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Material Culture (material + culture)
Selected AbstractsShipwreck Salvage in the Northern Territory,the Wreck of the Brisbane as a Case Study in Site Salvage and Material Culture ReuseINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 2 2009PAULA MARTIN No abstract is available for this article. [source] Sacred Places, Domestic Spaces: Material Culture, Church, and Home at Our Lady of the Assumption and St. BrigittaJOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION, Issue 3 2009Mary Ellen Konieczny The relationship between the material culture of public worship and congregants' homes is explored in a study of two Catholic parishes,theologically liberal St. Brigitta and conservative Our Lady of Assumption. At St. Brigitta, congregants' worship space is almost devoid of religious art and ritual objects are plain, but worshippers' homes are rich in decorative objects. By contrast, masses at Our Lady of the Assumption take place in a church filled with devotional art and ornate objects, but worshippers' homes are spare, neutrally furnished, and display few decorations. Distinct congregational logics surrounding the making of the self help to explain the material culture differences: St. Brigitta parishioners value individualized self-expression whereas Assumption's members subordinate individuality to family and church identities. Individuals use material objects not only for self-expression, but also to explicitly shape identities and make the self. [source] Cultural Transmission and Material Culture: Breaking Down Boundaries edited by Miriam Stark, Brenda Bowser, and Lee HorneAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 4 2009BEN MARWICK No abstract is available for this article. [source] Outside Looking In: Material Culture in Gaskell's Industrial NovelsORBIS LITERARUM, Issue 5 2000Christoph Lindner This essay looks at material culture from the production end of the economic cycle in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton and North and South where, as an elusive luxury glimpsed only in passing, the consumption of commodities remains oddly and conspicuously absent. Gaskell's writing, that is, shows not so much commodity culture, but the industrial and social conditions required to underwrite it, the human machinery of an industrial market economy. In particular, the essay examines Gaskell's response to the reifying influence of the commodity on productive society and the ways in which industrial conditions serve as a matrix for human relations. In Gaskell, the commodity and its attendant cultural practices have an alienating and dehumanizing influence on society's productive membership. The novels, however, resist that influence every step of the way, investigating ways in which to restore humanity and so reconcile a fractured society. [source] Designing Modern Childhoods: History, Space, and the Material Culture of Children , Edited by Marta Gutman and Ning de Coninck-SmithANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2009Maria-Antonieta Avila No abstract is available for this article. [source] Material Cultures, Material Minds: The Impact of Things on Human Thought, Society, and Evolution by Nicole BoivinAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2010Susan D. Gillespie No abstract is available for this article. [source] Body size estimation of small-bodied humans: Applicability of current methodsAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2010H.K. Kurki Abstract Body size (stature and mass) estimates are integral to understanding the lifeways of past populations.Body size estimation of an archaeological skeletal sample can be problematic when the body size or proportions of the population are distinctive. One such population is that of the Holocene Later Stone Age (LSA) of southern Africa, in which small stature (mean femoral length = 407 mm, n = 52) and narrow pelves (mean bi-iliac breadth = 210 mm, n = 50) produce a distinctive adult body size/shape, making it difficult to identify appropriate body size estimation methods. Material culture, morphology, and culture history link the Later Stone Age people with the descendant population collectively known as the Khoe-San. Stature estimates based on skeletal "anatomical" linear measures (the Fully method) and on long bone length are compared, along with body mass estimates derived from "morphometric" (bi-iliac breath/stature) and "biomechanical" (femoral head diameter) methods, in a LSA adult skeletal sample (n = 52) from the from coastal and near-coastal regions of South Africa. Indices of sexual dimorphism (ISD) for each method are compared with data from living populations. Fully anatomical stature is most congruent with Olivier's femur + tibia method, although both produce low ISD. McHenry's femoral head body mass formula produces estimates most consistent with the bi-iliac breadth/staturemethod for the females, although the males display higher degrees of disagreement among methods. These results highlight the need for formulae derived from reference samples from a wider range of body sizes to improve the reliability of existing methods. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Investigating cultural heterogeneity in San Pedro de Atacama, northern Chile, through biogeochemistry and bioarchaeologyAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2009Kelly J. Knudson Abstract Individuals living in the San Pedro de Atacama oases and the neighboring upper Loa River Valley of northern Chile experienced the collapse of an influential foreign polity, environmental decline, and the appearance of a culturally distinct group during the Late Intermediate Period (ca. AD 1,100,1,400). We investigate cultural heterogeneity at the Loa site of Caspana through analyses of strontium and oxygen isotopes, cranial modification styles, and mortuary behavior, integrating biological aspects of identity, particularly geographic origins, with cultural aspects of identity manifested in body modification and mortuary behavior. We test the hypothesis that the Caspana population (n = 66) represents a migrant group, as