Cultural Formation Processes Research Articles

From the ground up. Depositional history, memory and materiality

Archaeologists often take stratigraphy for granted, using it for building chronologies, recognizing various natural and cultural formation processes, and understanding relations between features and settlements. But for the last few decades there has been a subtle shift in the way that we approach stratigraphy – in terms of both the kinds of techniques that can be applied (residue analyses, micromorphology, Harris matrices and so on) and the interpretive frameworks that can be employed. Perhaps it is not stratigraphy that we are talking about per se, but rather depositional practices – the many ways in which people make and alter archaeological deposits – in addition to the different interpretive frameworks that we apply to these physical accumulations.

“Across distances and differences'’: Aboriginal pilgrimage at Lac Ste. Anne

The Lac Ste. Anne pilgrimage in northern Alberta is the largest annual pan‐Indian spiritual event in the country, exceptional in its longevity and high annual attendance numbers. This exploratory case study examines the pilgrimage as specialized leisure tourism through accounts recorded in mass media, oral histories, and scholarship since the mid‐1990s. Research questions address the internal level of the appeal and functions of the pilgrimage for participants and, second, the recent impact of external events and social conditions. A thematic analysis is based on qualitative interpretation of recurring topics including aspects of place, healing or wellness, and sense of community within and across divisions of ethnicity and cultural identity. As the pilgrimage institution undergoes a shift from Catholic to Aboriginal control and develops new management strategies, it continues to mediate flexible processes of cultural continuity, identity formation, and social cohesion with implications for Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal relationships beyond its boundaries.

The Making of American Working-Class Literature

This essay traces a line of American literary history that emerges from the lives of workers. Starting with early ballads and songs from indentured servants and enslaved blacks and concluding with contemporary multicultural writing, it documents a process of cultural formation that is embedded in class relationships and struggles. Events in labor history and conditions of unsafe work become the subjects for cultural expression as poems, songs, stories, and novels at the time of the event and as reclaimed cultural/labor antecedents by future generations. The writing shows a reciprocal worker visibility across time and across race, gender, and ethnic differences. The continuous thread is struggle – for physical and material sustainability – and for the right of human expression. Drawing on the chronology of working-class writing from the anthology, American Working-Class Literature (co-edited with Nicholas Coles, Oxford University Press), the author shows how American working-class literature is at once a literary line, a body of work, and a labor line, the work of bodies.

Courtliness and its Trujamanes: Manufacturing Chivalric Imagery across the Castilian–Grenadine Frontier

AbstractThe comparative analysis of the "Hall of Justice" ceilings and several fourteenth-century Castilian courtly artefacts—above all, the Crónica Troyana de Alfonso XI (escorial, h.i.6)—provides suggestive insights for thinking about the threads of meaning associated with chivalric imagery in medieval Castile and Granada. Moreover, tracing the different modes of "Iberization" of a repertoire of motifs traditionally considered "northern" or "western," in both thematic and formal terms, as they are incorporated into the ethnic and cultural plurality of the Iberian Peninsula will serve as an opportunity for scholarship to re-examine the processes of cultural formation, allowing us to avoid simplistic labels and rigid parameters. Translation as a paradigm for artistic creation can be useful in this task, since it can help us to make sense, not only of the singularity of Hispanic achievements, but also of the tensions perceivable in the Peninsular dynamics of artistic production.

Houselot Refuse Disposal and Geochemistry at a Late 19th Century Hacienda Village in Yucatán, Mexico

In the 19th century, an increasing percentage of the rural, Maya-descent population in Yucatán, Mexico, became tied to hacienda estates through legally sanctioned debt peonage. Recent investigations at Hacienda Tabi, a pre-revolutionary sugar plantation in the peninsula's Puuc region, shed light on non-architectural domestic spaces occupied by debt peons. Spatial distributions of ceramic debris and soil phosphorus concentrations in four houselots approximate models of waste management in contemporary domestic settings. The size sorting of inorganic refuse, in particular, is a consistent indicator of patio zones. The data suggest that houselot structure under conditions of forced labor was not appreciably different from what has been documented for independent subsistence farmers in Mesoamerica. Nevertheless, discard patterns at Tabi suggest that some lots were more intensively maintained than others, and this variation may be related to population density or workforce stratification. The site's good state of preservation, resulting in part from a relatively short period of occupation and a rapid abandonment event, facilitates the study of cultural formation processes in domestic contexts of the northern Maya Lowlands.

