Book Reviews

Semboja and Therkildsen, eds. Service Provision under Stress in East Africa: The State, NGOs and People's Organisations in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda
Cowen and Shenton Doctrines of Development
Taylor The Way the Modern World Works: World Hegemony to World Impasse     

Before Columbia: The FWP and American Oral History Research

This article compares and contrasts the approaches of the NewDeal Federal Writers' Project and the Columbia Oral HistoryProgram in an effort to reconsider the paradoxical history oforal history research in the United States and its relationshipto how many oral historians today look at their work and thehistory of their field. As it turns out, the theoretical andsocial concerns of the FWP projects are closer to current theoreticalconcerns of oral historians than the work Allan Nevins conductedin the early years of the Columbia project. The article alsoshows how awareness of the history of the intellectual and culturalcurrents that affect oral history projects in general, and theFWP's work in particular—interviews with former slaves,tenant farmers, industrial workers, and members of ethnic minorities—canhelp us analyze and use those materials. It argues that an awarenessof continuity and discontinuity in the history of oral historymakes it possible for today's oral historians to have a productivedialogue with their predecessors in the field.     

The Dor 2001/1 Byzantine Shipwreck,Israel: final report

Dor 2001/1 was a Byzantine coaster, about 16.9 m long, with an estimated displacement of 50 tonnes, dated to the first third of the 6th century CE, and loaded with building stones. It was excavated over five seasons, recorded under water, and a section of the shipwreck was retrieved and studied on land. The hull construction was based on frames without any type of planking edge‐fasteners. It is thus among the earliest frame‐based shipwrecks found so far in the Mediterranean. The origin of its construction tradition, with flat frames amidships, hard chine and straight sides, might have been related to a riverine tradition.     

The Dor 2001/1 Shipwreck, Israel—a Summary of the Excavation

Dor 2001/1 was probably a Byzantine coaster carrying building stones, dated to the end of the 5th or beginning of the 6th century AD. No shell-first construction features were identified, specifically no kind of planking edge-joints; but instead all the essential components showed that it was a frame-based hull. Thus it is apparently among the earliest frame-based shipwrecks found so far in the Mediterranean.
© 2006 The Authors     

Opencast mines in South Brandenburg (Germany)—archives of Late Quaternary landscape development and human-induced land use changes

This study outlines the opportunities for geoarchaeological research in active opencast lignite mines in southern Brandenburg (Germany). Studies on extensive outcrops that address both archaeology and soil geomorphology, combined with a geographical information system (GIS) approach, provide unique insights into human-induced environmental changes in Lower Lusatia and generally improve our understanding of landscape dynamics. We present the most recent results from three case studies and review important findings from the last several years. Studies conducted in opencast mines of Cottbus-Nord and Jänschwalde focus on (i) Late Quaternary geomorphodynamics and soil development and (ii) past land use and the legacy of agriculture and woodland use. Our results are similar to those in other regions in Central Europe, but we also observe regional differences caused by the local setting, e.g. intensification of soil erosion coinciding with the expansion of farming of cultivated lands in the Slavic Middle Ages. Our research reveals the largest archaeologically investigated area of historical charcoal production in the Northern European Lowland (NEL). We are clearly only beginning to understand the massive dimensions of charcoal production in the region.     

Two Ancient Wooden Anchors from Ein Gedi, on the Dead Sea, Israel

Two ancient wooden anchors with ropes, dating to different periods, were found on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The one-armed anchor was dated by 14C to the Late Iron Age—Persian Period, and the second anchor to the Roman Period. The saline water of the Dead Sea preserved the wood and ropes, but corroded almost all the metal parts. A thin black crust of lead and a green crust of copper are the only remains of the collar of the Roman anchor. The finds were made from local tree species and were probably made locally: the one-armed anchor from Acacia, the Roman one from Christ-thorn, and both ropes of date-palm.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

A landscape of powers in Highland Papua,C. 1899-1918

The article proposes that anthropologists and historians attend to a 'landscape of powers' to understand the ways colonial and mission projects become actualised in on-going social relations. An expanding body of scholarship for the Melanesian region has focused on the way missionaries and colonial agents, as much as the diverse Melanesian peoples, attain power through rendering persons and places in specific forms. This is documented here for Fuyuge-speakers relations with colonial and mission projects during their early phase. Although the forms and consequences of power among each--Fuyuge, colonial, mission--is different, attention is devoted to the resultant and emerging patterns of these long-standing interactions and interventions. In particular, the article maintains that when such projects become locally actualised a landscape of powers is established. A landscape of powers is the multiply constituted arrangement of persons and places in an historical and ethnographically delineated context.