Definition Of Archaeology Research Articles

The New Archaeological Definition of the Earliest Synagogues in Judaea and Galilee Applied to the Site of Khirbet Qumran

The New Archaeological Definition of the Earliest Synagogues in Judaea and Galilee Applied to the Site of Khirbet Qumran

“Ethnicity” of the Scythians: Problems in the Aspects of Ontology and Gnoseology

The work is devoted to the problem of the archaeological definition of the ethnos in connection with the range of questions of the genesis of the Scythians and their anthropological composition in connection with the eastern migration impulses. The objective is to study the development of this set of problems, as well as to consider the possibilities of further research in the aspect of competing hypotheses by systematizing and interpreting the data of history, archeology and physical anthropology. The reason for the unresolved issue of the origin of the Scythians is the lack of a generally accepted content of the concepts of “Scythian” and “Scythian culture”, as well as “Scythian archaeological culture”, due to the blurring of the boundaries of the areas of distribution of monuments of the “Scythian type culture”. The reason for the diversity of opinions about the physical appearance of the Scythians is the lack of a sufficient amount of anthropological material and the difference in interpretations of morphological relationships and lines of development. We consider the study of the genesis of the Scythians and the development of the Scythian culture from the perspective of migrations within the framework of the Srubna-Andronovo cultural and historical community to be a promising direction. It is necessary to define both multi-vector pulsating migrations and the “Scythian area” as a vast material and cultural (“ethnic, cultural and historical”) landscape and the environment within which they occurred. It is extremely important to single out compact typological variants and their cultural and chronological boundaries within the framework of the cultural community of the Scythians in the south of Eastern Europe, Sauromatians and Saks. In terms of establishing the Scythian area and identifying ethnic and cultural components, it is necessary to carefully localize the settled zones on its borders, study trans-boundary zones, the localization of which is confined to isolated physical and geographical structures and zones of integration of material production, and identify the patterns and specifics of the course of ethnic and cultural processes within and on the borders of large trans-zonal territories.

The Anthropocene, hyperobjects and the archaeology of the future past

Archaeology is often defined as the study of the past through material culture. As we enter the Anthropocene, however, the two parts of this definition increasingly diverge. In the Anthropocene the archaeological record ceases to be observed from a distance, but is something we exist within. It is not an assemblage of material culture, but a hyperobject of vast temporal and geographical scope, in which ecofacts increase in prominence and the role of artefacts recedes. This article examines the archaeological record as a hyperobject and argues for an expanded definition of archaeology for the future past. It argues for a shift from the study of objects towards a broader archaeology that includes immaterial Anthropocene culture.

Faut-il en finir avec la sépulture collective (et sinon qu’en faire) ?

Depuis les années 1960, l’appellation de sépulture collective est d’un emploi commun en archéologie. Elle a pourtant suscité de nombreuses discussions, notamment parce qu’elle est aussi utilisée pour désigner des structures et des fonctionnements observés en ethnographie et qu’il existe de ce fait une tendance permanente pour lui accorder une signification sociale de plus en plus grande. Cela amène à se poser deux questions : pouvons-nous conserver sous sa forme actuelle la terminologie employée ou devons-nous la modifier ? Et, surtout, pouvons-nous continuer à utiliser le même concept à la fois en archéologie et en ethnologie, et si oui à quelles conditions ? En définissant correctement l’unité analytique de référence qu’est la sépulture, puis en examinant les différentes manières possibles d’y réunir des morts, on peut finalement montrer que la terminologie française actuelle se rapportant à la sépulture collective est tout à fait opérationnelle en archéologie comme en ethnologie et est transposable d’une discipline à une autre dès lors que l’on évite absolument d’intégrer une fonction sociale dans les définitions. On peut toutefois apporter quelques ajustements à ces dernières pour lever certaines ambiguïtés et en assurer la cohérence, ainsi que quelques précisions d’utilisation. Par ailleurs, l’opposition classique entre la sépulture multiple et la sépulture collective apparaît fondamentale, parce qu’elle permet de dégager un comportement mortuaire particulier et de conjecturer que toutes les sépultures collectives archéologiques ont été établies pour réunir des individus liés par la parenté.

