eNewsletters
Volume 12 October 2006
WORLD ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONGRESS
eNewsletter
No 12: October 2006
Editor: Madeleine Regan
Madeleine@ideasandwords.com.au
Contents:
1. Executive News
2. WAC News
3. News from WAC Members
4. Forthcoming Conferences and Events
· 2006 Conferences
· 2007 Conferences
· Call for papers
5. News Items
· Publications
· Other items
6. Excerpts from other archaeological newsletters (used with permission)
6(a) SALON (three editions from October and September 2006)
6(b) ICOMOS (Australia) (three editions from October and
September 2006)
7. Situation vacant
1. Executive News
I am pleased to acknowledge the range of contributions that members have
made to this issue of the WAC eNewsletter. It is important to have news about
members’ publications, the conferences they are involved with and other activities, so we are very grateful to the people who send us information for inclusion in the newsletter.
WAC’s 20th anniversary occurred in September 2006. For those who may not
know the background, the genesis of WAC arose out of fundamental
disagreements concerning the organization of the 11th International Congress of
the International Union for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP), which
was planned for Southampton, England, in 1986. Against a backdrop of growing
violence in South Africa, and in light of the United Nations cultural and academic bans against Botha’s apartheid regime, the city of Southampton decided to ban
South African participants from the conference, and the Southampton organizers of this event decided to support this decision. They felt this was a moral issue,
and that it was time for archaeology to fully engage with the social and political
dimensions of the discipline. From the point of view of the UISPP, the issue was one of academic freedom, and about supporting colleagues from all parts of the
world, irrespective of political persuasion. The outcome of this debate was the
reallocation of the 11th Congress of the UISPP, to Germany, in 1987—and the
birth of WAC, in the form of the First Congress, which was held in Southampton,
England, in September,1986.
For a number of years, an uneasy relationship existed between the UISPP and
WAC. Though there were several earlier attempts, the first serious signs of
warming occurred in 2003 when Luiz Oosterbeek spoke at the Plenary session of
WAC5, held in Washington, DC, and invited WAC members to the 15th UISPP Congress in Lisboa, Portugal. Numerous discussions and meetings followed
this, one outcome of which was that I accepted an invitation to speak in my capacity as President of WAC at the opening session of the 15th Congress of the
UISPP, in September, 2006. This speech is available on the WAC web site.
Briefly, the core of my message was that this UIPPS meeting provided an
opportunity for rapprochement between the UISPP and WAC. While the
disagreements of 1986 arose from a particular set of historical circumstances, in 2006 archaeologists are faced by many challenges, and we are stronger if we
address these challenges together. Today, a spirit of cooperation informs the
relationships between WAC and the IUPPS. While each organisation has specific, though interrelated, roles in the global community, we are developing cooperative
relationships that benefit the members of both organizations.
Only 20 years after its genesis, WAC is accomplishing remarkable things. We
routinely hold InterCongresses in various parts of the world, we publish a wide
range of book series, we provide small amounts of funding for projects that
support Indigenous agendas, or scholars in economically disadvantaged
countries, and we are developing programs that make a significant difference to
teaching and learning in those parts of the world that most need assistance. The
World Archaeological Congress’ Global Libraries program, for example, provides books for 50 institutional libraries in economically disadvantaged countries.
Under the able leadership of Sally May and her colleagues, over 2000 books,
journals and CDs have been donated to this program since January, 2006. WAC
covers the costs of postage, and WAC members administer the program,
package and post the books, and solicit sponsorship to cover postage costs, or to allow libraries to purchase new books of their choice (rather than being dependent on what is donated to the organization). This is a wonderful program, and anyone who wishes to help with its development, or to provide support in other ways, should contact Sally May directly (see below).
The Global Libraries Program reminds me to remind readers that WAC is a
member organization, in which every accomplishment is achieved through the
volunteered labour of members. The success of our organization directly reflects the commitment and hard work of our members.
Claire Smith, for the Executive
2. WAC News
Global Libraries Project
The Global Libraries Project is a World Archaeological Congress initiative, which
aims to develop the archaeological literary collections of libraries in developing
countries. By supporting such libraries we hope to assist archaeological and
cultural heritage management students and professionals to undertake their study and their work. Currently 50 libraries from 37 different countries are receiving donations.
The Global Libraries Project relies on the donations of WAC members and
affiliated organizations, and since January of this year over 2000 books, journals and CDs have been donated. This makes a big difference to the 50 Global Libraries. Members are invited to make a donation of books or a financial contribution to the program (so that new books can be purchased for the libraries).
Further information is available on the following website:
Website: http://www.worldarchaeologicalcongress.org/site/globallibraries.php
Enquiries: sally.may@flinders.edu.au
Invitation to WAC members
Interdisciplinary initiative: Archaeozoology session in Jamaica
A session entitled “Scales and feathers: an environmental/cultural perspective”
has been accepted within the theme: Archaeology of the Environment and
Cultural Landscapes, at the WAC InterCongress, Kingston, Jamaica, 2027
May, 2007. While the session abstract will be available to those interested in the
meeting, I would like to reach out to the broader community of WAC and beyond.
The aim of this session is to further cooperation between archaeologists and
zoologists on a global forum. Counting on international perspectives represented
by WAC, I would like to invite participants to discuss how the development of
nonutilitarian animal use, especially, was influenced by environmental vs.
cultural factors.
The title is a reminder that, in spite of their importance as lato sensu
archaeological artifacts, animal bone finds tend to be rather insufficient in tackling
complex cultural questions in themselves. Therefore,
I would like to also include
papers on historical/ethnographic sources relating to animals. A global
interdisciplinary exchange will broaden the scope of understanding
zooarchaeological finds as true artefacts, further elucidating crosscultural
variability in archaeological subjects such as value, mobility and tradition.
László Bartosiewicz, Session Organiser President, International Council for Archaeozoology email: bartwicz@yahoo.com
Institute of Archaeological Sciences H1088
Budapest, Muzeum krt. 4/B Hungary
3. News from WAC Members
from Dr Cornelius Holtorf University of Lund
A silver ring discovered by Swedish archaeologists in Portugal
A silver ring was the most precious artefact found this year by an international
excavation team investigating a monumental prehistoric grave in southern
Portugal. The ring had been lost days earlier by Barbara, herself a member of the
archaeological team.
Cornelius Holtorf, an Assistant Professor from the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Lund (Sweden) directs the project atMonte da Igreja near Évora in the central Alentejo. He says: “We are interested in the entire history of the site. A find from several millennia ago, when the monument was being constructed and used for the first time, is as important to us as a find from yesterday.”
Holtorf explains that Neolithic people built the imposing collective burial site in
order to alter the landscape forever. The large granite slabs were to ensure that
the structure lasted into the future. Some five thousand years later, the imposing
structure still stands on the same hill. But with the original intentions of the
builders lost, later generations had to come up with their own interpretations of
the site.
The new results from this spring confirm that already in the late Bronze Age, the
grave chamber was reused although its precise purpose at that time is not
known. Later, in the Roman period, a small farm building was built next to the
monument. At that time, the 4th century AD, the ancient grave had become a
quarry and convenient part of an animal enclosure. Lost coins and other artefacts suggest that the site was subsequently revisited in the 11th, 17th and 19th
centuries. It was not until the middle of the 20th century that archaeologists first
recorded the grave at Monte da Igreja.
Holtorf insists that his project, which is funded by the Swedish Science Council
(Vetenskapsrådet), is but the most recent episode in a long history of reusing and
reinterpreting the prehistoric monument. Seen in this light, the silver ring is archaeological evidence for the presence of the contemporary excavation team.
It is also evidence for the craftsmanship of a modern silversmith and the wealth
of the archaeologist who owned it.
“At the end of the season, we took photographs of the ring and then returned it
to Barbara”, says Holtorf with a smile.
Dr Cornelius Holtorf
Project homepage: http://members.chello.se/cornelius/Igreja/
contact: cornelius.holtorf@ark.lu.se
from Nigel Hetherington
Theban Mapping Project
The Theban Mapping Project announces the publication of the Valley of the
Kings Site Management Masterplan on the TMP’s website :
http://www.thebanmappingproject.com
The Valley of the Kings (Wadi Biban el Mouluk) on the West Bank of the Nile in
Luxor, in the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a World Heritage site whose
archaeological fame and economic importance as a tourist destination are
internationally recognized. The result of its popularity has been a massive
increase in visitor numbers over the last decade, now often exceeding 7,000
visitors every day. This number is guaranteed to increase in future years. Without
carefully prepared site management plans, the very existence of this fragile
resourcecould be seriously threatened. In the spring of 2004, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) commissioned the Theban Mapping Project to prepare a site management masterplan for the Valley. This project was generously supported by the World Monuments Fund
(WMF), and the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), and several private
donors.
This ‘final draft for public consulation’ is now available for you to download and
we would very much like to have your feedback regarding our proposal for the
future of this very important site.
Nigel J. Hetherington
Conservation Manager Theban Mapping Project
Nigel also provides an address for his Blog:
From Paul Rainbird
University of Wales, Lampeter
Archaeologists from the University of Wales, Lampeter have continued over the
northern summer to work in various places including Cyprus and Scotland. The
Department’s research and training excavations at Strata Florida Abbey in Wales have continued under the direction of Professor David Austin with accomplishments this season including exciting results from geophysical survey. We continue to offer degrees in archaeology in Lampeter and Carmarthen and at postgraduate level we are in the process of validating new programmes in the Archaeology of the Biblical Lands, to be convened by the newly appointed Dr Andrew Petersen, and a unique parttime MA in Archaeoastronomy and Landscape Archaeology. Our professional services in environmental archaeology and dendrochronology have recently been enhanced by the launch of a new website at www.lamp.ac.uk/uwlas/
This summer saw the retirement of Professor Andrew Fleming, who became
Professor Emeritus. Also retired is the longserving Departmental Administrator Mrs Maureen Hunwicks. Dr Greg Stevenson has come to the end of his contract and becomes an Honorary Research Fellow as does Dr Trevor Kirk and Mr Robin Heath. Dr Andrew Petersen has been appointed Lecturer in Near Eastern Archaeology and we are aiming to appoint to a new lectureship in Classical Archaeology. Dr Paula Jones has been appointed as our archaeology tutor based at Trinity College, Carmarthen. We also have two new appointments in
anthropology.
For further information about the Department visit our Website at
Paul Rainbird
Department of Archaeology & Anthropology University of Lampter, Wales
4. Forthcoming Conferences and Events
CONFERENCES 2006
CHAT 2006
CHAT 2006:
Friday 10 Sunday
12 November 2006
Bristol, UK
The programme for the CHAT 2006 meeting in Bristol is online at
http://www.bris.ac.uk/archanth/events/chat2006.html
All enquiries:
Dan.Hicks@bris.ac.uk (Academic Programme) or
Sam.Barlow@bris.ac.uk (Conference Administration).
