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Abstracts Saturday 2nd May Morning sessions Figurines in Action John M. Matsunaga (University of California: Berkeley) & Peter Biehl (SUNY Buffalo) Current figurine studies have attempted to understand the effects that figurines had on the perceptions, lived experiences, and daily practices of the people in the past that created and interacted with them. Traditional interpretations of figurines as mother-goddesses, fertility symbols, or as mere reflections of social and political organization have been replaced by interpretations of figurines as active forms of material culture that played an important role in shaping people’s identities and social relationships. Key questions in this line of research include: What effects did figurines have on people in the past? What do figurines do and how do they do it? That is, how do they work? This session seeks to address these questions and contribute to contemporary figurine studies by exploring the diversity of approaches to figurines that have developed in light of the recent trends in archaeological method and theory. In particular, special emphasis will be given to the study of materiality, especially in regards to aesthetics, semiotics, agency, embodiment, identity, personhood, and the biography of objects. It is desired that participants would not only explore at least one of these theoretical issues through a detailed case study, but also provide clear statements of the methods used to address them. 9:00-9:20am Figurines in Action: An Introduction John M. Matsunaga (University of California: Berkeley) and Peter Biehl (SUNY Buffalo) 9:20-9:40am Thinking about Differential Body Part Emphasis on Prehistoric Figurines Douglass Bailey (San Francisco State University) The attention of figurine analysts and voyeurs has long focused on the different emphases that figurine makers placed of particular parts of figurine bodies: in some traditions, special treatment is directed to the breasts and buttocks; in others it is to the head and face. This paper addresses differential body part representation from two unrelated perspectives: the linguistic anthropology of (9am - 1pm) Stephen Levinson and his team of cross-cultural researchers, and the photographic work of Gary Schneider. The result aims to open up alternative ways of understanding representations of the human body such as those that were in common circulation during the European Neolithic. 9:40:-10:00am Representing the Body: The Human Figure in the 7 th-5th Millennium BC Peter Biehl (SUNY Buffalo) This paper discusses how studying visual representations of the human body (from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic in Southeastern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East) can aid us in understanding identity and personhood in the past. The paper looks at anthropomorphism and miniaturization as well as at embodiment and entanglement. It will also scrutinize corporeal as well as ideational and symbolic attributes of the visual body in order to better understand the development of the human figure and to analyze its short-term and longterm changes both on a spatial micro- and macro-scale. 10:00-10:20am Creating Bodies through Symbolic Commitment and Compromise: a Cucuteni-Tripolye Case Study Raymond Whitlow (SUNY Buffalo) The idea of a human body does not correspond to the total physical dimensions and qualities of the physical human body. Although people draw inspiration from a deep understanding of their own bodies, these representations possess communica-tive power only insofar as they are recognized by others. Figurines were a powerful tool for identity negotiation in the southeastern European Chalcolithic, but only if individuals 'bought-in' by negotiating a particular shared syntax of symbols for representing the body. Thus, communication through representation of the body necessitates a commitment to consistent symbolism rather than a variety of expression. Once embodied in material, the representation outlives the compromise between individual and shared concepts present at the moment of its creation. In this way a single representation of the body gains increasing agency as a conceptual marker for further buy-ins and rhetorical plays. Utilizing Chalcolithic figurines from Cucuteni-Tripolye sites, I argue the agentive power of representations is most manifest in these necessary symbolic commitments. 1 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am Neolithic Materiality: The Technology and Daily Practice of Vinča Culture Anthropomorphic Figurine Production John M. Matsunaga (University of California: Berkeley) Recent developments in the study of figurines have challenged traditional approaches which view figurines as passive and static visual representations. Figurines are now considered by many to be active and dynamic forms of material culture, which has enhanced our understanding of the roles they played in past societies. While challenges to traditional approaches have broadened our current perspectives towards figurines, a continued focus on visual representation has inhibited the exploration of additional ways in which figurines can be analyzed and understood. In this paper, I draw on recent advances in figurine studies, materials science, the anthropology of technology, and theories of materiality, in an attempt to shift attention away from figurines as purely visual media and consider the social significance of their technology, production, and the nature of the materials that are used in their creation. Through an analysis of Vinča Culture clay figurines from the Neolithic tell site of Vinča-Belo Brdo, I explore the varied social effects that figurine production and technological practice had on the people that created and consumed them. I argue that figurines are best understood as material agents whose efficacy and social significance arises not only through cultural practices associated with their consumption as finished forms, but also through the practices involved in all stages of their production. Furthermore, I emphasize that the nature of the materials from which figurines are fashioned should be taken into greater consideration when attempting to understand their overall significance in past societies. 11:20-11:40am Figurines and Fragmentation: Implications of the Two Paradigms on Southeast Europe Prehistoric Archaeology Slobodan Mitrović (The Graduate Center, CUNY) In 2000 two books appeared that strongly influenced future scholarship on the Neolithic of Southeast Europe – Fragmentation in Archaeology by J. Chapman and Balkan Prehistory by D. Bailey. The former in his volume established notions of accumulation /fragmentation and enchainment, and these concepts were further elaborated on in J. Chapman & B. Gaydarska 2007, where they were perhaps promoted to the level of proper theory. Bailey’s short chapter on figurines in his 2000 volume was massively expanded in 2005 with Prehistoric Figurines, in which figurine scholarship gets full scrutiny and new ideas deepen, as well as intensify general material culture research. Quite literally, this paper explores theoretical and methodological implications of figurines and fragmentation, as the two areas of inquiry that go hand in hand and perform considerable influence on understanding and production of the Balkan prehistoric archaeology. The pair is also interesting because it is formulated by researchers who are originally from the outside of the geographical area – but have worked in the locale for a long time, and have built on the local publications and assemblages – thereby opening up the Neolithic Southeast Europe to the Anglophone (and general) public, albeit through specific lenses. 11:40-12:00pm Of Sickle and Axe Men: Burials and Figurines in the Late Neolithic Carpathian Basin Dusan Borić, University of Cambridge The paper starts from an empirical case-study with evident homologies between the iconic form of representation found in burials and a particular figurine iconography of the Late Neolithic Carpathian Basin around 4700-4600 cal. BC. In the only presently known intramural cemetery of the late Vinča culture at the site of Gomolava, one finds exclusively male burials of both adults and children, all placed in flexed positions on their left sides. By rule, adult burials were accompanied by ceramic vessels, stone axes and flint sickle inserts. The taphonomy of axes’ and flint sickle inserts’ positions in relation to the body indicates that these items were always placed over the right shoulder of the deceased. On the other hand, in the Tisza culture settlement of Szegvár-Tűzköves, two clay figurines were found depicting male (?) individuals: one with a sickle and the other with an axe over their right shoulders. Firstly, the significance and meanings of these particular figurines in this wider region are contextualized in relation to the mortuary data by identifying a particular type of male embodiment, possibly shared by these two neighbouring communities. The likely ground-ing of such a representational embodiment is examined on the basis of Ingold’s concept of taskscape. Other instances of such gender-specific separations in different media of corporeal display during this period are explored. Secondly, possible constitutive elements of a shared belief system are identified in the appearance and utilization of a new visual-corporeal vocabulary with mythical and/or foreign elements, both in figurine depictions and the mortuary domain. It is suggested that such corporeal “citations” might have related 2 to particular historical dynamics that affected both the Tisza and the Vinča culture groups in the terminal phases of the tell-based existence in this part of south-east Europe. 12:00-12:20pm Archive Fever: Words, Images and Things in NeoAssyrian Apotropaic Figurine Deposits Carolyn Nakamura (Stanford University) Figurine studies have not been immune to the disciplinary divide between words and things that pervades much of archaeological research. For practical reasons, this divide often falls down the line of historic vs. prehistoric, or indeed, Classical (including Ancient Near Eastern) vs. archaeological methods. Figurines are one of the more evocative material cultures found in prehistoric contexts, and researchers have turned to theories of embodiment, materiality, and ritual in order to offer compelling interpretations of such figurine worlds. Alternatively, figurines from historic contexts are commonly subjected to iconographic analyses that draw upon sophisticated theories of representation and text. Such perspectives offer different but equally thoughtful insights, and this paper seeks to bring these varied perspectives into considered cooperation in order to evoke a more multidimensional image of an ancient figurine practice. Neo-Assyrian apotropaic figurine deposits (first millennium BC, now modern day Iraq) and their related texts provide a rare opportunity to examine the prescription and execution of a 'magical' ritual from ancient Mesopotamia. Commencing from Derrida's multiple notions of the archive, I discuss the various aspects of the figurine deposit assemblage as effective, ritual action. Drawing specifically from ideas of the archive as 'commencement and commandment', guardian, consignation and promise, I consider how words, images and figurines in Neo-Assyrian apotropaic deposits operated with an archival economy and thus articulated not simply a gesture, but an institution of protection. 12:20-12:40pm Figuring it Out: Figurines and the Body in the Neolithic Near East Karina Croucher (University of Manchester) & Aurelie Daems (Ghent University) Figurines remain intriguing, in part due to their likeness to the human body. This paper investigates relationships between figurines and the lived body, examining how figurine evidence may provide further insight into bodily treatment and manipulation. Using as a starting point evidence for artificial cranial modification, we investigate the role that figurines can play in providing evidence of body modification in the Neolithic of Southwest Asia. 12:40-1:00pm General Discussion Intimate Encounters, Postcolonial Engagements Barbara Voss (Stanford University) & Eleanor Conlin Casella (University of Manchester) This session presents an ongoing collaborative project aimed at stimulating research and discussion on issues of sexuality in the archaeology of colonialism. Archaeology has tended to minimize sexuality in its studies of colonization and of colonial, colonized, and post-colonial societies, although our colleagues in other disciplines have long understood that sexual politics and sexual encounters were central to projects of empire and in local responses to those projects. What can archaeology’s methodological emphases on place, material culture, and representation bring to studies of sexuality and colonialism? How do theories of materiality, landscape, and representation contribute new perspectives to queer theory and postcolonial theory? 9:00-9:20am Sex in the Colonies: Performing Sex as Ritual Practice in Punic Sites Mireia López-Bertran Representations of sexual organs in Ancient Mediterranean human terracotas have been traditionally interpreted in connection with feminine or masculine fertility. Consequently, other possibilites related to the existence of sex activities have been rejected due to the influence of Christian ideas in explaining religious phenomena in Antiquity. This paper seeks to identify the presence of sex as ritual practice from two examples of Punic votive deposits: Illa Plana (Ibiza, Spain) and Bithia (Sardinia, Italy) (6 th – 3rd centuries BC). Both deposits have provided human terracotas with exagerated genitalia. I argue that sex would have been an essential activity in everyday life and, thus, it would be understandable that it became ritualised. Sex would be a ritual performance due to different reasons: from hygienic or curative rituals to ways of cultural contact. It is my intention to compare figurines from both deposits in terms of different constructions of bodies and corporealities. Besides, I will focus on bodily local practices to analyze the heterogeneity of colonial settings, which might have influenced the way people engage with each other. 3 9:20-9:40am Intimate practices: daily and ritual spaces in the Western Phoenician world (s. VIII-V a.C.) Ana Delgado Hervás and Meritxell Ferrer Martín (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) In western Mediterranean Phoenician colonies practices and material culture related to the daily and ritual life illustrate a cohabitation of groups of people that are social, cultural and ethnically very heterogeneous. This heterogeneity is common in all western Phoenician colonies. However, practices and material culture related with power representations and social hierarchies in the colonial settings that we are studying here –Iberian Peninsula and Sicily- are clearly different. This difference points out two aspects: on one hand different gender constructions; and on the other, the existence of different sexual politics legitimating the colonial power of each one of these spaces. 9:40:-10:00am Archaeology and text: How Epigraphy can contribute to rethink common people daily lives in Roman Empire Renata Senna Garraffoni (Paraná Federal University/Brazil) Literary sources and some Roman laws support a powerful image, which portrayed the common people as an idle mob that lived for bread and circus. As Archaeology can provide different evidence for interpreting the ancient past, there was a growing awareness that new epistemological approaches, inspired in post-colonial theory, are important for a more critical approach to the Roman Empire. In this context, my paper will focus on the Epigraphic evidence (the graffiti) scratched on the Pompeii’s walls. This particular type of material culture can provide us different approaches to the Roman daily lives and can help us to rethink violence, sexuality, social relationship and Roman identity in a less normative experience. As there are few theoretical studies of ancient graffiti or its interpretation, the aim of this paper is to contribute to a more pluralist approach to the Roman past, emphasizing the diversity of points of view expressed on the walls and seeking for a better understanding of this material culture neglected in scholars’ discourses. 10:00-10:20am Renegotiating Sex? Norms and Taboo in the Wake of Colonial-era Depopulation Kathleen L. Hull (University of California, Merced) The biological, cultural, and psychological consequences for the indigenous people who survived disease-induced catastrophic mortality during the colonial era were significant. Such circumstances likely necessitated a renegotiation, or at least critical examination, of sexual taboos and marriage practices as individuals sought to rebuild biologically viable communities. Significantly, these challenges to societal norms may have played out in native villages prior to direct engagement with colonists, rather than being limited to traditional colonial contexts such as mercantile outposts, missions, and other institutional settings. Drawing on archaeological and ethnohistoric data from the Yosemite region of California, this paper explores these issues as well as the challenges such contexts bring to our notions of colonialism. 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am Gender Relations in a Maroon Community Pedro Paulo A. Funari and Aline Vieira de Carvalho (UNICAMP) The goal of the paper is to study several interpretations in social sciences, especially in historical archeology, about gender relations in “Palmares Quilombo” (a marron community of 17th century Brazil). Faced with a variety of views about the maroon community, and the gender relations and identities, the reader will be able to come to the conclusion that there is no consensus, most importantly, that choosing and celebrating one of these ideas constructed by scholarship conveys different power mess-ages. 11:20-11:40am Sexual Anxieties and Material Strategies in Eighteenthcentury Colonial Louisiana Diana D. Loren (Peabody Museum, Harvard University) In eighteenth-century French Louisiana, intermarriage between Native women and French men was encouraged as a way to expand the colony’s population. Simul-taneously, historical documents authored by government officials and missionaries redound with anxieties regarding the impact of interracial intimate relations on French men. Given that these practices were so ordinary, part of the everyday rhythm of life in French Louisiana; can a discussion of the material aspects of these intimate relationships be adequately articulated? What material evidence exists (if any) regarding how Native men and women changed the ways in which they clothed, adorned or presented their bodies in relation to intimate relations with French men? In this paper, I investigate this possibility by examining material culture related to the body and bodily adornment excavated from the Grand Village of the Natchez, an eighteenth-century Natchez Indian mound and village complex. I employ theories of embodiment and materiality 4 to interrogate the ways in which Natchez Indian people chose to cover and adorn their bodies with combinations of familiar and non-familiar material goods as it was here, on the personal, intimate level that we can begin to understand how these relationships were lived and materialized. 11:40-12:00pm Enslavement and Sexual Relations on Nineteenth Century Zanzibar Sarah K. Croucher (Wesleyan University) In historical literature relating to the plantations of nineteenth century Zanzibar, it is clear that enslaved women played a key role within planter households. The context of Omani colonial rule placed sexual relations as a crucial factor in the creation of changing identities within a society undergoing massive social upheavals. Powerful men could have sexual relations with up to four wives and unlimited concubined women (masuria). Male household heads were reliant on these women for their reproductive role in producing direct biological descendants. These children would in turn strengthen their social standing. Yet archaeological and historical interpretations of households on the East African coast have yet to really interrogate how such relations structured daily life and were enacted within the material realm. This paper will explore such questions, and in doing so will attempt to foreground the importance of including sexual relations and enslavement as central to the complexities of Zanzibari plantation society. 12:00-12:20pm 'little bastard felons': An Archaeology of (Re)Production in Convict Era Australia Eleanor Conlin Casella (University of Manchester) This paper will examine the archaeology of female labour and childhood within a mid-19th century British colonial prison. Established in 1847, the Ross Female Factory incarcerated transported female felons and their dependant children in the British penal colony of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), Australia. Termed "Factory" as a contraction of "Manufactory," the Ross prison enforced a disciplinary labour regime based on the Victorian era English workhouse system. While under sentence, convict mothers worked at laundry, spinning, and sewing contracts, producing inmate uniforms for the wider network of Imperial prisons. They also endured limited access to their infants and toddlers, who were separately accommodated in a communal Nursery Ward within the penal compound. Presenting a combination of site survey and excavation results, this paper considers the materiality of production and reproduction -- of female sexuality, childhood, and unfree labour -- that characterised life under British colonial incarceration. 12:20-12:40pm Production and Reproduction: Sexual life on the Diamond Fields Lindsay Weiss This paper examines the spatial and material changes on the Diamond Fields of South Africa over a period of corporate consolidation in the late 19th century. The rise of a monopoly on the Diamond Fields gave rise to the emergence of a closed compound system for the African workers, while white workers were encouraged to live in newly built suburban houses. On the mines emerged the practice of bukhontxana, a way of life in which the male miners lived in a form of marriage with younger men and the younger men took on traditionally female roles of marriage. This spatial remapping of Kimberley, and the resultant effects on racially differentiated notions of respective sexualities, were arguably a response to early life on the Diamond Fields, which had entailed a profound blurring of these reproductive injunctions. 12:40-1:00pm Showing, telling, looking: Intimate encounters in the making of South African prehistory Nick Shepherd (Centre for African Studies) Colonialist archaeology is remarkable as much for what it excludes as for what it allows into the closely guarded confines of its texts, official accounts, and sanctioned range of concerns. This is never more so than in the case of the bodies of colonial subjects, a source at once of fascination, anxiety, desire, fear, and a site of enactment of much of the violence of colonial retribution. As a discipline, archaeology’s particular investment in the material, sensuous aspects of experience, its close tracking of bodies – their products, their capacity for work, their interment and decay – brings the figure of the archaeologist and the discourse at her/ his disposal into an uneasy, intimate, haunted relationship with themes of sexuality and imagination, death and desire. Even as they are fended off, disavowed in official utterances, they make themselves felt… as a set of spectral presences, as a kind of presence/ absence. The grave, the archive, the photograph: each is threaded through by a thematics of death and desire. It is appropriate, then, that this exploration is based on material from the archive of the South African archaeologist A.J.H. “John” Goodwin (1900-1959). In a largely visually-based presentation I think freely around questions of imagination and desire in the making 5 of colonialist archaeology. Can one identify an erotics of death and display in colonialist archaeology? What is the nature of the archaeological gaze, and how does it stage itself in a colonial context, marked by the epistemic violence of racism and patriarchy? Is there a way in which forms of archaeological practice, marked as they are by elisions and blind spots, with their skittishness around questions of imagination and desire, allow for new approaches in understanding the deeper nature and meaning of colonialist discourse? Conversely, is there a way in which, by surfacing questions of imagination and desire, we can begin to rethink the basis of colonialist archaeology? Material Practice, Identity and Community Serena Love (Stanford University) & A. Bernard Knapp (University of Glasgow) Archaeological discourse typically has sought to theorize settlements, households and communities as separate phenomena, recognized through shared spaces, materials and technologies. Recent considerations of identity and material practice, in turn, have stressed the ways that people in the past situated themselves within intricate networks of other people and things. These research trends, however, have given less explicit attention to the context of the social networks and material practices they seek to understand. This context is the community itself, the conceptual and physical entity in which individuals dwell. Although communities are not inextricably attached to or bounded by a single locale, they are undeniably linked to some tangible space or place. If we minimize the need to tie communities to a place and instead situate them in a multi-scalar web of practices, spaces and shifting identities, then we may recognize multiple social identities and material signatures as ‘communities of practice’. Contributors to this session will address the complex and abstract notion of community through material practices and notions of identity. ‘Communities’ in this sense are not attached to a specific place but are considered as an intricate web of practices, places and identities. Both real and imagined communities have extensive boundaries where the individual and the collective, outsiders and ‘others’, may be found. The objective of this session is to theorize communities in light of new perspectives on personhood, identity, material practice and relationality, and so to understand how people lived together in the past. Papers from any period or place are invited, but each contribution should seek to engage with what we see as the three inseparable factors of identity, material practice and community. 9:00-9:10am Introduction Serena Love (Stanford University) and A. Bernard Knapp (University of Glasgow) 9:10am-9:30am Local Communities and the Reception of Mycenaean Imports in Bronze Age Italy Emma Blake (University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona) The decision to use foreign material objects, whether in place of or in association with local material culture, is often seen as a claim to a particular individual or group identity. This is certainly the case when Mycenaean vessels and sherds turn up at Late Bronze Age sites in Italy. Scholars interested in local agency have treated them as an index of either emergent social identities (fledgling elites distancing themselves from local material practices), or of evolving cultural identities, even of ‘Mycenaeanization’. But the unevenness in the adoption of these objects belies these universal explanations. The distribution of the pots in Italy varies significantly in different regions in terms of vessel forms, quantities, contexts and time. While this may be due in part to the vagaries of supply, that cannot explain all the variability. Recently scholars have emphasized local agency and indigenous self-expression as propelling these patterns, suggesting that there are as many different ways of expressing identity materially as there are individuals. As individuals are not independent of their context, it is worthwhile pushing the data further to seek evidence of local, communal influences in those choices. This paper proposes that the discrepancies in the patterns of adoption of Mycenaean goods in Italy may best be understood not in terms of identities alone, but through community practices and networks that structured the reception of the foreign goods and in no small way determined their impact on the individuals who made use of them 9:30-9:50am Community Bundles and Bodies in Space Timothy R. Pauketat (University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois) Three lines of argumentation follow the proposition that community is neither a ‘real’ place nor an ‘imagined’ entity free of place, but a dimension of social experience. First, community is to be analyzed as repetitive performance. Second, community is more accurately considered in terms of the larger social fields or relational networks composed of variously dispersed nodes or agents (people, places, and things). Third, community is implicit in certain contexts, contingent on those nodes or agents. That is, community is an emergent property of fields depending on the performative potential of those networks and nodes, which 6 in turn are to be understood historically. Certain people, places, and things gather, bundle, or focus fields of nodes or agents about them, and hence embody community, owing to their genealogical and phenomenological qualities. Explaining community, then, means delimiting the genealogies of these potential gatherers or the organizing qualities of these would-be attractors. Vignettes from preColumbian North America illustrate the gathering properties of certain human bodies, celestial bodies, and posts as these were bundled together through processions across landscapes. In the end, I suggest that we consider bodily movements through spaces as more central to community than places or ‘sites of community production.’ Both Chacoan and Cahokian communities, for instance, existed simultaneously at different scales as articulated by living or dead human bodies, bundled with huge timbers and ancestral beings-in-the-sky via great pro-cessions along ceremonial avenues. 9:50:-10:10am Fuzzy Boundaries and Multivalent Foci: Building Identities in the Early Northern Iroquoian Village John L. Creese (University of Toronto at Mississauga, Ontario) Boundaries and foci (both material and conceptual) represent twin organizing principals that become important in processes of identity formation at various social scales, from ‘individual’ to ‘community’, within increasingly sedentary nucleated villages. Perhaps because of a postenlightenment tendency to envision social categories such as kin, class, gender, or clan as un-problematically bounded cultural ‘givens’, and a western architectural canon that materializes such classifications through the ubiquitous use of durable walls and fences, archaeologists studying the social implications of spatial organization in non-western contexts have emphasized the significance of boundary formation at the expense of other structuring processes. The ‘focus’ is another way of thinking about how daily activities and social groups are spatially ordered, one that privileges the accumulation of quotidian practices over planned architectural divisions. Unlike spaces defined by walls, foci are more fluid, permeable, ambiguous, and, importantly, multivalent. Thus, foci may act simultaneously as boundaries and centerres; points of integration and segregation at different spatial and social scales. The articulation of boundaries and foci into a system that structured the performance of social identity during the first 450 years of Northern Iroquoian village development is explored in this paper. Social identities appear to have emerged referentially, with strong lineage-based corporate identity developing in response to challenges of integration at the community level, further stimulating the spatial classification and organization of individuals and nuclear families within highly ritualized domestic spaces. 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am Affective Communities in Neolithic Britain Oliver Harris (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK) Communities are forged through performative material practices that cite and recite relational connections between people, places, animals and things and between the living and the dead. These connections matter to people; time and time again in archaeology we see the effort put in by people to renew the interweaving connections that sustain both personal and communal identity. Why do they matter? Because they are affective. Materials, practices and places evoke and provoke emotional reactions and communities are the key scale at which these affective connections play out. Not only do they form the context for the public performance of emotion, they are in themselves sites for emotions to play out. The concept of conviviality, lifted from Amazonian ethnography, reveals the effort that goes into affect and the emphasis that people place on the emotive aspects of the relations that sustain sociality. By considering the affective nature of the material practices that forged identities, and the efforts put into maintaining conviviality, this paper will explore some of the relationally connected communities that occupied Britain in the fourth millennium BC. 11:20-11:40am Within You and Without You: Khirbet Kerak ‘People’ in Levantine Towns and Autonomous Villages Raphael Greenberg (Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel) The initial stages of the arrival of Khirbet Kerak ware producers/consumers in the southern Levant reveal considerable diversity: some small, previously abandoned sites seem to be occupied solely by the presumed migrants; at other sites the migrants appear to take over the sites gradually, whereas at the large site of Khirbet Kerak itself, they remain a minority within an extant urban settlement. In each case, the maintenance of cultural boundaries by the newcomers requires a different strategy. In this paper, I attempt to show where these strategies differ, and to identify evidence for interaction between the presumed migrant communities in urban and village settings. 7 11:40-12:00pm The Red and the Black: Shifting Identities, Material Practices and Social Boundaries in the Upper Euphrates at the Beginning of the Early Bronze Age Giulio Palumbi (Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy) A dynamic process of human relations (single, multiple, public and private), identity is continuously built, shaped, changed and maintained. The way we live and die, love and suffer, eat and work are daily human and social experiences which define our position in relation to the others. At the beginning of the third millennium BC, the collapse of strong political powers in the Upper Euphrates Valley (eastern Turkey) generated the formation of new communities and the fragmentation of the former socio-cultural identity. New villages were built and new ancestral places founded: the different social practices (economic, cultural and political) corresponded to different communities in material, economic and practical terms. This paper examines the social dynamics, power and economic strategies as well as the specific historical contingencies that provided the context of interaction where the social and cultural boundaries of these communities contaminate, mix and blur. 12:00-12:20pm Simultaneously Real and Imagined: The Social Construction of Community in the Chacoan Southwest Andrew Duff (Washington State University) Although they have physical and spatial dimensions, community exists simultaneously in the minds and in the actions of community members. Imbued with meaning through daily routine, the actions of ancestors, communal events, and personal and collective associations, community is lived and reframed by individuals daily and over time. Yet daily living implicates material practice, through which we can engage the tangible and the imagined of community in the past. In the southern Cibola region of New Mexico, substantial constructions (great houses) referencing buildings in Chaco Canyon (ca. AD 1000-1150) and their associated residential settlements were built by people with divergent identities on a physical landscape largely devoid of previous occupation, providing an ideal setting to explore the social (re)construction of identity and community through its material manifestations. Settlement and excavation data from two neighboring residential aggregates are used to discuss the material correlates of subsistence activities, communal construction, and intra- and intercommunity events—the largely material evidence of community defined through repeated practice. Confronting the imagined of the Chaco-era community requires consideration of extraordinarily meaningful — albeit likely rare — experiences, such as calendrically-timed ritual events and pilgrimage. When combined, it becomes possible to evaluate the relative scale of both real and imagined aspects of community—the real predominantly local, the imagined conceptually unbounded—and how this facilitated development of a larger Pueblo identity. 12:20-12:40pm Identity Communities and Memory Practices: Logics of Material Deposition in the U.S. Southwest Barbara J. Mills & Wendi Field Murray (University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona) People’s identities are based on their participation within different communities and materialized through practice. We argue for an approach to past identities that emphasizes how individuals participated in different identity communities through memory practices and their logics of material deposition. We use the rich record of ritual deposits from the U.S. Southwest to look at different logics of depositional practices in two archaeological regions: Chaco and Hohokam. We compare ritual deposition between these two areas to illustrate how differences in the content and treatment of deposits, the scale and secrecy of religious performances, geographies of social networks, and temporality of ritual were constructed through the memory practices of individuals who were part of different identity communities. Our analysis illustrates how ritual deposition can be used to get at ‘indigenous distinctions’ (Catherine Bell 1992), produced and practiced by people in the past, rather than on archaeologists’ superpositioning of identity categories. Such an approach helps to re-define how identities are shaped by emphasizing their relational qualities within different social networks and communities of practice. Bell, Catherine, 1992 Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. 12:40-1:00pm Discussion The Residues of Human Decisions: Archaeological Applications of Behavioral Ecology Brian F. Codding & Douglas W. Bird (Stanford University) Since the early 1970’s behavioral ecology has provided a framework for generating hypotheses about decision making processes with clear archaeological relevance. 8 Applications from this approach have increased dramatically since then, addressing a wide scope of questions about subsistence transitions, life history evolution, technological variability, colonization, social organization, material display and symbolic capital. This session highlights a few recent results from long-term ethnographic and archaeological projects guided by behavioral ecology, with a panel discussion of how these results speak to big problems in interpreting the patterned residues of ancient decisions. 9:00-9:20am: Ethnoarchaeological insight on mobile prey acquisition Douglas W. Bird and Brian F. Codding (Stanford University) Archaeological applications of behavioral ecological models typically rely on proxy measures of prey and patch rank – particularly common is the use of prey body size as a correlate to mean post-encounter return rate. However, recent work with Martu foragers has shown that this proposed relationship is often swamped by prey mobility, which is also correlated with prey size, and results in a high proportion of hunting bouts ending in failure. This conclusion raises questions about interpretations of archaeological evidence for high proportions of larger taxa. Here we combine ethnographic and ecological data to examine when hunting bout success rates with larger mobile prey may be more reliable as a function of prey density. While high prey densities do not mitigate the high pursuit costs associated with mobile prey, they do increase the overall certainty of prey acquisition on any given hunting bout. This has implications for understanding the meaning of archaeological measures of taxonomic abundance and their relationship to ecological factors and human hunting decisions. 9:20-9:40am Climatic seasonality controls of Late Quaternary artiodactyl densities in Western North America: tests using human behavioral ecology Jack M. Broughton (University of Utah) The loss of climatic equability that occurred toward the end of Pleistocene in North America has long been viewed as one of the critical variables that disrupted late Quaternary mammalian faunas—playing a possible role in both the extinction of some 35 genera of mostly large mammals and tremendous range changes in a host of smaller ones. I outline here recent research that tests the hypothesis that this extreme climatic seasonality persisted well into the Holocene and that it played a major role in controlling the population densities of surviving artiodactyls (elk, bison, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, and mule deer) across the Holocene of western North America. Models from human behavioral ecology are used to develop indices of transHolocene paleo-artiodactyl abundances from archaeological faunal and hunting tool assemblages that are then arrayed against climatic seasonality estimates derived from Macrophysical Climate Models. The artiodactyl abundance records show significant correlations with the modelderived seasonality indices and suggest that artiodactyls occurred in low densities from the terminal Pleistocene through the middle Holocene—substantial increases occurred during equable, summer-wet periods of the late Holocene. The analysis has implications not only for recent debate regarding the late Holocene ascendance of large game hunting in western North America, but for the future management of artiodactyls under scenarios of global climate change that also project dramatic increases in extreme climate. 