Creating a Deep Past for a New Nation

This chapter explores the ways in which Americans sought, created, and promoted a “deep national past,” or American antiquity, for the new republic. The first half of the chapter explores how the use of Columbian, biblical, and epic symbolism all contributed to Americans’ sense of a past deeper even than that of the colonial period. The second half of the chapter explores the nationalization of both natural history and the indigenous pasts of Native Americans and their expression in the nation’s first natural history museums. The creation of a deep past grounded both in myth and the land was—like the simultaneously reimagined colonial past—part of a broader attempt to establish cultural independence from Britain, in this case by fostering a sense of national origins that transcended British imperialism and the British past altogether.

ИНТЕГРАЦИЯ ТЕОРИИ ИСКУССТВЕННОЙ СРЕДЫ В РАЗРАБОТКУ ЕДИНОГО ПОДХОДА К ПОНИМАНИЮ ВЗАИМОДЕЙСТВИЯ ЧЕЛОВЕКА С ОКРУЖАЮЩЕЙ СРЕДОЙ

Исследования искусственной среды уже давно изучаются в отдельных областях социальных наук, и предпринимается несколько попыток создания единой теории взаимодействия человека с окружающей средой. Текущий дискурс об искусственной среде оставался фрагментированным между археологами и социальными антропологами. Исследование комплексного подхода теоретических основ теории искусственной среды может оказаться полезным для археологов и социальных антропологов в понимании взаимодействия человека с окружающей средой. Подходы, применяемые как археологами, так и социальными антропологами, обладают уникальными преимуществами, которые, адаптированные вместе, могут обеспечить более сильную концептуализацию и развитие большего за счет исследований взаимоотношений человека с искусственной средой в прошлых и современных обществах. Библиографическме ссылки Blockley, M. 2003. In P. G. Stone, P. G. Planel. (eds). The Constructed Past: Experimental Archaeology, Education and the Public. Routledge,. 16–18. Goody, J. 1971.In Goody, J. (ed.). The Developmental Cycle in Domestic Groups. Cambridge University Press, 347–381.Hodder I. 1979. In American Antiquity. 44 (3), 446–454. Kent, S.1984. Analyzing Activity Areas: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Use of Space. University of New Mexico Press. Lawrence, D. L., Low, S. M. 1990. In Annual Review of Anthropology. 1990. 19, 435–505. Lercari, N. 2017. In Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. 6, 10–17. Micoli L., Guidi G., Angheleddu D., Russo M. 2013. A multidisciplinary approach to 3D survey and reconstruction of historical buildings. Digital Heritage International Congress Proceedings. 241–248. Morgan, L. H. 1965. Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines. University of Chicago Press. Planel, P. G., Stone, P. G. 2003. In P. G. Stone, P. G. Planel. (eds). The Constructed Past: Experimental Archaeology, Education and the Public. Routledge,. 1–5. Rapoport, A. 1977. Human Aspects of Urban Form. Pergamon. Rapoport, A. 1990. The Meaning of the Built Environment: A Nonverbal Communication Approach. University of Arizona Press. Schiffer, M.B. 1978. In Gould, R. (ed.). Methodological issues in ethnoarchaeology. Explorations in Ethnoarchaeology.. University of New Mexico Press, 1978. Р. 347–381. Sitdikov, A., Badeev, D. 2017. In European Research Studies Journal. S (20), 208−214. Baranov, V. S. 2013. In Baranov, V. S., Valeev R. M., Salikhov R. R., Poluboiarinova M. D., Sharifullin R. F. (eds.). Velikii Bolgar (Great Bolgar). Moscow; Kazan: “Feoriia” Publ., 232–242 (in Russian). Valeev, R. M. 2013. In Baranov, V. S., Valeev R. M., Salikhov R. R., Poluboiarinova M. D., Sharifullin R. F. (eds.). Velikii Bolgar (Great Bolgar). Moscow; Kazan: “Feoriia” Publ., 92–97 (in Russian). Izmailov, I. L. 2013. In Baranov, V. S., Valeev R. M., Salikhov R. R., Poluboiarinova M. D., Sharifullin R. F. (eds.). Velikii Bolgar (Great Bolgar). Moscow; Kazan: “Feoriia” Publ., 55−63 (in Russian). Koval V. Yu. 2016. In Povolzhskaya arkheologiya (Volga River Region Archaeology) 18 (4), 99−124 (in Russian). Mukhametshin, D. G. 2016. In Bocharov, S. G., Sitdikov, A. G. (eds.). Dialog gorodskoi i stepnoi kul'tur na Evraziiskom prostranstve. Istoricheskaia geografi ia Zolotoi Ordy (Dialogue of the Urban and Steppe Cultures in the Eurasian Space. Historical Geography of the Golden Horde). Kazan; Yalta; Kishinev: “Stratum plus” Publ., 121−123 (in Russian). Nigamaev, A. Z. 2017. In Arkheologiia Evraziiskikh stepei (Archaeology of Eurasian Steppes) 3. 239−242 (in Russian). Sharifullin R. F. 2014. In Povolzhskaya arkheologiya (Volga River Region Archaeology) 9 (3), 56−75 (in Russian).

