Community Engagement in Historical Site Protection: Lessons from the Elmina Castle Project in Ghana

Abstract

Engaging communities in the protection of heritage means that the communities living around the heritage sites are involved in the process of identifying issues that affect the conservation of these sites and can propose ways by which they can be addressed. In Ghana, the Elmina Castle project shows close collaboration between the communities living around these slave forts and castles, the legal custodians, and other stakeholders. This case study unpicks the process to show how the existing traditional systems were approached and involved. The result of this participatory collaboration is a strategic document which will be implemented to ensure proper protection of these sites in the wake of development and modernization.     

社会学的解读:英使团画家笔下的中国

18世纪末英国马戛尔尼使团访华,是中英关系史上重大的历史事件。英国国家图书馆保存有随团制图员亚历山大绘制的一份完整的访华见闻图。由于绘图者视角的特殊性,这批绘画成为研究当时中国社会不可多得的形象史料。画家描绘了各个阶层、各种职业的人物肖像,也描绘了交通工具、建筑、军事、运河等场景。从社会学角度反映了当时中国的生活状况,以及中英在军力、船舰、生产方式、宗教风俗等多方面的差异。     

Archaeological excavations at Bosutswe,Botswana: cultural chronology,paleo-ecology and economy

Excavations at the site of Bosutswe on the eastern edge of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana have uncovered over 4 m of deposit ranging in age from CE 700 to 1700. Our research has produced quantitative and qualitative measures of the material and ecological dimensions that structured the everyday actions and behaviors through which social identities were constituted, maintained, and transformed during the period when the polities of Toutswe, Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe and Khami rose to power. By examining the material dimensions that underlay shifting relations of production, exchange, and social stratification we are able to contextualize the social judgments that ascribed value to material goods and food ways, while specifying the ways these were used to create and naturalize social relationships and power differentials. Stable isotope analyses, combined with evidence of vitrified dung, further enable us to suggest changes in herd management strategies used by the inhabitants of the site to compensate for ecological changes brought about by long-term occupation, while at the same time enabling them to economically tie subordinates to them as social divisions became more rigidly defined after CE 1300. The cultural and economic changes that took place at Bosutswe thus directly impact our understanding of the social transformations that immediately preceded contemporary configurations of ethnicity in Botswana.     

Is vitrification in charcoal a result of high temperature burning of wood?

The term ‘vitrified’ is used to describe the glassy appearance of some charcoals recovered in the archaeological record. It has been generally considered that this phenomenon is a result of wood being subjected to high temperatures similar to the role of temperature in the formation of glass and pottery. Charcoals displaying characteristics of vitrification from three distinct archaeological contexts were analysed using reflectance microscopy to determine their temperature of formation. Charcoal was also generated in laboratory charring experiments at temperatures of 900–1100 °C for durations of 1, 6, 12 and 24 h to determine if subjection to high temperature led to vitrification. None of the laboratory-produced charcoals displayed characteristics of vitrification. Mean random reflectance of the vitrified archaeological fragments indicated temperature of formation from 310 to 530 °C. A charring experiment was also conducted, at 500 °C for 6 h, using green wood with some bark attached, and added sugars, but no evidence of vitrification was seen. Therefore vitrified charcoals do not result from high temperature charring or primarily from the use of green wood.     

New field and geochemical evidence from vitrified forts in South Morar and Moidart,NW Scotland: further insight into melting and the process of vitrification

New field and laboratory work has been carried out on two vitrified forts, Rhubh Aird Ghamhsgail near Arisaig and The Torr near Acharacle. Fieldwork confirms that both are constructed from rubble largely comprising local psammitic Moine Supergroup rocks and that their walls are relatively well preserved with large portions of vitrified material remain, particularly at The Torr, where remnants of up to four courses of stone facing occur. The preserved wall fills comprise mostly psammitic rubble set in a dark brown, vesicular, glassy to aphanitic matrix that in many places preserves evidence of downward flow. Conventionally, vitrification is explained through combustion of timber interlacing within the walls leading to melting that has been modelled in the granite system. However, considering Iron Age smelting technology, this leads to problems in obtaining high temperatures (≥1000 °C) over tens of metres of wall length. Geochemical analysis of the vitrification indicates that modelling the melting within the granite system is incapable of providing a partial melt matching the composition of vitrification. At The Torr, pelite fragments have been found near the base of the wall where partial melt occurs as black bubbles. In these fragments it appears that micas (largely biotite) have formed the melt via the reaction biotite + quartz = sanidine + orthopyroxene + liquid which takes place at temperatures c. 850 °C. Quench crystals in the melt include orthopyroxene, plagioclase, spinels, ilmenite, magnetite, anatase and apatite confirming that it was not a granite melt. These melted fragments are found next to material with biotite that, superficially, appears unmelted, suggesting that some of the heating took place perhaps away from the edifice and unmelted residue was utilised as part of the rubble fill, suggesting that in situ partial melting of the rubble is unlikely. However, in other parts of the edifice heat affected, yet unmelted, fragments are dominant. The new evidence indicates that vitrification occurred at lower temperatures than previously modelled and thus the melts could have been achieved more easily than previously thought.     

