The Class of 1951–2: The Institute of Archaeology and International Students

This research note aims to draw attention to a little-studied aspect in the history of archaeology: the relationship between university training and international students. The article provides a brief background to the social and political context of international student recruitment in the UK (principally, but not exclusively, from the Commonwealth) before turning to the status of museum training courses in the Institute in the 1950s, which, it is argued, was a key concern for students coming from abroad. Six of these students are then briefly introduced: Richard Nunoo (Ghana), Justus Dojuma Akeredólu (Nigeria), Mom Chao Subhadradis Diskul (Thailand), Syed Ashfaq Naqvi (Pakistan), Braj Basi Lal (India) and Bijan Bihari Lal (India).

Notes for an Archaeology of Discarded Drug Paraphernalia

This article explores the values and challenges of an archaeological approach to illicit drug use, based on the study of discarded drug paraphernalia. It builds upon recent archaeological studies of homeless people, refugees and other marginalised communities that have used participative methods to challenge societal stigma and erasure. Following a critique of previous archaeological studies of drug use, the core of the article is a detailed analysis of an assemblage of drug paraphernalia in Oxford, UK. In interpreting this assemblage and its material and emotional contexts we draw on our respective contemporary archaeological and drug user activist experience and expertise. By providing a critical overview of previous studies and a detailed case study, this article aims to provide a practical and conceptual foundation for future archaeological studies of illicit drug use.

Transitions in Productivity: Rice Intensification from Domestication to Urbanisation

Archaeobotanical research in East and Southeast Asia provides evidence for transitions between lower and higher productivity forms of rice. These shifts in productivity are argued to help explain patterns in the domestication process and the rise of urban societies in these regions. The domestication process, which is now documented as having taken a few millennia, and coming to an end between 6700 and 5900 bp, involved several well documented changes, all of which served to increase the yield of rice harvests by an estimated 366 per cent; this increase provides an in-built pull factor for domestication. Once domesticated, rice diversified into higher productivity, labour-demanding wet rice and lower-yield dry rice. While wet rice in the Lower Yangtze region of China provided a basis for increasing population density and social hierarchy, it was the development of less productive and less demanding dry rice that helped to propel the migrations of farmers and the spread of rice agriculture across South China and Southeast Asia. Later intensification in Southeast Asia, a shift back to wet rice, was a necessary factor for increasing hierarchy and urbanisation in regions such as Thailand.

Urban Landscapes of Power in the Iberian Peninsula from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (ULP.PILAEMA Project)

Debates surrounding late antique societies have attracted renewed interest from an archaeological perspective. Attention given to this period between the fifth and the eighth centuries reflects present-day issues closely related to urban landscapes and long-term change in the human occupation of space. The aim of the ULP.PILAEMA Project is to examine the interaction of new elites on urban life between the late Roman and early Middle Ages through the study of the main components of townscape. The project is articulated around a series of key Spanish case studies selected on the basis of the quality of their architecture and topography and the reconstructions that this evidence facilitates for late antiquity. Taken together, the examples chosen present a coherent and up-to-date perspective of how cities transformed as symbolic places. The goal of the project is to explore ways in which topographies of governance were configured and to identify urban patterns to compare with other places and regions in Western Europe. Understanding the rise of bishoprics, monasteries and official buildings and their built environment as an expression of social interactions has allowed us to explain the origins and development of early medieval centres of power in Spain.