Plástica e anonimato: modernidade e tradição em Lucio Costa e Mário de Andrade

Há uma analogia entre o antiindividualismo uniforme e estandartizado da arquitetura moderna e o caráter anônimo e coletivo da arte popular. Tal percepção, formulada por Mário de Andrade em 1928, serve de base para a equação "modernidade-patrimônio" montada por Lucio Costa a partir do final dos anos 1930. Porém, o reconhecimento posterior da "legitimidade da intenção plástica", por parte de Lucio Costa, afastará progressivamente as leituras de ambos acerca do papel da arte na sociedade, e, a reboque, o sentido que dão ao processo de formação cultural brasileiro.

Tecnologia da informação, cultura e poder na Polícia Militar: uma análise interpretativa

No ambiente competitivo, a tecnologia da informação (TI) emerge como elemento essencial para o êxito organizacional. Tal processo não deve ser encarado apenas como "adaptação" das estruturas internas das organizações ao ambiente, pois atinge elementos mais complexos, como os valores, a cultura e as relações de podernas organizações. Nesse contexto, este artigo, considerando a tecnologia da informação como elemento deinovação tecnológica, tem por objetivo analisar as relações entre o uso dessa tecnologia, a cultura e as relações de poder numa organização de caráter militar. Para isso, inicialmente, são apresentadas algumas considerações a respeito da TI e dos processos de formação da cultura e do poder nas organizações. As análises contribuíram para compreender as relações entre a TI, a cultura e as relações de poder, por meio de significadoscompartilhados e expressados, principalmente, através de símbolos, rituais e mitos. As relações de poder apresentaram mudanças no sentido das responsabilidades distribuídas, das interações comunicativas e da hierarquia (informal). Quanto à cultura, esta sinaliza para valores compartilhados em termos de inovação e flexibilidade.

Cultural Site Formation Processes in Maritime Archaeology: Disaster Response, Salvage and Muckelroy 30 Years on

Thirty years after Muckelroy's seminal 1976 paper on shipwreck site formation, research on the cultural processes which contribute to the creation and modification of shipwrecks remains limited. It is proposed that by adopting a process-oriented framework, we can integrate and synthesize the documentary, oral and archaeological evidence of human response to shipwreck into a structure which parallels the physical progress of the disaster. Possible cultural responses to shipwreck are considered, from pre-voyage planning through to post-impact salvage, including physical correlations potentially visible in the archaeological record. © 2006 The Author

A Processual Investigation of a Thule Whale Bone House, Somerset Island, Arctic Canada

In 1991, the authors excavated a Thule Inuit whale bone house at site PaJs-13 on southeast Somerset Island, Arctic Canada. Detailed analyses of house stratigraphy provide useful data for the study of the cultural and natural formation processes relating to the feature. Based on our analyses, and following McCartney (), six stages are recognized: 1) raw material procurement, 2) house construction, 3) house use and maintenance, 4) house abandonment, 5) dismantling of super-structure, and 6) post-occupation. Several characteristics of the house structure and the associated artifact assemblage indicate that this house probably functioned, at least during the later period of occupation, as a karigi [plural kariyit ], or ceremonial house.

Chasing the Classical Farmstead: Assessing the Formation and Signature of Rural Settlement in Greek Landscape Archaeology

Over the past 20 years, the classical farmstead has become an essential categorical term in the literature of Greek survey archaeology. This paper traces the development of the category 'farmstead' out of the conceptual paradigm of settlement archaeology. It is argued that the tendency to categorize classical-period artifact clusters as -farmsteads-, without understanding the role of cultural processes in forming the archaeological record, creates a false dichotomy between 'site' and 'off-site' scatter. This paper applies a model of cultural formation processes developed in household archaeology in the Americas to the formation of domestic artifact assemblages in classical Greece. It presents a variety of literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence from 5th- and 4th-century Athens to delineate the cultural formation processes operative in both town and country in that society. This paper argues that classical farmsteads and landscapes represent accumulated debris generated by repeated behaviors of habitation, discard, recycling, and abandonment. The typical -farmsteads- recognized in intensive survey represent only a narrow range of the signatures of habitation for the classical period; low density scatters of pottery and tiles, in particular, represent a signature of habitation that archaeologists have rarely interpreted as evidence for habitation.

