Archaeology

Zooarchaeological remains of gar (Lepisosteidae) appear throughout the prehistoric archaeological record of the American Southeast. Although these remains have been predominantly interpreted as food waste or residue of elite feasting events, ethnographic and ethnohistoric data provide conflicting views on how these fish were used by Native Americans. By examining ethnohistoric accounts, modern ethnographic studies, archaeological contexts, and archaeofaunal remains we attempt to explore the full range of gar use in the ethnographic past and present, and suggest new interpretive possibilities for archaeologists faced with gar remains from prehistoric contexts.

When archaeologists refer to 'domestic economy,' they typically intend to indicate an artifact assemblage representative of patterns of production and consumption within household contexts. As one would expect, such studies focus heavily on commoner households, their middens and garden plots. Other studies have expanded the discussion of domestic economy to broader practices of farming and resource acquisition. Most modern iterations use such studies to speak to topics such as status, wealth, political affiliation and other nuanced aspects of identity. In this paper we endeavour to do the same, using assemblages gathered from the cave context we attempt to tease apart broad patterns of consumption, economic affiliation, political affiliation, and status within the Caves Branch River Valley.

For the Taíno of the West Indies, caves were important loci of activity, both spiritual and mundane. In this paper I define and explore some of the multivariate and overlapping uses of caves by the Taíno with references to some of their contemporaries and predecessors. This paper represents a starting point for a long-overdue synthesis of cave use in the Greater Antilles and is intended as a foundation for research to follow.

Los textos jeroglíficos del Tablero del Templo de la Cruz de Palenque registran eventos de nacimiento y coronación para algunos de sus singulares gobernantes, entre quienes destacan: la figura mítica Muwan Mat, el personaje de leyenda Uk’ix Chan, el fundador dinástico K’uk’ Bahlam I, el radiante señor Kan Bahlam I, y el autor histórico de dichas inscripciones, K’inich Kan Bahlam II, el primogénito del gran K’inich Janaab’ Pakal.

Los intervalos implícitos y los números de distancia utilizados para vincular los acontecimientos allí descritos, y su relación con otras fuentes auténticas de información, permiten reconstruir una interesante estructura cronológica conformada por una serie de ciclos astronómicos de elevada precisión.

La siguiente, es la historia de cómo estos intervalos habrían sido definidos por los antiguos Mayas a partir de la cuidadosa observación del cielo y el registro de sus acontecimientos, y de cómo estas anotaciones habrían sido analizadas posteriormente para efectuar el modelamiento matemático de sus datos a través de ciclos calendáricos aplicados.

The concept of sustainability is mostly uncontested and perceived as a desirable socio-economic condition that all nations should strive for as part of the mainstream discourse of sustainable development that emerged during the 1980s, although the operationalisation of the concept in different contexts remains problematic. Despite sustainability being marketed as an environmental, social and ethical concern, which is equally applicable to global, national and grassroots action, it is also inherently political with a capital P. The latter is particularly demonstrated by its association with the ideology of ecological modernisation and the political rhetoric of ‘win-win’ situations in terms of balancing environmental preservation with enabling economic development and growth. The recontextualisation of sustainable development discourse, as well as a more generic discourse of ‘sustainability’, within UK historic environment policy, started with the English Heritage discussion document Sustaining the Historic Environment (1997) and was later consolidated in Conservation Principles: Policies and Guidance for the Sustainable Management of the Historic Environment (2008). Despite a discourse coalition of sustainable conservation and management that spans 18 years, little has been done to critically appraise the concept of sustainability within a historic environment context. This paper will introduce the presenter’s doctoral research which takes an interdisciplinary approach to analysing the discourse(s) of sustainability represented within historic environment and planning policy, to understand how deeply ingrained biases, produced and reproduced by differences in how heritage professionals understanding and treat various categories of ‘heritage’, have influenced the application of the concept to the materials and processes of archaeology.

Conflict and warfare are central but also disputed themes in discussions about the European Neolithic. Although a few recent population studies provide broad overviews, only a very limited number of currently known key sites provide precise insights into moments of extreme and mass violence and their impact on Neolithic societies. The massacre sites of Talheim, Germany, and Asparn/Schletz, Austria, have long been the focal points around which hypotheses concerning a final lethal crisis of the first Central European farmers of the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik Culture (LBK) have concentrated. With the recently examined LBK mass grave site of Schöneck-Kilianstädten, Germany, we present new conclusive and indisputable evidence for another massacre, adding new data to the discussion of LBK violence patterns. At least 26 individuals were violently killed by blunt force and arrow injuries before being deposited in a commingled mass grave. Although the absence and possible abduction of younger females has been suggested for other sites previously, a new violence-related pattern was identified here: the intentional and systematic breaking of lower limbs. The abundance of the identified perimortem fractures clearly indicates torture and/or mutilation of the victims. The new evidence presented here for unequivocal lethal violence on a large scale is put into perspective for the Early Neolithic of Central Europe and, in conjunction with previous results, indicates that massacres of entire communities were not isolated occurrences but rather were frequent features of the last phases of the LBK.

Photography is central to recording strategies in digital archaeology. Digital photography has quickly replaced film photography in most settings, but was at first used much in the same manner as film photography to record archaeological work and features. As digital cameras became inexpensive and ubiquitous, many archaeologists took extra-archival snapshots and started sharing them on social media. Some of these digital photographs mimicked analogue photography in applying filters, creating a retro aesthetic for personal archaeological photography. The second wave of digital photography in archaeology, or the death of photography in archaeology, describes a range of mixed media techniques that rely on advanced algorithmic manipulation or on the delegation and automation of photography. Techniques such as 3D photogrammetric reconstruction, drone photography, and geomedia signal a post-photographic turn that must be examined in terms of technological and methodological affordances and within the context of a body of theory in visual representation.

Archaeology and photography have a long, co-constructed history that has only recently come under investigation. Yet these investigations do not make use of existing qualitative and quantitative strategies developed by visual studies and visual anthropology to understand archaeological photographs. This article queries the large photographic archive created by ongoing work at the archaeological site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey to consider the visual impact of changing photographic technologies and of a shifting theoretical focus in archaeology. While using content analysis and semiotic analysis to understand the changing visual record, these analyses also unexpectedly revealed the power dynamics and other social factors present in during archaeological investigation. Finally, becoming conversant in visual analyses can contribute to developing more reflexive modes of representation in archaeology.