Constructing PostMedieval
Archaeology in Italy:
A New Agenda
University Ca’ Foscari of Venice
24 – 25 November 2006
Details of the full programme can be found at the following website:
www.arcmedvenezia.it
The Transformations Conference 2006: Culture and the Environment in
Human Development Australian National University, Canberra, Australia,
2729 November 2006
Full details of the conference can be found at the conference website
http://www.TransformationsConference.com
Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights
A World Archaeological Congress Symposium
Burra, South Australia 3 5 December 2006
Convenors: Claire Smith and Heather Burke, Department of Archaeology,
Flinders University Program Chair: Tim Ormsby
All enquiries:
Claire.smith@flinders.edu.au or Heather.Burke@flinders.edu.au
Quality in Cultural Heritage Management: Assessment Models and
Methods.
The HERITY Proposal
Rome (Italy) December 5 9, 2006
More information is available at the following website:
http://www.herity.it/
HERITY Italia
c/o DRI
V. E. Filiberto, 17
00185 ROMA ITALY +39.06.7049.7920
info@herity.it
CONFERENCES 2007
Conference on Repatriation of Cultural Heritage
Nuuk, Greenland 13 15 February 2007
To mark the International Polar Year of 2007 2008,
The Greenland National
Museum & Archive is hosting an international conference on repatriation of
cultural heritage.
For more details, contact:
Mille Gabriel
mille.gabriel@natmus.dk
Tel: +45 33 47 34 48
Fax: +45 33 47 33 22
CALL FOR PAPERS
VII International Conference on Easter Island and the Pacific Islands:
Migration, Identity, and Cultural Heritage.
Gotland University, Visby, Gotland, Sweden
August 2025, 2007
Session: Seascapes and Island Archaeology
Organisers: Paul Rainbird (University of Wales, Lampeter, Great Britain) and
Owe Ronström (Gotland University, Sweden)
Abstract:
It has for long been accepted that landscapes are polyvocal and are meaningful
to different people in different ways. Anthropologists and archaeologists have
attempted to tease out these multiple meanings and in doing so have given us nuanced understandings of landscape perceptions which have enhanced the
knowledgeofhistoriesandgeographiesofvariousplaces. Itcanbearguedthat
seascapes are equally ingrained with multiple understandings beyond a simple
perception of ‘bridge or barrier’. This session invites contributions which
considers the implications of the perception of the sea(s) which is such a feature
of introductory descriptions to Easter Island (i.e. distances to next nearest land,)
and also the implications of Epeli Hau’ofa’s ‘sea of islands’ which reverses the
land/sea relation of island in a sea so common in island archaeology.
Contributions from these perspectives which may be regarded as enhancing our understanding of Easter Island are welcome for any period or place.
Email
proposed title and short abstract to: p.rainbird@lamp.ac.uk
For Conference details, see Website at
www.hgo.se/archaeology/conference2007
5. News Items
Publications
Left Coast Press Inc, to publish One World Archaeology Series and UCL
Press Archaeology Books
Beginning with volume 48, the One World Archaeology series will be published
by Left Coast Press, Inc. The series, edited by Joan Gero, Mark Leone, and
Robin Torrence, contain selections of the papers presented at the WAC
Congresses, held every four years, and InterCongress meetings. Current
volumes were developed from the WAC Congress in Washington, DC in 2003.
These books will be available from our distributors, Univ. Arizona Press, Univ.
British Columbia Press, Berg Publishers. For more information or to order, visit
the Left Coast website: www.LCoastPress.com
Coming in December 2006…
One World Archaeology, Vol. 49
Archaeology to Delight and Instruct
Active Learning in the University Classroom
Edited by Heather Burke and Claire Smith (both at Flinders Univ.)
288 pages Cloth ISBN 9781598742565
$79.00
Paperack ISBN 9781598742572 $29.95
This book presents novel and interesting ways of teaching archaeological concepts and processes to college and university students. Seeking alternatives to the formal lecture format, the
various contributions seek better ways of communicating the
complexities of human behavior and of engaging students in active
learning about the past. This collection of imaginative exercises designed by 20 master instructors on three continents, include role playing, games, simulations, activities, and performance, are all designed to teach archaeological concepts in interesting and engaging
ways. Sponsored by the World Archaeological Congress
Now available:
One World Archaeology, Vol. 48
African ReGenesis Confronting
Social Issues in the Diaspora
Edited Jay B. Haviser (Netherland Antilles Archaeology Dept.) and
Kevin C. MacDonald (UCL)
294 pages Cloth ISBN 9781598742176
$79.00/ Paper ISBN 9781598742831 $34.95
Ripped from motherland and family, ethnically mixed to quell the
potential of uprisings, and brutalized by regimes of hard labor, the
heart the spirit of Africa did not stop beating in the New World.
Rather, it survived and has reemerged; changed by contacts with new
cultures and environments, butstill part of the continuum of African
tradition: an African ReGenesis. This is the first volume in its field
to emphasize the interdisciplinary temporal and geographic comparative
research of archaeology, anthropology, history and linguistics to allow
us to form unique perspectives on broader trends in the transformation
and (re) emergence of African Diaspora cultures. African ReGenesis confirms
that regardless of discipline, from continental Africa to Europe, the Western Hemisphere and Indian Ocean, all diaspora research requires a relevance to modern communities and sensitivity to the interplay with contemporary cultural identities. Historical matters concerning race and cultural diversity remain contentious, even today. African ReGenesis
strikes at the nerve of urgency that the past, present and future globalization of African cultures is a cornerstone of the entire human experience, and it deserves recognition as such.
Future Volumes, available in 2007, include:
A Fearsome Heritage: Diverse Legacies of the Cold War, edited by John
Schofield and Wayne Cocroft (50)
Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives,
edited by Timothy P. Denham, José Iriarte, Luc Vrydaghs (51)
Other volumes in preparatio
n for 2007 publication include:
Margaret LeshikarDenton and Pilar Luna Erreguerena (eds.),
Underwater Cultural Heritage in Latin America and the Caribbean
Inés Domingo Sanz, Danae Fiore, and Sally May (eds.), Art and Social Identity
Amy GazinSchwartz and Angèle P. Smith (eds.), Landscapes of Clearance
John Grattan and Robin Torrence (eds.), Living under the Shadow:
Cultural Impacts of Volcanic Eruptions
Yannis Hamilakis and Philip Duke (eds.), Archaeology and Capitalism:
From Ethics to Politics
Patricia Rubertone (ed.), Monuments, Memories and Archaeology of
Place in Native North America
Dan Hicks, Laura McAtackney, and Graham Fairclough (eds.) Envisioning
Landscape: Perspectives and Politics in Archaeology and Heritage
The subject matter of this series is wideranging, reflecting the diverse interests of WAC. WAC gives place to considerations of power and politics in framing archaeological questions and results. WAC also gives place and privilege to minorities who have often been silenced or regarded as beyond capable of making main line contributions to the field. All royalties from the series are used to help the wider work of WAC, including providing the means for less advantaged colleagues to attend WAC conferences, thereby enabling them to
contribute to the development of the academic debate surrounding the study of
the past.
The OneWorld Archaeology series was launched after the first WAC Congress in 1986 in Southhampton, England. Books prior to Volume 48 were published by Routledge.
Left Coast is also proud to announce that it is now publisher of the archaeology list of UCL Institute of Archaeology, formerly published by UCL Press. Generated
from one of the preeminent archaeological institutes in the world, the UCL
publication program will include the best theory, research, pedagogy and
reference materials in archaeology and cognate disciplines, through publishing
exemplary work of scholars worldwide. There are 17 books currently in print from this publications program and another 20 to be published before the end of 2007.
More information on the Left Coast Press website at: www.LCoastPress.com
Archaeolingua Publications
Archaeolingua Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organisation dedicated to interdisciplinary research and connected activities in Archaeology, Linguistics and other related fields.
The following are recent texts published by the Archaeolingua Foundation.
1. Landscape Ideologies, Thomas Meier (ed.)
Contents:
On Landscape Ideologies: An Introduction (Thomas Meier), The Term “Cultural
Landscape”(Ulf Ickerodt), Landscape in Prehistoric Archaeology: Comparing
Western and Eastern Paradigms (Olena V. Smyntyna), Settlement,
Environmentaland
Landscape Archaeology in Eastern Central Europe between
AngloAmerican
Influence and Communist Ideology (Grietje Suhr), The
Archaeology of Lowlands: A Few Remarks on the Methodology of Aerial Survey (Martin Gojda), Debating the Fürstensitz Model: Prolegomena for New Directions in the Archaeology of West Hallstatt Societies (Adriene Baron Tacla), Place
Names and Folk Landscapes in Southern Germany as Archaeological Resources (Matthew Leigh Murray), Our Place in the Landscape? An Archaeologist’s Ideology of Landscape Perception and Management (Graham Fairclough), The
EU: In Need of a Supranational View of Cultural Heritage (Anders Högberg), The
Challenge of Bridging the Gap between Landscape Theory and Practice:
Establishing Cultural Heritage Monitoring, the DEMOTEC Example (Birgitte
Skar), Tuscany: Historical Landscapes as Cultural Heritage (Riccardo Lorenzi,
Marinella Pasquinucci, Oreste Signore)
2. The Archaeology of Cult and Death Mercourios Georgiadis and Chrysanthi
Gallou (eds.)
Contents:
Introduction (Mercourios Georgiadis and Chrysanthi Gallou), Death, Display and
Performance: A Discussion of the Mortuary Remains at Çayönü Tepesi (Karina
Croucher), Cultural and Ritual Evidence in the Archaeological Record: Modeled
Skulls from the Ancient Near East (Michelle Bonogofsky), The Peqi’in Cave:
Ancestor Worship in the Chalcolithic Period (Zvi Gal), Religion and Wealth:
Aspects of the Social Dynamic in SouthCentral Crete during the PrePalatial
and ProtoPalatial Periods (Joanne M. A. Murphy), Games and Funerary Beliefs in
ProtoPalatial Crete (Helène Whittaker), Ancestor Worship, Tradition and
Regional Variation in Mycenaean Culture (Chrysanthi Gallou and Mercourios Georgiadis), Priestly Burials in Mycenaean Greece (Christina Aamont), Poor Relations: A Pauper’s Cemetery in Poseidonia/Paestum (Mikels Skele), Archaeology of Children: SubAdult Burials during the Iron Age in the TransUrals and Western Siberia (Natalia Berseneva)
For more information about titles and how to place orders contact:
Fruzsina Cseh
Editorial Assistant
Archaeolingua Publications H1014
BudapestÚri utca 49.
Tel./Fax: +361 375 8939
www.archaeolingua.hu
New perspectives on Minoan Crete
Archaeology and European Modernity: Producing and Consuming the ‘Minoans’ edited by Y Hamilakis and N Momigliano
This unique collection contributes to current debates on the relationship between
archaeology and European modernity by focusing on the specific case study of
Minoan Crete, which has often been hailed as the cradle of European civilisation.
It represents the first multidisciplinary effort to understand critically the
disciplinary history and reception of the Minoan past, by bringing together the
work of archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, art historians, and literary scholars.
