Maritime Societies Research Articles

The Florida journals of Frank Hamilton Cushing

These previously unpublished journals by one of the most complex and enigmatic American anthropologists, Frank Hamilton Cushing (1854-1900), offer a dramatically new perspective on his Florida explorations. Recorded during 1895-96 as he traveled the Gulf Coast, these daily personal observations add credibility to his contributions to science and anthropology and demonstrate his independent and intuitive intellect. Sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology, Cushing's expedition came to Florida to explore the extraordinary remains of the ancient mound-building cultures along the coast from Tarpon Springs south to Marco Island. Cushing's discovery of the muck pond that came to be known as the fabled Court of the Pile Dwellers, located in what is now Collier County, uncovered a rich archaeological site with some of the finest examples of prehistoric native art in North America. Cushing's monumental findings at the Key Marco site have been vitally important to a global understanding of the technological, social, and cosmological complexity of indigenous maritime societies. This collection of personal journals opens the door to new research and information for archaeologists and archaeological theory. Written by a visionary on the eve of Florida's entry into the modern world, the journals provide a rare glimpse of the nascent field of cultural anthropology.

Holothurian Exploitation in the Philippines: Continuities and Discontinuities.

In this paper I will discuss variation in holothurian resource exploitation in the Philippines generally and trepang fishing especially on Mangsee Island, in the southern part of Palawan Province, where people fish in the Spratly Islands. Holothruian has been a major exporting product from maritime Southeast Asia to China for, at least, three hundred years. Many scholars working in Southeast Asian maritime societies have noted the dynamic human networks involved in pursuing dried sea products like trepang or shark fins. However, few scholars have dealt with the actual materials of the trade. This paper will establish that 22 species of holothurian are traded in the Philippines at present, and that the price of the most expensive is some 80 times greater than that of the cheapest. Moreover, in recent years, lower quality trepang has been acquiring more commercial value. Holothurian is not just an exclusive expensive foodstuff as mentioned in historical records. It is also an ordinary material used in the present. The cheaper trepang species are consumed more than ever before in the Philippines and elsewhere. One of the most important aspects of the Philippine trade is that the country exports a huge volume of trepang of lower commercial value. There is a vast difference in the industry in the past and the present and we have to pay careful attention to the continuity and discontinuity in the industry.

Types of explanation in maritime archaeology: The case of the SS XANTHO

The central aim of this paper is to open up debate about different theoretical approaches which can be used to provide explanations in maritime archaeology (see recent papers in Underwater Archaeology 1996, 1997). We use the example of the wreck of the iron steamship SS Xantho (1848-72) to explore the utility of processual and post-processual approaches, as commonly used in terrestrial archaeology (cf. Lamberg-Karlovsky 1989; Shanks and Tilley 1992), to provide 'explanations' in maritime archaeology. While fully acknowledging the need for, and role of, historical particularist perspectives in any form of archaeology (e.g. Bass 1983), in this paper we argue that maritime archaeology may be well served by research which aims to create both general and predictive models about nautical behaviour (i.e. the functional/systemic processual approach) and to characterise the motivation and meaning behind strategies adopted by maritime societies and individuals (i.e. a critical/deconstructionist post-processual approach) (cf. Carrell 1990; Gould 1983a, 1983b; Hodder 1991 ; Trigger 1991; Watson 1983).

Diversity and Complexity in Prehistoric Maritime Societies: A Gulf of Maine Perspective

Diversity and Complexity in Prehistoric Maritime Societies: A Gulf of Maine Perspective

Diversity and Complexity in Prehistoric Maritime Societies: A Gulf of Maine Perspective. Bruce J. Bourque

<i>Diversity and Complexity in Prehistoric Maritime Societies: A Gulf of Maine Perspective</i>. Bruce J. Bourque

Diversity and complexity in prehistoric maritime societies: A gulf of maine perspective. Bruce J. Bourque, 1995, Plenum Press, New York, xvi + 411 pp., $59.50 (casebound)

Diversity and complexity in prehistoric maritime societies: A gulf of maine perspective. Bruce J. Bourque, 1995, Plenum Press, New York, xvi + 411 pp., $59.50 (casebound)

Diversity and complexity in prehistoric maritime societies: a Gulf of Maine perspective

Diversity and complexity in prehistoric maritime societies: a Gulf of Maine perspective

Return to Little Harbor, Santa Catalina Island, California: A Critique of the Marine Paleotemperature Model

Marine paleotemperature is a significant factor in the subsistence productivity of many coastal regions and may be an important factor in the evolution of maritime societies. A California paleotemperature model, spanning 8,000 calendar years, correlates periods of high sea surface temperatures with decreased marine subsistence productivity. A recent case study involving this model identified warming conditions between A.D. 1150 to 1300 as a major cause of subsistence distress for dwellers of the northern Channel Islands. These results are questionable, based on a comparison with data from other sites and periods of high sea temperature. Research at the Little Harbor site, one of the most extensively researched in the Channel Islands, shows that high sea temperature about 5,200 calendar years ago may have introduced warm-water faunas but not starvation conditions. Evidence from other sites occupied during subsequent warming cycles, including the event between A.D. 1150 to 1300, points to similar conclusions. Understanding the effects of long- and short-term ocean temperature cycles, a focus on only a small segment of the Holocene paleotemperature curve, and weak evidence that food abundance was affected by sea temperature are problems that must be overcome before the validity of the paleotemperature model can be accepted.

Royal Authority and theOrang Kayain the Western Archipelago, Circa 1500–1800

Ironically, the focus which Schrieke and Van Leur first brought to bear on socioeconomic changes in the Archipelago inspired scholars after them, Benda, Wertheim and Meilink-Roelofsz, among others, to plead for more dynamic structural changes than the pioneers of “Southeast Asia-centric historiography” presumed fit. The more cautious approach of Schrieke and Van Leur would appear to arise from their anxiety to establish cultural continuity as a viable basis for the study of socio-economic change. Since then change has come to be understood, particularly with reference to the maritime societies of Southeast Asia, as an indispensable element which guaranteed continuity within the basic traditions of the regions.

The Author's Ideology: A Dilemma for Maritime StudiesNorth Atlantic Maritime Cultures: Anthropological Essays on Changing Adaptations. Raoul Andersen

volume edited by Andersen is part of the series arising out of the Ninth International Congress of Anthropological Sciences, held at Chicago in 1973. intention, to quote Sol Tax (general editor), is to update its particular sector of scientific knowledge. This requires, however, more of a critical theoretical awareness than is made evident by the volume's authors. Andersen's introductory article provides a general discussion of the historical development of North Atlantic fisheries. An evolution is traced from prehistoric hunters and gatherers through peasant adaptations right up to contemporary industrial fishing. He addresses problems of control and intervention and the possible extinction of certain species and draws out the properties of fishing as an occupational category. He introduces the main sections of the volume: (1) The Transformation of Traditional Maritime Societies; (2) Modernisation and the Organisation of Production; and (3) Fishermen Competition and Social Relations.