Archaeologies-Journal of the World Archaeological Congress最新文献

Ancient monasteries in Bhutan are an immense asset to the country both in terms of tangible architecture and intangible cultural and religious values. Initially, they were built owing to the interconnected spatial and spiritual significance of the particular place and its concerned divine master. These monasteries have prolifically aided in the propagation of Buddhism as well as defining the very architecture of Bhutan. However, due to the unavailability of rigorous research about it, many monasteries are off the radar of government and scholars with some of them in dire need of restoration. The paper attempts to document and highlight the spatial and spiritual significance of Tharpaling, particularly the Choedrak monastery, which is located in Chumey village under Bumthang district, Bhutan. Having been impregnated sacredness by the visit of Guru Rinpoche (precious master), the subsequent visit of Gyalwa Lorepa reassured the impetus for the transformation of a mere cave into a monastery complex. In conjunction with it, Choedrak is revered as one of the four sacred Drak (cliff) temples of Guru Rinpoche and attracts tourists as well as locals to receive blessings and for extended retreat purposes. Architecturally, the main temple of the Choedrak is a resemblance of a typical monastery architecture of Bhutan incorporating traditional features such as whitewashed tapering stone wall adorned with wooden windows, floating-like roof, and colorful elegance of the interiors. The current study is intended to further signify its place in the cultural heritage dictionary of Bhutan and consequently harness opportunities from the relevant agencies such as the Division for Conservation of Heritage Sites for appropriate and sound solutions for the preservation of the monastery.

In this article, I review the various forms of political commitment in the field of archaeology in South America over recent decades using three cases: one from Argentina and two from Colombia. The several types of political engagements that can be categorized involve multiple levels of work, from the use of archaeological excavation in projects with indigenous peoples to the rejection of the application of archaeology within the purposes of the indigenous social movement; in between those two options, we distinguish practices such as multiculturalism and its reification of culture. At this level, past, heritage, and history become merchandise for cultural markets.

This archaeological study reveals previously undocumented rock art along the Blue Nile on the walls of the Buahit Serit gorge in the East Gojjam Zone of the Amhara Regional State in Northwestern Ethiopia. Although Ethiopia has the largest number of documented rock art sites in the Horn of Africa, Buahit Serit is the first published rock art site in the Amhara Regional State. The Buahit Serit rock art is tentatively dated to the late Holocene (1000 BCE–1000 CE) based on comparison of the content and style of its paintings. The rock paintings are composed of hunting, herding, and geometric representations. This study introduces the idea that some of the geometric designs may represent stylized headrest, which may connect the rock art to cultural continuity with living pastoralists. Today the Buahit Serit rock paintings, like many Ethiopian rock art sites, are endangered due to anthropogenic and natural causes.

The selection of research methods depends on many factors, including a number of finds, their state of preservation, and research problems discussed. In the archaeological studies of the medieval leather objects each stage of the research process is important: from recovering a source from cultural layers, securing and conserving a find, to analysing formal features and preparing detailed typologies, what ultimately leads to an attempt to recreate selected historical issues. In this article it is presenting a method for studying medieval archaeological finds made of leather (mainly footwear). It is an attempt to find research methods for presenting the development line of the medieval shoemaking in the period from the turn of the eighth century and the beginning of the ninth century until the end of the fifteenth century. In the case of large assemblages consisting of hundreds, or even thousands of objects, obviously finished items and their components come to the fore. In such cases, the rest of objects referred to as ‘fragments’, ‘pieces of leather’, ‘unidentified objects’ are usually marginalised. In the studies of economic phenomena, however, products cannot be perceived as less important, because each of them might be a valuable source of information, depending on questions asked. The hierarchy of importance of items (or only their features) should change with the research progress and with the issues examined.

