Historical Anthropology

Chambri endgame: history and anthropology in New Guinea

by Rena Lederman

La Pologne, un don maternel de Catherine de Médicis ? La cérémonie de la remise du Decretum electionis à Henri de Valois

by Ewa Kociszewska

Le Moyen Age 2011/3-4 (Le mécénat féminin en France et en Bourgogne, XIV-XVIe siècles. Nouvelles perspectives)

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: Pueblo Resistance and Accommodation during the Spanish Reconquista of New Mexico. In Enduring Conquests: Rethinking the Archaeology of Resistance to Spanish Colonialism in the Americas, edited by M. Liebmann and M. S. Murphy. SAR Press, Santa Fe. 2011.

by Matthew Liebmann

Revolt: An Archaeological History of Pueblo Resistance and Revitalization in 17th Century New Mexico. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. 2012.

by Matthew Liebmann

Mapping indigenous Siberia: Spatial changes and ethnic realities, 1900–2010

by Ivan Sablin

co-authored with Maria Savelyeva, published in Settler Colonial Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, 2011, pp. 77–110.

This article discusses spatial changes in the ethnic territories of Native Siberians from the late nineteenth century... more This article discusses spatial changes in the ethnic territories of Native Siberians from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. A Geographic Information System (GIS) was developed to model and observe these changes. The GIS also features resource-oriented economic activities, major waterways and railroads. Analysis of the model, textual sources and statistical data made it possible to determine what factors constituted Siberia’s ethnographical pattern of the early twentieth century and led to its changes in the ensuing decades and what impact on the indigenous peoples these changes had. Four special maps showing Siberia in the 1900s–10s, 1930s–40s, 1970s–80s and 2000s–10s were produced from the GIS and are included in the article. The current legal status of the indigenous peoples’ territories was also examined. This article presents an interdisciplinary macroscale case study.

Riten der Gewalt: Protest und Aufruhr in Kairo und Damaskus (7./13. bis 10./16. Jahrhundert) - Rites of Violence: Violent Protests in Mamluk Cairo and Damascus

by Konrad Hirschler

S. Conermann/S. v. Hees (eds): Islamwissenschaft als Kulturwissenschaft; 1: Historische Anthropologie. Ansätze und Möglichkeiten, Schenefeld/Hamburg (EB-Verlag) 2007, pp. 205-233.

This article deals with violent forms of ‘popular’ protest and revolt in Cairo and Damascus between the 7th/13th and... more This article deals with violent forms of ‘popular’ protest and revolt in Cairo and Damascus between the 7th/13th and the 10th/16th centuries. It focuses on the symbolic expressions that were employed during such periods of violence in order to refine currently employed concepts such as ‘mob-violence’, which tend to describe such events as irrational and spasmodic. The symbolic expressions are analysed with regard to three main themes that played a salient role in these protests and revolts: the urban spaces that were the theatre of these events, the acoustic and visual symbols employed by the participants as well as specific ‘rites of violence’, (e.g. the lynching of representatives of the military elite). In the course of this analysis it is shown, firstly, that protest and violence was often underlain by an internal logic and that the participants employed well-chosen (spatial, acoustic, visual etc.) symbols in order to express their aims, for example the appropriation and manipulation of the call to prayer. Due to the local perspective chosen in this article, it is possible to detect distinct differences among the towns of Damascus and Cairo concerning such symbols, for example with regard to the spatial setting for articulating discontent. Secondly, it is shown that the popular rites of violence developed in close interplay with expressions of violence by the ruling elites. This interplay was reflected on the one hand by ‘affirmative rites’ that adopted and partly modified violent behaviour that was typical for the ruling elite. On the other hand it is possible to detect ‘negating rites’ that tend to refer to local symbols and refuse to follow established patters, such as the ‘execution’ of an officer at a prominent locality in the local quarter and not at one of the official places of execution. The article argues finally that the polysemantic character of these events will only be fully understood by further studies that adopt additional local perspectives.

The Material-Cultural Turn: event and effect.

by Dan Hicks

Cite this paper as: Hicks, Dan 2010. The Material-Cultural Turn: Event and Effect. In Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies. Oxford: OUP, pp. 25- 98.

The full references are provided in the bibliography for the published volume.

Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa

by J. Cameron Monroe

With Akin Ogundiran. In Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa: Archaeological Perspectives, edited by J. Cameron Monroe and Akin Ogundiran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 1-46.

Cooking on Their Own: Cuisines of Manly Men

by Richard Wilk

Published as
Wilk, Richard and Persephone Hintlian 2005  “Cooking on Their Own: Cuisines of Manly Men.” Food and Foodways 13(1-2):  159-169.

This research note compares the food consumption of two different groups of working men, the Buccaneers of the... more This research note compares the food consumption of two different groups of working men, the Buccaneers of the Caribbean in the 17th century, and the miners of the 1849 gold rush in California. Both groups depended on similar
monotonous diets of preserved rations for their daily fare, and they had similar practices of binge drinking and luxury dining when opportunities arose. We speculate on ways that masculinity was constructed around particular kinds of
food consumption.

