Archaeologies-Journal of the World Archaeological Congress最新文献

The region of Saoura, bounding in heritage and archaeological potential of national and universal importance. The paper’s major goal is to contribute to the literature by providing a hybrid method of GIS-GeoTOPSIS-AHP for archaeology prediction. The results indicate that 48.48% of the Ksours are located in areas that had very high potential and 42.42% are located in high potentiality areas and representing 0.16% and 1.25% of the total area. The model’s ability to predict site locations with reasonable accuracy is expressed by the model gain, which is equal to 98%, it is considered a strong predictive model.

Contemporary trends in mass media communication indicate serious confusion in the public consciousness about the nature of science and the status of evidential reasoning. Archaeologists, in an effort to make esoteric research programs interesting to the public, have contributed to this problem by providing over-simplified stories and “lessons from the past” based on sketchy evidence and mystified analysis. How archaeologists present the past has important implications for the future of archaeology as a discipline, but also for the future of the planet if we continue to patronize the public and oversimplify what archaeological data show about the ramifications of sociopolitical change.

In the small county in Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland, on a forest island amid fields, a few metal objects were found by metal detectorists. The finds suggested Iron Age dates and generated great interest, for both local people and researchers. As a result, an examination of the find locations was conducted by archaeologists, which was followed by excavations at one of the sites. In this article, under scrutiny is the interest excavations formulate in local contexts and how people relate to archaeological sites of their neighborhood. In addition, the role of metal-detecting in archaeology is considered. Generally, people in Finland are interested in the past of their home region. What about if there are only imperceptible remains and minor finds like fragments of ancient objects or shards of burned bone? Is material heritage important in everyday settings, and are people attracted to it? Here the aim is to relate some answers to these questions obtained by observations and discussions with the local people during the field research process.

This paper explores Egyptian influence in Late Bronze Age Cyprus through the lens of cultural hybridity. It draws specifically on Bhabha’s concept of the third space, identified here as an in-between space where two (or more) cultural identities mix and become materially entangled. Key for such an analysis of Cypro-Egyptian contacts is the understanding that this place need not have any direct political dimensions but instead could be a fluid space characterized by diverse contact situations. The focus is Egyptian(izing) objects from Enkomi, which highlight the cultural impact of New Kingdom Cypro-Egyptian cultural contacts.

The intact tomb group of the so-called ‘Two Brothers’, dating to around 1850 bce, was found at Deir Rifeh in Middle Egypt. Since its transfer to Manchester Museum in 1907, it has been central to the Museum’s extensive Egyptian collection—and of its celebratory history of Manchester Egyptology. Here, established interpretations of the ‘Brothers’s’ remains—often framed as a pioneering case of innovative scientific investigation in Egyptology—are critically assessed to highlight the contingency of such claims.

This paper reviews the current heritage outreach in Egypt through selected examples together with related historical activities since the nineteenth century. An evaluation of the present situation is challenging due to the multiple stakeholders involved, such as institutions, initiatives, projects, and independent practitioners. The author of this paper has engaged in heritage outreach activities with different local Egyptian communities. Through that cumulative experience in observing and developing outreach practices inform this paper, it becomes clear that there are no fixed guidelines in the field of heritage outreach in Egypt due to the peculiarities of each local site, audience, and overall aims.

Here, we report the first attempt to use isotope geochemistry to improve understanding of the experiences of Indigenous Australians living on the colonial frontier in late 19th century CE Australia. In the study, we analysed strontium (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr), carbon (δ¹³C), and oxygen (δ¹⁸O) isotope ratios from the tooth enamel and dentine of six individuals who died in Normanton, Queensland, in the 1890s. The study was a collaboration between scientists and the local Traditional Owners, the Gkuthaarn and Kukatj people, and was carried out to promote truth and reconciliation. The enamel ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr results suggest that the individuals moved to Normanton from three geologically distinct regions during the period of European expansion into the Gulf of Carpentaria, Cape York. This is consistent with the oral histories and historical documents, which suggest that many Indigenous people in the Gulf Country were displaced to camps on the outskirts of towns like Normanton because of European settlement. The δ¹³C values we obtained indicate that the individuals mostly ate C₄ plants and/or C₄-plant-consuming herbivores. When combined with the fact that some of the individuals’ teeth had dental caries, this suggests that the individuals may have had regular access to introduced foods. The enamel δ¹⁸O values are high compared to an international comparative sample, at 0.72–4.69‰ VPDB. We suspect the elevated values are due to a combination of a high degree of preferential loss of ¹⁶O through evaporation of surface water, the amount effect associated with the Australian monsoon, and high prevalence of introduced infectious diseases. Together, the results of our study demonstrate that isotopic analysis of human remains has the potential to further illuminate the effects of European colonisation on Indigenous people in Australia. Perhaps most importantly in connection with this, our study’s results show that isotopic analyses of human remains can provide surprisingly detailed information about the lives of a category of Indigenous Australians who rarely appear in the documents written by early ethnographers and colonial officials—subadults. That the analysis of the skeletal remains of Indigenous Australians can now contribute to the truth and reconciliation process is an unexpected, interesting, and welcome development in the story of bioarchaeology in Australia.

This paper investigates the use of postcolonial theory in Egyptology and Sudan archaeology. Theories and concepts developed out of examinations of specific historical colonial encounters were often applied by Egyptologists with little or no critical historical contextualization. Consequently, when using postcolonial theories and concepts some Egyptologists unwillingly transferred specific historical backgrounds to both ancient Egyptian experiences and those of their neighbours. This is inspected using the concept of reverse discourse as developed by M. Foucault. We need to construct novel and more data-informed concepts to understand the experiences and realities of living under Egyptian occupation.

This article charts the author’s “epistemological disobedience” in using postcolonial “theory as liberatory practice” to envision Egyptologies not bound to colonial pillars of modern Western science, thought, and society. The author finds that Deleuzian postcolonialism supports the temple of Dendur housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art outside the confines of Egyptology through investigating the possibilities of key Deleuzian concepts of rhizome, multiplicity, assemblage, and the process of “becoming-.” Here, Dendur is simultaneously an ancient temple, modern museum object, and a contemporary site for public protest. Ultimately, this vagueness affords an unbounding for Egyptology as a discipline.

This thought experiment introduces decolonial thought to the historiography of Egyptology. At a time when Egyptology increasingly scrutinizes its essence, a decolonial investigation as proposed by Walter Mignolo suggests new insights into the history and function of Egyptology as an academic discipline: formative roots in the imperial competition borne out of the colonization of the Americas, the Westernization of knowledge, and a recently emerging potential for a multipolar Egyptology against the backdrop of wider global trajectories. Decolonial thought enriches the historiography of the field and enables an assessment of the viability of decolonization in Egyptology.