Dynamic landscapes, artifact taphonomy, and landuse modeling in the western Mediterranean

AbstractThe Polop Alto valley, in eastern Spain, is characteristic of many Mediterranean landscapes. It has been sporadically reoccupied over the course of at least 80 kyr. Its landforms have undergone various geomorphic processes resulting from late Quaternary environmental fluctuations. During the Holocene, the valley has been modified by millennia of extensive land clearance, cultivation, and terracing. As a result, the evidence for human activity and landuse is a cumulative, but discontiguous palimpsest of the most durable behavioral residues—primarily stone and ceramic artifacts—whose distributions have been affected by diverse natural and cultural formation processes. Human occupation of the Polop Alto spans the evolution of morphologically modern humans and the replacement of foraging economies by farming, arguably the two most significant biobehavioral transitions for human life today. To better understand the changes in human landuse that accompanied these important transitions, we have employed an integrated suite of techniques aimed at unmixing the diverse formation processes that have affected Polop Alto landscapes and material culture. These include patch‐based survey methods, photogrammetry, GIS‐based spatial analysis, and using artifact morphology and distribution to assess artifact taphonomy. This has permitted us to develop a diachronic settlement model for the 80 kyr of human occupation in the Polop Alto. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Restless corpses: ‘secondary burial’ in the Babenberg and Habsburg dynasties

The historically documented burial samples of the Babenberg and Habsburg dynasties allow a detailed analysis of the circumstances that led to dismemberment, evisceration, disturbance, exhumation and reburial over a millennium. The results may provide deeper and more broadly applicable insights into relevant cultural formation processes of élite burials.

Developing Cross-cultural Communicative Competence in Pre-service ESL/EFL Teachers: A Critical Perspective

Pre-service teachers need a critical cross-cultural communicative competence in English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL). The view is supported here by the findings of a research project that examined the efforts made to develop cross-cultural communicative competence in students enrolled in an M.A course in Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). The research focused on the conceptualisations of culture utilised within the programme, the professional and cultural identity formation processes that appear to be occurring, and the characterisation of students' analyses of power relations and their own position within these relations (Sehlaoui, 1999). Based on students' perspectives, beliefs, and attitudes as described in Sehlaoui (1999), data-based critical pedagogical implications and classroom activities are suggested.

Conceptualising Landscape

The emphasis in landscape history has been on site investigations rather than upon the development of strong theoretical foundations. The dominance of empirical studies is not necessarily to be regretted and the loosely-structured interdisciplinary nature of landscape history offers protection against distortions which might damage a more coherently organised and controlled discipline. The conceptual content of landscape history is greater than might be imagined and several well-established conceptualisations are explored. Thereafter, attention is focussed upon other conceptualisations which are of a more implicit nature, including the ways in which practitioners have recognised and described landscapes of different types. The complexities encountered in landscape studies and the numerous different forms of expertise that are employed in attempts to elucidate the processes of cultural landscape formation argue that any attempts rigidly to organise the contents and perspectives of landscape history must be doomed to fail. Appreciation should be given to the strengths that derive from the looser, uncentralised nature of this 'interdisciplinary discipline'.

Mort Creek Site Complex, Curtis Coast: Site Report

This paper reports the results of excavations conducted at the Mort Creek Site Complex, located in the Rodds Peninsula Section of Eurimbula National Park on the southern Curtis Coast, Central Queensland. Cultural and natural marine shell deposits were excavated and analysed as part of an investigation of natural and cultural site formation processes in the area. Analyses (including foraminifera studies) demonstrate a complex site formation history, with interfingering of cultural and natural shell deposits (cheniers) in some areas of the site. Radiocarbon dating indicates that Aboriginal occupation of the site was initiated before 2,000 cal BP, overlapping with dates obtained for natural chenier deposits.

Beyond the identification of formation processes: Behavioral inference based on traces left by cultural formation processes

Formation processes are generally considered as a negative factor for behavioral inference in archaeology. The concept of formation processes, however, can potentially be far more useful for behavioral inference in archaeology than simply identifying spurious variability in the archaeological record. Physical traces left by cultural formation processes convey a certain kind of behavioral information which may not be otherwise available. Variables related to site occupation, such as the occupation span, the number of occupation episodes, and the location of activities, can be inferred from characteristics of refuse deposits, or “refuse structure.”

