Journal of Social Archaeology current issue

A phenomenology of landscape: A crisis in British landscape archaeology?

Barrett, J. C., Ko, I. — 2009-09-23

Recent criticism of the accuracy of the claimed observations on monument location by workers employing a ‘phenomenological’ approach to landscape archaeology in Britain has exposed failures in the way their particular approach has been employed to explain the choices made in the siting of certain Neolithic monuments. This article explains why such errors of record may have occurred and re-examines the ways in which the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger can offer a more positive contribution to our understanding of the historical context of the creation of these monuments.

Memories of a world crisis: The archaeology of a former Soviet nuclear missile site in Cuba

2009-09-23

Santa Cruz de los Pinos is a small town like most others in the Cuban countryside. But half a century ago it was the epicenter of the 1962 Missile Crisis. During that time it served as a Soviet base for middle-range nuclear missiles, and the US air reconnaissance photos of it were spread through media all around the world. The crisis was solved through negotiations without Cuban involvement, and as a result of this neglect the Missile Crisis has been an under-communicated part of history in Cuba. A Swedish—Cuban research project has now investigated what kinds of memories of the crisis remain today at the former missile base — in the ground as well as in people’s minds. Digging in the ground has proved to be an effective way to start a remembering process and to help disarm a politically loaded history and uncover stories other than those dominating ‘big history’.

Social identity, material culture, and the archaeology of religion: Quaker practices in context

Chenoweth, J. M. — 2009-09-23

This article considers how social identity groups come to be associated with certain material signs or traits. It is argued that this is a complex and continuing process, but not one which is untraceable or random, and so we can still use these signs to aid our understanding of social identity. Using the archaeological study of religious identity seen through Quakerism as a starting point, this article considers the nature of social identity and how it can be accessed archaeologically. Past Quaker archaeology is briefly outlined, and the apparently contradictory conclusions in this body of work are contextualized. While historians and Quakers themselves felt there to be a strong community, archaeologists have observed disparate material practices. A consideration of the social context of Quakerism and its ‘rules’ will help clarify these contradictions and also suggest a clearer understanding of how the material culture of a social group can allow us access to ephemeral social identities. Even through a changeable window of material traits, we can find coherence and unity in a social group by considering that material culture variability in a matrix of in- and out-group material and social relations, contextualizing what kind of difference each relation marks.

Ahead of its time?: The remarkable Early Classic Maya economy of Chunchucmil

Dahlin, B. H. — 2009-09-23

Classic Maya sites in the lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula are generally known for their monumental art and architecture in central sacrosanct spaces, and their political economies are believed to have been highly centralized. The predominantly Early Classic site of Chunchucmil, however, does not fit this stereotype. Moreover, even though its urban population ranks among the largest and most densely packed in any Maya site, it inhabits one of the most depauperate agricultural landscapes. These idiosyncrasies have stimulated a great deal of archaeological research, all of which lead to the conclusion that Chunchucmil had a surprisingly commercialized economy. In addition to importing basic necessities, some of which were exchanged in a large central marketplace, its basic economy was built on servicing merchants along the most active Mesoamerican maritime trade route and funneling long distance trade items to sites in the interior of the peninsula. This article summarizes the data leading to the conclusion that Chunchucmil’s economic complexity rivaled that of the secondary states of the Postclassic Period and therefore was way ahead of its time. It also questions whether the kind of bottom-up approach applied here might reveal more complex economies at other Classic Maya sites than the more ardent advocates of the prevailing, monolithic ‘political economy’ paradigm have thus far been able to concede. In which case, it was perhaps only slightly ahead of its time.

Hadrian's Wall: Embodied archaeologies of the linear monument

Nesbitt, C., Tolia-Kelly, D. — 2009-09-23

The aim of this article is to consider the value of an embodied account of Hadrian’s Wall. This heritage site has often been understood in predominantly imperial and military terms. While this is a crucial aspect of the historical meanings of the monument, there has been little focus on factors such as changing social role, socialities produced through its presence, and perceptions of the Wall evident in historical accounts. Drawing on theoretical approaches in archaeology, geography and anthropology, this article investigates the potential for enriching archaeological knowledge through these approaches. We focus on accounts of some early visitors to the Wall to consider movement on, and encounter with, the Wall through an embodied account. This account seeks to enrich our archaeological history by being attentive to the power of the material landscape on the senses of being and feeling of those that encounter it. The experience of the Wall is made intelligible through a body-centred account.

Towards a social archaeology of the late medieval English peasantry: Power and resistance at Wharram Percy

Smith, S. V. — 2009-09-23

This article sets out to develop an approach to the archaeology of the late medieval peasantry that allows questions pertaining to the experience of power and resistance to be addressed by practitioners in this field. It is identified at the outset that the aims of the majority of late medieval rural archaeology studies are those to do with long-term issues of settlement development and determinations of the chronology and function of material culture types. This article puts an alternative interpretive emphasis on the material culture of the period and — focusing on the most comprehensively investigated medieval village in England — comes to conclusions about the experience and tempo of the deployment of social power in the village as well as the nature of resistant practices that occurred therein.