Prehistoric Archaeology Research Articles

The Professionalisation of Science – Claim and Refusal: Discipline Building and Ideals of Scientific Autonomy in the Growth of Prehistoric Archaeology. The Case of Georges Laplace's Group of Typologie Analytique, 1950s–1990s

The Professionalisation of Science – Claim and Refusal: Discipline Building and Ideals of Scientific Autonomy in the Growth of Prehistoric Archaeology. The Case of Georges Laplace's Group of Typologie Analytique, 1950s–1990s

The Professionalisation of Science – Claim and Refusal: Discipline Building and Ideals of Scientific Autonomy in the Growth of Prehistoric Archaeology. The Case of Georges Laplace's Group of Typologie Analytique, 1950s–1990s

The Professionalisation of Science – Claim and Refusal: Discipline Building and Ideals of Scientific Autonomy in the Growth of Prehistoric Archaeology. The Case of Georges Laplace's Group of Typologie Analytique, 1950s–1990s

O djelu profesora Zdenka Brusića

U članku se donosi osvrt na život i rad Zdenka Brusića, uglednog hrvatskog arheologa. Zdenko Brusić rođen je u Šibeniku 1938. godine. Bio je kustos u arheološkoj zbirci u Ninu, zatim u Muzeju grada Šibenika, a potom i u Arheološkom muzeju Zadar kojemu je bio i ravnateljem. Godine 1998. postaje profesorom prapovijesne arheologije na Odsjeku za arheologiju Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru (danas Sveučilište u Zadru). Umirovljen je 2003. u zvanju redovitog profesora. Umire u Zadru 2014. godine. Doprinos Zdenka Brusića arheologiji u Hrvatskoj je golem, a posebno će biti upamćen kao jedan od začetnika hrvatske podvodne arheologije.

Nothing to See Here! The Challenges of Public Archaeology at Palaeolithic Stélida, Naxos

In our desire to develop public archaeologies at the early prehistoric site of Stélida (Naxos, Greece), we face three major challenges. Firstly, there are a number of stakeholder communities involved with conflicting interests. Moreover, the ‘local’ population is distinct, being heterogeneous in composition, fluid in its residence, including individuals with significantly more socioeconomic and political power than the archaeologists. Secondly, due to issues of landowners' wish for privacy and the Ministry of Culture's financial limitations, Stélida itself is unlikely to become a focus of public engagement; instead, off-site digital media, exhibitions and teaching packs likely represent the best means of disseminating information to larger audiences. Finally, early prehistoric archaeology is a culturally and temporally alien world of ‘bones and stones,’ which requires imaginative means of engaging the public imagination.

The Introduction of Mapping Cultures in European Archaeology - Time Meets Space

Prehistoric archaeology derives its roots from various practices and sciences: antiquarianism, natural history, geology, philology etc. The key conceptual tools of archaeology, including its “basic bloc” – archaeological culture, were formed by the end of the 19th century. Identifying the spatial dimension of archaeological cultures is largely linked to the innovations in adjacent disciplines, such as anthropogeography and its founder Friedrich Ratzel, but also with the general developments in cartography, perceived as a useful and “objective” tool for mapping the European nation states and various ethnic and linguistic communities. Ratzel based his ideas upon the ones of Moritz Wagner, geographer, traveller and researcher, and his work Law of the Migration of Organisms, conceived as an extension to Darwin’s theory of evolution. The innovative method of mapping cultures, as well as migrationism, have both remained permanent traits of Ratzel’s anthropogeography and the school of “cultural circles”. The examples from German-speaking archaeology demonstrate beyond doubt the ways in which the visualisation of archaeological cultures influenced the interpretations of European prehistory.

Materialisierte Übersetzungen in der Prähistorie

So far, 'translation' has only played a minor role as a concept for the analysis of prehistoric objects. Novel approaches have instead focused on alternative terms like appropriation, entanglement, hybridity and transculturality. The common association of translation with language, text and writing might have been a major obstacle for the acceptance of this term as neither language nor written sources are available as primary sources for Prehistorian Archaeologists. We base our argument in the ongoing debate about translation in Cultural and Social Anthropology and ask if and to what extent this concept can be used for Prehistoric Archaeology. We focus on intercultural translations and their transformative power, as this can help to better conceptualize cultural change. In order to translate translation for the epistemological frame and potential of Prehistoric Archaeology, we confront this concept with other and more frequently used concepts. In a final case study, we demonstrate the potential of translation by applying the concept to the interpretation of vessels made out of gold foil of the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC in southern Central Europe. These vessels can be understood as materialized translations, which resulted from the transmission and appropriation of innovations.