9:40-10:00am Risk sensitive foraging explains the geographical distribution of native seed crop cultivation in Eastern North America Kristen J. Gremillion (Ohio State University) Despite their low return rates, small seeds had important advantages for human populations of the eastern US that relied on masting species—perennials that reproduce in synchrony at irregular intervals. Shortfalls of acorns and perhaps other nuts would have made it impossible in some years to accumulate adequate winter stores. The cultivation of annual seed crops, which were robust and reliable producers with broad environmental tolerance, greatly reduced the risk of malnutrition over the winter months. Food production had its greatest impact where long winters and high variability in nut yields converged. The utility of seed crops increased further during a millennium of intense flooding and cool temperatures that caused average nut harvests to decline. 10:00-10:20am Historicity: uncovering the past when foraging models fail Terry L. Jones (Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo) Two decades of research on the California coast guided by HBE (primarily optimal diet models) have produced a number of well-supported explanations for diachronic variability in subsistence and technology. Attempts to incorporate a key marine technology ---watercraft-- into these explanations have on more than one occasion illuminated patterning that is either poorly supported by or unimportant to the primary tenets of HBE. Explanations for the spread and development of watercraft technology 9 require recognition of certain historical contingencies that are illuminated through comparisons with unmet predictions of optimization models. While these historic events are outside the theoretical emphases of the HBE paradigm (e.g., Polynesian contact with the New World) they nonetheless seem important to the broad outline of world prehistory. This raises questions about the relative importance of paradigmatic frameworks in investigating the past. who designed pipes to maximize profits. The model offers precise predictions about formal patterning in pipe stem bore diameter distributions in time and social space. These are evaluated using data from 17th-century Jamestown, Virginia. 11:40-12:00pm Good Hunters and Rich Farmers: Is Costly Signaling Reflected in Material and Faunal Remains? Karen D. Lupo (Washington State University) 10:30-11am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am Behavioral Ecology and the Emergence of Social Hierarchies in East Polynesia Douglas J. Kennett (University of Oregon) Significant population aggregations and institutionalized social hierarchies developed widely in East Polynesia just prior to European contact. Localized population growth often parallels clear evidence for economic intensification and the emergence of institutionalized social hierarchies. A multivariate model for group formation is developed in this paper within the broad framework of Human Behavioral Ecology. Central to this model are the costs and benefits of group living that accrue to individuals under changing ecological and social conditions. The Ideal Free Distribution, and associated Ideal Despotic Distribution, are employed to consider the dynamic character of habitat suitability, along with a suite of demographic and behavioral variables, that influence the adaptive value of group living. Reproductiveskew theory is used to analyze the effects of the social, political, and economic negotiations between dominant and subordinate group members that either promote or deter aggregation and hierarchical social organization. The predictions of this model are compared with evidence for the prehistoric development of institutionalized social hierarchies on the remote island of Rapa, French Polynesia. 11:20-11:40am Early-modern commodities as costly signals: the case of clay tobacco pipes from the seventeenth-century Chesapeake Fraser D. Neiman (University of Virginia & Monticello) Historians of the early-modern Atlantic world use the phrase "consumer revolution" to denote an increase in the production and consumption of commodities. Clay tobacco pipes dating from the 17th and early 18th centuries are among the earliest examples. Signaling theory offers the tools with which to model interactions among pipe consumers, who used certain pipe attributes as unfakable signals of resource holding potential, and pipe producers Variability in hunting success is a well-known phenomenon among contemporary foraging populations. Good hunters can purportedly accrue a variety of benefits including high reproductive success, access to younger or harder working wives, deference in political arena’s, and increased friendship or ally networks. Certain kinds of costly hunting opportunities are believed to be one arena in which hunters can signal underlying qualities to other individuals. Costly signaling has important implications for the interpretation of zooarchaeological assemblages and has been recently used as the theoretical backbone to support arguments for the rise of prestige hunting in California during the Middle Archaic. In this paper I use ethnoarchaeological data from Central African farmers, who conspicuously display their material wealth, and forest foragers, who sometimes engage in costly public hunting displays, to explore how costly signaling might be reflected in archaeological remains. 12:00-12:20pm Folsom point manufacturing decisions: who gets to play? Nicole M. Waguespack (University of Wyoming) The manufacture of Folsom projectile points is notoriously difficult. Due to the high level of skill and the risk of failure involved in their production, they provide an ideal case for examining the potential role of prehistoric hunter-gatherer lithic craft specialization. Among foraging peoples, craft specialization tends to emphasize the productive abilities of specific individuals and groups operating under specific technological constraints. A model of production specialization linking raw material constraints and production risk is developed. Raw material availability and the relative frequency of Folsom projectile points, bifaces and associated manufacturing debris from a handful of sites in the western United States are examined in relation to the modeled predictions of specialized production. 12:20-12:40pm Intensive seed exploitation and central place foraging in the Australian arid zone David W. Zeanah (Sacramento State University) and Brian F. Codding (Stanford University) 10 Ethnohistoric accounts suggest that Australian foragers relied heavily on seeds and promoted their growth by burning-off climax vegetation. We suspect this was a strategy necessary for arid zone occupation, because seed plants are too dispersed to make their collection worthwhile without using fire to manage seed patches. If so, the Holocene proliferation of ground stone artifacts signals the emergence of fire-managed landscapes in the Australian arid zone. We use central place foraging theory to model the extent of managed habitat mosaics relative to occupation sites with the goal of generating testable predictions about the distribution of ground stone tools. Iconoclash and the Archaeology of Violence Toward Images Severin Fowles (Barnard College/Columbia University) Iconoclasm is when we know what is happening in the act of breaking and what the motivations for what appears as a clear project of destruction are; iconoclash, on the other hand, is when one does not know, one hesitates, one is troubled by an action for which there is no way to know, without further enquiry, whether it is destructive or constructive. — Bruno Latour (2002:16) This session builds off the efforts of Bruno Latour and colleagues (Latour and Weibel 2002; Taussig 1999; Goody 1997) to expand our theoretical understanding of iconoclasm and representational ambivalence beyond its traditionally unique association with the religions of the Book. The central claim is that the tension between iconophobia and iconophilia, between the destruction and the creation of images (broadly conceived) is an aspect of the human experience in all times and places. Hence, the study of why past peoples periodically rejected or did violence unto images (why they broke figurines, burned temples, defaced pictures and the like) is the necessary compliment to the study of why they made these images in the first place. How are we to understand the reality that the destruction of images is itself an act of image production? What of those acts of defacement that seem to have the ironic effect of “refacing” the icon, of recreating the fetish anew? And why, in the end, did some communities indulge in figurative imagery while others abstained from such images altogether, and how are we to account for the longterm development of particular representational traditions in the past? 9:00-9:20am Archaeology and the Second Commandment Sev Fowles (Barnard College/Columbia University) As an introduction to the session, I begin by asking whether anthropology—and archaeology more specifically—has been complicit in the division of the world into (1) a set of Abrahamic traditions within which the power of images as mediators is theologically contested and (2) a wide array of non-Abrahamic or pre-modern traditions in which it is assumed that the power of images is believed naively as a matter of course. Finding the answer to be “yes,” I proceed to argue for an expanded archaeological iconology, one that would view iconophilia and iconophobia as logically intertwined and that would view image-making and imagebreaking as complementary phenomena. 9:20-9:40am So, the Idol-Smasher is Doubly Mad Ellen Morris (New York University) For Latour, following Freud, Akhenaten is the original iconoclast, the unacknowledged intellectual patriarch of both Moses and the Taliban. Akhenaten’s refusal to tolerate the depiction of other gods beside his chosen god—or even to entertain the notion that the word “god” could be written in the plural—supposedly mark this pharaoh as the architect of the world’s first counter-religion. While rejecting any such origin-story for iconoclasm, this paper seeks to investigate the ambiguities and murky theological problems—the iconoclash—that followed in the wake of that bold, simple move of prohibition. 9:40-10:00am Animal/Inhuman Brian Boyd (Columbia) The session organizer asks: “…why did some communities indulge in figurative imagery while others abstained from such images…?” My paper will focus on the contrast between the relative lack of figurative image making in the Epipalaeolithic Levant and the rich diversity of figurative image making in the subsequent Pre-Pottery Neolithic period. Current conventional understanding explains this contrast in terms of a socio-economic shift to animal domestication and agriculture. An alternative interpretation will place emphasis on changing human-animal relations within a radical ecology, drawing upon recent research in literary theory and philosophy. 10:00-10:30am Discussion 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11 11:00-11:20am Cuts, Dissections, and Holes: Consequences of Breaking the Surface Douglass Bailey (San Francisco State University) What happens when one cuts through an otherwise continuous surface? What happens when the skin is pierced, when the ground is trenched, when a wall is opened up? When gaps form, when content is missing, when ellipsis (and what is missing) becomes more important than what is present? What are the consequences of creating (or encountering) negative space? This paper asks these questions in the context of the Early Neolithic of southeastern Europe (6000-5500 cal. BC) with particular attention to what are traditionally understood as pit-houses. Potential answers push debate beyond function, symbol, or (even) meaning and explanation. 11:20-11:40am ‘Sweet are the uses of adversity’: peering into the blackboxes of Hopewell mounds Andrew Martin (Bournemouth University, UK) Latour’s idea that groups, forms and ideas are opened up and even changed during controversies or iconoclashes has huge ramifications for archaeology. Under Latour such clashes are the few clear nodes through which we can trace the network of associations – associations that are arrayed in defense of icons, or their destruction, when they are attacked. Latour also argues that such a defense often takes the form of explicit material statements. When a controversy starts, both sides “end up mobilizing the most heterogeneous and distant elements, thus mapping for themselves, for their opponents, and for the observers, what they value most, what they are most dearly attached to” (Latour 1987:205). The implication of this for archaeology is that if they are material, we can follow them. On the other hand, Latour’s idea that objects and practices become fetishes outside of controversies means that the meaning of these objects may not even be cognized by the people who use them - with associations rarely related or even wrongly related. This means we face a grave inequality in the data we possess. A study of Illinois Valley Hopewell mounds that were destroyed and ‘refaced’ with explicitly contrasting deposits illustrates that iconoclashes often provide the best situations for understanding cultural objects and practices. 11:40-12:00am Killing Mummies Terrence D’Altroy (Columbia University) Why bother killing a mummy? This paper explores the political Implications of Inka views of sentience and power, in which humans and various forms of consciousness were inhabitants of the world. People, clippings from their bodies, and their mummies were seen as living icons of dividuated personas in which human consciousness resided. Within this conceptual framework, the Inkas were highly selective in what could or ought to be represented in tangible form and thus what could be manipulated physically or even destroyed. It is argued that the apparent severity of Inka materiality is explicable because 1) power was resident in various living forms, and 2) iconic representations rendered their subjects susceptible to malign forces." 12:00-12:30 Discussion Cyber-Archaeology Maurizio Forte (University of California: Merced) The virtual ontology of archaeological information, or the cybernetics of archaeology, refers to all the interconnective relationships which the datum produces, the code of transmission, and its transmittability. Because it depends on interrelationships, by its very nature information cannot be neutral with respect to how it is processed and perceived. It follows that the process of knowledge and communication have to be unified and represented by a single vector. 3D information is regarded as the core of the knowledge process, because it creates feedback, then cybernetic difference, among the interactor, the scientist and the ecosystem. It is argued that Virtual Reality (both offline and online) represents a possible ecosystem, which is able to host top-down and bottom-up processes of knowledge and communication. In these terms, the past is generated and coded by “a simulation process”. Thus, from the first phases of data acquisition in the field, the technical methodologies and technologies that we use, influence in a decisive way all the subsequent phases of interpretation and communication. In the light of these considerations, what is the relationship between information and represen-tation? How much information does a digital model contain? What sorts of and how many ontologies ought to be chosen to permit an acceptable transmittability? These and many other questions on related topics take on certain urgency because they relate directly to the loss of information from understanding, learning, and the transmittability of culture. Indeed, our ability to transmit culture depends on a model which combines on the same axis processes of understanding and communication. Thus, the questions which we pose in a phase of bottom-up knowledge (for example, in an archaeological excavation) will influence the top-down phases of 12 - interpretation, or the mental patterns (for example, a comparative analysis and reconstruction of models). From this derives the need to interconnect the top-down processes with the bottom-up in accordance with a reciprocal systemic interaction, for example in a virtual space where both sequences can coexist. If we peremptorily separate knowledge and communication, we risk losing information along the way, reducing the relationships that are constructed between acquisition/input and transmission/output. Archaeological communi-cation ought to be understood as a process of validation of the entire cognitive process of understanding and not as a simple addendum to research, or as a dispensable compendium of data. Topics: Definitions and theoretical overview Reconstruction processes 3D Perception and cognitive impact Relation between interpretation, communication and representation 3D Communities Simulation processes Ontologies and territories of the cyber-space Knowledge and communication Cybernetics and interpretation processes Virtual settlements Virtual taxonomies Interactivity and multivocality Affordances and digital ecosystems 9:00-9:20am Cyber-archaeology: theoretical overview and virtual embodiment Maurizio Forte & Nicolò Dell’Unto (University of California: Merced) The ontology of archaeological information, or the cybernetics of archaeology, refers to all the interconnective relationships which the datum produces, the code of transmission, and its transmittability. Because it depends on interrelationships, by its very nature information cannot be neutral with respect to how it is processed and perceived. It follows that the process of knowledge and communication have to be unified and represented by a single vector. 3D information is regarded as the core of the knowledge process, because it creates feedback, then cybernetic difference, among the interactor, the scientist and the ecosystem. It is argued that Virtual Reality (both offline and online) represents a possible ecosystem, which is able to host top-down and bottom-up processes of knowledge and communication. In these terms, the past is generated and coded by “a simulation process”. Thus, from the first phases of data acquisition in the field, the technical methodologies and technologies that we use, influence in a decisive way all the subsequent phases of interpretation and communication. Thus, the questions which we pose in a phase of bottom-up knowledge (for example, in an archaeological excavation) will influence the top-down phases of interpretation, or the mental patterns (for example, a comparative analysis and reconstruction of models). If we peremptorily separate knowledge and communication, we risk losing information along the way, reducing the relationships that are constructed between acquisition/input and transmission/output. At the University of California, Merced, we are experimenting different forms of virtual embodiment and participatory learning. The innovation factor is mainly based on the principle of “enaction”: A principle employed by avatar-driven virtual (embodied) communities for perceiving and constructing information. This neurophenomenologic approach is based on the assumption that the cognitive activity is “embodied”, i. e. not separated from the body perception. In these terms it can be correctly identified and communicated only within its specific context. It seems evident that embodiment depends on the level of immersion in the cyberspace: if well implemented embodied communities should be able to learn and transmit more knowledge and in a shorter time than traditional textbased “chatting” communities. We distinguish different types of embodiment (A-B-C) according to levels and modalities of participatory learning and capacities of interaction; each embodiment level will focus on a different kind of interactive learning interface, content target and group of users. Embodiment A: Virtual Participatory Museum. In this case the VR system is planned for interactive platforms (each one with a mono display) and a large HD stereo display serving for group display. The users/players interact in a common 3D space, the rest of the audience can watch by stereo vision. In this way it is possible to obtain a double participation: one active, between the user/players and one passive between a larger audience watching the environment in the large 3D screen. Target users are museum visitors. Embodiment B: Simulation Participatory Environment. (Powerwall, graphics.ucmerced.edu/ research.html). The primary purpose of this environment is to visualize datasets in a large and interactive high resolution display capable of achieving a very high degree of 3D immersion. Within the Powerwall environment it will be possible to integrate fullbody 3D motion capture devices in order to implement novel interaction interfaces between immersed users, the environment, and avatars or autonomous characters 13 simulated in the virtual environment. This environment will enable the team to develop new humanlike motion interfaces for collaborative virtual environments, in particular for achieving seamless human-computer interactions accessible to non computer experts for programming motions in the virtual environments. This will allow archeologists to precisely program the correct motions associated with the environment and will enable a novel concept of “Motion Heritage”. Target users are: archaeologists and scientific community. Embodiment C: Virtual Communities. Here the destination is the cyberspace in Second Life where the University of California, Merced is managing two courses and digital labs with the students (lower and upper division). Target users: students, web communities. 9:25-9:45am From Computable Archaeology to Computational Intelligence. New Prospects for Archaeological Reasoning Juan A. Barcelo (Universitat Autònoma Barcelona, Spain) The question of whether it is possible to automate the archaeological knowledge production is of both great theoretical interest and increasing practical importance because knowledge and information are being generated much faster than they can be effectively analyzed. The approach adopted here is based on a fact that archaeologist couldn’t evaluate 15 years ago: Computer programs do work in real science, not only in archaeology. Maybe they are more successful in other “harder” sciences, but we cannot deduce from this fact that Archaeology is a different kind of science. Computable archaeology –if you do not like the expression “automatic archaeology” is the proper way of exploring new ways of answering the questions we have not yet answered. 9:50:-10:10am VIRTUAL IMPACT: Visualizing the Potential Effects of Cosmic Impact in Human History*, W. Bruce Masse (Los Alamos National Laboratory), Maurizio Forte (University of California, Merced ), David R. Janecky (Los Alamos National Laboratory), and Gustavo Barrientos (Universidad de La Plata) Current models indicate that catastrophic impacts by asteroids and comets capable of killing more than one quarter of Earth’s human population have occurred on average once every million years; smaller impacts, such the 1908 Tunguska impact that leveled more that than 2,000 square km of Siberian forest, occur every 200-300 years. Therefore, cosmic impact likely significantly affected hominine evolution and conceivably played a role in Holocene period human culture history. Regrettably, few archaeologists are trained to appreciate the nature and potential effects of cosmic impact. We have developed a conceptual model for an extensible set of educational and research tools based on virtual reality collaborative environments to engage archaeologists and the general public on the topic of the role of cosmic impact in human history. Our initial focus is on two documented asteroid impacts in Argentina during the period of 4000 to 1000 B.C. Campo del Cielo resulted in an energy release of around 2-3 megatons (100-150 times the Hiroshima atomic weapon), and left several craters and a strewn field covering 493 km2 in northeastern Argentina. Rio Cuarto was likely more than 1000 megatons and may have devastated an area greater than 50,000 km2 in central Argentina. We are focusing on reconstructions of these events and their potential effects on contemporary hunter and gatherers. Our virtual reality tools also introduce interactive variables (e.g., impactor physical properties, climate, vegetation, topography, and social complexity) to allow researchers and students to better investigate and evaluate the factors that significantly influence cosmic impact effects. 10:10-10:30 Discussion 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am The Irreducible Ensemble: PLACE-Hampi Sarah Kenderdine (Museum Victoria, Melbourne, Australia) This discussion examines several philosophical considerations (phenomen-ology, embodiment, corpothetics and mediation) which form powerful interlocking arguments, whose qualities are prerequisites for building presence and place in virtual heritage landscapes. The discourse draws upon Interpretive Archaeology and Interpretive Archaeological Systems theory and, Symmetrical Archaeology theory provides a basis for understanding complex emergent narratives in immersive virtual environments. Firmly rooted in praxis, the argument explores these issues through research associated with applications from the PLACE-Hampi heritage projects (PLACE-Hampi and Hampi-LIVE). PLACE-Hampi is an embodied theatre of participation in the drama of Hindu mythology focused at the most significant archaeological, historical and sacred locations of the World Heritage site Vijayanagara (Hampi), South India. Using two advanced interactive and immersive stereographic panoramic display systems, PLACE and The Advanced Visualization Interactive Environment, a translation of spatial potential is 14 enacted in the two demonstrators where participants are able to transform myths into the drama of a co-evolutionary narrative by their actions within the virtual landscape and through the creation of a virtual heritage embodiment of a real world dynamic. Place-Hampi restores symmetry to the autonomy of interactions within virtual heritage and allows machine and human entities to make narrative sense of each other’s actions. 11:25-11:55 Selective fidelity and prosthetics – from the Eighteenthcentury to Cyber-archaeology Michael Shanks (Stanford University) Key components of a cyber-archaeology paradigm can be tracked back to the eighteenth century and the European antiquarian tradition. This paper will focus on issues of modeling and simulation, performance and narrative in relation to questions of representation and fidelity in virtual and augmented realities. It will argue that we are still addressing the same nexus of epistemological and ontological problems, but that there was actually more experiment in some quarters of the antiquarian tradition that is highly pertinent to the dynamic modeling of past socio-cultural systems. A case will be made for a deeply selective fidelity in simulation that remains tightly connected to the chracteristics of the real and substantive "archaeological record". Examples will be drawn from the antiquarian tradition as well as from its geneaological descendants in contemporary media art and as exemplified in the Presence project (http://presence.stanford.edu). 12:00-12:20am The Fallacy of Reconstruction Jeffrey T. Clark (North Dakota State University) The idea of reconstructing the past has been part of archaeology almost since its inception as a discipline. In the mid 20th century, the “reconstruction of culture history” and the “reconstruction of past lifeways” explicitly guided the work of many archaeologists. Even those who considered themselves “new archeologists” typically stuck with the idea of “reconstructing” cultural process. In the realm of virtual archaeology, or virtual heritage, the notion of “reconstructing” some ancient building or cultural setting is dominant. Papers at professional conferences dealing with virtual archaeology (e.g., CAA, VSMM, VAST) along with publications discussing specific projects or general concerns related to virtual archaeology almost invariably use the term “reconstruction” in reference to the at least one project objective. It is the contention of this paper that the notion of reconstructing the past is not only a misnomer but one that has been detrimental to the discipline. This holds true for conventional archaeology as well as virtual. We should only be talking about “constructions” of the past and rarely, if ever, about reconstructions. We are always constructing models—whether verbal, mathematical, or graphical— which are tools for understanding, not statements of reality. The idea that somehow this is a more significant problem for virtual models (reconstructions) than verbal is both false and has hindered the acceptance and use of virtual archaeology by the larger professional community. 12:25-12:45am Exploring cognitive landscapes: toward an understanding of the relationship between space/time conceptualization and cultural material expression J. Van der Helst (University of New Mexico, USA) Placenames, or toponyms, that were collected th ethnographically during the early 20 century in the Northern Rio Grande region for the Tewa world are analyzed and presented in this paper, in order to gain insight in the relationship between cultural material remains and the conceptualization of space/time of the Tewa speaking people. Geospatial technologies, which are employed to explore those relationships, have developed based on the idea that human spatial cognition is universal. However, it has been shown in recent studies in linguistics that significant differences exist between language groups in this fundamental cognitive domain, warranting research into how space/time is perceived and represented across the human population. For instance, speakers of different language groups, e.g. Indo-European, Uto-Aztecan, may use a different frame of reference. Similarly, the general assumption that universal spatial categories exists, such as ‘mountain’, ‘river’ is not supported by this research; different spatial ontologies are evident and are likely based on (perceived) affordance and cultural ideas. These findings have enormous implications for future development of geospatial technologies and the use of these technologies in archaeology. Space/Time conceptualizations are expressed by humans in natural language as well as in other languages, such as visual and morphic languages. Archaeological research primarily deals with visual and morphic representations (2D, 3D), for example iconography, architectural design etc. It is assumed within this paper that space/time conceptualization underlies natural language expression and visual and morphic expressions in similar ways, therefore linguistic research can aid in the creation of interpretive frameworks in archaeological research. 15 12:45-1:00pm Discussion Path Dependence: Archaeological Perspectives on a Contemporary Issue Michelle Hegmon (Arizona State University) Path dependence describes a situation in which initial conditions establish a trajectory, making changes or reversal increasingly difficult. The concept was developed, and has been studied, primarily in contemporary contexts and in the fields of economics, political science, and science and technology studies. This work has suggested factors that may contribute to path dependence, including large set up costs, coordination effects, and power asymmetries. Archaeologists often discuss similar concepts, including historical contingency and trajectories, and technological traditions; and the long-term of the archaeological record provides an ideal setting for examining path dependence. This session explores the applicability of the path dependence concept to archaeology, and draws on archaeological cases to develop the concept. The session will begin with an introduction that defines the concept of path dependence as well as salient variables and dimensions, and more formal theoretical discussion by Hegmon and Bolin that develops comparisons and syntheses among various perspectives. These will be followed by six papers that describe apparent cases of path dependence in the archaeological record, Cameron and Duff and Nelson, Kintigh and Abbott describing two sets of alternative trajectories in the US Southwest, Striker examining historical trajectories and conflict in the Eastern US, Goodman-Elgar on agriculture in the Andes, Ferguson on monumentality in Europe, and Wattenmaker focusing on state building in Mesopotamia. Then, after the break, we will have a roundtable discussion focused on how to best apply path dependence in archaeology, and considering how archaeology may be able to contribute to the contemporary issue. 9:00-9:15am Introduction Michelle Hegmon (Arizona State University) 9:15-9:30am Path Dependence: Theoretical Comparisons and Synthesis Michelle Hegmon & Bob Bolin (Arizona State University) The intransigence of structures (both social and material), and the need for change, is all too obvious in the world around us. The concept of path dependence was developed, primarily in technology studies, political science, and economics, as a way of describing and explaining this phenomenon of intransigence. Although history matters in almost all cases, the analytical and theoretical utility of the concept of path dependence is enhanced by adopting a clear definition that specifies in what cases it does, and does not, apply. Among the characteristics – and causes – of path dependence are the importance of initial conditions; increasing returns, self-reinforce-ment, and positive feedback; large set up costs; and coordination effects. This paper serves as an introduction to the case studies that follow. It (1) explains these characteristics; (2) explores ways in which they might be assessed archaeologically, and whether archaeology might suggest other characteristics; (3) considers implications for general social theory, especially the relationship of structure and practice. 9:30-9:45am History Matters: Divergent Paths in the Post-Chaco Southwest Catherine Cameron (University of Colorado) & Andrew Duff (Washington State University) Two patterns characterize the late prehistory of the northern Southwest (twelfth to fourteenth centuries): abandonment of the Mesa Verde region to the north and aggregation of population into large villages in the Cibola region to the south. Three initial conditions, evident as early as the Pueblo I period (A.D. 700-900), established trajectories in each region that resulted in different paths. These initial conditions were: 1) the strength of ties with the regional center at Chaco Canyon during its expansion and collapse, which implicates demography; 2) the importance of the household as an independent social unit, and 3) the development in the north of a primate center, Aztec Ruins, and the lack of such a center in the Cibola region. The concept of path dependency is used to explore initial conditions and trace their effect on the trajectory of development in each region. While not discounting social and environmental explanations for aggregation and abandonment in the northern Southwest, we show that different initial conditions and resulting historical processes caused differences in the ways people organized themselves and used their landscape, processes difficult or impossible to reverse. That the earliest European explorers found abandoned cliff dwellings in the Mesa Verde region and bustling villages in the Cibola region—that endure today— was in part a product of different initial conditions in these two regions resulting in their divergent paths through time. 16 9:45-10:00am Examining Historical Trajectories of Inter-group Conflict in the Protohistoric Eastern Woodlands Sarah Striker (Arizona State University) This paper explores the application of the concept of path dependence to the well studied case of Iroquois involvement in the North American fur trade. The Iroquois occupation of key Great Lakes waterways at the time of European contact set the stage for their unique and transformative role in developing European and Native relations. In exchange for the furs they provided, Iroquois groups received European material resources and greater regional power, a process that, at least initially, can be described as involving increasing returns, one of the key characteristics of path dependence. However, the political and economic successes enjoyed by the Iroquois exacerbated pre-existing political and cultural conflict between the Iroquois and their Native and European neighbors. As the beaver and other preferred sources of fur became rarer, the costs of participation in this once lucrative industry began to outweigh the benefits. The political, economic, and cultural ramifications of deep involvement in European commerce resulted in difficult conditions for the Iroquois, as well as severe ecological consequences for beaver populations. The complex change associated with this involvement created a situation of social and economic “lock-in,” such that the Iroquois did not have the flexibility to alter their course, despite its compounding disadvantages. 10:00-10:15am Agriculture, Landscape Architecture and Path Dependence Melissa Goodman-Elgar (Washington State University) The long-term impacts and accretionary nature of agricultural landuse suggests that path dependence will be a productive approach to its study. Farming systems utilize technology at different scales with variable degrees of flexibility to change and different temporalities. For instance, stone hoes are relatively easy to make and their forms can vary without compromising functionality making them easily replaceable or reversible. In contrast, landscape architecture (e.g., field wall, terracing, irrigation) has high labor and environmental set-up costs. Once established, coordination effects for field architecture are pronounced, particularly for terracing as walls adjoined by stacking upward or extending laterally have lower set-up costs. Replacement or renovation at a landscape scale is also costly and landscape modifications are often impossible to reverse. These long-term impacts may favor selective use of such technologies in order to maintain future landuse flexibility. In addition, field architecture materializes land tenure conventions based on fixed boundaries. As a result, it arises under social conditions that favor land enclosure. This may initiate path dependence towards increased land enclosure amongst subsequent generations seeking to secure resources, especially if such mechanisms have been institutionalized. These dynamics will be explored by comparing indigenous farming strategies in the Peruvian Andes between the highly modified Upper Mantaro Valley and the Cajamarca Valley, where landscape architecture is quite limited. These regions share a basic range of technology and were both developed by the Inka as administrative centers. Yet, they demonstrate widely different landscape architecture. Moreover, the trajectories established in prehistory continue to effect farmers in both regions today. 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:15am Early Medieval Monumental Re-use in the British Isles: Reinterpreting the Evidence through Path Dependency Christopher Ferguson (University of Oxford) This paper will examine how theories of path dependency, emergent within political science and economics over the past decade, can be applied to the study of archaeology and archaeological events. Through this, the Annalist interpretation of the longue dureé can be refined to account for the archaeological event, allowing the interpretation of different temporal scales within one framework. The interpretation of early medieval mortuary sites within the British Isles will be used as a case study. Monumentality and place within the occupation of the landscape has been the focus of much discussion within early medieval archaeology (Semple 1998; Williams 1998). In particular, the re-use of prehistoric sites within early medieval mortuary contexts has received much comment. Documentary sources, such as Beowulf and The Wife’s Lament highlight the importance attached to prehistoric mortuary sites by early medieval society. The re-use of prehistoric barrows, and the subsequent movement to Christian churchyard burial can be understood through the development of a path dependent analysis. Theories of path dependency may offer the archaeologist an alternative approach to the interpretation of temporal change, space and monumental re-use within early medieval archaeology and the discipline as a whole. 11:15-11:30am Path Dependence, State-building and the Urban Process in Ancient Mesopotamia Patricia Wattenmaker (University of Virginia) 17 Urbanism in ancient Mesopotamia in the fourth and third millennia entailed profound and far-reaching transformations in the ways people interacted with one another, relations between neighboring settlements, systems of production and exchange, and inter-polity dynamics. These changes took place at an unprecedented pace, and involved the formation of new social institutions far larger, more intricate, but also more fragile, than those seen in the past. This paper draws on the archaeological evidence from the ancient Middle East to delineate some of the key changes in cultural values, social institutions and interpolity relations that took place as settlements expanded dramatically and their populations increased in both size and density. Path dependence theory, including concepts of lock-in and increasing returns, provides the framework for examining linkages among changes in cosmologies and sociopolitical institutions that accompanied urbanism, the ways that the urban process apparently enhanced the social inequalities that initially helped set it in motion, the new political landscape that led urban societies to risk their survival by exploiting resources on an unsustainable scale, and the persistence of the urban way of life long after it proved to be unstable and its many drawbacks became known to city dwellers and rural residents alike. 