WORLD ARCHAEOLOGYPub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2022.2077821
P. Nunn, M. Cook
{"title":"Island tales: culturally-filtered narratives about island creation through land submergence incorporate millennia-old memories of postglacial sea-level rise","authors":"P. Nunn, M. Cook","doi":"10.1080/00438243.2022.2077821","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2022.2077821","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In many long-enduring coastal cultures, there are stories – sometimes mythologized – about times when pieces of land became separated from mainlands by submergence, a process that created islands where none existed before. Using examples from northwest Europe and Australia, this paper argues that many such stories recall times, often millennia ago, when sea level in the aftermath of the Last Glaciation (last ice age) was rising and transforming coastal landscapes and their human uses in exactly the ways these stories describe. The possibility that these may have arisen from eyewitness accounts of these transformative processes, hitherto thought to be understandable only by scientific (palaeoenvironmental) reconstructions, should encourage more systematic investigations of such stories by scientists. It also suggests that science has traditionally underestimated the capacity of oral (pre-literate) cultures to acquire, encode and sustain their observations of memorable events with a high degree of replication fidelity.","PeriodicalId":47942,"journal":{"name":"WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY","volume":"54 1","pages":"29 - 51"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44986428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
WORLD ARCHAEOLOGYPub Date : 2021-11-10DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2021.1993990
S. Gallagher
{"title":"Digging up concrescences: a hermeneutics for process archaeology","authors":"S. Gallagher","doi":"10.1080/00438243.2021.1993990","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2021.1993990","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper I build on the process philosophy of Whitehead and on enactive approachs to hermeneutics, to suggest that if we want to conceive of archaeological practice in terms of a process archaeology, then rather than characterizing it as ‘digging up the past’, it is better to think of it as digging up concrescences. From the perspective of enactive hermeneutics, no artifact (from past or present) is a completely determinate matter of fact; its meaning is enacted in an ecology of practices, and should be understood as part of a dynamical network (of uses and beliefs) that changes when viewed from different perspectives. To the extent that an artifact retains an affordancerelated meaning, whether original or new, it remains a concrescence and is never reducible to a determinate matter of fact.","PeriodicalId":47942,"journal":{"name":"WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44353922","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
WORLD ARCHAEOLOGYPub Date : 2021-11-09DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2021.1993988
C. Knappett
{"title":"The emergence of infrastructure in later prehistory: technique, wonder, and convergence","authors":"C. Knappett","doi":"10.1080/00438243.2021.1993988","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2021.1993988","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47942,"journal":{"name":"WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46779501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
WORLD ARCHAEOLOGYPub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2021.2015622
H. Kirchner
{"title":"Hydraulic technology as means of Christian colonisation. Watermills and channels in the Lower Ebro (Catalonia)","authors":"H. Kirchner","doi":"10.1080/00438243.2021.2015622","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2021.2015622","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this study, evidence provided by written records generated after the conquest of Tortosa in 1148 and the results of archaeological survey have led to the identification of several farmland areas and their associated Andalusi settlements on both banks of the River Ebro, in the hinterland of Madīna Ṭurṭūsha. These field systems were formed by compact and discontinuous cultivation areas on the riverbanks. Drainage channels and wells with water-lifting wheels comprised the main hydraulic techniques used. One of the most relevant changes as a consequence of feudal conquest was the introduction of new hydraulic systems consisting of water catchment in the hills above the river and long channels, whose main purpose was to drive watermills. These channels were rather complex in terms of technology and distinct from those of the Muslim peasant tradition and we can recognise the political power behind them.","PeriodicalId":47942,"journal":{"name":"WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY","volume":"53 1","pages":"862 - 880"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48039694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
WORLD ARCHAEOLOGYPub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2021.2015623
P. Fragnoli, M. Frangipane
