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Presents the different perspectives on important issues discussed in archaeological inquiry. Distinction between core beliefs and models; Assumption of the application of model from classical economics to an archaeological problems; Requirement of a recursive relationship between ideas and observations in learning the process of doing archaeology.

The adoption of sedentary lifeways is increasingly recognized as an independent development which has taken place in all regions and time periods across the globe. The papers in this volume argue that sedentism is not tied into a ‘Neolithic package’ in which a set of elements such as pottery, agriculture, sedentism and social complexity emerge together, each facilitated by and necessary to the others. Instead, it is argued that sedentism must be investigated as a process in its own right. This paper reviews how far we have come in developing such a perspective. It examines how we identify sedentism in the archaeological record, and suggests sedentism can be usefully understood as a process in which adoption and abandonment are equal possibilities. Finally, it considers how our changing views of where and why sedentism was adopted are leading to new ways of thinking about processes of social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade has seen many calls for the development of unified ‘world historical archaeologies’ of the past 500 years. While the field benefits from growing international exchanges and collaborations, retaining the diversity of regional traditions is a major and emerging challenge. As the field increasingly tests the temporal, geographical and interdisciplinary limits of archaeological perspectives, engaging with the diversity of modern material, these complexities remain little discussed, and the situations and contingencies of disciplinary narratives, priorities and interactions remain unproblematized. Exploring these matters, this paper considers transatlantic interactions between British and North American traditions of historical archaeology over the past two decades, journeying between two garden landscapes – in Annapolis and Bristol. After considering Mark Leone's 1984 study of the William Paca garden in Annapolis, Maryland, and its subsequent reinterpretations, the paper discusses an eighteenth-century ‘eclectic’ garden at Goldney in Bristol. The paper argues that situational and ‘symmetrical’, rather than interpretative, approaches to archaeological material would aid the development of multi-vocal and inclusive ‘world historical archaeologies’, acknowledging and celebrating the archaeological complexities that are encountered in the past and the disciplinary present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objects given to supernatural powers have been remarkably neglected by archaeologists. This paper makes the case for the importance of such objects, whether they be described as votives, dedications, ritual deposits, ritual hoards, offerings or by some other term. It explores some archaeological reasons for their neglect, including the practice of publishing artefacts by type rather than by context, and argues that archaeologists should not assume that religious practices can be discussed only when there are texts available as guides. It summarizes the particular concerns of the papers which follow in this volume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any attempt at understanding social action must consider space. This paper questions the assumption that changes in architecture, specifically monumental architecture and public buildings, correspond directly to changes in political organization. Lefebvre's conceptual framework is used herein to gain insight into the variations in the use and construction of space, as they are reflective of different political and ideological agendas. As a case study, this paper examines the use of space and architecture at the Irene site (9CH1), a Mississippian site on the Georgia coast. Previous interpretations of the site suggest that changes in space and architecture relate to a shift towards a more egalitarian social organization. In contrast to these ideas, the argument is offered that such changes actually reflect the changing forum and expression of power by political actors rather than a wholesale shift in socio-political complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Reiko Ishihara on Mayan rain ceremonies and another by Colin Richards on voyages by Polynesians.

Archaeologists have traditionally been much more interested in social ranking than in social equality, and have been very ready to deny social equality on the grounds that political authority was centralized. But limiting questions of equality to questions of political authority misses precisely those areas of life where the practical and operative presence or absence of equality makes most difference to the individual and to social relations - areas of life which archaeology is in fact much better equipped to explore than it is equipped to explore political institutions and organizations. The papers in this volume concern themselves not only with equality in political organization and between political organizations but with ways in which day-to-day equality is managed in the communities of the household or among particular social groups united by factors such as gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a response to Stephen Oppenheimer's paper in the journal "World Archaeology" criticizing a 2003 article written by the authors that supposedly favors a model of "replacement" of indigenous hunter-gatherers in Island Southeast Asia by incoming Austronesian-speaking Neolithic agriculturalists.

