TimoB

Consuming Texts and Traditions in the Archaeology of Madagascar

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Zoe Crossland (USA), Chantal Radimilahy (MADAGASCAR) & William Griffin (USA)

How do we know the past? In Madagascar, the past is a vibrant and continuing part of the present, drawn from the rich written histories and enduring oral traditions. Archaeology, as a relative newcomer to Madagascar, is creating alternate ways of knowing the past, in an environment where the past is already created and understood from other sources. This has made it hard if not impossible for archaeology to break free of these all-consuming texts and traditions. By looking critically at the neglected relationship between archaeology and the texts and traditions we ask whether archaeology can exist independently of these sources and indeed whether and why it needs to.

Madagascar, familiar to many as ‘The Island of the Ancestors’ is known for the connectedness of the past to the present. In this context we hope to explore the tension that exists between a sociopolitically informed archaeology that takes account of its positioning within present day understandings of the past, and yet the simultaneous need for archaeology to be able to stand alone, able to know the past without the crutch of history. We hope that in reassessing the relationship between archaeology and the texts and oral traditions we can critically explore the choices we make when creating the past through archaeology. A more nuanced understanding of the relationship of archaeology to these other ways of knowing the past can only benefit archaeology and open fruitful new avenues for research in Madagascar.

We also hope that holding a symposium on Madagscar at WAC 4 in South Africa will encourage people to place Madagascar within a wider African context: too often its archaeology and history are written as somehow outside the currents of world history. Yet the presence of the Sorabe, a Malagasy writing system based on Arabic, and the influence of British missions and later French colonialism testify to Madagascar’s involvement in the world system, and our archaeology should engage with this. This session will bring together archaeologists from Madagascar, France the US and Britain, and will provide a opportunity for many of the archaeologists currently working in Madagascar to discuss these issues together.

papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Crossland statements in stone: marking Merina state presence on the frontier
Dewar How to understand the past to save modern forests in Madagascar
Griffin Texts and surveys on the Matitanana River
Pearson Indigenous development and Europen contact in Southern Madagascar
Radimilahy Toponymie et archeologie
Ramilisonia L’archeologie et foret sacree “Ala Falya” en Pays Tandroy Sud Malgache

Proto-Numismatics in India and abroard

Convenor: Shashink Bhatt

papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Ameta ARCHAEOLOGY OF NARMADA VALLEY AND PROTO-NUMISMATICS
Bhatt THE GENESIS OF PROTO-NUMISMATICS IN INDIA – “NISHKA” – THE RIG VEDIC MONEY
Sachdeva ROCK ART AS A CLUE TO PROTO-NUMISMATICS
Sasvadkar INDIAN FOLD ART TRADITION: REFLECTIONS ON PROTO-NUMISMATICS
Viyas PRIMITIVE ECONOMY OF THE ABORIGINAL BHILS IN INDIA

MATERIAL AND SYMBOLIC LANDSCAPES

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Convenor: Julian Thomas

In the past decade, ‘landscape’ has often been presented as a master concept which can unite the disparate elements of contemporary archaeology. Accordingly, we have discussions of ecological landscapes, landscapes of production, symbolic landscapes and ritual landscapes. However, it is often the case that these different approaches have few points in common. In this session, the intention is to draw together different aspects of the debate on landscape. In particular, the papers will attempt to connect the materiality and the meanings of places, and the experiential and economic significance of land.

papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Brück Boundaries, personhood and human-environment relations
Cooney Negotiated landscapes: a view of prehistoric landscapes from the edge of Europe.
Fletcher Mobility in African settlement patterns- global implications
Fowler Prehistoric Materialities of the Isle of Man
Haber Domesticated landscape, narrated landscape
Håkan Material culture, place, landscape and their “effect-in-history”: A biography of a place and its material culture
Hamilton Bronze Age stone worlds: distinguishing between culture and nature in the granitic uplands of SW England.
Haughey The Thames as Landscape
Kitchen Lanscape and field systems
Knapp The social landscape of mining: archaeological tales from prehistoric Cyprus
MacFarlane Remembering lived places differently: Contexts of interaction in the western Simpson desert, central Australia
Mizogushi Changing self-identity and changing cemetryscape: a case study from the Yayoi period of Japan, 6th C BC – 3rd C AD
Thomas Neolithic monuments and the archaeology of place in south-west Scotland
Whitehouse The living and the dead: layered landscapes in late prehistoric Menorca