The contributions deal with a variety of issues concerning the ‘production’ and
‘consumption’ of the Minoan past, especially its use in the construction of
European, Mediterranean, Greek, and Cretan identities. They cover an
exceptionally wide array of topics, ranging from the historical and intellectual
environment in which the rediscovery of Minoan Crete took place to the role of
the Minoan past in Freudian psychoanalysis, and from the reception of the
Minoans in modern European artistic movements and literary works to tourism,
heritage management, and pedagogy. The volume will be of interest to
archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, and art historians interested in the
politics of the past, the archaeology and anthropology of identity, the critical
history of archaeology, colonialism, nationalism, and European modernity.
Contents
I. INTRODUCTION
1. Archaeology and European Modernity: Stories from the Borders Yannis Hamilakis and Nicoletta Momigliano
II. THE PRESENT IN THE PAST: PRODUCING THE ‘MINOANS’
2. A Country in a ‘State of Destitution’ Labouring under an ‘Unfortunate
Regime’:Crete at the Turn of the 20th Century (1898 1906), Philip Carabott
3. The Minoans a Welsh invention? A view from east Crete, James Whitley
4. From Ideologies of Motherhood to ‘Collecting Mother Goddesses,’
Christine Morris
5. Knossos as Memorial, Ritual, and Metaphor, Philip Duke
6. Forging the Minoan Past, Ken Lapatin
7. Crete, Greece, and the Orient in the Thought of Gordon Childe (with an
appendix on Toynbee and Spengler: the Afterlife of the Minoans in European
Intellectual History), Andrew Sherratt
8. Minoan Wannabees: The Resurrection of Minoan Influences in Scandinavian
Archaeology, Lena Sjögren
III. THE PAST IN THE PRESENT: CONSUMING THE ‘MINOANS’
9. The Col
onial, the National, and the Local: Legacies of the ‘Minoan’ Past
Yannis Hamilakis
10. Knossos: Social Uses of a Monumental Landscape, Esther Solomon
11. Minoans in Modern Greek Literature, Roderick Beaton
12. Happy Little Extroverts and Bloodthirsty Tyrants: Minoans and Mycenaeans in Literature in English after Evans and Schliemann, David Roessel
13. Cretan Psychoanalysis and Freudian Archaeology: H.D.’s Minoan Analysis with Freud in 1933, Cathy Gere
14. The Arts of Bronze Age Crete and the European Modern Style: Reflecting
and Shaping Different Identities, Fritz Blakolmer
15. Minoan Crete in 20th Century Italian Culture,Vincenzo La Rosa and Pietro
Militello
16. The ‘Minoan’ Experience of Schoolchildren in Crete, Anna Simandiraki
(Creta Antica 7, Aldo Ausilio, 2006); Pp: 277.
Price GB £85.00;
Orders: info@ausilioeditore.com
www.oxbowbooks.com
A new text about archaeology in Japan
Archaeology, Society and Identity in Modern Japan covers a range of broad
public archaeology, postcolonial archaeology, and general theoreticalarchaeologyrelated
issues including modernity and archaeology, archaeology and the selfidentification
of the public, postmodern difficulties and the changing mode of the consumption of archaeological past, archaeology and education.
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp
isbn=0521849535
Koji Mizoguchi, Ph.D.
Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies,
Kyushu University,421
Ropponmatsu, Chuo Ward,
Fukuoka, JAPAN 8108560
Email: mizog@rc.kyushuu.ac.jp
A new book on maize in the Americas
Title: Histories of Maize: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the
Prehistory, Linguistics, Biogeography, Domestication, and Evolution of
Maize, edited by John E. Staller, Robert H. Tykot, and Bruce F. Benz
This volume represents an important reference source and is the most
comprehensive treatment of maize in the Americas published to date. It
is organized by geography and analytical approach into five different
parts.
The information on this book can be accessed at this link to the
Elsevier/Academic Press web site:
http://www.elsevier.com/
Hardbound, ISBN 0123683640, 704 pages
Price: 149.00 U
The book includes various state of the art applications, which provide
evidence on the role and significance of maize to prehistoric societies in the Americas, for all timeperiods.
Table of Contents:
An Introduction to the Histories of Maize, by John E. Staller
Part I: Histories of Maize: Genetic, Morphological, and
Microbotanical Evidence
1. Differing Approaches and Perceptions in the Study of New and Old
World Crops, by Terence A. Brown
2. Maize in the Americas: A Synthetic Look, by Bruce F. Benz
3. Origin of Polystichy in Maize, by Hugh H. Iltis
4. Dating the Initial Spread of Zea Mays, by T. Michael Blake
5. El Riego and Early Maize Evolution, by Bruce F. Benz, Li Cheng, Steven
W. Leavitt, and Chris Eastoe
6. Ancient DNA and the Integration of Archaeological and Genetic Approaches to the Study of Maize Domestication, by Viviane JaenickeDesprés
and Bruce D. Smith
7. Ancient Maize in the American Southwest: What Does it Look Like
and What Can it Tell Us?, by Lisa W. Huckell
8. Environmental Mosaics, Agricultural Diversity, and the
Evolutionary Adoption of Maize in the American Southwest, by William E.
Doolittle and Jonathan B. Mabry
9. Towards a Biologically Based Method of Phytolith Classification, by
Greg Laden
Part II: Isotope Analysis and Human Diet
10. Isotope Analyses and the Histories of Maize, by Robert Tykot
11. Social Directions in the Isotopic Anthropology of Maize in the
Maya Region, by Christine D. White, Fred J. Longstaffe, and Henry P.
Schwarcz
12. Diet in Prehistoric Soconusco, by Brian Chisholm and T. Michael Blake
13. Early to Terminal Classic Maya Diet in the Northern Lowlands of
the Yucatán (Mexico), by Eugenia Brown Mansell, Robert H. Tykot, David A.
Freidel, Bruce H. Dahlin, and Traci Ardren
14. The Importance of Maize in Initial Period and Early Horizon Peru, by Robert H. Tykot, Richard L. Burger, and Nikolaas van der Merwe
15. Maize on the Frontier: Isotopic and Macrobotanical Data from CentralWestern
Argentina, by Adolfo F. Gil, Robert H. Tykot, Gustavo Neme,
and Nicole Shelnut
16. Dietary Variation and Prehistoric Maize Farming in the Middle Ohio
Valley, by Diana M. Greenlee
17. A Hard Row to Hoe: Changing Maize Use in the American Bottom and
Surrounding Area, by Eleanora A. Reber
18. Evidence for the Early Use of Maize in Peninsular Florida, by
Jennifer A. Kelly, Robert H. Tykot, and Jerald T. Milanich
19. Prehistoric Maize in Southern Ontario: Contributions from Stable
Isotope Studies, by M. Anne Katzenberg
20. The Stable and RadioIsotope Chemistry of Eastern Basketmaker and Pueblo Groups in the Four Corners Region of the American Southwest: Implications for Anasazi Diets, Origins and Abandonments in Southwestern Colorado, by Joan Brenner Coltrain, Joel C. Janetski, and Shawn W. Carlyle21. The Agricultural Productivity of Chaco Canyon and the Source(s) of PreHispanic Maize found in Pueblo Bonito, by Larry Benson, John Stein, Howard Taylor, Richard Friedman, and Thomas C. Windes22. Summary of Isotope Section, by Henry Schwarcz
Part III: Histories of Maize: Mesoamerica, Central and South America:
The Spread of Maize in Central and South America
23. Caribbean Maize: First Farmers to Columbus, by Lee Newsom
24. Maize on the Move, by J. Scott Raymond, and Warren R. DeBoer
25. The Gift of the Variation and Dispersion of Maize: Social and
Technological Context in Amerindian Societies, by Renée M. Bonzani and
Augusto OyuelaCaycedo
26. The Maize Revolution: A View from El Salvador, by Robert A. Dull
27. PreColumbian
Maize Agriculture in Costa Rica: Pollen and Other
Evidence from Lake and Swamp Sediments, by Sally P. Horn
28. CaralSupe
and the NorthCentral
Area of Peru: The History of
Maize in the Land Where Civilization Came into Being, by Ruth Shady
29. Prehistoric Maize from Northern Chile, An Evaluation of the
Evidence, by Mario A. Rivera
30. The Archaeology and Ethnography of Maize Cultivation in the
Titicaca, by Sergio Chavez and Robert Thompson
31. The Movements of Maize into Middle Horizon Tiwanaku, Bolivia, by Christine A. Hastorf, William T. Whitehead, Maria C. Bruno, and
Melanie Wright
32. The Social, Symbolic and Economic Significance of Zea mays L. in
the Late Horizon Period, by John E. Staller
Part IV: The Histories of Maize: North America and Northern Mexico
33. Early Agriculture in Chihuahua, Mexico, by Robert J. Hard, A.C.
MacWilliams, John R. Roney, Karen R. Adams, and William L. Merrill
34. Protohistoric and Contact Period Salinas Pueblo Maize: Trend or
Departure? by Katharine D. Rainey and Katherine A. Spielmann
35. Early Maize Agriculture in the Northern Rio Grande Valley, New
Mexico, by Bradley J. Vierra and Richard I. Ford
36. Hominy Technology and the Emergence of Mississippian Societies, by Thomas P. Myers
37. The Migrati
ons of Maize into the Southeastern U.S., by Robert Lusteck
38. The Science behind the Three Sisters Mound System: An Agronomic Assessment of an Indigenous Agricultural System in the Northeast, by Jane Mt. Pleasant
39. The Origin and Spread of Maize (Zea mays) in New England, by
Elizabeth S. Chilton
40. Precontact Maize from Ontario, Canada: Origins, Context,
Chronology, Variation, and Plant Associations, by Gary W. Crawford,
Della Saunders, and David G. Smith
Part V: The Histories of Maize: The Language of Maize
41. Siouan Tribal Contacts and Dispersions Evidenced in the
Terminology for Maize and Other Cultigens, by Robert L. Rankin
42. Maize in Word and Image in Southern Mesoamerica, by Brian Stross
43. Thipaak and the Origins of Maize in Northern Mesoamerica, by
Janis B. Alcorn, Barbara Edmonson, and Cándido Hernández Vidales
44. The Place of Maize in Indigenous Mesoamerican Folk Taxonomies,
by Nicholas A. Hopkins
45. Native Aymara and Quechua Botanical Terminologies of Zea Mays in
the Lake Titicaca and Cuzco Regions, by Sergio J. Chávez
46. The Historical Linguistics of Maize Cultivation in Mesoamerica and
North America, by Jane H. Hill
47. Glottochronology and the Chronology of Maize in the Americas, by Cecil H. Brown
48. A Review of the Antiquity, Biogeography and Culture History of
Maize in the Americas, by Bruce F. Benz and John E. Staller
Publication to celebrate the work of Jay Hall
An Archaeological Life: Papers in Honour of Jay Hall edited by Sean Ulm and Ian Lilley
2006, viii+276pp, 297x210mm, pb
ISBN 1864998636
In 2007 Associate Professor Jay Hall retires from the University of
Queensland after more than 30 years of service to the Australian
archaeological community. Celebrated as a gifted teacher and a
pioneer of Queensland archaeology, Jay leaves a rich legacy of
scholarship and achievement across a wide range of
archaeological endeavours. An Archaeological Life brings together past and present students, colleagues and friends to celebrate Jay’s contributions, influences and interests.