Hunter-gatherer studies have often been at the forefront of feminist critiques in archaeology, and have remained a clear front on which feminist issues are still regularly raised. While these approaches have challenged the androcentric stereotypes upon which archaeological interpretations of hunter-gatherers have been based, current accounts continue to construct their interpretations based around modern Western heteronormative concepts of identity. By presenting an alternative interpretation of the construction of hunter-gatherer identity from the west coast of Scotland, this paper will demonstrate that, through the application of queer theory to hunter-gatherer studies, we may finally move away from the pervasive heteronormative stereotypes upon which they have been constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper briefly sets the scene for the articles that follow, introducing some key debates that have characterized the recent practice of historical archaeology. The definition of historical archaeology is explored according to parameters of chronology and methodology, drawing a distinction between New World traditions that define the subject as ‘post-Columbian’ and Old World approaches that establish broader connections with the ‘documentary archaeology’ of all literate societies. Current issues in European and American historical archaeology are highlighted, including the gradual breakdown of the medieval/post-medieval divide and the call for a global ‘modern-world archaeology’ to address the ‘grand historical narratives’ of the period, such as capitalism, economic improvement, and consumerism. The resistance to this global research agenda is explored with reference to archaeologies of diaspora and postcolonialism, which demand local perspectives to explore diversity and meaning. Finally, the innovative use of community archaeology and multi-vocality is introduced, with particular reference to the experimental narratives pursued by American historical archaeologists, in their new role as ‘storytellers’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clarifies the terminology used in describing past agricultural systems. Details on the archaeological recognition of different forms of cultivation; Differences in the intensity of cultivation with evolutionary stages of agricultural development; Link of the intensive cultivation of staple crops to food production.

The social archaeology of Bronze Age seafaring was the subject of a recent paper published within World Archaeology ( Van de Noort 2004 ). The landscape contexts of the various boat remains from two sites within the Humber estuary, eastern England, were examined and it was argued that different areas of the landscape provided focuses for ritualized and non-ritualized social activity. In this paper we re-consider this view, arguing for a broader consideration of boatbuilding and seafaring that reflects a symbiotic relationship between ritual and practical behaviour at the two sites. On one level, the process of boat construction, mending and possibly ferrying at North Ferriby may be considered from a 'ritualized' context despite lacking monumental architecture. At another, the earlier landscape monuments at Kilnsea may be considered as serving a practical function in terms of navigation and pilotage, in addition to more ritualized activities associated with the arriving, departing and the many dangers associated with seafaring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues against the current view that the apsidal form was Buddhist in origin and that apsidal Hindu temples are essentially Buddhist shrines subsequently converted to Hinduism. It also counters the linear view of religious change, which suggests that the Hindu temple came into its own after the decline of Buddhism in the fourth-fifth centuries ad. Instead, the paper establishes that the apsidal form was part of a common architectural vocabulary widely used from the second century bc onwards not only for the Buddhist shrine, but also for the Hindu temple and several local and regional cults. The historical development of the apsidal shrine is traced at three levels. One is at the macro-level of the Indian subcontinent from the second century bc to the nineteenth century ad. Second is the location of the apsidal form in the religious landscape of a particular site, viz. that of Nagarjunakonda in the lower Krishna valley in Andhra. Finally, the paper highlights the archaeological excavations conducted at the apsidal temple of Gudimallam also in Andhra to trace the history of the religious site from the second century bc to the twelfth century ad, the objective being to highlight the changing nature of the Hindu temple. The paper thus makes a case for plurality of religious beliefs and practices in ancient South Asia as against the prevailing view that these local and regional cults were gradually subsumed under the mantle of Sanskritization starting from the fourth-fifth centuries onwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a difference between archaeology that involves local communities and archaeology that is commissioned by and for the community. This paper describes the latter within the contemporary Fijian context of political and economic domination by an urban Fijian chiefly class. It shows how community archaeology provides a strategy by which disenfranchised rural communities in Fiji can reclaim the archaeological