Place, Space and Memory in the Old Jewish East End of London: an Archaeological Biography of Sandys Row Synagogue, Spitalfields and its Wider Context

Sandys Row (London E1) is the only functioning Ashkenazi (Eastern European Jewish) Synagogue in Spitalfields and the oldest still functioning Ashkenazi synagogue in London. Located in an area, which from the mid-late nineteenth century until WW2 was the center of London’s Jewish population, it is one of the last surviving witnesses to a once vibrant and dynamic heritage that has now virtually disappeared. This area has been the first port of call for refugees for centuries, starting with French Protestant Huguenots in the eighteenth century, then Jews fleeing economic hardship and pogroms in Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century followed by Bangladeshi Muslims in the twentieth century. Using a broadly archaeological analysis based very closely on the sort of practice widely used in church archaeology, the authors argue that much can be inferred about wider social and cultural patterns from a study of architectural space at Sandys Row and its associated material culture. This is the first such archaeological study undertaken of a synagogue in Britain and offers a new perspective on wider issues regarding the archaeological definition of religious practice and religious material culture.

Вопрос об археологическом определении этноса: продолжение темы

Вопрос об археологическом определении этноса: продолжение темы

Classifications of Sacred Space: A New Understanding of Mass Rock Sites in Ireland

As locations of a distinctively Catholic faith, Mass Rocks are important historical, ritual and counter-cultural sites that present a tangible connection to Ireland’s rich heritage for contemporary society. Recent authors have begun to fill a gap in published literature yet few go beyond traditional assumptions. This paper offers a more contemporary approach to the study of Mass Rocks based on extensive field research in county Cork. It argues for the introduction of new and innovative classifications that expand the accepted archaeological definition and proposes a set of criteria for the more robust verification of potential sites.

Archaeology in Public and Media: A Short Introduction to Theoretical Premises of the Dialogue on Heritage

Along with many different definitions of archaeology, from the inception of the discipline to the present, it may be valid to assert that it is a kind of complex dialogue on heritage with the public of contemporary societies. In this dialogue, archaeologists have directly constructed social memories and modern identities, this being an exceptional responsibility, and have at the same time been susceptible to ethnocentric transfers of modern values and expectations into the images of the past. In this respect, it may well be said that the public is not only the most important consumer of cultural heritage, but also an active participant indirectly influencing the shaping of archaeological interpretations of the past. Thanks to the global trends in the discipline, but also due to the administrative decisions of the Ministry of Culture and Information, archaeology in Serbia is compelled to intensify contacts with the public and to make the results of our work more readily accessible and economically sustainable. The paper aims to offer a short overview of theoretical premises of various models of collaboration of archaeology and the public, to point to the advantages and shortcomings, as well as the consequences of these approaches, thus warning of the many potential problems stemming from the uncritical dissemination of information on the past and heritage to the general public.

The Archaeological Imagination

A study of the ‘archaeological imagination’ is an area of growing interest within archaeology and other fields (see, for example, Finn 2004; Wallace 2004; Schwyzer 2007), and Michael Shanks’s book is a timely addition to this important and inspiring subject. Building on his Experiencing the Past (1992) and other collaborative works, the author makes a foray into the worlds that create and are created by archaeological remains and experiences of them, in a journey that is as much a personal reflection as a disciplinary one. He does, however, emphasise that he is expanding out from the disciplinary definition of archaeology, blending literature, current popular culture, historical texts, archaeological remains, antiquarian interpretation, philosophy, cultural geography, geology, photography, contemporary art and social theory.

The Emergence of Archaeology as Scientific Discipline

It might be useful to mention of definition the archaeology, since the various definitions of Archaeology might reflect the emergence and the growth of archaeelogy itself. The word was first used to mean ancient history in general. By this definition, the contents of archaeology are derived from various collections of old manuscripts (Daniel, 1967:1). Archaeology has an alliance with history and anthropology. Both archaeology and history deal with the human past, concerned with the narration of the past and With its explanation.

