Ceramic Variety, Type Cluster, and Ceramic System in Southwestern Pottery Analysis

1958 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Ben Wheat ◽  
James C. Gifford ◽  
William W. Wasley

During the past 20 years, the number of named pottery types in the Southwest has increased at such a rate that it is now virtually impossible for an archaeologist to know and be familiar with more than a small percentage of them. Some of these types are totally new, but a surprisingly large number represent refinements in terminology or segregations from more inclusive categories, resulting from further study and increasingly complex technological analyses. This proliferation of named types has alarmed many archaeologists. There can, however, be no legitimate doubt that if the intricate ceramic history of the Southwest and other areas of the New World is to be understood, research analysts must be free to break down their material to as fine a point as necessary in order to localize in time and space the infinitesimal variants of pottery which constitute, with other aspects of material culture, the documents of regional prehistory.

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-219
Author(s):  
Eva Stensköld

This paper sets out to trace the life history of a horse skull found in a bog in Scania in the year 1900. A parallel is drawn between the find of the horse and the famous painting, "Midwinter Sacrifice" by Carl Larsson. The story of the horse has opened up a discussion on how material culture is created and recreated in time and space, resulting in completely new communicative fields. The manifestation of the past and the reuse of Stone Age places and artefacts are brought into focus when the author discusses the location where the horse skull was originally found.


2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-313
Author(s):  
Enver Hasani

Kosovo’s Constitutional Court has played a role of paramount importance in the country’s recent history. The author uses a comparative analysis to discuss the role of the Court in light of the work and history of other European constitutional courts. This approach sheds light on the Court’s current role by analyzing Kosovo’s constitutional history, which shows that there has been a radical break with the past. This approach reveals the fact that Kosovo’s current Constitution does not reflect the material culture of the society of Kosovo. This radical break with the past is a result of the country’s tragic history, in which case the fight for constitutionalism means a fight for human dignity. In this battle for constitutionalism, the Court has been given very broad jurisdiction and a role to play in paving the way for Kosovo to move toward Euro-Atlantic integration in all spheres of life. Before reaching this conclusion, the author discusses the specificities of Kosovo’s transition, comparing it with other former communist countries. Among the specific features of constitutionalism in Kosovo are the role and position of the international community in the process of constitution-making and the overall design of constitutional justice in Kosovo. Throughout the article, a conclusion emerges that puts Kosovo’s Constitutional Court at the forefront of the fight for the rule of law and constitutionalism of liberal Western provenance.


1996 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey G. McCafferty

AbstractChronology is a fundamental prerequisite for problem-oriented, anthropologically relevant archaeology. It is also the shaky foundation that has hampered attempts to reconstruct the culture history of Cholula, Mexico. Cholula is among the oldest continuously occupied urban centers of the New World, yet it remains one of the most enigmatic. This paper evaluates previous cultural sequences for the site, and summarizes recent evidence to construct a chronology using absolute dates and ceramic assemblages from primary depositional contexts. This revised sequence features a clearer understanding of Middle Formative settlement and the definition of ritual and domestic contexts from the Classic period. In addition, there is now evidence for a gradual transition between Late Classic and Early Postclassic material culture; and for the evolution of the Postclassic polychrome tradition within a sequence of short, clearly defined phases.


The Geologist ◽  
1858 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-29
Author(s):  
S. J. Mackie

In a magazine devoted especially to the propagation of Geological knowledge, it seems no infringement of its space, no deterioration of its value, tha t some pains should be taken to aid the student in his early efforts, and to disperse broadcast some useful elementary information, which may prove to the mass at once a source of instruction and of enjoyment, and so, by clearing the road to future and higher studies, may foster a dawning taste, and ultimately prove the means of adding many volunteers, and not unlikely even some brilliant master-minds to the ranks of Geologists, that otherwise, deterred at the outset, might perhaps have turned their attention and talents to some more accessible, if not more congenial study.Who does not feel some interest in the past history of this beautiful world—the scene of our labours and of our loves—of our successes and of our failures—the stage of our existence and the tomb of our dust ? If the animated creations of the past were dumb brute animals, still the earth was green and gay with trees, and plants and flowers—the hu m of insects vibrated on the summer's air, and the snows of winter covered the ancient lands with their hyemal mantle—the tides of ocean rose and fell, and the world went rolling on through time and space, through years and seasons. There were earthquakes the n and blazing volcanos—and winds and storms—great waves and merry dancing ripples on the sea.


2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-149
Author(s):  
Staša Babić

The paper examines the history of archaeological investigation into collective identities in the past. Culture-historical approachis fully based upon the concept of cultural group , deeply influenced by the modern understanding of nation-states – unity of territory, material culture, language and ethnic affiliation. The application of this concept led to devastating political abuses of archaeology, most notoriously in the case of Gustaf Kossinna in the Nazi Germany. The realisation that the very essence of thus conceived group identity in the past inevidably leads into the projection of the modern model of nation-state, resulted in thorough reconsideration. Over the last decades, archaeologists are investigating other possible paths of research into the group and individual identities in the past, informed by the constructivist approach.