resource and use it to establish economic independence. Such projects fall within a Fijian definition of vanua development: a harmonious concept of environmental, social and economic well-being that includes an essential respect for tradition. The benefits extend to archaeology itself. The paper analyses how community projects in Fiji can help conserve the archaeological resource, broaden the pool of people with an active stake in Fiji's past, and thereby raise the profile of archaeology in the national imagination. The subtext is a post-colonial one: the past is a contested and socially structured thing. By relinquishing control over archaeology to the local communities, not only have political and economic relations in Fiji been equalized, so has the balance between local and scientific interpretations of history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a well-known twentieth-century monument to examine contradictions in the material record and how they might be accommodated in protection and interpretative schemes at this and similar sites where contested space is represented. The archaeology of the later twentieth century at, and immediately outside, Greenham Common Airbase (Berkshire, England) is described as unconventional and atypical in its associations, mysterious and disquieting in its later Cold War context, as well as outlandish and unorthodox in what it can hope to achieve in terms of public perception and interpretation. Protest is the stuff of everyday life, yet it is rarely and barely recognised in heritage interpretation, particularly where opposition was directly aimed at the establishment view or government policy. This paper explores these related issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like so much rock art, the Neolithic/Bronze Age petroglyphs of Galicia have been studied mainly as a source of stylistic information. This paper contends that it may be more rewarding to see them as a vital component of the prehistoric landscape. In this paper we study their siting in relation to Galician ecology and the movement of wild animals across the terrain. We also consider the organization of the panels of carved rock at a more local level and attempt to interpret their distinctive use of the local topography. We should not treat rock carvings as if they were portable artefacts. A more flexible approach to this material may help to break down the functionalist bias of landscape archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes up the current debate of whether hunter‐gatherers were able to survive in dense evergreen forests prior to the advent of agriculture and, consequently, the establishment of exchange ties with sedentary, agricultural groups. Three main aspects are examined: (1) the evolution of the Central African rain forest; (2) current reasoning regarding pygmy hunter‐gatherers in the equatorial forest; (3) lithic evidence of the presence of hunter‐gatherers in what once may have been dense forest environments. It is concluded that, first, the Ituri forest case is overstated and, second, archaeological evidence partly attests to the presence of hunter‐gatherers in the forest prior to the penetration of agriculturalists. In the second part of the paper current views on the settlement of the Central African forest developed on the basis of comparative Bantu linguistics are summarized and confronted with the archaeological data base of the inner Congo‐Zaïre Basin. It is evident that any attempt to link directly the findings of historical linguistics and archaeology is premature on both factual and theoretical grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes that studies of the technology, provenance and weathering of ceramics and stone used by ancient man would often benefit from the use of optical petrology in the field, and describes prototype equipment and materials suitable for making thin sections of ceramics and stone in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Wei Chu on the construction of windbreaks by Pleistocene populations, one by Mary Shepperson on urban studies of Mesopotamia and one by Tania Romankiewicz of architecture in Scotland during the Iron Age.

This paper presents a case study of fish intensification in the subsistence of hunter-gatherers and fishers who inhabited the Beagle Channel region in southern South America. The main goal is to identify and to understand the multiple factors and conditions under which fishing intensification operated in this area, regarding it as a process integrated by multiple potential strategies. Ichthyoarchaeological assemblages from eight sites are examined against the predictions of a general intensification model evaluating variations in animal-based subsistence through time. Spatial, environmental and historical dimensions of the intensification process are analysed and evidence of increased effort in fishing activities is observed. Results support the existence of a foraging reorganization on a regional scale, a mechanism by which fish productivity was raised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the contributed debates and discussions for the December 2004 issue of the journal "World Archaeology." Responses to papers that have appeared in earlier themed issues of the journal; Individual papers specifically designed to engender debate and discussion; Content of the issues that will be assessed for specific suitability of the journal.