Archaeology of Farming Communities

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Convenor: Tim Maggs

papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Calabrese Leopard’s Kopje and Zhizo Relations: Invasion and Replacement or Interaction and Multi-Ethnic Resource Sharing
Chirawu Ancient Terrace Farming in North Eastern Zimbabwe
Coetzee Adapting to dynamic landscapes: Late Iron Age Tswana settlements in Pilanesberg, North-West Province, South Africa.
Conolly The application of GIS to the interpretation of household activities at Neolithic Gatalhvy|k, Turkey.
February Into the future; The archaeological past from an analysis of charcoal
Finlayson The Archaeology of communities: A Northern Iroquian example from Southern Ontario, Canada
Groth Just before settling down- the Natufian / Neolithic transition.
Gyulai The results of the Prehistoric Food remains Analytical Study in Hungary/Central Europe
Haaland The ways of women: from sedentism to food production in the Middle Nile Region, Sudan
Manyanga Choices and Constraints: Animal resource exploitaion in south-eastern Zimbabwe
Meyer The stratigraphy and chronology of Mapungubwe and K2
Ndambi Nomadism in Cameroon: The case of Acha-Tugi Pastoral Fulanis
Nikolova The social prosperity and the social crisis in the Balkan Later Prehistory (the 4th and the 3rd Millennium BC).
Palavestra Central Balkans Cattle Breeders and the iron age elites
Pearce Prehistoric Iroquois settlement-subsistence patterns, Southern Ontario, Canada
Pratap Archaeology of Shifting Cultivation: the Case of Rajmahal Hills
Sampietro Vattuonne Microspace and formative sites in Tafi Valley (Argentine)
Thorp Rescue excavation of an Early Iron Age village at Amalinda Camp, south-western Zimbabwe
Vardaki The Silence of the Lamb: Consumption strategies in a highland village in central Crete.
Vogelsang Early pastoralism in Namibia
Wawer Activity area s at Lukenya hill: A site structure and assemblage composition
Withanachchi Ancient irrigation and the settlement pattern: A case study in the Kalahagala area in Ambanganga

The Origins, Spread, and Significance of Maize Agriculture in the New World.

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Convenor

Dr. Robert H. Tykot
Department of Anthropology,
University of South Florida

The history of maize (corn) agriculture is now being reconstructed through the isotopic analysis of the skeletal remains of its consumers, as well as through studies of pollen, phytolith, and preserved plant remains and other lines of archaeological evidence. This symposium addresses questions concerning the initial domestication of maize, its dietary importance in different times and places, and the interplay between culture and subsistence in various parts of the New World. In particular, the individual papers address scientific methodologies for reconstructing prehistoric diets, and interpretive models for changing subsistence strategies in Peru, Colombia, Mesoamerica, the Southwest US, New England, and Canada. The integration of analytical, archaeological, ecological, ethnohistoric, and nutritional data is emphasized, and applied to the reconstruction of diet, agricultural practices, settlement patterns, and ritual practices.

papers:
Author 1 Author 1 Title
Chilton Mobile Farmers of the New England interior: A summary of the Evidence s012chl1
Crawford The origins of Maize production among the Northern Iroquians
Ezzo The adoption of Maize horticulture in the desert Southwest
Tykot Origins, dispersal and quantification of Maize Agriculture in the New World: Problems and prospects for Stable Isotope Analysis
White et al Maize, myth and the Maya: Isotopes and Ideology

The Palaeolithic: Modernity, Anatomy and Behaviour

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Convenors: Marcell Otte

papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Otte European Upper Palaeolithic Origins
Phoca-Cosmetatou Wild Caprid economies and use of the hinterland during the Upper Palaeolithic in southern Europe
Vasil’ev Russian Palaeolithic Archaeology: Retrospect’s and prospects
Vishnyatsky Cultural Dynamics of the late Middle – early Upper Pleistocene and the problem of the Middle upper Palaeolithic Transition

Genetics in Archaeology

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Martin Paul Evison

Developments in molecular genetics continue to be controversial in wider society and much the same can be said for the role of genetics in archaeology. Technological advances have allowed human biological diversity to be measured with increasing resolution, allowing geographical patterns to be discerned at the DNA level. At the same time, ancient DNA can now be recovered from archaeological remains, human and non-human. But have technological developments been accompanied by theoretical sophistication? Does research design and interpretation incorporate anthropological or archaeological knowledge in ways which are realistic or meaningful?