Beyond Antiquarianism: A Review of Current Theoretical Issues in German-speaking Prehistoric Archaeology - ADDENDUM

In the above mentioned article (Hofmann and Stockhammer 2017) there was an asterisk proceeding ‘Kerstin P. Hofmann’, which has now been moved to proceed ‘Philipp W. Stockhammer’ to indicate that both authors are corresponding authors for this article.

Coastal archaeologies: settlement on the changing North Sea littoral

Over the past decade or so, the submerged prehistoric archaeology and landscapes in the area that is known to us today as the North Sea have received increasing attention from both archaeologists and earth scientists. For too long, this body of water was perceived as a socio-cultural obstacle between the prehistoric Continent and the British Isles, the rising sea level a threat to coastal settlers, and the North Sea floor itself an inaccessible submerged landscape. Notwithstanding the many pertinent and pervasive problems that the archaeology of the North Sea still needs to overcome, recent research has made clear that these rather uninspiring beliefs are misplaced.

The Hongshan Culture, Phenomena and Issues

The Hongshan Culture, Phenomena and Issues

Beyond antiquarianism. A review of current theoretical issues in German-speaking prehistoric archaeology

AbstractWhereas German-speaking archaeology (GSA) has long been understood as generally uninterested in theoretical debates, the situation has taken a most interesting development since the year 2000. Archaeologists tried to escape the general decline of the small university disciplines by getting more and more involved in the overarching research questions of cultural studies and in large-scale collaborative projects. The necessity of integrating a clear theoretical and methodological approach for a successful proposal and the subsequent research changed the significance of theoretical discussions. As a consequence, theme-oriented research has developed which aims at addressing overarching themes in the cultural and social sciences. We have chosen five of the most prominent themes in German-speaking archaeology – self-reflexivity, identities, space, cultural encounter and knowledge transfer – as well as material culture, and shed light on their theoretical conceptualization and methodological implementation in recent publications. Despite the lack of dominant schools of thinking, its strong rootedness in the evaluation of empirical sources, and its close link to the discipline of history, current GSA can contribute to the overall theoretical discourse of the discipline.

Farewell to antiquarianism. A new ‘grand narrative’ for German-speaking prehistoric archaeology?

I would first like to thank the editors ofArchaeological dialoguesfor inviting me to comment on Kerstin P. Hofmann and Philipp W. Stockhammer's paper on the present situation of archaeological theory in German-speaking prehistoric archaeology (GSA). The message the authors wish to communicate to an international audience is relatively simple and straightforward. GSA, which for a long time seemed ‘generally uninterested in theoretical debates’ (p. 1), has since about the year 2000 radically changed its outlook. This change is seen reflected in a large corpus of theoretically oriented case studies (represented in a list of some four hundred titles added to the paper), that in the eyes of the authors deserves the attention of the international scientific community. This positive development is interpreted as a result both of a growing interest in overarching research questions of cultural studies and of the public funding of large-scale cooperative research projects.

Considering gender analogies in southeastern prehistoric archaeology

ABSTRACTPrehistoric archaeologists have done very little yet to explore how gender “works” within the historical processes of social construction during the long prehistory of the Southeast. As we undertake examinations of gender ideologies, roles, and relationships, applications of analogs play an important role. This is despite a distinctly unsettled agreement on uses of analogy in archaeology. In this piece, I explore archaeologists’ continued unease with the use of analogy in archaeological interpretation, assigning part of the blame to underlying and unresolved epistemological issues. A disciplined and studied use of formal analogies is suggested.

Resilience theory in archaeological practice – An annotated review

During the last decades, the importance of deriving analogies about current challenges, such as the mitigation of natural hazards, from archaeological case studies was frequently highlighted. In this context, Resilience Theory (RT) has become a potent tool to study socio-ecological systems and, thus, meet these public demands. RT facilitates how to conceptualise the interweaving of behavioural adaptations (e.g., mobility, economy, and social systems) with their external environmental setting. The Adaptive Cycle Model has emerged as a (if not the) key approach in using RT in empirical case studies and its application covers today the entire spatial and temporal field of prehistoric archaeology. However, several challenges remain for research in the future that are summarized in this paper, in particular the lack of a coherent terminology as well as the challenging task of defining the parameters of connectedness and potential are emphasized. Thereby, we show the current pitfalls for approaching the Adaptive Cycle Model and draft the future potential for developing more elaborated systems for classifying resilience in past societies.

