scholarly journals EATING IDENTITY: AN EXPLORATION OF FIJIAN FOODWAYS IN THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PAST

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharyn R Jones
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Eating Behaviors ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
The Past ◽  
Fiji Islands ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Eating Identity

<p class="Normal1">I argue that group identity may be used to address fundamental anthropological concepts that are critical for understanding Pacific Island peoples and their cultures from a long-term perspective. Specifically, I explore foodways as a locus of archaeological material culture through the theoretical lens of materiality. I examine archaeological and ethnographic data that illuminate foodways in the Fiji Islands. The archaeological information derives from four islands and a variety of coastal sites across the Fiji archipelago. I illustrate that in both the past and present food, zooarchaeological remains, and associated material culture may be used to understand social changes and identity as expressed in eating behaviors and patterns in archaeological fauna. By using materiality and a broad comparative frame of reference archaeologists may better understand what it means to be Fijian.</p>

MAYA ARCHAEOLOGY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: THE PROGRESS, THE PERILS, AND THE PROMISE

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur A. Demarest
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
First Century ◽  
Institutional Research ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Maya Archaeology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Culture History ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Analytical Approaches

AbstractIn the past 20 years, what were once considered specialized auxiliary subdisciplines or analytical approaches such as bioarchaeology, paleozoology, subterranean archaeology, and material culture studies have become central to all research due to refinements of their analytic tools. Meanwhile, building on earlier progress in epigraphy, work on the Classic period truly has become historical archaeology. These advances provide a much greater understanding of ancient Maya ecology, economy, and politics and insights into the details, not just trends, in culture history. Realization of this potential, however, is imperiled by problems in research design and interpretation. Project structures rarely allows for complete and independent application of these enhanced fields, while the traditional elements of ceramic classification and chronology have not kept pace. The erratic sample of both Maya lowland and highland regions needs to addressed, rather than glossed over by extrapolations or assumptions about interaction and expansionism. Institutional structures and financial limitations have led to many superficial studies masked by quasi-theoretical terminologies. Constructive solutions, most exemplified in some current projects, include the obligation to try to apply all available techniques and approaches. To make that feasible, larger projects should be fragmented into multi-institutional collaborations. Greater emphasis must be given to classifications and excavations that generate ceramic microchronologies. Above all, we must investigate the extensive unstudied or understudied regions. Finally, most challenging is the need to collectively confront academic structures that encourage rapid, incomplete studies and discourage more substantial publications and long term multi-institutional research.

Thing Theory: Towards an Integrated Archaeological Perspective

2006 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. v-vi ◽  
Author(s):  
PROFESSOR IAN HODDER
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Origins Of Agriculture ◽  
Thing Theory ◽  
Behavioral Archaeology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Term Change ◽  
Central Turkey ◽  
Shed Light

Lecture 1.  Humans and things - developing some ideas and terms Lecture 2.  Çatalhöyük: a Neolithic ‘town’ in Turkey Lecture 3.  Humans and things at Çatalhöyük Lecture 4.  Developing a long-term view: the ‘origins of agriculture’ in the Middle East This lecture series has two aims. One is to discuss a new theoretical framework for the relationships between humans and material culture which I am calling ‘Thing Theory’. This framework focuses on the co-dependencies and entanglements between humans and non-humans and argues that long-term change comes about through the dispersed interactions of these entanglements. The theory is integrated in the sense that it adopts aspects of many theoretical agendas in recent archaeology, from experimental and behavioral archaeology to neo-evolutionary and selectionist models. It is also integrated in that it links theoretical agendas with archaeometry and archaeological science. The second aim is to show the application of Thing Theory to the 9000 year old Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey, and to the ‘origins of agriculture’ in the Middle East. My excavations at Çatalhöyük over the past 15 years have uncovered a rich world of human-thing entanglements and have shed light on the complex lived worlds within which agriculture and settled villages were produced.

scholarly journals Explosion in the History of the Nobility in French Historiography

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-20
Author(s):  
Michel Figeac
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social History ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Family ◽  
History Of

For the past thirty years, the history of the nobility has been one of the fields of social history that have mobilized most researchers. This trend is largely due to the interest shown in new family collections, in correspondence and in private writings. We see this abundant mass of publications as being the reflection of the diversity of the nobility. A first block of authors have isolated noble categories: parliamentary nobility, “second” order nobility, poor nobility, etc. A second type of research has focused on personages emblematic of their milieus, and finally, some historians have been interested in comparisons with other European aristocracies. The second section of the article will show how the transformations of the monarchical state engendered mutations in the second order. Finally, it will be shown how scholarship on social changes has more particularly studied differences between town and country, material culture and mobility and noble culture.

scholarly journals ‘That Used to be a Famous Village’: Shedding the past in rural north India

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER PHILLIMORE
Keyword(s):  
Cumulative Effect ◽  
North India ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Entity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Village ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper examines the changing reputation of one village in Himachal Pradesh, India, looking back over 30 years. This village has long had a singular identity and local notoriety for its association with jadu (‘witchcraft’). I argue that in this village today the idea of ‘witchcraft’ as a potent malignant force is losing its old persuasiveness, and with this change the village is also shedding its unwanted reputation. Against claims for ‘the modernity of witchcraft’ in various parts of the world, I argue that, in this case at least, witchcraft is construed as distinctly unmodern. The capacity of jadu to cause fear and, equally, its value as an explanatory idiom are, I suggest, being overwhelmed by social changes, the cumulative effect of which has been to reduce the previous insularity of this village and greatly widen the social networks of its members. I pose two main questions. Why should this village have held such a particular reputation? And why should it now be on the wane? Linked to the second question is the relationship between this decline and local understandings of ‘modernity’. In developing my argument around the specificity of an unusual village, I also consider the significance of ‘the village’ as both social entity and, formerly, one cornerstone of the anthropological project. Finally, I reflect on the methodological opportunities of long-term familiarity with a setting, exemplified in the iterative nature of learning ethnographically, as the children known initially in early fieldwork become the adult conversationalists of today, partners in interpreting their own village's past. In exploring their explanations for the decline in the salience of jadu, the pivotal impact of education and the pressures of ‘time’ created by the ‘speed’ of modernity are both salient.