The Language of Objects: Christian Jürgensen Thomsen's Science of the Past

The Danish amateur scholar Christian Jürgensen Thomsen has often been described as a founder of modern "scientific" archaeology. Thomsen's innovation, this essay argues, reflects developments within neighboring fields, such as philology and history. He reacted against historians who limited themselves to histories of texts and therefore abandoned the earliest human history. Instead, he proposed a new history of objects, which included the entire history of humankind. Thomsen's work as director of the Royal Museum of Nordic Antiquities in Copenhagen was especially important for this renewal. The arrangement of artifacts not only helped him formulate his theories, but also allowed him to present his arguments in a language of objects. At the same time, Thomsen's definition of archaeology as a museum science placed his branch of archaeology in a closer relationship with other museum sciences, such as geology and comparative anatomy. From the 1840s, Thomsen's museum became a model for how the study of human artifacts could deliver scientific insights into human nature and the laws of human development.

Matter Out of Time: The Paradox of the “Contemporary Past”

Contemporary archaeology, with its focus on the present and the very recent past, challenges the conventional definitions of archaeology that emphasize the temporal distance between the archaeologist and the subject matter being investigated. Contemporary archaeology requires different methods, forges novel interdisciplinary collaborations, and inspires new questions. In particular, contemporary archaeology reminds us that all social actors, both in the present and in the past, were uncertain of the future and could not know the outcomes of their actions.

Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire (review)

Reviewed by: Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire Brian Croke Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire. By Walter Goffart. [The Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2006. Pp. x, 372. $69.95. ISBN 0-8122-3939-3.) The Roman Empire is being assassinated by barbarians once more. The present barbarians are the products of a process called "ethnogenesis," invented and promoted in Vienna in the 1970s and 1980s, while the old flames of the Völkerwanderung have been further fanned by the combined tone and content of Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire (2005) and Bryan Ward Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (2005), both of which appeared too late for Goffart's Barbarian Tides. Even so, Goffart's new book may be considered a partial antidote to them, as it attempts to redefine the "Migration Age" and cut it free at last from German nationalism. This book consolidates and brings together under one roof two related threads of argument which he has gradually developed over almost three decades now: (1) exposing the cultural, nationalist, and historiographical presuppositions involved in modern understanding of the impact of the barbarians, including "ethnogenesis"; [End Page 131] (2) identifying the mechanisms for accommodating the different tribal groups onto Roman territory in the fifth and sixth centuries. Rather than a sustained process of invasion and violent confrontation involving successive waves of tribes forced out of their homelands, Goffart has proposed a more contingent and complex process of integration of barbarian soldiers into the Roman army and aristocracy. Barbarians were more concerned to take advantage of the empire than destroy it. His views were originally expounded in Barbarians and Romans: The Techniques of Accommodation (1980). In Barbarian Tides he devotes a chapter to revisiting his previous book in the light of its numerous critics and his own reconsideration of details (Chapter 6). Accordingly, he reinforces his essential thesis that in Gaul and Italy in particular barbarians were settled on Roman soil by being given a share of tax income rather than land. The bulk of the book, however, is devoted to critiquing the embedded historiographical notions of "Germans" and other confected tribal histories. The picture Goffart offers (Chapters 1 and 2) is a Roman world in which various barbarian tribes had always been settled. They bore different names, but all had short histories based on short communal memories. Another chapter (7) shows convincingly that the modern notion of "Germans" and a unified "Germanic world" is a cultural and political artifact, so "the G-word must be dispensed with" (p. 222). Much of the ground contested by Goffart and his critics is based on archaeological definition of different cultures, but more especially on interpreting the texts previously treated in his Narrators of Barbarian History (1988) where he demonstrated the inadequacy of reconstructing Gothic, Frankish, and Lombard origins and traditions on the basis of Roman literary perspectives. Now he reformulates the literary problem (Chapter 3) and reiterates the fact that the most significant text, the Getica of Jordanes, cannot be deployed as a receptacle of folk memory (Chapter 4). Its picture of Gothic history was a recent invention set down in Justinian's Constantinople, although a doubt lingers over Goffart's dismissal of oral traditions and enduring memories. Finally, Chapter 5 provides an example of how an alternative narrative for the years 400–20 might be constructed. This is a useful model and worth emulating for later periods. Goffart's new book is buttressed by a characteristic command of often complex texts, forensic skill, and readability, plus a fine index. It also engages robustly with critics and doubters. As with all his previous books, Barbarian Tides is stimulating, challenging, and designed for impact. It simply cannot be ignored. Students of any era could benefit from watching up close how a master scholar deals with a perennial but disputed historiographical theme. Brian Croke Sydney, Australia Copyright © 2008 The Catholic University of America Press