The Acheulean, sometimes known as 'the great handaxe tradition', is the longest-lasting entity in the human cultural record. The oldest sites are in Africa at around 1.6 million years ago and the most recent approach the last 100,000 years. The geographical extent is also enormous, ranging across Africa, the Middle East, most of Europe and large parts of Asia. Is it however a real tradition? The Acheulean represents a set of stone-working ideas that endure, but the strength of 'tradition' is often an assumption made by archaeologists. This paper re-examines Acheulean biface variation, looking at sets of assemblages measured in different ways, but amenable to discriminant analysis (DFA), which is able to highlight differences useful in classification. The analyses show significant differences between European and African assemblages. In the case of the Far East, in line with others, we provide further analyses suggestive of technological differences between putative 'handaxes' from Korea and some 'classic' western assemblages. However, it is not yet fully clear how far a 'typical' Acheulean tradition is represented, as matching of Far Eastern assemblages to other parts of the world depends to an extent upon the criteria used. With regard to the more general Acheulean paradox, the paper notes parallels in biological studies with the idea that a single widely extending phenomenon can incorporate elements of both unity and diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the paradox that the element water is both vital to life and yet can also kill. It is argued that this paradox was more apparent to humans than is often assumed in the modern Western world where water is usually viewed as pure and cleansing. This paper attempts to break this assumption down using three case studies. The first two use evidence from the imagery and inscriptions associated with dams and bathhouses in the Roman Near East to analyse the potential of water to flood and pollute. The third explores how votive deposition was linked conceptually to the transmutable, liminal nature of water, focusing on the Roman rural religious centre at Marcham/Frilford, England. These examples are used to illustrate the complex negotiations with the inherent paradox of water, which are manifested in protective symbols (to prevent flooding, illness and death) and votive deposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the transformative power of fire, its fundamental ability to change material worlds and affect our experience of its materiality. The paper examines material transformations related to death as a means of illustrating the powerful property of fire as a materially destructive yet socially generative and creative element. While fire has been widely discussed archaeologically as a technological element, and recently coupled with the social and symbolic powers of pyrotechnology, we focus on the sensuous staging of fire in disposal practices. The paper employs two case studies focusing on cremation burial from Bronze Age (c.1300-1100 bc) and modern Denmark in order to demonstrate widely different sensuous engagements with fire and its experiential significance in a cremation context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological investigations in the Main Chasm, a deep chasm that runs through the Late Classic (ad 600-900) Maya site of Aguateca, Peten, Guatemala, revealed evidence of a variety of ritual practices, suggesting that chasms, like caves, represent potent cosmological and religious places where ancestral and supernatural spirits can be reached. This paper focuses on one area of the chasm, where a combination of natural phenomena (i.e. clouds, wind), geomorphology of the locale and high frequency of musical instrument fragments indicates that rain ceremonies were a primary practice. This paper examines the complexities involved in the manipulation of the transformative properties of water and air and their associated meanings as manifested in the ritual practices within the chasm. The associated artifact assemblage and context also suggest that the activities may correlate temporally with a major political event and imply socially that upper-class people were involved in the ritual performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experimental approach to cut-mark investigation has proved particularly successful and should arguably be a prerequisite for individuals interested in developing standard methods to study butchery data. This paper offers a brief review of the criteria used to investigate cut marks and subsequently outlines recent research that has integrated results from replication studies of archaeological tools and cut marks with written resources to study historic butchery practices. The case is made for a degree of standardization to be incorporated into the recording of butchery data and for the integration of evidence from the analysis of cut marks and tool signatures. While the call for standardization is not without precedent the process would benefit from a suitable model: one is proposed herein based in large part on experimental replication and personal vocational experience gained in the modern butchery trade. Furthermore, the paper identifies issues that need to be kept at the forefront of an experimental approach to butchery investigation and places emphasis on the use of modern analogy and cultural theory as a means of improving our interpretation of cut-mark data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers current issues in the teaching of archaeological fieldwork skills, using a British university's summer excavation as a case study. Analysing diary accounts submitted