The Extractive Economy: An Early Phase of the Globalization of Diet, and its Environmental Consequences

by Richard Wilk

An edited and shotened version of this paper was published as Wilk, Richard 2007 “The Extractive Economy: An Early Phase of the Globalization of Diet, and its Environmental Consequences.” In Rethinking Environmental History: World System History and Global Environmental Change, edited by Alf Hornborg, John McNeil and Joan Martinez-Alier, Lanham: Altamira Press. Pp. 179-198.

The literature on globalization is replete with millenarian and utopian ideas about the uniqueness of the present... more The literature on globalization is replete with millenarian and utopian ideas about the uniqueness of the present moment, constantly showing us that the intoxication of modernism has not really disappeared, at least from the world of professional visionaries.  For those of us interested in the world food system, it is commonplace to hear that we have just entered an era of globalization and McDonaldization, and that until recently all food was local, traditional, seasonal, and diverse. The real history of the globalization of food systems is much deeper and more complex than I can even begin to describe here. Instead I want to pull out one part of an earlier global food system, to show that it had common qualities, a coherence that allows us to trace some common characteristics in many localities around the world.

Consumer Culture and Extractive Industry on the Margins of the World System

by Richard Wilk

Published 2006 “Consumer Culture and Extractive Industry on the Margins of the World System.” In Consumer Cultures: Global Perspectives, Edited by John Brewer and Frank Trentmann, Oxford: Berg Publishers. Pp. 123-144.

Our understanding of the origins of modern consumer culture is based largely on research done in Europe and North... more Our understanding of the origins of modern consumer culture is based largely on research done in Europe and North America, among the emerging middle classes. New forms of public display and the respectability of the conjugal family, we are told, fueled the demand for new goods and drove the cycle of fashion.  In this paper I search in another direction for a major contributor to the historical expansion of mass consumption; to the working classes who were on the distant frontiers of the expanding European economic system, beginning in the 16th century.

The setting I will explore is the male “crew” engaged in manual  labor, producing, transporting, and extracting valuable goods for long distance trade. These men subsisted for long periods on basic rations under harsh discipline and constant supervision, engaging in dangerous and often brutal labor. These periods of privation, brightened only by rations of liquor and tobacco, alternated with short bursts of wild revelry and dissolution which only ended when money and credit were exhausted. The rhythm of rations and binges defined working class consumption for hundreds of thousands of loggers, sailors, miners, sealers, whalers, cowboys and pirates for more than 400 years, and it continues today among male-dominated manual professions. This ‘binge economy’ also made important contributions to the fantasies and imagination that are keys to the modern mass culture of consumption.

Wraiths, Revenants, and Ritual in Medieval Culture

by Nancy Caciola

The Birth of a Custom: Nomads, Sharīa Courts and Established Practices in the Tashkent Province, ca. 1868-19

by Paolo Sartori

Islamic Law and Society, 18/3-4 (2011): 293-326

In colonial Central Asia qāḍīs played a key role in establishing customary legal practices.
In adjudicating... more In colonial Central Asia qāḍīs played a key role in establishing customary legal practices.
In adjudicating claims of horse theft, qāḍīs operating in the Tashkent province under
Russian rule had recourse to customary rules of evidence known in the local Kazakh
communities. If a qāḍī ascertained that an animal was not stolen, but had been
acquired from a third party by a bone fide purchaser, he routinely used a probative
procedure unknown of in the Central Asian judicial manuals of the 19th and early
20th centuries. Based on an examination of sharīʿa court registers from the Tashkent
province, Bukharan shurūṭ works and unpublished archival material, I argue that the
establishment of Russian rule in the region and the introduction of triennial elections
for choosing judges made it necessary for each qāḍī to meet the demands of the
community that had elected him, thereby encouraging him to confer sharʿī legitimacy
on local legal practices.

Smoking and culture: the archaeology of tobacco pipes in eastern North America

by Rob Mann

The Silenced Miami: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Evidence for Miami-British Relations, 1795-1812

by Rob Mann

" True Portraitures of the Indians, and of Their Own Peculiar Conceits of Dress": Discourses of Dress and Identity in the Great Lakes, 1830-1850

by Rob Mann

Intruding on the Past: The Reuse of Ancient Earthen Mounds by Native Americans

by Rob Mann

From Ethnogenesis to Ethnic Segmentationin the Wabash Valley: Constructing Houses and Identity in Great Lakes Fur Trade Society

by Rob Mann

Vom Nutzen der Geschichte, vom Wissen der Akteure und vom Nachteil der Multi-Sited Ethnography-Welthandel, Wirtschaftskrise und Standortwettbewerb in …

by Patrick Neveling

Work notes on the Tavola Eugubine, Script Q (IIB), Script Q1-Q273, update 4.25.12

by Mel Copeland

The Tavola Eugubine is a series of bronze tablets found near the city of Gubbio. There are seven tablets, some of which are written on both sides. The tablets are said to be written in the Umbrian language and in Latin. The texts of the group tend to follow a common theme, that of an oration. This text is a half-page entry apparently on the back of a bronze plate (similar to that seen in the Tavola Cortonensis).