Archaeologists are by now familiar with the flawed doctrines of racial anthropology and its descendants. Both the socio-political context and the research paradigms¾ in genetics and archaeology¾ changed drastically with the Second World War and geneticists have contributed considerably to the recognition of racial taxonomy as being scientifically groundless. Nevertheless, the popularity of publications such as The Bell Curve indicate that a fertile ground persists for racial science¾ or pseudoscience. Media hyperbole can obscure our attempts to understand the issues¾ as it can distort the value and meaning of scientific discoveries.

Genetic evidence now plays a role in the study of long-term historic processes in all continents. Importantly, genetic evidence is not derived solely from humans. Considerable evidence has been amassed from the study of domesticated animals and plants. How definite are the inferences geneticists draw from their own evidence and how much distortion might result when these interpretations are co-opted in the study of the past?

Interpretations based on the genetic evidence are often seen to conflict with those based on archaeology alone. To some extent this may be due to conflicting theoretical trends reflected in each discipline. Gradients in gene distributions are normally explained as being the result of diffusion or migration. Their interpretation will inevitably conflict with the indigenist posture widely adopted in post-war archaeology, insisting that changes in material culture patterns are derived from internal social developments. Are these differences more apparent than real?

Molecular genetics now allows us to study human variation at the DNA level, reducing the influence of environment to a minimum. This would seem to offer an unparalleled opportunity for an empirically-based understanding of the nature of biological diversity. But is human genome diversity research founded on flawed and outmoded anthropology? Is it possible to study human biological diversity without being forced to make equations of genes, language and culture or assuming that human groups were once primitive isolates?

Ancient DNA potentially offers a means of resolving many archaeological hypotheses based on demographic and gender or kin-related processes. How reliable are the results? Is it rational or ethical to employ DNA results¾ modern or ancient¾ in discussions of identity?

The aim of this symposium is to explore and debate these issues. Papers will be presented which critically discuss historical and contemporary uses of genetics in archaeology, debate conflicts between the aims of population genetics and archaeology, illustrate the potential for use of ancient DNA in archaeology and present new models for the integration of genetic evidence into archaeological research. Papers will refer to theoretical and interpretative matters, and to archaeological and historical case studies in Europe and North America.

papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Brown Sex, Gender and Ancient DNA
Brown Genetics and the origins of agriculture
MacEachern Races and tribes in Africa: anthropological and biological perspectives
Pluciennik Genetics, prehistory and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition: problems of resolution and meaning.
Vikshaaland Ancient DNA and human remains

THE WORLD AT 100,000 BP

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Stanley H. Ambrose

The aim of this session is to develop a comparative picture of the archaeological record of the evolution of human behavior during the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age (MP/MSA) in Africa and Eurasia. The temporal scope of the symposium is thus broadly defined as the period during which “Mode 3” industries were made, from the end of the Acheulean to the beginning of the Later Stone Age of subSaharan Africa (LSA) and Upper Paleolithic (UP) of North Africa and Eurasia. The thematic scope of the symposium includes adaptations to glacial and interglacial environments at low and high latitudes and the evolution of aspects of modern human behavior.

Modern human behavior is characterized in the archaeological record by sophisticated bone and stone technologies, “effective” faunal and other resource exploitation strategies, larger home ranges, enhanced planning depth, art, ornaments, symbolism, complex social formations and expanded systems of exchange and reciprocity. The advent of the Later Stone Age (LSA) in Africa and the Upper Paleolithic (UP) of western Eurasia is widely considered to mark the transition from “archaic” to modern human behavior, 40-20,000 years ago. However, elements of modern human behavior patterns undoubtedly emerged at different times over the last 200,000 years and may have been perfected during the MP/MSA. To what extent were people in Africa and Eurasia behaving like modern humans 200, 100, 50 and 30 thousand years ago?

