http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/221739 Fri, 24 May 2013 13:29:02 GMT 2013-05-24T13:29:02Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/241365 Title: Authority and the production of knowledge in archaeology Authors: Pruitt, Tera Corinne Abstract: This thesis examines the role of authority in the production of archaeological knowledge. It examines how fluid ideas and observations formed in the field become authoritative, factual, solid archaeological products, like scientific texts, reconstructions or museum displays. It asks, what makes a person, a thing or an account of history something that is authoritative? What makes someone an authority on the past? What is archaeological authority? This thesis deconstructs and exposes authority in archaeological practice. It targets how practitioners of archaeology actively enact, construct and implement authority in the process of producing knowledge. Formal representations of the past rely heavily on an underlying notion of the ‘authoritative account’. The entire process of reconstructing the past in archaeology is dependent on individuals and institutions existing as authorities, who actively or passively imply that artefacts, sites and final interpretations are ‘authentic’ or have ‘fidelity’ to the past. This study examines how authority and acts of legitimation are employed and distributed through the medium of science, and how they need to be actively performed in order to acquire and maintain status. This thesis not only argues that authority is embedded in every stage of the archaeological process, but importantly, it identifies how this authority manifests through the medium of scientific acts. This thesis is structured around two comparative case studies: one case of professional archaeology and one case of alternative archaeology. Both are archaeological sites that produce their own ‘authoritative’ accounts of the past through practices, publications and presentations. The first case is the professional archaeological project of Çatalhöyük in the Republic of Turkey, under the direction of Ian Hodder at Stanford University. This case offers insights about how the processes of inscription, translation and blackboxing establish and maintain authority in archaeological practice. It also addresses how physical and intellectual space, as well as issues of access in localised knowledge-producing social arenas, affect archaeological authority. The second case is the controversial pseudoarchaeological project in Visoko, Bosnia, commonly referred to as the Bosnian Pyramids. This project, under the direction of amateur archaeologist Semir Osmanagić, has successfully created an account of prehistory that has been received by the general Bosnian public as authoritative, despite objections by the professional archaeological community. This case demonstrates how authority can be constructed, mimicked and performed by drawing on academic arenas of scientific practice and by eager public participation. Specifically, this case study highlights the importance of socio-politics, authoritative institutions and performative behaviour in the construction of archaeological authority. Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/241365 2011-10-10T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/236764 Title: Diachonic DNA Analyses of Animal Breeds and Populations Authors: Campana, Michael Gray Abstract: Humans are dependent on the animals they raise and breed for food and secondary products. Archaeological and genetic investigations can provide critical insights into the history and development of these breeds and help understand human activities in the past. Furthermore, many well-adapted breeds are endangered and archaeological and genetic data can help inform future breed conservation choices. Utilising ancient DNA data could potentially permit detailed diachronic analyses of the development of animal breeds. Ancient DNA analyses have typically focussed on large-scale biogeographic patterns in time and space, such as the spread of domesticates or the movements of peoples. Few studies have attempted fine-scale diachronic analysis within single animal populations or breeds. This is largely due to restricted sample availability and the limited phylogenetic resolution provided by the mitochondrial genome, the most commonly used ancient DNA marker. In this thesis, I demonstrate that fine-scale diachronic analyses within single animal populations and breeds over short time scales are feasible. First, in order to address the limitations of sample size, I assessed three sample screening methods’ abilities (maximum mitochondrial DNA amplicon length, NanoDrop® spectrometry and collagen preservation) to select samples in which DNA was preserved and analysed the utility of parchment as a novel source of ancient and historic DNA. None of the screening methods accurately predicted DNA preservation, but collagen preservation was able to weed out extremely poorly preserved samples from further analysis. All but one of the tested parchments produced multiple sequences matching several different species. Parchment therefore was not appropriate for fine-scale diachronic analyses. Next, I assessed whether analysing the nuclear genome could permit fine-resolution diachronic genetic studies. Since single nucleotide polymorphisms are ideal candidate nuclear markers for diachronic DNA analyses, I assessed the accuracy of the nuclear SNP-typing methodology, SNaPshot™, by genotyping three coat colour markers for a sample of historic Thoroughbred horses for which both phenotypic and correct