Proton magnetometer investigations of burned rock middens in west-central Texas: Clues to formation processes

Abstract Burned rock middens are a common type of archaeological feature in Texas west of the Balcones Fault zone, and occur in several different morphologic variants with overlapping spatial and temporal ranges. Although these features are generally recognized as the remains of aboriginal food processing activities, many questions remain regarding the specifics of burned rock midden functions and formation processes. Proton magnetometer investigations of four extant burned rock middens in west-central Texas demonstrate that variations in physical midden morphology are accompanied by consistent differences in the morphology of magnetic anomalies generated by the features. It is argued that this consistent variation reflects differences in the cultural formation processes responsible for the various midden types. The nature of this variation is documented and tentative interpretations of respective formation processes are advanced for specific examples of two different morphologic types of burned rock middens.

Identification of Cultural Site Formation Processes through Microdebitage Analysis

Methods for recognition of site formation processes are slowly being developed. Ethnoarchaeological data on refuse disposal suggest that comparison of the distribution of large and small objects across a site may be an interpretive method because size is often a factor in determining whether an object becomes primary or secondary refuse. To test this in the field, I carried out microdebitage analysis on soil samples from a stone circle site in the Northern Plains. Comparison of the microdebitage and macroflake distributions indicates the utility of microdebitage analysis for study of use and disposal in lithic tool manufacture areas.

The biological foundation of culture

The process of culture formation As instructor in a graduate course in the history of science based on the study of the original works of the leading pioneers of science since its origins in Greek antiquity. I found it advisable to resort to an educational stratagem that served to stimulate the student’s interest in the subject. This artifice proved of significance beyond its original motive. The stratagem required that students look about them and select a dozen man-made items, name the inventor, place and date of origin, the reception accorded each, and the rate and extent of their diffusion. Since each student had to list twelve objects and also six concepts such as magnetism, gravity, hell, arteries, acceleration, ballads, dadaism, etc., each class produced quite a list of man’s cultural artifacts ranging from bricks, glass, cotton, buttons, paper, to electric lights, zippers, the alphabet, movable type, money, and dozens of conceptual terms. Among the inventors most frequently cited were Edison, Eli Whitney, Alexander Graham Bell, Ampere, Faraday, Gutenberg, Darwin, Shakespeare, Newton, Pasteur, Freud, Jonas Salk, and other prominent Olympians of modern science and the humanities. Each new school year enriched the pile of answer sheets although more than ninety percent of the items named lacked names of inventors, dates, and places of origin. Yet, what I learned served my purposes well enough because all participants came to realize that their unawareness of past gifts and benefactors of humanity revealed a universal weakness in human nature. It soon became apparent that essentially we were studying the historical growth of a culture under more or less verifiable conditions. Anthropologists have studied primitive cultures as they had found them, hence largely in the absence of sequential development. They could seldom record the mode of origin and spread of innovations or rites, or the group’s attitude toward the influx of one artifact or another or of concepts from neighboring cultures. In our own case, it seemed we were clearly studying certain aspects of our culture from within, which process could enable us to see phases of culture growth which conventional study had not observed. Our own had ample records of the conditions that prevailed at the time of an invention’s birth and its spread, of its psychological and social impact, of its acceptance or the resistance to it, and its fusion with established practices or beliefs. The lesson we garnered from our data was that every element of a culture is the brainchild of gifted individuals as a rule crystallized by the mind of a uniquely gifted one. Some modifications or additions may be the achievements of no particularly outstanding

Cultural and Natural Formation Processes of a Historic Inuit Snow Dwelling Site, Somerset Island, Arctic Canada

Analysis of the remains of a historic Inuit winter site, in conjunction with information supplied by one of the original inhabitants, demonstrates that despite post-occupational disturbance in the form of snow melt and associated downslope movement, the original internal site structure was maintained. Specific activity loci are identified for two snow houses, one occupied during early winter and the other during late winter. Changes in artifact and faunal element characteristics associated with the two dwellings are shown to reflect adjustments in various hunting and domestic activities from early to late winter.