11:30-1:00pm Roundtable discussion Theorized Dwelling: Archaeology at Historic Homes Christina J. Hodge (Harvard University) & Christa M. Beranek (University of Massachsetts Boston) At a TAG conference two decades ago, dwellings were hailed as "arguably the single most important artefact for reconstructing past societies" (Samson 1990:2). Inspired by the persistent centrality of houses to archaeology and our own professional experiences, session participants reflect on the intersection of public and civic agendas, heritage management, and archaeological theory at historic homes and house museums. Archaeologists are implicated in the politics of the past, but to whom and how are we accountable as we engage in history-making? What mediates the essential interplay of stakeholder and professional values? The session attends to dwellings as compelling sites of collective and individual memory-making that afford a powerful, organizing presence. We explore intersections of progressive archaeological agendas and the sometimes conservative realities of historic home sites through on-theground, in progress, and personal case studies. Samson, Ross. "Introduction," in The Social Archaeology of Houses, edited by Ross Samson. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (1990). 9:00-9:10am Introduction Christina J. Hodge (Peabody Museum, Harvard University) & Christa M. Beranek (University of Massachusetts Boston) 9:10-9:30am Founding Narratives: Revolutionary Stories at Historic Houses Christa M. Beranek (University of Massachusetts Boston) Two Revolutionary War era homes, now historic houses and sites for archaeological research, in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, serve as starting points for a consideration of memory, narrative, and history. These are both sites where early 19th-century women “made history,” mapping the political and military history of the American Revolution onto the domestic fabric of their homes by telling the stories of their recent ancestors, naming rooms, and preserving furnishings. In their preservation efforts, these women may not have been primarily focused on telling their own stories, but they made an important statement on the role of domestic spaces in national history and for their own power as history makers. As these women and many other ordinary citizens used houses to create prospective memory, they developed a body of very resilient popular history and myth that often outlasted the physical presence of the houses themselves. Like other bodies of evidence, these founding narratives both enable and constrain archaeological research: they frequently bring archaeologists to a site, yet archaeological research interests or results may not articulate well with them. As writers of archaeological narratives, however, we can learn from the efficacy of these earlier stories, especially since we work with many of the same materials: intimate, personal histories, tangible objects, and domestic landscapes. While adding an archaeological dimension to the stories of historic homes, we build on the memory-making that these women began and tell the stories of the story-tellers. 9:30-9:50am Working from Home: Tensions over Depicting a Feminist Past at a Historic House Museum Kim Christensen (University of California Berkeley) Feminist theory has encouraged the study of the mundane and small-scale, and many archaeologies of households have succeeded in examining the lives of a site’s occupants 18 and their connections to the broader social arena. At the same time, given the typical focus of historic house museums on showcasing the material culture of past lives, adopting the goal of showing ‘what life was like back then’ can clash with a desired emphasis on the decidedly nonnormative legacy of a particular historic figure. Specifically, this paper explores the tensions involved in creating an interpretive plan for a feminist historic house museum located in upstate New York. The house in question was the nineteenth-century home of the Gage family, whose most famous member, Matilda Joslyn Gage, was prominent on both the state and national front in the effort to gain woman suffrage (among other reform efforts). Excavations conducted on the property have uncovered a rich array of material culture that can be attributed to the Gage household and shed light on the family’s daily practices. The museum’s board of directors, however, is reluctant to include information on the family as a whole and their daily lives as part of the site’s interpretation, fearing that such inclusion will obscure the focus on Gage’s work and reify existing gendered stereotypes regarding ‘the domestic sphere.’ This paper thus focuses on the perceived tensions between ideas and things within the historical context of house museums in general and the context of a politically conscious museum-in-the-making specifically. 9:50-10:10am Our Site is Alive, Intimate, and Discomforting! Digging on Private Property with Descendants Kaitlin Deslatte, Caroline Frank, and Krysta Ryzewski (Brown University) Theoretical questions should inform interpretations of dwelling spaces as much as archaeological practices. The practical challenges posed by working with descendants on their lived landscape typically involve issues of dirt, the mess, and inconveniences of sustaining a small army of excavators while conducting one's life in the space. During of our surveys and excavations on the property's homesteads, we constantly needed to negotiate. But what happens when the archaeologist works with descendants, on their land, in dwelling spaces that have belonged to their ancestors for centuries, that they continue to own, and the questions owners and archaeologist pose seem to diverge? Who owns the past? In speaking about work with indigenous peoples, George Nicholas and Kelly Bannister state: "the ultimate risk to both sides is the loss of control of knowledge." As the archaeologist gradually assumes some control of this lived-in space, a contest emerges. Referring again to indigenous peoples, Meg Conkey points out that "One need not be a social scientist to understand that the very cultural integrity of Indigenous peoples is inextricably dependent upon their control of cultural knowledge." The question we pose in this paper is doesn't this assertion hold true for many groups of stakeholders, not only those who archaeologists have identified as disadvantaged. With over five years of collaboration with "Greene Farm" descendants, we will use our experience to focus on current questions of decolonization. 10:10-10:30am Discussion 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am Families and Things: Social Relations and Materiality at the Boston-Higginbotham House Teresa Dujnic (University of California Berkeley) In recent research, memory work has been discussed as encompassing both the work done by past people with respect to their own history and also the present–day practices of archaeologists, historians, descendant communities and other groups. This paper will focus on the latter, specifically addressing the ways that in present-day contexts stakeholders undertake memory work through commemoration and everyday practices to create a place from which they can speak about their relationship with the past. Memory work at historic houses, including both practices of remembering and forgetting, is tied in powerful ways to the materiality of extant buildings, antiques, and artifacts. Memory work is also underwritten by the political and social contexts of the present. This paper will explore some of the memory work undertaken by stakeholders at the Boston-Higginbotham House in Nantucket Massachusetts. The house is owned by the Museum of African American History and represents the future site of a visitor’s center that will be part of a black history trail on Nantucket. The role of the extant house and the archaeological process in practices of remembrance at the house will be discussed as well as the potential avenues for forgetting that allow groups to position themselves in relation to perceived pasts. 11:20-11:40am Recollecting the Old Homestead: Memory, Place, Nostalgia Christina J. Hodge (Peabody Museum, Harvard University) This paper considers processes of memory-making at the Elihu Akin House, a historic site in a New England coastal village. Since the late eighteenth century, the house has been a place of dwelling and selective recollection via narratives of history, identity, and place. The site has long fostered 19 nostalgic engagements with the past, understood as entanglement in a present-past or longing for an idealized and unattainable future-past. The once-"forgotten" property was recently purchased by the town and subjected to architectural preservation and archaeological study. As the house is reinvested with significance, it has been exposed and destabilized: valued by some, dismissed by others. The place, its history, and its future are, simultaneously, being remade. How do agendas of remembering and forgetting intersect with the uses of heritage? Who controls the production of knowledge? When practicing archaeology, how do you honor multiple stakeholders and the "public trust" when priorities are misaligned with, or run counter to, each other? As a material/emotional discourse strongly implicated in memory-making and the values of heritage, nostalgia informs practice at the Akin House as at so many historic homes. Material culture can create nostalgic recollection. And—importantly for those in heritage and allied professions—nostalgia is susceptible to manipulation. Nostalgia has implications for the way the Akin House is (or is not) developed into an educational center serving local and regional interests, as well as the interests of archaeological heritage management. 11:40-12:00pm Finding a Place for Archaeology at the Wilbor House in Little Compton, Rhode Island Katharine M. Johnson (University of Massachusetts Boston) The Wilbor House in Little Compton, Rhode Island has been a fixture in the community for over fifty years; functioning not only as a headquarters for the Little Compton Historical Society, but as an historic home and gathering for social events. The house itself was built in the 1690s and stayed in the Wilbor family until the early 1900s when it was sold, occupied by various tenants, and then eventually given to the Historical Society in 1955. Because the primary function of the Historical Society is to be actively involved with the community and its history, it would not be beneficial to divorce the archaeology of this site’s past residents with those of its present or future. Recent archaeological excavations undertaken at the site have provided new information about the past occupants; but in what ways can this process and information be integrated into the site history? This paper deals with how the archaeological process at the Wilbor House has been and will be conveyed to members of the general public, and the ways in which this process has complemented and changed the historical interpretation of the house itself. 12:00-12:30pm Discussion Theory of Assemblage Ewa Domańska (Poznan University/ Stanford University) Assemblage is one of these “bridging concepts” that connect various disciplines while retaining their specificity. Commonly used in geology, paleontology, archaeology and art, recently it regains popularity in different fields (political sciences - Manuel DeLanda, science studies – Bruno Latour, cultural studies - Brian Massumi). This process of reappearance of the concept is accompanied by serious attempts to theorize assemblage mainly by reference to Deleuze and Guattari’s understanding of the term (French agencement). The panel “Theory of Assemblage” will gather scholars from various disciplines in order to discuss a non- or adisciplinary approach to the concept of assemblage. From the understanding of assemblage as an equivalent term to Foucault’s epistemes, Kuhn’s paradigms, or Callon, Law and Latour’s actor-network-theory, to its popular definition as “a group of objects of different or similar types found in close association with one another”, the purpose is to problematize this concept from the point of view of comparative studies in theories of human and social sciences. Due to the course of discussion, the idea is to falsify and transgress modernist and postmodernist considerations on assemblage understood as a structure-like surrogate, or in terms of the idea of the always-emerging, the state of becoming, emergence, and production of difference and heterogeneity. In this sense, assemblage might serve as a “disturbing concept” that shows the limitations of its present understandings, on the one hand, and its potentialities for transgressing them, on the other. The idea is to focus on material rather than discursive assemblages (however, they cannot be separated) in order to consider the complexity of human-nonhuman and organicnonorganic relationships (assemblage vs companion species vs actor-network-theory, etc.); to discuss a performative and agentive aspect of assemblage (what it does and how it functions rather than what it means), associations and symbiotic relations as basic elements of analysis (relational materialism), the problem of territorialization and deterritorialization as factors of assemblage’s “identity” (and space as created by assemblage). 9:00-9:10am Introduction Ewa Domańska (Poznan University/Stanford University) 20 9:10-9:40am Secondary Particles: “Everything is always already readymade” Hayden White (Stanford University) In this presentation I will attempt to address the so-called Argos problem as a way of identifying the ontological presuppositions underlying all constructivist theories of reality. Rejecting for the moment any distinction between material and discursive agencements, I will suggest that the paradox which attracts “assemblers” to the strategies of “assemblage” is that of (one version of) the Argos paradox how to make a new thing by putting together a congeries of old ones. 9:40-10:10am Strange Assemblages Geoffrey C. Bowker (University of California: Santa Clara) “Ontology” has become an oddly pervasive term across a number of fields. Frequently, builders of cyberinfrastructures to enable work across multiple disciplines to treat complex issues (such as biodiversity and climate change) ask the poor domain scientist: What is your ontology? While this question is generally greeted with a mixture of hostility and benign indifference, it is a significant one that reveals tensions about the degrees to which we already know the objects that make up our world and by consequence constitute our computer representations of it. The concept of “assemblages” is a perspicuous one for exploring new ways in which selves, species and the world can (and should) be explored outside of the boundaries of a single predefined ontology. 10:40-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:30am Hawking meets Hawking. The Ethnographic Study of a Statue Hélène Mialet (University of California: Berkeley/Harvard University) I begin by drawing your attention to a special, but at first sight merely curious feature of the notion of doing something, or rather of trying to do something. In the end I hope to satisfy you that this feature is more than merely curious; it is of radical importance for our central question, namely, what is le Penseur doing? - Gilbert Ryle What was for the philosopher a pure thought experiment has been fleshed out for the ethnographer into an improbable scene: the meeting of Stephen Hawking, the man with Stephen Hawking the statue. The scene takes place in Hawking’s office. A statue representing Hawking has been presented for approval before its definitive version is made. Hawking, his assistants, his colleagues, the sculptor and the ethnographer are present. The paper describes the interaction between these different actors. It also wants to take seriously the role of the statue as an actor. In taking into account the materiality of the statue, its circulation, its presence and what it allows, I will follow the mise-en-scène, the articulation and shaping of an identity—the Thinker (Penseur). Where is Hawking? Where is the original, where is the replica? Who is who? Who is what? And what is Hawking—the Thinker, the man/the statue—doing? These are some of the questions I will address through a thick description—to use Geertz term, which, as we will recall, was inspired by Ryle’s “What is le Penseur doing?”—of an assemblage. 11:30-12:00pm Re-assembling the archaeological assemblage Ana Bezic (Stanford University) The notion of an assemblage has always been present in archaeology and remains to act as a classificatory tool par excellence. What would archaeology look like if assemblage were no longer used as a term meaning “a group of different artifacts found in association with one another”? What if archaeological assemblages were no longer meaning based structures? The concept of assemblage I am proposing here is inspired by two ideas. The first one is from Latour’s idea of the collective, and the second comes from DeLanda’s theory of assemblages. By incorporating these views, the assemblage could then be seen as a result of the assembling of people and things (objects and processes) and in need of tracing their continual interactions rather then being defined by their associations. I propose an assemblage for archaeology for which every assembling is a unique ‘event’, a transformation rather than a combination. 12:00-12:30pm General discussion Discussant: Michael Shanks (Stanford University) 21 Abstracts Saturday 2nd May Afternoon sessions Figurines in Action (cont) John M. Matsunaga (University of California: Berkeley) & Peter Biehl (SUNY Buffalo) 2:00-2:20pm The Materiality and Performativity of Classic Maya Figurines Christina Halperin (University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign) Classic period (AD 300-900) Maya curated and cached figural objects are frequently considered as non-human agents whose magical and supernatural essences complicated human/subject material/object dichotomies. These capacities are linked with their mimetic properties in addition to their archaeological recovery in caches and burials. In drawing on recent materiality and performance theory, this paper expands on the active role of curated or cached objects to consider Classic Maya figurine-ocarinas, many of which are found archaeologically within middens. While earlier Maya figurine studies have often focused on semiotic interpretations, I include in this investigation an examination of their social contexts of disposal and use, their scale, and their musical or noise-making capacities in order to highlight their affective and animating roles. I underscore objectification processes between humans and the material world and discursive relations between different social actors in the constitution of ancient performances. 2:20-2:40pm Ancient Mementos: Life Histories of Collected and Curated Figurines from Central Mexico Lisa Overholtzer (Northwestern University) This paper reconstructs the life histories of ancient figurines that were collected and curated at Postclassic Xaltocan, Mexico in order to study their materiality, i.e. the mutually constitutive relationships between people and objects. A life history approach also allows us to study the production of Xaltocan as a place as it is structured by the movement of these figurines on the roads leading into the site. To do so, I incorporate chemical provenance analysis of the figurines and stratigraphic evidence of their discard and build upon previous research on their embodied household ritual use. (1pm-6pm) What emerges from this reconstruction is a view of Xaltocan as connected to or enchained to a network of ancient people, specifically people from Classic period Teotihuacan, through the collection and curation of artifacts or "pieces of places" from the already ancient site. 2:40-3:00pm Person, Practice and Superego: The Function of Figurines in Ancient Teotihuacan, Mexico Warren Barbour (SUNY Buffalo) When the ancient Teotihuacan state collapsed whole categories of figurines disappeared while others were modified or continued relatively unchanged. Examining groups of Teotihuacan figurines and their trajectories after the collapse reveals what functions they may have served within the state and how they may have changed function in domestic and public religious practice from the city's beginnings to the creation of myth and memories of the ancient city hundred of years later. 3:00-3:20pm No More Figurines: Questioning Homologies Between Present and Past Rosemary Joyce (University of California: Berkeley) What is a figurine? By now, the term is so naturalized within archaeology that it carries with it a plethora of givens: figurines are relatively small (less than life scale, certainly, and perhaps necessarily small enough to hold in the hand); in many contexts, figurines are archetypally fired clay objects (so that other small anthropomorphic sculptures demand a qualifier, "bone figurine", but the unqualified/unmarked form unambiguous-ly means "[ceramic] figurine"); they are understood to focus on human subjects (again the unmarked subject "figurine", against the marked "animal figurine"). Yet many recent studies have profitably worked across the lines between figurines and other things, asking such questions as, "when does an anthropomorphic image become large enough to be called a sculpture and not be eligible to be described as a 'figurine'?"; "how can we abstract human subjects from a wider array of depicted things and animals?"; and "does the medium matter, and if so, what do different media do?" 22 In this paper, I take these kinds of arguments - my own previous work included - one step further, and ask whether we need to dismiss "figurines" entirely as a subject-- while retaining contemporary figurine studies. What might we do, if we did not take for granted that when we abstract a subset of material things in the present based on scale, medium, and subject matter, we are reproducing a meaningful category of the past? What is a figurine if it is not, in fact, an object of past contemplation? 3:20-3:50pm Discussant Lynn Meskell (Stanford University) 3:50-4:20pm General discussion Intimate Encounters, Postcolonial Engagements (cont) Barbara Voss (Stanford University) & Eleanor Conlin Casella (University of Manchester) 2:00-2:20pm Kinsey does Peru: Moche ceramics and the limits of pure description Mary Weismantel (Northwestern University) In the 1950s, Peruvian archaeologist Rafael Larco Hoyle and American sexologist Alfred Kinsey attempted to collaborate on a scientific project of great mutual interest: a comprehensive study of ancient Pre- Columbian ceramics with a sexual theme. Both men believed in the power of empirical science: although the temporal and cultural distance between the twentieth century Americas and the first millennium was great, accurate description could provide a first step towards eventual analysis. This project was never completed, but it left a complex legacy that includes not only publications about and photographs of the Moche ceramics, but also the convoluted personal history of Kinsey himself. Looked at today, this record demonstrates several things: the power of the empirical ideal; the difficulties inherent in achieving it; and the multiple colonialisms that govern relations between Latin America and the U.S.; between elite Latin Americans of European heritage, like Larco Hoyle, and the indigenous Americas; and even between the present and the PreColumbian past. 2:20-2:40pm Fetishizing the Body Ancient: metaphor, body politics, and the DNA revolution in archaeology John Norder (Michigan State University) One of the mainstays of essentialized archaeological research has been the body. By itself or as a focus of the attentions of past societies, it has been considered to be one of the most critical sources of data for archaeological research. It is considered the key to understanding everything from individual health to concepts of social status and cosmological insight. In many ways, the body is, literally, a temple, something to worship through the imagination of archaeologists and biological anthropologists. This paper explores the past and present fetishism of the body as an object of continued colonial domination in Native North America. Beginning with the American Indian critique of archaeology that resulted, in part, in the passage of NAGPRA, I will examine the shifting landscape of body politics within this arena. Case studies such as Kennewick Man and the DNA revolution, which has grown, sometimes shockingly and tragically, with the support of American Indian communities, demonstrate that this fetishism continues to grow and challenges efforts at decolonization of the discipline. 2:40-3:00pm General discussion Material Practice, Identity and Community (cont) Serena Love (Stanford University) & A. Bernard Knapp (University of Glasgow) 2:00-2:20pm Making Objects, Making Selves: Material Reflections on Identity and Community Almudena Hernando (Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain) Archaeology has traditionally ignored the fact that concepts such as ‘economy’, ‘society’, ‘ideology’ or even ‘material culture’ are not realities that exist apart from the people who produce them. Following the positivist and evolutionist bias of our discipline, archaeol-ogists often seem to forget that these manifestations are only expressions of the kind of relations that people established among themselves, and therefore of the ways of being of those people. The consequence is that if archaeology wants to approach past societies more accurately, issues of identity need to be considered. Based on the standard western definition and conception of the person, several authors have isolated two different kinds of identity, the collective, relational or ‘dividual’ versus the individualized one. In this paper, by contrast, I suggest that: 1) identity is constructed through a much more flexible, subtle and 23 complex process of intertwining collective (‘relational’) features with individualized ones; 2) ‘community’ can be understood as that social context where ‘relational’ features are dominant over the individualized ones in selfperception; 3) historically, the identities of men and women have gone through different procesess of transformation in that combination, which means that issues of gender also need to be considered; 4) all such processes of transformation are structurally associated and therefore materially expressed not only in changes in the relation with space or time, technology, and so on, but also in the diversity of types of material culture and in the homogeneity or heterogeneity of each one of these types. Therefore it should be possible to draw some general approach to the type of community (more or less divided or socio-economically complex) and the kind of identities sustaining it in each historical moment of the past through the analysis of its material remains. 2:20-2:40pm The Practice of Maintenance Activities: Material Culture and Identity in the Funerary Ritual of Argaric Communities Sandra Montón-Subías (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain) The term maintenance activities encom-passes a set of practices that involve the sustenance and welfare of all the members of a social group. Usually related to care giving, feeding and food processing, weaving and cloth manufacture, hygiene, public health and healing, socialization of children and the fitting out and organization of related spaces, these activities comprise the basic tasks of daily life that regulate communities’ life courses and help to stabilize social life. Originally undertaken by everyone who formed part of human communities, progressively, and for historical reasons, they became an integral part of women’s heritage in many traditional and historical societies. Because they form part of the construction of identity in social interactions (‘we are what we do’), maintenance activities foster specific abilities and qualities, and confer on their performers a particular understanding of the self, of the surrounding world and of the way of being in it. Paramount to approaching the sense of community in the past is to visualize how this type of identity, usually defined as relational, articulates across the social spectrum. In this study, I propose to consider the relationship between maintenance activities and identity within the Argaric communities of southeast Iberia (ca. 2250-1450 Cal BC), beginning with the study of the material aspects of maintenance activities in the funerary record and continuing with analysis of its structuration within other spheres of social life. 2:40-3:00pm Identities, Communities and Mortuary Practices in Mesopotamia Karina Croucher (University of Manchester, Manchester, UK) Issues of identity and community lie at the very heart of everyday practice, influencing how people interact, relate to material culture, and to each other. We often assume that senses of community and identity are related to place, assumptions that are particularly strengthened by the location of the dead: this relationship between living spaces and mortuary places forms the focus of this paper. What exactly is the relationship between the spaces of the living and the dead? What are the choices made by the living through the exchanges and deposition of material culture surrounding mortuary events? How are mortuary practices related to the concept of community? This paper discusses these issues in the light of ongoing research on the ‘Royal Cemetery’ at Ur (Mesopotamia, ca. 2600-2400 BC), examining contextual evidence, mortuary practices, identities and the communities responsible for the deposition of some 660 people, including 16 ‘Royal Graves’, as well as the potential sacrifices suggested by the material. It also examines how concepts of identity and community are bound up in material practices at Ur, investigating the realms of the living and the dead. 3:00-3:20pm How To Be an Exceptional Neighbor in the Ancient Near East Benjamin Porter (University of California, Berkeley, California) Leviticus’s demand that we love our neighbors as ourselves suggests that the person who embodies this category is neither family nor stranger, but rather somebody whose relationship to us is irresolvable and problematic. In the spirit of those recent thinkers who have returned to the problem of the neighbor, this paper explores that notion in the ancient Near Eastern milieu where the Leviticus injunction was first expressed. I first reflect on how notions of the neighbor drawn from text-artifacts potentially complicate rigid structural visions of Near Eastern social life. Then, drawing on a collection of early Iron Age agricultural communities in central Jordan, I demonstrate how neighboring households both cooperated and competed for subsistence and surplus wealth in a semi-arid marginal environment. I pay particular attention to how relationships between households are expressed in the built environment and through material culture. I conclude by discussing how it was possible for neighbors to build wealth so that they as well as their households might have achieved a state of exception in social life, a position from which they 24 could determine the community’s fate. By returning to these early iterations of the neighbor in the Near East, I not only seek to re-envision the ‘communal’ in ancient societies, but also to improve on discussions of the neighbor in contemporary critical thought. 3:20-3:40pm Discussion 3:40-4:00pm Situating Potting Practice and Learning Community on the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia Andrew P. Roddick (University of California, Berkeley, California) Our understanding of community boundedness is often entangled with notions of settlements and increasing sociopolitical complexity. This is particular-ly the case for the Late Formative Period (200 BC–250 AD) of the Lake Titicaca Basin, prior to the spread of the Tiwanaku state. Titicaca Basin archaeologists take a ‘bird’s eye perspective’, defining community boundaries — religious, political or ethnic — by the presence and density of particular ceramic design styles across the landscape. This approach is suspect in many cases, unproductive for more fine-grained social questions, and ineffective for the ‘design-light’ ceramics of the Late Formative Period. In this paper I suggest that a focus on learning is a useful conceptual bridge to a more dynamic perspective of community; learning is central to the cycles of social reproduction. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger’s (1991) seminal work on ’communities of practice‘ offers a dynamic framework of situated knowledge with useful conceptual tools to consider crafting traditions. Pottery production is a tacit and embodied knowledge that is, like any form of social practice, learned in a community of practice. I use ideas from Lave and Wenger, and the greater situated learning literature, to investigate Late Formative communities of potting practice on the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia. I track shifting technological choices and bodily practices by examining ceramic attributes and compositional data from a large ceramic assemblage excavated by the Taraco Archaeological Project. Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger 1991 Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 4:00-4:20pm Communities of Practice and Political Organization in the Classic Maya Countryside Jason Yaeger (University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin) Communities can be productively under-stood as a confluence of people, place, and premise, following John Watanabe. Defined thus, the community is a flexible construct that focuses our attention on specific spatial frames, people’s interactions within those frames, and ways that ideation and identity shape and are constituted by those interactions. Communities do not exist sui generis; they are constructed through practices, ranging from quotidian activities to marked practices that occur during more salient events. People belong to multiple communities; some are nested in a scalar fashion, others are cross-cutting. In this paper, I discuss three very different communities that existed in the Classic-period Mopan River Valley of western Belize: the small, agrarian hinterland community of San Lorenzo; the larger, imagined political community of Xunantunich; and the elite community that was discontiguously distributed throughout the polity’s hamlets and larger centers. I focus on the distinct sets of material practices through which these communities were constructed, and the venues in which those practices occurred. The members of each shared a salient identity, despite the high degree of internal heterogeneity in each community. I chart changes in these communities and the material practices through which they were constituted from the Late Classic to the Terminal Classic period, a time of significant population decline, environmental change, and political fragmentation. I close with a more speculative discussion of how people in different subject positions would have been affected by these larger changes, and how their shifting strategies contributed to the changing nature of these communities. 4:20-4:40pm The Historical Archaeology of Sexual Communities Barbara L. Voss (Stanford University, Stanford, California) Sexual ideologies, sexual policies, sexual relationships, and sexual practices all shape the ways that communities are formed. Some communities even come to be defined or known primarily through their sexual practices or sexual identities. Archaeological interpretations of historical communities, and archaeological engagement with living communities, need to consider the sexual politics of community life past and present. Using examples from several archaeological sites in California – as diverse as a Spanish-colonial military presidio, an urban Chinese immigrant neighborhood, and a 19th century brothel – this paper explores methodological and theoretical issues in archaeological research on the sexual dimensions of community. 4:40-5:30 Discussant (and General Discussion) Ian Hodder (Stanford Unviersity) 25 The Residues of Human Decisions: Archaeological Applications of Behavioral Ecology (cont) Brian F. Codding & Douglas W. Bird (Stanford University) 2pm-5pm Panel Discussion Discussants: Robert L. Bettinger (University of California: Davis) Michael A. Jochim (University of California: Santa Barbara) James F. O'Connell (University of Utah) Stephen Shennan (University College London) Bruce Winterhalder (University of California: Davis) Steven L. Kuhn (University of Arizona) Iconoclash and the Archaeology of Violence Toward Images (cont) Severin Fowles (Barnard College/Columbia University) 2:00-2:20pm The Numismatic State: Iconolcash and its Subjects during the First Century of Islam Darryl Wilkinson (Columbia University) It has been suggested that there is no archaeological evidence for the first Muslim state until some 70 years after the initial Islamic conquests because until that time, no such state (in the sense of a centralized, bureaucratic government) actually existed. Seeking to address this puzzling lack of material evidence, this paper considers a specific moment in the emergence of the first Muslim state (during the late 6th Century AD) when the pre-existing Byzantine and Sassanian coinages were modified to conform to a more 'Islamic' form. This moment is discussed as one which produced new kinds of political subjects through individuals' efforts to shape and regulate the material manifestations of the state. Iconoclash is therefore considered as a site for the creation of new ideologies that relate to shared understandings of political and religious subjectivity, rather than merely an expression of preexisting iconoclastic or anti-idolatrous sentiments. 2:20-2:40 Material Practice and the Semiotic Metamorphosis of a Sign: Early Buddhist Stupas and the Origin of Mahayana Buddism Lars Fogelin (University of Arizona) From at least the 3rd century BCE, Buddhist ritual focused on stupas, stylized replicas of the mounds of earth in which early Buddhists interred relics of the Buddha. Beginning in the 2nd century BCE, Buddhist monks in Western India began manipulating the physical shape of monastic stupas to make them appear taller and more massive than they actually were. These manipulations were intended to assist in asserting monastic authority over the Buddhist laity. Employing theories of practice, materiality, and semiotics, I argue that intentional manipulations of the shape of stupas by Buddhist monks unintentionally led to the progressive detachment of the primary signs of Buddhism from their original referents. Where earlier stupas were icons of the Buddha encased within indexes of his presence, later stupas were symbols of the Buddha and Buddhist theology. This change in the material practice of Buddhism reduced stupas’ emotional immediacy in favor of greater intellectual detachment. In the end, this shift in the meaning ascribed to stupas created the preconditions from which the Buddhist image cult and Mahayana Buddhism emerged in the 1st through 5th centuries CE. The development of Mahayana Buddhism and Buddha images signified a return to iconic worship of the Buddha. 2:40-3:00pm Corpses and Ghosts: The African Burial Ground Nan Rothschild (Columbia University) The bodies of the dead are especially significant actors and their treatment is encompassed within aspects of iconoclash, handled with respect or trangressed and degraded at differing times in their trajectory. As their reality fades their power may increase. The African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan, NYC is an exemplar of such conflicting representations. In the 18th c. dead Africans were buried carefully; in the 19th c the cemetery was built over, forgotten and disrespected. Late in the 20th c, these bodies were relocated and had become ghosts, subjected to wildly divergent attitudes and behaviors by a Federal agency, the African-American community / communities and archaeologists. 3:00-3:20pm Discussion 26 3:20-3:40pm A breaking of boundaries: the iconoclasm of English witchbottles Zoe Crossland (Columbia University) Iconoclasm stages the act of breakage as one which expresses a negative moral valuation. Iconoclash opens up the possibility to deepen and widen our understanding of why people make and break objects. This paper turns to 17th century England to discuss the breaking of apotropaic devices made from common and mass-produced Bartmann or 'Bellarmine' jugs. These 'witch bottles' demonstrate the power of the broken image to articulate anxieties over bodily integrity in the context of the coming into being of a bounded sense of self. They also remind us of the domestic background to 17th century conceptualizations of the 'fetish' and complicate its association with the exotic and 'other'. 3:40-4:00pm Intercessory Images of Inter-ruption Angie Heo (Barnard College, Columbia University) This paper will examine the political-theological implications of divine images in circulation, made perceptible through the commemoration of founding acts of violence - the truth confession of a martyr saint by torture and the territorial disruption of a body politic by war. Its point of contemporary access is a dynamic of Coptic Orthodox images of saintly and clerical intercession in 19678 - the relics of St. Mark, the pilgrimage shrines of Jerusalem, the apparition of the Virgin Mary - during a moment in which an Egypt unified was reckoning with the mournful remembrances of the Arab-Israeli war. As I plan to suggest in the paper, this triplet emergence of images marks a co-constitutive convergence of body-rupturing events in which strands of nation-state sovereignty become entangled in the modern institution of the papal-theological seat of earthly power in the Coptic Orthodox church. The aim is to invite conversation with those interested in the nature of sovereignty (church and state), territorial displacement and war, imperial expansion, the indeterminate status of a body politic, and the communicative force of images in movement. 