Contents
Jay Hall From Scatology to
Eschatology, by Jim Allen
After Clovis: Some Thoughts on the Slow Death of a Paradigm, by David Pedler & J.M. Adovasio
MidHolocene Hunters of Kangaroo Island: The Perspective from Cape du Couedic Rockshelter, by Neale Draper
Archaeology and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies at
the University of Queensland, by Ian Lilley
An Attack of Nostalgia and
Other Ways of Seeing the Past, by Mike Rowland
Of Fairy Rings and Telegraph Poles: The Importance of Accounting
for Evidence of Absence in Archaeological Surveys, by Richard Robins & Cheryl Swanson
Sa Huynh and Cham in Vietnam: Implications of Maritime
Economies, by an Walters
Process or Planning? Depicting and Understanding the Variability in Australian Core Reduction, by Peter Hiscock
Late Moves on Donax: Aboriginal Marine Specialisation in
Southeast Queensland over the Last 6000 years, by Ian J. McNiven
Diatoms and Sponge Spicules as Indicators of Contamination on
Utilised Backed Artefacts from Turtle Rock, by Gail Robertson
Historical Archaeology at the University of Queensland, by Jonathan Prangnell
MRAP and Beyond: Bribie Island, Southeast Queensland, by A.D.
(Tam) Smith
The Antiquity of Marine Fishing in Southeast Queensland: New
Evidence for Pre2000
BP Fishing from Three Sites on the
Southern Curtis Coast, by Sean Ulm & Deborah Vale
Interpreting Surface Assemblage Variation in Wardaman Country,
Northern Territory: An Ecological Approach, by Chris Clarkson
Starch Grains, Stone Tools and Modern Hominin Behaviour, by Richard Fullagar
The Ceramic Chronology of Copan: A Plotted History and Some
Revisionist Reflections, by René Viel
Filling the Gaps: Extending the TARDIS Concept to Teaching
Cultural Heritage Management Skills, by Anne Ross
Archaeology under the Bitumen: Excavations at the Bribie Island
Road Site, Southeast Queensland, by Jill Reid
To Trash and to Cache: Analysis of a Late Formative Living
Surface at Copan, Honduras, by Daniel Cummins & Michael
Haslam
Data Grid for the Management, Reconstruction, Analysis and
Visualisation of Archaeological Data, by Nicole Bordes, Sean Ulm,
Oystein Pettersen, Karen Murphy, David Gwynne, William Pagnon,
Stuart Hungerford, Peter Hiscock, Jay Hall & Bernard Pailthorpe
Jay Hall Publications 19692006
Purchase a Copy
Copies of An Archaeological Life: Papers in Honour of Jay Hall are
available at the price of $59.95 each (including GST and postage in
Australia). For international customers copies are AUD$69.95 each
(GST exempt and including airmail postage). Order forms are
available by clicking on the link at the base of the following web
page:
http://www.atsis.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=41638&pid=41633
New European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) blog
WAC members may be interested to know about the new EAA blog with loads of
information and some discussion relevant to European archaeology. One of the
aims of the blog is to publicise and further discuss issues published in the
European Journal of Archaeology. Also included are reports on recent
conferences and reviews of exhibitions, and even a world map that shows the
locations of people who have logged onto the site!
The EAA Blog is hosted by Troels Myrup Kristensen
The web address is:
Other news items
From Virginia SteenMcIntyre
IN THE BUILDING STAGE: A WEBSITE WITH HARDTOFIND DATA ON
CYNTHIA IRWINWILLIAMS’ ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES, VALSEQUILLO
AREA, PUEBLA, MEXICO http://www.valsequilloclassic.net
The archaeological sites excavated by Cynthia IrwinWilliams
and Juan Armenta Camacho in the early 60s have caused controversy from the first. In them, well made stone tools were found in situ associated with butchered bones of
Pleistocene animals including mastodon, horse, and camel. Later work by geoscientists dated the sites at around 250,000 300,000 years (SteenMcIntyre, Fryxell, and Malde, 1981, Quaternary Research, 16, 117 and cited references). Recent diatom studies for sediment from the artifactbearing layers and a cavity in the Dorenberg skull support this great age (VanLandingham, 2006, J. Paleolimnol. 36, 101116 and cited references).
Because of the controversial age for the sites, little information is in print. Much of
the original material, including artefacts, trench profiles, field notes, and
thousands of photos and slides has since disappeared. To preserve what is left,
and to disseminate the information as widely as possible, this website is being
created.
See also abstract and online papers by SteenMcIntyre and VanLandingham, WAC5, Washington D.C.
Virginia SteenMcIntyre
P.O. Box 1167
Idaho Springs, CO 80452 USA
dub.ent@ix.netcom.com
6. Excerpts from other archaeological newsletters (used with permission)
6(a) SALON (editions from October and September 2006)
SALON the
Society of Antiquaries of London Online Newsletter
SALON 151: 30 October 2006
SALON Editor: Christopher Catling
christopher.catling@virgin.net
Contents
• Culture Minister unveils the UK’s next three nominations for World
Heritage status
• Explorers who forge new links between communities
• Was Columbus Portuguese?
• First humans in Tibet
• Goats might have been the first domesticated farm animals
• The dark earth mystery
Culture Minister unveils the UK’s next three nominations for World Heritage
status
The Antonine Wall, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and the Wearmouth Jarrow twin
monastery are to be the UK’s next three nominations as World Heritage Sites,
Culture Minister David Lammy has announced.
The Antonine Wall was added to the UK Tentative List this year and would form an extension to the Frontiers of the Roman Empire Transnational World Heritage
Site presently consisting of Hadrian’s Wall and the Upper Raetian German
Limes. The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is the highest canal aqueduct ever built and as such is considered to be one of the most heroic of the monuments that symbolise
the world’s first Industrial Revolution.
The AngloSaxon monastery of Wearmouth Jarrow needs little introduction to
Fellows: created by Benedict Biscop, who returned from his travels in Continental
Europe in the 650s determined to build a monastery ‘in the Roman manner’, it
was home to the Venerable Bede, the first historian of the English people, who
became a member of Benedict Biscop’s community at the age of seven, around
AD 680.
Our Fellow, Sir Neil Cossons, Chairman of English Heritage, said: ‘The
nomination for Wearmouth Jarrow recognises the unique international
contribution the site and its greatest inhabitant, the AngloSaxon
scholar Bede, made to the development of European learning and culture. The inscription of the
Antonine Wall will complement the recent joining of the Upper German Raetian
Limes and Hadrian’s Wall to form the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World
Heritage Site and will strengthen international cooperation on conservation.’
At 125ft high, Thomas Telford and William Jessop’s Pontcysyllte aqueduct takes the Llangollen canal across the River Dee valley. It is formed from a 1,000ftlong
iron trough laid on stone arches. The first stone of the aqueduct, which
connected the Rivers Severn, Mersey and Dee at the height of the Industrial
Revolution, was laid in 1795. It took a decade to complete. Alun Pugh, Minister for Culture, Welsh Language and Sport in Wales, said: ‘We have a wonderful built historic environment in Wales and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is a jewel in the crown.’
Explorers who forge new links between communities
As a schoolboy learning about the voyages of Magellan and Columbus, Salon’s editor could never quite reconcile the notion of the ‘discovery’ of Africa, Australia
or the Americas with the blindingly obvious fact that there were people already living there nor how northern European explorers could claim to have ‘navigated
for the first time’ routes that local traders and sailors had been using since time
immemorial.
Now in a book, called Pathfinders: a global history of exploration (published by OUP), our Fellow Felipe FernándezArmesto has squared that circle by making a useful distinction between ‘exploration’ and mere ‘movement’. True explorers, in FernándezArmesto’s definition, are strangers from afar who create new links between communities that have not been in contact before. These ‘pathfinders’ lay down ‘gangways of cultural convergence’ though the author admits that where Europeans were involved, and especially during the socalled
‘golden age of exploration’, this intercultural contact has too often ‘begun with embraces,
continued in abuse and ended in bloodshed’.
Through meticulous research married to a gift for storytelling, FernándezArmesto
chronicles some 4,000 years of global exploration, which he dates back to the ancient Egyptians who sent an expedition to central Africa in the late third millennium BC. As he charts the process by which the globe has been mapped (not systematically but by means of a meandering and haphazard process) he ends by asking: is exploration now obsolete?
In the sense in which he has defined it, the answer has to be ‘yes’ globalisation,
powered by consumerism and digital media, have penetrated so widely that you
now have to work very hard to escape from those ‘gangways of cultural
convergence’ laid down by developed western economies. But if exploration
means following your curiosity into the unknown, then there are vast realms still
to be discovered, as every antiquary surely knows: was it Gilbert White who said
he learned more from studying a square foot of soil in his back garden than
others learned by travelling the world?
Was Columbus Portuguese?
Another puzzle to torment schoolboy historians is the question of why Christopher Columbus spoke fluent Portuguese, but not Italian, though claiming
to be Genoese, how he came to marry the aristocratic daughter of the
Portuguese Governor of Porto Santo island, in the Madeiran archipelago, and
why on his return from his first voyage across the Atlantic he spent a week in
Lisbon in audience with ‘his’ king, before reporting back to the Spanish
monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, who had sponsored his voyage.
Two scholars who have pursued these questions Ñü the Portuguese historianMascarenas Barreto and the US historian Manuel Luciano da Silva Ñü have now
concluded that Columbus was in fact the illegitimate son of Isabel Goncalves Zarco, daughter of João Goncalves Zarco, the Portuguese navigator credited
with the discovery of Madeira. Columbus’ father was the Duque de Beja, and
Isabel gave birth at the Duke’s palace in Cuba, the town 12km north of Beja, after which Columbus later named the island of Cuba. Why did Columbus not reveal
his true identity? Because his father, the Duke of Beja, and the king of Portugal,
João II, were rival claimants to the Portuguese throne and sworn enemies.
The people of Cuba (Portugal) certainly believe this theory and have just
unveiled a 7ft bronze statue of the explorer in their main square to
commemorate the 514th anniversary of Columbus’s landfall on the Caribbean
island of Cuba. And Dom Duarte de Braganza, direct descendant of Columbus’s supposed father has agreed to donate a blood sample to the Spanish and Portuguese governments in the hope his DNA can be matched with that of Columbus or his descendants.
First humans in Tibet
The explorers whose lives and deeds are chronicled by Felipe FernándezArmesto
might get the posthumous biographies, but Salon’s editor is just as interested in the anonymous humans whose slow journeys in pursuit of basic necessities of life led to the peopling of the globe. While it is easy to understand the motivation of lotus eaters following plentiful food and warmth around the shores of Africa and Asia, one wonders what drove people to explore harsher regions of the globe, such as Tibet. Again published in the Journal of
Archaeological Science, recent research suggests that humans penetrated the
region between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago, and may have been there ten
millennia before that, despite the fact that the QinghaiTibetan plateau is the largest continuous highelevation ecosystem on the planet, characterised by extremes of climate.