The beginning of the Middle Stone Age and Middle Paleolithic may coincide with the origin of anatomically modern humans in Africa over 200,000 years ago. Genetic and fossil evidence suggest anatomically modern Africans dispersed to Eurasia several times by different routes, beginning ~100,000 years ago. Some innovations may have occurred earlier in Africa than elsewhere. However, the origin and dispersal of behavioral and technological innovations may be decoupled. In other words, the diffusion of innovations does not necessarily imply the diffusion of populations. Moreover, chronological resolution is currently too poor and dating techniques too ambiguous to evaluate the hypothesis of an African origin for these innovations.

Detailed case studies discussing particular sites and regions, and/or comparisons of aspects of the environment and archaeological record between regions in the period between the end of the Acheulean and the early last glacial period (marine isotope stages 7 through 3) are welcome.

papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Ambrose Problems and prospects for accurate Chronometric Dating of the middle Stone Age in the Kenya Rift Valley
Brooks et al The middle Stone age of Ethiopia and the horn: new data from the Middle Awash
Conard Prindiville The Stone Age Archaeology and paleoecology of the Geelbek Dunes, Western Cape, South Africa
Conrad Prindiville Germany at around 100 000 BP
Sealy Henshilwwod Recent finds from Blombos Cave, and their implications for our understanding of the African Middle Stone Age
van Peer et al Middle Palaeolithic occupations at Wadi Sodmein Cave- Eastern Desert (Egypt)
Wurz Emergence of the Modern Mind

Early Human Behaviour, Technology and Development

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Convenor: Zoe Henderson

papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Corvinus An Acheulian site in folded molasse deposits in the frontal Himalayan thrust zone, at Satapati Hill, Nepal
Cremo Forbidden Archaeology of the Early and Middle Pleistocene: Evidence for physiologically and culturally advanced humans S501CRM1
Crosby The Ape-Human technological transition
Dibble Preliminary results from field work in the Koobi Fora region of Lake Turkana in Kenya
Field Kuman Lithic Allsorts: interpreting assemblage mixing in the Acheulean and Middle Stone Age industries from Sterkfontein.
Henderson Exploring beyond subsistence activities at the Florisbad Middle Stone Age Site
Kuman et al The experimental approaches to the Oldowan and early Early Acheulean Industries of the Sterkfontein Valley
Mcbreaty Practical and conceptual issues in identifying the Acheulian to Middle Stone Age transition in the Kapthurin Formation, Baringo, Kenya
Quinney et al Functional Determines of Middle and Upper Pleistocene Hominid Beahviour Integrating Morphology, Archaeology and Enviroments
Reynolds Recent excavations in Lincoln Cave, Sterkfontein
Sankhyan New Bio-Cultural Evidence and Affinities of the Middle Pleistocene Narmada Hominid of India
Sharon Soft percussor use at the Gesher Ya’aqov Acheulian site?
Stern FxJj43: a 1.5 million year old palaeolandscape in the Koobi Fora Formation, northern Kenya

Human Developments: Ancient and Modern

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Convenor: Lynn Wadley

papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Argyle Butterflies, Bats, Bees, Birds and Blackness: Afro-Global Linguistics and (Mesolithic) World Archaeology
Bicho Portugal 10,000 years ago: Human ecology at the end of the Pleistocene S507BCH1
Clark The Early LSA in South Africa
Eshleman Ancient DNA analysis of a Chumash/Taki border population
Galanidou The Aegean in 10,000 BP
Grigoriev Middle part of the upper Palaeolithic: East and West
Larson The Middle Stone Age in Northern Zimbabwe
Rao Microliths from Eritrea N.E. Africa – A Preliminary Survey
Selvakumar Adaptation Pattern of the Mesolithic Culture in the Gundar Basin, Southern India
van der Ryst Stone Age research on the Waterberg Plateau and in the lower Bushveld, Northern Province, SA
Zhilin Selected Aspects of the Mesolithic of the East European Forest Zone