4:00-4:20pm Decontextualization and defacement: Joel Meyerowitz's post-9/11 photography Zachary Hooker (Columbia University) Joel Meyerowitz was the only 'freelance' (i.e., non-forensic) photographer allowed on site at the World Trade Center immediately after the towers had fallen. During months of photographing the ruins and clean-up effort at the site, Meyerowitz produced nearly 10,000 negatives. This paper comparatively examines two productions that resulted from this endeavor: the first was a globe-trotting 27-photo exhibition curated and organized by the US Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs , which opened in mid-2002 with the title "After September 11th: Images from Ground Zero"; the second was a volume of photographs organized by Meyerowitz himself and published as Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive and published by Phaidon in 2007. Via analysis of these two productions (and the press releases, interviews, and publicity that surrounded them), this paper first considers the State Department's de/recontextualization of these images as a form of defacement or politically productive iconoclasm. This view is then contested through an emphasis on the autonomy of the 'image-in/for-itself' – the inevitable inability of any image to control its contexts. From this viewpoint, the possibility of a redemptive quality within the autonomous image is considered, a quality that coalesces the context of its production despite subsequent defacements or decontextualization. However, such a redemptive reading of images may be contingent on particular styles of reading, particularly allegorical reading, conceived as a process of redemption by which mythologized images (or, 'screen memories') can escape the hegemonic contexts that frame them and provide truly historical material with which one can accurately analyze and critique a particular images found context. 4:20-5:00pm Discussion Cyber-Archaeology (cont) Maurizio Forte (University of California: Merced) 2:00-2:20pm Virtual Landscapes at Cerro Baul, Peru Patrick Ryan Williams (Field Museum of Chicago) We explore the use of virtual worlds for modeling changes in ecology and ideologies of landscape around the Wari (600-1000 AD) center of Cerro Baul, Peru. This was a dynamic period in Peruvian prehistory, with the Andes' first empires expanding into new regions and radically altering the environments with irrigation works, monumental architecture, and new forms of urbanism. On the border between the two prominent highland states, Wari and Tiwanaku, this transition included the conversion of a sacred mountain into a ceremonial and administrative center by the Wari. 27 Our research has used virtual environments to investigate architectural alignments and perceptions of space that enhance our understanding of ancient ideologies of place. It also has permitted us to recreate the vast network of irrigation works and agricultural production. Ongoing research is using ecological modeling based on these virtual worlds to assess the environmental changes brought on by imperialism in ancient Peru. 12:25-2:45pm Valuing Simplicity: Archaeological Field Documentation and Less Formal Approaches toward Semantic Interoperability Eric C. Kansa (University of California: Berkeley) Web-based scholarship can be far more rapid, cost-effective, conversational, open, and transparent than print-based publication. However, despite the success of popular Web 2.0 systems for informal information sharing, much archaeological field documentation and analyses still see little dissemination in collaborative online environments. To meet archaeological data-sharing needs, some advocate highly formalized “Semantic Web” approaches that integrate vast collections of data by referencing common disciplinary ontologies (formal conceptual systems). In contrast, this paper will argue that, even though useful Semantic frameworks such as the CIDOC-CRM exist, the primary barriers to data sharing are social and practical, as well as theoretical. Elaborate and formal semantic structures, while indeed facilitating efficient data exchange and interoperability, can sometimes constrain meaning and interpretive possibilities. In contrast, a more “mashuporiented” approach with simplified and less elaborate semantics, while being less ambitious from a technical or Semantic Web point of view, may be more justifiable from the perspective of archaeological interpretation and theory. 2:50-3:10pm Cyber-archaeology: Steering Beyond the Artifact towards Situated Understanding Erik Champion (Massey University, New Zealand) When we talk of cyber-archaeology, it is possible to think of digital archaeology, archaeological methods that incorporate digital technology. Yet this term is too generic to convey the recurring issue of communicating conflicting accounts of the past to a wide variety of audience. We require a term that inspires the participant to move past the contemplation of artifacts as singular objects, and to conserve the situated processes and ways in which this knowledge has been retrieved. When archaeology is used to communicate artifacts and events of historical significance to the wider public, we may also be reminded of virtual heritage. Despite its succinct nature, this term is, unfortunately, an oxymoron. Are we attempting to almost convey the importance of preservation and conservation? I proffer this definition: cyber-archaeology is the complicit capacity of digital media to allow the visitor to be immersed inside archaeological findings and approaches, way-finding their way through alternating and even conflicting viewpoints. Such way-finding necessitates meaningful participation for the visitor to truly engage with the experience, not the superficial personalization or widespread destruction of commercial game-worlds. To bring life back to virtual worlds for the enjoyment of the spectator, we require more understanding of communication design, specifically, interaction design. While commercial games offer ready-made environments, tools, and genres, more interrogative and critical media is required, that is reflection-friendly, and not just triggerhappy. The potential of counter-factual worlds, thematic interaction, and virtual worlds as constrained socially participative media will also be discussed as methods to improve situated under-standing. 3:15-3:35pm 3D Cybermaps of the Western Han Tombs Nicolò Dell’Unto, Fabrizio Galeazzi & Paola Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco (University of California, Merced) This project of the Virtual Museum of the Western Han Dynasty is a joint research between UC Merced and the Jiaotong University aimed to the digital documentation of archaeological sites, artifacts and cultural relics of the Western Han Dynasty. The outcome of this process will be the creation of a virtual museum, based on collaborative environments, dedicated to the Western Han Dynasty and able to integrate new archaeological datasets coming from the fieldwork activities (most part of them unpublished), monuments, and famous collections of artifacts of the Xi’an archaeological museums. One of the most important archaeological examples in Xi’an is represented by the mural paintings of the monumental tombs of the Western Han Dynasty. Despite their importance they risk to be lost because of the critical conditions of plasters and colours. They show a very rich repertory of subjects such as scenes of daily life, rituals and ascension to heaven. These examples of mural paintings contain a very complex interpretation code explaining the relations between life and death during the Western Han dynasty. A simple description of the subjects and also the 3D virtual reconstruction of the tombs are insufficient for approaching a correct cultural interpretation. In this paper we present a preliminary case study on the semantics of the tomb M 27’s iconography (excavated in Xi’an in 2004 and documented by laser scanning) obtained through 3D virtual 28 cybermaps. The use of virtual-cyber mind maps stresses the interpretation of the spatial, religious and symbolic connections (affordances) of the different subjects and images decorating the vault and the walls of the tomb. Through this simulation process the potential semantic recomposition of the tomb creates new metaphors of learning and communication. 3:40-4:00pm General discussion An Island View of Theory: Archaeological Thought in Hawaii, Past, Present, and Future James Flexner (University of California: Berkeley) This session will explore the various theoretical frameworks that have shaped and continue to shape archaeological thought in Hawaii. Archaeological theory has followed a unique developmental trajectory in Hawaii, with emphases on culture history, historical anthropology, evolutionary ecology, and historical ecology, and with less explicit emphasis on so-called post-processual archaeologies when compared with certain strands of scholarship in North America and Europe. There has also been increased emphasis in recent years on public archaeology and indigenous archaeology in the Islands. It is not a goal of this session to focus exclusively on the application of various 'post' theories (postmodernism, postcolonial theory, postprocessualism) in Hawaiian archaeology, though a discussion of these bodies of theory is welcome. Rather, the goal will be to highlight a variety of approaches to and influences on archaeological theory in Hawaii. Hawaiian archaeologists do not often get together to "talk theory" per se, but the discipline of archaeology in the Islands is host to vibrant, relevant theoretical debates. It is worth discussing the kinds of theories that shape archaeological thought in Hawaii in a wider forum, both to contribute the unique viewpoints that have developed among archaeologists working in the Islands to the discipline at large, and to engage with theoretical influences from other parts of archaeology. Papers are invited for this session which explore the history of archaeological thought in Hawaii, which highlight theoretical orientations now prominent in Hawaiian archaeology, and which may suggest future directions for theory in Hawaiian archaeology. The geographical focus for this session is Hawaii, but papers should present broader theoretical discussions that will be relevant for the discipline as a whole. 2:00-2:10pm Introduction James Flexner (University of California: Berkeley) 2:10-2:30pm Traditional Ethnohistory and Archaeological Evidence: Seeing beyond the Royal Court of the Kamehameha Dynasty in Kawaihae, Island of Hawai‘i Mike T. Carson Archaeological investigation at the royal court of the Kamehameha Dynasty in Kawaihae, Hawai‘i Island, presents an unequaled opportunity to compare traditional ethnohistory with archaeological evidence. A critique of cultural traditions and historic accounts suggests that they were shaped by the ruling elites, suppressing other potential voices in history and moreover over-writing the past. Beneath the surface, earlier occupation layers pre-date the historic royal precinct of the A.D. 1790s through 1820s. Archaeological excavations provide the means to place the stratified cultural deposits, occupational horizons, and activity areas in the context of depositional history, environmental transformation, and changing social circumstances over the course of several centuries. The resulting long-term and material-based perspective compares and contrasts with the ethnohistoric view of local and regional cultural history. 2:30-2:50pm Where Archaeology Ends, When History Begins: Theories from Hawaii James Flexner (University of California: Berkeley) Time Archaeology and history, constructed at the broadest possible scale, are both concerned with the same thing: the human past. Yet the approach the two disciplines take to the same topic can be very different, especially given archaeology's connection to anthropology in North American settings. Time plays an important role in the ways that archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians construct the human past. For historians, time is generally taken as a given element, a progression of years against which the course of history can be measured. For archaeologists, time had to be discovered, through creative ways of arranging artifacts, and through emerging technologies, radiocarbon dating being the most widely and rapidly adopted example in the discipline. At the same time, the material record of archaeology contains one of the most direct means to assessing a broad spectrum of details concerning daily life in the past, while the written records with which historians often concern themselves may focus on particular events or individuals, remaining relatively mute about the day-to-day patterns that formed the backdrop of those phenomena. In situations where 29 archaeology and history overlap, scholars are provided an opportunity to construct a detailed picture of the past, using the different kinds of information available in the archaeological and written records. To explore this framework, Hawaiian archaeology will be used as a case study, in which there is widespread use of ethnohistoric data for the interpretation of pre-contact material, and a rich, growing tradition of post-contact archaeologies in the archipelago. think about how we view, analyze, interpret, and represent the spatial component of the archaeological record. These theoretical developments permeate the discipline and shape both our research questions and designs. In addition, methodological developments in spatial technology have also impacted core archaeological practices including how we find and record archaeological remains, manage data, and investigate the historical relationship between our species and the world around us. 2:50-3:10pm Spatial patterning and social structure in traditional Hawaiì Julie Taomia In this paper I review the progress and continued challenges archaeology faces as we integrate more sophisticated notions of space and place in our research and come to have a greater reliance on spatial technology. I begin by presenting a case study of spatial analysis and technology in the archaeology of the Hawaiian Islands to reveal larger trends in the discipline. In this review, I highlight two themes that are mainstays in research on Hawaiian prehistory and Pacific Island archaeology in general: human-environment relationships and monumentality. Not only are these common to research in other regions of the world, but they are useful to the discussion of how to move spatial archaeology forward. Archaeologists have long recognized the significance of the spatial distribution of material remains to interpreting past cultures. However, models that have been used to interpret archaeological remains are often based in the knowledge base of the archaeologists, which are based in their own cultural concepts. Using language and cognitive studies, Lehman has noted the applicability of a mathematically derived explanatory model to social and spatial conceptualizations of speakers of Austronesian languages, including Polynesians (see Lehman & Herdrich 2002). This model posits a concept of a powerful point with radiating fields of influence. Boundaries to the field of influence are established where the field encounters a field of another power point. The power of the point is conceived of as crucial to life, but is also dangerous and must be controlled. Lehman and Herdrich demonstrate the pervasiveness of this concept in Samoan language and culture. Their analysis includes terms that are found across Polynesian languages with the same or very similar semantic meanings, including tapu (kapu), mana, noa and mata (maka). In this paper I will explore the manifestation of this model in Hawaiian material culture. 3:30-3:50pm Ideas set in stone: archaeological theory and ancient Hawaiian monumental architecture Jesse W. Stephen (University of Hawai'i at Manoa) 3:10-3:30pm Questions of Space and Place: Progress and challenges for spatial archaeology Mark D. McCoy (San Jose State University) The archaeological record of Oceania demonstrates remarkable achievements in architecture, exemplified by the remains of monumental constructions that supported activities from athletic competitions to agricultural harvests. This paper addresses the shape and trajectory of archaeological theory through the lens of extant monumental architecture in the Hawaiian Islands. Beginning with a historical review of monumental architecture and its engagement by archaeologists in Hawai‘i, this discussion offers a baseline for the study of ancient architecture and its relation to archaeological theory across the archipelago. In turn, this paper takes a broader theoretical viewpoint, with emphasis placed on 1) distinguishing conceptual trends and associations in research conducted in the Islands and beyond; and 2) assessing future directions that focused studies of monumental architecture by archaeologists may help to take us – and how Hawaiian examples can offer an invaluable point of departure. Spatial archaeology is a diverse, evolving field that contributes to fundamental method and theory in anthropological archaeology. Rooted in settlement pattern and regional archaeology, more recent approaches centered on landscape and historical ecology have challenged us to 3:50-4:10pm The Maka`ainana Transformation in Hawai`i: Archaeological Expectations Based on the Social Effects of Parliamentary Enclosure in England Tom Dye Lehman, F.K. (F.K.L. Chit Hlaing) and David J. Herdrich. 2002. On the relevance of point field for spatiality in Oceania, pp. 179-197 in Giovanni Bennardo, ed. Representing Space in Oceania: culture in language and mind. Canberra Pacific Linguistics. 30 Property is a social relation defined by rights that are universally contested and negotiated. Societies differ across space and through time in their emphasis on one or the other of two broad classes of rights. Rights of person--rights not to be excluded from uses and enjoyments---are contrasted with so-called rights of property---rights that exclude others from those same uses and enjoyments. Archaeological theory and research indicates that Hawai`i began a shift from rights of person to rights of property around the fifteenth century. Archeologists have just begun to explore the nature, timing, and scope of social changes associated with the re-definition of property in traditional Hawai`i. It is argued here that the well-documented effects of Parliamentary enclosure in eighteenth century England yield hypotheses that can be tested against the Hawaiian archaeological record. Suggestions for implementing some tests are offered. 4:10-4:30pm The Emergence of Primary States in Ancient Hawaii. Robert J. Hommon The multi-disciplinary study of the rise of competing indigenous Hawaiian kingdoms, the last and perhaps most thoroughly documented example of primary state emergence, is well suited both to apply and to contribute to state-formation theory. The emergence of the Hawaiian states appears to have been a broad spectrum transformation of traditional Polynesian society whereby social rank sharpened into socio-economic class distinction; ascribed, sacred status was eclipsed by secular political achievement as the basis for rulership; control of land passed from traditional lineage to governing faction; government was radically simplified by the invention of stratified control hierarchy, a structure of bureaucratic offices built on the template of the ranked hierarchy of chiefs; customary giving of gifts and offerings became a taxation system; a state religion, controlled by a professional priesthood and political leaders, grew out of community ritual; and warrior kings routinely waged true conquest warfare to expand their realms by capturing, incorporating, and governing political units complete with their populations of resident producers. Factors implicated in the emergence of Hawaiian states include the immigration of high ranked chiefs from East Polynesian archipelagoes and the introduction of the sweet potato and other crops during the Late Voyaging Period (ca A.D. 1200-1400) followed by the onset of food shortages and competition for wealth in pigs and other goods as agricultural expansion approached limits on reliably productive agricultural lands, ca A.D. 1550. 4:30-4:50pm Biocomplexity Theory in Hawaiian Archaeology: Islands as Model Systems Patrick V. Kirch (University of California: Berkeley) This paper takes the position that archaeology in Hawai‘i (and elsewhere in Oceania) may benefit from developments in biocomplexity theory, which is concerned with the dynamic and often non-linear coupling between natural and cultural systems. In particular, I argue that Oceanic islands—of which Hawai‘i is perhaps the best known exemplar—offer outstanding “model systems” for investigating and understanding past human ecodynamics. In a model system, fundamental variables can be readily identified, and the mechanisms of interaction among them tested. While model systems are by definition simple, they nonetheless contain all of the essential elements found in more complex systems, or in systems that operate on a larger scale; hence, their widespread application and utility. Polynesian islands, including the Hawaiian archipelago, offer a set of contrastive model systems for human ecodynamics due to a small number of well-defined “state factors” that display especially clear properties. Natural state factors in Hawai‘i include biogeochemical gradients as a function of time and geological development; strongly orthogonal variation in climate; and, disharmonic and highly endemic biotic components. Key cultural state factors include: relatively late colonization of a previously uninhabited set of islands; a short, well-controlled time scale for cultural evolution; isolation of the cultural group after initial colonization; significant demographic transitions; and, significant transformation in the scale of sociopolitical complexity. A further degree of cultural control stems from the application of a phylogenetic model for Polynesian cultural evolution, allowing discrimination of homologous retentions from subsequent innovations or adaptations. 4:50-5:10pm Fencing the Field: The Ins and Outs of Theory in Hawaiian Archaeology Cynthia Van Gilder (St Mary’s College of California) By definition, theoretical approaches provide frameworks that enable certain kinds of questions, while excluding others. Fencing the field of archaeological inquiry thus creates areas that are seen by practitioners as "in," while others are perceived as "out." This paper provides a brief overview of some of the lines that have been drawn in the theory and practice of archaeology in Hawai’i. Axes for comparison include: unit and scale of analysis; epistemology; dimensions of difference; and the role of ethnohistoric sources. Observations are proffered regarding the relationships between these different theoretical perspectives, the sociopolitics of archaeology, and, in 31 keeping with the TAG 2009 conference theme, “the future of things” in Hawaiian archaeology. 5:10-5:30pm General discussion Discussant Kent Lightfoot (University of California: Berkeley) Producing Subjectivity: Archaeologies of Capitalism, Modernity and Social Action Bryn Williams (Stanford University) and Lindsay Weiss (Columbia University) In today's world, transnational flows of people and capital seem to pass over the power dynamics of national and colonial regimes of old. Global capital, what some would term Empire, is imagined to be a shadowy and indeterminate presence that is perpetually in flight. In its wake, and perhaps in opposition to this new state of affairs, the category of the multitude has been raised, a radically heterogeneous social formation bringing with it an emancipatory ability to constantly exceed and surpass the oppressive capacities of Empire. national and cultural heritage. Through these discussions in local publics, the perception of freedom reconstitutes subjectivity through resistance to larger international forces and efforts to contend with the histories of internal disputes. Such narrow fields of interaction (physically, mentally, and emotionally) have given voice to particular forms of discourse that index altered value systems and shifted relationships to the past. In some instances, that move has rearticulated colonial frameworks related to international imperial impulses in the form of globalized markets, rendering (not for the first time) archaeological material culture as commodity. Within that fluctuation however, there are some local groups that are re-appropriating the concept of commodity as a form of resistance. In an effort to amplify that slight shift within which resistance might be articulated, this paper will look at the 'selling of heritage' as constituting new subjectivities emerging from discourses of liberation and new forms of social change. 2:20-2:40pm Caribbean Complexities Marc Hauser The emancipatory hope being invested in these new social formations suggests the need for a historical genealogy of multitudes, past and present. We suggest that archaeologists working in the trails of fragmentary and shadowy networks have always straddled the ruins of various multitudes over the centuries and grappled with constant shifts between deterritorial-ization and reterritorialization. This session invites participants to examine these past and present multitudes. What kinds of subjects and subjectivities are produced on the margins of capitalism and colonialism and to how do these subjects simultaneously evade, rework, and create these same power structures? Is this sort of indeterminacy, also reflected in the archaeological record, part constitutive of the modern world? In eighteenth century english imperial formations, the kinds of quotidian documents written at the margins of empires can reveal significant information about everyday colonial life, but it also reveals anxieties and concerns of parliamentarians in London and assemblymen in Jamaica. In this paper I attempt to illustrate on the one hand how empires and colonialism works, and on the other how people took advantage of social and geographic spaces overlooked and set aside to create and transform the landscapes of their enslavement and labor. I examine the disjunctures between imperial interests, the refraction of these interests in the practices of administrators in the colonies, and the everyday lives of the enslaved. Through my analysis of material culture I illuminate both the incomplete articulation of imperial interests in the colonies, and the ways in which the everyday practices of the enslaved both enabled but also exceeded imperial prescriptions. 2:00-2:20pm Selling My Heritage to the Highest Bidder; this is the Price of Freedom Uzma Rizvi (Stanford University) 2:40-3:00pm 'WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE?' Multitudes in Empires Reinhard Bernbeck Inspired by a quote from an Iraqi entrepreneur on the topic of national heritage, this paper will investigate the reformulation of post-War heritage discourse in contemporary Iraq. This will include an evaluation of systems of governance that incorporate facets of late capitalism and a neo-liberal agenda with the export of democracy on a country's effort to reclaim and redefine its Archaeology ought to be a practice concerned with people, past to present. But as an academic discipline, archaeology has deep roots in projects of classifying people and their artifacts as "cultures", "societies", "traditions" in order to dominate. Conceptualizing past and present peoples as multitudes can provide a way out of this foundational dilemma without deleting at the same time people's power 32 to act. I use a comparison of the U.S. empire and ancient Assyria to show the possibilities of an archaeological reconceptualizing of power relations. Ideological and repressive means of control let unruly multitudes appear in the interstices. 3:00-3:20pm Far Out West: Frontier Subjectivities in New Mexican Hippie Communities Kaet Heupel At the frontier, things that are “outside” of capital are altered, becoming commensurable with the commodityform. New Mexico has long been seen as a geographical frontier, beginning with the first European expansions into the Americas ? however, the moments at which things are revalued and recirculated as they cross frontiers that are not necessarily just spatial needs to be better analyzed. From the 1960s Taos offered a new kind of frontier for the production of (indigenous) cultural capital, just as it had once been a frontier for the capitalization of land and labor. This paper thus approaches capitalism as more than a distinct set of structural inequalities and ideological formations, suggesting that it might be better understood as a certain set of material reconfigurations as human subjects at capital’s frontier are called to perform the work of transforming noncapital into capital. These processes, which occurred at the level of the everyday, material practices of the hippie pioneers in New Mexico, allow us to consider capitalism within a more appropriately archaeological framework. While hippies sought, ostensibly at least, to avoid the reaches of capital, their lived experiences at the frontier were deeply entangled with the emergence of new forms of indigenous cultural capital that became open to commodification in ways that had previously not been possible. By taking capitalism to be a series of frontier effects, this paper discusses the way in which frontier processes in the Taos area of northern New Mexico worked to produce transformed hippie subjects in the 1960s and 1970s. 3:20-3:40pm Cultivating Marginality Bryn Williams (Stanford University) California underwent a rapid re-territorialization during the 19th century as it was politically and economically integrated into the United States. This process of re-territorializaiton was marked by its uneven application. Specifically, some places and spaces within the physical boundaries of the state were characterized as marginal to the new regime. This marginality was manifested as an imagined exclusion from the economic and juridical workings of State and National government. This paper focuses on one of these “marginal” spaces – the Point Alones Village in Pacific Grove, CA. To what extent was this marginality a rhetorical strategy? To what extent was it experienced in practice? Is the cultivation of marginal places a necessary component of imperial domination and domestication? And finally, what can discussing the history of a hundred year old “marginal” place tell us about the “new” regimes of uneven sovereignty engendered by the spread of globalization? 3:40-4:00pm Discussion 4:00-4:20pm The Heirs of the Ancestors in a New and Hyper-real Modernity Dante Angelo Modernity, it is been said, was above all an allencompassing project, which based its principles in a set of goals, values and notions of social, economic and cultural structures. However, whereas the envisioned future of modernity was a programmatic projection of society as a whole, its program has split and developed a shape-shifting nature – interpreted by some as multiple modernities (Eisenstadt 2000) – in which a myriad of subjectivities have emerged. Most of the tensions arisen by the ubiquitous power of global capital, which has been theorized as elusive and flowing (Appadurai 1996), nonetheless, relate the struggle for resources, be they cultural, natural or other, as expressed in (new) debates concerning heritage, identity, and political and cultural citizenship.In this paper I argue that not only archaeology sheds light and inform on the formation of these new subjectivities but also, and mainly, it is/was instrumental in the articulation of many of these subjectivities. Based on ethnographic and archaeological fieldwork in northwestern Argentina, I contend that material culture offers the opportunity to trace the articulation of subjectivities, both regarding hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses. Strategies of legitimation on the part of these new social formations involve textual, visual and mental representations usually informed by and heavily rooted in material culture, and the past. Thus, I conclude, archaeologists are attending to a peculiar reconfiguration of the modern world in which, our relation to material culture and things, can offer a nuanced perspective about how this process shapes new confinements and cores of power. 4:20-4:40pm Where, in the multitude, does freedom lie? Lindsay Weiss (Columbia University) 33 The story of the Diamond Fields in late 19th century South Africa was a story about the superfluous people of modernity; men and women who migrated globally to a diamond rush site where dreams of fabulous riches fueled their daily labors. Traditionally, this historical moment has been carved up according to the traditional narrative of the rise of monopoly capital. However, by tracing the routes of stolen diamonds across the diamond fields, an entirely different landscape reveals an entirely different set of dynamics at work at this moment. What is relevant to consider about this somewhat more heterogeneous and less monolithic reading of the events on the diamond fields is the double challenge it presents-firstly it challenges the assumption that within such heterogeneity resides an innate emancipatory potential and second, it suggests that the careful examination of just such heterogeneous social formations of empire is crucial for better understanding the political dynamics at work. For the diamond fields, diverse groups of people came together and enacted unprecedented dimensions of social hybridity, and at the same time, the communal presumption of being ?outside? of any monolithic political form enabled the imposition of a series of tremendously illiberal constraints, ultimately leading to segregation. 4:40-5:00pm The Archaeology of Empire in Nineteenth Century Zanzibar Sarah K. Croucher (Wesleyan University) Historical archaeology is particularly well suited to the study of ‘multitudes’ within empires due to the manner in which material remains direct archaeologists attention to quotidian practices. Yet rarely do we take this opportunity to question taken for granted historical narratives about the nature of Empire. In this paper I draw on case study material from nineteenth century Zanzibar to explore the relations between imaginings of colonial populations and the everyday local practices through which Empires were understood. 5:00-5:20pm When Empires Collide: The Internment Camp Bonnie Clark (Denver University) Archaeology of an In the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, approximately 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were removed from the West Coast of the United States. These were people caught between two warring empires, set adrift both politically and economically. Throughout the Spring of 1942, individuals and families were in a state of upheaval, forced to decide which of their possessions to take with them in the two parcels allowed each family member. With bank accounts frozen, such decisions were critical. Do you bring your warmest coat or your wedding presents? Do you leave behind or destroy objects that call attention to the ancestry for which you are being imprisoned? And what do you do once you are in camp? How do you obtain good and materials? How do you transform a militarized setting into something even marginally habitable? Oral histories shed light on many of these decisions, but recent archaeology at the Granada Relocation Center (better known as Amache), provides evidence of an even wider suite of strategies. The tangible history of the site reveals small rebellions, expressions of cross-cutting identity, and overwhelmingly, a need to reclaim a sense of self through a sense of place. As physical evidence of the often very personal cost of “national security,” these remains retain a particular vibrancy, serving as touchstones in current debates about today’s empires and multitudes. 5:20-5:40 Between Nation-state and Empire: Babylon and beyond Slobodan Mitrović (Graduate Center, CUNY) and Karen Holmberg (Columbia University) In the volumes Empire and Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, Hardt & Negri theorized that emerging contemporary phenomena are encompassed in the absence of a single empire that exerts power in a colonial sense; rather, the global system itself connects into the new geopolitical order of Empire. Most archaeological projects are comprised by what could be seen as its own multitude of researchers from myriad nationalities. The nation-state is, however, still by far the predominant recipient and owner of archaeological artifacts excavated by sanctioned projects. In this paper we draw from examples that range from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent Beyond Babylon exhibit to archaeological excavations from the Balkans and Panamá in order to explore how objects, people, and the practice of archaeology fall betwixt and between easy definitions of nation-states and Empire. Objects that could be considered ecofacts can at times fall into a less territorialized domain and are in many cases more easily moved over national borders. Looted materials from unsanctioned excavations traverse national borders in exchange for capital far more fluidly. Museum exhibitions can at times draw together both looted and officially excavated artifacts in fascinating temporary conglomerations of objects and representations of their identity. These exhibits require permissions and loans from myriad nations, yet reconfigure the identity of those objects in terms far outside national boundaries – in turn both dissolving and reifying national borders. 5:40-6:00pm Discussion 34 Sunday 3rd May Morning sessions CHAT @ TAG: Symmetry and Diversity in Archaeologies of the Recent Past B. R. Fortenberry (Boston University) & Adrian T. Myers (Stanford University) Archaeologies of the recent and contemporary pasts are messy, complicated affairs - for practitioners of these archaeologies, gone are the days when data and interpretations could be put into neat categories. As historical archaeology and contemporary archaeology increasingly find a place within the academy, the number of researchers practicing such archaeologies, and the diversity of their views, both continue to increase. This healthy, ever increasing multi-vocality, is highlighted yearly by the Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory (CHAT) conference series. CHAT has occurred in the British Isles since 2003 (past events were held in Bristol, Leicester, Dublin, Sheffield and London), providing a forum for archaeologists to present new and exciting work unhindered by traditional academic rubrics. It was established “to provide opportunities for dialogue to develop among researchers in the fields of later historical archaeology and the archaeology of the contemporary world”, and aims to be a “dynamic forum for innovative critical discussion that seeks to challenge and push the limits of archaeological thinking.” This session then, offers papers that follow the spirit of the CHAT conferences, that is, papers that push theoretical and methodological boundaries in their focus on the recent and contemporary pasts. The session aims to both showcase the diversities, but also tease out the symmetries, between the wide array of archaeological projects and understandings that fall under the larger, common project, of archaeologists' investigation into the recent and contemporary pasts. 9:00-9:10am Introduction BR Fortenberry (Boston University) and Adrian T Myers (Stanford University) 9:10-9:30am Respectability and Razzle-Dazzle: Consumption, Recreation and Class in Turn-of-Century San Francisco Eleanor Conlin Casella (University of Manchester) What is the materiality of class aesthetics? How do objects become identified as 'refined'? Or as 'trashy'? Studies of class relations have traditionally emphasized the power of elite-designed landscapes to produce and regulate social (9am - 1pm) identity. This paper will examine a late Victorian recreational venue on the edge of San Francisco, California to consider the simultaneous existence of parallel class identities. Established by Adolph Sutro in 1894, the Gardens and Baths of Sutro Heights were intended as an elegant philanthropic gesture, providing San Franciscans with a refined yet affordable venue for seaside recreation. However, while describing his venue as a "land of cultured groves and artistic gardens, the home of a powerful and refined race," Sutro filled it with lowbrow amusements and kitsch spectaculars designed to attract the paying punters. This paper will consider how this landscape of elite intention and aspiration became actively reshaped by the parallel tastes and recreational interests of working-class urban San Francisco. 9:30-9:50am Commodity Fetishism and the Historical Archaeology of the Atlantic World Frederick H. Smith (College of William and Mary) In his influential book Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, the celebrated anthropologist Sidney W. Mintz investigated the social and symbolic meaning of sugar and used it as a prism through which to view the political-economic processes that connected different societies in disparate regions of the emerging Atlantic world. Mintz’s commodity-based approach serves as a model for historical anthropologists seeking to explicate the forces that have shaped life in the modern era. Soon after its release, Kathleen Deagan, in her thoughtful commentary on “questions that count” in historical archaeology, foresaw the potential value of Mintz’s work for historical archaeologists. Deagan, recognizing the need for historical archaeologists to grapple with broad issues of colonialism, capitalism, and slavery, wrote that one could “conceive of archaeological studies along the lines of Mintz’s study of sugar, tracing material mechanisms by which economic and class structures are reinforced and maintained.” Yet, despite Deagan’s foresight, historical archaeology has been slow to fully appreciate the value of Mintz’s work and to embrace commodity-based studies. Inspired by the work of Mintz, as well as the ideas of Caribbean scholar Eric Williams, this paper argues that historical archaeologists should seek to understand how the political-economic structure of particular commodities shaped the social relations in the emerging Atlantic world. This is especially true for historical archaeologists working in the Caribbean, where exotic commodities, and the people who produced them, reveal insights into the seeds of modern consumerism. 