by participants - including members of staff, undergraduate students and local volunteers - on an hourly basis throughout one working day provides a unique insight into the training process. Key issues such as the hierarchy and structure of the project itself can be seen in the light of their impact on the effective teaching of field skills. The different needs of students and local volunteers are discussed, and the extent to which these needs are addressed is also considered. The backdrop to this paper is the current debate in British archaeology between those who favour field schools/training excavations and those who believe that students learn more when placed on pure research excavations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses why things have become marginalized in the social sciences and addresses some major intellectual traditions considered the main suspects for this deportation. It also explores what is claimed to be a crucial link between those very philosophies and central approaches in recent material culture studies. The paradoxical outcome of this effective history is that the ontology responsible for the displacement of things also to a large extent grounds the programs of repatriation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper reiterates the importance of studying past visibility patterns within the context of landscape archaeology. In spite of the many difficulties and criticisms revolving around this topic, efforts aimed at reconstructing these patterns and exploring their possible roles are considered to be central to the reconstruction of social landscapes. This paper extends previous GIS work done on inter-visibility by making reference to the concept of "co-visibility," by exploring the way in which visibility of any monument or set of monuments is shared with that of other monuments. A subset of round barrows from the Yorkshire Wolds (northern England) is used to illustrate this work. The study also underlines the need to address the variability which is often present in archaeological data, variability, in this case, of visibility patterns associated with the barrows due to our lack of precise chronological information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That the ‘natural’ world was imbued with symbolic and religious meaning in Minoan Crete has been suggested since the early days of Minoan archaeology. Notwithstanding, it often remains unclear how certain constituents of the physical environment acquired specific meanings, and what such meanings imply for the actual dynamics of human-environment relations. This paper considers the relationship between (what is today construed as) religion and human engagement with the environment in Minoan Crete. An ‘ecological’ perspective is adopted which assumes that both organisms and inanimate objects are a result of and subject to continuous development, and their identity is defined by the network of relationships they are endowed with. The idea is put forward that the relationship between people and certain landscape elements were of a social kind, based on mutuality and intimacy, and that some activities conventionally identified as religious or ritual are better understood in terms of practical engagement with the physical environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recently published paper, Isbell (2004; see also Isbell 2000; Isbell and Cook 2002) reports the finding of several Wari mortuary structures from the site of Conchopata. On the basis of this information and additional data from the main Wari site also in the Ayacucho Valley, Isbell has developed a Wari mortuary typology varying from very simple graves to an elaborate chamber complex that is argued to be the tomb of ‘an emperor’. Isbell argues that this mortuary variability mirrors status difference and social inequality. At the same time, Isbell asserts that some high-ranking Wari individuals practiced polygyny. While the paper under consideration provides important data for understanding Wari society, Isbell unfortunately has ignored other equally relevant information. Indeed, published reports of other Wari mortuary structures excavated during the last six years in the Ayacucho Valley are not included in the discussion. Consequently, Isbell's analysis is incomplete and misleading. To amend this situation, our aim is to present the information that we and other colleagues have accumulated in the Ayacucho Valley. All available data considered, Wari mortuary variability is even greater than the simple hierarchical typology promoted by Isbell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Neanderthal survival skills in Britain. Its starting point is that there are major tensions between the three main sources of relevant information – archaeological, palaeoanthropological and palaeoenvironmental data and their subsequent interpretation – that make our understanding of Neanderthal survival much more precarious than is generally supposed. The paper is speculative, and proffers questions not answers. It challenges us to look past the often mute material record, and to equip Neanderthals with a number of logically prerequisite but generally archaeologically invisible survival tools and practices, beyond the well-trodden paths of mobility, hunting and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of the relationship between increasing plant use, sedentism and political complexity among societies on the Pacific coast of southern Mexico during the Early and Middle Formative period (1600–800 bce). I argue that each of these variables increased at different paces in the region. Some of the earliest ceramics in Mesoamerica