Over the last few decades, western archaeology increasingly abandoned its __ivory tower__ in order to investigate, negotiate and develop its position and role in global society. The way in which we... Show moreOver the last few decades, western archaeology increasingly abandoned its __ivory tower__ in order to investigate, negotiate and develop its position and role in global society. The way in which we deal with other peoples views in the interpretation of archaeological materials, the way in which we integrate our narratives and practices with other heritage demands, and the way in which we deal with power differences in both these processes; all are challenging issues when undertaking archaeological research projects abroad. Sjoerd van der Linde brings forward an ethnographic and discursive analysis of two archaeological projects by the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University - notably the Deir Alla Joint Archaeological Project in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Santa Barbara Project in Cura_ao. Focusing on the ways and extents to which these projects are influenced by different policy and funding programs, and investigating the operational systems, social relationships and dominating values and discourses that determine project outcomes, he explores how archaeological research projects abroad work in their social context. Van der Linde offers a critical reflection upon the role and responsibility of archaeologists in relation to the values and demands of other actors in society. Show less
This study generates a new vision on El Chorro de Maíta, an exceptional archaeological context in northeast Cuba of great importance for the understanding of early colonial spaces in the Caribbean.... Show moreThis study generates a new vision on El Chorro de Maíta, an exceptional archaeological context in northeast Cuba of great importance for the understanding of early colonial spaces in the Caribbean. The research adopts a multidisciplinary approach which evaluates numerous lines of archaeological evidence and historical data. The theoretical basis is that domination plays a key role in the structuring of relationships among individuals, cultures and societies. Basic forms of domination are identified in El Chorro de Maíta, a village of indios encomendados: people forced to work for the Spaniards in exchange for religious and “civilizing” instruction. The cemetery, located in the village, reveals an ethnic diversity that includes indigenous people from different regions, mestizos and an African individual. A diversity of identities is also revealed, some constructed through adaptations to colonial life (‘indi ans’), and others through ethnic and cultural mixing. This ethnogenesis, as well as the syncretic peculiarities in some burials, and the very in-between nature of the cemetery itself as a colonial product where indigenous and Christian traditions are conserved and combined, represents a context of emergent sixteenth century transculturation, in which indians are active social agents fighting for their survival. Show less
Britons abroad is a contribution to the study of ancient mobility in the Roman Empire with the focus on the mobility of materials and people and the ways objects and people interact dialectically... Show moreBritons abroad is a contribution to the study of ancient mobility in the Roman Empire with the focus on the mobility of materials and people and the ways objects and people interact dialectically when brought to a new environment. This study looks at Britons who, voluntarily or forcedly, moved overseas in the period of the first to third centuries AD and identifies the ways one can use to trace their mobility. It also explores the changes in the personal and communal identification as expressed by Britons, who settled abroad, and tries to locate a unified element in the (ethnic) identities when compared to those people who stayed put with those who migrated. The exploration of ‘Britishness’ abroad in the Roman Empire is set out on a variety of levels: individual (personal migration from Britain) and communal (the occurrence of British military units abroad); human mobility and mobility of artefacts; movement of British-born and Continental-born to and from Britain. This research approaches the study of mobility and social changes in moved communities through a province-by-province study of archaeological sites and their assemblages but is not limited to the physical borders of the Roman Empire. Show less
This study wants to help Central Italy claim its place in Bronze Age studies and make a crossover between landscape and network approaches in archaeology. It starts from a methodological... Show moreThis study wants to help Central Italy claim its place in Bronze Age studies and make a crossover between landscape and network approaches in archaeology. It starts from a methodological consideration of archaeological synthesis in Bronze Age studies. Approaching landscapes as networks of places, this study advocates a data-rich form of synthesis of Bronze Age trajectories, one that avoids a selective focus on particular places. This data-rich synthesis of the Early Bronze Age in Central Italy takes all types of place making up cultural landscapes and social networks into account, in this case metalwork deposition, burial, cave use and settlement patterns. Following changing relationships between all of these places, network changes are charted and substantiated from the Copper Age to the Middle Bronze Age. What Central Italy offers to Bronze Age studies, is the emergence of metallurgical spheres based on regional copper sources at the transition from copper to bronze metallurgy. Therefore the focus lies on metalwork-related network changes that can be situated in the historical context of late Bell Beaker networks and, subsequently, the introduction of true bronze metallurgy in the form of Vollgriffdolche in the context of Early Bronze Age networks. The latter highlight the integration of distinctive metallurgical spheres into a single, larger Central Italian sphere, in the overall context of network changes at the Early-Middle Bronze Age transition. Early Bronze Age trajectories paved the way for