35 9:50-10:10am Of Other “Scapes”: The Heterotopology of Fascist Sicily Joshua Samuels (Stanford University) Using the extensive agricultural land reforms and building programs undertaken by Italy’s Fascist government in Sicily between 1926 and 1943 as a case study, this paper critically examines Foucault’s concept of “heterotopia” in the context of archaeological landscapes. Archaeologies of the recent past are well-suited to examine these heterotopologies: blurring the line between past and present while juxtaposing archaeological, archival, and ethnographic data, we draw attention to the gaps, contradictions, and alternate orderings that make up the world around us. However, although Foucault’s heterotopia has been broadly appealing across the humanities and social sciences, I describe its limitations to the archaeological analysis of material culture, space, and power. Putting recent scholarship on the archaeology of colonialism and labor relations into dialogue with complementary research in critical human geography, I argue that an archaeologically-informed ‘spatiality’ presents a more productive avenue to appreciate the landscapes of Fascist land reform, in the past and on into the present. 10:10-10:30am Multi-Sited Ethnography and its Relevance to Archaeology: Trials, Tribulations, and Trajectories Krysta Ryzewski (Brown University) Multi-sited ethnography, the research method outlined by anthropologist George Marcus in 1995, but also rooted in earlier anthropological critiques of enthnographic writing and representation, has found recent application in historical archaeology. As a research design, multi-sited ethnography is well-suited for examining the "circulation of cultural meanings, objects, and identities in diffuse timespace" (Marcus 1995:96). In archaeological practice, multisited ethnography or, more specifically, multi-sited archaeology, entails the creation of comparative frameworks, which are variably flexible in the scales and spaces of contextualization that they allow. The "successful" application of multi-sited ethnography to archaeological studies requires developing appropriate sets of comparisons between sites with genuine, traceable historical or archaeological connections (e.g. kinship, material culture, natural environmental features, exchange networks) (Beaudry 2005:308). While appealing as a vehicle for establishing connections and networks that potentially bypass neatly bounded temporal, technological, or social foci, where does this vehicle take actually us? Is multi-sited archaeology a truly useful methodological and theoretical tool? How is multi-sited archaeology "successfully" applied? Are there limits in its applicability? These questions are critically examined through a case study of the humanmaterial relationships involved in the colonial iron industry of Rhode Island. 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am The Paradox of Inside/Outside: Archaeology and the 2003 Bam Earthquake Leila Papoli Yazdi (Buali University, Iran) How do contemporary Iranians balance the pressures of society with their individual desires? What are the material representations of this delicate balancing act? This case study addresses these dual questions through archaeological investigations at the city of Bam, in South East Iran. Bam was largely destroyed by a powerful earthquake on December 26th, 2003 – tragically, more than half the population was killed. Many mud brick houses and concrete buildings alike were flattened. Five years after the disaster, a contemporary archaeology project was conducted in Bam and archaeologists excavated six houses destroyed in the earthquake. The research revealed that the difference between pressures of society and individual desires make people behave paradoxically – but this behavior would not be apparent in their daily, public lives. In this case though, the excavations reveal how life in Bam is divided in to the two general spheres of inside/outside. Ultimately, the data demonstrates the differences between the residents’ traditional lives lived outside of their homes, and their private lives lived inside their homes. 11:20-11:40am Beyond Human Proportions: Towards an Archaeology of the Very Large and the Very Small Matt Edgeworth (University of Leceister) It used to be the case that archaeological features and artefacts were principally on a human scale. But that familiar world is changing fast. As archaeology extends its range of focus further forward in time its subject matter is moving beyond human proportions. Developments in macro- and micro-engineering mean that artifacts are no longer limited in size by physical limitations of the body. Artificial features can be thousands of times smaller than the eye of a needle, or as vast as undersea salt caverns hollowed out to serve as storage containers for reserves of natural gas. As scale and impact of material culture extends outwards and inwards in both macroscopic and microscopic directions, contemporary archaeology needs to change in order to keep track of it. This paper explores the 36 implications of the archaeology of the very large and the very small. 11:40-12:00pm Transitional Living in Post-Industrial England: An Archaeological View Sefryn Penrose (Oxford University) Since the day Mr Toad gave up his canary-colored caravan for a shiny red motor car, some of the most evocative names of English industry have been associated with transport: Morris cars, De Havilland planes, Swan Hunter ships. However, the later 20th century saw companies merged, collapsed, or subsumed, and production consigned to the industrial past. In Oxford, the Morris Minor housing estate and the Oxford Business Park take the place of car manufactories; in Wallsend, Swan Hunter's symbolic shipbuilding cranes were dismantled and sent to the Bharati shipyards in India. How does this changing economy and the lives of its workers manifest in the archaeological record when the post-WWII period is characterized by not just the overlaying of strata, but its excision? This paper offers an archaeology of a de-industrialized English landscape – the ruinations and resurrections of the past – as they are remade for an uncertain post-industrial future. 12:00-1:00pm Discussant: Barbara L Voss (Stanford University) theory construction. We note the centrality to both historical archaeology and broader archaeological theory of a suite of concepts-- memory, materiality, identity, space, practice, and discourses-- that are handled with great subtlety in contemporary historical archaeology, studies not generally included among genealogies of contemporary theory. We ask whether there are interesting substantive reasons for this, and whether, given the blurring of many of the ways of discriminating between historical archaeology and archaeology as a broader pursuit, work from the historical corpus is entering or will begin to enter the canon of archaeological theory proper. 9:10-9:30am Theorizing Space in Historical Archaeology Stephen A. Mrozowski (University of Massachusetts, Boston) This paper explores the use of spatial theory in Historical Archaeology with an emphasis on the production and symbolic quality of space. Drawing on a variety of case studies from North America and Britain this paper outlines spatial production in both rural and urban contexts. It presents a multi-scaler interpretive framework that argues for the simultaneity of material, social and culturalhistorical space. This interpretive framework draws its theoretical inspiration from the writings of Henri Lefebvre, Susan Zukin, David Harvey, Edward Soja, and Arturo Escobar as well as the work of archaeological theorists focusing on materiality, the body and nature. Histories, Identities, Theories Laurie Wilkie & Rosemary Joyce (University of California: Berkeley) 9:30-9:50am Dialogic Analysis and Social Fields: Documents in Archaeology Russell Sheptak (University of California: Berkeley) Historical archaeology is one of the sources of sophisticated contemporary theory in archaeology, particularly rich in approaches to the creation of ongoing historical identities and the lived experiences of difference. The participants in this session will foreground their engagements with diverse theoretical approaches and contribute to emerging discussion of the role of theory in historical archaeology, and the role of historical archaeology in theory construction. Historical archaeology continues to have an uneasy relationship with documents, despite the incontrovertible fact that documents, as a specific kind of material remains, pragmatically define the boundaries of the approach under any definition, however restricted or wide. That is, all historical archaeologists have the potential to work with documents produced during the period of time in which they are interested. Like any other form of archaeological materials, documents demand the use of appropriate methods that will allow them to be used in the manner appropriate to specific analytic approaches. Approaching documents from perspectives of practice theories in archaeology, I outline here a general methodology that treats these forms of material culture as active in creating specific social relations, for which they may often be the only remaining material trace. I illustrated this with examples from my work on colonial Honduras. 9:00-9:10am Histories, Identities, Theories: Taking Stock Rosemary Joyce and Laurie Wilkie (University of California: Berkeley) In this introduction to the session, we present an overview of the state of the art in the relationship between "theory" in historical archaeology, and of historical archaeology in 37 9:50-10:10am Thinking about Identity in Bioarchaeological Investigations of Health and Disease Sabrina Agarwal (University of California: Berkeley) Bioarchaeology offers unique evidence with which to consider and recreate the identity of historic people. Traditional biocultural models have long been used to infer temporal, geographical and within-population differences in health and disease in the past. However, the exploration of dualistic aspects of identity such as sex/gender, ontogeny/childhood, and senescence/social aging in the study of archaeological skeletal remains is still fairly uncommon. The study of bone (micro)morphology from archaeological remains can be used to examine patterns of bone maintenance and loss in past populations. These (micro)morphological indicators of bone maintenance are an exceptional bony medium with which to consider the construction of identity during life as they literally reflect the lived experience of the body crafted at cellular level through bone remodeling. Using two case studies in historical bioarchaeology, from Medieval England and Pioneer Canada, this paper will consider the role of gender and aging in the interpretation of biological age- and sexrelated patterns of bone maintenance and bone loss. Patterns in bone maintenance and loss that differ within and between historical and modern populations suggest that patterns in morphology are the result of gendered influences acquired over the life course of individuals. The combined use of historical and biological data, and critical interpretation of patterns of bone maintenance in historical populations, dramatically changes our understanding the aging human skeleton and etiology of postmenopausal bone loss in modern populations. Further, these interpretations forward our understanding and study of bone morphology (in both healthy and diseased states) as the product of hybridity, as both a biological and a cultural entity, that can contribute concrete evidence to dialogues of individual and social identity in archaeology. 10:10-10:30am Discussion 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am The Author in the Archaeology, or “Pay attention to the man behind the curtain” Bonnie Clark (Denver University) Historical archaeologists who engage with the lived experience of difference share not just an approach to the archaeological record but typically also an approach to writing about that record. As authors, such practitioners make consistent use of first- and even second-person pronouns. This style of presentation acknowledges that both archaeologists and their audiences, like past actors, have contingent and changing identities. One’s engagement with the past, like one’s engagement with the present, is a part of an arc of life experience. To pretend otherwise, in an attempt to make the work appear more scientific or objective actually makes it less so, because it obscures the locus of knowledge production. This belief, so radical not so long ago, is common among the most recent generation of historical archaeologists, who have been enculturated in a world where archaeological writing has been subjected to theoretical scrutiny. To us, the first person comes naturally and thus seems unproblematic. However, embracing the “I” is an act that separates us from our cousins in history, who with few exceptions, continue to mask their voice. Informed by Rosemary Joyce’s The Languages of Archaeology, this paper draws from personal experience and the writings of other junior scholars to locate the author in the archaeology. 11:20-11:40am Occulted diaporas: approaches to ambiguous identity in historical archaeology Katherine Hayes, University of Minnesota Identity, as complex constructions of subject, is a line of study to which historical archaeology is extraordinarily well-suited. This is so because we employ combinations of material traces relating to (for example) discursive, embodied, and memory practices. To what extent may our studies serve as models to non-text-aided archaeologies of identity? I offer a cautionary example from my research at Sylvester Manor, in which the illustration of African-Indian entanglements could only be accomplished by reference to broader histories of racial discourse, and social memory and forgetting. I will explore how some community histories are not merely muted or faintly represented, but additionally are structurally occluded. 11:40-12:00pm Memory and the Appropriation of History: Legend and Landscape in a Colonial New England Village Heather Law (University of California: Berkeley) and Guido Pezzarossi (Stanford University) In the local histories of Grafton, ample mention is made of the impoverished nature of Sarah Boston and her living environment. Recollections emphasize the marginal space that she occupied within the colonial community. Since the bulk of these local histories were produced anywhere from 70-100 years after Sarah Boston died and left her home 38 empty, this discourse is probably being influenced by and directed at the physical remains of her home in some stage of decay. The actual homestead (while visible on the landscape until the 1920's in the form of a door stone and a cellar hole) became diffused and in a sense further obscured by the physical reuse of the landscape over time. We argue that the diffusion and obfuscation of the physical place Sarah inhabited has caused it to become primarily a conceptual space loosely tethered to the landscape of Keith Hill by the old legends of Sarah's presence. In this case, the unexcavated hillside has the potential for just as much voice as the excavated farmstead, with the benefit of more momentum. Left untested and unchallenged, the eastern slope of Keith Hill could still be marshaled to retell the stories that the old legends depicted: stories that echoed and supported the racist characterizations of the early 20 th century. History's unknowns and inaccuracies would leave the landscape vulnerable to these kinds of appropriations, in which problematic projections would be allowed to blanket the landscape, thereby conceptually re-colonizing keith hill and linking the present directly to the colonial past. Using maps, drawings, local histories and material culture, this paper will discuss the ways that social memories are "inherited, inhabited, invented and imagined through the landscape"(Holtorf and Williams 2006:237). 12:00-12:20pm Outside Looking In: Scaling Spanish colonial buffer practices Jun Sunseri (University of California: Santa Cruz) A multi-scalar approach allows archaeologists to address the potentially situational nature of community membership in pluralistic society. If applied within a practice theory framework, such an approach is an aid to exploration of how frontier communities may have expressed various aspects of their identities in different contexts and at different scales of social performance. This case study of a historic buffer settlement (LA 917) on the northern frontier of Colonial New Mexico uses multiple, complementary lines of evidence of varied types and spatial scales including: 1) analyses of archaeological ceramic and faunal assemblages related to domestic foodways and 2) GIS analysis of remote sensing, survey, and excavation data to recognize patterning of the tactical and engineered landscapes of the study site. In this way, New Mexican archaeological sites that have long been dichotomized as "Spanish" or "Indian" are revisited in a more nuanced and textured exploration of colonial ethnogenesis. 12:20-12:40pm Death and Cricket: the non-modernist history of 19thC cremation Andrew Martin (Bournemouth University) How do you conceive of a past without a culture/nature divide when all of our techniques, tools, theories and philosophical assumptions are based upon such a divide? A glance at how Latour has been used in archaeology so far indicates it is virtually impossible to apply Latour’s nonmodernist concept of objects to ‘religious’ things without grafting it onto some modernist social theory and perpetuating the divide. Historical studies of science have helped to illustrate how enmeshed culture and nature are in the process of scientific development and thus have enabled archaeologists to understand the process of their archaeological practice. But it has been more difficult to apply the other ramification of Latour’s conclusion – that past religions were also enmeshed integrations of culture and nature – since so few Latourian studies have been done of historical change in ‘religious’ knowledge and practice to illustrate it. This paper presents a brief history of the gradual adoption of cremation in 19th Century Britain which threatened the Christian practice of burial – a practice central to Christian theology. This colorful and messy history illustrates the profound problem with attributing ‘cultural’ change to universal social or functionalist theories, but points to Latour’s conclusion that groups are defined and changed through dissent over multifaceted local issues. Using Latour’s methodology to follow actors (human and nonhuman) through controversies, it is shown that such a technique could be useful in archaeology to uncover local networks of significance and the heterogeneous actors (including in this case Cricket!) used to establish them. 12:40-1:00pm Discussion The Color of Things: Debating the Role and Future of Color in Archaeology Alexander Nagel (University of Michigan) According to David Batchelor, author of Chromophobia (2000) color, though bound up with the fate of human culture has been systematically marginalized and degraded in academic studies, does not easily fit into current intellectual debates on social constructs, has become increasingly antidisciplinary. On the other hand, anthropologists, conservation specialists and archaeologists have increasingly realized that pigments and dyes constitute an integral part of the environment of both, early and modern societies. This session will discuss the need for theoretical 39 frameworks when integrating color in material culture studies. How does our current thinking about color reflect and prejudice our understanding of the past and present? Is color a useful tool to reconstruct patterns of identity, interaction and influence? Are colors detectable in the material record and how far do colors and colored artifacts materialize voices? Our session seeks to explore a wide range of current approaches to color, and demonstrate how results achieved through interdisciplinary research can form an integrative part of general science. Papers focus on examples from the ancient Near East, Central Asia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Europe, though comparative studies will be included. Short video clips will introduce institutions important for researchers interested in color archaeology. 9:00-9:10am Introduction Alexander Nagel (University of Michigan) 9:10-9:30am Color, Perception and Value: New Perspectives on Early Glass Chloe Duckworth (University of Nottingham) The Late Bronze Age in Western Asia and in the east Mediterranean witnessed an explosion in the use of vitreous materials and the first widespread production of glass. The unique properties of glass rapidly came to the fore, most notably in vessel production. The perception of glass itself was, however, intimately bound up in its color and brilliance, reflecting early links with attributed properties of semi-precious stones. Archaeometric studies thus far have focused on the chemical and isotopic composition of early glass in order to compensate for lack of evidence of production sites and provenance. However, archaeologists have not previously been able to answer vital questions about the origins of the various colorant-opacifiers. This paper introduces the application of ToF-SIMS, an analytical technique capable of identifying the colorant-opacifiers added to ancient glass. Case studies from Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece will be introduced, contrasts analyzed in the light of epigraphic and archaeological evidence for the value of glass, its color, visual properties and relationship with other materials. It emerges that color was a vital factor in the inception and development of glass as a material; initially in terms of the impetus behind production and later as the unique properties of glass became appreciated. The framework of analysis presented will be useful to developing wider methods of considering color and its role in the perception, value and production of artifacts, having wider resonance in improving our understanding of technological choice and social value of materials, in particular new or artificial ones. 9:30-9:50am Color Symbolism in the Ancient Near East: The Royal Tombs of the Cemetery of Ur Martina Zanon (Università Ca' Foscari, Venezia, Italy) The symbolic meanings of colors have been studied for a number of modern and pre-modern cultures, but only rarely for those of Ancient Near East. This paper focuses on various classes of colored artefacts from Mesopotamia from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BCE: mural paintings and glazed materials, but also inlays of pieces of jewellery. I will first examine the existent Mesopotamian literary texts, in order to try to ascertain possible symbolic meanings attributed to different colors. The 242 composite jewellery finds excavated in the sixteen Royal Tombs of the Cemetery of Ur of mid-3rd millennium BCE are made of cornaline (red), lapis-lazuli (blue), ivory (white), glazes (red), shell (white), limestone (white) and bitumen (black), and are differently combined with metals such as gold, silver, electron and bronze. Blue and red (lapis-lazuli and cornaline) are frequently coupled in the jewellery. Were they representing the union of different opposites: feminine and masculine gender (creating the concept of fertility), or the two fundamental elements of Mesopotamian culture: the divine and the human worlds, elite above all, the royal power beneficiated by god that mediate the two worlds? These two colored stones are frequently associated with gold and silver. Brightness of colors is an aspect that needs more attention and investigation. Luminous colors, as metals or precious stones, are synonymous of holiness, pureness, beauty, so they can be assimilated to the divine world. The blue/red/metals triad corresponds to the prehistoric basic triad black/white/red, where black is substituted by blue that we consider a kind of dazzling black, and metals can be considered the substitute for luminous white (or even red). 9:50-10:10am An Archaeology of the Aesthetic: Examination of the Güzel Taş from Fistikli Höyük Jayme L. Job (State University of New York, Binghamton) An analysis of the güzel taş (“beautiful stones”) from the Early Halaf site of Fistikli Höyük in southeastern Turkey present an opportunity to explore concepts of cognitive and color archaeology. As naturally-occurring manuports, the stones merit collection and consideration by archaeologists, although their recognition within the archaeological record is itself a matter of investigation. The majority of the colored stones feature no evidence of use, and appear to 40 have been collected by the nearby Euphrates River and transported to the site for purely aesthetic reasons. Likewise, suggestions of ad-hoc usage of many of the stones imply that traditional Western models of a strict functionalaesthetic dichotomy do not appear to apply to this early Near Eastern society. Cognitively, both archaeological recognition and early classifications concerning aesthetic and functional value are involved in both past and present treatment of the stones. Conversely, by employing models of color archaeology, the idea of an archaeological aesthetic is both questioned and maintained. 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am Colorful Images of the Greek Neolithic Stella Katsarou-Tzeveleki (Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Ephorate of Palaeoanthropology-Spelaeology of Southern Greece) In this paper I discuss the variability of color in Greece in the 6th and 5th millennia BCE. In this period we witness an increased contribution of color to the formation of material culture, ranging from the careless monochrome pottery surfaces to the shiny polished and homogeneously monochrome pots, and to the polychrome patterned surfaces. Color serves here as both, a critical chronological and cultural marker: the Middle Neolithic man prefers light red monochrome surfaces and red-on-light patterns, while his successors change towards dark shiny monochromes and white- or polychrome-patterned dark backgrounds. Equally, the designs are chronologically and geographically variable: Middle Neolithic red designs vary from central Greece (weaving-inspired) to southern Greece (abstract linear) and the Aegean islands (weaving-inspired linear), while variations of colorful designs on dark backgrounds are more generally homogenized over the southern Greek peninsula in the next period. To what degree, however, had the availability of raw substances and firing procedures influenced the formation of color aesthetics? Why were monochrome vases chosen on one occasion and a polychrome of the same shape on another? Since colored designs are a kind of material ‘script’ and color is the means of writing this script and visualizing the material ‘language’ of symbols, how does color complement or strengthen the meaning of a visual code? 11:20-11:40am Seeing Red: Color as a Ritual Cue on Egyptian Female Figurines Elizabeth A. Waraksa (University of California, Los Angeles) At least six standardized types of nude female figurines, ranging in date from the New Kingdom to the Late Period (ca. 1550-664 BCE), have been excavated by the Johns Hopkins University from the temple precinct of the goddess Mut at Karnak. These figurines, with their characteristic torso-level breakage, frequent refuse context, and conspicuous red coloring, have been recently identified as components of magico-medical rites to protect and heal. This paper will detail the materials and techniques used to produce female figurines like those found at the Mut Precinct, focusing in particular on the red pigment present on many figurines. This red coloring is a trait not previously investigated for this class of object and, indeed, is one that frequently goes undetected or un(der)reported. This paper will also address the terminological issues that arise when one attempts to gather data on the coloration of Egyptian ceramic figurines. Lastly, the implications of this color study for our understanding of the ritual function of Egyptian female figurines will be discussed. Using archaeological, textual, and material data, it is argued that these objects, formerly typically identified as votive “fertility figurines,” had a wider and more active magico-medical use, and that the red hue of the figurines signaled that the objects – at a crucial stage of their use – were malevolent and ultimately to be destroyed. 11:40-12:00pm Polychrome: More Than (One) Color Susanne Ebbinghaus (Harvard University) Recent research on the coloration of ancient Greek and Roman marble sculpture and architecture has finally restored color to the domain of Classical art, popularly perceived as perfectly white. The degree to which these monuments were colored, however, is still disputed. At issue is not color but polychromy, no hard and fast category but a relative term defined by current norms and values. With the ready availability of colors in the 19 th and 20th centuries, the colorful came to be seen as cheap and commercial. Understanding the rationale behind the coloration of ancient monuments requires consideration of ancient views of polychromy, which may be reconstructed in part on the basis of written and visual evidence. As in other cultures, the ancient Greek term for “polychrome” or “variegated,” poikilos, was used like a color term, to describe animal skins, scales, and feathers, and colorful, often Eastern dress. Figuratively, the term had both positive and ambiguous connotations, denoting dazzling craftsmanship as well as a cunning mind. In Greek sculptural representations, a high degree of polychromy appears to have been the preserve of deities, Archaic aristocrats, and Eastern barbarians. Contrary to the Greek cliché, Neo- 41 Assyrian and Achaemenid Persian sculpture also shows carefully measured, status-conscious application of polychromy, with highly patterned garments reserved for the king and other outstanding figures. While the Greeks apparently did not invent white sculpture, they may be credited with inventing the prejudice against the overly colorful as part of the trope of oriental decadence, long influential in Western thought. 12:00-12:20pm Reading Between the Figures: Colored Words on Athenian Vases in the 20th century Amy C. Smith (University of Reading) Graffiti and letters incised or scratched onto the pots played an important role in the decoration of Archaic and Classical Athenian vases from ca. 580 to 340 BCE. They are relatively well studied and understood as evidence of economy and society. But the vast majority of words on Athenian vases are painted onto the surface with the same red, brown, black or even white clay slip that was applied before the firing of the vase. Some dipinti are illegible or meaningless ('nonsense inscriptions'), but the vast majority comprise artist signatures, 'kalos' names, character labels, and speech bubbles. The recent exhibition Colors of Clay has brought overdue attention to the widespread use of added color in the ceramic arts of Athens. Yet even in that context the painted words are almost ignored. This paper considers the reasons for the relative inattention of 20th century scholars to dipinti on Attic vases. It will also investigate the artist's choices with regard to colored text. Were letter colors and forms chosen to improve legibility, the perceived value of each art work, or simply the efficiency of the artist's work flow? How did the placement of dipinti in relation to the overall composition affect the product and the viewer's experience of it? What do changing styles (especially with regard to color choices) tell us about the relative importance of such words in the society that created them? 12:20-12:40pm The Polychromy of Iberian Sculpture and the Conflicting Presentation in Archaeology Dirk Paul Mielke (German Archaeological Institute, Madrid) As all pre-modern sculpture ancient Iberian sculpture was polychrome. However, the study of polychromy concerning Iberian sculpture has been of only minor importance thus far, although the masterpiece of Iberian culture, the enigmatic Lady of Elche, discovered by chance in 1897, bears abundant traces of paint residues. If considered at all, the existence of polychromy was stated, yet there was hardly any reflection about the significance of the coloration, both in archaeological publications as well as in exhibitions. Here, the view on Iberian sculpture concentrates on a monochromatic dimension, in connection with a major focus on the form. In this context, Iberian sculpture obtained novel relevance attaching more importance to modern sociological aspects, therefore differing from the original signification. In order to study the integration of sculpture into sociological processes of its period, this paper will focus on both the context and the original presentation of ancient Iberian polychrome sculpture. 12:40-1:00pm Discussion Bridging Subjects and Objects in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean World Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper & Benjamin Porter (University of California: Berkeley) This session explores the entanglement of persons and objects in Near Eastern and Mediterranean societies. Papers will investigate this relationship from a variety of perspectives including evocative practices of making and destroying, displaying and decorating, using and reusing. We are interested in exploring how notions of individuals, communities, and polities become manifest in material forms, and in turn, how objects broadcast meanings to the societies in which they circulate. We will approach this issue from two sets of questions. How do objects, as actors possessing agency, shape societies by constructing a range of possible human-object interactions – thereby controlling human actions? When and how does language play a role in determining the meanings, functions, and limitations that objects adopt? In light of these inquiries, we will also contemplate a second set of questions: those concerning the relationship between the subject and society. How did people categorize themselves and create divisions within their societies? When is it possible to investigate, or even challenge, essentialized categories (such as gender and profession) as a way to describe the ancient subject? How can we use objects – and, in particular, the subject-object relationship – to better understand categories and conceptions of social difference? Participants are encouraged to dialogue with two recent works from the archaeological literature, Adam Smith’s ‘The end of the essential archaeological subject’ (2004) and Chris Gosden’s ‘What do objects want?’ (2005). Case studies that 42 are supported with robust data sets and positioned under theoretically nuanced lenses are especially encouraged. 9:00-9:20am Introduction: Connecting the absent subject and the passive object in Near Eastern and Mediterranean archaeology Benjamin W. Porter and Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper (University of California: Berkeley) This introduction sets out a genealogy of the ways in which Near Eastern and Mediterranean archaeologists have conceived of subjects and objects, and the relationships between them. What is striking about this genealogy is that it does not unfold evenly across time or geography, but rather, is linked to tensions between disciplinary epistemes and critical inquiry. The writings of Smith and Gosden inspire us to respond to these disjunctures. We offer several comments urging that 1) arguments insisting that the category of the individual did not exist in antiquity should be replaced with the question: how was personhood constituted through historical and cultural contingencies? 2) objects be understood as unstable signs whose meanings and powers shift while circulating through new regimes of value, and 3) that objects and subjects participated in recursive relationships that produce entanglements often visible in the historical and archaeological records. These ideas will be briefly explored in case studies drawn from Hellenistic Mesopotamia and the Iron Age Levant. 9:25-9:45am Promiscuity and Identity: The Role of Ivory Seals within the Changing Social Landscape of Early Second Millennium Crete Emily S. K. Anderson (Yale University) It is traditionally understood that the island of Crete underwent significant changes in socio-political organization and interaction at the turn of the second millennium BCE, as it transitioned to its first “palatial” social formation. Following Gosden (2005), with this paper I approach this transition from the perspective of objects, in order to consider how changes in the object world could have created “social beings with new sensibilities and forms of relatedness.” In particular I investigate a contemporary group of seals fashioned of imported hippopotamus ivory. These seals were among the first on Crete to be engraved with differentiated seal-symbols, and also presented the first discrete glyptic stylistic/iconographic group, which canonically incorporated representations of lions—a beast not native to Crete. These aspects of the seals acted through two distinct social venues: First, as objects worn on the body, their distinctive material and form would have been directly associated with the social identities attached to acting human seal-owners. Second, when reproduced in clay impressions fixed on objects, the differentiated sealsymbols facilitated a new mode of social interaction on the island in which social identities could be construed for a seal-owner—through manifest impressions—in contexts separated from the corporeal human seal-owner himself. I discuss how these objects functioned not merely as material culture tools of socio-political change, but as dynamic actors which shaped, directed, and enabled a new type of human experience on Crete, which was visibly, sensibly, and temporally/spatially different, and which moved and related humans in new ways. Thus I suggest how the “promiscuity” of the ivory seals, incorporating imported elements within a new Cretan object-type, can be newly appreciated as having held a distinct socio-symbolic role within the changing Cretan landscape. 9:50-10:10am Is there No Balm in Gilead?: The Power of Liminal Landscapes and Contested Boundaries as Cognitive Artifacts in Iron Age Northern Jordan William Zimmerle (University of Pennsylvania) Recent surveys of the archaeological evidence from Iron Age Jordan have failed to evaluate the northern region of the country known from the Hebrew Bible as Gilead, focusing instead on the more southern polities of Edom, Moab and Ammon. Gilead, a fertile region with neither definable borders nor a kingdom in the Iron Age, was listed as marginal and frontier in both the textual narratives and historical inscriptions of the ancient Near East. In this paper, I draw on Near Eastern historical sources as well as archaeological data in order to recover the value of this neglected landscape. Through a matrix of texts and tells, and guided by Adam Smith’s categorization scheme of the subject-object relationship, I will highlight how Gilead transformed the ethnic identity of its subjects and neighbors—from nomads to kings—in the early state formation of the first millennium BCE Levant. Anthropological studies on marginal communitas in light of nineteenth and early twentieth century travel narratives will contribute to a political typology of Gilead’s spatiality in the Iron Age. 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am Re-evaluating the Mediated Self: The Making, Manipulation and Meaning of the Early Bronze Age Figurine Corpus from Umm el-Marra, Syria Alice Petty (Stanford University) 43 Previous visual, spatial and functional analyses of a corpus of Early Bronze Age figurines from the site of Umm elMarra, Syria indicate that these objects were signifiers for a desired magical act, and were thereby used as vehicles for sympathetic magic. Magical thinking assumes that the will of an individual can be expressed or enacted via a mediating object. But what is the relationship between that magical object and its individual maker or user? In one respect, it is a tool; however, a consideration of Gosden’s 2005 article “What do Objects Want?” raises an alternate perspective from which to approach this question, suggesting that the object may take a more active role. More than a tool, these objects may be understood as a prosthetic extension of individual attention (or intention) thus blurring the distinction between the non-corporeal self and artifact (between subject and object). Drawing upon the scholarship of Zainab Bahrani, this paper argues that the line between subject and object is blurred due to the nature of representation in Near Eastern images and image-making. Specifically, the role of images that represent aspects of the self other than the body, in anthropomorphic form. The conclusion of this argument, which engages the concept of the salmu in ancient Near Eastern art, suggests that while the act of making and manipulating such objects can be understood as a prosthetic act, the objects themselves are not prostheses but consciously rendered, dependent representations of a present and active self. 11:25-11:45am Bedrock of Place, Springs of Being: Anatolian Rock Reliefs as Event-Places Ömür Harmansah (Brown University) This paper explores the complex set of located practices at places where human engagement with the mineral world and its geological wonders are most pronounced. Imagined in this case are caves, springs, sinkholes and rock outcrops of mountainous landscapes, which are almost always drawn into the realm of cultural imagination through the stories anchred to their “bedrock”. This work is inspired by the growing interest in archaeology in the socio-symbolic implications of the mineral world, the rise of the concept of “place” in the humanities and social sciences, but most importantly a Heideggerian understanding of the nature of an eventful place-world. Using the case of Late Bronze and Early Iron Age rock reliefs of Anatolia (Hittite/ Luwian/ Phrygian), I will argue that the monumental inscription of landscapes are only late appropriations by the imperial elite of specific places of human practice that are always already rich in their social significations and cultural associations, as part of a lived place-world. The making of rock reliefs themselves and the production of their monumental inscriptions both derive from and displace such located practices, through the state-sponsored colonization of places in a program of creating subjects of the state. In Pierre Nora’s terms, places of memory are replaced by sites of official history and spectacles of the state. I will further speculate that as “objects” of such colonizing gestures, the geologically wondrous places and the subtle everyday practices associated with them merge into a single corpus that can be called an “event-place”. Event-places are therefore powerful loci that hold agency on the long-term shaping of landscapes and often resist political interventions (Gosden 2005). Following Adam Smith's (2004) critique of the creation of archaeological subject, I argue that archaeological landscapes are constructs as "homogenized social worlds" that locate the archaeological subject to a clearly delineated, distant past. This cutting away of ancient environments from contemporary landscapes is a modernist gesture that highlights the rupture between pre-modern and postindustrial landscapes. In this scenario, the spatial practices of the contemporary dwellers in archaeological landscapes are rendered essentially irrelevant and ontologically disjunctive. Rock reliefs and sacred springs, in contrast, are transhistorical localities of human interaction, places of memory that relate to all episodes of landscape history rather than archaeologically essentialized categories such as "Hittite". Such sites remained in existence as practiced, lived places over time and were exposed to varied social interactions and cultural imaginations. It is suggested that ethnohistorical and ethnographic accounts of archaeological places may indeed reveal much about their material agency on long-term landscape processes. 