Anthropology and the British Museum: A conversation with John Mack

John Mack is Keeper of Ethnography at the British Museum, and until recently was also Senior Keeper. He curated The Museum of the Mind: Art and Memory in World Cultures as part of the British Museum's 250th anniversary programme. Major changes have taken place at the museum, including the return of the Museum of Mankind to the British Museum's Bloomsbury site. This site will by next year also house the Anthropology Library, one of the largest anthropology libraries in the world, the holdings of which were greatly enhanced by the gift of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) Library to the British Museum Ethnography Department Library in 1976. John Mack can be contacted at J.Mack@british-museum.ac.uk .     

Tensions between municipal reform and outdated fiscal levers in rural British Columbia

Debates about the future of small municipalities in Canada are set against a backdrop of economic, political, and social restructuring processes that have displaced former state investment policies in favour of neoliberal public policy approaches. Small municipalities struggle with outdated financial and governance structures and a provincial public policy agenda that asks them to become more creative, innovative, and “entrepreneurial” in their approach and responsibilities. Drawing upon key informant interviews with eight case studies in British Columbia, Canada, this research examines the tensions between municipal reforms mandated by the provincial government over the past 30 years and commensurate fiscal levers and capacities in place to address these broadening responsibilities for small municipalities in volatile staples-dependent regions. Our findings demonstrate how successive provincial governments have mobilized New Public Management objectives through a host of legislative and regulatory changes that have increased the responsibilities and requirements on local governments without commensurate fiscal or jurisdictional capacity.     

Experimental Boat and Ship Archaeology: Principles and Methods

The need for experiments to study physical aspects of craft of the past is stated, as well as the necessity for them to have clear aims and to follow the established principles of scientific enquiry. These principles are discussed in this joint paper by ten maritime archaeologists and others, together with methods and some points of management critical to their application in this field.     

Human biology in the Classic Maya collapse: Evidence from paleopathology and paleodiet

We review evidence from human biology—paleopathological and isotopic paleodietary studies on ancient Maya skeletons—to assess the validity of ecological models of the Classic Maya collapse, in which elevated disease and deteriorating diet are commonly assumed. To be upheld, the health arguments of ecological models require that the Maya disease burden (1) was greater than that for many other societies and (2) increased over the span of occupation. The dietary argument requires (1) consistent change in diet from Preclassic and Early Classic Periods to the Terminal Classic and (2) increasing social divergence in diet. A correlation between diet and disease is necessary to link these arguments. Neither pathology nor isotopic data consistently support these criteria. Instead, it appears that local environmental and political factors created diversity in both disease burden and diet. In view of the human biological data, we are skeptical of ecological models as generalized explanations for the abandonment of Classic Maya sites in the southern lowlands.     

The culture history of Madagascar

Madagascar's culture is a unique fusion of elements drawn from the western, northern, and eastern shores of the Indian Ocean, and its past has fascinated many scholars, yet systematic archaeological research is relatively recent on the island. The oldest traces of visitors are from the first century AD. Coastal settlements, with clear evidence of ties to the western Indian Ocean trading network, were established in several places over the next millennium. Important environmental changes of both plant and animal communities are documented over this period, including the extinctions of almost all large animal species. Urban life in Madagascar began with the establishment of the entrepôt of Mahilaka on the northwest coast of the island in the twelfth century. At about the same time, communities with ties to the trade network were established around the island's coasts. From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, social hierarchies developed in several regions of the island. During the succeeding two centuries, Madagascar saw the development of state polities.