supported by archeological and ethnographic evidence, rather than a culturally distinct local group. For Caspana archeological human tooth enamel, mean 87Sr/86Sr = 0.70771 ± 0.00038 (1,, n = 30) and mean ,18Oc(V-PDB) = ,3.9 ± 0.6, (1,, n = 16); these isotopic data suggest that only one individual lived outside the region. Material culture suggests that the individuals buried at Caspana shared some cultural affinity with the San Pedro oases while maintaining distinct cultural traditions. Finally, cranial modification data show high frequencies of head shaping [92.4% (n = 61/65)] and an overwhelming preference for annular modification [75.4% (n = 46/61)], contrasting sharply with practices in the San Pedro area. Based on multiple lines of evidence, we argue that, rather than representing a group of altiplano migrants, the Caspana population existed in the region for some time. However, cranial modification styles and mortuary behavior that are markedly distinct from patterns in surrounding areas raise the possibility of cultural heterogeneity and cultural fissioning. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Objects of Love and Decay: Colonial Photographs in a Postcolonial ArchiveCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2005Liam Buckley The poor condition of a collection of colonial photographs currently housed in the National Archives of The Gambia is the subject of a variety of competing discourses and practices concerning the preservation of colonial visual culture. At issue is the question of who has the right to look after the artifacts of material culture as they inevitably expire. I suggest that the discourse surrounding decaying colonial photographs is a lover's discourse. The decay causes controversy because it reminds us of our feelings for, and intimacy with, colonial culture and asks that we imagine ways of finally letting go. [source] Gender, taste and material culture in Britain and North America, 1700,1830 , Edited by John Styles and Amanda VickeryECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 4 2007Richard Sheldon No abstract is available for this article. [source] Advances in optically stimulated luminescence dating of individual grains of quartz from archeological depositsEVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 6 2007Zenobia Jacobs Abstract Paleoanthropologists and archeologists interested in occupation histories, faunal remains, and objects of material culture have become increasingly reliant on optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating to construct Quaternary chronologies. In part, the increased use of OSL dating reflects its capacity to date events beyond the range of radiocarbon dating and in contexts where suitable organic materials are absent. An earlier review in Evolutionary Anthropology by Feathers1 provides a general account of the principles of luminescence dating. Since then, however, important advances have been made in OSL dating of quartz, so that it is now possible to date individual sand-sized grains and thereby resolve issues of postdepositional mixing of archeological sediments. In this review, we discuss the most important of these advances and their implications with regard to improved age control of archeological sites. We cover aspects of instrumental and methodological development that have facilitated the widespread measurement of single grains related to archeological questions and illustrate our review with some examples of where archeological problems have been resolved using single-grain OSL dating. We do not propose single-grain dating as a panacea, because there are instances where it is not straightforward to use or the results may be difficult to interpret; dating in such contexts remains the subject of continuing research. [source] Stratigraphic investigations at Los Buchillones, a coastal Taino site in north-central CubaGEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 5 2006Matthew C. Peros The authors present stratigraphic data from Los Buchillones, a now submerged Taino village on the north coast of central Cuba that was occupied from some time prior to A.D. 1220 until 1640 or later. Los Buchillones is one of the best-preserved sites in the Caribbean, with material culture remains that include palm thatch and wooden structural elements from some of the more than 40 collapsed structures. The purpose of this study was to investigate the environment and site-formation processes of the Taino settlement. Sediment cores were sampled from the site and its vicinity to permit integration of the geological and archaeological stratigraphies. The cores were analyzed for color, texture, mollusk content, elemental geochemistry, and mineralogy. The results of the stratigraphic work are consistent with regional sealevel data that shows relative sea level has risen gradually during the late Holocene, but has remained relatively stable since the time the Taino first occupied Los Buchillones. Of the two structures partially cleared, at least one appears to have been built over the water, supported on pilings. Site selection is likely to have resulted from a consideration of environmental factors, such as access to marine, terrestrial, and lagoonal resources, and proximity to freshwater springs. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Secrecy, splendour and statecraft: the jewel accounts of King Henry III of England, 1216,72HISTORICAL RESEARCH, Issue 221 2010Benjamin L. Wild Appended to the royal wardrobe accounts, the jewel accounts of King Henry III of England are the earliest records of their type. Describing gifts that were given and received by the king, the purchase of textiles, precious metal objects and specie, as well as the regalia, the Henrician jewel accounts provide valuable information about the aesthetics and material culture of English kingship during the thirteenth century. This article explains how the royal jewel accounts were created and structured, considers their utility, and shows how they can be used to shed new light on Henry III's character and kingship. [source] The History of Children in Australia: An Interdisciplinary HistoriographyHISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 10 2010Carla Pascoe Children have long been shadowy or forgotten figures within historical narratives. It was not until the second half of the twentieth century that a critical historiography of children and childhood emerged. In the Australian context, histories of young people were not published until the 1980s. Whilst the historiography of the child is now a burgeoning field, it has been haunted by two major challenges: a lack of sources authored by children themselves; and a tendency amongst adult scholars to romanticise children. This article situates the Australian historiography of children within an international context. Given the difficulties of reconstructing the lives of children in the past, it argues for an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon the insights of folklore, material culture, geography and oral history. [source] To the Islands , Photographs of Tropical Colonies in The QueenslanderHISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2010Hannah Perkins Australian readers knew a great deal about the Pacific Islands in the early 20th century. This understanding came from missionary fund-raising campaigns, visiting lantern-slide lecturers, postcards and illustrated books and encyclopaedia but most of all, after the mid-1890s, from heavily illustrated weekend newspapers. These were published in all major cities and offered a regular visual window on ,the islands', of which three were Australian colonies shortly after World War I. This paper argues that Australians were well-informed about the potential for settlement, and commercial and economic opportunities. It notes that illustrated newspapers were dominated by ethnographic images of the material culture and lifestyles of island peoples, but that images of wharves, plantations, port towns and colonial infrastructure were provided for those readers who thought the western Pacific should become an Australian or at least a British sphere of interest. Ultimately The Queenslander's editorial motivation was to alert Australian readers to the economic potential of plantations, trade, mining, travel and settling in the nearby tropics. [source] Foucault in Africa: the microphysics of a contemporary monarchyINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 191 2008Jean-Pierre Warnier The Mankon kingdom is located in the mountains of western Cameroon (the Grassfields). Although like many other African kingdoms it has since the 1980s been experiencing a revitalisation, the king is fully aware of all of the practices that have structured life in the kingdom for at least the past three centuries. His body contains substances that have been transformed into ancestral substances of life during offerings to his deceased ancestors, which he distributes to the entire kingdom. He thus embodies a pot-king, a receptacle of the kingdom's life substances. The sensorimotor conduct and the material culture implemented by the monarch and his subjects lend themselves to a Foucauldian analysis in terms of subjectivising governmentality. The work of Foucault, formulated in the west, proves to be extremely relevant in shedding light on the microphysics of power in this kingdom. It also suggests the possibility of new comparative studies of such practices, which are hardly verbalised, and which constitute the essential aspects of devices of subjection and subjectivisation. [source] Sacred Places, Domestic Spaces: Material Culture, Church, and Home at Our Lady of the Assumption and St. BrigittaJOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION, Issue 3 2009Mary Ellen Konieczny The relationship between the material culture of public worship and congregants' homes is explored in a study of two Catholic parishes,theologically liberal St. Brigitta and conservative Our Lady of Assumption. At St. Brigitta, congregants' worship space is almost devoid of religious art and ritual objects are plain, but worshippers' homes are rich in decorative objects. By contrast, masses at Our Lady of the Assumption take place in a church filled with devotional art and ornate objects, but worshippers' homes are spare, neutrally furnished, and display few decorations. Distinct congregational logics surrounding the making of the self help to explain the material culture differences: St. Brigitta parishioners value individualized self-expression whereas Assumption's members subordinate individuality to family and church identities. Individuals use material objects not only for self-expression, but also to explicitly shape identities and make the self. [source] Sense of Place in Hanoi's Shop-House: The Influences of Local Belief on Interior ArchitectureJOURNAL OF INTERIOR DESIGN, Issue 1 2010Dinh Quoc Phuong Ph.D. The aim of this article is to seek another way of understanding the interdisciplinary, albeit loosely defined notion of "sense of place" and its manifestation in interior characteristics and design of domestic space in Hanoi. This includes an analysis of one aspect of place identities through material culture, such as those that are reflected in the local system of belief and building rite known as phong thuy,the Vietnamese version of Chinese feng-shui. With a case study research approach,describing and analyzing different types of data collected from a selected case study,this article examines sense of place and phong thuy application in (re)designing a shop-house, the most popular building type in Asian high-density cities like Hanoi. This study helps to explain how sense of place is understood by owner-builders, and how such a view is important to consider when attempting to design and make the home interior a better living place for residents in Hanoi and elsewhere. [source] Rethinking Women and Property in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century EnglandLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 6 2006Pamela Hammons If one were to consider male-authored literary works alone , with no reference to historical documents or women's writing , one would probably be left with a distorted picture of women's status in relation to property. However, work