11:50-12:10 Active Body: The Role of the Body in constituting Masculine Elite Identities in Sasanian Rock Reliefs Maryam Dezhamkhooy (University of Tehran, Iran) The body has been the subject of human deliberation and pictorial art since antiquity. Individuals experience the living world and engage in social practices via the body. Indeed, the body as both the subject and object of praxis plays a key role in shaping personal and social identities. This paper investigates the role of bodily practices and interactions with material culture in defining masculine identity for elite audiences during the Sasanian period (224650 CE), an era characterized by empire. More than thirty rock reliefs from this period are found in western and southwestern Iran such as Tagh-e Bostan, Naghsh-e Rostam and Tang-e Choagan. The main subject of most reliefs is the ceremony of the Sasanian king’s investiture. In addition to investiture, these reliefs represent Sasanian elite ideals about masculinity. In constituting masculinity, emphasis is placed 44 on the body without visual reference to sexual organs. The body appears as object and subject at the same time. On the one hand, the body is the object of elite gaze and representation -- the observers of this representation are exclusively Sasanian elites. On the other hand, the body participates in shaping the concept of masculinity for elites and presents an ideal representation of masculinity. In this model, the vigorous and skilled body plays a key role in constituting Sasanian masculine identity. 12:15-12:35pm Contexts and Objects: The Rise of the Athletic Sanctuary in Ancient Greece and the Creation of Mainland Greek Male Ideals in the Greek Archaic (ca. 700-500 BCE) David Small (Lehigh University) Gosden (2005) refers to an agency of objects, and the effects they have on people. If we are referring to the effect of objects on individuals, a good place to look is the ancient Greek athletic sanctuary, such as Olympia. It was within these contexts that men (I am gender specific here) interacted, not only with the landscape, but with the materials within this landscape to form a concept of male identity. Objects in this sense were buildings, such as temples, or exercise yards; statues of victors in games, or statues of those who cheated; or votives, such as helmets which were worn in victorious battles. It was through the temporary participation in this context that several of the ideals of ancient Greek manhood were fashioned. This paper explores the way in which men were affected by these objects. It will also look at the recursive nature of this relationship, as men were to create new objects for this context, and new objects of related form and possible genealogy for their own social contexts with the ancient Greek polis. In many ways, Greece presents us with an excellent case for this type of study. We have a very good understanding of the genealogy of Greek materials. Forms and assemblages can be traced back to the early Iron Age (ca. 1000 BCE). We are assisted in this work by the relatively good chronological control archaeologists have at their disposal in ancient Greece, both in understanding the evolution of different materials and their assemblages, and in understanding broader chronological changes as given by historical sources. 12:35-1:00pm Discussion How Archaeology Makes its Subject(s): Groups, Things, and Epistemic Injustices Berkeley Archaeology Group - Meg Conkey (University of California: Berkeley) Archaeologists have long used objects as defining characteristics of what they suppose to be more-or-less bounded social groups, people who are presumably connected through what we perceive to be a shared material culture. We have a long legacy of characterizing such groups as “cultures”, often labeling them as the people of a certain pottery type (e.g., Bell-Beaker Culture), architectural or other technological style. While this may appear to be a harmless sort of classificatory strategy, there are numerous, often deeply problematic issues that it can generate. Not only does such a characterization tend to reduce the inquiry into the dynamics of how social and cultural entities develop, form, and engage with their social worlds because an “identity” is already pre-determined, but, as we can see in numerous cases in the contemporary world, such labels of identity can often lead to troubling epistemic injustices (to use a term of Fricker 2007) of static identities and hence a resulting discrimination, among many other possibilities and actualities. In this session, papers are invited that address various aspects of this interesting dilemma, ranging from those papers that might explore the long standing and on-going ways in which archaeologists in specific settings make their subject(s), as well as those that explore the epistemic practices that can lead to specific cases of injustice(s) in the contemporary world or historical past. 9:00-9:10am Introduction Meg Conkey (University of California: Berkeley) 9:10-9:30am Archaeological Groups, Things and Interpretations John M. Chenoweth (University of California: Berkeley) Groups, while never stable or static, are certainly enduring; yet the material culture associated with them may vary widely across both space and time. Social identities -understood as groups of people -- provide ground for further debate and potentially for further clarity. This paper will consider recent theory concerning both “things” (materiality) and “groups” (social identities) in order to interrogate what shared material culture actually means for those who share it, and how archaeologists might begin to examine it. This question has far-reaching implications for archaeological interpretation, for instance in understanding how we define archaeological „cultures” or “identities” through material culture and what this means certain 45 people shared in the past. But it is also central to the modern practice of archaeology, as we must consider the potential results of normalizing certain conceptions of groups, the kind of generalizations of people our interpretations invite, and the potential for “epistemic injustice” which may result from our formulations. 9:30-9:50am Credibility, Horizons, and the Changing Nature of Groups in the Ancient Andes Matt Sayre (University of California: Berkeley) The question of who writes the past has long preoccupied archaeologists and others concerned with social history, however the power issues behind classically defined archaeological cultures can be opaque even to archaeologists attempting to question their own doxastic biases. While the powerful tend to have a solid framework of data to draw upon the powerless are more likely to have knowledge that can appear opaque or disjunctive at initial glance to the outside observer. These issues of credibility and prescribed notions lead to cases of epistemic injustice, not solely in the archaeological reconstruction of the past but also in the lives of modern people. The resulting creation of defined cultural groups, often times associated with broadly and oddly defined ceramic styles, have a long and continued history in the Andes. This paper will examine the continued use of a broadly defined archaeological horizon that is connected to a pottery style and a people and analyze the epistemic injustices and static identities that arise from this practice. 9:50-10:10am Making Subjects Out of Nothing: The Materiality of Maya Class Construction Chelsea Blackmore (University of California: Berkeley) Equating a single cultural group to a classificatory scheme has implications for not only how archaeologists develop the concept of cultural “identity” but how we investigate and theorize about internal social dynamics within that same society. For the ancient Maya, social organization remains largely understood as a two class system—that of commoner and elite. The material remains used to mark these categories are based largely on objects and materials associated with wealth—monumental construction, elaborate burials, polychrome ceramics (particularly fine wares and vases) and long-distance trade items like jade, obsidian, and marine shell. Elite identity is marked by the identification of these things, but also in their quality and diversity. Commoners, on the other hand, have no unique material signature. Rather, they are defined as a material negation of elites—a static representation of social, political, and economic domesticity. Even though gendered and household archaeologies have added significantly to our understanding of commoner daily life, rarely do we contextualize commoners as active political subjects. This paper examines how commoner material culture, even in its most fragmentary form, can be used to reframe discussions of ancient Maya society as an internally diverse and dynamic culture. 10:10-10:30am Discussion 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am How my premises make me to close my eyes to objects: Ignorance of Prehistoric sites in Bam (SE Iran) Omran Garazhian (Buali sina Department of Archaeology, Hamadan, Iran) The wind is blowing and replaces the sands. Land surface is covered by the sand hills; the scattered bushes can be observed on the dried river basins. On some heights, the black stones can be observed. All the landscape is desert. Despite of 21th century technology, only few palm gardens are located here; it is the landscape of Darestan and Bam, SE Iran. I visit this landscape as archaeologist and I search an object. Several archaeologists have visited Bam district, Stein, Caldwell, Karlovsky, Madjidzadeh, and tens of archaeologists who have attended the annual conference of "the history of architecture ". They may have only visited Bam citadel, the huge brick made structure that is registered by World Heritage, too. In the several written texts about prehistoric of SE Iran, only three sites of Chalcolithic and late Neolithic are pointed. None of the archaeologists has thought about the survey of western Loot desert. Can the desert be the context of prehistoric settlements? Furthermore, most theories of Neolithic discussed about western parts of Near East and not the eastern parts. I find the object: there are fourteen PPN and PN sites and a PPN settlement with 5/7 hectares extension and in situ architectural remains. About seventy prehistoric sites (from PPN to Bronze Age) are all located in a 40×60 km extension in Darestan, an archaeologically ignored area. What has been ignored, the subject or the lack of the object? This paper discusses about the archaeologists blindfolded minds and some suggested reasons of it: contemporary natural landscape, archaeologists’ subjectivity and their premises of objects conditions in a region, with the case study of new excavations and surveys in Bam, Darestan. 11:20-11:40am 46 Constructing Epistemic “Realities” in a Conflict Zone: Salvage Archaeology in Southeastern Turkey Laurent Dissard (University of California: Berkeley) Salvage excavations have been undertaken by archaeologists since the 1960s in southeastern Turkey before the construction of large dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. My research looks at the history of these excavations and the contributions they have made to Anatolian archaeology. In the summer of 2008, I observed archaeologists at work on 12 different sites threatened by the Ilısu Dam and studied this “history in the making.” I witnessed the specific techniques archaeology uses in order to transform a mound of earth into the scientific laboratory of archaeology. But, as accepted knowledge about the past is produced; as archaeological “groups” are created from the ground, multiple processes of inclusion and exclusion simultaneously occur. This paper will attempt to go beyond these epistemic questions however, and reflect upon my experience as an ethnographer of archaeology in this region. Southeastern Turkey, the country’s poorest area, has been the stage for the military conflict between Turkey’s army and the P.K.K. (the Kurdish Workers’ Party) for over 25 years now. What larger role does archaeology play in the politics of this region? What are some of the unjust ramifications of archaeology’s epistemic “reality” in this conflict-ridden zone? 11:40-12:00pm Contemporary Socio-Politics and Construction of Cultural Categories in South Asia V. Selvakumar (Tamil University) Constructs are like the courses of river: very powerful. The river water cannot escape the course and the final destination--the ocean! Construction of archaeological cultures marked the larger part of 19th and 20th century archaeology in South Asia. Similarly, contemporary groups of India were grouped into various categories such as 'Aryans,' 'Dravidians' and 'primitive tribes' based language, region and physical features, primarily by the colonialists. Origins for many of the archaeological cultures/identities were searched outside South Asia. These identities, which still remain the focus of many researchers, have played multiple roles in the contemporary socio-politics and popular arena. Dominant contemporary social groups perceive themselves as descendants of these constructed identities/cultures and there have been claims and competitions to ownership to civilizations/cultures (e.g. Harappans). Contemporary groups use such constructed identities to legitimize their action or status in the society treat others as 'migrants' and 'outsiders. Epistemic injustice is observed in the perception of groups such as the 'dalits' ('untouchables') or 'primitive tribes' as static and unchanging entities. This paper explores the various dimensions of impact of the constructed cultures and identities in South Asian Archaeology on the contemporary society. 12:00-12:20pm Tsimologo ya ntlha: “They are still old-fashioned” David Cohen (University of California: Berkeley) Critical engagement by archaeologists has revealed the potential power of our epistemological output, positive and negative. Understandings of how archaeological practice and interpretations, via the ethnography of archaeology, are in no way outside of politics has created the necessity for us to be more aware of and engaged in the trajectories of the knowledge we create. Archaeology has created its subjects to serve its own means, and it is time for more effort to be put toward means of bringing about epistemic justice in what we do. This paper examines anthropological practice in southern Africa and suggests ways that we can become more critically engaged in our writing of the past through interfaces with social justice, group politics, and transparency. 12:20-1:00pm Discussion by Participants: Facilitated by Meg Conkey and Doris Maldonado (University of California: Berkeley) Musealizing Indigeneity: Heritage, Ethics and the Tourist Audience Madeleine Douglas & Rachel King (Stanford University) This session will address how indigenous cultures represent themselves and are represented by others for a tourist audience. Topics to be addressed include: how the presence of a tourist audience shapes the media and content of display; the impact of tourism on local culture and economy; how tourism shapes culture as commodity; collaboration and ethics in the museum or cultural heritage site setting, including national parks and monuments; and role of international agencies (UNESCO, ICOMOS). Bushmen and Bushmen Paintings: A History of Heritage Tourism at the Tsodilo Hills Rachel Faye Giraudo (University of California, Berkeley) The San (Bushmen)* of Southern Africa and the rock art imagery attributed to them catapulted into Western 47 consciousness in the 1950s through popular tourist accounts, literature, and media. Sir Laurens van der Post was one author who brought worldwide attention to the San and their rock art beginning with his BBC television series (1956) and book (1958), both titled, The Lost World of the Kalahari. The enigmatic Tsodilo Hills, located in northwestern Botswana, was van der Post’s destination on his 1955 expedition, and this rock art site subsequently became an iconic link between rock art and living San people. Based on two recent years of ethnographic fieldwork as well as primary and secondary historical sources, this paper examines the history of heritage tourism at the Tsodilo Hills. From adventurers and researchers to safari operators and self-drive tourists, the presence of rock art and living San people together continues to be the most important tourist attraction the Tsodilo Hills offers, especially for those in search of “Bushmen.” The Ju/’hoansi San living nearby the Tsodilo Hills have participated in the heritage tourism industry – though, solely at the local level – for several decades due to the international community’s enduring fascination with San culture past and present. This case study demonstrates how heritage tourism became a subsistence strategy for the Ju/’hoansi San at the Tsodilo Hills during an era in which they lost their traditional hunting rights. *The title of this paper uses “Bushmen” to refer to Khoi-San speakers who are now known collectively as “San,” a name members of various Khoi-San language groups decided to use during a historic 1996 meeting. I am using the older and more informal term “Bushmen” because this paper addresses an essentializing understanding of San cultures through popular representations and heritage tourism. The Dilemma of the Included Past: Archaeological Education in the New South Africa Rachel King (Stanford University) Since 1994, the democratic government has sought to re-cast the role of heritage in education as a discourse of multiculturalism, recognition, and social justice. Archaeological education (AE) emerged to answer this call with an emphasis on the multivocality of the past and the material representation of archaeological practice in the social and economic lives of the new South Africa’s citizens. Despite the explicitly created space for AE in school curricula and projects created by parastatal organizations, however, AE has struggled to actualize itself. In all but selfcontained, privately-funded programs, AE is constantly placed under the heading of environmental education and becomes incorporated with themes of conservation, which are ill-equipped to deal with the complex role of material heritage in South African social imaginings. This paper seeks to address the question of why archaeological education is often subsumed under environmental education in South Africa. Why do the tropes of conservation and the interconnectedness of ecology appear so easily applicable to the concept of material heritage? What are the impacts of this on the lived experiences of archaeological education? I argue that the answers lie in incompatibilities of the state-led invocation of heritage simultaneously as a dynamic representation of South African expression, and as a solid, unmoving foundation for progress and modernity. Identity-Making and Native American SelfRepresentation in the Museum Setting Madeleine Douglas (Stanford University) This paper is a comparative case study analyzing the strategies four museums across the United States employ in the representation of Native people and groups. Topics to be addressed include how authorship and thus identitymaking is determined within the museum context; how the demographic of the museum visitors is or is taken into account in the formation of these exhibits; and differences between exhibitions that includes the consultation of Native people versus Native authorship. Exploring 'the religious' at Çatalhöyük: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue Ian Hodder (Stanford University) The aim of the work reported on in this session was to implement an interdisciplinary study of the role of religious ritual in the emergence of complex societies, involving a group of natural scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists, philosophers and theologians in a novel field-based context. Through the period of the project from 2006 to 2008, members convened at Çatalhöyük for a week each summer, and also met in seminars at Stanford University. At the site they talked with the field team and spent time in the specialist laboratories discussing ways in which the data from the site could inform the main questions being addressed by the project. The papers in this session result from this experiment in bringing scholars from diverse backgrounds to work with archaeologists ‘at the trowel’s edge’ at Çatalhöyük. 48 9:00-9:20am Introduction: the Templeton project at Çatalhöyük: its goals and outcomes Ian Hodder (Stanford University) of the environment. In the Neolithic wild animals may no longer have been seen as provided by the environment and its spirit world but as provided by ancestors or human mythic figures. This paper introduces the site of Çatalhöyük and the work of the interdisciplinary group. It outlines the four questions considered by the group. (1) How can archaeologists recognize the spiritual, religious and transcendent in early time periods? (2) Are changes in spiritual life and religious ritual a necessary prelude to the social and economic changes that lead to ‘civilization’? (3) Do human forms take on a central role in the spirit world in the early Holocene, and does this centrality lead to new conceptions of human agency that themselves provide the possibility for the domestication of plants and animals? (4) Do violence and death act as the foci of transcendent religious experience during the transitions of the early Holocene in the Middle East, and are such themes central to the creation of social life in the first large agglomerations of people? 9:40-10:00am Why should ethnographic analogies help? Çatalhöyük and house based societies Maurice Bloch (London School of Economics) 9:20-9:40am The symbolism of Çatalhöyük in its regional context Lynn Meskell & Ian Hodder (Stanford University) The aim of this chapter is to situate the symbolism and ritual at Çatalhöyük into the wider context of the Neolithic of eastern Turkey and the Middle East. Four general themes seem to recur and to underpin the symbolic repertoire at Çatalhöyük and sites such as Göbekli in southeast Turkey. The first theme is surprising in that it has long been assumed that early agricultural societies in the Middle East were associated with the image of the nurturing female or mother. In fact there is much quantitative evidence for a phallocentrism at many sites, especially in Turkey. A second, but closely related, general focus is on dangerous wild things. Many symbolic representations and practices focus on wild animals, but especially on the hard, dangerous, pointed parts of wild animals. This symbolism seems partly related to the memorialization of animal kills and feasts, but it also has dimensions that focus on the piercing of flesh. Body manipulation and the piercing and remaking of the flesh constitute a third general theme. The practice of severing, circulating and passing down heads at Çatalhöyük is an important part of the construction of history houses and the long-term temporalities they embody, and related practices may occur elsewhere. The final general theme concerns the focus on symbolic elaboration on the house. Throughout the Middle East the house established continuities and histories as subsistence economies increasingly involved delayed returns for labor. But the placing of wild animal imagery inside houses may have had another dimension linked to changing conceptions The paper will consider the use of ethnographic analogies by archaeologists trying to interpret the distant past. It will concentrate on how far and how little social and cultural anthropologist's concept of "house based societies" can illuminate the Catalhuyuk remains. Under what conditions can analogy be causal? Is it because contemporary people living in certain "house based societies" regularly consider the world in similar ways that it is reasonable to suggest that the Neolithic people of Catalhuyuk shared these ideas? Particular attention will be paid to the way houses create continuities in time. How they are more stable and longer lasting than the lives of the people who live in them. How houses therefore become "transcendental". What does this mean for our understanding of "religion"? Finally, I shall examine the possible significance of the use of wild animals in house decoration in terms of a wider theory of the "transcendental". 10:00-10:20am Modes of religiosity at Çatalhöyük Harvey Whitehouse (University of Oxford) This paper seeks to reconstruct certain features of ritual and social organization at Çatalhöyük by combining a general theory of ritual transmission with interpretations that we and others have made of the archaeological evidence. Our theory relates aspects of ritual performance (especially emotionality, frequency, and exegetical thinking) to social morphology (especially the scale, structure, and cohesiveness of cults at the settlement). We argue that from comparatively fragmentary information concerning the nature of prehistoric rituals at Çatalhöyük we can infer a surprisingly rich picture of how religious knowledge was constituted, transmitted and transformed over the lifetime of the settlement and how ritually based coalitions formed, interacted, and changed. 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am The materiality of ‘religion’ at Çatalhöyük Webb Keane (University of Michigan) 49 How should we identify religion as something distinct from the more general category of culture? If we accept that some speculation, or what Peirce called “abduction,” can help open up the evidence, we must still be wary of the tendency in religious speculation to project the author’s particular preoccupations onto prehistory, prematurely eliminating what Hodder has called its “strangeness and ‘otherness,’” and indulging in teleological thinking. And yet science should include the abduction of likelihoods, if it is not to be mired in narrow empiricism. In my discussion of the evidence at Çatalhöyük, I will propose elements of a polythetic definition of religion that respond to these two demands. I sketch out some general consequences of attending to the materiality of religion as we know it in the ethnographic record. A discussion of the evidence from Çatalhöyük will focus on the marking of some domains of experience for special attention, and the play of absence and presence. When is magic? That is, when does an act or thing become magical if it does so at all? Leaving the difficult discussion of what constitutes the religious or spiritual at Çatalhöyük to the other participants in this session, I will instead focus on what might constitute the magical domain at Çatalhöyük. These two themes are no doubt related. Indeed, before one can ‘look’ for magic in a Neolithic context, one must have a somewhat clear idea of the material forms and practices that religion encompasses first. After briefly discussing the archaeology of the religious domain, I will then discuss a few possible magical valences at Çatalhöyük, focusing on certain materials and their qualities, mixed deposits, and their specific locations and temporalities. 11:20-11:40am The Neolithic cosmos of Çatalhöyük Paul Wason (The John Templeton Foundation) This paper argues that archaeological evidence can provide longer-term perspectives on how religiosity develops in relation to economy and society, and that interpretation needs to be sensitive to the specificity of material contexts. Van Huyssteen accepts that the hiding and revealing that took place in the Çatalhöyük houses had a religious dimension. Looking back in time, the Palaeolithic cave paintings in Europe indicate an embodied symbolic process in which the non-visible could be codified - thus providing the basis for the earliest forms of religiosity. He uses work based in neuroscience to argue that altered states of consciousness played a role, in contextually specific ways, in the production of the symbolism in the houses at Çatalhöyük, and links are drawn to imagistic modes of religiosity. In thinking about religion or spirituality in the Neolithic we should not expect to discover some clearly demarcated, separate domain that we could identify as 'religion' as such. A neurological bridge allows us to understand some dimensions of the ways in which religion was embedded in daily life at Çatalhöyük, but for van Huyssteen the more important point is that the neurological capacity for different forms of consciousness is linked to the human ability to remember, imagine, and symbolize. Human spiritual and religious experience can thus be understood as an emergent consequence of the symbolic capacity in humans. Ideas about the basic nature of the universe, what I am calling our cosmology, permeate what we think about everything else and influence how we live. For example, although where we came from does not really determine who we are, where we believe we came from does affect how we imagine our capacities and so what we are willing to become. Scientific discovery has done much to revise and enrich our own cosmology over the past century, but throughout history, and even now, ideas about what and who is out there and about agency and causation -- how it all works and why things happen -- have more often been religious and philosophical ideas. In this paper I attempt a preliminary exploration of what we might learn about the cosmos inhabited by the Neolithic people of Çatalhöyük. This is relevant to the four core questions of this project, because cosmology is related to religion, but allows me to avoid, for the moment, issues of what religion is. Topics covered include understandings of time (time and change in general, the past, and the future), understandings of space (the shape of the cosmos at large, houses and floor plans, and a place to live), and humans and other beings. This is simply an initial study and I will end by mentioning other elements of cosmology which should be considered in future work. 11:40-12:00pm Magical deposits at Çatalhöyük: a matter of time and place? Carolyn Nakamura (Stanford University) 12:00-12:20pm Coding the Non-Visible: Possibilities and Limitations in Understanding Symbolic Behavior at Çatalhöyük Wentzel van Huyssteen (Princeton Theological Seminary) 12:20-12:40pm Temporalities of religion at Çatalhöyük Peter Pels (Leiden University) This essay tries to contribute to the interpretation of religious practices at Çatalhöyük by employing a systematic distinction of time-scales for analysis. Using an empirically 50 grounded conception of the ‘religious’ as that which appears in the archaeological record as specially marked or articulated, the essay outlines the different temporalities that Çatalhöyük people may have been aware of, and uses this analytical scheme to discuss different interpretive possibilities and narratives. In conclusion, it suggests that Çatalhöyük may not have been a particularly ‘religious’ society, and that we may profitably study transcendence in the Neolithic by attending to the points in the evidence where we see that different time-scales overlap or are articulated on each other. 12:40-1:00pm Discussion Archaeologies of the Transient and Intangible: What Gets Valued and Why? Kenneth Aitchison (Institute for Archaeologists), Karina Croucher (University of Manchester), Hilary Soderland (University of California: Berkeley) & George Smith (South East Archaeological Centre) Concepts of value and worth usually underlie many of our activities as archaeologists, whether consciously or otherwise. The ways in which these are manifested in practice can be both obvious and more subtle, and context dependent. Physical monumental remains are open to direct, immediate and apparent (e)valuation, whether social, intellectual or economic, but the transient and intangible past has value too, constructed through the memories and meanings that become attached to locales. In this session we would like to explore how concepts of value are constructed and contested, how they can be applied to intangible pasts, and the methodologies of measuring value, discussing the value of social and shared meaning, memory and identity as applied to concepts such as the cultural value of sites of trauma, the archaeology of commemoration, transient archaeologies of the immediate past, shared senses of place and identity, and the physicality of social memory. 9:00-9:20am Intangible past: transient present. A case study of value and how it is assigned Fay Stevens (University College London & University of Notre Dame) Visiting the site of Stonehenge (Wiltshire, UK) today is an experience many people consider to be intangible and transient. Drawing upon the experiences of international students taking a course in archaeology and ethics at the University of Notre Dame (London Programme), this paper considers how value is defined and assigned by these students in their experience and understanding of the site and its environs. Issues raised include rights of ownership, political and moral viewpoints, multi-vocality, and how these are articulated. This approach positions the students’ understanding through the critical lens of the value of cultural perceptions of sites/landscapes and encourages an awareness of issues of identity, individual and social responsibilities and professional conduct. As such, a consideration of value (in this context) and how it is assigned can be seen to engage students with the very notion of an intangible/transient past/present and the resulting development of intellectual ideas in the discipline. 9:20-9:40am Building a past: the construction of early Neolithic identity and structures Jolene Debert (University of Manchester, UK) The phenomenon of the early Neolithic timber structure has intrigued, divided and sparked much debate as to its role within early Neolithic life in Britain. With a refinement in dating, the transition into the Neolithic is becoming clearer though muddied with countless contradictory theories and interpretations. The intangibility of their function and meaning has stunted work. In an attempt to remove this barrier to understanding their nature, I have looked directly at the material evidence of these large structures, specifically the flints, investigating the construction of memory and its association with a place. These large timber buildings were the first monuments built in the early Neolithic in Britain. It is clear that their meaning was pivotal for the development of the new identity of people invoking these changes to their lifeways. 9:40-10:00am Exposing tangible heritage in correlation with a system of values and concepts within Mexican archaeologies Lilia Lizama Aranda (EMCSA), Julio Hoil (CIESAS), Harlen Tuz (University of Yucatan/EMCSA) and Susana Echeverría Castillo (University of Yucatan) Mexican local concepts as to what gets valued and why are specifically oriented in economics within a global age. This means that cultural heritage moves on a platform on which value is ascribed in terms of economic gains. We will explain cases in which archaeological sites, our first 51 platform, are in themselves categorized within a staircase of economic importance based on their physical features, setting aside intrinsic perspectives of value: political, social, and technological. On the other hand, we have a platform of concepts that consciously surrounds specialists’ activities; concepts that include inhabitants’ desires to help protect and promote a cultural site for their own benefit. This platform should have a balanced set of values and concepts to include binding heritage and the identity of local descendants with that of a site. Finally, we should learn, teach, and communicate diverse heritage to professionals and engage them with the public at large. Measuring value in terms of networking allows us to create a system recognizing efforts achieved in developing countries. not mention Native Americans. The intangible dominant group narratives determine which tangible historic sites are marked as significant aspects of America's heritage. 10:30-11:00am COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:20am Value in prehistory (with reference to the Balkans) Lolita Nikolova (University of Utah) 10:00-10:20am Historic markers: the construction of valuable heritage, tangible and intangible Suzanne Spencer-Wood (Harvard University) My historical archaeology classes conduct a research project analyzing who puts up historic markers in southeast Michigan and why. This project has revealed which kinds of sites have a modern constituency, and which kinds of sites are not marked. It is significant that many historic markers mark buildings that have become intangible in the sense that they have been destroyed. Some markers are also concerned with intangible aspects of heritage at sites, such as marking the home of a woman who dressed as a man and served in the Civil War. Remains of this activity would probably not be excavated at the woman's post Civil-war marital household site that has been marked but has also been destroyed. This case also illustrates the androcentric emphasis in historic markers in the Detroit area. The vast majority of historic markers focus on men's public activities, even when marking a man's house site. House site markers may mention a man's wife and children, but seldom name them. The family is subsumed under the male head of household. Only 12% of historic site markers focus on women's activities. Charitable sites are also rarely marked, a fact that is probably related to the ideology that considered women innately more pious, moral, and suited to charitable activities than men. Most historic markers are concerned with men's capitalist activities, materializing the dominant national narrative of industrialization. In Detroit, most marked sites are white, but the African-American community has marked many churches, underground railroad sites, black schools and households, still predominantly focussing on men's activities. Very few historic markers are concerned with Native American sites, and the narrative usually focuses on white conquest. Many white site markers are concerned with colonization and do 11:20-11:40am Value is one of the essential topics of conceptualization in the recent theoretical prehistoric research on the Balkans (see e.g. Bailey 1998, 2005; Souvatzi 2008; Nikolova et al. 2009 with refs.). Our research attempts to explore how the concept of value evolved, materialized and developed during the Neolithic, Copper and earlier Bronze Ages between the Carpathians and the Aegean. We have a twofold goal: to test the modern understanding of value against the archaeological data and to observe whether the empirical data from Balkan Prehistory will bring theoretical conclusions that may contradict some of the general understanding of value in Prehistory. In the context of Balkan prehistoric data (e.g. Nikolova 1999, 2000, 2003; Nikolova et al. 2009; Bailey 1998, 2000, 2005; Todorova 2002; Souvatzi 2008), it looks that prehistoric value is a concept that had developed gradually, including new and different material and non-material expressions and dependant on innovations, complexity, multi-scale cultural networks and many other factors. Specific problems are how the concepts of value and wealth interacted in Balkan Prehistory, as well as how innovative materials (e.g. spondylus, copper, gold, silver, etc.) created new values. We will also outline the differences between the settlement and burial data for analyses of value in Prehistory and the sharp ambiguity of some archaeological records by constructing anthropological models. The archaeological framework includes the following cultural horizons: Early Neolithic (Koprivets I – Karanovo I-II – Starčevo) (later 7th – mid 6th millennium cal BCE); Late Neolithic and Early Copper Age (Karanovo III – IV – V – Vinča – Boian – Hamangia – early Cucuteni) (later 6th – mid 5th millennium cal BCE), Late and Final Copper Ages (Sălcuţa / Kodzhadermen / Bubanj – Gumelniţa / Karanovo VI / Varna – Sălcuţa IV / Telish IV – Cernavoda I – later Cucuteni) (later 5th – earlier 4th millennium cal BCE), and Early Bronze Age (Cernavoda III / Boleraz – Yunatsite – Ezero – Coţofeni – Kostolac – Vučedol – Pit Grave Culture, etc.) (later 4th – 3rd millennium cal BCE). 52 Fly me to the moon: protecting the immediate past at the Apollo 11 Tranquility Base Site Beth Laura O'Leary (New Mexico State University) Many of the "Space Age" artifacts and sites lie at the boundary between heritage objects and space junk. It is a large complex technological assemblage which is transient in several respects: it is thought to represent outmoded and obsolete ideas, is no longer working and is perceived as standing in the way of more advanced technologies. The preservation issues are huge in terms both of volume and of how to protect objects in space or on other celestial bodies like the Moon. The challenges faced by the Lunar Legacy necessity of valuing the significance of the Apollo 11 landing site on the Moon are explored as well as how to find ways of dealing with heritage in off-earth environments. 