{"title":"Centralisation and decentralisation processes and pottery production at Arslantepe (SE Anatolia) during the 4th and early 3rd millennium BCE","authors":"P. Fragnoli, M. Frangipane","doi":"10.1080/00438243.2021.2015623","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2021.2015623","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We explore the Late Chalcolithic 3–4 to Early Bronze Age I pottery from Arslantepe by combining compositional, technological and morpho-typological analyses. The paper investigates to what extent economic and political changes affected the organisation of production in terms of natural resources, human labour, and practices. The wheel-finished vessels show a strong continuity in the raw materials, while the organisation of labour changed with an increased task division under the control of the central elites from the LC3-4 to the LC5. By the EBA Ib, the pottery manufacture shows the development of a more autonomous, restricted and skilled community of craftspeople. The handmade burnished production conversely exhibits a stable organisation of labour, while the supply strategies manifested drastic changes related to the non-sedentary subsistence economy of the groups producing this pottery. We can imagine a community of practice independent of political hierarchies and aimed at functional and aesthetic results.","PeriodicalId":47942,"journal":{"name":"WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY","volume":"53 1","pages":"834 - 861"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44617803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
WORLD ARCHAEOLOGYPub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2021.2071049
S. Semple, C. Duckworth
{"title":"Editorial","authors":"S. Semple, C. Duckworth","doi":"10.1080/00438243.2021.2071049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2021.2071049","url":null,"abstract":"Almost from its inception, archaeology has been deeply concerned with the human relationship with technology. It has long been recognised that control over technology and the means of production are important in the maintenance of power systems, and that symbolic factors can be significant in the trajectory of technological systems. In the past 20–30 years, agency and technological choice have also been emphasised. Harnessing the potential social powers of technology can be achieved through control over – or restriction of access to – technological knowledge and skill, resources, and infrastructure, and, often implicitly, through the maintenance and performance of social norms. Moments of technological change – a frequent focus of archaeological studies – may expose these structures at the very point at which they are most rapidly changing form, creating interpretive challenges that require robust theorisation. In response, this issue on Technology and Power forefronts a range of papers that explore how recent theoretical and methodological developments in archaeology can shed new light on our understanding of the relationship between technology, and different types of power. The papers in this Special Issue range widely, with consideration of ceramic production nearly 4000 years ago in central Eurasia, to gold-working in China c. 400–300 BCE and hydraulic innovations in Ebro river valley, Catalonia c. 1100 CE. In this way the issue explores technology across time and place and at microand macro-scales. A strong connecting theme across all papers is the relationship between technological and socio-political transformations. Whether authors are exploring ceramic production, precious metal working, or hydraulic technologies, each contribution offers a nuanced understanding of the contingency of power on technological developments and the ways in which different groups harness new technologies to convey status, to manipulate visual grammar or to intensify exploitation. The papers in this issue also deconstruct, in different ways, established notions of relationships between political power and technology in terms of hierarchical, vertical relations. Frieman and James explore the power of peripheries and creolising processes as generators of creativity in terms of technologies, while Dolfini focuses on Copper Age Italy and challenges the normative interpretation that weapon-rich graves, with metal objects, represent the warrior elite. There are gaps of course, the important role of experimental archaeology and replication in discussions of early technology and power is not a strong feature of this issue and authors touch only tangentially on the potential for research on technology to contribute to understanding economic development and advancement. As a collection, however, these papers offer a strong emphasis on the societal and social inter-relationships with technology. Together they demand a fresh consideration of how technologies can themselves","PeriodicalId":47942,"journal":{"name":"WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY","volume":"53 1","pages":"717 - 722"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43701116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
WORLD ARCHAEOLOGYPub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2021.2015428
B. Dimova, S. Harris, M. Gleba
