The recent focus on methods of osseous material transformation in the study of Upper Paleolithic technologies has shown that approaches to these materials vary between phases of the Upper ...Paleolithic. In the absence of the groove-and-splinter technique of blank extraction first widely documented in the Gravettian, production of ivory, bone, and antler blanks in the Aurignacian relied on processes of splitting and percussive fracture. The technological treatment of bone and antler in Aurignacian contexts has benefitted from renewed attention, but ivory processing and blank-production remains poorly understood in spite of the unique place that ivory occupies in many Aurignacian assemblages. In order to clarify the diagnostic features of ivory debitage, a series of experiments was conducted to produce ivory flakes under varying knapping conditions. These diagnostic features are products of the application of force to the complex internal morphology of proboscidean tusks, as explained in this article. Improved criteria for the identification of ivory flakes and manufacturing byproducts in the archaeological record are presented, and are illustrated with examples from two Aurignacian sites well known for ivory processing: Abri Castanet (Dordogne, France) and Hohle Fels Cave (Swabian Jura, Germany). A better understanding of ivory structure and improved identification of the products of ivory debitage in the Aurignacian will aid in the recovery and analysis of ivory artifacts and further efforts to reconstruct technological approaches to this complex material.
•Experimental reproduction of ivory flakes with several methods of knapping is described.•Characteristics diagnostic of ivory debitage by percussion are presented.•These characteristics are explained in terms of ivory's complex internal structure.•Archaeological evidence of ivory knapping from two well known Aurignacian sites is provided.
The foundations of more pronounced forms of material inequality that developed in later societies lie in the material wealth generated by earlier societies, like the hunter-gatherers of the Upper ...Palaeolithic, and the structures for wealth transmission and circulation that they developed. Additionally, the extent to which we recognize wealth in the archaeological record depends on our definitions and understandings of wealth. Using the ivory beads of the Early Aurignacian in southwestern France as an example, I argue that bead-production was a strategy for generating material wealth that served as a commodity in the networks of relational wealth that were essential to survival. Drawing on the classes of wealth defined by Bowles et al. (2010), I present a model for understanding the conditions that drove bead-production in terms of material and relational wealth. Based on Spielmann’s (2002) framework for ritual production in small-scale societies, I argue that an emphasis on acquisition and display (in forms such as hoards/caches, burials, and monuments) presents only a partial picture of how wealth may have functioned in Ice-Age societies. Finally, turning to the broader contexts of Aurignacian ivory beads, I evaluate the evidence for social complexity in the Early Aurignacian of southwestern France based on the currently documented archaeological evidence. I argue that wealth was central to the success of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, that this wealth must be evaluated in terms appropriate to small-scale mobile societies, and that understanding the nature and function of wealth in these contexts is critical to tracing the formation of more pronounced forms of wealth and inequality in later contexts.
The ethnological collecting expeditions conducted by museums in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have had impacts on source communities and on the composition and interpretation of museum ...collections that have been critically examined from a number of perspectives. Although categories such as ethnicity and tribal affiliation are now understood to be situational, relational, and contingent, systems of classification in museums remain in large part rigid and immutable. Concrete approaches to addressing these issues in museum collections have been slower to emerge. This article presents an approach to the description of objects, influenced by attribute analysis and thick description, that has the potential to make salient information about museum collections more accessible to source communities. With two case studies (parfleches and moccasins from the Great Plains collections at the American Museum of Natural History), this article demonstrates how collaborative object‐centered inquiry can help to disentangle objects from historical systems of classification in museum settings and “remobilize” them. Moving beyond classification to document the cultural practices documented in historical material culture can aid in reconstructing the complex movements of people, objects, and ideas in the past.
The organization of beadproduction during the Aurignacian has significant implications for understanding the role of these artifacts in Upper Palaeolithic societies, and the evolution of symbolic ...behavior and social organization more generally. For this special issue on “The Role of Art in Prehistoric Societies,” I present a case study of Early Aurignacian beads in ivory and soapstone, and related production debris, from four sites (Abri Castanet, Abri de la Souquette, Grotte des Hyènes at Brassempouy, Grotte d’Isturitz) in the Aquitaine region of France. The data from the case study are used to evaluate three hypothetical models of production and exchange in the given regional context, and are evaluated in terms of the current, common criteria for the recognition of craft specialization in the archaeological record. Based on these criteria, these artifacts could reasonably be considered the products of specialist producers. I argue that the data presented here indicates two possibilities in the interpretation of prehistoric production-organization: either the presence of craft specialization in the Early Upper Palaeolithic can be accepted, or the criteria for recognizing specialization in the archaeological record should be revised. In either case, there is a demonstrated need for the refinement of models and vocabularies related to production organization in small-scale societies that better reflect the complex patterns apparent in the ethnographic and archaeological records. In addressing these issues, it is necessary to reconsider many basic assumptions about production, wealth, and exchange in Palaeolithic contexts, the perceived limitations of the archaeological record, and thenature and the antiquity of what is considered “complex” social organization. This case study and the arguments that follow are not intended to be a definitive statement on craft specialization and production organization in the Upper Palaeolithic. They are presented as an example of the kind of data-driven modeling of production and exchange in the Early Upper Palaeolithic that can serve as a concrete basis for the reconsideration of production and exchange in these contexts.