11:40-12:00pm The contesting of value at Prestongrange? Phil Richardson (Newcastle University) It recently has been suggested that in the fields of archaeological heritage and public archaeology, archaeologists have to confront the central issues of what archaeology does, what archaeology makes, and what archaeology is for. In this regard Value would appear of central importance. The issue of what is valued, why and by whom surfaced recently at The Prestongrange Community Archaeological Project (a heritage project developed by East Lothian Council Archaeological Service) near Edinburgh, Scotland. The standing remains of the 19th century colliery predominate the site but also visually disguise the fact that the site has had a lengthy and highly significant social and economic past. The excavations and documentary work were conducted by volunteers from the local community, many of whom had relatives, some not so distant, that had worked in the on-site industries. Oral history, provided by surviving former workers and local residents, was also recorded by many of the volunteers. However, it was the volunteers’ enthusiasm to use and discuss the archaeological deposits they were excavating as a means to explain the more recent past, often understood through the oral history they themselves had recorded, that undercut the standard concept of ‘value’ in archaeology. The discovery of a 17th century glass-flue, as expected, was particularly ‘valued’ both by the archaeologists and the volunteers who took a great deal of pride in the discovery. Yet, it was the chance for the volunteers to come together, in a place where a shared sense of identity and awareness of the immediate past was associated with local social memory, that was of more ‘value’ to this project. This paper will explore these conflicting senses of ‘value’ and explore how the understanding of the archaeological layers and deposits became a contest between excavation methodologies and the replaying of memories and meanings associated with the histories of more recent relatives. Thus, the paper demonstrates how, in this instance, it was the transient nature of the excavation process itself, and not just the results of excavation, that was of real ‘value’; it created a rich working environment and added considerably to the quality and importance of the project as a whole. 12:00-12:20pm Displaying prejudice and subjectivity: archaeologists’ treatment of Mesoamerica versus their lack of interest on Aridamerica (hunter-gatherer) archaeology in Mexico Leticia González Arratia (Museo Regional de La Laguna, Torreón, Coah., México) History of Mexican archaeology reveals a great interest in studying sites and monumental sculpture since the second part of the XVIIIth century. Since that time, both nationals and foreigners have focused their attention on large prehispanic cities, mainly those showing impressive architecture, decorated ceramics, stone steles, etc. These types of remains are found mostly in Central and Southeast Mexico in the cultural area known as Mesoamerica. Other types of archaeological remains, such as those left by hunter-gatherer societies or small agricultural villages in the desert of Northern Mexico in the cultural area known as Aridamerica, were only acknowledged seriously as part of the study of archaeology after the second part of the XXth century. This has to do with the history of the country as well as with politics and the need to reinforce Mexican identity. It is also related to a prejudiced attitude on the part of archaeologists towards societies lacking architectural remains, stone sculpture and decorated ceramics, considered as unworthy of being studied and denying them even the possibility that they had built their own and characteristic civilization different from Mesoamerican societies. The aim of this paper is to provide an account of this fact and propose that the archaeology of hunter-gatherer societies of the desert in Mexico have been the target of subjective and biased treatment on the part of archaeologists. The result has been an absolute silence about the importance of their technological improvements, economic, social and political strategies, as well as their ritual life, and even to ignore the monumentality of some archaeological remains such as pictographs, petroglyphs and burial places. 53 12:20-12:40pm Heritage values in contemporary society George Smith (Southeast Archeological Center) Discussion of heritage in the twenty-first century must include the many voices representing the heritage sector and stakeholders, including but not limited to those in archaeology (university professors as well as governmental, private sector, and public archaeologists), law, economics, Sunday 3rd May historic preservation, education, tourism, and indigenous populations. Discussions should address how the past is valued and how such values can be defined and applied to public policy, spending, management, education (at all levels), education and training of heritage sector professionals, economic and sustainable development, and delivered services relating to a collective heritage in a manner that is accountable and includes public involvement. Afternoon sessions CHAT @ TAG: Symmetry and Diversity in Archaeologies of the Recent Past (cont) B. R. Fortenberry (Boston University) & Adrian T. Myers (Stanford University) 2:00-2:20pm Aboriginal Fishing Practices in Past and Present: An Archaeological Approach to the Study of ColonialInfluenced Changes in Stó:lō (Coast Salish) Household Organization Catherine Bailey (University of California, Los Angeles), Anthony P Graesch (University of California, Los Angeles) & David M. Schaepe (Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre, British Columbia, Canada) This paper discusses an archaeological approach to studying Stó:lō (Coast Salish) lifeways through 200 years of colonial influence in the upper Fraser Valley of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Examining the cultural practices of contemporary Stó:lō communities provides a framework for examining how Aboriginal lifeways were impacted by shifting spheres of interaction with non-Aboriginal settlers. We argue that a valuable epistemological approach emerges from the simultaneous investigation of contemporary Stó:lō fishing camps (where we attempt to translate Stó:lō perceptual language into an anthropological one) and household-level artifact assemblages (which provide insight into the production of fish butchery tools). As a theoretical basis for modeling the latter, we consider the role of contemporary fishing camp assemblages in the organization of cooperative activity and the development of organizational relations that cross multiple planes of interaction and involve multiple actors. (2pm - 6pm) 2:20-2:40pm Material Landscapes and the interstices of Ethnicity: PostContact indigenous interiors of South-Central California David Robinson (University of Central Lancashire, UK) Theoretical approaches to ethnicity have proven to be sophisticated and flexible in interpreting the rapidly changing post-contact archaeological record of California. However, is ethnicity always a satisfactory way to understand changes enacted within indigenous communities? New research into interior South-Central California has identified indigenous historical occupation of sites in specific ‘backcountry’ contexts. In this paper I wish to consider if the material evidence found at these sites may fall between the crevices found in our theories of ethnicity by working through material culture in its social and physical landscape context. 2:40-3:00pm Fire and Ruination: The Potentially Liberating Force of Near-Total Destruction in Expanding Interpretation at the Kate Chopin House/Bayou Folk Museum (Cloutierville, LA) Julie H. Ernstein (Northwestern State University) This presentation considers the archaeology of recent events—specifically the loss of a National Historic Landmark property to a fire last October—as an opportunity to revisit the creation of meaning(s) and, consequently, revise and expand heritage interpretation at this site. Students, faculty and an alumnus from the author’s university engaged in salvage operations at the site and were joined by neighbors, community members, and the property owners (a local historic preservation group) in mourning the loss of this nationally significant resource which—among other things—had been home to turn-of-the20th-century feminist writer Kate Chopin (1850-1904). 54 However, it was the subsequent prospect of dedesignation as a NHL, the potentially devastating impact of this loss to local heritage tourism efforts, and trying to assist the property owners in determining where they might go from here, that has proven a somewhat revelatory experience. Specifically, contemporary archaeology—as the archaeology of recent events and their direct relevance for our increased appreciation of the evolving nature of meaning, collective memory, and understanding the past—functions as a means for turning this terrible loss into a gain in the form of expanding both formal and informal interpretive opportunities at the site. 3:00-3:20pm Pipes, Pots, Palisades and People: Atlantic Connections at the Nansemond Fort, Virginia Luke J. Pecoraro (Boston University) English colonization of Virginia has been characterized as boldly intrusive, spreading out quickly from the first toehold at Jamestown into the hinterlands and leading to open hostility with native peoples almost from the start. The tactics used and methods employed in colonizing Virginia were not new; many of the Jamestown venturers were themselves involved in plantation efforts in the late 16th/early 17th centuries in Ireland. While it has long been known that there are direct historical links among individuals at Jamestown and other Virginia Company Period (1607 – 1624) sites to Irish plantations, historical archaeology in Ireland and elsewhere in southeastern Virginia is producing evidence that there are more Irish influences on the 17th -century colonial project than previously thought. Archaeological evidence is the best point of departure for understanding southeastern Virginia’s 17th century settlements because of the destruction of most colonial records. Using archaeological evidence from the Nansemond Fort (44SK192), a c.1635 - 1680 inland fortified bawn in Suffolk, Virginia, I posit that architectural evidence indicates a fort plan similar to forts from the same period in Ireland. Artifacts recovered during excavation at Nansemond point to three distinct occupation phases, producing a chronology that allows individuals to be associated with the property. The material remains also speak to a shift in economic and trading patterns, and an increased reliance on locally produced items. By contextualizing the Nansemond Fort in a comparative framework with English plantation sites in Ireland, a clearer picture of the influence and adaptations that these earlier colonial ventures had on the development of Virginia emerges and permits the consideration of the agency of individuals to shape the Virginia landscape based on their previous colonial experiences. 3:20-3:40pm Ancient Egypt and Brazil: A Theoretical Approach to the Uses of the Past Pedro Paulo A. Funari & Raquel dos Santos Funari (Unicamp, Sao Paolo, Brazil) Archaeological theory has been paying attention to the uses of the past in different contexts. This paper deals with the way ancient Egypt has been used to forge Brazilian identities in the last two hundred years or so. 3:40-4:00pm Snapshots of History and the Nature of the Archaeological Image Travis Parno (Boston University) Archaeology, as it is experienced by tenured professors and young field school students alike, occupies a unique position at the intersection of materiality and temporality. By its very definition, the discipline, which is of course a modern construction, handles the remains of past societies. This multifaceted relationship informs every archaeological action we undertake, from field work to publication. Photography is also imbricated in this nexus of the material and the temporal. Every photograph captures an instant in time, a frozen representation of a context’s materiality. This is both a constraining and emancipating quality. It prevents the photographer from illustrating the true depth of any setting’s materiality, but allows him to construct the context according to his own agenda. In this way, photography, with its limitations and abilities, plays an important role in how archaeology is depicted in both the public and academic spheres. To illustrate just how photography is able to manipulate both materiality and temporality, I will first explore how we understand each of these characteristics and how they relate to the power of the image. The history of photographic technology provides a clear example of how materiality and temporality are truly entangled. I will then discuss the phenomenon of Japanese tourist photography in the late 19th-century to show the scale at which a simple set of photographs can define a culture. Lastly, I will offer some thoughts regarding the ways in which we construct archaeological photographs. It may be time to rethink the manner in which we employ photography to represent the complex practice of archaeology. 4:00-4:20pm Toward a Historical Archaeo-Geography of the Rise of the American Welfare State: Spatial Re-Scaling and the Materiality of the New Deal Anne E. Mosher (Syracuse University) & Laurie Wilkie (University of California: Berkeley) 55 While there has been a rich exchange and collaboration between the disciplines of archaeology and geography in the UK—particularly in the realm of landscape archaeologies—less intellectual cross-pollination has occurred in the US. In this paper, we offer possible explanations for why this was the case. We also envision the possibilities for ‘historical archaeo-geography,’ a collaboration that draws upon both the complementary and unique practices of the two disciplines of historical archaeology and historical geography. Together, we share concern for space and place in time (synchronicity) and over time (diachronicity). What historical archaeology brings to the table is a fine-grained consideration of household lives and practices. This meshes with historical geography’s sensibilities regarding the complex interplay and connections between multiple scales— linking the body, family, and household to the neighborhood, community, state, region, nation, and the global. We explicitly discuss a collaborative project that will investigate the geopolitical and material dimensions of ‘state re-scaling.’ Building upon the work of Theda Skocpol (1992), political scientist Suzanne Mettler (1998) notes that prior to the New Deal, state responsibility for women, children, the unemployed, poor and elderly resided at the local scale/level (a feminized domestic realm) whereas the national scale/level (the realm of federal social policy) was directed more at masculine worlds of trade and commerce and international relations (national defense). The crisis of the Great Depression, however, far exceeded the abilities of local charities and the local state to handle its responsibility and a ‘scaling up’ occurred in which the national state stepped in to avert a continental social crisis. This was, however, a re-scaling that at first privileged structurally unemployed white men with federal programs for the ‘worthy poor’ coming later. Through a collaborative historical archaeo-geographic study, we raise the question: how did individuals, families, non-state institutions such as charities as well as the local state learn to exist within this re-scaled world of federally funded welfare? Or, to put it another way: where and how did the subject learn the performance of national/federal citizenship? How might this performance have been reflected in everyday spatial and material practice? We suggest that collaboration between archaeology and geography allows us to construct something not really attempted on a synthetic level for the recent past—a historical archaeology and a historical geography of the state as viewed and lived from the bottom up. 4:20-5:00pm Discussion Discussant: Michael Wilcox (Stanford University) Histories, Identities, Theories (cont) Laurie Wilkie & Rosemary Joyce (University of California: Berkeley) 2:00-2:20pm Brothertown commemoration practices and the materiality of mass consumption Craig N. Cipolla (University of Pennsylvania) Mass consumed items are indeed the bread and butter of historical archaeology. This paper investigates the materiality of such items. More specifically, it explores the social affects of replacing the “homemade” with the “store bought”. I examine shifts in commemoration practices of the Brothertown Indians, a multi-tribal community of Christian Native Americans that moved west together starting in the late 18th century. Early on, the Brothertown commemorated their dead with locally produced limestone markers bearing no inscriptions. In the early 19th century, members began consuming professionally made marble headstones. These stones nearly replaced “homemade” stones by the mid-19th century. How were identities represented with blank “mute” stones as compared to mass-consumed stones bearing inscriptions? Did this transition play a role in fostering new social distinctions within the community? How do these patterns compare with shifting social relations between the Brothertown Indians and other contemporaneous Native and Euroamerican communities? I pursue these questions by drawing upon theories of practice and semiotics. The answers to these questions are not only important for historical archaeologists but also have implications for broad theories of materiality, ethnogenesis and mass consumption. 2:20-2:40pm Understanding subjective experiences of the material world: A phenomonological approach the archaeological record Kira Blaisdell-Sloan (University of California: Berkeley) While phenomenological approaches to the archaeological record have varied, one of the greatest potentials of these approaches lies in their emphasis on the subjective experience of the material world. In this paper I review the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of this variety of phenomenological approach to the archaeological record. Based on a review of this literature and a case study from Colonial Honduras, I argue that archaeological data in general, and historical archaeological data in particular, are well suited to phenomenological analysis. Critical to the success of such an approach is a move towards the incorporation of multi-sited, reflexive analysis. 56 2:40-3:00pm Twisted lives: the mergence between the material past and the historical present Kristján Mímisson (Univeristy of Iceland) People’s biographies are dominated by a multitude of factors. In recent years it has come to a general understanding that people’s lives are embedded in things just as things are premising the biographies of people. This notion has infiltrated both anthropology and archaeology in various approaches to the cultural biographies of things, the life courses of objects and the inseparable interrelation between materialities and the person, unfolding a variety of lived experiences in the past and the present. In this paper I will explore how the category of biography transcends the barriers of time. It is a discussion about how the material past, i.e. the tangible traces of times long gone, intermingles with the historical present, the context of history that is presently and continuously being constructed and negotiated, and how the materiality of biographies is a blending of the two. The argumentation rests upon my own involvement with the biography of a 17th century peasant from the site of Búðarárbakki at the borders of the southern highlands of Iceland. The site and its materiality have become both the cause and consequence of our shared and twisted lives, thus, dispensing time and creating an immediacy between two worlds; the material past and the historical present. 3:00-3:30 Discussant: Kent Lightfoot (University of California: Berkeley) The Color of Things: Debating the Role and Future of Color in Archaeology (cont) Alexander Nagel (University of Michigan) 2:00-2:20pm Color Power: Exploring Color and Status in Early Chorasmian Elite Mural Art Fiona Kidd (Department of Archaeology, University of Sydney) The monumental building complex at Kazakly-yatkan in ancient Chorasmia, modern Uzbekistan, provides a unique opportunity for the contextualized study of color in elite ritual contexts in 1st century BCE Central Asia. Color at Kazakly-yatkan was produced using various media and techniques. Polychrome mural art and relief sculptures, gold leaf, moulded copper alloy, painted columns and stone column bases suggest that a planned program of visual art decorated the complex. A ‘portrait’ gallery comprising at least 27 bust portraits painted on the eastern façade of a corridor surrounding the central building of the complex raises several critical issues in scholarly approaches to color. Torques depicted on the personages indicates that members of the elite were shown. However, diversity in headdress type, costume color and ornamentation style suggests that the individuals were differentially ranked. Other significant characteristics in the use of color associated with the portraits such as the ubiquitous red ears, and the distinguished use of yellow suggest that color, rather than being a question of personal choice or taste, represents a significant category of enquiry in the pre-Islamic Iranian world. To what extent is it possible to define the role of specific colors in elite ritual contexts? How can personal choice and taste account for the use of color in such contexts? Through a contextualized study of the portraits and their associated color traits, this paper will explore how color can materialize voices in elite contexts in the preIslamic Iranian world. 2:20-2:40pm The Colors of the Sasanian Empire: Color and Sasanian Seals Judith A. Lerner (Independent Scholar, New York) By the end of the reign of Shapur I, the Sasanian Empire (224-663 AD) stretched from the River Euphrates to the River Indus and included modern-day Armenia and Georgia. This paper will focus on Sasanian seals and color. Sasanian seals are made from a variety of stones and hence are of different colors. In addition to their utilitarian function, seals were carved from stones that had aesthetic appeal; further, many—if not most—seals had for their owners amuletic value. This value came not only from the image carved on the seal, but also seems to have derived from the type, and thus color, of stone on which the image was carved. Indeed, there seems to be a connection between the choice of subject for a seal and the kind or color of stone on which it is carved. This paper will explore such connections, drawing upon Iranian and Zoroastrian beliefs about color that may have influenced Sasanian seal-carvers and their patrons, as well as on Ancient Near Eastern and Classical traditions. 2:40-3:00pm Colored History: The European Polychromy Debate of the 19th Century and the Contribution of Spain María Ocón Fernández (Freie Universität, Berlin) Color constitutes an important reference point of the past and the present. At the same time, polychromy belongs amongst the phenomena of multiplicity, pluralism, and mass culture that have become integral parts of our material 57 culture and current world views. For nineteenth century architects, the reference to the colorful image of antiquity was a general premise for their theoretical understanding and their own practise. With the emerging European polychromy debate, color mutated from an "uncertain grandeur" (A. Prater) to the intrinsic key. Not only a bastion of European culture, but the traditionally accepted "white Classicism" (Winckelmann) associated with the images of Europe and its antiquity would be completely revised. On the basis of the European polychromy debate of the nineteenth century, this paper will address the following questions: Could the question about the phenomenon of 'European Identity' be answered by examining the inception of polychromy in European architectural history? How does the interpretation of multicolors as a 'conjugative element' stand within the nineteenth century polychromy debate on a European level? How would the contribution of Spain, with the background of its specific historical experience and in the face of the current conflict between Western culture and Islam, be viewed? The role of Archaeology, which was just being established as a discipline at the time, will be given special consideration in this context of interdisciplinary discourse. 3:00-4:00pm Response and Discussion Discussant: David Batchelor Bridging Subjects and Objects in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean World (cont) Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper & Benjamin Porter (University of California: Berkeley) 2:00-2:20pm Objectified Bodies: Reconstructing a “Foundation Burial” from Late Bronze Age Alalakh (Ancient Syria) Alexis Boutin (Sonoma State University) An unusual burial of a child was excavated recently at Alalakh (Tell Atchana), a regional capital of ancient Syria. Dating to the mid-second millennium BCE, this burial is unique at the site insofar as it is the only one incorporated directly into wall foundations. As such, it apparently represents a “foundation burial.” In the first part of this paper, I discuss how such burials have traditionally been interpreted as a type of foundation deposit: objects buried in a building’s foundations as an act of sanctification or commemoration. If the traditional interpretation of foundation burials is accurate, then an explicit or implicit process of objectifying the decedent’s earthly remains presumably was involved. I then describe how this process of objectifying bodies in ancient cultures is replicated by contemporary osteological analyses. Recent discourse in bioarchaeology has focused on how standardized methods of analyzing skeletons (e.g., numbering rather than naming) and interpreting skeletal data (e.g., writing conventions that are dominated by the passive voice) can de-humanize the very people whose remains they purport to explain. In the last part of the paper, I propose that narrative modes of interpretation, which interweave skeletal and archaeological data to create fictive osteobiographies, are one way to re-subjectify human skeletons. Rather than employing reified axes of identity to reconstruct an essential skeletal subject (cf. Smith 2004), however, these narratives draw on the materiality of human skeletal remains to reconstruct the embodied experiences of past individuals within specific socio-historic contexts. 2:25-2:45pm People of Kemosh?: Investigating a Cultic Context from Iron Age Jordan Annlee Dolan (San Joaquin Delta College) Wadi ath-Thamad Site #13 (WT-13) offers a unique opportunity to explore the relationship between object and subject in a solely religious context. This extra-mural shrine is situated upon an ancient trade route in Moab, central Jordan, with artifacts having a wide-ranging provenience. Neutron activation analysis has shown that there are artifacts of a local and foreign origin, suggesting that both neighboring nomadic peoples and passerby’s worshipped at this site. Thus the subject-object relationship can be examined in light of how the shape or form of the object affects the function and meaning. It appears that at WT-13, local inhabitants viewed the possible foreign travelers and their cultic paraphernalia in a positive light. That is, foreigners were likely accepted into the region and the cult place at WT-13. Moreover, foreign sacred objects were not considered disrespectful or profane, and instead likely influenced and shaped the local style. Gosden (2005) notes that in order for an object to be impactful emotionally, there are certain rules to which the form of the object must conform. This concept is of the utmost importance when examining a collection of artifacts that are cultic in nature. These objects form a distinct group whose function and meaning go beyond everyday utilitarian items. Not only do they carry powerful connotations, but these sacred objects take on an importance that is outside of themselves and their intrinsic value. As a result, the exceptional group of artifacts from WT-13 provides the perfect opportunity to look at the subject-object relationship. 58 2:50-3:10pm The Agency of Landscapes: Object-shaped Identities in Elite Female Burial Practices of First Millennium Egypt. Jean Li (University of California: Berkeley) theory, artificial intelligence, posthumanism, cognitive science, environmentalism, phenomenology, science and technology studies) and archaeologists are recognizing these profound transformations. However, instead of reassessing the unique potential of their own disciplinary practice and, in turn, contributing to and advancing these debates, practitioners have largely reconfirmed an old and deeply rooted inferiority complex of being a second string social science by adding the products of forerunner disciplines and sciences to their accounts of the past (an attitude which is in fact a product of the very rifted regime that these new discourses want to do away with). In his discussion of subject agency, Gosden (2005), following Clark and Gell, writes, “…objects set up universes of their own into which people need to fit…things behave in ways which do not derive simply from human intentions and in fact channel those intentions.” This paper uses the site of Medinet Habu in southern Egypt to examine the ways meaningful interactions of subjects and objects result in object agents shaping the identities of people. The site of Medinet Habu is an especially fitting context in which to examine these entanglements of objects and subjects. Originally housing the older state and funerary temples of the New Kingdom (ca. 1550-1069 BCE) the landscape of Medinet Habu was gradually transformed in the Late Period (ca. 747-525 BCE). At this time it was used as a necropolis for a group of priestesses, the Singers in the Residence of the Temple of Amen, whose functions included the stimulation of sexual energies of the creator god. Engaging with Gosden’s key issues of form and genealogy, the paper examines how the object landscape of the past as materialized in the New Kingdom temples acquired subject-ness in the Late Period. The tombs situated around and within the older temples indicate that aspects of the landscape conditioned and constrained the burial practices of these singers. Conversely, these priestesses reused and re-inscribed the landscape of Medinet Habu to define their group and individual identities, demonstrating the dialectical complexities between subjects and objects. 3:15-4:00pm Discussion: Reflections on the subject/object divide Marian Feldman (University of California: Berkeley) Archaeology: The Discipline of Things Michael Shanks (Stanford University), Timothy Webmoor (University of Oxford) & Christopher Witmore (Brown University) This session takes leave of such a parasitical attitude (an attitude which insults archaeology) and revisits core aspects of the archaeological. Drawing together a diverse group of archaeologists, it offers a bold picture of what it is archaeologists do. It builds a case that at the heart of archaeology is a trans-disciplinary set of practices and understandings that address the very nature of what it is to be human and how in turn humans relate to things and companion animals. It speaks to our unique and long-term perspective on human relations with material goods, the design of things, and the nature of the past. Placing to one side the narrow foci of human intentionality, essentialist notions of property and meaning, this session offers far more interesting and refreshing accounts of our shared/mingled material world and the importance of the past. Indeed, the radical ethical implication of a symmetrical approach is to redeploy humanism’s care for people to encompass a collective of humans, things and non-humans (including our fellow creatures). ‘Ta archaia’, quite literally ‘old things’ are at the etymological root of archaeology. So a concern with things, an obligation to 'materiality', a commitment to landscape runs to the heart of the profession. The weather patterns across the social and natural sciences are shifting; and many of these shifts are centered upon a (re)turn to things. Under the banner of things, the traditional social-natural science divide (and its ontological grounding) is being challenged from different positions (actor-network- In the course of detailing a more democratic ontology this session will address a number of questions: How does a symmetrical understanding of people, things and animal relations over the long term offer alternative accounts of human history? In what ways do things and our fellow creatures come together with humans to co-produce society and shape history? How does a symmetrical archaeology reveal the extent to which thing are caught up in innovation and tradition? How do our accounts of the past change by understanding any period, epoch or era in terms of time percolation? In what ways do things impact sensation and cognition? Why have things, instruments and media been ignored in histories of archaeology and theories of ‘representation’? Why have considerations of ‘heritage’ become lodged with the non-material and how does care for people and things urge a reconfiguration of heritage? How will a ‘politics of things’ transform archaeology? 59 2:00-2:20pm From pragmatology to archaeology, with the aid of a few vignettes from Greece Christopher Witmore (Brown University) Archaeology’s original obligation has been to ‘ta archaia’, literally ‘old things’. There is nothing wrong with this commitment so long as archaeology holds fast to the cares specified by its etymology—a duty to stuff out-of-date; a concern for those forgotten associations covered by ‘ta archaia’. Difficulties ensue, however, when, in spite of its etymological roots, ‘archaeologists’ expand their remit to encompass all things implicated within other webs of concurrent relations. Though ‘ta archaia’ things may be, they are also a lot of other things in addition. Things, we might say, are simultaneously gatherings, matters of concern, objects and archives. As ‘gatherings’ they connect achievements seemingly distant in time and space. As ‘matters of concern’ they draw in various groups supposedly scattered in space and time. As ‘objects’ (a term that we neither deploy in opposition to, nor as detached from, that which is commonly taken to be encompassed by the traditional notion of ‘subject’) things continue to do as they have always done—fulfill roles and swap properties with humans and nonhumans. As ‘archives’ they bear traces of their many transactions/exchanges. Just as it would be a disservice to things by emphasizing any one role over the others, it would be an injustice for archaeology to carve out a partial share in things as ‘ta archaia’. My purpose in this paper is show how in order to be faithful to the bewildering diversity of things, archaeology cannot be construed as holding to domain of ‘ta archaia’ exclusively. In order to be symmetrical, archaeology must come to recognize how it begins as ‘pragmatology’. Much like things, ‘pragmata’ fulfill many more roles than what is covered by the ‘material past’. To this end, I offer several vignettes from Greece. 2:20-2:40pm ‘Going along, remembering the way'. An archaeology of movement in Iceland Oscar Aldred (University of Iceland) In this paper I will explore the types of relations that exist in the practices of transhumance and pastoralism to and from the highland pastures in Iceland. I will assess what this tells us about the archaeologies of movement that are materialised and embodied in the bonds that are forged between animals – environments - humans. Although these movements are based on the repetitive seasonal practices that are 'traditional', this tradition is reinforced both by its innovations (a retrogressive placement of historical change that shrinks) and its improvisations (as a forward looking practice that is rhizomic and grows). In view of these perspectives, I will offer a different type of temporality, one that is flattened which neither privileges a backward or forward looking temporality, but rather views repetitions which relies precisely on the inconsistencies that are conducted in a given contemporary situation. This entails a complex and ongoing alignment of observation with an active world, one in which movement which is generative, relational, temporal and the way things are done. Movement then in this sense is both an amplification and reduction, but also aleatory through the paths that collectivities work with and against the perceived hegemonic and subjugated relations of humans - animals seasonal cycles of environmental change. 2:40-3:00pm Making quarries move: the case of Fasillar Bradley Sekedat (Brown University) Far from resourceful places in a landscape, quarries are involved in intimate forms of interaction between people, technologies, materials and the environment. At quarries, these things come together in a way that continuously alters the terrain, thereby altering that which forms an integral part of relationships that occur at the those places. Implicated in this as well is the constant movement of material to and from quarries: tools, people, water, animals and so forth all come in, while blocks, partially finished sarcophagi, and decorated surfaces move out. From this perspective, quarries must be looked at in terms of the movements they entail, which also necessitates a shift away from strict definitions of quarries, both conceptually and geographically. This paper will look at quarries and quarried stone from a perspective that emphasizes movement and material. The blocks of stone sent from the quarry implicate different places with that quarry from a material perspective, just as the incorporation of different materials at quarries brings together an integrated notion of quarries as places or landscapes: they cohere as something complicated, the actions of various times forming the terrain, and the interactions of various materials literally distributing a quarry beyond its immediate environment. Using the site of Fasıllar, Turkey as an example, this paper will develop a picture of a specific, long-term use quarry as something moving, diverse, and integrative. 3:00-3:20pm Where is the Colosseum?: following the image/paper trails of an 'emblem' of Imperial Rome Cecelia Weiss (Brown University) Where is the Colosseum? The answer to this question seems obvious: it is a structure that stands prominently in Rome, 60 in the valley between the Palatine and Esqueline Hills, and here it has stood for nearly two thousand years. A veritable icon for the "Roman past-as-glorious," for "Roman presentas-tourist destination," the Colosseum is a prominent feature both on the Roman cityscape and in the contemporary collective imagination. However, since its construction, the Colosseum has been translated in to numerous media (coins, maps, books, photographs, video games, the internet, film and television, etc.). Past treatments have dealt with these media as epiphenomena, as mere representations of an "original." If, however, we consider media as modes which translate something of the material world, they are thereby able to circulate the world at a distance. If we understand the Colosseum to be distributed through media then the prospect of identifying any one place that it occupies suddenly becomes much more complicated. human-material visibilities that we seek. While this experiment opens the black box of technology using transdisciplinary tools, it remains possible to produce visibilities that are anchored in archaeology and contribute to nuanced archaeological understandings. 3:40-4:00pm Discussion 4:00-4:20pm Dingpolitik and beyond: archaeology, symmetry, politics Alfredo Gonzales-Ruíbal (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) Moreover, the nature of the thing itself needs to be called into question. Even though as a building-in-itself we seem to be dealing with a singular entity, a bounded object, the Colosseum is also a heterogeneous ensemble. It is implicated in a complex network of materials, interactions, actions, pasts, and presents. Not only is the building a multiplicity, but through its translation in various media, the possible modes of accessing and engaging with it become exponential in scope. Therefore, in this paper I investigate some of the ways in which the Colosseum is distributed and translated and argue that these actions allow for it to be in Rome and in many other places simultaneously. It has sometimes been pointed out that symmetrical anthropology and actor network-theory are essentially apolitical for epistemological reasons: apparently, there is no much room left for dissension and conflict in the networks explored by ANT. However, I think that a focus on the constitution and working of collectives in a symmetrical sense is not at odds with a political stance. In this paper, I will try to show the usefulness of archaeology in unraveling the genealogies of modern collectives from a critical position. By comparing the way in which collectives of people and things have been constituted in our society and in other societies past and present, we may find out ways of bypassing modern dualism that have proven to be tremendously negative both in social, political and ecological terms. In this way, we can turn archaeology into a relevant discipline for thinking other ways of being in the world. 