are documented by 1600 bce as is increasingly sedentary village life. During the following centuries a number of political centres rose and fell. While macrobotanical remains of numerous domestic plant species have been recovered from Early Formative and earlier Archaic period contexts, the overall diet was very broad based with extensive resources exploited from the nearby swamp and estuary systems. Isotopic, ground stone and iconographic data all indicate that the subsistence base underwent a marked transformation during the Middle Formative Conchas phase (900–800 bce) which corresponds to an environmental shift to stable, moist conditions conducive to increased plant production. Therefore, there was over half a millennium during which ceramic-using, horticultural villagers developed political rank prior to the adoption of agriculture and evidence of the first stratified political organization in the region. Evidence from the Soconusco is reviewed and new data are presented from the site of Cuauhtémoc, which was occupied through the entire 800-year period in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the influence of sedentary and semi-sedentary ‘tribally’ organized Eastern Woodlands and Middle Missouri horticultural villagers on Canadian plains hunter-gatherer social organization during the millennium prior to European contact. So-called tribal organization of Canadian plains bison hunters has been suggested to have been caused by the acquisition of domesticated horses from Europeans, which enabled the ritualized mass killing of bison, large group size and a more complex material culture. That is, the complex culture of plains groups at the time of European contact is held to be the result of that contact. It is clear, however, that the material culture correlates of semi-sedentism, complexity and tribal social organization begin to appear in the archaeological record of the Canadian plains with the development of horticultural villages to the south and east, and the appearance of certain aspects of village material culture (primarily specific types of pottery and lithic raw materials) in Canadian plains archaeological assemblages well prior to any European influence. Expansion of horticulture slowed dramatically upon encountering the plains peoples who, I suggest, adopted certain aspects of the culture of their horticultural neighbours and sometime invaders, including a segmentary tribal social organization, sodalities and limited use of traded horticultural products, primarily maize. By adopting a communal bison-hunting subsistence system that included the construction of gathering facilities such as pounds and jumps, people were able to increase their food production capabilities while reinforcing their tribal social structure. These cultural changes would have occurred as a result of resistance to the expansion of apparently aggressive horticultural neighbours combined with acculturation to a changing world system of food production. The complex culture of Canadian plains peoples appeared well prior to the appearance of Europeans and is an indigenous development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I will maintain that race and ethnicity are discursive concepts that are historically and culturally variable. While in the modern West the discourses of race, and later ethnicity, are biological discourses of the body that present ‘race’ in scientific terms, the ancient Mesopotamian conception of otherness was not articulated in terms of biology or of linguistic groups. The conclusions are drawn from a study of the ancient Mesopotamian textual and visual representations, following the theoretical premise that alterity is formulated in and through representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the issue of race and racism in the archaeology of South America taking into account contemporary contributions in order to analyse and discuss the subtle functioning of racist thinking and ideas. It also provides a theoretical framework of departure for deconstructing and interpreting race and racism as social and cultural phenomena trying to elucidate the powerful effects implied by racist feelings. In a more general sense, this paper attempts to show that race and racism are still vivid in many social and cultural fields – including scientific and academic ones, functioning sometimes as a powerfully rooted belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bradley and Stanford (2004) have raised now, in several instances, the claim that European Upper Paleolithic Solutrean peoples colonized North America, and gave rise to the archaeological complex known as Clovis. They do so in the face of some obvious challenges – notably the several thousand miles of ocean and the 5000 radiocarbon years that separate the two. And yet they argue in their recent paper that the archaeological evidence in support of a historical connection is ‘overwhelming’. We are profoundly skeptical of this claim; we believe that the many differences between Solutrean and Clovis are far more significant than the few similarities, the latter being readily explained by the well-known phenomenon of technological convergence or parallelism. The origin and arrival time of the first Americans remain uncertain, but not so uncertain that we need to look elsewhere other than north-east Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on a long-standing area of academic debate – archaeological manifestations of social complexity – with reference to the specific case of the Tsotsebaki Hausa of Niger. Tsotsebaki dynastic lists record a bewildering array of locations for early rulers of the polity, a situation which find