Archaeologists surveying the shores of the Qinghai lake, in the northeastern
corner of the plateau at an elevation of 3,200m (10,500ft), have found hearths,
consisting of charcoal dating from 13,000 and 12,800 years ago along with burnt
cobbles used for boiling and degreasing, and debris from toolmaking and
the
bones of a gazellesized animals. David Madsen notes in his report in the Journal
that camps such as this are critical to understanding the capacities of early humans for the movement into other extreme environments such as Siberia and
Beringia — the Ice Age land bridge that led into the Americas.
Rapid sea level rise might alter views of human migration
Another perspective on the peopling of America comes in the form of a paper presenting new evidence that the Bering Strait near Alaska flooded into the Arctic Ocean about 11,000 years ago, about 1,000 years earlier than previously believed, closing off the land bridge thought to be the major route for human migration from Asia to the Americas.
In a paper in the October issue of Geology magazine, researchers from the
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) report results from three new
core sites north and west of Alaska in the Chukchi Sea, where the continental
shelf was exposed when the sea level fell during the last glacial maximum, about
20,000 years ago. Their analysis shows a consistent pattern of rising sea levels that flooded the Bering Strait about 12,000 years ago. The implication is that people arrived in the Americas sooner than many US archaeologists believe, or that the current migration dates are accurate,but that people arrived by boat rather than by land.
Goats might have been the first domesticated farm animals
Goats, rather than cows, sheep or pigs, might have been the first animals to be
domesticated by Neolithic farmers, according to a report in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences based on DNA analysis of goat bones from a
cave in Baume d’Oullen in southwestern France. The authors of the report say they have tracked two goat lineages stemming from the Near East around 7,500 years ago.
Goats would have been ideally suited companions for early farmers, being hardy animals that can survive on minimal food, cope with extremes of temperature, and travel long distances. Goats would have provided clothing, meat, and milk as well as bone, sinew nd dung for consumption and trade. The researchers also found that once domesticated, the farming of goats spread very quickly from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, rather than taking many goat generations.
Commenting on the results, archaeologist Marek Zvelebil, from the University of
Sheffield, said that caution was needed in interpreting the results of research
based on a small sample of bones from a single site but added that: ‘this site is strategically located along one of the major routes for the dispersal of farming
into Europe’, and that the study backed other archaeological evidence that
indicates that once Neolithic culture reached modernday Italy, it spread rapidly through the western Mediterranean region.
The dark earth mystery
To many archaeologists, dark earth (the 2to 3footdeep layer of soil that is found in many urban contexts in postRoman stratigraphy) is as mysterious as the intricacies of DNA. In an attempt to foster discussion and debate about its origins and significance, Pete Clark has compiled a bibliography on the subject which he posted on the Britarch bulletin board on 13 October 2006. The jury is still out on whether it results from the decay of weeds and organic rubbish,
representing evidence of urban decline from the second to the ninth centuries or whether it consists of structural timbers and earth floors reworked by worm action.
SALON 150: 16 October 2006
Contents
· John Coles awarded EAA Heritage Prize
· The birth of Natural England
· Landscape quality guidance
· The Conservation of Australia’s Historic Heritage Places
· Campaign to save the ancient diolkos of Corinth
· International outrage at proposedsale of BadenWürttemberg
manuscripts
· Agreement to control sale of antiquities on eBay
· Noah’s Ark International Workshop
John Coles awarded EAA Heritage Prize
Our Fellow Anthony Harding, President of the European Association of
Archaeologists (EAA), writes to say that at the Twelfth Annual Meeting, held in
Cracow, Poland, on 19 to 24 September 2006, our Fellow John Coles was awarded the EAA Heritage Prize, in recognition of his many contributions to the
study, preservation and presentation of European wetlands, his pioneering work in experimental archaeology, and his study of Bronze Age rock art.
The prize citation dwelt on all these matters, and concluded as follows: ‘John
Coles is that unusual figure, an academic archaeologist who through his fieldwork has changed the way we look at the world. He leads by example; he
does not expect others to do his work for him; he keeps up with a huge range of
literature; and he acts as friend, mentor and adviser to many. He has crammed
into his working life a vast amount of archaeology in a whole series of different
fields. The areas of heritage protection highlighted here have benefited
enormously from his energy, his experience and his wise counsel. It was for
these reasons that the Heritage Prize Committee of the EAA came to the
unanimous decision to award the 2006 EAA Heritage Prize to John Coles.’
The birth of Natural England
On 11 October 2006, Natural England, the new government agency created to
champion the natural environment, was formally launched. The Sheffieldbased
agency, employing 2,500 staff, has a budget of £500 million, some £300m of
which will be used for conservation grants to farmers to encourage them to
operate in a more environmentally friendly way.
Natural England’s chief executive Dr Helen Phillips said the new agency will
campaign on four main themes: climate change, health, sustainable land
management and the marine environment. ‘Natural England has been created at
a time of growing concern over the use of the world’s natural resources and over climate change’, she said. ‘We have been charged with the responsibility to
ensure that England’s unique natural environment including its land, flora and
fauna, freshwater and marine environments, geology and soils are protected and
improved. Our aim is to conserve, enhance and manage the natural environment
for the benefit of present and future generations, thereby contributing to
sustainable development.’
Friends of the Earth responded by claiming that Natural England’s aim of halting
and reversing landscape degradation was being frustrated by government cuts.
At the same time the campaigning body highlighted the loss of 200,000 miles of
hedges from the British landscape enough to encircle the globe eight times over the past sixty years, as revealed by recently published figures. Britain’s hedges are the nation’s richest wildlife habitat and some are thought to date from the Bronze Age. They reached their peak in 1870, only to be devastated after the Second World War as farmers created larger fields for modern farm machinery. Over the past decade their total length has remained the same but, says Friends of the Earth, this disguises the fact that old, wildliferich hedgerows are being
destroyed, while less valuable ones are being planted. Ministers are now reviewing the regulations to see if they need to be tightened up to prevent this practice.
The Conservation of Australia’s Historic Heritage Places
In Australia, the Productivity Commission has completed its inquiry into ‘The
Conservation of Australia’s Historic Heritage Places’ and published its report,
which can be downloaded from the Australian Government website.
As predicted, the Commission concludes that designation of a property as a
Historic Heritage Place can be seen as interference on the part of Government in
the property rights of private owners, for which compensation should be paid
under certain circumstances, but only in the case of newly designated property.
The report argues that people who acquire property that is already listed do so ‘in
full knowledge of the heritage constraints that applied to the property and that
this would have been reflected in the price paid’.
Where a property is not already designated, the report recommends providing
owners with the right to appeal against statutory listing ‘on the grounds of
unreasonable costs’ for example, where significant conservation costs are
involved over and above those for normal repairs and maintenance, where
designation ‘compromises’ the owner’s right to enjoy and use the property, where
redundant structures have to be maintained and preserved, and where the owner forfeits valuable development options that would otherwise be permitted for the
property.
The Commission says that it would like to see ‘negotiated conservation
agreements’ used in place of legal appeals. By negotiated agreements, it means compensation packages worked out between the owner and the local authority.
In reaching such agreements, it warns local governments that they must be sure
that ‘the extra benefits to the community are greater than the added costs of the
intervention’, but where this can be proven, the report suggests thatcentral
Government should help with the extra cost burden.
The report argues that negotiated agreements work well in British Columbia,
Ontario and parts of the United States as the basis for ‘the ongoing conservation
of otherwise redundantstructures (such as unused woolsheds and churches in
the countryside, and industrial plant in cities)’. In such circumstances, the report
argues, ‘proscriptive regulation is ineffective and some significant heritage items are currently disappearing through “demolition by neglect” … listing in such
circumstances has been adversarial and contested, and subsequent ongoing
conservation has been problematic’. It argues that negotiating heritage
conservation agreements requires that clearsighted decisions about heritage
benefits and costs to be made up front, but it admits that the effects of their recommendations will be to increase the number of appeals against listing ‘while owners and listing authorities test the new ground for appeal and precedents are established’.
Campaign to save the ancient diolkos of Corinth
Salon has learned that Greek archaeologists are concerned about the threats to
the ancient diolkos of Corinth, a unique paved way that enabled Greek warships and merchantmen to be moved overland across the Isthmus of Corinth, the neck of land separating the Gulf of Corinth from the Saronic Gulf. This monument of great importance for the history of technology, and for classical Greek
achievement generally, has suffered extensive damage due to decades of
neglect and is progressively crumbling into the sea at its western end.
Probably built by Periander (625Ñü585 BC), the diolkos is mentioned by Thucydides in connection with the transport of fleets during the Peloponnesian
War. After Actium in 31 BC Octavian shipped his warships across the diolkos to
pursue Antony and Cleopatra to Asia and Egypt. Later, the diolkos fell into disuse
and now it has been superseded by the modern Corinth Canal.
Excavations conducted between 1956 and 1962 by the Greek archaeologist
Nikos Verdelis revealed the course of the diolkos for about one kilometre on both
sides of the Corinth Canal; it is estimated that its total length was originally 8km.
The eastern end, reported by Strabo to be atSchoenus (modern Kalamaki), has not been found. Varying in width from about 3.5 to more than 5 metres, the
diolkos has been called ‘the world’s first railway’ because of the grooves made
for the wheels of the trolleys onto which the ships were loaded, mainly at a gauge
of 1.52m.
Now at the mercy of the wake of the vessels passing though the Corinth Canal,
the diolkos has been heavily eroded. Parts have been washed away, parts undermined and left in danger of collapse, and parts are now below water. This deterioration is all the more serious for the fact that the monument has never been properly published (though the German researcher Walter Werner began making detailed drawings of the already seriously damaged vestiges in 1988).
Actions to save and restore the monument are urgently needed, say local
archaeologists, who are calling on the Hellenic Ministry of Culture to draw up an
assessment and allocate the necessary funds. Further information from our Fellow Paul Buckland at the University of Sheffield.
Cultural Heritage Without Borders
Salon frequently reports on the damage to the historic environment that results from warfare or natural disasters in different parts of the world, but from our Fellow Birte Brugmann comes heartening news of Cultural Heritage Without Borders (CHWB), an organisation based in Sweden that is dedicated to safeguarding and restoring cultural heritage damaged by war or disasters, using cultural heritage as a tool for reconciliation between warring communities, and
building networks across ethnic, religious and national borders to preserve and
protect the heritage.
Birte’s own work, recently published by the CHWB, is an archaeological map of
the 2,000yearold town of Prizren, in Kosovo, the state that is now under United
Nations administration and that was so recently scarred by disputes between the
Serbian and Albanian populations. Hampered by the ever present possibility of
unexploded devices in areas laid waste by the conflicts of 2004, Birte has
nevertheless mapped all the areas of archaeological interest within the historic core of the town with the help of archaeologists from the Kosovo Museum, the
Regional Archaeological Museum in Prizren, the Institute of Archaeology of
Kosovo and enthusiastic local schoolchildren.
