History Of Archaeological Research Research Articles

Recent trends in the archaeology of the southeastern United States

The archaeological literature pertaining to the southeastern United States is examined for the 5-year period between 1988 and 1992 inclusive. Research traditions identified in an earlier article by Patty Jo Watson (Southeastern Archaeology 9: 43–54, 1990) as characteristic of the Southeast in the previous half-century are considered in light of recent contributions. Topics examined include Mesoamerican connections, trade, pottery typology, historical archaeology, subsistence studies, bioarchaeology, and lithic artifact research.

French Paleolithic Collections in the Logan Museum of Anthropology, edited by Randall White and L.B. Breitborde. Logan Museum Bulletin (new series) 1(2), 1992

The bulk of this generous volume is detailed studies of the French Paleolithic collection made for the Logan Museum of Beloit College between 1 924 and 1 927. Equally important are the accounts of the acquisition of the collection, a major chapter in the history of archaeological research. Happily for the historian, the editors of the volume have been as concerned to present and illustrate this as they have the artifacts.

Archaeology and Imperialism

The study of imperial systems has been an important growth area in archaeological research in recent years. One aspect that has received attention in a variety of settings is the territorial reorganisation frequently associated with political incorporation. The paper reviews a number of general archaeological and historical patterns of imperial consolidation and outlines some underlying factors, before moving on to consider their applicability in a well-documented case study, that of Achaia (the Roman province of Greece). Direct Roman intervention in the distribution of central places and the location of political boundaries is examined, together with local-level adaptions to incorporation within a larger and more demanding imperial system. Despite the long history of archaeological research in Greece (and indeed the eastern Roman empire as a whole) to make a more significant contribution to expansion and control in empires.

Urban farmsteads: Household responsibilities in the city

A focus of recent historical archaeological research in Arkansas is the nature of 19th century occupation in smaller population centers. The plats for many villages and towns permit examination of pattern and process at the least complex stratum of settlement: individual families and discrete house lots. The “urban farmstead” concept is defined and shows that until recently, such in-town lots contained buildings and spaces that functionally paralleled those of rural farmsteads. The synchronic and diachronic dimensions of the model may be useful for examining residences in nucleated centers in other times and places. In many ways, the responsibility given to the occupants by the city for a variety of tasks, reflected in the urban farmstead, permitted nucleated settlement itself to continue.

Analysis of Style in Artifacts

An immense amount of information on patterns of stylistic variation in prehistoric artifacts has been produced by studies done throughout the history of archaeological research. The construction of space-time frameworks for most regions on the basis of such patterns has produced detailed information on stylistic sequences through time and stylistic distributions across space. Much of that critical information is encoded in complex sets of artifact types which have been developed. When questions concerning stylistic variation move beyond general patterns of variation across space and through time, however, the available information decreases drastically despite the decades of research on stylistic variation. However, significant improvements have been made during the last 20 years. Beginning at least as early as the innovative ceramic sociology studies of the 1960s (11, 27, 41-43, 65), when initial attempts were made to examine the relationship between stylistic variation and aspects of social organization, many new questions about stylistic variation began to be addressed. Can spatial clusters of stylistic attributes smaller than the previously defined culture areas be isolated that might be the result of residence groups, lineages, marriage networks, or clusters of communities cooperating in economic activities? Can studies of stylistic variation lead to more accurate and precise estimates of site occupation dates? Why do rates of stylistic change and degrees of stylistic variation fluctuate so much through time or across space? As the questions about the causes and nature of stylistic variation have increased, so have the number and types of studies. Within the last five years, for example, at least a dozen doctoral dissertations have been written that have focused almost exclusively on issues concerning stylistic variation. In addition, an increasing number of ethnographic studies of patterns of stylistic variation

ウン・マル・アマッド発掘報告書の再検討

Umm el-'Amed on the Ladder of Tyre has had a long history of archaeological research since the days of M. de Vogüé and E. Renan. The latest investigation was done in 1944/5 by the French expedition under the direction of MM. Dunand and Duru. An account of the results appeared in 1962 (“Umm el-'amed, une ville de l'époque hellénistique aux échelles de Tyr”).Quite contrary to the allusion of the subtitle, the description was given only to two Phoenician temples of the site (Temple de Milk-'Ashtart and Temple Est), while we can not know anything about the Hellenistic town itself. If the latter were fully described, this book would contribute very much to our knowledge about the Hellenistic age of the Phoenician civilization.In this brief survey of the report I examined the evidences of the Temple de Milk-'Ashtart, which the excavators dug most elaborately and whose account in the report is tolerably satisfactory, so that we can follow the stratigraphical context and reconstruct the history of the building. (For instance, several deep soundings to the bed-rock were done only in the site of this temple.)I discussed here architectural remains, coins, lamps, inscriptions and decorated pottery, which were able to be stratigraphically reassessed. The result is the following picture of the history of the Temple de Milk-'ashtart:-In the earliest Hellenistic period, or even before that, some unidentified walls existed at the rocky hillside of the site. They may have been parts of certain sacred installation, which was situated just at the side of the road going eastward up to the town from the coastal main road between Accho and Tyre. Next, about at the end of the reign of Ptolemy II, a period of great construction came. The site was terraced horizontally with imported soil, and upon this terraced platform the devotees of Phoenician gods planned a rectangular temple with a cella in the centre and with a court, porticos and small rooms. By the year of 222/1 B. C. the construction work was finally completed with putting the beautiful pavement of stoneslabs in the court. From that time onward no major alterations happened, but even after the Roman conquest of Syria the Temple seems to have been frequented: this is able to be inferred from the decorated wares of that period (for instance, Terra Sigillata and Arretine), which came from the Temple site.

A Preliminary Definition of Archaeological Areas and Periods in Florida

The state of Florida is mainly a peninsula projecting some three hundred miles south of the continental North American land mass. This unique position has given the state a certain amount of isolation, as a result of which, and because of environmental factors, Florida has been able to participate in the Southeastern cultural picture and at the same time to develop characteristic local features.Although Florida has had a long history of archaeological research, with an impressive bibliography of descriptive material, synthesis has only recently been attempted. Some early attempts were made to divide the state into archaeological areas but none were of any significance until M. W. Stirling's recent four-fold division into the Gulf Coast, Glades, St. Johns, and Northern Highland areas. This division has been found, in general, to be useful, needing only greater refinement.