Hayden White: Beyond Irony

A crisis of our age that is usually identified with the loss of the sacred was one of the causes of the fall into irony in the nineteenth century. In the case of historians, asHayden White has shown in Metahistory, this irony was caused by a“bitterness” stemming from the failure of reality to fulfill their expectations. Anironic apprehension of the world arose in an atmosphere of social breakdown or cultural decline.A current stage of irony manifests itself in a doubt as to the capacity of language to grasp reality. Thus we live in a “prison house of language.” An intellectual parlor-gameproduces “second-hand knowledge” that cannot satisfy the needs of post-postmodern men and women still looking for another metanarrative. Therefore, the main purpose of this essay is to answer the question: how can we go beyond irony? This text is a “post-postmodern post mortem topostmodernism.” I am grateful to postmodernism for many things, especially for giving me an alternative apprehension of the world in terms of difference and continuity rather than binary oppositions, but I am tired of ontological insecurity and epistemological chaos. I need order. I miss metanarrative. In trying to break with some modern/postmodern “principles” andretain within my discourse the premodernist perspective, I follow the current trend in thehumanities. We observe at present the breakdown of methodology and the rise of a more poeticapproach in the human sciences. Evidence of this phenomenon is the more autobiographical formof writing in anthropology (James Clifford, Clifford Geertz) and a more literary style inhistorical writing (Natalie Zemon Davis, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Simon Schama). This trendis associated with a revaluation of the subjective aspects of research. Perhaps, and I wouldwelcome it, it also could be identified with a reappearance of a Collingwoodian idea of history ashuman self-knowledge, knowledge about human nature, knowledge about “what it is to be a man . . . what it is to be the kind of man you are . . . and what it is to be the man you are and nobody else is.”     

Relation between radiocarbon,archaeological dating and sediment properties on the example of colluvial deposits (NE Poland)

This study focuses on the analysis of the structural and textural features of the colluvial (deluvial) deposits in the Suwałki Lake District (NE Poland) and their absolute age. The colluvium has a thickness of up to 150 cm. The dates of the peat under colluvium or lowermost fossil humus-rich horizons point to the ages from 5405±80 BP to 480 BP. Deposition of material at the footslope is a result of a denudation triggered by human action (surface water erosion and tillage erosion) and usually corresponds with the settlement stages. The ¹⁴C dating of deposited sediment sometimes indicated to older dates of colluvium then the archaeological evidence available for examined sites. Locally, the overlying fossil humic horizon was older then the lowermost one. The textural features of the colluvial deposits such as: the content of fine fraction, weak sorting and relationship between the mean grain-size (Mz) and the sorting index (σ₁) were used to recognize sediment redeposited from the upper part of the slope. Basing on the mineral composition and electrical conductivity of fossil humus horizon it is possible to say whether the soil was degraded or aggraded. These features of the humus-rich horizons occurring between colluvial sediments can be used to explain discrepancy between the radiocarbon dating and archaeological evidence.     

Is This Stone Alive? Prefiguring the Future Role of Archaeology

By reflecting on new and emerging perspectives and trends in the contemporary humanities and social sciences, including the critique of anthropocentrism, Eurocentrism and secularism, the questioning of human epistemic authority over knowledge building, the ‘indigenization of the academy’, and debates over the applicability of the humanities to the problems of the contemporary world, the author identifies tendencies that are relevant to discussions on the future role of archaeology. In her analysis of the ontological and animist/ic turns, the author claims that asking the questions ‘what is an object?’ and ‘is it alive?’ within the context of this paradigm shift might support the emergence of an alternative worldview based on a participatory perspective of the world that understands (new) animism as a different way of being human and relating to the world on different terms. The author asks whether it is possible for archaeology (as the discipline of ‘animated bones and things’) to potentially become an intellectual platform for exercising an alternative worldview.     

Interdisciplinary Research into the Legacy of the Medieval Metropolis of Soba in a Modern Khartoum Suburb

Recent research at Soba focuses on the tangible and intangible heritage of the medieval capital of Alwa kingdom, whose remains cover approximately 275 ha. About 222 ha of this area has been built up or transformed into agricultural land in the past 30 years. An ethnographic survey was also carried out in the built-up area to understand how the residents engage with the archaeological heritage and material remains. The undeveloped area of the capital (53 ha) was the focus of interdisciplinary archaeological fieldwork conducted in 2019 and 2020. A large-scale geophysical survey, using a fluxgate gradiometer and ground-penetrating radar, was initiated in the undeveloped area, and excavation trenches were opened to verify distinctive magnetic anomalies. Along with the ethnographic and geophysical data, the study of the pottery, burials, and stratigraphic sequence (supplemented with radiocarbon dates) provides new insights into the spatial organization of the medieval capital.