Qu’est-ce que l’ivoire ? Le terme « ivoire » étant généralement appliqué aux matériaux dentaires des animaux avec une connotation commerciale, de nombreux spécialistes réservent le terme « ivoire ...vrai » aux défenses des éléphants et des proboscidiens aujourd’hui disparus. Comparées aux molaires des mêmes espèces, ces incisives spécialisées possèdent des propriétés chimiques et structurales uniques, ayant des implications pour l’identification, les analyses et l’interprétation des objets archéologiques façonnés en ivoire vrai. Nous donnons ici une définition de l’« ivoire vrai » et une vue d’ensemble de ses caractéristiques chimiques et structurales, ainsi que des critères diagnostiques pouvant être utilisés en vue de son identification.
What is ivory? Though the term “ivory” has been generally applied to animal dental materials of commercial value, many specialists reserve the term “true ivory” for the enlarged incisors of elephants and extinct proboscideans. Compared even to the check teeth of the same species, these specialized incisors have chemical and structural properties that are unique, and which have substantial implications for the identification, analysis and interpretation of archaeological artifacts made of true ivory. Below, we present a definition of “true ivory” and an overview of its chemical and structural characteristics and the diagnostic features that can be used in its identification.
Here we present an overview of the personal ornaments of the Swabian Aurignacian and the Early Aurignacian sites of south-western France made from mammoth ivory. The production sequences for the ...serial manufacture of beads from these sites are quite similar. While the Swabian sites have yielded numerous different types of beads with a focus of the double-perforated bead, the nearly exclusive use of one bead-type, the perle en forme de panier, is striking at the sites of south-western France. Following the presentation of major inventories of ivory ornaments in the two regions concerned, we discuss potential factors underlying both the differences and the similarities we observe in these assemblages.
Les chaînes opératoires pour la production en série des perles en ivoire de l’Aurignacien du Jura Souabe en Allemagne et de l’Aurignacien ancien du sud-ouest de la France sont similaires, même si les résultats finaux sont distincts entre ces deux régions. Les sites du Jura Souabe ont livré de nombreux types de perles, parmi lesquelles celles à double-perforation sont les plus fréquentes, alors que dans le sud-ouest de la France, l’utilisation des perles en forme de panier est presque exclusive. Suite à la présentation des riches inventaires d’objets de parure en ivoire issus de ces deux régions, nous discuterons des facteurs susceptibles d’expliquer les similitudes et les différences que nous avons observées entre ces deux groupes.
American law perfected the institution of slavery over time by constructing legislation that governed slave ownership and bound the concept of enslavement to race and color. North Carolina's slave ...code legislated that "every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over negro slaves of what opinion and religion soever," which underscored skin color as the defining attribute of a slave. The American slave code effectively made enslaved persons chattel, human property that can be bought and sold, and used for all industries and labor. The slave code also specified that enslaved persons could not own any property, and, as property, enslaved persons were inheritable. It also stipulated that the children of enslaved mothers would remain enslaved, regardless of the father's status. The political economy of slavery necessitated legal documentation of property exchange in order to track ownership or possession. Enslaved people, stamped as property, thus show up in various legal documents, including but are not limited to: wills, bills of sale, ship manifest, various types of deeds, payment of a debt, contracts, corporation and company reports, and affidavits.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
CEKLJ, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Among the earliest Homo sapiens societies in Eurasia, the Aurignacian phase of the Early Upper Paleolithic, approximately 40 000–30 000 years ago, mammoth ivory assumed great social and economic ...significance, and was used to create hundreds of personal ornaments as well as the earliest known works of three‐dimensional figurative art in the world. This paper reports on the results of micro‐PIXE/PIGE analyses of mammoth‐ivory artifacts and debris from five major sites of Aurignacian ivory use. Patterns of variable fluorine content indicate regionally distinctive strategies of ivory procurement that correspond to apparent differences in human–mammoth interactions. Preserved trace elements (Br, Sr, Zn) indicate that differences at the regional level are applicable to sourcing Paleolithic ivory at the regional scale.
Ivory procurement in Paleolithic societies: Non‐invasive micro‐PIXE/PIGE analyses of Paleolithic ivory coupled with archaeological data may provide added support to studies of human behavior. The assessment of ivory preservation and differentiation of ivory source at the regional level provide new insights into the behaviors of Europe's earliest Homo sapiens societies, including regionally specific patterns in the procurement and use of mammoth ivory.
