IN MEMORIAM Conrad, Cyler
Asian perspectives (Honolulu),
01/2023, Volume:
62, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
An obituary for archaeologist Terry T. Marsh, who died on July 30, 2021 at the age of 83, is presented. An archaeologist who was as ubiquitous as he was mystic, Marsh had participated in excavations ...and research at some of the best-known sites in mainland Southeast Asia during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although he published only a few archaeological reports, his interest, kindness, friendship, and dedication made a significant contribution to the knowledge of Thailand and mainland Southeast Asian prehistory.
Rupert Till at the University of Huddersfield, UK, studies the sonic properties of caves containing prehistoric paintings. As he addresses a conference in Malta on the archaeology of sound, he talks ...about the hum of Stonehenge, acoustic fingerprinting and simulating primeval concerts in the dark.
Kaiser paints a fascinating picture of gender and power in early twentieth-century archaeology in this examination of the 1931 excavation season at Olynthus, Greece--a season which ushered a sea ...change in the study of material culture and became a nexus of egregious plagiarism.
Summary
The 2021 film, The Dig, stimulated much interest in discovering more about Peggy Piggott, the archaeologist who first ‘struck gold’ at Sutton Hoo. Piggott was a leading British prehistorian, ...who produced over sixty published works for the field. Here we examine her early life and career, her training with the Curwens and the Wheelers, her marriage to Stuart Piggott, and her recognized expertise that led to her joining the Sutton Hoo team in 1939. During WWII, she established the modern standard for barrow excavation, and in 1944 was recognized by the Society of Antiquaries for her ‘devotion to the study of archaeology’. Piggott provides a lens through which we consider the careers of 1930s women archaeologists – those factors enabling access to archaeology (class, wartime opportunity) and factors that limited progress (lack of a degree, marriage).
Opinions and practices in regard to public participation in archaeology vary widely in different countries. While so-called 'community digs' and other forms of participation are very common in the UK ...and volunteering opportunities can be easily found on the internet, the situation in Germany and Italy is different. Although public participation does exist in the two continental countries, it is not as widespread as in the UK, because of various different obstacles, e.g. permit systems. To identify the challenges that archaeologists have to face when working with the public as well as to better understand professional archaeologists' attitudes towards public participation and see whether different laws and policies have shaped them, a survey was conducted amongst British, German and Italian archaeologists.
Could archaeologists benefit contemporary cultures and be a factor in solving world problems? Can archaeologists help individuals? Can archaeologists change the world? These questions form the root ...of “archaeology activism” or “activist archaeology”: using archaeology to advocate for and affect change in contemporary communities.   Archaeologists currently change the world through the products of their archaeological research that contribute to our collective historical and cultural knowledge. Their work helps to shape and reshape our perceptions of the past and our understanding of written history. Archaeologists affect contemporary communities through the consequences of their work as they become embroiled in controversies over negotiating the past and the present with native peoples. Beyond the obvious economic contributions to local communities caused by heritage tourism established on the research of archaeologists at cultural sites, archaeologists have begun to use the process of their work as a means to benefit the public and even advocate for communities.   In this volume, Stottman and his colleagues examine the various ways in which archaeologists can and do use their research to forge a partnership with the past and guide the ongoing dialogue between the archaeological record and the various contemporary stakeholders. They draw inspiration and guidance from applied anthropology, social history, public history, heritage studies, museum studies, historic preservation, philosophy, and education to develop an activist approach to archaeology—theoretically, methodologically, and ethically.
