O. Nigel Bolland: The Formation of a Colonial Society: Belize, from Conquest to Crown Colony (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977, $15.00). Pp. xiv + 240. - C. H. Grant: The Making of Modern Belize: Politics, Society and British Colonialism in Central America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977, £14.00). Cambridge Commonwealth Series. Pp. xvi + 400.

1979 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 382-383
Author(s):  
Peter Calvert
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
British Colonialism ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Colonial Society ◽  
Johns Hopkins University

THE FOREST FOR THE TREES: SOCIETY AND THE HOUSEHOLD IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 1161-1172 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOEL F. HARRINGTON
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
University Of Pennsylvania ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
German History ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Johns Hopkins University ◽  
Big Picture ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Ideal

Gender relations in German history: power, agency, and experience from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Edited by Lynn Abrams and Elizabeth Harvey. London: UCL, 1996. Pp. x+262. ISBN 1-85728-485-2. £12.95.Adultery and divorce in Calvin's Geneva. By Robert M. Kingdon. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard UP, 1995. Pp. ix+214. ISBN 0-674-00520-1 (hb). £18.50.Housecraft and statecraft: domestic service in Renaissance Venice, 1400–1600. By Dennis Romano. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Pp. xxvi+333. ISBN 0-8018-5288-9. £37.00.The European nobility, 1400–1800. By Jonathan Dewald. New approaches to European history, ix. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xvii+209. ISBN 0-521-42528-x (pb). £12.95.Garden and grove: the Italian Renaissance garden in the English imagination, 1600–1750. By John Dixon Hunt. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1996. Pp. xix+268. ISBN 0-8122-1604-0 (pb). £23.50.Like an ancient woodsman or a guide through the Amazonian jungle, the ideal historian possesses at least two kinds of expertise: enough familiarity with the general terrain to plan successful expeditions and enough experience in the field to make inevitable adjustments to ‘the big picture’ when underway. Of course in the real world (of both geography and history) the tasks of exploration and cartography are often bifurcated, without necessarily disastrous results. The historian who is equally skilled at both close-up description and large-scale theorizing is consequently celebrated as a rare and valued anomaly. Meanwhile, for most of us stumbling scouts, the world beyond our familiar trails remains largely one of learned lore, with connections to our own limited forays often vague at best. Unless, of course, we are fortunate enough to come across something which provides an almost magical link between the narrow and the wide, the micro and the macro.

scholarly journals The T-shaped “axe” from Northeast Honduras: Observations on chronology and function of a pre Columbian stone tool

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul F. Healy ◽  
Daniel Savage
Keyword(s):  
Functional Analysis ◽  
Central America ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Distinctive Type ◽  
University Museum ◽  
And Function ◽  
Bay Islands

This paper provides a description and analysis of a distinctive type of pre-Columbian stone tool, usually termed a T-shaped axe, found almost exclusively in Northeast Honduras, Central America. There have been very few detailed or technical studies of lithics from Honduras. Early archaeological research and the current understanding of the regional prehistory are included, with Northeast Honduras viewed as a frontier zone located between the Mesoamerican and Isthmo-Columbian culture areas. Our study examines, in particular, a collection of these tools curated today at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (CUMAA). The 39 (whole and fragmentary) specimens were collected between 1937 and 1939, from the Bay Islands, Northeast Honduras, but have never been published. This paper classifies the collection specimens into five varieties, based on morphology, with sample statistics, form dimensions, and illustrations provided for each. Manufacturing technology is primarily percussion flaking. The tool type is compared with similar specimens excavated and described from the Bay Islands and adjacent Honduran mainland, and with similar appearing implements from elsewhere in Central America. Insights about the possible age and function of these unusual, and distinctive, lithics are included. Based on preliminary macroscopic and microscopic analyses, it is concluded that the tools may have been employed as agricultural implements (hoes or spades), primarily for digging activities, rather than as axes or weapons used for cutting and slicing. It is most likely that these implements first appeared about 800 CE, and continued in use until at least 1400 CE. The tool type is most probably a local (not imported) product. More functional analysis is encouraged.

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