scholarly journals Why Those Who Shovel Are Silent: A History of Local Archaeological Knowledge and Labor

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Mickel
Keyword(s):  
History Of ◽  
Archaeological Knowledge

Archaeological Drawings as Re-Presentations: The Maps of Complex A, La Venta, Mexico

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan D. Gillespie
Keyword(s):  
Gulf Coast ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Regional Center ◽  
History Of ◽  
Original Field ◽  
Archaeological Knowledge ◽  
Field Report ◽  
Formal Design ◽  
Over Time

AbstractScientific drawings, including maps, are increasingly recognized as theory-laden media for conveying information. The degree to which this quality impacts archaeological interpretations is revealed in the history of the published maps of La Venta, a Formative period Mesoamerican regional center. La Venta is pivotal to understanding the Olmec culture of Mexico’s Gulf Coast, yet archaeological knowledge is based primarily on one small portion of the site, Complex A, excavated in 1955. Since destroyed, Complex A is now known especially through visual representations. A review of the Complex A maps in the original field report and subsequent publications demonstrates how these technical drawings have sometimes superseded the textual excavation data in generating and disseminating archaeological knowledge. Over time the maps have become more schematic and misleading, impeding understandings of La Venta and its role in regional cultural manifestations. Reliance on totalizing plan maps has led most archaeologists to overlook the 1955 excavators’ major interpretations of the construction history of Complex A. However, the 1955 conclusions regarding the longevity of the formal design rules of the complex, reiterated by later archaeologists precisely because they are clearly visible in plan maps, are less well supported by the stratigraphic evidence.

Electronic Egypt: the shape of archaeological knowledge on the Net

Antiquity ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 71 (274) ◽  
pp. 1073-1076 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Meskell
Keyword(s):  
Web Site ◽  
Electronic Media ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Archaeological Knowledge

Unlike many regional archaeologies the study of Egypt has always had widespread appeal, from archaeologists to Afrocentrists, orientalists to occultists. According to one web-site, ‘Egypt dominates the history of the world.’ This ever-popular fascination has spilled over into the electronic media since the inception of the Internet. Thus, Egypt proves to be a telling casestudyin net politics and potentialities. Simply typing the word ‘Egypt’ into a Web searcher elicits over 1 million sites, and the content of that material runs the gamut from scholarly resources closely matching those known in print to fringe sites and sci-fi web pages. This makes electronic Egypt an intellectual and ethical minefield for the uninitiated, especially as there proves often little to differentiate between this panoply of sites in terms of presentation and professionality. It palpably illustrates the homogenization of knowledge on the net and prompts us to consider the construction of archaeology and archaeological knowledges.

JI'NAN IN THE FIRST MILLENNIUM B.C.: ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Historical Archaeology ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Ancient China ◽  
Social Transitions ◽  
Pratiques Funéraires ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Archaeological Knowledge

AbstractInterpretations derived from the study of texts have often determined how material remains have been explained in the historical archaeology of ancient China. Thus, the history of China has been less informed by archaeological knowledge than one would wish. In the case of social transitions in the Ji'nan region in the first millennium B.C., I show how changes in settlement patterns and in mortuary practices enrich our understanding of how the increasingly centralized state impacted the local Ji'nan society. Les interprétations provenant de l'étude des textes ont souvent déterminé la manière dont les vestiges matériels ont été intégrés dans l'archéologie historique de la Chine Ancienne. Pour cette raison, l'apport des données archéologiques sur la connaissance de la Chine. Ancienne est bien moindre qu1on ne le pense. Dans le cas des transitions sociales dans la région de Ji1nan au cours du 1er Millénaire B.C., cet article montre comment les changements intervenus dans la distribution régionale des sites et dans les pratiques funéraires enrichit notre perception des effets de l'action de l'état centralisateur sur la société locale du Ji'nan.

The Ancient Cultivation of Hemp

Antiquity ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 41 (161) ◽  
pp. 42-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Godwin
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Cannabis Sativa ◽  
Pollen Grain ◽  
Economic Plant ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
East Anglia ◽  
Pollen Diagram ◽  
Indian Hemp ◽  
History Of ◽  
Archaeological Knowledge

The discovery in a long pollen diagram from East Anglia of a substantial curve for a pollen-grain referable to Cannabis sativa, L., the Indian hemp, raised the hope that we might, through palynology, have the means of tracing the history of cultivation of this important and sinister economic plant in England and in Western Europe. It was clearly essential that pollen-analytic evidence should be related fully to existing historical and archaeological knowledge, and aided by a notice in this journal (ANTIQUITY, 1964, 287), and by the notable kindness of a great many academic colleagues, I have put together a condensed historical account of the plant in antiquity as preface to a description of the pollen-analytic data.

John Beach Rinaldo: Quintessential Culture Historian

2015 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 571-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen E. Nash
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
East Central ◽  
Field Museum ◽  
West Central ◽  
Culture History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Archaeological Knowledge ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Central Arizona

During an archaeological career that spanned four decades, John Beach Rinaldo (1912-1999) made substantive contributions to the delineation and definition of the Mogollon Culture, the culture history of west-central New Mexico and east-central Arizona, and the identification of material relationships between precolumbian cultures and modern-day Zuni. For a variety of reasons, Rinaldo is overshadowed by his Field Museum collaborator Paul Sidney Martin. As a result, historians of archaeology have failed to critically evaluate Rinaldo's career and contributions. This paper offers a controlled analysis and comparison of data in unpublished archives, artifact collections at the Field Museum, and the published record to illuminate previously unrecognized but important aspects of Rinaldo's many contributions to archaeological knowledge, method, and theory.

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