DURABLE GOODS

In his thoughtful discussion of what makes some historical texts durable, lasting through time, Jaume Aurell arrives at the conclusion that these works show a balance between antiquarianism and presentism, and that this balance gives them a certain longevity of repute. Because, however, durability is a characteristic of the work, it seems to me problematic. Survival, rather than durability, appears to be the rubric we are discussing. It is not a characteristic of the work, any more than of a historical individual who survives a critical event like the French Revolution or the Holocaust. We identify survivors only retrospectively. A myriad of contingencies—time and chance—will obtain for any text to survive. Historiographical competition is ferocious, and worthy of study. Like Tolstoy's unhappy families, each historical text that fails to survive will have its own history. Why Gibbon and not Volney? We can adduce reasons, of course, but they are looks backward; in the late eighteenth century, no predictions were certain. Both Hayden White and Frank Ankersmit have, each in his own way, suggested the characteristics of the best histories. I believe they are mistaken, if best is to be taken to mean: most likely to survive. This is a characteristic of the ongoing reception of the work. As in an ongoing conversation, the historical work may advance the discourse, or contradict it, or change the subject. Whether it will have influence after the speaker has departed is up to those who remain and are added to the group. This rhetorical survival in the conversation is what is in question here. As such, it is profoundly historical, and not “beyond time.”     

The elephant in the sky: On how to grapple with our academic flying in the age of climate change

This article discusses the author’s personal journey into the anthropology of climate change and his concern about the multiple drivers of anthropogenic climate change, among them an increasing number of aeroplane flights around the world, including those made by academics and more specifically, anthropologists. Given that the people who anthropologists often study will be those most severely impacted by the ravages of climate change, it is imperative that anthropologists find strategies to drastically reduce their flying in relation to attending conferences, research meetings and undertaking fieldwork. In this article, the author urges anthropologists to turn their attention to a growing global ‘fly less’ movement.     

2. PRESENCE ACHIEVED IN LANGUAGE (WITH SPECIAL ATTENTION GIVEN TO THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST)

The aim of this essay is to ask whether what it calls the “presence” of things, including things of the past, can be rendered in language, including the language of historians. In Part I the essay adumbrates what it means by presence (the spatio‐temporally located existence of physical objects and events). It also proposes two ideal types: meaning‐cultures (in which the interpretation of meaning is of paramount concern, so much so that the thinghood of things is often obscured), and presence‐cultures (in which capturing the tangibility of things is of utmost importance). In the modern period, linguistic utterance has typically come to be used for, and to be interpreted as, the way by which meaning rather than presence is expressed, thereby creating a gap between language and presence. Thus, in Part II the essay explores ways that this gap might be bridged, examining seven instances in which presence can be “amalgamated” with language. These range from instances in which the physical dimensions of language itself are made manifest, to those through which the physicality of the things to which language refers is supposed to be made evident. Of particular note for theorists of history are those instances in which things can be made present by employing the deictic, poetic, and incantatory potential of linguistic expression. The essay concludes in Part III with a reflection on Heidegger's idea that language is the “house of being,” now interpreted as the idea that language can be the medium through which the separation of humans and the (physical) things of their environment may be overcome. The hope of achieving presence in language is no less than a reconciliation of humans with their world, including—and of most interest to historians—the things and events of their past.     

TOOLS TO QUALIFY EXPERIMENTS WITH BLOOMERY FURNACES*

Five experimental bloomery iron ore smelts were carried out in a reconstruction of an early medieval furnace of the Boécourt type (Switzerland). A part of the bloom from the most successful experiment was forged to a billet. Starting materials and products were weighed, described and chemically characterized (ICP-MS, LA-ICP-MS and WD-XRF). The calculation of the yield and mass balance based on the chemical analyses from the ore (optimum) and from the ore, furnace lining, slag and ash (applied) allow the determination and quantification of the materials involved in the process. This permits the interpretation of the quality of the experiments. The chemical characterization of metal produced from hematite ore from the Gonzen Mountains in Switzerland gives archaeologists the possibility to compare the metal of iron artefacts to metal from this mine. Finally a good agreement between experiments and archaeological reality can be shown.     

DATA ON 61 CHEMICAL ELEMENTS FOR THE CHARACTERIZATION OF THREE MAJOR GLASS COMPOSITIONS IN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES

Sets of 20 soda ash, 16 soda lime and 23 wood ash glasses mainly from excavations in Europe were analysed by microprobe and LA–ICP‐MS for 61 elements and are presented as average concentrations with standard deviations. Concentrations of sodium, potassium and magnesium allow the major glass type to be identified. Specific compositions of the raw materials of glass production indicate certain sources, technical processes and ages. Heavy minerals etc. of quartz sands contain rare earth elements (REE) from crustal fractionations that are different for the three major glass types. Accumulations of P, B, Ba, Mn and K in wood from soils by organic processes can characterize glass from certain regions.