The map and inventory will now be used to protect archaeological sites from damaging development during the town’s reconstruction and to strengthen the
basis for the future archaeological management of the Prizren Historic Zone
Fortress, as well as for various educational initiatives.
International outrage at proposed sale of BadenWürttemberg manuscripts
Outraged reaction from the world’s leading librarians and medievalists greeted
last week’s announcement by the provincial government of BadenWürttemberg
that it plans to sell nearly 85 per cent of the volumes in the Badische
Landesbibliothek manuscript collection. Dr Alex Byrne, President of the
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), was one
of many to express dismay when he heard of the planned sale, saying: ‘This incomparable collection includes major treasures taken from monasteries in 1803
and documents a thousand years of commerce and cultural development in
Europe. It is not only a treasure for BadenWürttemberg and Germany but part of
the world’s heritage. It must be protected.’
The collection includes a Book of Hours belonging to Archduke Christoph I of
Baden (1490), the prayer book of Susanna von BrandenburgAnsbachKulmbach,
medieval lectionaries from the scriptorium of the monastery at
Reichenau, and the Gospel of St Peter (c 1200). The majority of the manuscripts come from the monasteries in the Black Forest, the Upper Rhine and Lake
Constance and most were acquired when the monastic libraries were
expropriated following secularisation in 1803.
Doubts have been expressed about the legality of the sale, which was intended
to raise 70 million euros for the restoratio
n and maintenance of Schloss Salem,
the princely home of the royal family that once ruled Baden. In the face of
international condemnation of the proposed sale, the Prime Minister of BadenWürttemberg
has announced a possible alternative ‘package’, which includes ‘asking all the museums to donate an item worth several million to the state so that it can be sold at auction’, and cutting back on museum and library acquisition funds, and has warned that the sale of individual items from the manuscript collection cannot be ruled out if funds cannot be found elsewhere in the ‘cultural’ domain.
The government’s plans have been described as ‘halfbaked’, as ‘a ludicrous act of grace to help out with the finances of a grasping royal family’, and as a ‘philistine act on the part of one of the wealthiest states in one of the wealthiest European nations’, but so far such criticism seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
Agreement to control sale of antiquities on eBay
Ebay, the online auction site, has agreed to work with the British Museum (BM)
and the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) to help prevent illegal sales of
treasure. Until now eBay has required proof that an object was stolen or illicitly obtained before it would agree to remove it from the site. Under the new agreement, PAS staff will monitor eBay and alert them to suspect objects: eBay will then ask the sellers to provide evidence of the object’s provenance and if the answer is notsatisfactory, it will remove the item from the site.
Our Fellow Roger Bland, head of the PAS, was interviewed about the new eBay deal on the BBC’s ‘You and Yours’ programme. He said that BM staff had monitored eBay sales during August and found that at least as much unreported treasure was being sold on the site as was being officially reported. Most of the sellers, he said, were just ignorant of the law and were happy to report finds once they knew what to do, especially as reporting the find often leads to a museum acquiring the object at its open market value.
But PAS has also found a small core of dealers who try to get round the law by insisting the objects they are selling come from old collections, or were bought
overseas, or that they bought the objects years earlier and cannot remember exactly where. Reporting in The Guardian, our Fellow Maev Kennedy told the
story of one such dealer who claimed to have sold a hoard of Bronze Age finds on eBay on behalf of a friend he had encountered at a parrot fair Ñü ‘a tangled
tale of adultery, metal detecting and bird fancying’ ensued, which had a happy ending when the Dutch buyer of the hoard donated it to the local museum in
Buckinghamshire near where the objects are thought to have been found.
Pleased as they are with the new agreement, the Ebay partnership is entirely voluntary, and archaeologists are now working to have the Treasure law
amended so that responsibility for reporting lies equally with sellers of treasure
as well as with the finder.
Noah’s Ark International Workshop
A conference with the tragically ironic name of ‘Noah’s Ark’ is scheduled for 18
and 19 January 2007 at the UCL Centre for Sustainable Heritage in London. This twoday
workshop will present the results of a threeyear European Union Sixth Framework Project investigating the impact of global climate change on built heritage and cultural landscapes. The full programme will be announced later in October; meanwhile details of the project can be found on the Noah’s Ark website.
Newsletter
SALON 148: 18 September 2006
Contents
• More on Neanderthals
• The archaeology of the banana trade
• Oldest writing in the New World discovered in Veracruz, Mexico
• Lebanon’s heritage damaged by war
• Evidence of Roman trade with India found in Mumbai harbour
• International Measurement of the Economic and Social Importance of
Culture
• Fears for ancient treasures with Shia radical in charge in Baghdad
• More on Neanderthals
Archaeologists believe that they have found one of the last refuges of
Neanderthal Man in Gorham’s Cave on Gibraltar. In a paper published in Nature,
Professor Clive Finlayson of the Gibraltar Museum, Gibraltar, describes a group
of Neanderthals whosurvived extinction in this part of southern Iberia until at
least 28,000 years ago, perhaps even 24,000 years ago. Previously uncovered
remains have suggested that most Neanderthals died out some 35,000 years ago.
Neanderthal stone tools were first discovered in the cave more than fifty years ago, but recent reexcavation has uncovered a sequence of hearths, all created
at the same location within the cave, leaving charcoal remains whose dating now
shows just how long lasting the Neanderthal settlement was.
Professor Finlayson argues that Neanderthals living in the cave were able to
survive because of the stabilising influence of the Atlantic on the local
climate, when glaciation elsewhere in Europe was turning oncefertile
pastures into barren wastelands. At Gorham’s Cave, and along the nearby coast, the
climate would have been calmer and the environment richer.
Animal remains found at Gorham’s Cave were brought from the surrounding area
and butchered inside the cave. That finding ties in with the story told in the
latest issue of Current Archaeology (No 205, September 2006), in which James O’Donoghue writes about Neanderthal finds from Lynford Quarry in Norfolk;
60,000 years ago, this was a watering hole where large mammals were trapped
and butchered by Neanderthals, who left behind some fifty stone hand axes.
Danielle Schreve, of Royal Holloway College, has now sifted through some
25,000 bone fragments from the site, representing the remains of mammoths,
bison, horses and reindeer. She has found evidence that some bones were
fractured in situ probably to extract marrow. But she has also noted the absence
of leg bones from the site, an absence that is echoed atsites in southwestern
France, such as La Borde and Mauran, where there are abundant head and
teeth remains from reindeer, red deer and horses, but little from the rest of the
body. Danielle Schreve concludes that the prime meatbearing
bones were removed for consumption elsewhere. Research by Michael Richards and others into carbon, nitrogen and oxygen isotopes in Neanderthal bone samples confirms that ‘almost all of their dietary protein came from animal sources’.
The Current Archaeology article goes on to make the point that Lynford and other Neanderthal butchery sites tell us something of the sophistication of Neanderthals: capturing and killing a mammoth requires cooperative behaviour, as well as planning and a flexible response to changing events, with all that that implies for language use, theoretical and practical knowledge, teaching, memory, tradition and social cohesion.
The archaeology of the banana trade
Reporting in last week’s Times, our Fellow Norman Hammond said that bananas,
one of our favourite foods, are being used as an indicator of the origins and
extent of Indian Ocean trade. Though bananas themselves do not preserve well
in the archaeological record, it is possible to detect their presence through the
study of phytoliths. These microscopic, inorganic mineral particles produced by plants are extremely durable and their shape is speciesspecific, enabling palaeobotanists to identify the species from which the phytoliths originated.
Summarising banana history in the current issue of Archaeology, Peter Robertshaw, Professor of Anthropology at California State University, San Bernardino, says that cultivated bananas are known from at least the fifth millennium BC in New Guinea, their botanical place of origin. They had reached India
and Pakistan by the third millennium BC, probably via Vietnam and
Thailand. Historians and archaeologists theorised that bananas were probably introduced to Africa via Madagascar, which was colonised by people from southeast
Asia in the first millennium AD, but banana phytoliths dating to 500 BC were
then found in the Cameroon a couple of years ago, pushing the date back by 1,000 years.
Now, soil analysis has led to the discovery of even earlier bananas in Uganda,
dated by carbon dating to 3000 BC, at the site of Munsa, in the Rukiga
Highlands near the border with Rwanda. The Munsa material comes from a
papyrus swamp, where Julius Lejiu, of Mbarara University in Uganda, has collected several long cores of swamp sediments and analysed the plant remains. Professor Robertshaw says the implications for trade are considerable: ‘whoever brought the bananas presumably did not carry bananas and nothing else across the Indian Ocean’. African crops are known to have spread in the opposite direction — sorghum millet had made its way as far east as Korea by 1400 BC.
Oldest writing in the New World discovered in Veracruz, Mexico
Research published this week in Science magazine details the discovery of a
serpentine stone block in Veracruz, Mexico, engraved with a previously unknown
system of writing. The members of an international team of archaeologists who
have studied the ‘Cascajal block’ say that it dates from the early first millennium BC and that its ancient script ‘reveals a new complexity to the Olmec civilization’.
The incised text consists of sixtytwo different signs,
some of which are repeated up to four times. Because of its distinct elements,
patterns of sequencing and consistent reading order, the team says the text
‘conforms to all expectations of writing’. Several paired sequences of signs also lead the researchers to believe the text contains poetic couplets which
would be the earliest known examples of poetry in Mesoamerica.
The Cascajal block was discovered in the late 1990s by road builders in a pile
of debris being used for road building in Veracruz, Mexico, near the former capital of the Olmec civilisation. Ceramic sherds, clay figurine fragments and
other artefacts found with the stone have led the team to date the block and
its text to the San Lorenzo phase of Olmec culture, ending about 900 BC;
approximately four centuries before writing was thought to have first appeared in
the Western hemisphere.
Professor Stephen Houston, of Brown University, Rhode Island, one of those
studying the block, commented: ‘It’s a tantalising discovery. I think it could
be the beginning of a new era of focus on Olmec civilisation. If we can decode
their content, these earliest voices of Mesoamerican civilisation will speak to
us today.’ Some of the signs on the block are similar to later Olmec and Aztec symbols, including references to a throne and to maize, molluscs, insects and
flowers. Five sides on the block are convex, while the remaining surface
containing the text appears concave; hence the team believes the block has been carved repeatedly. ‘The erasable nature of the block suggests a record that
needs frequent updating and opens up the possibility of accounting,’ says Professor Houston.
Anthropologist Mary Pohl of Florida State University in Tallahassee commented
that some scholars, while being happy that the signs represent true script, are
less happy about the security of the block’s dating, depending as it does on
artefacts that were found out of context.