in three main areas , legal history, material culture, and women's writing , in the last fifteen years has improved our understanding of women and property considerably. For example, revisions of legal history have highlighted differences between Renaissance women's everyday practices in relation to property and what the law theoretically required, and materialist work on women's connections to cloth production and theatrical properties ascribes significant agency to them. While analyses of women's diaries, letters, and wills have illuminated their thoughts and behavior in relation to property, we can still learn more from women's imaginative writing, especially their poetry. [source] Materializing the Eighteenth Century: Dress History, Literature, and Interdisciplinary StudyLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 5 2006Chloe Wigston Smith Drawing on an interview with Linda Baumgarten, curator of clothing and textiles at Colonial Williamsburg, and recent interdisciplinary studies, this article considers how eighteenth-century scholars use the history of dress in literary history and cultural studies. It explores how the study of material culture can illuminate and complicate literary history, but also how dress history comprises its own language and ideas. [source] The Innovative Materiality of Revitalization Movements: Lessons from the Pueblo Revolt of 1680AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 3 2008MATTHEW LIEBMANN ABSTRACT, Although Wallace's revitalization movement model has been successfully utilized in scores of ethnographic and ethnohistorical studies of societies throughout the world, revitalization is considerably less well documented in archaeological contexts. An examination of the materiality of revitalization movements affords an opportunity to redress this lack by investigating how material culture creates and constrains revitalization phenomena. In this article, I reconsider the revitalization model through a case study focusing on the archaeology of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, emphasizing the central role of materiality in the formation and mediation of these movements. In doing so, I examine the archaeological signatures of revitalization movements, concluding that they are highly negotiated and heterogeneous phenomena and that the materiality of these episodes cultivates cultural innovation. I also seek to demonstrate that the distinctive types of material culture produced through revitalization are not epiphenomenal but, rather, are crucially constitutive of revitalizing processes. [source] The Gilded Age and Working-Class Industrial CommunitiesAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 4 2006PAUL A. SHACKEL In the United States, industrial management techniques shifted from strong paternalistic controls to absentee forms of ownership in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tracing the change of industrial management techniques in a mill community that survived through the Gilded Age shows the impact of industrialization on consumerism and health in working-class households. Initial examination of the archaeological record shows that the domestic material world of workers' households became similar to each other while consumer goods increased significantly. We suggest that with the transition of management techniques from minimal paternalism to absenteeism, a trend developed toward homogenization of some everyday material culture. However, living in a marginal geography promoted a countertrend among workers and their families, and alternatives to market-oriented consumption allowed for "insurgent" forms of citizenship. Understanding the historical consequences of industry for workers and their families is relevant for understanding the situation of marginalized labor today. [source] From Casta to Californio: Social Identity and the Archaeology of Culture ContactAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 3 2005BARBARA L. VOSS In culture contact archaeology, studies of social identities generally focus on the colonized,colonizer dichotomy as the fundamental axis of identification. This emphasis can, however, mask social diversity within colonial or indigenous populations, and it also fails to account for the ways that the division between colonizer and colonized is constructed through the practices of colonization. Through the archaeology of material culture, foodways, and architecture, I examine changing ethnic, racial, and gendered identities among colonists at El Presidio de San Francisco, a Spanish-colonial military settlement. Archaeological data suggest that military settlers were engaged in a double material strategy to consolidate a shared colonial identity, one that minimized differences among colonists and simultaneously heightened distinctions between colonists and local indigenous peoples. [source] NAGPRA AT 20: Museum Collections and ReconnectionsMUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2010Martha Graham ABSTRACT Since the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was enacted 20 years ago, the identification and repatriation of cultural items has become essential to museum,tribe relationships. Interactions prompted by repatriation policies and laws impel tribal representatives and museums alike to take a new look at museum collections. Three examples of interactions between Indian tribes and the American Museum of Natural History that were prompted by NAGPRA demonstrate how museum practices are changing. A series of responses by tribal representatives involved in these NAGPRA cases, with specific reference to their reconnections with the material culture in museum collections and museum,tribe relationships, show the ways in which tribal members frame the issues. [source] Knowledge and Artifacts: People and ObjectsMUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2008Tom G. Svensson Abstract In the study of material culture, the connection between artifacts and knowledge is discernible. The knowledge derives primarily from people, the indigenous voice. To elucidate the inter-relationship between knowledge and objects, a