A new conversation topic in the assemblages forum: Harvard has recently won a case in the U.S. District court in Boston asserting their ownership of a large assemblage of Iranian artifacts. But has the case created a legal precedent for defending looted objects? Similar lawsuits were also leveled agains the University of Chicago and the Field Museum. The backstory is available here and an account of the prior University of Chicago victory in the Federal Appeals Court is here.
Author: Adam Smith
I am a professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Archaeology Program. My research and writing are focused on issues of power, authority, and sovereignty in early complex societies and my fieldwork is located in the the South Caucasus. I've been conducting archaeological investigations in Armenia since 1992 and am particularly interested in how the material world of landscapes and objects shaped--and continue to shape--our political lives.
Syracuse Cardiff Giant, Reborn
A former archaeological sensation, now an art project. Or was it an art project in its initial iteration too?
“Theres a sucker born every minute”
Archaeology from Reel to Real
A special report from the NSF examines the relationship between practicing archaeologists and their on-screen avatars in films such as the Indiana Jones cycle. In stressing similarities, the report notes that:
NSF-supported archaeologists do discover “lost cities”; they do try to figure out what happened to “vanished civilizations”; they do seek rare and precious artifacts that tell important stories about the past, even if those artifacts are minute snails and the scrapings of ancient teeth and not golden idols.
via nsf.gov – Archaeology from Reel to Real – A Special Report.
My argument is not with the representation of archaeological research today, but rather with the reading of the films. When in any of the major cinematic depictions of archaeologists do our heroes try to “figure out what happened” or “tell important stories about the past”. Instead, archaeology is represented as purely a process of discovery, interpretation only at the trowel’s edge, so to speak. Or are there films that I’m missing?
Deep History
A forthcoming book begs the question as to what provides depth in historical narrative. Is it simply duration? If so, does deep history preclude thick description? The reaction to microhistory came swiftly, but does it put us back on the shaky ground of neo-evolutionary determination? Looking forward to finding out. At any rate, a strike against the predominant obsession with the singularity of the modern is an important contribution.
Distressed by most historians’ overwhelming preoccupation with the modern world, an unusual coalition of scholars is trying to stage an intellectual coup, urging their colleagues to look up from the relatively recent swirl of bloody conflicts, global financial exchanges and technological wonders and gaze further back, toward humanity’s origins.
via ‘Deep History’ Takes Humanity Back to Its Origins – NYTimes.com.
Elizabeth Warren on Debt and Taxation
A brilliant simple explanation of basic liberal political theory complete with an account of how things and places cement the social contract.
via Elizabeth Warren on Debt Crisis, Fair Taxation – YouTube.
Palaeoethnobotanical Data from the Early Bronze Age Settlement of Tsaghkasar-1, Armenia
New Paleobotanical report from the site of Tsaghkasar, courtesy of ArAGATS paleobotanist and current Fulbright Fellow, Roman Hovsepyan.
Medieval Novgorod
The second volume on the environmental context of Medieval Novgorod is forthcoming from Archeopress. Here a blurb on a complex and interesting project
Novgorod was one of the most important towns of medieval Russia and has wonderfully well-preserved archaeological deposits, in places over 7 meters deep, dating back to the mid-10th century. Due to the anaerobic conditions of the waterlogged site, both organic and inorganic finds are incredibly well preserved. This includes numerous finds of leather, birch bark, wood, textile, plant remains and so on as well as iron, bronze, and other metals, although like the organic material, these start to deteriorate when they are removed from the soil.
Russian archaeologists have been excavating at Novgorod since 1932 – every summer except during WWII. The results are internationally known, as they have revealed exceptional evidence not just of artefacts and their production but also the timber buildings, property boundaries, streets and defences of the town. Combined with the evidence for long-distance trade (Novgorod was an important member of the Hanseatic trading community), the town offers enormous potential for research projects of all shapes and sizes.
via Medieval Novgorod | Archaeology Group | Bournemouth University.
New Wall Paintings from Catal Hoyuk
CATALHOYUK, TURKEY — A pair of space-age shelters rising from the beet and barley fields of the flat Konya Plain are the first clue to the Catalhoyuk Research Project, where archaeologists are excavating a 9,000-year-old Neolithic village.
The experts, armed with scalpels, gingerly scraped away micro-layers of white plaster from a wall deep in the dig last month to reveal what the project director, the British archaeologist Ian Hodder, called a “very exciting” and “particularly intriguing” painting with deep reds and reddish oranges thought to be made with red ochre and cinnabar.
via Into the Stone Age With a Scalpel – A Dig With Clues on Early Urban Life – NYTimes.com.
A Bioarchaeological Study from NW Armenia
Here is a link to a recently published paleopathology study of human remains from the Vardbakh and Sev Amrots I cemeteries in the area around Giumri (1st cent. BC-3rd cent. AD). http://www.anthropology.uw.edu.pl/04/bne-04-01.pdf. The complete volume of the journal is available here: www.anthropology.uw.edu.pl
Vibrant Matter-An interview with Jane Bennett
Here is an interesting interview with Jane Bennett on issues of materiality and the emerging philosophy of the object world. We read Bennett’s book Vibrant Matter in my “Political Lives of Things” course at Cornell last year. But the text warrants more sustained engagement than I was able to give it in that class. I’m intrigued in particular by her idea of “strategic anthropomorphism”. But I am concerned that this ultimately ends up reducing “thingly” qualities to human qualities instead of investigating the unique character of objects–as if the human frame is the only one we can think within. Exploring the unique character of things need not mean studying only the properties of materials (as Ingold seems to suggest in his essay Materials Against Materiality) but rather doing what archaeology has long done–conducting ethnographic fieldwork amongst the world of things. To paraphrase the over-cited phrase from L. P. Hartley: the world of things is a foreign country. They do things differently there. Interview at link above or here: http://philosophyinatimeoferror.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/vibrant-matters-an-interview-with-jane-bennett/