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THE
SEVENTY-YEAR ITCH: CONTROVERSIES OVER HUMAN ANTIQUITY AND THEIR
RESOLUTION
David J. Meltzer
Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX 75275-0336
Several
major turning points in the study of human prehistory have occurred
at almost precisely 70 year intervals: from the initial establishment
of a deep human antiquity in Europe in the late 1850s (at Brixham
Cave and in the
Somme River Valley) to the demonstration in the late 1920s at Folsom
that American
prehistory reached into the Pleistocene (albeit not very far) to
the realization in the late 1990s, based on evidence from Monte Verde,
that there
was a still-earlier, pre-Clovis presence in the Americas. It is unlikely
that the cyclical
nature of these episodes is anything more than an odd coincidence.
Still,
there are patterns
to those cycles of controversy and resolution beyond their timing
that tell us a great
deal about the evolution of and revolution in scientific knowledge.
Moreover, in
comparing these episodes, and the differences that emerge from that
comparison, we
can see clearly how much (and how little) archaeology has changed
over the past two centuries.
THE
TRANSITION BETWEEN THE LAST
HUNTER-GATHERERS AND THE FIRST FARMERS
IN SOUTHWESTERN EUROPE: THE BASQUE PERSPECTIVE
Alfonso Alday Ruiz
Departamento de Geografía, Prehistoria y Arqueología, Universidad
del País Vasco,
01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
The dynamism of the Mesolithic in the Iberian peninsula offers new
perspectives for the study of the process of Neolithization. In particular,
in the Basque region we observe in Early Holocene times a well-established
population that received and adopted Neolithic innovations. The archaeological
elements
clearly indicate cultural continuity across the transition; here
we deal
with those related to territoriality, economy, chronology, and lithic
and ceramic
industries. Whatever the mechanisms by which Neolithic innovations
were accessed,
these changes were accepted by autochthonous groups that in turn
adapted
them according to own their tastes and technologies (e.g., with regard
to lithic
manufacture and pottery decoration). The model presented here is
in clear opposition
to the “Mediterranean Cardial colonization” model: we
do not need to resort to massive demographic movements to understand
the progress
of the Neolithic within the Iberian peninsula.
A
SENSE OF PLACE, A PLACE OF SENSES: LAND AND A LANDSCAPE
IN THE WEST OF IRELAND
Adrian Peace
Discipline of Anthropology, University of Adelaide
Australia 5005
One of the analytic points made about “contested spaces” is
that they can bring to the fore the tacit cultural understandings and
unexamined ideological frameworks which, precisely by virtue of their
being tacit and unexamined,
are integral to the routine flow of everyday life. This paper amplifies
the
proposition
ethnographically by selectively examining an extended conflict over the
Irish state’s
intention to build an interpretive center at Mullaghmore, a mountain
in the west of Ireland. It is argued that at one level local
people were at odds over whether the mountain was land or a landscape,
whilst at another
level they were divided over appropriate ways of living in this peripheral
setting in
the final decade of the twentieth century. It was only in the process
of contesting
Mullaghmore as space, however, that these cultural differences and ideological
divisions
became explicit and open to public critique.
PARTIAL
TRUTHS AND GENDERED HISTORIES: RUTH BUNZEL IN AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGY
Brigittine M. French
Grinnell College, Department of Anthropology
1118 Park Street, Grinnell,
IA 50112
This essay pays tribute to Ruth L. Bunzel, a pioneering woman anthropologist,
marginal academician, and prolific ethnographer. It argues for a new
appreciation of the multiple links tying early anthropologists to the
history of our discipline by exploring these links in relation both to
methodological frameworks in the past and theoretical concerns at present.
This essay
makes the case that the past significance and present pertinence of Bunzel’s
work are interrelated, by showing that Bunzel’s connection with
current experimental and feminist ethnography emerged from her struggles
to adjust
methodological norms of the times to the situated demands of her ethnography
in Chichicastenango,
Guatemala.
BOOK REVIEWS
The Human Fossil Record, Vol. 4. Craniodental Morphology of
Early Hominids (Genera Australopithecus, Paranthropus, Orrorin), and
Overview, by Jeffrey H. Schwartz and Ian Tattersall. Reviewed
by Osbjorn M. Pearson.
Stránská skála:
Origins of the Upper Paleolithic in the Brno Basin, Moravia, Czech
Republic, Jirí Svoboda
and Ofer Bar-Yosef, eds. Reviewed by Lawrence Guy Straus.
After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000–5,000 BC, by
Steven Mithen. Reviewed by Peter Mitchell.
Saharan Rock Art: Archaeology of Tassilian Pastoralist Iconography, by
Augustin F. C. Holl. Reviewed by Elena A. A. Garcea.
The Pottery of Santa Ana Pueblo, by Francis H. Harlow, Duane Anderson,
and Dwight P. Lanmon. Reviewed by Mark T. Bahti.
Hopi Oral Tradition and the Archaeology of Identity, by
Wesley Bernardini. Reviewed by Kurt F.Anschuetz
Plains Earthlodges: Ethnographic and Archaeological Perspectives, Donna
C. Roper and Elizabeth P. Pauls, eds. Reviewed by Patricia A.Gilman.
The Archaeology of the Colonized, by Michael Given. Reviewed
by Randall H. McGuire.
European Metals in Native Hands: Rethinking Technological Change,
1640–1683, by
Kathleen L. Ehrhardt. Reviewed by David Killick.
Processual Archaeology: Exploring Analytical Strategies, Frames
of Reference and Culture Process, Amber L. Johnson, ed.Reviewed
by Lawrence G. Straus.
Understanding Early Classic Copan, Ellen E. Bell,
Marcello A. Canuto, and Robert J. Sharer, eds. Reviewed by Norman
Hammond.
Continuity and Change in Text and Image at Chichén Itzá,
Yucatán, Mexico: A Study of the Inscriptions, Iconography, and
Architecture at a Late Classic to Early Postclassic Maya Site, by
Erik Boot. Reviewed by Prudence M. Rice.
Ephraim George Squier and the Development of American Anthropology, by
Terry A. Barnhart. Reviewed by Don Fowler.
A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians, Thomas
Biolsi, ed. Reviewed by Maureen Trudelle Schwarz.
Embedded Symmetries: Natural and Cultural, Dorothy
K. Washburn, ed. Reviewed by Richard J. Parmentier.
Weaving a Legacy: Indian Baskets and the People of Owens Valley,
California, by Sharon E. Dean, Peggy S. Ratcheson, Judith
W. Finger, Ellen F. Daus, with Craig D. Bates. Reviewed by J.
M. Adovasio.
Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn from
It, by Robert Borofsky. Reviewed by Michael F. Brown.
Why Suyá Sing. A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian
People, by
Anthony Seeger. Reviewed by Philip K. Bock.
Making Indigenous Citizens: Identity, Development, and Multicultural
Activism in Peru, by María Elena García. Reviewed
by Ricardo Godoy.
Economic Systems of Foraging, Agricultural, and Industrial
Societies, by Frederic L. Pryor. Reviewed by Timothy
Earle.
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