parallels in oral and historical records of many parts of Africa. The present discussion links observations made through archaeological and oral tradition research in Niger with European and African parallels and with recent theoretical reconsiderations of the nature of power and of urbanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract As institutions established to administer the penal exile of British imperial subjects, the historic gaols of Australia and Ireland are linked by a painful legacy of involuntary transportation. Today, outstanding examples of these prisons are conserved and publicly presented as monuments of national significance. This paper considers material meanings associated with these unusual heritage places. Given their explicit historic association with British imperial power, what role do heritage prisons play in the formation of a postcolonial affiliation or consciousness? This paper will consider how heritage prisons have come to embody the emotive links of longing and belonging forged between the modern nations of Ireland and Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will present an intellectual history of Americanist historical archaeology as it developed from the 1960s onwards within the context of processual archaeology and the resulting marginalization of studies of the recent past within Americanist archaeology. The paper will explore the intellectual problems and miss-steps caused by the artificial prehistory/history dichotomy prevalent in American archaeology. While many ‘prehistorians’ see historical archaeologies as inessential to their research, I will discuss contributions historical archaeology has made to the discipline, and the potential contributions of the sub-discipline more broadly to archaeological interpretation (or an archaeological historiography). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mapping the spread of Austronesian languages and its associated Neolithic culture forms the backbone of the orthodox model of the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic. The linguistic thrust of the narratives has tended to reduce the importance and independence of the archaeological record. In this paper we investigate how archaeological evidence has been used to support linguistic interpretations. Our own fieldwork and analysis suggest that reliance on the Austronesian linguistic 'tree' and the associated monolithic cultural categories may mask considerable complexity and diversity in the archaeological record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the roots of contemporary village religion. The eclectic nature and interaction of both rural and orthodox Puranic Hinduism have made any attempt to dissect the traditions difficult. The question arises as to which had the greatest impact, Puranic Hinduism or the non-Vedic cults, on the development of village religion. To answer this, this article will first establish the principal features of village Hinduism. Because of the constraints imposed by a short paper it will focus specifically on the ritual worship of the goddess in her various forms, through the development of an associated iconography. It will also explore historical continuity, through a study of texts, archaeological materials and evidence from ethno-archaeology. The paper concludes that rural religion represents an amalgam of local superstitions, non-Vedic cultic practice and orthodox Puranic Hinduism, which is itself an assimilation of many of these elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine aspects of Hindu worship at Vijayanagara, which formed the capital of an empire from the mid-fourteenth century to ad 1565. While the earliest cult was that of a local goddess known as Pampa, this deity was absorbed in the pre-empire period into the pantheon of the great gods of Hinduism, through her marriage to Virupaksha (a form of Shiva) who soon superseded her in importance. Virupaksha was chosen as the tutelary deity of the Vijayanagara kings and state but, even after the collapse of the empire, the temple dedicated to him survived as the main cult centre at the site. There were other Shaiva deities as well such as Bhairava, Virabhadra and Ganesha, though Vaishnava cults were not prevalent at the site till the early-empire period. The earliest Vaishnava deity to be incorporated at Vijayanagara was Narasimha. The cult of Rama and the development of the Ramayana myths associated with the site was an early fifteenth-century phenomenon. In the sixteenth century, other Vaishnava deities, such as Vitthala, Krishna, Tiruvengalanatha and Ranganatha, gained in popularity. The paper also touches upon the cults of lesser divinities, folk deities such as Hanuman and Yellamma, and on the archaeological evidence of other religions such as Jainism and Islam at Vijayanagara. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses archaeological evidence to identify some of the multiple religious strands and layers that mark the rich cultural landscape of ancient Mathura (in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh). Focusing on the four centuries between c . 200 bc and ad 200, it identifies what can be described in retrospect as an important stage in the early history of popular Hinduism. The paper highlights the importance of the old cults of the goddesses, yakshas, yakshis, nagas, nagis, and their interface with emerging Puranic pantheons. It delineates the architectural forms of early temples in the Mathura area, their sources of patronage and the religious dimensions of royal policy, bringing into focus the great resilience of some of the older cults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]