genotypic information were known from pedigree information in the General Stud Book. The SNaPshot™ protocol was found to provide accurate genotypic information in all cases. Finally, as a proof of method, I compared the diachronic information provided by the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes in Icelandic and Thoroughbred horses. Specifically, in the Icelandic horse, I analysed the mitochondrial D-loop and three coat colour genes in modern and historic populations. In the Icelandic horse, I found statistically significant evidence for genetic change in the mitochondrial genome over the last 150 years. I found no evidence for change in coat colour allele frequencies. Conversely, in the biased and small historic Thoroughbred dataset, the mitochondrial genome was insufficient to provide population-level information, but I was able to show that allele frequencies in the nuclear MSTN gene, a gene previously shown to influence racing performance, have changed significantly in the past century. Description: This thesis has been embargoed until at least June 2011. Fri, 29 Apr 2011 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/236764 2011-04-29T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/236188 Title: Community uses of maritime heritage in Bermuda: a heritage ethnography with museum implications Authors: Andrews, Charlotte Abstract: This research contributes to the fields of heritage and museum studies with a threefold objective: conceptualise heritage as a process, using an appropriate research method, with implications for museums. The work correspondingly helps to redress the undertheorisation of heritage, the inadequacy of methods for grasping heritage as an ethnographic object of study, and the disconnection between communities and their museums – and, underlying and linking these issues, the widespread incorrect and damaging presumption that individuals, or the communities they constitute, are heritage deficient. In doing so, the presumption of public heritage deficiency underlying and linking these theoretical, methodological and museological ‘problems’ is challenged and countered. Drawing on my heritage ethnography of maritime Bermuda, I examine how and why people of this mid-Atlantic island use maritimity to formulate identity and community, and thereby generate maritime heritage. This contextualised case study engages with current thinking and key debates about heritage and museums to conceptualise heritage cross-culturally. Introductory chapters review heritage and museums across the relevant scholarly, maritime, and Bermuda scales and reflect upon my methodological choices during the research design, fieldwork and analysis. Five chapters of ethnographic analysis subsequently interpret community uses of heritage in terms of Bermudian relationships with the sea. Specifically, this analysis identifies and explores maritime heritage as: relationships with past and present maritimes; negotiations of ‘race’ and its legacies; beliefs in authenticity; curatorial practices of community museology; and aspirational remedies to social crisis. With this rich ethnographic yet analytic account of maritime heritage in Bermuda, I expand the framework for understanding heritage as a phenomena and concept, offer a heritage model to museums – and maritime and Bermuda’s museums specifically – so they may better connect with their communities, and utilise and innovate heritage ethnography as a specialised method for heritage research, museum curation and wider community use. Description: PDF of thesis revised on 18th August 2012 to correct an error in the Bibliography Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/236188 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/236124 Title: Whodunnit? Grave-robbery in early medieval northern and western Europe Authors: Klevnäs, Alison Margaret Abstract: This thesis brings together all that is currently known of early medieval grave reopening in northern and western Europe. It investigates in detail an intensive outbreak of grave-robbery in 6th-7th century Kent. This is closely related to the same phenomenon in Merovingia: an example of the import of not only material goods but also a distinctive cultural practice. Limited numbers of similar robbing episodes, affecting a much smaller proportion of graves in each cemetery, are also identified elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon England. Although the phenomenon of grave-robbery is well-attested in Merovingia, this research is the first study at a regional level. The aim is to advance the debate about early medieval robbery from general discussion of interpretative possibilities to evaluation of specific models and their compatibility with the archaeological evidence. The conclusions have significant implications for the interpretation of grave-robbery across early medieval Europe. In Kent robbing is at a level that must be considered in any discussion of cemetery evidence. The poor publication record has inhibited recognition and analysis of robbing in the county. However, by using extensive archive material, this thesis has shown that the practice of ransacking graves was on a similar scale in East Kent as in Merovingia. This research identifies over 200 reopened graves across Kent, with at least 15 sites affected. At the most intensely robbed sites, an average of over 20% of burials were disturbed. Robbing is likely to have had a significant impact on artefact finds, especially from the late 6th century onwards. Grave-robbery opens a window onto the wider meanings and values of grave-good types