     

The Early TRB 'Ploughmarks' from Sarnowo in Central Poland: A New Interpretation

The parallel, charcoal-filled depressions beneath a long-barrow at Sarnowo (Wлocлawek district, central Poland) have usually been interpreted as cultivation-furrows, and have been widely cited in the archaeological literature as evidence for use of the light plough, despite their early date (mid-fifth millennium cal BC) and context (early TRB). Since unambiguous ploughmarks only occur in northern Europe a millennium later, this is an anomaly. Here it is suggested that a more plausible explanation is that they represent the burned timber elements of a building, which would account for the plentiful traces of charcoal and burnt daub. The earliest evidence for the plough in Europe would thus date to the fourth millennium cal BC.     

Towards more (un)balanced trade. Production linkages between China and the Visegrad countries: country-level and sector-level analysis*

This article presents the Visegrad Group member countries with special focus on the role of these countries in global value chains (GVCs). The goal of this paper is to analyse the role these states play in global production linkages and evaluation of connections between the VG states and China. We verified two hypotheses: (1) the Visegrad countries have deteriorated their positions in GVCs in relation to China recently; (2) the Visegrad states have become more dependent on Chinese value added in selected sectors. The analysis consists of two steps. Firstly, we evaluated the role of the Visegrad countries in international production linkages with China using value-added foreign trade using country-level approach. Secondly, we focused on the sectoral links between China and the Visegrad countries.     

ANIMAL HISTORY

This review reflects on animal history as a subfield of the discipline of history and presents its main arguments and future tasks. Its main goal is to identify the new research prospects and potentials proposed by the book edited by Susan Nance, The Historical Animal. These include such topics as the problem of “the animal's point of view,” animal agency (animals understood as “historical” agents and actors), the problem of identifying traces of animal actions in “anthropocentric” archives and searching for new historical sources (including animals’ testimonies). It also explores methodological difficulties, especially with the idea of the historicization of animals and the possible merger of the humanities and social sciences with the natural and life sciences. The review considers how studying animals forces scholars to rethink to its foundations history as a discipline. It claims that the most progressive proposals are coming from scholars (many of whom are historians) who advocate radical interdisciplinarity. The authors are not only interested in merging history with specific sciences (such as animal psychology, ecology, ethology, evolutionary biology, and zoology), but also question basic assumptions of the discipline: the epistemic authority claimed by historians for building knowledge of the past as well as the human epistemic authority for creating such knowledge. In this context several questions emerge: can we achieve “interspecies competence” (Erica Fudge's term) for creating a multispecies knowledge of the past? Can research on animals’ perception of change help us to develop nonhistorical approaches to the past? Can we imagine accounts of the past based on multispecies co‐authorship?     

A royal Maya country house: Archaeology at Bejucal,Guatemala

This article presents three years of archaeological investigations at the minor Maya center of Bejucal, Guatemala. A complete site history is presented relying on data from artifact analysis, architectural study, epigraphy, and bioarchaeology, with a goal towards identifying the site's function within the broader El Zotz polity. The authors argue that Bejucal underwent significant transformation following its establishment as a sacred hilltop site during the Late Preclassic period (400 b.c.–a.d. 250). The El Zotz royal family gradually appropriated the space, converting it into a royal country house and elite burial place. Bejucal's proximity to a large permanent water source suggests that the country house was situated within favorable hunting grounds. The research contributes to a broader discussion about the role of minor centers in regional settlement patterns, highlighting the benefit of textual data in making interpretations. The article also highlights the important role of salvage work in lowland Maya archaeology.     

Late Triassic (Carnian) corals from Timor-Leste (East Timor): their identity,setting, and biogeography

Four scleractinian coral taxa are described from limestones within a sandstone-shale séquence correlated with the Late Triassic Babulu Formation, Manatuto township, on the northern coast of Timor-Leste (East Timor). The coral fauna consists of three phaceloid taxa, Paravolzeia tìmorìca gen. et sp. nov., Craspedophyll ramosa sp. nov., Margarosmilia confluens (Münster), and a generically indeterminate solitary taxon attributed to the family Margarophylliidae. Ali four corals are related at various taxonomie levels to Carnian faunas from the Dolomites of northern Italy. Previously, only Norian coral faunas were known from the Triassic of Timor. The fauna exhibits both similarities to and differences from Carnian faunas of the Dolomites and helps confirm palaeogeographic affinities with the western Tethys, although during Late Triassic time Timor lay in the distant southeastern portai of the Tethys. Despite isolation from the western Tethys, the presence of two species foundalso in the Dolomites indicates that larvai dispersai occurred between the two areas.