“Lost by Being Found”: The Public and the Material Past in the Nineteenth-Century United States

In the flurry of activity following the Centennial Exposition, the Kentucky Mummy’s onward journey to Washington went unremarked. Her addition to the national collection was eventually acknowledged in the Smithsonian’s annual report for 1876, without further comment. Cryptic references to this item’s new status can be found in institutional memoranda over the next few years: “Dr. Rau has the mummy on exhibition in first case to the left as you enter his hall,” reads one such note. But in the wilderness of artifacts at the Smithsonian there was little space for nostalgia, and the Mummy does not seem to have attracted the notice of the Washington audience. The implicit alignment of perspectives between local antiquarians and Smithsonian scholars at the end of the 1870s—that the documentation of archaeological evidence was fundamentally tied to experience on the ground, demonstrating the need for local knowledge and widespread cooperation—did not, however, affect the trajectory of archaeological practice in the United States. The implications of the deep files in Mason’s office remained largely unremarked. The passing of this opportunity for archaeological synthesis testifies perhaps more to inadequate institutional frameworks than to conceptual shortcomings. The Smithsonian’s efforts to collect information on American antiquity in the 1870s differed only in detail and scale from the correspondence of the American Antiquarian Society in the 1810s. In both cases—and in many others launched during the intervening years—an institution sought to acquire antiquarian capital through a network of collaborators, exchanging prestige and modest access for information and associated commodities. In the context of the late nineteenth century, however, the failures of such approaches were more evident than their episodic successes, and the sense that opportunities to understand the American past had been squandered was widespread. The words of Moses Fisk, published in 1820, could describe the antiquarian enterprise of his and subsequent generations. “It is to be regretted,” he wrote, “that these ancient ruins and relicks have been exposed to so much depredation. Valuable articles are lost by being found.”

COMMENT ON BOOK REVIEW

In reading the recent LAQ review of my 2016 work, Handbook of Ceramic Animal Symbols in the Ancient Lesser Antilles (Roosevelt, review of Waldron, Latin American Antiquity 29:413–414), I was reminded how neglectful my own profession of precolumbian art history has been of ancient Antillean studies. Recognizing this important lacuna in the research, the University Press of Florida approached me with the possibility of writing two books on precolumbian Caribbean art. As pioneering works in this area, these books will be read by scholars mostly outside this area. They are bound to run afoul of readers who might think zoic (for formless animal spirits) is merely an overwrought version of zoomorphic (for physical representations of them), realistic means the same as mimetic or naturalistic, and trigonal ought to carry a meaning derived from geology rather than biology (e.g., trigonal clam shells) or the standard dictionary definition (i.e., “triangular in cross section”). Just two complaints in the LAQ review about my term usage could improve the book. Several times I used the word endemic instead of native inappropriately, and the word rectilinear should have been used more often than the vaguer geometric. The rest is quibbling. For example, my use of the term Amazonid (used similarly by preeminent Caribbean archaeologist Irving Rouse) to describe the culture of both Antilleans and Amazonians, is consistent with my insistence throughout the book that Antillean cultures, while partially derived from Amazonian ones, are not themselves Amazonian.