3:20-3:40pm Symmetry in the archaeology of technology: microscopic points of departure Krysta Ryzewski (Brown University) 4:20-4:40pm Pyramids and Palimpsests. Object, Event and Assemblage in the Archaeological Record Gavin Lucas (University of Iceland) The black box of technology demands more than the powers of traditional archaeological observation to open it and to understand the complex processes that lie within. Beginning from microscopic details of iron objects, this paper examines networks of innovation and tradition archaeologically. The discussions critique the continued linear treatment of technological processes, frequent explanatory uses of slippery notions such as Industrial Revolution, and archaeological orientations that separate the social from the material elements of material culture. Symmetry provides the vehicle for moving away from these constraints and shortcomings, along paths that recognize the heterogeneous nature of the materials of colonial ironworking, and towards directions and questions that were otherwise invisible in our former archaeological treatments of technology. Symmetry also urges us to use tools and theories beyond our immediate disciplinary comfort zone in accessing the In 1919, Alfred North Whitehead gave a series of lectures subsequently published as the Concept of Nature; in those lectures, he provocatively called the Great Pyramid at Giza an ’event’ (not simply a building, or an object); Whitehead‘s intention was to argue against a materialist theory of nature, by which he meant an atomistic, object-centred theory rather than one which foregrounded the ’passage of nature’ as he called it – the fact that the world is in a constant state of flux or becoming, rather than one composed of static elements. Whitehead was openly influenced by the french philosopher Henri Bergson and both thinkers were of course important to Delueze. In this paper, I want to draw on the ideas of these philosophers to explore the relations between object and event as they are articulated in our understanding of the archaeological record and in particular, suggest that as archaeologists, we are not simply digging up the residues of events but digging up actual 61 events. To appreciate this point however, means re-thinking what we mean by terms such as object and event and also enriching other concepts which we usually take for granted, especially the concept of ’assemblage‘. At the heart of this problem is the relation between time and materiality and understanding the complexities of writing histories from/of things. and policy, will be addressed and connected to issues of scientific re-presentation, of how archaeologists witness and work upon sources. 4:40-5:00pm Archaeological prostheses and media ecologies Timothy Webmoor (Oxford University,) Theorizing (in between) Space and Place in Archaeology Uzma Rizvi & Josh Wright (Stanford University) We increasingly function in the world through things. This is no less true for how we work on the past and make claims to know it. The archaeological process is less to do with discovering and representing the past than with working with media to assemble a past for us to know and engage. Instead of asking how do we document and represent the past we ought to ask how we work with media and instruments to assemble the past. This paper considers archaeological fieldwork and recovers the active role of visual media. Such media are archaeological prostheses – augmentations of ourselves and the past. Taking things seriously involves asking what and who are involved in working on the past? Contrary to embedded notions of 'representation' which distance past from present, human from nonhuman, specialist from stakeholder, we ought to unpack the transformative and collective (people, media and instruments) process of mediation. The aim is to recover a deanthropocentric ethnography of archaeological practice. Instead of an encounter with archaeological material or a record (whether described as textual or physical), archaeologists and things archaeological materials, instruments and media - are mixed at every step. This mixing of archaeologists and the archaeological confounds the conventional research flow as linear; it is continuous and reversible. The past as a collective and participatory ‘heritage ecology’ packed with people and things. 5:00-5:20pm We have always been cyborgs Michael Shanks (Stanford University) This paper will ground the themes of the session in contemporary posthumanism through the concepts of cybernetic organism (cyborg) and prosthesis. Looking to the archaeology of the archaic Mediterranean Greek state, polis and body politic, will provide a way of connecting modern(ist) angles on artificial life and human being or ontology (La Mettrie to Haraway) with current arguments concerning archaeology as an active engagement with the remains of the past. The politics of presencing, of translating the past into the present through future-oriented projects 5:20-6:00pm Discussion Theorizing in between space and place situates archaeologists at a very specific point, one at which we are forced to question and be sensitive to spatial ontology and the nature of our knowledge about spatial phenomena. Questioning the centrality of location as place and location within the logic of interpretation and documentation of archaeological data, this session evaluates the placelessness of social and political organization. Key themes we hope to cover include: New theories on the organization of mobile societies; the flexible mobility of urban spaces; scale-free and localized concepts of exchange; the semiotics of space at all scales; equivalencies between large areas and local spaces; the incorporation of the supernatural into social space; ephemeral spaces that come into existence for a variety of reasons; the valence of bonds between heterogeneous places and environments; concepts of events, time geography, chronotypes and similar temporal formulations of location and place, the use of a network metaphor as a way of understanding the structure of space and place, and boundaries formed from both spaces and places. In addition to moving away from previous ideas of centrality, some key concepts that we would like to include are, ideas of scale and scale-free theorizing, a critical examination of definitions of place, theorizing the transformations of spaces, and a critique of the space-hostile judgement of mobility as irrationality. We invite papers that offer new looks at archaeological data that inform innovative theoretical approaches that move beyond discussions in which space is, and can be, made via social, interlinking interests and interstitial coexistence towards a focus on the archaeology of the experience in between space and place. 2:00-2:10pm Introduction Uzma Rizvi & Josh Wright (Stanford University) 2:10-2:30pm Stones and People: Viking Age Gotlandic Picture Stones Alexander Andreeff (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) 62 The Viking Age (9th-11th cent. AD) picture stones from the Island of Gotland, Sweden, constitute a promising material for studies of the relationship between materiality, identity, iconography, and landscape. About 15 picture stones are still standing at their original site, emphasizing natural and political borders in the ancient landscape. They are erected at causeways, crossroads, fords and bridges that represented boundaries and transition points between farmsteads and districts. The picture stones have traditionally been interpreted as memorials made in honour of distinguished male members of the local society. A few of the sites have been excavated and cultural layers at the base of some stones indicate that sacrifices, ritual meals, and ritual depositions were performed. A recent excavation done by the author of a picture stone site has revealed a unique combination of finds. Scattered at the base, probably remains of a disturbed deposition, were found cremated human bones from probably two individuals and artefacts that can be interpreted as grave goods. Preliminary results indicate that the artefacts are older then the picture stone. This might suggest that the human remains and the artefacts were exhumed from an unknown cemetery and redeposited during the inauguration ceremony when the stone was erected. These finds confirm that the picture stones not only were memorials but also parts in complex social practices linking human remains, landscape, and monuments. 2:30-2:50pm Rock carvings as an entrance to the understanding of large scale changes in Northern Sweden during the Neolithic and Bronze Age Ylva Sjöstrand (Stockholm University ) No one who has studied the elk motif featured in the rock art of northern Scandinavia could possibly doubt its importance. Pictorial presentations of this animal are, however, very diverse and the motif can not be interpreted as a homogenous group. Instead, we need to investigate its complex range of variations. Here, I intend to focus on one aspect that has been omitted, the fact that the elks usually have been depictured with rather straight or angled legs. In my opinion, the difference between elks with angled and straight legs respectively is an important aspect that has been very much overlooked. The elks leg position affects the figures visual identity to such an extent that it is obvious that they where intended to signify different concepts. Thus, the existence of a dichotomized relation between elk figures with straight and angled legs respectively. In this paper, I will argue that the straight and angled legs can be understood as manifestations of complex and large scale processes that occur in the region during the period 25001800 BC. 2:50-3:10pm Archaeology and landscape in the Mongolian Altai: the semiotics of monuments within space Esther Jacobson-Tepfer (University of Oregon) Over the last fifteen years, the Mongolian Altai Inventory has surveyed a mountainous region of approximately 21,500 sq km in far northwestern Mongolia. This effort has resulted in the location and documentation of several thousand surface monuments and many thousands of petroglyphs previously unrecorded and largely unknown. In order to make sense of this data in the aggregate and to allow focus on individual monuments and typologies, we have developed a number of approaches, all of which locate monuments within physical, cultural, and mythic extensions of space and time. These approaches may be conceived in terms of nested contexts. The first is spatial––referring to the region itself and its geophysical character. The second I will call distributional: Where are monuments located and where are they not? How are they grouped or combined? Within which kinds of archaeological and physical contexts? And what is the profile of that distribution over time? The third is relational, by which I refer to the relationships of any one monument to directionality, to larger physical features (mountains, ridges, rivers, confluences), and to earlier cultural layers. Using a variety of approaches in the field and in the lab, we are able to develop a multi-dimensional understanding of cultures and monuments in relationship to the landscape and over a period of several thousand years. 3:10-3:30pm A network approach to the role of the physical environment in social interactions Tim Evans, Ray Rivers (Imperial College London) and Carl Knappett (University of Toronto) In this paper we propose new statistical models of interaction networks that help clarify the relationship between geophysical ‘space’ and relational social ‘space’. As our main example we take the Middle Bronze Age Minoan maritime network of the S. Aegean, developing ideas begun in [1]. This is chosen not only because island archipelagos provide a simple physical substrate for social interactions, but that these interactions are strongly constrained by the available marine technology. Our multiscale approach, which shows how interactions emerge over large scales while still possessing regional attributes informed, in turn, by the local environment, accommodates volatility in this environment, changes in technology and is maximally stable against our ignorance of the archaeological record. As the archaeological record becomes more complete we need a more sophisticated analysis of the relational aspects of material culture, which we exemplify briefly for early Viking networks of N. Europe. 63 3:30-3:50pm Discussion 3:50-4:10pm Theorizing “The Warpath” James E. Snead (George Mason University) Interpreting paths and trails remains problematic for archaeologists working within the landscape paradigm. For some, these features are seen as links between places, the spatial framework integrating larger networks of meaning. A second perspective suggests that paths and trails are meaningful places in their own right, engaging other nodes within the landscape but with particular significance emerging from the specific associations of movement. Time, memory, distance, proximity, belonging, and separation can all be invoked by walking the path, connotations embedded within specific historical and cultural contexts. Paradoxically our difficulty fitting paths and trails into a space/place dichotomy mirrors the methodological challenge presented by ambiguous archaeological data and discontinuous, elusive features. This paper explores these issues, in particular the relationship between movement, paths, and conflict as expressed in the idea of “the warpath,” an 18th century conceptualization of indigenous patterns of movement on the American frontier. The influence of these cultural tropes on archaeological interpretation will also be addressed, with particular reference to the “Mohave War Trail,” a distinctive feature of the Colorado Desert also known as the “Trail of Dreams,” a dichotomy in nomenclature that captures the complexity of understanding landscapes of movement. 4:10-4:30pm Netherworlds: children's and others' alternate spatialities Peter Whitridge (Memorial University of Newfoundland) Archaeologists assume the task of characterizing past realities as if singular representations of ancient lifeworlds have ever existed. Unfortunately these worlds were as messy as our own, and do not allow of a simple best account. At any given time and place the social world was composed of overlapping and intersecting realities in which individuals participated in complex ways, according to an array of social identities based on class, gender, age, ethnicity etc. Further, individuals' understandings of place, and the spatial performances in which they engaged, varied between one another as much as did the larger social frames. And of course, individuals conceived of, and acted within, the world in different ways in different contexts, and at different moments in the life course; even the self may be an Other. The worlds of children illustrate the archaeological challenge presented by such profuse, unstable, stacked realities. Children inhabit the same spaces as adults, but employ different understandings and spatial practices. Their distinct social geographies organize places for playing, hiding, fighting, learning, working, and so on. These overlap and intersect adults' and others' networks of places, and eventually metamorphose into them. By way of illustration, ethnographies illuminate Inuit children's topologies in northern North America during the early twentieth century, which in turn help make sense of the spatial patterning of children's material culture at precontact and early historic Inuit sites in Labrador. These results contribute to the opening of an archaeological dialogue on the radical social multiplicity of places. 4:30-4:50pm On the edges: The Portuguese in India Praveena Gullapalli (Rhode Island College) The Portuguese colonial presence in South Asia occupied areas along the western coast of the subcontinent from modern day Gujarat to Kerala. These areas mediated between terrestrial and maritime trading realms and regimes, with Portuguese control of their colonies predicated more on maritime control than on terrestrial control. Indeed, as has been noted, their empire was an empire of the ocean with little incursion into the land masses onto which their colonies clung. In this way, Portuguese colonies were on the edges of their empire. Similarly, these same colonies were on the edges of terrestrial South Asian polities. Yet these edges were neither margins nor marginal, for they were of profound interest as the places of significant trading and economic activity and production for numerous groups including but not limited to South Asians and Portuguese. These groups employed various tactics to maintain the nature of (and access to or control over) trading sites as the Portuguese worked to monopolize them (and as a result change their nature and meaning). Using the Portuguese intervention as a starting point this paper begins an exploration of the changing nature of these coastal areas, focusing on the implications, if any, for the South Asian polities who experienced this new phenomenon and how these spaces may have been transformed for them. 4:40-5:10pm Movement, Diaspora, and Rupture Bryn Williams (Stanford University) In traditional archaeological models of the Overseas Chinese communities that formed in North America during the 19th century, the movement of Chinese men (and occasionally women) into diaspora represented a fundamental rupture from normal life. Living in diaspora entailed moving into a liminal space, a kind of social purgatory where individuals were “in between” identities. In this geographic and 64 imaginary space the Overseas Chinese were constantly working towards an anticipated social sedimentation, either as “Chinese” (albeit richer Chinese) in their homeland or as “Chinese Americans” or “Chinese Canadians” in North America. This paper questions this model by drawing attention to its historical and material failures. It also explores the theoretical and practical implications of this model for contemporary debates about immigration, culture change, and national belonging. 5:10-5:40 Discussants: Ian Hodder, Uzma Rizvi and Josh Wright (Stanford University) Changing Models for Understanding Biblical Edom: Anthropology, Environment and Information Technology Thomas E. Levy (University of California: San Diego) The archaeology of the southern Levant that focuses on the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE is closely linked to traditional ‘Biblical archaeology.’ Since 2002, a team from UC San Diego, the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and the Friends of Archaeology of Jordan has carried out archaeological research in the copper ore rich Faynan region of southern Jordan that relates to these periods. The project is known as the Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Project (ELRAP) and focuses on an anthropological archaeology study of the role technology, specifically metal production, on social change during the Iron Age (ca. 1200 – 500 BCE). By applying high precision radiocarbon dating, on-site GIS digital archaeology recording, and other tools to control time and the context of artifacts (space), the team has extended the Iron Age chronology of this part of the southern Levant (popularly known as the ‘Holy Land’) by over 300 years. This newly extended chronology has inadvertently drawn the ELRAP team into heated debates concerning the relationship between sacred texts (the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament) and the archaeological record. In this session, ELRAP team members present a series of papers that explore new theories and methods for what may best be referred to as ‘historical biblical archaeology’ – a more pragmatic way of striving to remove ideology and bias from historical archaeology. 2:00-2:10pm Introduction Thomas E. Levy (University of California: San Diego) 2:10-2:30pm The New Pragmatism: Integrating Anthropological, Digital, and Historical Biblical Archaeologies Thomas E. Levy (University of California: San Diego) Over the past three decades of so, Biblical archaeology, or the archaeology of the Old Testament, has suffered as a paradigm of scientific archaeological investigation. In this lecture, I would like to suggest a new pragmatic approach to what should be referred to as ‘historical biblical archaeology’. Accordingly, it is a type of historical archaeology where researchers strive to understand the relationship between sacred and other ancient texts and the archaeological record in the same way that historical archaeologies around the world should attempt to confront ancient texts and the archaeological record with particular attention to the contribution of high precision radiocarbon dating and GIS tools for controlling both time and space. Following a brief discussion of the history of Biblical archaeological research Southern Levant, the historical biblical archaeology paradigm advocated here is discussed based on recent research in the Iron Age of southern Jordan. 2:30-2:50pm Questioning the deterministic paradigm: Reflections of Bedouin folklore in the archaeological evidence in Faynan, Jordan Erez Ben-Yosef (University of California: San Diego) Ethnographic studies of Bedouin tribes in the Sinai Peninsula have demonstrated the unique place of acacia tree in the folklore and tradition of pastoral nomads in arid zones of the southern Levant. The tree, one of the most prominent perennial plants in the floral landscape of the southern Levant and a substantial source of wood, is considered sacred by the tribal societies of Sinai, and a strict system of laws and customs protects it from cutting down, pruning and harm. Consequently, the main wood used by these societies consists of semi-shrubs and shrubs (e.g., Retama and Haloxylon), and in the rapidly regenerating Hydrophytic vegetation (e.g., Tamarix and Nerium) found near high water table environments. This paper suggests that the interpretation of more than 9,000 identified charcoal fragments from the Iron Age (c. 1200 – 500 BCE) copper production district of Faynan (Jordan) should be done in the light of the ethnographical evidence from Sinai. In lieu of the common explanation that acacia was in use as fuel only from the Roman period because of ecological change, the lack of acacia charcoal during the Iron Age is a marker of tribal, semi-nomadic society that probably a had similar value system in relation to its natural assets as the tribal societies of Sinai. In later periods, when the copper industry was controlled by 65 centralized empires, the acacia was incorporated as a fuel in proportional scale to availability, and the cultural sensibilities of local societies were no longer relevant. Acknowledging social agency as part of the interpretation fits into the recently suggested model of a tribal-state polity for Iron Age Edom, where tribalism is the fundamental mechanism of social interaction - even in considerably largescale enterprises like the one conducted in Faynan. Independent key aspects of the tribal-state model support the ethnographic parallelism suggested here, while in return the evidence from Faynan coupled with ethnography substantiates the model and elaborates its implications. 2:50-3:10pm The Pottery Informatics Query Database– A New Digital Archaeology Tool for Analyzing South Levantine Iron Age Pottery Neil G. Smith*, Avshalom Karasik+, Tejaswini Narayanan*, Thomas E. Levy*, Uzy Smilansky+ (* University of California, San Diego; +Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel) The Pottery Informatics Query Database (PIQD) is a new online tool designed to enable researchers to test their own interpretations and models against an ever-expanding digital medium of ceramic datasets in ways that conventional print data cannot provide. It opens a new arena for how archaeologists can simultaneously publish their research in scholarly journals but also provide a more in-depth online format for collaborative research and investigation. It makes available an online Geographic Information System of 2D and 3D ceramic profiles from archaeological publications of Iron Age (1200-580 BCE) Southern Levant ceramics. The PIQD stores all ceramics profiles published for the region digitally using a mathematical algorithm called the “curvature function.” This algorithm enables researchers to query and analyze morphological differences in ceramic profiles using an objective, quantitative method similar to BLAST searches commonly employed in the biological science to identify patterns of similarity in complex datasets. Results from a recent implementation of the PIQD will be demonstrated using datasets collected from recent excavations in Ancient Iron Age Edom located in Southern Jordan. 3:10-3:30pm StarCAVE 3D: Virtual Reality, Anthropology and the Biblical World Kyle Knabb, Jurgen Schultz and Thomas E. Levy (University of California: San Diego) The StarCAVE at UCSD’s California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology is an immersive virtual reality environment where we have developed a process for modeling archaeological sites to be visualized in three dimensions. The project strives to accomplish four things: create compelling visual imagery, develop a new hermeneutic toolkit, integrate GIS and virtual reality and contribute to the preservation of cultural heritage. Archaeologists and anthropologists rightly argue that digital archaeology and visualization theory is underdeveloped. At the same time, rapid changes in technology make it difficult for theory to keep up. Archaeologists need to strike a balance between the theory and practice of digital technologies. The excavations carried out at Khirbat en-Nahas provide an abundance of data for testing the benefits of modeling archaeological sites in virtual reality. Models and the process of modeling are fundamental to interpreting archaeological data. Working through models is often the best way to explain and experiment with the meaning of data. In a general sense a model is a simplification, which we can easily understand and manipulate, of some part of reality, which is more difficult to comprehend. Thus, if we can understand the process and end result of a model we can attempt to apply that understanding to the situation in reality we are trying to figure out. Virtual reality and computer modeling offer two great benefits to archaeologists. First, they allow the researcher to illustrate reconstructed sites. This is especially helpful to the public, who has little or no experience in reading archaeological maps. Modeling assists the researcher articulate and communicate his or her interpretation of the archaeological data. Second, the model can allow the archaeologist to test new theories, ideas and reconstructions and see the effect of those new interpretations on the site. It is these strengths that make virtual modeling such a valuable tool. 3:30-3:50pm Iron Age Foodways in the Faynan District – Zooarchaeology Perspectives on Paleo-Economies in Southern Jordan Adolfo Muniz (University of California: San Diego) Recent archaeological research at Khirbat en Nahas in the Faynan region of southern Jordan is beginning to provide evidence on the role of metal production and its effects on the evolution of complexity in this region. Intertwined within the fabric of society is the relationship between the inhabitants of this site and their use of animal resources. Current zooarchaeological research from the Iron Age site of Khirbat-en-Nahas stresses a correlation between the intensity in metal production and the changes in the animal economy. Additionally, the diversity of species identified at this site indicates the interaction sphere of the Faynan 66 region extended beyond local ecological niches to the coastal areas. Diego’s Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Project (ELRAP) that provides the examples used in this lecture. 3:50-4:10pm The Meaning of Melekh: Archaeological Readings of Genesis 36 Marc A. Beherec (University of California: San Diego) 4:30-5:00pm Discussion Among the challenges facing archaeologists who seek to integrate textual and archaeological evidence are the complexities of translation and source criticism. One of the most interesting passages dealing with the early history and social structure of Edom is the genealogy and king list of Genesis 36. This paper will consider the historical geographical, semantic, and source criticism background of this chapter in order to understand its complexities. This in turn will shed light on the convergence of lines of evidence, including archaeology, which illuminate and obfuscate the history of the land of Edom. 4:10-4:30pm Photography in the ELRAP Digital Archaeology System and Beyond Aaron Gidding (University of California: San Diego) Archaeology and photography both share their origins in the mid 1800s and grew complementarily as fields. Early on photography was used as an objective tool to verify the observations made by early antiquarians and archaeologists. Over time the notion of the photograph as an objective tool representing factually the process and results of archaeological excavations has rightfully eroded. Critiques of the photograph in archaeology have focused on problems of contextuality and artificiality of production, especially in this digital age. Notwithstanding these faults, the photograph in the digital age has remarkable objective potential when used as an integral part of a systematic digital excavation. Utilizing the geo-referenced photographic data applications within a larger database of archaeological data, such as the Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land (DAAHL) database, allows for more collaborative research opportunities utilizing larger subjective data sets in ways previously unavailable. This integration signals a new step for the use of the photograph, as integration into excavation methods increases, in its digital form as an important facet of larger scale, regional research using diverse data sets accessible in the digital media. Further careful data management in order to maintain original images preserving academic integrity and allowing for reproducibility of results furthers analytical goals outside of the field using the digital medium. While of course the photograph does not replace the actual artifact, it does being to allow for new considerations utilizing digital technologies. The test bed for this has been UC San Spatiality in Conflict: The Archaeology and Anthropology of Space in Conflict Zones Simone Paturel (Newcastle University) '(Social) space is a (social) product… the space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action; that in addition to being a means of production it is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power; yet that, as such, it escapes in part from those who would make use of it.' Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), p. 26. The 'spatial turn' is now well established in the social sciences, through the work of Henri Lefebvre and geographers like Edward Soja. Space in this sense is socially constructed. Physical spaces stand in a dialectical relationship with the societies that inhabit them. What happens to these spaces when conflict occurs and what happens to our interpretations in spaces that lie within zones of conflict? This session will explore two key themes. The first theme is how do spaces shape our response and experience of conflict, be that domestic space, communal space or the wider landscape? How do we react to the restriction of physical space that was once open and undisputed and is now inaccessible? How does this affect social spaces and relationships? How are power relationships expressed through spatiality and how are those power relationships inverted and contested? The second theme will examine how we as archaeologists and anthropologists respond to zones of conflict? How do we study and research within regions that are disputed? How does the spatiality of conflict affect our interpretations and reception of our work? Together these two streams explore our perception and experience of spatiality and conflict. 2:00-2:10pm Introduction Simone Paturel (Newcastle University) 2:10-2:30pm Spatiality, Memory and Conflict in Beirut: Living the Civil War and After Simone Paturel (Newcastle University) 67 Conflict is inevitably spatial and space often leads to conflict. Territory holds resource and emotional value and is the source of conflict between those that seek control. Power relations are determined through spatial relations. Dispute over spaces leads to their reconfiguration, destruction and renewal. Social memory also plays a significant role in spatial relations during and after conflict. Memory is used to claim spaces for particular agendas while forgetting is also used to eliminate inconvenient pasts. This paper explores spatiality, memory and conflict in Beirut during and after the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990. The account is drawn from my own personal experience of the civil war, having lived in the Beirut suburb of Achrafieh until 1987. I explore the role that spatiality plays in conflict on a personal level, considering how the forced reconfiguration of space affects daily life and how conflict redefines spatial relations and vice versa. Social memory was an important element in this conflict as the different participants constructed new narratives to suit the changing political situation. In a similar way the history of Lebanon was reconfigured after the conflict to construct new personal and political identities in the post civil war era. Conflict is often seen in causal terms through a narrative of 'who did what to whom' or a chronology of war and peace. This paper aims to redress the balance and explore how spatiality and memory construct personal experience in a time of conflict. 2:30-2:50pm 'Space, Power and Conflict: theorizing the relationship between social space and violence' Andrew Green (Independent Researcher) Spaces have long been seen as contested in a physical sense as territory to be fought over or the space where violence occurs. Yet this perspective on space is limited to seeing it as a resource to be owned and exploited. The 'spatial turn' provides an opportunity to explore the relationship between (social) space and violence in much greater depth. Power relationships are expressed spatially; Foucault expressed this by expanding his well-known Power-Knowledge dialectic to include Space while Henri Lefebvre saw violence as essential to the growth of the politico-economic space and central to the foundation of the modern state. Edward Said's Orientalism is also fundamentally spatial, consisting of the creation of an 'imaginative geography' that 'othered' Eastern culture. This paper examines how these ideas and others can be applied in two contexts. Firstly to explore the relationship between spatiality and violence where those spaces in question are the under archaeological study, and secondly to explore the archaeologist's relationship to contested spaces within which she or he is working. 2:50-3:10pm Bordering History / Historicizing Borders: Nationalism, Internationalism and the Fate of Famagusta Michael Walsh (Eastern Mediterranean University) The historic walled city of Famagusta, located just inside the borders of the internationally unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, is a priceless cultural resource in the Eastern Mediterranean. Here, forgotten, lies the enormously wealthy artistic and architectural legacy of Byzantine, Lusignan, Genoan, Venetian, Ottoman, British and Cypriot rule. In its one thousand year history, Famagusta has been the meeting point of East and West, Christian and Muslim, Greek and Turkish, and today lies on the border / fault line between the Europe Union and Asia. A matter of a few kilometers from the UN Green Line which divides the island of Cyprus militarily, and now doomed by its isolation in an unrecognized state, Famagusta faces an inappropriately bleak future, to follow its rich though turbulent past. Political borders have entrenched it, while manipulations of the historical mind, have re-positioned it as 'out of reach' to the world. Its suburb of Varosha (in Greek) / Maraş (in Turkish) is behind a secondary military border and has been a ghost city for 34 years – its population forcibly and hastily expelled. The borders around this city, and its collectivized and nationalized memory (for Greeks/Christians and Turks/Muslims alike), are absolute. This paper examines the historical and cultural legacy of Famagusta and places it within a modern understanding of the nationalism and internationalism which still determines its fate. The paper also looks at the efforts made to re-engage the international community and reports on some early successes in this process of heritage welfare management through the European Union and the US based World Monuments Fund. 3:10-3:30pm The Kral Tepesi/Vasili Salvage Excavation Project Uwe Muller (Eastern Mediterranean University) The UNESCO Second Protocol of 1999, which updated the UNESCO Hague Convention of 1954, limits archaeological activity in occupied territory to work performed to "safeguard, record, or preserve cultural property." UNESCO, as it views the northern 38 percent of Cyprus as occupied territory, feels that this convention applies to this disputed region. While this regulation itself contains a number of interpretive conflicts – it never defines what kind of archaeological activity does, or does not, safeguard cultural property, for example - the virtual lack of archaeological activity in northern Cyprus is also representative of a regional view of what archaeology is. Historically, archaeological activity in Cyprus has been characterized by excavations and, as such work is inherently destructive, it is thus perceived as an activity that cannot 68 also preserve cultural property. Excavations, as a result, are virtually absent in northern Cyprus because of the view that they conflict with the UNESCO regulations. In August of 2008, however, an international team conducted an underwater archaeological survey along part of the coastline of northern Cyprus in an effort both to document material, and to apply a new methodology that does not require intrusive activity to collect and interpret its data. The purpose of this paper is to expand upon the issues raised above, as well as to demonstrate that legitimate archaeological practices, above or below water, are still viable in disputed regions governed by such international regulations. 3:30-3:50pm Rethinking Archaeology in Disputed Territories Matthew Harpster (Eastern Mediterranean University) The UNESCO Second Protocol of 1999, which updated the UNESCO Hague Convention of 1954, limits archaeological activity in occupied territory to work performed to "safeguard, record, or preserve cultural property." UNESCO, as it views the northern 38 percent of Cyprus as occupied territory, feels that this convention applies to this disputed region. While this regulation itself contains a number of interpretive conflicts – it never defines what kind of archaeological activity does, or does not, safeguard cultural property, for example - the virtual lack of archaeological activity in northern Cyprus is also representative of a regional view of what archaeology is. Historically, archaeological activity in Cyprus has been characterized by excavations and, as such work is inherently destructive, it is thus perceived as an activity that cannot also preserve cultural property. Excavations, as a result, are virtually absent in northern Cyprus because of the view that they conflict with the UNESCO regulations. In August of 2008, however, an international team conducted an underwater archaeological survey along part of the coastline of northern Cyprus in an effort both to document material, and to apply a new methodology that does not require intrusive activity to collect and interpret its data. The purpose of this paper is to expand upon the issues raised above, as well as to demonstrate that legitimate archaeological practices, above or below water, are still viable in disputed regions governed by such international regulations. 3:50-4:10pm Sites of Memory / Sites of Malice: Graves, Churches, and Ethnic Spaces in Northern Cyprus Allan Langdale (University of California: Santa Cruz) In teasing out a rhetoric of contentious spatialities for Cyprus no sites are more eloquent or more socially charged than the ruined Byzantine and Orthodox churches and graveyards in northern Cyprus. Similarly, nowhere are the historical moments of ethnic rage so vividly evident even after 34 years. This paper examines the tensions and stratagems that have been used since the Turkish intervention of 1974 regarding the exiled sacred sites, the responses of those exiled from them, and the reactions of those who currently are in physical 'ownership'. This study hopes to analyze the specific problematic of the Cyprus situation in terms of its ecclesiastical and funerary sites, around which several strands of social anxiety are gathered. The material for this study consists of a range of artifacts, including photographs of Orthodox graveyards, which today remain torn apart as they were in late August of 1974. Here, for example, the nature of the iconoclasm is examined as an instance of the extirpation of 'Greekness' from the land (i.e. unburying the dead so they cannot 'occupy' the land). In other cases, the sacred sites of Orthodox churches—still sacred loci for Greek Cypriots, now existing for them only in memory and imagination—are converted by Turkish authorities to tourist sites or neglected as 'ruins' thus creating a dialectic of physical 'ownership' but social/functional denial. Greek Cypriot representations, most notably the publication Cyprus: A Civilization Plundered will also be examined in terms of their value as directing historical/ethnographic 'readings' of Turkey's intervention and the barbarity of Turks. Other instances include a brief case study of the destruction of the Avgasida Monastery Church in response to the mass killings of Turkish Cypriots by retreating Greek Cypriot paramilitaries in late August of 1974. In a compilation of contested spaces and objects the Cyprus ethnic division thus finds a configuration beyond the standardized, purely political representation. The range of engagement ranges from the very private to the wider public social tensions in Cyprus. I will consider, for instance, the case of a profoundly personal narrative with regards to the churches of northern Cyprus: a fortyyear old Greek Cypriot woman who, without telling anyone (even her family), snuck to northern Cyprus to visit her village church which she had last seen when she was 6 years old. The paper also considers recent attempts to reintroduce a dialogue of bi-communality on Cyprus and a reframing of exiled spaces and revisionism of the conflict and rewriting of memory (confession, forgiveness, reconciliation). The potentials for compromise and the difficult road to remapping the spatialities of conflict, both actual and figurative, are discussed as a way to re-envision a unified notion of 'Cyprus'. 4:10-5:00pm Discussion 69