葬、宴飨、朝聘、婚冠等礼仪活动的各类器物。考古研究发现 ,礼器的应用于新石器时代就已出现 ,不过当时只用于祭祀和丧葬等活动。玉制礼器的产生大约在距今 6 0 0 0至距今4 0 0 0年间 ,多发现于辽河流域的红山文化 ,黄河流域的大汶口、龙山文化、长江下游的良渚文化中。其中良渚文化礼仪用玉尤为典型。它们大部分出土于浙江反山、瑶山、上海福泉山、江苏武进寺墩、新沂花厅、赵陵山等遗址…     

汉画像石所见周礼遗俗

本文结合文献资料,具体考释了汉代画像石中的"孔子见老子"、"胡汉战争"、"投壶"等画像,认为这些画像所反映的献挚礼、献俘礼、投壶礼皆为周代遗俗.     

Sovereignty from ‘ground zero’: Power through performance in independent South Sudan

Through a reading of the South Sudanese independence ceremony as a ritual of statehood, I show how state actors in South Sudan declared and performed their claim to sovereignty in the face of extraordinary challenge. Central to their performance was their rendering of a national chronotope and their assertion of what I call rebel sovereignty: their articulation of themselves as both saviours from oppression and legitimate wielders of state power. State actors' equal appeal to local antipathy to centralised power and international norms of statehood, as well as their performative redefinition of international undermining as partnership, demonstrates the necessity of contemporary sovereign performance to define both the content and context of extant political realities. More broadly, the ritual demonstrates the performative basis of sovereignty and the increasing necessity of sovereign aspirants to acknowledge the impossibility of sovereign control and redefine challenges and critiques of this power as they assert it.     

Ritual Patterns in the Deposits of Fauna Associated with Iberian Burials: The Necropolis of El Poblado During the Fourth to Second Centuries bc (Archaeological Complex of Coimbra del Barranco Ancho,Murcia)

The study of grave goods, including animal deposits, offers a deeper understanding of social issues. This paper presents the results of the analysis of human and animal bone samples from the Iberian necropolis of El Poblado, Murcia. The examination focusses on 18 deposits of ovicaprids radii and ulnae, mostly of the left side, that were derived from 14 cremation tombs of the 74 studied. By considering the human and animal remains together, it is possible to highlight differences in the rituals of certain graves and variations in animal symbolism related to human sex and age. This provides a new understanding of the social and cultural differentiation that existed in the Iberian communities of this period. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.