{"title":"Naval power and textile technology: sail production in ancient Greece","authors":"B. Dimova, S. Harris, M. Gleba","doi":"10.1080/00438243.2021.2015428","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2021.2015428","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Sails and textile technology played a key role in enabling mobility and thus shaping historical phenomena such as migration, trade, the acquisition and maintenance of imperial power in the ancient Mediterranean. Yet sails are nearly absent from analyses of ancient fleets, even in extensively studied cases like that of Classical Athens. This paper examines the demand and production of sailcloth, including labour and material requirements, and logistics. A consideration of the Athenian navy demonstrates that making sails involved significant amounts of labour and resources. Managing supplies and reserves of sailcloth constituted a significant challenge, which could be addressed through more intensive exploitation of textile workers, trade, and taxation.","PeriodicalId":47942,"journal":{"name":"WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY","volume":"53 1","pages":"762 - 778"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41452061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
WORLD ARCHAEOLOGYPub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2021.2014948
C. Frieman, James Lewis
{"title":"Trickle down innovation? Creativity and innovation at the margins","authors":"C. Frieman, James Lewis","doi":"10.1080/00438243.2021.2014948","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2021.2014948","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper explores the entanglement of the innovation discourse with discourses of power. Innovation is a frequent topic of archaeological research, but its implications for how we understand flows of power between individuals, groups, and regions has seen little attention. Here, we argue that our innovation narratives often blindly reproduce hierarchical relations which place dynamic cores in positions of power over their more passive peripheries and margins. In doing so, they obscure the complex and creative processes which occur in these marginal zones. We illustrate this discussion with an exploration of southwestern Britain and the resilience of people living at the margins of the Roman world. We argue that more attentiveness to these creative margins allows us to challenge the flattening hierarchies embedded in traditional innovation narratives, creating space for more complex and multi-layered stories of past innovation.","PeriodicalId":47942,"journal":{"name":"WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY","volume":"53 1","pages":"723 - 740"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47270927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
WORLD ARCHAEOLOGYPub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2021.1993987
Paula N. Doumani Dupuy, Elise Luneau, Lynne M. Rouse
{"title":"Pluralising power: ceramics and social differentiation in Bronze Age central Eurasia","authors":"Paula N. Doumani Dupuy, Elise Luneau, Lynne M. Rouse","doi":"10.1080/00438243.2021.1993987","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2021.1993987","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Archaeological research on Bronze Age central Eurasia often recognizes ‘exotic’ materials and practices as the outcome of migration and trans-regional exchange. In this analysis, we bring together two significant datasets that have long referred to one another but have rarely conversed analytically: ‘southern’ ceramics in northern central Eurasia and reciprocal ‘northern’ ceramics in southern Central Asia. Taking the amalgamation of technical traits and cultural affiliations in these ceramics as a starting point, we argue that ‘exotic’ wares were implicated across the region in diverse systems of social power reliant on differentiation. By comparing the social contexts of our northern and southern ceramic datasets, we identify variability in the signaling of ‘exoticness’ across subregions to alternately include or exclude groups. This discussion sets up a middle ground between overgeneralizing and under-hypothesizing the socio-cultural landscapes in Bronze Age central Eurasia, by prioritizing the role of ‘exotic’ technologies in choreographing dynamic social power.","PeriodicalId":47942,"journal":{"name":"WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY","volume":"53 1","pages":"779 - 808"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43741019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
WORLD ARCHAEOLOGYPub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2021.2013307
A. Dolfini
{"title":"Warrior graves reconsidered: metal, power and identity in Copper Age Italy","authors":"A. Dolfini","doi":"10.1080/00438243.2021.2013307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2021.2013307","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article proposes a new interpretation of Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age warrior graves grounded in the ‘Rinaldone’ burial tradition of central Italy, 4th and 3rd millennia BC. In European archaeology, warrior graves are frequently thought to signal the rise of sociopolitical inequality rooted in metal wealth. The work questions the empirical and conceptual foundations of this reading, arguing that, in early Europe, copper was not as rare and valuable as it is often presumed to be; that metalworking did not demand uniquely complex skills; and that metal-rich burials cannot be interpreted in light of modernising ideas of identity. It is argued instead that the key to decoding prehistoric warrior graves lies in context-specific notions of gender, age, and the life course. In particular, life and death circumstances including violence (both inflicted and suffered) would determine why certain individuals were laid to rest with lavish weapon assemblages.","PeriodicalId":47942,"journal":{"name":"WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY","volume":"53 1","pages":"809 - 833"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42618779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}