Archaeologies-Journal of the World Archaeological Congress最新文献

The “Makpo” recade in Fon language (language and an ethnic group from South Benin, formerly Dahomey) means message stick or fury’s stick which is a royal specter. In the kingdom of Dahomey, royal power is represented by 7 badges. The “Makpo” recade is one of its badges. It is an object specific to the kings of Dahomey who wore them on the left shoulder. Their functions are numerous. It derives from the hoe and undergoes an evolution over time. The objective of the study is to identify the materials and the wood species used for the manufacture of the recades in order to understand the choice of sculptors and the cultural importance that the materials used could have. The oral accounts of the resource persons (dignitaries of the royal court and holders of the history of Dahomey), the visit to the museum ‘Le petit Musée de la Récade’ (Benin), and the documentation made it possible to collect the data allowing analysis of the results. The data collected were compared with the timber identification data described and codified by Tropical Timber Atlas and meeting NF EN standards. Out of 11 recades analyzed, the materials determined are wood, metals and ivory. Wood is the most used material which gives a sacred cultural side to the recades because of the specific choice of species.

The aboriginal inhabitants residing in India are known as the Tribal population. These indigenous people are scattered in different parts of the country including the state of West Bengal in the eastern part of India. In West Bengal, different districts such as Birbhum, Purulia and Midnapore are important seats of the indigenous inhabitants and their unique cultural and historical background, distinct from the other populations of the region. The Santhal population formed a larger portion in these districts during the early part of 20th century. They possess remarkable cultural identity which is expressed through their songs, music, arts and crafts, their unique indigenous forms of belief and styles of worship. The present research is based on an extensive field survey of the Santhal villages located in the Birbhum district in eastern India. The study aims to highlight the unique artistic manifestations of the Santhal tribe focusing on the sohrai paintings, the themes that are reflected point out the uniqueness of their heritage, tradition and cultural identity. It is also important to sustain the cultural aspects, both tangible and intangible of this indigenous population which involves an inter-disciplinary approach. Corporate Social Responsibility implemented by different companies in India for social development may also aid in sustaining the indigenous community and hence build a mutually beneficial corporate-community engagement model.

Bioarchaeological research in Australia has lagged behind that in other regions due to understandable concerns arising from the disregard of Indigenous Australians rights over their ancestors’ remains. To improve this situation, bioarchaeologists working in Australia need to employ more community-oriented approaches to research. This paper reports a project in which we employed such an approach. The project focused on burials in the Flinders Group, Queensland. Traditional Owners played a key role in the excavations and helped devise analyses that would deliver both scientific contributions and socially relevant outcomes. The fieldwork and laboratory analyses yielded a number of interesting results. Most significantly, they revealed that the pattern of mortuary practices recorded by ethnographers in the region in the early 20th century—complex burial of powerful people and simple interment of less important individuals—has a time depth of several hundred years or more. More generally, the project shows that there can be fruitful collaboration between archaeologists and Indigenous communities in relation to the excavation and scientific analysis of Aboriginal ancestral remains.

This paper presents the results of recent archaeological work conducted at the ruined site of Kisimani Mafia, Mafia archipelago, Tanzania. The site is one of the two stone town sites on the archipelago, the other being Kua. Despite being fairly well reported in scholarly accounts, few archaeological investigations have been carried out, with Neville Chittick’s excavation at the site in the late 1950s being the only one. As the then prevailing scholarly interpretation of all ruined sites on the East African coast, the founding of Kisimani Mafia and Kua was attributed to the Persians and Arabs, respectively. It was suggested that Kisimani Mafia dated to the early second millennium CE, and was then regarded as the earliest settlement on the archipelago. This endeavour sought to review the cultural history of the stone town settlement in relation to the remote settlement history of the archipelago and the coast generally, currently known to date to the early first millennium CE, or even before that. This study involved an archaeological survey and excavations carried out on an open-air site in 2018. An array of cultural materials was recovered, including pottery, beads, glass, coins, slag and metal objects, as well as bone and shell remains. This paper, however, is based on the results of pottery and chronometric analyses, the results of which firmly established that the stone town site was occupied from a much earlier period than was thought. The cultural history spans the Triangular Incised Ware/Tana Tradition period through the Plain Ware period, to the end of the Swahili Ware period. The first two periods, which evolved from the Early Iron Working culture of the archipelago, were when the Swahili stone town settlement was founded.

Beer is not only a favourite drink for many archaeologists, but is increasingly the subject of their research. Brewing and beer consumption have played a significant role in prehistoric human cultures around the world. Beer was a tasty, nutritious food, a substance affecting the mind, medicine, a religious symbol, as well as a social medium and an accelerator. Alcohol relieved the pain and prevented the spread of infection. Beer was a safe and healthy drink compared to contaminated water. At the time when our ancestors began to domesticate agricultural crops, they commonly produced not only bread but also beer. It is probable that the first ceramic vessels in the Near East were created precisely out of the need to more effectively control the technological process of beer production. Similarly, in the Central European Copper Age, beer production and its growing social significance influenced the emergence of the set Ceramic complex that lasted continuously for more than three millennia. Beer has entered almost all aspects of social life, from everyday consumption and social interactions to initiation ceremonies and major religious celebrations. The study of beer and other fermented beverages sheds light on many aspects of the biocultural development of humans on this planet.

In this paper, we analyse the results of a collaborative indigenous archaeology project especifically through a multivocal construction with two archaeological studies developed by Laklãnõ Xokleng researchers, who focused on the study of lithic and ceramic artefacts associated with their people. Our intention here is to consider the dissensions between the status of these objects based on their native perceptions and scientific classifications. If the analysis of indigenous production of the “elders”/ancestors can be understood based on the processes of subjectification commonly attributed to the objects of Amerindian ontology (as also appears to be the case among the Laklãnõ Xokleng), how can we understand the contemporary production of this materiality? We also reflect on the production of objects linked to the idea of “tradition” as an updating of a cultural continuum. That is, a creation of continuity that can (and should) open itself to incorporate the new, the other and thus transform, but simultaneously maintain a connection with the past. The crafts, the festivals for Indian Day and for the commemoration of the 100 years of resistance, the clothes used in presentations, the objects exhibited in their cultural spaces reinforce an intertextuality of what it is to be Laklãnõ Xokleng today. In this sense, we must understand the production of objects/crafts as a form of resistance, of engagement with a broader movement of this population to strengthen their cultural identity and a political strategy to guarantee their future.

The historical context of archaeology in the Philippines was shaped by colonial influences, and it can be seen through various foreign archaeologists who initially worked and contributed to the archipelago. The study uses the framework of Edward Said’s Orientalism to carefully extract the colonial features of Philippine archaeology through an overview of the discipline’s history from the late nineteenth century up to the present. The study finds that the practice of Philippine archaeology became a hybrid of its western origin and nationalistic view—showcasing a unique blend of indigenous knowledge, scientific advancements, and antiquarian perspective. The discipline also moved away from its western roots as it leans more on actual fieldwork and public archaeological efforts rather than pursue theoretical discourses. The study reveals the importance of nationalism in archaeological practice in postcolonial states in Southeast Asia such as the Philippines as it was used to promote common heritage and unity to its multicultural landscape. Lastly, the paper also presents current developments in the discipline and its influence on future archaeological research.