International Journal of Historical Archaeology最新文献

During the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, the territory of western Somaliland was integrated into a series of Muslim states which controlled large areas of the southeastern Horn of Africa. One of the ways this control manifested itself was in the emergence of a network of permanent settlements on the westernmost side of Somaliland and the neighboring Ethiopian region. Although 20 of these sites have been identified so far, our information about most of them is fragmentary at best. This paper presents a comprehensive study of the material, architectural and territorial context of three of these medieval sites: Abasa (Darbiyah Kola), Hasadinle, and Iskudarka. This paper analyzes the information they provide us for understanding some of the key themes of the history of the region, such as the strategies of state control, the process of Islamization, the relationships between nomads and urban dwellers, and the material expressions of hierarchization and social inequality.

Few studies of post-Columbian animal economies in the Americas elaborate on the influence of traditional Indigenous knowledge on colonial economies. A vertebrate collection from Santa Elena (1566–87 CE, South Carolina, USA), the original Spanish capital of La Florida, offers the opportunity to examine that influence at the first European-sponsored capital north of Mexico. Santa Elena’s animal economy was the product of dynamic interactions among multiple actors, merging preexisting traditional Indigenous practices, particularly traditional fishing practices, with Eurasian animal husbandry to produce a new cultural form. A suite of wild vertebrates long used by Indigenous Americans living on the southeastern North Atlantic coast contributes 87% of Santa Elena’s noncommensal individuals and 63% of the noncommensal biomass. Examples of this strategy are found in vertebrate collections from subsequent Spanish and British settlements. This suggests the extent to which colonists at the Spanish-sponsored colony adopted some Indigenous animal-use practices, especially those related to fishing, and the speed with which this occurred. The new cultural form persisted into the nineteenth century and continues to characterize local cuisines.

Through an archaeology of Fort La Cloche, a nineteenth-century Hudson’s Bay Company post in Georgian Bay (Lake Huron, Canada), this paper explores parallels between historical archaeology and posthumanism. The posthumanities identify and critique three key problems familiar to historical archaeologists: (1) the arbitrary prioritization of certain types of historical actors (usually White, male, settler colonial) as the apex and standard for all humanity; (2) dichotomous modes of thought that cleave the world into discrete (opposed) categories like “nature” versus “culture”; and (3) human exceptionalism, which frames human beings as fundamentally different—and separate—from all other living and nonliving things surrounding them. An archaeology of La Cloche offers insights into how these broader philosophical goals compare with the work of historical archaeologists. The intersection of the archival record with the archaeological collection, a large and varied assemblage of patent medicine bottles, porcelain doll parts, buttons, shotgun casings, and much more, provides new perspectives on the fur trade; it offers insights into the broader community at La Cloche, peopled not just by powerful company men but by children, woman, workers of various kinds and, of course, Ojibwe and other Indigenous peoples. Historical archaeology also focuses on the material conditions of the fort, documenting complicated and sticky relationships of dependence between people of all sorts and humble, nonhuman things. The paper concludes that historical archaeology and posthumanism stand to benefit from further engagement with one another, making recommendations for further growth.