Toward a Still and Quiet Conscience: A Study in Reflexive Archaeology

Reflexive behaviors and discussions have become commonplace in archaeology. The first phase of their implementation has already completed, and a new phase has begun. To clarify the purpose of this second phase, we need to again consider why we are doing them, how we are going about them, and, most importantly, where are we going with them. Reflexive perspectives on archaeology are shifting from idealist implementation to realist implementation, from social advocacy to problem solving pragmatism. The completion of this second phase will lead to an expanded definition of archaeology. When the second phase is done, in about 15 years, reflexive perspectives on archaeology will cycle out of fashion. All these changes are associated with generational changes ongoing in American society.

Detecting plague: palaeodemographic characterisation of a catastrophic death assemblage

The archaeological definition of a plague should be possible from skeletal populations, because the age profile of a population afflicted by a catastrophe will be different to that of a community exposed to a more normal mortality. The authors show how this can be done using a Bayesian statistical analysis.

Images in opposition: polarity, ambivalence and liminality in cult representation

The concept of ‘Celtic’ is fittingly ambiguous, ambivalent and disputed in its archaeological definition: ‘fittingly’ because later prehistoric and Roman iconography in temperate Europe is ambiguous and ambivalent. And ambiguous and ambivalent things are hard to understand unambiguously!

Fertility and Mode of Subsistence: A Phylogenetic Analysis

Des debats recents sur la dependance de la demographie humaine vis-a-vis des modes de subsistance offrent de nouvelles pistes de reflexion pour les anthropologues et les archeologues qui travaillent sur les relations entre l'environnement naturel et les strategies de reproduction familiale, ou encore sur les origines de l'agriculture. Les AA. presentent les resultats d'une analyse synthetique prenant en compte diverses societes (a partir de sources bibliographiques) afin d'isoler les effets phylogenetiques en comparant uniquement les differences entre fertilite et mode de subsistance parmi les societes traditionnelles culturellement voisines (classification par aire geographique qui prend en compte l'ensemble du monde). L'etude quantitative mesure les degres de dependance selon la typologie des modes de subsistance representes majoritairement parmi chaque societe traditionnelle.

Working at relationships: another look at animal domestication

‘Animals were wild, and then some of them were tamed and so became domestic.’ The archaeological definition of ‘domestic’ is a fundamental, alongside the means by which the domestic is to be recognized in the archaeological record. Setting that relationship with human beings which we call ‘domestication’ alongside other relations between species clarifies the issues.

Historic sites archaeology in Mexico

This paper examines the patterns that characterize the development of historic sites archaeology in Mexico. It emphasizes studies conducted by Mexican researchers. The major trends of historical archaeology in the nation have been influenced by the following factors: the prevailing definition of archaeology, the limits imposed by building restoration programs, and the lack of a theoretical framework and hypothesis in the majority of studies.

The Mackenzie Basin: An Alternative Approach to Dene and Metis Archaeology

More active Dene involvement in archaeology and a shift in research strategies from culture history to ethnoarchaeology are gradually changing the way that the archaeological record of the Mackenzie Basin is studied. This is occurring at a time when the Dene are tired of being simply the object of inquiry and are becoming inquirers in their own right. Recent community-based ethnoarchaeological and archaeological research has involved Native elders as consultants in project design, data collection and analysis, and the training of Native youth as crew members. Collaboration between archaeologists and northern Native people poses new questions of mutual concern that integrate oral histories, material culture, contemporary land use and settlement patterns, and archaeological data. At the regional level of analysis, new hypotheses evaluate present and past interrelationships of Native place-names, resources, travel routes, and camp locations. Traditional Native knowledge of spatial usage and feature function allows more accurate archaeological definition of site structure and settlement types at both pre- and post-European contact sites.Key words: Athabaskans, Metis, ethnoarchaeology, ethnogeography, Mackenzie Mountains, Mackenzie Basin, Mountain Dene, Slavey, field training