Author(s):  
Julie-Marie Strange

This article assesses the usefulness of shifting notions of ‘good death’ and discusses the reasons for histories of death pitching science and religion in opposition. It examines the key actors in death scenarios, probing the material culture surrounding death, disposal, and mourning and, more recently, exploring histories of emotion in relation to dying and bereavement. It demonstrates the complex relationship between social and professional organizations, individuals and families. The history of death suggests a linear chronology whereby a sacred and community-centred culture eventually gave way to a privatized and sanitized culture of death. This article explores the legitimacy of this chronology and its implications for understanding attitudes to death in the past.


Author(s):  
Samuele Tacconi

Abstract In 1751 Pope Benedict XIV made a donation of Amazonian objects to the Istituto delle Scienze in Bologna, a scientific academy located in the city of his birth. This article reconstructs the history of this group of objects back to its origins in the Jesuit missions of the upper Amazon basin, by presenting and examining new documentary evidence. The encounter between a Jesuit missionary and Pope Benedict XIV is analysed in the context of the early modern reception of the New World and its peoples in Catholic Europe. Finally, an overview is presented of the items in this collection, which represent some of the scarcest and oldest known examples of native material culture from the region.


Author(s):  
Peter N. Miller

Cultural history is increasingly informed by the history of material culture—the ways in which individuals or entire societies create and relate to objects both mundane and extraordinary—rather than on textual evidence alone. Books such as The Hare with Amber Eyes and A History of the World in 100 Objects indicate the growing popularity of this way of understanding the past. This book uncovers the forgotten origins of our fascination with exploring the past through its artifacts by highlighting the role of antiquarianism—a pursuit ignored and derided by modem academic history—in grasping the significance of material culture. From the efforts of Renaissance antiquarians, who reconstructed life in the ancient world from coins, inscriptions, seals, and other detritus, to amateur historians in the nineteenth century working within burgeoning national traditions, the book connects collecting—whether by individuals or institutions—to the professionalization of the historical profession, one which came to regard its progenitors with skepticism and disdain. The struggle to articulate the value of objects as historical evidence, then, lies at the heart both of academic history writing and of the popular engagement with things. Ultimately, this book demonstrates that our current preoccupation with objects is far from novel and reflects a human need to re-experience the past as a physical presence.


2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela K. Gilbert

In the mid-1800s, two significant and widelyread Chartist poems appeared, both written in prison by Chartist organizers, and both using the epic form to interrogate the present, body forth a utopian future, and rewrite a history conceived both as broadly human and specifically national. These long poems, Thomas Cooper'sPurgatory of Suicides(1845) and Ernest Jones'sThe New World, first published in 1851 and then republished after 1857 as theRevolt of Hindostan, have much to tell us about how radicals envisioned the history of Britain, its relationship with empire, and the fulfillment of the ends of history. Cooper's poem proceeds in ten books, written in Spenserian stanzas, in which he dreams of visiting a purgatory of suicides: mythical and historical personages who have committed suicide debate the reasons for their condition and the condition of the world. Jones's poem was written in couplets, supposedly on the torn pages of a prayer book, in his own blood. The poem surveys the rise and fall of multiple empires, and also surveys recent political history closer to home. The two poems look to the past and the future, to universal history and its end. They thus participate in utopian political discourse, with its emphasis on the end of history, as well as the epic tradition. Both utopian and epic discourse in this period were affiliated with specifically national narratives, and the internationalist and universal elements of the poems sometimes inhabit these genres uneasily. Additionally, both poets attend to the religious tradition of eschatological discourse that underlies the secular notion of the end of history, and work to reconcile it with the political vision they are promoting. These writers use unique combinations of spatial and temporal frames to achieve the reconciliation of their diverse goals with the genres and discourses that they claim and transform.


Author(s):  
Johanna Drucker

To conceptualize a future history of the book we have to recognize that our understanding of the bibliographical object of the past is challenged by the ontologically unbound, distributed, digital, and networked conditions of the present. As we draw on rich intellectual traditions, we must keep in view the need to let go of the object-centered approach that is at the heart of book history. My argument begins, therefore, with a few assertions. First, that we have much to learn from the scholarship on Old and New World contact that touches on bibliography, document studies, and book history for formulating a non-object centered conception of what a book is. Second, that the insights from these studies can be usefully combined with a theory of the “conditional” document to develop the model of the kinds of distributed artifacts we encounter on a daily basis in the networked conditions of current practices. Finally, I would suggest that this model provides a different conception of artifacts (books, documents, works of textual or graphic art), one in which reception is production and therefore all materiality is subject to performative engagement within varied, and specific, conditions of encounter.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document