The Material Culture of the Inhabitants of Gorendu and Bongu Villages (New Guinea) at the Beginning of the XXI century: Traditions and innovations (based on field research)

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-255
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Field Research ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Local Society ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Transformation Processes

In September 2017, the research expedition conducted by the N.N. Mikloukho-Maclay Foundation, carried out a field research at the Maclay Coast (New Guinea) and collected valuable ethnographic data on the material culture of the Bongu-speaking Papuans. The results allow to identify both the stability of certain traditions and the transformation processes that have taken place in the local society over the past 40 years (since the Soviet expedition worked in this territory).

scholarly journals Methodological remarks on studying prehistoric Greek religion

1999 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Petra Pakkanen
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Past History ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Greek Religion ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Asking Questions ◽  
Definition Of

This paper presents a methodological approach to the study of Greek religion of the period which lacks written documents, i.e. prehistory. The assumptions and interpretations of religion of that time have to be based on archaeological material. How do we define religion and cultic activity on the basis of primary archaeological material from this period, and which are the methodological tools for this difficult task? By asking questions on the nature and definition of religion and culture scholars of religion have provided us with some methodological apparatus to approach religion of the past in general, but there are models developed by archaeologists as well. Critical combination of these methodological tools leads to the best possible result. Archaeology studies the material culture of the past. History of religion studies the spiritual culture of the past. In the background the two have important theoretical and even philosophical speculations since they both deal with meanings (of things or practices) and with interpretation.

scholarly journals Whatever happened to Tuatapere? A study on a small rural community

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-38
Author(s):  
Pam Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Rural Community ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Rural Culture ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Rural People ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Do So

Social workers working in the rural community do so within a rural culture. This culture has developed from historical and cultural influences from the generations before, from the impact of social and familial changes over the years and from current internal and external influences. These changes and influences make the rural people who they are today. This study was carried out on a small rural community in Western Southland. The purpose was to examine the impact on the community of social changes over the past 50 years. Eight long-term residents were interviewed. The results will be discussed within this article. 

scholarly journals Bayesian Approach to 14C Dates for Estimation of Long-Term Archaeological Sequences in Arid Environments: The Holocene Site of Takarkori Rockshelter, Southwest Libya

Radiocarbon ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 771-782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Cherkinsky ◽  
Savino di Lernia
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Loose Sand ◽  
The Past ◽  
Plant Remains ◽  
History Of ◽  
Central Sahara ◽  
Calibration Program ◽  
Critical Aspects

Caves and rockshelters are critical loci for the analysis and understanding of human trajectories in the past. Use and re-uses of the same context, however, might have had serious impacts on depositional aspects. This is particularly true for the archaeological history of desert environments, such as the central Sahara, where most of the deposits are made of loose sand, rich in organic matter. Besides traditional stratigraphic reconstructions and a detailed study of the material culture, radiocarbon measurements from different contexts analyzing several types of material (bone, dried and charred coprolite, uncharred and charred plant remains, etc.) can highlight intrinsic critical aspects of 14C determinations. These measurements must be carefully evaluated to provide a correct chronological assessment of the life history of the site. We present the statistics derived from the set of about 50 14C measurements from the site of Takarkori, southwest Libya, where early Holocene foragers and then groups of cattle herders inhabited the area from ∼10,200 to 4600 cal yr BP. We have used the BCal Bayesian 14C calibration program designed for statistical presentation of the calibrated data and the estimation of their probability for different phases. Results indicate that the Takarkori rockshelter was occupied during 4 phases of the following cultures: Late Acacus from 10,170 to 8180 cal yr BP; Early Pastoral, 8180–6890 cal yr BP; Middle Pastoral, 7160–5610 cal yr BP; and Late Pastoral, 5700–4650 cal yr BP.

Enabling Community Well-being Self-Monitoring in the Context of Mining: The Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Klinck ◽  
Ben Bradshaw ◽  
Ruby Sandy ◽  
Silas Nabinacaboo ◽  
Mannie Mameanskum ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Aboriginal Community ◽  
Self Monitoring ◽  
Community Engaged Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mineral Development ◽  
Iron Deposits ◽  
Term Monitoring

The Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach is an Aboriginal community located in northern Quebec near the Labrador Border. Given the region’s rich iron deposits, the Naskapi Nation has considerable experience with major mineral development, first in the 1950s to the 1980s, and again in the past decade as companies implement plans for further extraction. This has raised concerns regarding a range of environmental and socio-economic impacts that may be caused by renewed development. These concerns have led to an interest among the Naskapi to develop a means to track community well-being over time using indicators of their own design. Exemplifying community-engaged research, this paper describes the beginning development of such a tool in fall 2012—the creation of a baseline of community well-being against which mining-induced change can be identified. Its development owes much to the remarkable and sustained contribution of many key members of the Naskapi Nation. If on-going surveying is completed based on the chosen indicators, the Nation will be better positioned to recognize shifts in its well-being and to communicate these shifts to its partners. In addition, long-term monitoring will allow the Naskapi Nation to contribute to more universal understanding of the impacts of mining for Indigenous peoples.

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