Lebanon’s heritage damaged by war
Responding to expressions of concern made by Sir Neil MacGregor, Director of
the British Museum, and our Fellow John Curtis, the British Museum’s expert on
Middle Eastern archaeology, Unesco is undertaking a survey of Lebanese
archaeological sites to assess the damage to the country’s heritage as a result
of the recent conflict. The head of the Unesco mission, Mounir Bouchenaki, told
journalists last week that the most severe damage had been seen at the World
Heritage Sites of Tyre and Byblos. At Tyre some of ‘the finest examples of
imperial Roman architecture in the world’ have suffered direct damage and at
Byblos, Venetianperiod
and Crusader remains have been stained by oil spilling
from a bombed depot in Jiyeh, 15 miles south of Beirut. Two other historical
sites, at Bint Jbeil and Chamaa, have also been extensively damaged.
Evidence of Roman trade with India found in Mumbai harbour
The marine branch of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has reported the
discovery of Roman fifthand
sixthcentury amphorae,
pot sherds and stone
anchors from the intertidal
zone around Elephanta Island (also called
Gharapuri Island, or Place of Caves) in Mumbai Harbour, east of Mumbai, India.
The discovery indicates that trade contacts between India and Rome flourished
well into the late Roman era. Alok Tripathi, ASI’s head of underwater archaeology, said: ‘The entire Maharashtra coast has evidence of Roman contact
on a large scale. We are particularly interested in Elephanta, Sindhudurg, Malvan
and Vijaydurg. The Roman artefacts that we have found in Elephanta include
some that have survived in excellent condition. The find points to robust trading
contact in the late Roman period. This is a firstofitskind
find on the West
Coast.’ The ASI underwater unit plans to carry out excavations with the help of
the Indian navy in November 2006.
International Measurement of the Economic and Social Importance of Culture
A new report published by the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development) makes a brave attempt to measure the economic and social importance of culture to various western economies. Measurement
and comparison are fraught with difficulty because of the many different and
often subjective definitions of ‘culture’ and because of differences between the
ways that statistics are compiled by national statistical agencies.
This report seeks to overcome such problems by comparing likeforlike
data
from Australia, Canada, France, the UK and the US, even though that leaves gaps: there are no figures in the report, for example, for the economic contribution of heritage, archives, libraries or museums. This is a deficiency which the authors of the report hope to resolve in future analyses. The current
report measures employment, revenues and value added in film, music, the
visual and performing arts, architecture, publishing, computer games,software,
electronic publishing, radio and TV, advertising, designer fashion and the art and
antiques trade.
Perhaps thesingle most important finding is the relative value of the creative
industries to different economies. In terms of absolute earnings, the US is the
giant, with £341 billion in revenues; ten times greater than any of the
other countries; but expressed as a percentage of the total economy, it
is the UK that earns most from cultural enterprise: £42 billion, or 5.8 per cent of GDP, compared with 3.5 per cent in Canada, 3.3 per cent in the US, 3.1
in Australia and only 2.8 in France (perhaps reflecting the smaller scale of
the global Francophone economy compared with that of the Anglophone world).
Fears for ancient treasures with Shia radical in charge in Baghdad
The last issue of Salon reported on Donny George’s resignation from his post
as President of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. Since then further reports have appeared in the press substantiating Dr George’s concerns that
Iraq’s archaeological riches face a new threat following the appointm
ent of a
minister from the radical Islamic Sadrist party to run the department
responsible for antiquities.
Dr George accused the new minister of being interested only in Islamic sites and
not in Iraq’s earlier heritage and said he had come under pressure in his job to
cut the Baghdad National Museum’s ties with museums and cultural institutions around the world, and to sever its links with the coalition forces — relations deemed essential to help to protect sites and prevent troops from going to
areas where they could destroy artefacts.
Writing in the Independent last week, the Baghdadbased
journalist Ned Parker added substance to these claims by reporting that qualified staff were being
purged from key posts and being replaced by religious fundamentalists something that the Iraqi government itself denies. Even so, AbdulAmir
Hamdani,
the director for antiquities in Dhiqar province, was cited as an example of
someone who was harried out of office. The highly regarded Hamdani was arrested on charges of corruption, before being acquitted and released three
months later, but not before being replaced by someone whom, according to an
unnamed American diplomat, ‘knows nothing and isn’t up to the job’.
Elizabeth Stone, an anthropologist at Stony Brook University, New York, who
trained Iraqi archaeologists in 2004, was also quoted as saying that the
Ministry of Tourism is not doing enough to protectsites in the south from looters. ‘What is striking is that the Islamic parts are left alone, whereas the immediate preIslamic
sites are not,’ she said. Dr Stone said there were
rumours that Islamic militant groups were even digging up archaeological sites to sell artefacts to fund their activities.
6(c) ICOMOS (Australia) (three editions from October and
September)
Australia ICOMOS EMail
News No. 250
13 October 2006
Contents
· Report on TICCIH Congress, Italy, 1418
September 2006
· 3rd Annual Ename International Colloquium 2007: First Call For Papers:
Report on TICCIH Congress, Italy, 1418
September 2006
The 13th Congress of the International Committee for the Conservation of the
Industrial Heritage (TICCIH) was held in the township of Terni, the surrounding
Umbrian region and Rome last month. Australian ICOMITES Sue JacksonStepowski
and myself set off for our first experience of a TICCIH Congress,
encouraged by the comments of past Australian attendees. Fellow Australian
ICOMITE, Sarah Jane Brazil attended part of the Congress.
TICCIH is the world heritage organisation promoting conservation, research and
interpretation of industrial society. It has a broad focus including industrial places,
(architecture, plant, machinery and equipment) as well as housing, industrial
settlements, industrial landscapes, products and processes, and documentation
and understanding of industrial society. TICCIH is a partnership organisation of
ICOMOS, providing advice on industrial world heritage.
About 450 TICCIH members attended with a broad range of backgrounds and
interests. Many TICCIH members are also ICOMOS members but compared to
the Xi’an General Assembly, there was a greater representation of age groups and lots of women. We received a warm welcome with great interest in Australian
industrial heritage but perhaps too great a focus on the contemporary Australian
wine industry and the then recent death of Steve Irwin.
The Congress is an opportunity to compare world practice in industrial heritage
with members providing reports and perspectives about their experiences in their own countries. It is both stimulating and terrifying to find that most of our heritage
battles are universal. The key themes were urban transformation, particularly development pressures on inner city industrial sites; and changes to industrial
townships and cultural landscapes brought on by economic changes. A key attraction of the Congress was the inclusion of many site visits. On the first
theme, a visit to the Ostiense industrial area in Rome was great, including the
former general markets and a strange museum conversion of the former Montemartini Power Station. On the brief post Congress tour, the Bagnoli area,
near Naples, with the former Ilva steel plant and the internationally acclaimed
Citta’Della Scienza was inspiring.
The cultural landscapes and industrial townships theme was explored in many site visits, including around Terni and Umbria with visits to hydroelectric power stations andsteel works. On the tour, Gragnano pasta factory and town was very enjoyable with typical Italian hospitality for sampling the local wares. The San Leucio silk factory at Belvedere with its intact workers houses was another highlight. A number of our international colleagues presented papers about
workers housing and managing changes through community involvement and
planning controls.
For further information visit the TICCIH website www.ticcih.org or the TICCIH
Congress website www.ticcihcongress2006.net
3rd Annual Ename International Colloquium March 2007
First Call for Papers: The Future of Heritage
The Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation
The Province of EastFlanders, the Provincial Archaeological Museum Ename,
the Flemish Heritage Institute, and the Ename Center for Public Archaeology and
Heritage Presentation are pleased to announce:
first call for papers for the:3rd Annual Ename International Colloquium
to be held 2124 March 2007 in Ghent, Belgium
THE FUTURE OF HERITAGE
Changing Visions, Attitudes, and Contexts in the 21st Century
At a time when the field of cultural heritage is undergoing series of farreaching
yet contradictory transformations, this threeday colloquium will present a wide
range of perspectives and predictions on the future of heritage policy, funding,
interpretive technologies, and public involvement in Europe and throughout the
world.
We are therefore seeking innovative contribution from heritage administrators,
cultural economists, archaeologists, historians, educators, and cultural policy
specialists under the following four themes:
Philosophy and Public Policy: How will governments and heritage administrations
view their responsibility toward tangible and intangible heritage in the coming
generation? What are the major trends now affecting the development of public
policy? What role will universities, NGOs, and international organizations play?
Economics
How will the combination of public and private funding sources and of state and
private management of heritage sites and museums evolve? With the continuing
reduction of public culture budgets and increasing reliance on independent
income generation, what economic strategies can be most effective in preserving
the integrity of cultural heritage sites?
Technologies How can emerging digital technologies contribute to the longterm preservation,
documentation and public interpretation of heritage resources? In which contexts are they sustainable and/or affordable? What is their social and intellectual
impact on the public perception of heritage itself?
Community Participation
Do heritage sites belong only to a nation, to regional and local administrations, to
the communities that produced them, or to the specialists that study and
conserve them as “universal” heritage? What is the role of the general public?
What kinds of innovative programmes can most effectively enhance education
and community identity?
Du
e date for abstracts
Abstracts for poster presentations, short papers (10 min.) and research papers (20 min.) on these themes will be accepted until 1st December 2006.
They should be a maximum of 300 words, in English, and be sent
by fax to +3255303519 or by email to colloquium program coordinator Claudia Liuzza at claudia.liuzza@enamecenter.org
All authors should include full contact information (name, institutional affiliation,
mailing address, phone, fax and email address).
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 15 January 2007.
For questions or requests for additional information, please visit our website
www.enamecenter.org
or contact Eva Roels at colloquium@enamecenter.org
Australia ICOMOS EMail
News No. 249
6 October 2006
Contents
• The 10th US/ICOMOS International Symposium: Balancing Culture,
Conservation and Economic Development: Heritage Tourism in and around
the Pacific Rim
· World Monument Fund: Watch 2008 reminder The 10th US/ICOMOS International Symposium
Balancing Culture, Conservation and Economic Development: Heritage Tourism in and around the Pacific Rim
The Presidio, San Francisco, California 19-21 April, 2007
Hosted by the Architectural Resources Group & the Presidio Trust
Its location, historical immigration pattern, and economic standing, have made
San Francisco a multicultural Pacific Rim hub, supporting a vibrant heritage
tourist industry. As the 10th US / ICOMOS International Symposium venue, San
Francisco will be a spectacular backdrop to this dynamic forum on heritage
tourism, how different countries and sites have managed it in the past or are
planning for the future.
Heritage tourism is increasingly identified as a principal means through which to
conserve cultural sites by promoting, presenting and interpreting them to the
public. This approach has evolved into numerous opportunities for preservation,
restoration, and development of historical and cultural sites, but it has also
brought some negative consequences and challenges. These complicating
factors include competing stakeholders, protection of resources, varying
treatments of rural versus urban sites, and the wide financial, cultural, and valuebased
gulfs that frequently exist between the host community, the site managers,
and the visitors.
While this trend is a global phenomenon, the Pacific Rim countries offer an
intriguing perspective on heritage tourism. The Pacific Rim is defined as all
countries bordering the Pacific Ocean, as well as the island nations and cultures that are located within it.
From nations with a homogenous society and an ancient heritage such as Korea
or Vietnam, truly multicultural places like China, or countries with diverse native
and immigrant cultures such as Thailand, Peru, Mexico, Canada, and the United
States, an interest in promoting heritage tourism exists alongside concerns over the political and economic issues at stake.