Community heritage usually reveals bottom-up celebrations of multi-dimensions of social life, which negotiate meaning to certain places, sites, or even monuments under practices of heritage. In 1996, excavations and restorations of the Longxing Buddhist temple at Qingzhou County, hundreds of precious Buddhist statues, gained attention from the general public and all Buddhist communities. With the rebuild of the new Longxing Buddhist temple at Qingzhou County, actually motivated by Xia Jingshan, an eminent Buddhist figure painter, the religious and local community collaborated to express their voices in heritage discourse. A number of factors influence the reinterpretation of Longxing Temple sites: the desire to advocate Qingzhou County as an important city in ancient China, to depict Qingzhou County as having a rich cultural and religious diversity, and to attract tourists and religious communities to visit Qingzhou.

The concept of world heritage constitutes an important political, cultural and economic agenda in contemporary society, even though it has been criticized for being Eurocentric. In the case of developing countries such as Turkey, inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List helps generate much needed income through grants and tourism activity. There are currently eighteen sites in Turkey that are on the World Heritage List, and another eighty-three on the tentative list, the majority of which have been inscribed in the last decade. However, such an acceleration of attempts to promote sites as world heritage because of their attributes can also lead to conflicts about the values of the sites, project management, community enhancement and the degree to which important related studies are carried out. The ancient city of Anazarbos is one that exemplifies such a situation. The site's history as cultural and military cross-roads in the Cilicia region, and the potential to reveal those who successively inhabited and controlled it paved the way to its inclusion in the tentative list in 2014 by meeting the outstanding universal values. In this context, this study aims to provide an accurate background of in the hope of raising its status so that further research can be carried out. The study first presents the case for the concept of world heritage and then offers a thorough assessment of the city in terms of its heritage significance. Following a discussion on the values associated with the site and the changing dynamics after its inclusion to the list, the study concludes with suggestions for its holistic conservation.

An outcry for the inclusion of archaeology into school teaching curriculum has been on for over six decades. Yet, Nigeria is one of such countries in West Africa that have experienced a slow growth in archaeology education at both tertiary and pre-tertiary schools. In a bid to addressing this issue, a public awareness and community archaeology project was conceived in Igbo-Ukwu to create awareness on the relevance of archaeology in preserving cultural heritage and enhance skill acquisition. 93 secondary school pupils and 12 community residents in Igbo-Ukwu participated in classroom educational seminar and archaeological field training, respectively. The participants were exposed to learning soft and hard skills. Results from the assessment of the participants showed that at a time when Nigeria and many countries in Africa are troubled with loss of traditional histories and oral traditions, archaeology education is a vital tool for addressing the problem.

This paper presents the results of archaeological fieldwork conducted at the request of elders from Barunga, a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, Australia. The aim of the project was to use archaeological methods to help people from the community relocate and identify each person buried in the Barunga Graveyard and to develop a system where this information would not be forgotten. In the past, the location of burials and the identities of the buried have been known only through memory, as well as repeat visits to the graveyard. Overcrowding within the graveyard has made this practice difficult. To add to this problem, the vast majority of graves of Aboriginal people in remote Northern Territory communities are not recorded in any register. While there is a legislative requirement for a burial register to be kept in non-Aboriginal communities, this has not been a requirement for those within Aboriginal communities. Instead, families must rely on the memories of those in attendance at the burial, and in time the remembering generation also dies and the identities of people in these graves become more and more blurred. This makes it difficult to mourn properly, or to care for that person by caring for their grave. During our fieldwork, we located 175 graves, and we identified 85 individuals. Of those that could be identified, 29 were identified by an associated plaque or headstone, and 56 were identified through oral histories that were recorded during several field visits with elders from the community. Beyond the archaeological results of this research, we found there is an opportunity to build sustainable development in this community that would see local people employed to locate and identify currently unidentified burials. Drawing on comparative cases from other countries such as India, this study addresses the challenge identified by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) (2015) introducing cultural heritage into the sustainable development agenda. Retrieved February 19, 2020, from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/culture-and-development/hangzhou-congress/introducing-cultural-heritage-into-the-sustainable-development-agenda/), to identify the concrete actions needed to integrate cultural heritage conservation and promotion into the sustainable development debate.