the full integration of Central Italy in supra-regional connectivity in the Middle Bronze Age, fulfilling the condition of possibility of its strategic position between Europe and the Mediterranean. This study wants to help Central Italy claim its place in Bronze Age studies and make a crossover between landscape and network approaches in archaeology. It starts from a methodological consideration of archaeological synthesis in Bronze Age studies. Approaching landscapes as networks of places, this study advocates a data-rich form of synthesis of Bronze Age trajectories, one that avoids a selective focus on particular places. This data-rich synthesis of the Early Bronze Age in Central Italy takes all types of place making up cultural landscapes and social networks into account, in this case metalwork deposition, burial, cave use and settlement patterns. Following changing relationships between all of these places, network changes are charted and substantiated from the Copper Age to the Middle Bronze Age. What Central Italy offers to Bronze Age studies, is the emergence of metallurgical spheres based on regional copper sources at the transition from copper to bronze metallurgy. Therefore the focus lies on metalwork-related network changes that can be situated in the historical context of late Bell Beaker networks and, subsequently, the introduction of true bronze metallurgy in the form of Vollgriffdolche in the context of Early Bronze Age networks. The latter highlight the integration of distinctive metallurgical spheres into a single, larger Central Italian sphere, in the overall context of network changes at the Early-Middle Bronze Age transition. Early Bronze Age trajectories paved the way for the full integration of Central Italy in supra-regional connectivity in the Middle Bronze Age, fulfilling the condition of possibility of its strategic position between Europe and the Mediterranean. Show less
Patterns of paleomobility in the Caribbean were studied through an inter-disciplinary approach using a combination of archaeological, osteological, mortuary, and isotopic data. Samples of human... Show morePatterns of paleomobility in the Caribbean were studied through an inter-disciplinary approach using a combination of archaeological, osteological, mortuary, and isotopic data. Samples of human enamel from 360 individuals from multiple sites spanning a broad range of geographic and temporal contexts were analyzed for strontium isotope composition. These results were interpreted in reference to a database of strontium isotope variation for the Caribbean biosphere created through the analysis of 288 modern and archeological animal and plant samples. These combined strontium isotope datasets contributed to assessments of the spatial patterning of bioavailable strontium isotopes in the region and to estimations of the local range of isotope variation for the different site populations. These ranges were used to determine whether individuals were of local or nonlocal origin and were then analyzed to examine variability in patterns of migration, with a specific focus on testing possible relationships between residential origins and biological sex, age at death, chronology, grave goods, and dietary practices. Carbon and oxygen isotope analyses of dental enamel were also conducted on a subset of 50 individuals to assess their potential for provenance studies in the Caribbean region and for investigating the origins of suspected long-distance migrants. Show less
In this book the concept of mobility is explored for the archaeology of the Amazonian and Caribbean region. As a result of technological and methodological progress in archaeology, mobility has... Show moreIn this book the concept of mobility is explored for the archaeology of the Amazonian and Caribbean region. As a result of technological and methodological progress in archaeology, mobility has become increasingly visible on the level of the individual. However, as a concept it does not seem to fit with current approaches in Amazonian archaeology, which favour a move away from viewing small mobile groups as models for the deeper past. Instead of ignoring such ethnographic tyrannies, in this book they are considered to be essential for arriving at a different past. Viewing archaeological mobility as the sum of movements of both people and objects, the empirical part of Amotopoan Trails focuses on Amotopo, a small contemporary Trio village in the interior of Suriname. The movements of the Amotopoans are tracked and positioned in a century of Trio dynamics, ultimately yielding a recent archaeology of Surinamese-Trio movements for the Sipaliwini River basin (1907-2008). Alongside the construction of this archaeology, novel mobility concepts are introduced. They provide the conceptual footholds which enable the envisioning of mobility at various temporal scales, from a decade up to a century, the sequence of which has remained a blind spot in Caribbean and Amazonian archaeology. Show less
The specific time-count made up of the combination of 20 signs and 13 numbers (260 days), was one of the essential traits of ancient Mesoamerican civilisations. Interestingly, this calendar system... Show moreThe specific time-count made up of the combination of 20 signs and 13 numbers (260 days), was one of the essential traits of ancient Mesoamerican civilisations. Interestingly, this calendar system persists in some contemporary communities of Southern Mexico and Guatemala, where __daykeepers__, specialists in traditional healing and divination, still utilize it. The present study comprises a documentation of one of these calendars, among the Ayook people of Oaxaca, Mexico. The aim was to record the sacred count of the days, still managed effectively by women, along with its relationship to other culturally significant symbolism, for instance in the realm of ritual, divination, world vision perceptions, and origin narratives. This work expects to shed light on Mesoamerican calendars research, but also provide a respectful and dignified description of Ayook People__s heritage. Show less