It is most interesting, since the closing remarks of the text appear to state that their ancestor Atijerius came from Ionia or Penes (Peonia?). The Ionian connection would corroborate Herodotus who recorded that the Etruscan tradition said their ancestor, Tyrsenus, son of the Lydian king Atys, came from Lydia. The archeological context of the tables (this document refers to itself as a 'table') is of interest, whether the seven bronze tablets were found in situ as one collection. If so they may apply as a record kept by a particular knight of the Etruscans who, in this case, Table IIB claims that he 'created' the town or castle which he addresses. Both KASTRV (castrum-i) and VPETV (L. oppidum-i) are used in the text.

This is an update of our work on the Tavola Eugubine, (IIB) - http://www.maravot.com/Translation_EugubineQ.html. Changes produced on this page will be added to our Etruscan GlossaryA.pdf. All of the words in the glossary follow a grammar similar to Latin. One can easily discover that the several hundred texts on Etruscan Phrases all share a common language and grammar. This controverts the prevailing theory that the Etruscan language is not an Indo-European language. It also warrants further examination of the prevailing conclusion that the Tavola Eugubine is written in the Umbrian language.

Etruscan GlossaryA.xls/pdf. is an index to about 2,300 Etruscan words that are similar to Latin, French, Italian and Romanian. Declension patterns follow those in Latin. The 2,500 words = the repeated words in 6,000 words of the major extant texts. The texts have been frozen in time, covering ~700-400 B.C., representing a lens to understanding the early formation of Indo-European languages, particularly the early Italic-Latin-Celtic languages, such as Italian, French & Romanian / Dacian. (By 45 BC. the language was a dead language - no one understood or could write Etruscan)

This GlossaryA works together with Indo-European Table 1 which refutes theories by the Pallottino school of thought that the Etruscan language is not Indo-European and an isolate, unlike any other language. It is very close to Latin and, curiously, Romanian, Italian and French. The Latin suffix, "us" shifts to "o" as in Italian (Titus vs Tito); first person conjugation patterns are similar to French and Romanian. This GlossaryA provides a quick look at the grammatical structure of the Etruscan language, how closely it coincides with Latin. A more detailed Declension Table can be seen on the Etruscan Phrases website. These PDF documents facilitate independent confirmation of the words in GlossaryA.xls , the Grammar and Declension Table. All words can be examined from actual images of texts on the Etruscan Phrases website. Over 150 texts, with about 6,000 words can be examined at Etruscan Phrases.

The Etruscans surfaced in Italy about 1,000 B.C., reputed to have arrived from Lydia / Phrygia. The Phrygians originated near Macedonia in Thrace, according to Herodotus. One may therefore inquire whether the ancient Thracians (Dacians, Gettae, modern Romanians), spoke a language common to the Phrygians, at the time of the Trojan War and after (~1180 B.C.). The Thracians, Phrygians and Lydians (also dead languages) were allies of the Trojans, according to the Iliad. Etruscan Phrases finds a common vocabulary among Latin, Italian, French, Romanian, Etruscan and Phrygian. While French, Spanish, Italian and Romanian are considered Romance languages, showing a similar Latin heritage, Etruscan is not, of course, a Romance language, as it preceded Latin, at least in the written form (giving Rome its alphabet).

Resolution of the Etruscan Mystery may be likened to Michael Ventris' decipherment of Linear B and Jean-François Champollion's decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics using the Rosetta Stone - written in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic and Greek. The decipherment of Etruscan is a bit more challenging; since we have no multilingual Rosetta stone, but we do have enough vocabulary and grammar to establish that Etruscan is similar to Latin, French, Italian and Romanian. (Certainly far more vocabulary and a more extensive grammar are provided in Etruscan Phrases than that used by Ventris to claim translation of Linear B as an old form of Greek.)

We look forward to the time when a peer review of these Work Notes will warrant corrections to the prevailing record, showing that the Etruscan language was similar to Latin and decry the theory that the "Etruscan language is unlike any other and not an Indo-European language." The theory of a non-Indo-European Etruscan language is absolutely false.

There is a far richer record to be written of an Indo-European branch, dead as of ~400 B.C., that can shed light on the movements of the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age Italic peoples, perhaps out of southeastern Europe to Anatolia and then to Italy by sea. Herodotus, who recorded the Etruscan tradition, that they came from Lydia as a result of a long drought after the Trojan War, may be right. We mention this because there is more to be gained in sorting out the grammar at Etruscan Phrases - and possible confirmation of Herodotus - than can ever be hoped for in the bogus theory that "the Etruscan language is unlike any other language known to man." Wikipedia et al. should be corrected.