Berber genealogy and the politics of prehistoric archaeology and craniology in French Algeria (1860s-1880s).

Following the conquest of Algiers and its surrounding territory by the French army in 1830, officers noted an abundance of standing stones in this region of North Africa. Although they attracted considerably less attention among their cohort than more familiar Roman monuments such as triumphal arches and bridges, these prehistoric remains were similar to formations found in Brittany and other parts of France. The first effort to document these remains occurred in 1863, when Laurent-Charles Féraud, a French army interpreter, recorded thousands of dolmens and stone formations south-west of Constantine. Alleging that these constructions were Gallic, Féraud hypothesized the close affinity of the French, who claimed descent from the ancient Gauls, with the early inhabitants of North Africa. After Féraud's claims met with scepticism among many prehistorians, French scholars argued that these remains were constructed by the ancestors of the Berbers (Kabyles in contemporary parlance), whom they hypothesized had been dominated by a blond race of European origin. Using craniometric statistics of human remains found in the vicinity of the standing stones to propose a genealogy of the Kabyles, French administrators in Algeria thereafter suggested that their mixed origins allowed them to adapt more easily than the Arab population to French colonial governance. This case study at the intersection of prehistoric archaeology, ancient history and craniology exposes how genealogical (and racial) classification made signal contributions to French colonial ideology and policy between the 1860s and 1880s.

Aging Well: Treherne's ‘Warrior's Beauty’ Two Decades Later

Over the (slightly more than) two decades that theEuropean Journal of Archaeology(formerly theJournal of European Archaeology) has been in print, we have published a number of excellent and high profile articles. Among these, Paul Treherne's seminal meditation on Bronze Age male identity and warriorhood stands out as both the highest cited and the most regularly downloaded paper in our archive. Speaking informally with friends and colleagues who work on Bronze Age topics as diverse as ceramics, metalwork, landscape phenomenology, and settlement structure, I found that this paper holds a special place in their hearts. Certainly, it is a staple of seminar reading lists and, in my experience at least, is prone to provoke heated discussions among students on topics as far ranging as gender identity in the past and present, theoretically informed methods for material culture studies, and the validity of using Classical texts for understanding prehistoric worlds. Moreover, in its themes of violence, embodiment, materiality, and the fluidity or ephemeral nature of gendered identities, it remains a crucial foundational text for major debates raging in European prehistoric archaeology in the present day.

Revolutionary discoveries from Bronze Age Iberia: recent work on the Argaric world

In the Mediterranean region there are relatively few integrated, specialist research teams enga- ged in long-term and ongoing field- work. One of these rare and productive scientific collaborations is the ASOME (Arqueoecología Social Mediterránea, or Mediterranean Social Archaeoecology) group from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. The three volumes under review are authored by this team's lead researchers, and represent the first book-length publications from a long-term research project (2009–) on the Earlier Bronze Age El Argar culture (2200–1550 BC). They report the results of several excavations in the province of Murcia, Spain, supported by a combination of public and private funding. This ambitious initiative addresses ground-breaking research questions and offers solid and sustainable solutions for the conservation and preservation of these formerly neglected sites. Its aims, as summarised on the project's website, are: to create a systematic archive of information on the dispersed collections from earlier investigations; to undertake large-scale fieldwork on a series of key sites and to develop their public presentation; and to lay the foundations for an interdisciplinary research centre on prehistoric and Mediterranean archaeology (http://www.la-bastida.com).

Sensing sonically at Andean Formative Chavín de Huántar, Perú

ABSTRACTArchaeoacoustics operationalizes non-verbal sound as means and medium for communication. In reconstructing physical, environmental features of ancient places, we infer their consistent sensory reception across the six-digit timeline of Homo sapiens, yet cognition is contextual. How can we reasonably estimate ancient sonic experiences in prehistoric archaeology? Is it possible to infer the significance of sound for past humans who have left no textual traces? Systematic auditory localization experimentation and other archaeoacoustics research within the extant architecture of the Andean Formative ceremonial center at Chavín de Huántar, Perú has demonstrated specific ways in which ancient built acoustics transform humans’ understandings of place and social relations. Transposing principles from information theory to explore the structuring of Chavín’s sonic environment, I argue that sonic symbols that parallel in-situ visual depictions are architecturally encoded at Chavín, constituting multi-channel messaging. For example, the plausible evocation of a roaring cayman through hydraulic-sonic enactment of Chavín’s so-called ‘acoustic canal’ creates a sonic incarnation of that visually depicted crocodilian. Chavín symbols, delivered redundantly and repetitively via multiple, simultaneous sensory channels, would ensure assimilation by ritual participants. If, as evidence suggests, Chavín drew visitors from diverse polities, messaging to a multi-lingual population would necessitate non-linguistic communication, through sensory manipulation in its unique ‘ritualscape’.