Ghana's Vanishing Past: Development, Antiquities, and the Destruction of the Archaeological Record

Ghana's past is being destroyed at a rapid rate. Although the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board has in some instances successfully intervened to stop the illicit trading of antiquities, the destruction of archaeological sites as a consequence of development over the past two decades has been staggering and the pace is accelerating. The potential of the legislation that established the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board and empowered it to manage and preserve the country's archaeological past has not been realized. The lack of political action, limited relevant public education, insufficient funding, and the poverty of the majority of the Ghanaian populace have allowed for the widespread destruction of both sites and historic buildings. Conspicuously, both the absence of integrated development planning by the Ghanaian government and the inability of development partners (both foreign and domestic) to recognize the potential value of cultural resources have contributed significantly to the continued loss of the archaeological record. While the antiquities trade is a continuing threat to Ghana's cultural resources, it is, in fact, tourism and economic development that pose the major menace to the country's archaeological past. This article reviews the history of cultural resource management in Ghana, including both traditional attitudes toward preservation and current legislation. Case studies are used to illustrate the problems faced. Actuellement le passé matériel du Ghana disparaît très rapidement. Le Conseil des musées et des monuments du Ghana a réussi à intervenir dans certains cas pour arrêter la traite illicite en antiquités. Toutefois, la croissance rapide du développement urbain au fil des derniers vingt ans a entraîné une énorme destruction de sites archéologiques qui ne fait qu'accroître. Les lois établissant le Conseil des musées et des monuments du Ghana lui ont en même temps accordé les pleins pouvoirs en mesure de la gestion et la préservation du passé archéologique du pays, malheureusement les possibilités de cette législation n'ont jamais été réalisées. Plusieurs éléments contribuent à la destruction très répandue de sites et de bâtiments historiques, dont le manque de prises de mesures politiques, d'éducation publique pertinente, de fonds, et la misère dans laquelle vivent la plus grande partie de la population ghanéenne. Il est évident que l'absence d'une planification intégrée pour le développement de la part du gouvernement ghanéen et l'incapacité des partenaires en développement (nationaux ainsi qu'internationaux) de reconnaître la valeur potentielle de ressources culturelles sont deux éléments supplémentaires clés qui contribuent de façon importante en la perte continue de vestiges archéologiques. La traite en objets antiques présente toujours une menace pour les ressources culturelles du Ghana. En fait le tourisme et le développement économique représentent une menace encore plus importante à la préservation du passé archéologique du pays. Cet article revoit l'histoire de la gestion des ressources culturelles au Ghana, comprenant à la fois les positions traditionnelles envers la préservation ainsi que la legislation actuelle. Des études de cas éclairent les problèmes actuels.     

Experimentally produced glass compared with that occurring at The Torr, NW Scotland, UK: vitrification through biotite melting

It is proposed that the vitrification in some Iron Age forts in NW Scotland can be explained through decomposition of micas (largely biotite) giving melts that react with or dissolve quartz and crystallise orthopyroxene and feldspars, so equating with the reaction biotite + quartz = sanidine + orthopyroxene + liquid. A sample of Moine semi-pelite has been experimentally melted at c. 850 °C demonstrating this breakdown reaction. A preserved thermal gradient across the sample reveals the progressive degradation of biotite towards the melting (upper) surface. Degradation is evident from the initial emphasis of mica cleavages in grains at the bottom of the sample, and then appearance and progressive increase in size of bubbles associated with biotite and melt towards the top of the sample. A chocolate-brown melt was produced as a coating on the upper surface and along micaceous layers. A near equivalent sample was located from the fort at The Torr that, whilst being more thoroughly affected by heat, with no unaffected biotite, preserved similar textures. Compositions of original Moine minerals are used to constrain the melts produced and melt evolution is tracked through quenched crystals. These include ternary feldspars as well as sanidine, spinels and orthopyroxene. Spot geochemical evidence demonstrates the heterogeneity of the melts, plus varying contributions of Ca and Na that could be attributed to the onset of reactions involving feldspars and other minerals from the original assemblage. It is thus concluded that a similar temperature to that of c. 850 °C derived in the experiment was reached in the vitrification process at The Torr in order to produce the glass observed.     

Celtic vitrified forts: Implications of a chemical-petrological study of glasses and source rocks

The term “vitrified forts” refers to remnants of stony fortifications of early Iron Age in which constituent rock fragments and boulders have been melted and/or welded together by heat, apparently in situ. The methods used are a matter of controversy, and even the question whether the firing was constructive or destructive is disputed. In this study we present bulk analyses of some twenty source rocks and of fifty glasses (in petrographic thin sections) from eleven sites and attempt to relate these data to the processes (and purposes) producing the observed sintering, welding and melting. The results are consistent with progressive partial, sometimes total, melting of the rocks used. In agreement with most previous investigators we conclude that no exotic rocks (although limited amounts of clays or organic debris cannot be excluded) were used as flux nor were easily fusible materials selected. On the other hand, simply burning an ordinary (of the later murus gallicus type) timber-laced wall cannot account for the evidence of strongly reducing conditions and sustained high temperatures, probably for days and in some cases well above 1000 °C. Rather, the fires seem to have been contained, perhaps by filling the space between the rocks in the timber framework with soil, clay and combustible materials, e.g. peat, brushwood and domestic debris. We cannot conclude whether the firing was accidental, or set by enemies or by the builders. In any case, the builders appear to have used more sophisticated techniques than previously believed to ensure the durability of their constructions.