Evidence of grand burials and monumental construction is a striking feature in the archaeological record of the Upper Palaeolithic period, between 40 and 10 kya (thousand years ago). Archaeologists ...often interpret such finds as indicators of rank and hierarchy among Pleistocene hunter‐gatherers. Interpretations of this kind are difficult to reconcile with the view, still common in sociobiology, that pre‐agricultural societies were typically egalitarian in orientation. Here we develop an alternative model of ‘Palaeolithic politics’, which emphasizes the ability of hunter‐gatherers to alternate – consciously and deliberately – between contrasting modes of political organization, including a variety of hierarchical and egalitarian possibilities. We propose that alternations of this sort were an emergent property of human societies in the highly seasonal environments of the last Ice Age. We further consider some implications of the model for received concepts of social evolution, with particular attention to the distinction between ‘simple’ and ‘complex’ hunter‐gatherers.
Adieu à « l'enfance de l'homme » : rituel, saisonnalité et origines de l'inégalité
Résumé
Les vestiges de funérailles grandioses et de constructions monumentales sont un élément frappant des archives archéologiques du Paléolithique supérieur, entre 40 000 et 10 000 ans avant notre époque. Les archéologues les interprètent souvent comme des indicateurs de rang et de prestige chez les chasseurs‐cueilleurs du Pléistocène, mais ces interprétations sont difficiles à concilier avec l'idée, encore très répandue en sociobiologie, que les sociétés préagricoles étaient typiquement égalitaires. Nous développons ici un autre modèle de « politologie du Paléolithique » mettant l'accent sur la capacité des chasseurs‐cueilleurs à alterner, consciemment et volontairement, entre des modes très différents d'organisation politique, y compris différentes variantes hiérarchiques ou égalitaires. Notre proposition est que ces alternances constituaient des propriétés émergentes des sociétés humaines dans l'environnement de la dernière Ère glaciaire, soumise à des changements de saison très prononcés. Nous examinons en outre certaines implications de ce modèle sur les concepts reçus de l’évolution sociale, en portant une attention particulière à la distinction entre les chasseurs‐cueilleurs « simples » et « complexes ».
ABSTRACT
It has been over 25 years since Maria Franklin (1997b) asked, “Why are there so few black American archaeologists?” While low numbers can still be attributed to Black Americans choosing to ...pursue more lucrative careers, we must also understand that barriers instituted and perpetuated by racism also play a major factor. Through highlighting the experiences of archaeologists from John Wesley Gilbert (1863–1923) to contemporary professionals, the legacy of racism and discriminatory treatment of Black archaeologists assists in answering Franklin's question. Though numbers have increased since the creation of the Society of Black Archaeologists in 2011, the retention of Black graduate students and professionals in the field is still a challenge. Revisiting this question in the time of Black Lives Matter in Archaeology may provide some clarity.
The typologies that archaeologists use to classify artefacts and situate them chronologically and culturally are crucial tools of the discipline; when left unquestioned, however, they tend to produce ...reductive and essentializing understandings of the past. Like all theoretical interventions, assemblage theory questions the unquestioned, in this case, asking archaeologists to radically rethink the relationality of the world and the power and vibrancy of nonhuman and nonliving things like stone. In this article, we take an assemblage-based approach to an old typological problem - sorting birdstones. Since the mid-19th century, collectors and archaeologists categorized birdstones found throughout the American Northeast according to evolutionary or culture-historical principles. These approaches paid little attention to different varieties of stone, often regarding birdstones as if they were passive reflections of normative mindsets that came in only three culture-specific types. Here, we explore how archaeologists might 'reassemble' typological thought, analysing and thinking through a large sample of materially varied birdstones to find much more than three little birds. Recognizing how the shared and specific capacities of different stones actively contributed to the multiplicity of birdstone morphologies resituates them as singular and changing assemblages while highlighting the potentials of questioning the fixity of both typological and material categories at large.
With case studies from North America to Australia and South Africa and covering topics from archaeological ethics to the repatriation of human remains, this book charts the development of a new form ...of archaeology that is informed by indigenous values and agendas. This involves fundamental changes in archaeological theory and practice as well as substantive changes in the power relations between archaeologists and indigenous peoples. Questions concerning the development of ethical archaeological practices are at the heart of this process.
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