US / ICOMOS undertakes this symposium to identify and publicize effective or innovative models for heritage tourism management and successful master plans and planning documents that address challenges of tourist visitation to historical
and cultural sites and their ultimate sustainability.
CoSponsors
of the 10th US/ICOMOS Symposium
California Preservation Foundation, the City of San Francisco, the National Park
Service, the Western Regional Office of the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, and San Francisco Architectural Heritage.
The Call for Papers
US / ICOMOS issues this universal call for abstracts that discuss the basic
themes ofculture, conservation, and economics as related to heritage tourism
within the Pacific Rim. Additionally, the symposium will consider how experiences
in the Pacific Rim relate to other regions of the world. Papers related to
illustrative experiences from specific sites are encouraged. The topics will
address the full range of challenges associated with its economic, social and
cultural impact, in accordance with three basic subthemes.
US / ICOMOS will accept electronic (MicrosoftWord or Adobe pdf. files only), or
hard copy abstracts with a maximum text of 250 words, in English.
Abstracts must be received by 15 November 2006.
The page with the abstracts must contain the title of the proposed paper, the
name of the author(s) and all the contact information. Authors are welcome to
submit resumes or CVs. Abstracts may be accompanied by one (1) illustration
only. Please indicate whether the abstract is being submitted for consideration for
a presentation session or the poster session, or both. A selection committee
assembled by US / ICOMOS will evaluate all abstracts. Authors selected for
presentation will be notified by 15 December 2006. Poster session participants
will be notified by 30 January 2007. Noncomplying
abstracts will not be
considered.
Please send your abstracts by email to: symposium@usicomos.org with a copy
to arg@argsf.org.
By fax to: 12028421861.
Or by courier / regular air mail (please, no return mail signature requests nor registered mail):
US / ICOMOS 10th Symposium Abstracts 401 F Street NW, Room 331
Washington DC 200012728
The Poster Session
Additionally, US / ICOMOS invites participation in a corollary multimedia
and poster session related to the topics stated above. The symposium presents the
opportunity to exhibit research illustrating conservation practices, heritage
tourism sites, and restoration projects through a poster session for general
review throughout the duration of the symposium, with a question and answer session on Saturday, April 21st. The size of the presentation area will be limited
to three boards measuring no larger than 24″ x 36″ each. Flexibility in
presentation materials will be considered on an individual basis. Electronic equipment required by a poster participant will be the responsibility of the participant.
Sub Theme 1: THE IMPACT
How heritage tourism has benefited and/or negatively impacted local
communities and/or the cultural sites themselves.
Sub Theme 2: THE AUTHENTICITY The issues of authenticity and presentation that heritage tourism brings forth, and
how these issues have been managed, as well as the eventual effect of tourism on the authenticity of the place.
Sub Theme 3: THE VALUES How the unique cultural values, tangible and intangible, and resources have
been protected at sites impacted by heritage tourism while enhancing, as opposed to compromising, their economic value.
World Monument Fund
Watch 2008 reminder
Nominations are due January 15 2007
The World Monuments Fund is now accepting nominations to the 2008 World
Monuments Watch list of 100 Most Endangered Sites.
The 2008 Watch Nomination Form is available for download from our website:
www.wmf.org. Nominations are available in English, French and Spanish. To
request that a nomination be sent to you either electronically or by post, please
contact us at watch@wmf.org, +16464249594,
ext. 232 (phone), or fax +16464249593.
The deadline for submi
ssion of nominations is January 15, 2007.
Please feel free to contact us if you are considering nominating a site or have
any questions. If you have heard of a site in danger, but do not plan to nominate
it yourself, let us know or feel free to forward this email. Please don’t hesitate to
contact us at: watch@wmf.org.
Australia ICOMOS EMail
News No. 245
8 September 2006
Contents
· UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Awards
· News from ICCROM
· Call for papers: “Sources of Architectural Form”
from UNESCO Media Release
Asia Pacific Heritage Awards
Shigar Fort Palace (Skardu, Northern Areas, Pakistan)
Awarded Top Prize in the 2006 UNESCO AsiaPacific
Heritage Awards
Bangkok, 1 September 2006
The UNESCO Regional Advisor for Culture in Asia and the Pacific announced
today that Shigar Fort Palace (in Skardu in the Northern region of Pakistan) has
been honoured with the Award of Excellence in the 2006 UNESCO AsiaPacific
Heritage Awards for Culture Heritage Conservation. The two Awards of
Distinction went to Bund 18 (Shanghai, China) and the Uch Monument Complex
(Punjab, Pakistan). Three Awards of Merit were given to St. Andrew’s Church
(Hong Kong SAR, China), Sir JJ School of Art (Mumbai, India), and Han Jiang
Ancestral Temple (Penang, Malaysia). Three Honourable Mention awards were
conferred to Liu Ying Lung Study Hall (Hong Kong SAR, China); and Arakkal
Kettu (Kerala, India); and Leh Old Town (Ladakh, India).
The UNESCO AsiaPacific
Heritage Awards recognize the efforts of private
individuals and organizations that have successfully restored and conserved
structures and buildings of heritage value in the region. Eligible projects must be
more than 50 years old and the restoration must have been completed within the
past 10 years. Buildings must also have been in viable use for at least one year
from the date of the Awards announcement. UNESCO believes that recognizing
private efforts to restore and adapt historic structures will encourage other
property owners to undertake conservation projects within the community, either
independently or by seeking publicprivate
partnerships.
A total of 36 entries were received this year for the Heritage Awards from 11
countries in the AsiaPacific region. A variety of types of projects were submitted
for the Awards, including: five religious buildings, four institutions, five residential
buildings, eleven commercial projects, three urban districts, four archaeological
insitu sites, one memorial and three mixeduse commercial buildings.
Further information about the Heritage Awards and this year’s winning entries
can be found at the following website:
http://www.unescobkk.org/culture/heritageawards
For more information, contact:
Montira Horayangura Unakul
Office of the UNESCO Regional Advisor for Culture in Asia and the Pacific UNESCO Bangkok Office
Tel: (66 2) 3910577
ext. 503
Fax: (66 2) 3910866
Email: h.montira@unescobkk.org or culture@unescobkk.org
News from ICCROM
ICCROM eNews
provides updates on what is happening in and around
ICCROM. To visit our web site, click on the links below the text.
http://www.iccrom.org/index.shtml
NEWS
Events, grants, job opportunities, etc.
31 August. Event: Blue Shield The Netherlands conference in The Hague.
30 August. Training: MA textiles conservation and MA museums and galleries,
Winchester, United Kingdom.
3 August. Job: Aga Khan Trust for Culture.
3 August. Grants: Getty Foundation.
27 July. Training: Centro Conservazione e Restauro La Venaria Reale, Turin,
Italy.
25 July. Job: Getty Conservation Institute.
25 July. Event: impact of loan traffic on works of art, Berlin, Germany.
http://www.iccrom.org/eng/news_en/2006_en/field_en/07misc_en.shtml
OBITUARY
Umberto Baldini 1921 2006 31 August. ICCROM regrets to record that Umberto Baldini, the influential Italian restoration expert who led efforts to restore Florence’s treasures after the Arno
River flooded the city in 1966, died after a long illness at the age of 84.
PUBLICATIONS
ICCROM Newsletter in English, French and Spanish
3 August. ICCROM is pleased to announce the publication of ICCROM Newsletter 32 in English, French and Spanish. The Arabic edition is currently in
press and the electronic versions are also available.
http://www.iccrom.org/eng/02info_en/02_03newsletters_en.shtml
CMAS journal: Volume 7 no. 3, 2006
3 August. The latest issue of the journal Conservation and Management of
Archaeological Sites (CMAS) is now available. An online version will soon be
available to subscribers.
http://www.earthscan.co.uk/defaultJournals.asp?sp=&v=6
ICCROM
Call for papers
‘Sources of Architectural Form’
It is a great honour to this opportunity to write to you, about the upcoming
conference March 1013, 2007 in Kuwait on the theme of ‘Sources of
Architectural Form’. Please review, forward, and advertise this event to your colleagues, researchers, and practitioners, graduate students, and all who may be interested within your prestigious academic community. The deadline for abstract submission is September 15, 2006.
For more information, please visit our conference website: http://archconf.kuniv.edu
In recent years particularly, Kuwait has been an important strategic location that
has received global attention in various aspects of economical, social, and
political affairs. The building industry and professional architectural sectors have
been experiencing vast changes and rapid development in the Gulf coast region
and the Middle East. There is a great demand for a forum and opportunity to
meet, to see, to exchange, and to explore the issues pertinent to theory and
practice in terms of the proposed theme topic.
Note that Kuwait is a very beautiful and peaceful place to visit, contrary to some
media misconceptions. During the period of our conference, the weather will be
particular nice and comfortable.
Your assistance and support is highly appreciated. Regarding online registration
and conference inquiries, you can visit our conference website:
Sincerely,
Dr. HussainDashti
Conference Chairperson International Conference on “So
urces of Architectural
Form: Theory and Practice” Department of Architecture Kuwait University
Work Tel:+965 4985067 Mobile Tel:+965 9810355 Fax: +9654842897
Address:P.O.Box 5969, Safat, 13060, Kuwait
dashhuss@kuniv.edu
For papers and abstracts submission, please email to: Dr.Quinsan Ciao Head
of conference scientific committee archconf@kuniv.edu
Australia ICOMOS Secretariat
Nola Miles, Secretariat Officer Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia and the Pacific Deakin University 221 Burwood Highway Burwood Victoria 3125
Telephone: (03) 9251 7131
Facsimile: (03) 9251 7158
Email: austicomos@deakin.edu.au
http://www.icomos.org/australia
7. Situation vacant
Current Anthropology Editor Search
The WennerGren
Foundation in partnership with the University of Chicago Press is seeking applications for the position of Editor of Current Anthropology. The new editor will take responsibility for the journal on January 1, 2008. The Editor’s term is six years with a possibility of renewal for another three years.
Applications are welcome from professional academic anthropologists anywhere
in the world and specializing in any of the four anthropological subdisciplines.
Applications should include a complete curriculum vitae, names and contact
details of three academic references and a letter of interest. The letter of interest
should discuss the applicant’s vision for Current Anthropology and his or her qualifications and experience relevant to the position of Editor of anthropology’s highest profile broadbased
journal.
Applications, or suggestions for possible candidates, should be sent, preferably by email,
to Leslie C. Aiello, President of the WennerGren Foundation, (laiello@wennergren.org), or by regular mail (WennerGren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 470 Park Avenue South, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10016, USA). Applications must be received by March 31, 2007.
Please contact Leslie Aiello by email, regular mail, or telephone (2126835000) with any questions or for further information. More information about the journal can be found at the University of Chicago’s website http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA/home.html.
World Archaeological Congress eNewsletter
Editor: Madeleine Regan
Madeleine@ideasandwords.com.au
Next issue No 13: end of December 2006