Archaeologies-Journal of the World Archaeological Congress最新文献

Investigation into the lifeways of freedman George White suggest a successful farmer who purchased and kept approximately 600 acres, emancipated his family and built a safe community for them. Documentary research revealed small fragments about the female members of his family. Taking into consideration the multiple layers of social relationships and social constructions over time, how can archaeologists query the material traces of freed Black women? This paper considers how intersectionality and the resultant matrix of domination push for research that does not “yield to closure,” but asks acute questions concerning freed women and their experiences within developing power structures.

Through an examination of clothing, adornment, and hygiene artifacts recovered from the Quarters area of the Levi Jordan Plantation, this article examines how racial, gendered, and classed operations of power and oppression shaped African American women’s sartorial practices, as an aspect of identity formation, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Texas. Through a Black feminist framework, this article focuses on the ways African American women dressed their bodies for the types of labor they performed to discuss how they negotiated ideologies of race, gender, and class, that shaped hegemonic notions of femininity during the post-emancipation era.

Our investigations into President James Madison’s Grandmother, Frances Taylor Madison, found few records, which is typical for women in 18th-century society. Widowed in 1732, she ran the Montpelier plantation for the first thirty years of its existence. Using a combination of archaeological evidence, a scattering of court records, and information on her oldest son (James Madison, Sr.), we build a case for her intersectional identity through gender, sexuality, generational deference, and race within paternalistic society.

This paper explores the intersections between the structural oppressions and violence of slavery and the social agency of captive people in the US South. In a collaborative partnership of descendant community members, institutional community partners, and archaeologists, this investigation focuses on the oral histories, historical documents, and archaeological material culture of Black women, men, and children associated with the Fanny Dickins plantation. This antebellum plantation is located in the modern 18,000-acre Ames land base near Memphis, Tennessee. Through an intersectional inquiry and praxis, variations in the everyday violence and material humanity associated with plantation geographies are unearthed, helping to reconstruct the historical continuation and influence of slavery from the past to the present.

Intersectionality arose as a strategy to understand how oppression operates simultaneously on multiple aspects of a person’s identity. As such, it provides a useful framework to recognize how gendered performances, racialized identities, and religious adherence shaped relationships between Europeans and Indigenous communities along with the enduring ramifications arising from initial contacts through today. Interrogating how Indigenous leaders, particularly of Caddo communities, interacted with Roman Catholic missionaries of New Spain offers an opportunity to understand broader relationships to power situated in intercultural negotiations of intersectional identities. These relationships are integral to archeological interpretations of the use and meaning of cultural materials.

The Swahili are arguably the most studied society in ancient Sub-Saharan Africa. The Swahili are of African in origin but balance their character between continental Africa and influences from the Indian Ocean, including Islam. City-states and towns along the eastern coast of Africa attest that the Swahili built coral monuments and commercial networks with broad connectivity. Colonial archaeologists claimed foreign origins and cast the Swahili as transplants, false representations evident by 1990 through the contributions of African and other archaeologists and interdisciplinary scholarship. Other aspects of the Swahili continue to be debated, and gaps and shortcomings present impediments to resolution. In this article, we characterize the Swahili and note early trends in the region’s archaeology relevant to contextualize Swahili archaeology post-1990. The article then discusses aspects of Swahili archaeology from 1990 to 2015 and current practices. We note trends, substantive achievements, and lapses in substance and practice during 30 years. Finally, we make observations and suggestions to advance archaeology the region’s archaeology. Archaeology in the Global South can learn from the case of the Swahili and the affirmations, critiques, and suggestions offered here, which we intend to promote future archaeological practice in East Africa.

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.