Civil War Incarceration in History and Memory: A Roundtable

Civil War Incarceration in History and MemoryA Roundtable Chris Barr, David R. Bush, Michael P. Gray, Evan Kutzler, and Kelly D. Mezurek May 1864. A group of men from Connecticut found themselves at a place that shook them to the core and traumatized their very identities. Robert Kellogg grasped a pencil and a small diary to chronicle the moment he arrived at Andersonville: “As we entered the place a spectacle met our gaze which almost froze our blood, our hearts failed us as we saw what used to be men now nothing but mere skeletons covered with filth and vermin. God protect us! He alone can bring us out of this awful mess.” Another Connecticut man peered inside the stockade to see the “horrors of horrors,” a scene that made his blood curdle. Ira Forbes, another brave member of the 16th Connecticut, had seen his fair share of horror. Antietam and Fredericksburg, with their bounties of death and destruction, seemed like mild prequels to what was inside a wooden stockade in rural Georgia. “Of all places of distress and misery and suffering which I have ever seen,” Forbes said, “this was the worst.”1 The experience of Civil War incarceration altered the lives of thousands of men. The stories of terror and loneliness, of physical and emotional trauma, bear out yet one more tragic chapter in the nation’s tale of war and woe. For this special issue of Civil War History, we have invited five leading scholars of Civil War prisons. Academic historians, public historians, and archeologists continue to collaborate to resurrect the stories of those who spent a transformative period locked away [End Page 295] from the outside world. Our hope is that this roundtable will shed light on the interdisciplinary nature of studying Civil War incarceration as well as provide some glimpses into where the field has come from and where it is headed. Chris Barr (CB) is a park ranger with the National Park Service at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. Previously, he was on the interpretive staff at Andersonville National Historic Site, where he developed a variety of educational programs both for school groups visiting the site and for teachers to use in the classroom. He also oversaw the interpretive operations of the park’s social media and Web presence, including the production of the popular Story in Stone series that highlighted burials in Andersonville National Cemetery. His research at Andersonville focused on the interplay between race and captivity, a topic he presented on at the 2014 Society of Civil War Historians Conference. David R. Bush (DB) is professor of anthropology at Heidelberg University and director of their Center for Historic and Military Archaeology. Bush has been involved with the investigations of the Johnson’s Island Civil War Military Prison site since 1988. Although trained in prehistoric archaeology, he has dedicated the past twenty-eight years to historic archaeology, bridging the historical record with those cultural materials left behind. His most recent book on Johnson’s Island, I Fear I Shall Never Leave This Island (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2011), details one man’s experience through letters to and from his wife, contextualized with other historical and archaeological data. Michael P. Gray (MG) is professor of history at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses in American history, including a special topics course on Civil War prisons and the home front. His first book, The Business of Captivity: Elmira and Its Civil War Prison (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2001), was a finalist for the Seaborg Award. Gray is finishing an edited volume, Civil War Prisons II: Trending Captivity in Blue and Gray, and working on a full-length treatment on the Johnson’s Island Prison. Gray has won internal and external grants relating to the prisons, including Civil War Prison Archeology: Team Teaching Public History on Johnson’s Island (2011) as well as the National Prisoner of War Grant, Andersonville, Georgia (2014). Evan Kutzler (EK) is assistant professor of U.S. and public history at Georgia Southwestern State University, ten miles south of Andersonville, the largest and most infamous Civil War prison. In addition to writing and teaching...

Географічний підхід в первісній археології на рубежі ХХ – ХХІ століть: від дисциплінарного плюралізму до трансдисциплінарності

Географічний підхід в первісній археології на рубежі ХХ – ХХІ століть: від дисциплінарного плюралізму до трансдисциплінарності

The origins of culture history in prehistoric archaeology: rethinking plausibility and disciplinary tradition

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the fundamental question of what makes archaeological accounts plausible. By using a worked example related to the rise of culture-historical approaches to archaeology during the late nineteenth century, I conclude that the conditions of plausibility have frequently been, and continue to be, opaque, requiring detailed analysis by practitioners.