EL RINCÓN DE LOS EDITORES

Con el primer número del volumen 29 de Latin American Antiquity (LAQ) estamos muy contentos de poder anunciar buenas noticias para nuestros lectores y colaboradores. A partir de la edición de marzo 2018, el recuento anual de páginas de LAQ se incrementará a 880, al igual que American Antiquity (AAQ). Hace solo dos años se le asignaron a LAQ 576 páginas, por lo que esto significa un aumento del 53%, el mayor en la historia de la revista.

The world’s fairs as spaces of global knowledge: Latin American archaeology and anthropology in the age of exhibitions

At the end of the nineteenth century, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru were among the countries participating in the most important world’s fairs in Europe and North America. These mass gatherings focused on national self-images as well as technological development and commodities, but the Latin American exhibition organizers also understood them to be transnational spaces that contributed to the mobility of persons, objects, and knowledge. In this context, the scientific display of pre-Columbian ‘antiquities’ was regarded as being as important as the participation in archaeological and anthropological congresses. By understanding the world’s fairs as ‘spaces of global knowledge’, this article highlights the agency of Latin American scientists, intellectuals, and collectors in the transnational endeavour to create a ‘Latin American antiquity’ at the fairgrounds. Although most fair attendees sought to study and display the pre-Columbian past in an objective manner, the older dream of (re-)constructing the splendour of America’s ancient civilizations never completely vanished.

Unruly Empiricisms and Linguistic Sovereignty in Thomas Jefferson’s Indian Vocabulary Project

From 1790 to 1810, Thomas Jefferson inaugurated a massive effort to collect and preserve native languages. Compiling as many languages as he could, Jefferson worked to solve the question of Indian origins. More interesting for its failures than for what it achieved, the Indian Vocabulary archive displays telling instances of cross-cultural mistranslation as indigenous words spill beyond Jefferson’s rules of orthography and beyond the word list itself. The archive, in this way, defies Jefferson’s goal of recording the ancient and pure sounds of “primitive” America. This chapter argues that the archive reveals forms of linguistic sovereignty established as the indigenous speakers interviewed for the project refused to have their languages condemned to the atavistic detritus of American antiquity.

EDITOR'S CORNER

The March 2017 issue of Latin American Antiquity brings with it momentous changes. It also marks the conclusion of our first term as coeditors. We think it important to let you know how LAQ has grown this decade and especially over the past three years, and to inform you of significant changes that commence with this issue.

Faunal Quantification and the Ascendance of Hunting Debate: Reevaluation of the Data from Southeastern California

The debate regarding the underlying motivations for large game hunting in western North America has ensued in American Antiquity for over a decade. Empirical support for the original argument for costly signaling hunting by Hildebrandt and McGuire partly derived from a regional synthesis of faunal data from southeastern California that demonstrated a spike in artiodactyl hunting during the Middle Archaic. This spike is primarily driven by the faunal assemblage from a single, highelevation site located in the White Mountains of southeastern California. It was suspected that this anomaly was a reflection of analytical differences in taxonomic identifications among faunal analysts. Contrary to expectations, it was discovered that taxonomic identifications were conservative. Instead, the previously reported number of identified specimens for artiodactyls was calculated in a manner inconsistent with other analyses in the region. When corrected, the regional data show a pattern of faunal exploitation that is consistent with expectations derived from optimal foraging theory.