The Caribbean archaeological record requires immediate attention and protection. Development and natural forces have impacted archaeological sites, destroying or severely damaging them. The... Show moreThe Caribbean archaeological record requires immediate attention and protection. Development and natural forces have impacted archaeological sites, destroying or severely damaging them. The precolumbian site of Lavoutte, located in northern Saint Lucia, has been known as a major Late Ceramic Age (A.D. 1000–1500) settlement since the 1960s, but it has been damaged over the past decades by both natural and human processes. Multidisciplinary field and laboratory methodologies were implemented during a rescue project at the site from 2009 to 2010. This paper presents the results of collaborative efforts between local and international organizations. The first goal was to demonstrate the importance of protection and rescue of endangered archaeological sites. Secondly, we aimed to show that by adopting a multidisciplinary approach including artifact analysis, bioarchaeology, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and geochemistry, severely damaged sites can be of significant informational value. Show less
General Introduction The reefs surrounding the Houtman Abrolhos in Western Australia were a notorious hazard to shipping in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (fig. 1). The Dutch East India... Show moreGeneral Introduction The reefs surrounding the Houtman Abrolhos in Western Australia were a notorious hazard to shipping in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (fig. 1). The Dutch East India Company (VOC) made sure to mark this island group on its maps and skippers had strict instructions to avoid coming into contact with these reefs. Even so, the VOC is known to have lost two ships here, Batavia and Zeewijk. Some of the castaways from both of these shipwrecks, although faced by many difficult challenges, managed to reach Batavia, the headquarters of the VOC in the Indies. Their journals and stories have survived in archives. Those who died or were murdered in the Houtman Abrolhos may have left their mark in other ways. Western Australia now possibly possesses a large number of Dutch human remains from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This paper is presented in two sections; the first concerns Batavia and the second focuses on Zeewijk. Each of these sections can be read independently. When Batavia wrecked on Morning Reef on 4 June 1629, its castaways soon spread out over the islands of the Wallabi Group. Depending on how many of the 200 deceased were buried, the islands may have preserved a significant number of human remains from the Batavia castaways. So far, only ten of these have been discovered and tentatively identified. This paper provides an estimate of how many graves may be found, where they could be and who they might belong to. Furthermore, it also lists those people who survived and whose human remains definitely will not be found. Finally, all of this information has been compiled into three databases - of all the murdered individuals (Appendix I), of all who died in Australian territory (Appendix II) and of all named individuals involved in the Batavia tragedy (Appendix III) - excerpts of which are included as appendixes. The information provided for each individual may be useful in identifying the human remains. In 1727, Zeewijk was wrecked on Half-Moon Reef in the Pelsaert Group. A large number of survivors would eventually build a seagoing vessel and successfully reach Batavia, but many died before the rescue. These castaways have also left their marks in the Houtman Abrolhos with camp sites and burial sites. This part of the project began with the construction of a database of all men who were (meant to be) on board Zeewijk and their fates (Appendix IV). As a result it has been possible to fill a number of gaps and put names to a number of deaths that until now had been anonymous. The paper focuses specifically on assessing how many of the Zeewijk's castaways may have been buried in the Houtman Abrolhos on Gun Island and on identifying these victims. In addition, it provides accurate crew lists for each section of the voyage and establishes a framework for further research into the individuals who lived aboard Zeewijk. Significant work has already been undertaken into researching both Batavia and Zeewijk: their wreck sites, land sites and the human remains of the castaways. Henrietta Drake-Brockman's Voyage to Disaster provided the first English translation of the journal of the Batavia's journey and her analysis of this journal led to the discovery of the wreck site. The journals have been researched and translated again by Marit van Huystee. Analyses of the victims, including forensic investigations, have been made by Bernadine Hunneybun, Juliette Pasveer, Daniel Franklin, Alistair Paterson, Len Freedman and others. Finally, the staff of the Western Australian Museum has compiled a large number of reports based on their investigations of Batavia and the associated sites over the years. Zeewijk has also been the focus of in depth research by the Western Australian Museum, most notably by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg. Translations of (segments of) the Zeewijk journals and documents have been made by Willem Timmers, Louis Zuiderbaan and Cornelis de Heer. Some of these projects have focused on the castaways and victims, creating lists or databases. However, all of these databases and lists were made using translations or transcripts as their sources. As such, errors (often based on the difficulty of reading the original handwriting or because of the lack of a uniform spelling) have crept in which have been taken over from list to list. Additionally, information that was - accidentally - omitted from these translations and transcripts is equally absent from these lists. To avoid falling into the same pitfalls, this work and the databases (which can be found in the appendixes) are based on the original documents. Studying the documents on microfilm or in high resolution photographs, the author was able to find new information, sort out mistakes and fill in a number of gaps. Show less
Drenth, E.; Meurkens, L.; Baetsen, S.; Bourgeois, Q.P.J.; Gijn, A.L. van; Haaster, H. van; ... ; Leeuwe, R. de 2012