narrative approach will be emphasized. The main argument relates to the connection of oral history, material culture, and ethnographic museums. My empirical frame of reference is the Sámi culture in Northern Fennoscandia and its basketry tradition, and the general focus will emphasize adequate knowledge-generating processes. One single object, a so-called mini kisa, collected in 2003, will be used as a case in point. The body of knowledge discussed contains both tangible and intangible heritage, thereby making the object speak for culture. And, in my view, museums have an obligation to master these demands. [source] Educating the muses: university collections and museums in the PhilippinesMUSEUM INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2000Ana P. Labrador ,This is a period of reckoning for old and new museums in the Philippines in general and the university museums in particular.' With this in mind, Ana P. Labrador describes the growth and the renewed importance of university museums that characterize the Philippines today. The author is assistant professor of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. She is a specialist in museum studies and the theory and aesthetics of non-Western art. She has a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge in England, focusing on museology and material culture, and has recently published articles in Humanities Research, ArtAsia Pacific Journal and Cambridge Anthropology. [source] Culture Matters in the Neolithic Transition and Emergence of Hierarchy in Thy, Denmark: Distinguished LectureAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2004TIMOTHY EARLE Abstract How did the emergence of hierarchical social structure that followed the domestication of plants and animals in the Neolithic actually come about? I suggest that material media were instrumental in this transformation, as culture was changed by incorporating such newmedia as landscape constructions and elaborate prestige objects. During the Neolithic transition in Thy, Denmark, local corporate groups formed, and, subsequently, Bronze Age chieftains came to power. Shifts in material culture suggest possible connections to these institutional changes, namely the materialization of property rights by burial monuments and permanent domestic architecture and the centralization of power through the controlled production of wealth objects. I conclude that, as part of social process, the nature of culture has been transformed by incorporating material culture with specific characteristics of scale, permanency, and control that were vital to institutional change. [source] Outside Looking In: Material Culture in Gaskell's Industrial NovelsORBIS LITERARUM, Issue 5 2000Christoph Lindner This essay looks at material culture from the production end of the economic cycle in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton and North and South where, as an elusive luxury glimpsed only in passing, the consumption of commodities remains oddly and conspicuously absent. Gaskell's writing, that is, shows not so much commodity culture, but the industrial and social conditions required to underwrite it, the human machinery of an industrial market economy. In particular, the essay examines Gaskell's response to the reifying influence of the commodity on productive society and the ways in which industrial conditions serve as a matrix for human relations. In Gaskell, the commodity and its attendant cultural practices have an alienating and dehumanizing influence on society's productive membership. The novels, however, resist that influence every step of the way, investigating ways in which to restore humanity and so reconcile a fractured society. [source] SOCIAL NETWORKS AND CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTION: A NEW INTERPRETATION OF THE FEMALE TERRACOTTA FIGURINES OF HELLENISTIC BABYLONOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 2 2007STEPHANIE M. LANGIN-HOOPER Summary. In the study of the Hellenistic period in Babylon, cross-cultural interactions between Greeks and native Babylonians have been primarily interpreted using colonialist theories of Hellenisation, domination, and cultural isolation. This paper finds, however, that such theories cannot adequately explain the types of cross-cultural combinations seen in the archaeological record of female Hellenistic Babylonian terracotta figurines. The forms and functions of these terracotta figurines were substantially altered and combined throughout the Hellenistic period, resulting in Greek-Babylonian multicultural figurines as well as figurines that exhibited new features used exclusively in Hellenistic Babylonia. In order to facilitate a greater understanding of the full complexity of these Greek,Babylonian interactions, a new interpretation of cross,cultural interaction in Hellenistic Babylon is developed in this paper. This Social Networks model provides an alternative framework for approaching both how a hybrid material culture of terracotta figurines was developed and how Hellenistic Babylon became a multicultural society. [source] Experiencing Texture and Transformation in the British NeolithicOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 3 2002Vicki Cummings The Neolithic period saw the introduction of new material culture into Britain, including monuments, pottery and polished stone axes. Over recent years, the uses and meanings of these objects and places have been considered in depth, with emphasis now firmly placed upon their social role and symbolic value. However, a growing interest in a multi,sensual archaeology has highlighted the paucity of information concerning the role of texture in the experience of Neolithic material culture. This paper will examine the evidence for the use of texture in the archaeological record. I will suggest that texture may have been a fundamental part of the experience of objects and monuments, and may have imparted meanings and messages to those who came into contact with them. In particular, the transformation of differing textures may have been a crucial metaphor in the Neolithic. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||