Imagining Palestinian Archaeologies: A Sampler

As three of the articles in this collection demonstrate, one central axis of the Zionist archaeological project is the absolute necessity of diminishing, and ultimately erasing, the importance and existence of aspects of “the archaeological record” that pertain to non-Jewish presences in Palestine, particularly and especially Islamic civilizations and the long-term presence of an indigenous non-Jewish Palestinian population. In this introduction, I focus, however, upon Zionist archaeology’s rearticulation of Jewish identity in nationalist form, an operation that has entailed the elaboration of a consistently simplified, unidimensional, or narrowly channeled interpretive version of Jewish history and Jewish identity in Palestine over time. Through several pointed queries, I suggest alternative interpretations of one element of the Zionist archaeological narrative that in turn could lead to other ways of thinking about the long-term presence of Jewish people in Palestine.     

Starch granules,dental calculus and new perspectives on ancient diet

Recent work in various parts of the world has suggested the possibility of ancient starch granules surviving and adhering to archaeological artefacts. Often this information is used to infer aspects of diet. One additional source for recovery of archaeological starch granules is dental calculus. The presence of plant food debris in dental calculus is well known but has not been not widely investigated using archaeological material. The extraction of starch granules from dental calculus represents a direct link to the consumption of starchy food by humans or animals. Using dental calculus also sidesteps many other questions still inherent in using starch granules to reconstruct aspects of ancient diet, such as the effects of diagenesis on their morphology; as the starches are trapped inside a concreted matrix they are less likely to alter over time. We used amylase digestion by a starch-specific enzyme to confirm the material as starch.     

Hope’s Work

This article, given as the Antipode RGS‐IBG Lecture on 28 August 2019, argues that hope can be found through training an attentiveness to the social world in troubled times. Hope then is an empirical question and a matter of documenting hopeful possibilities that often otherwise remain unremarked upon. In this sense “worldly hope” draws possibilities that are manifested in the social world and stands in contrast to cruel forms of optimism or an unrealistic faith in future progress. An argument for such an approach to hope and trouble is developed through two examples drawn from contemporary London life, namely, the silent walks at Grenfell Tower in West London and a community arts project in Bellingham, South East London.     

Laser ablation depth profiling of U-series and Sr isotopes in human fossils

We have explored laser depth profiling to obtain data sets for U-series as well as Sr analyses. Laser probing with an 81 μm spot size allows for the exploration of low uranium domains of up to 400 μm below the outer surface in tooth enamel. These low U domains will contain Sr isotope compositions of the individual, that are least affected by diagenetic Sr overprints. The small holes drilled for U surveying are not visible to the naked eye. Using larger spot sizes of around 233 μm, laser drilling can be used to obtain reliable U-series isotope data to a depth of approximately 1000 μm in enamel and around 1300 μm in bone. Furthermore, meaningful ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr isotope data can also be obtained with this spot size. Using our sampling strategy, the overall damage to a human tooth is minute, as demonstrated on a Neanderthal tooth from Moula-Guercy. We expect that laser ablation depth profiling will become routine for gaining insights into the age of human fossils and the migrations of ancient humans.