【Archaeology】An Annotated WWII Underwater Archaeology Bibliography
With four decades of WWII underwater archaeology publications, the time is nigh to create a comprehensive bibliography and conduct an analysis of tren... [more]
【Archaeology】Dirt in the Wounds: Confronting Hard Histories through Public Community Archaeology in Boston
The majority of Boston's residents are minorities. These minority residents confront the ongoing effects of racism, including the hard histories of e... [more]
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The not so peaceful civilization: A review of Maya war
The first Maya encountered by Europeans in the early sixteenth century were exceedingly warlike, but by the 1940s the earlier Classic Maya (AD 250-1000) were widely perceived as an inordinately peaceful civilization. Today, in sharp contrast, conflict is
Raw material quality and prepared core technologies in Northeast Asia
The design and assembly of lithic tool kits is mediated by a number of factors including the abundance and quality of raw materials available. In general, low raw material abundance and high raw material quality are thought to lead to formal tool designs,
Investigation of a Romano-British rural ritual in Bedford, England
The Romano-British cemetery at Kempston, a suburb of Bedford, was excavated in 1992 by Bedfordshire County Archaeology Service and revealed 12 individuals who had been decapitated and 12 who were placed in the prone position. These practices are a regular
Pottery abrasion and the preparation of African grains
The lack of botanical remains from farming sites in Africa remains a serious archaeological problem. This paper discusses how the indirect evidence of pottery may help to evaluate grain farming in African archaeology.
The running sands of time: Archaeology and the short-term
Social archaeology encounters a fundamental theoretical dilemma. The dynamic flow of social life is speedy. As the study of the past has increasingly shifted away from the elites, towards unravelling the ordinary patterns of everyday living, we are increa
Girling the girl and boying the boy: The production of adulthood in ancient Mesoamerica
Drawing on the work of Judith Butler, I analyse practices through which lifecycle transitions were marked on the bodies of sixteenth-century Aztec children. Because the production of disciplined adults was socially so significant, it was also profoundly c
From the cradle to the grave: Age organization and the early Anglo-Saxon burial rite
This is a study of the complex age organization that characterizes the early Anglo-Saxon burial rite. It involves an analysis of the grave goods, and wider aspects of the burial rite, demonstrating how the mortuary realm was active in the construction of
Metaphors, monuments and texts: The life course in Roman culture
The life course in ancient Rome is investigated in this paper to highlight how individual action was explained in relationship to the expectations of a person's age in relationship to their gender. A reconstruction of the life history for both females an
Cycles of life and death: Narrative homology and archaeological realities
Egyptian data speak to modern interpreters in many ways; through the rich iconographic repertoire, the materiality of houses and tombs and through the vast corpus of writings left to us. At the New Kingdom village of Deir el Medina (c. 1500-1100 BC) each
Outside of life:: Traditions of infant burial in Ireland from cillin to cist
The infant forms an ambiguous class of individual, located on the periphery of normal lifecycle events. This is often reflected in the character and choice of burial location. During the Historic period in Ireland the separate burial of unbaptised infants
Rings of life: The role of early metalwork in mediating the gendered life course
This paper explores the changing role of early metalwork in mediating age-gender dimensions of social identity in the Copper Age of the Carpathian Basin. Taking a life course approach, it suggests that metal was used to convey difference within exceptiona
Life rhythms and floor sequences: Excavating time in rural Rajasthan and Neolithic Catalhoyuk
Ethnographic data from rural Rajasthan in India demonstrate that the temporal rhythms of human life articulate with changes in the nature of village floors. Various temporal cycles, including the annual cycle, the lifecycle of the individual and the devel
Neanderthal lifecycles: Developmental and social phases in the lives of the last archaics
Neanderthal lives were not easy, and, given the levels of physical exertion they seem to have experienced habitually, bringing them often into contact with physical trauma, it would not be surprising if such phenomena played a major role in the way in whi
Ceramic tradition in the African forest: Characterisation analysis of ancient and modern pottery fro
This paper aims to explain the major characteristics of pottery making in the Ituri rainforest during the last millennium AD by identifying and comparing technological aspects of archaeological and ethnographic assemblages with the primary goal of relatin
The challenge of 'technological choices' for materials science approaches in archaeology
Recently several anthropological and sociological studies have interpreted technologies as cultural choices that are determined as much by local perceptions and the social context as any material constraints or purely functional criteria. Using the exampl