within the early medieval period. The analysis in this thesis demonstrates that the main motive for reopening was the removal of grave goods. However, straightforward personal enrichment was not the goal. A deliberate, consistent selection of certain grave-good types were taken from burials, while other apparently covetable possessions were left behind. The desired grave-goods were removed even when in an unusable condition. It is argued that the selection of goods for removal was related to their symbolic roles in the initial burial rite. Their taking was intended to harm living descendants by damaging the prestige and strength of the dead. In addition to the robbed graves, there is a small number of graves spread across the sites which were reopened for bodily mutilation or rearrangement of skeletal parts. These closely resemble the better known deviant burial rites which were applied to certain corpses at the time of initial burial and are interpreted as a reaction to fear of revenants. In modern Britain burial is a finite and final process: the definitive disposal of a dead body. The archaeological and ethnographic records contain many examples of more complex series of events to enable the dead to move on from the living. The material remains of such processes can be seen in revisited and reopened graves, and in myriad manipulations of human bodies. This case study is a detailed, contextualised investigation of the after-history of burial monuments focused on the early middle ages. Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/236124 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226856 Title: Culture après le déluge: heritage ecology after disaster Authors: Morris, Benjamin Alan Abstract: This PhD dissertation examines the relationships between cultural heritage and the environment, focusing specifically on the devastation and rebuilding of New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Departing from conventional approaches to the natural world (such as documentation- and conservation-based approaches), this thesis adopts a developmental-systems based approach to cultural heritage in order to construct a new way of interpreting it, within the specific context of natural disaster. This new approach, termed ‘heritage ecology’, reinterprets cultural heritage in two ways: first, as a physical assemblage of sites, materials, traditions, beliefs, and practices that are constructed in significant ways by their natural environments; and second, as a metaphorical ecosystem which impacts back on the assessment and construction of that natural environment in turn. In order to construct this approach, the thesis poses three interrelated questions: how is cultural heritage transformed as a result of disaster, how do societies rebuild their heritage after disaster, and how does heritage contribute to the rebuilding process? Examining a rebuilding process in real-time provides a unique window on these processes; events and developments in New Orleans taken from the first four years of recovery (2005-2009) suggest that prior understandings of how societies rebuild themselves after disaster have neglected crucial aspects of cultural heritage that are integral to that process. The examination of data from the case study -- data of diverse forms, such as historiography, the culinary arts, music, the built environment, and memorial sites and landscapes -- reveals the limitations of traditional approaches to heritage and prompts a reassessment of a range of issues central to heritage research, issues such as materiality, authenticity, and commodification. This study moreover incorporates into heritage research concepts previously unconsidered, such as infrastructure and policy. In the coming century of global climate change and increased environmental hazards, this last theme will become increasingly central to heritage policy and research; the dissertation concludes accordingly, with a reflection on contingency and future disaster. Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226856 2010-10-11T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226319 Title: Canaanite jars from Memphis as evidence for trade and political relationships in the Middle Bronze Age Authors: Ownby, Mary Abstract: Trade between two regions often necessitates that the respective parties are political entities. This was indeed the case for trade between Egypt and the Levant during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000-1550 BC, MBA) and Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550-1200 BC, LBA). Scientific analyses of Canaanite jars, transport vessels, from the site of Memphis, Egypt provided an ideal proxy for examining the relationship between trade and politics. During the MBA, Levantine peoples were present at the site of Tell el-Dabca in the eastern Nile Delta. However, archaeologically there is little evidence for contact between these peoples and the Egyptians at Memphis. Results of comparison of MBA Canaanite jars from both sites suggest the political situation fostered trade with the Levant and limited interaction with the Egyptians. During the LBA, Egyptian kings controlled territory in the Levant. A comparison of MBA and LBA Canaanite jars from Memphis revealed that the political changes in some cases affected the trade partners but not in others. Further, the production of the jars appeared to have altered in some regions. These results suggest that the affect of political situations on trade can vary, from only minor changes, to the complete exclusion of trade partners and the introduction of new trade contacts. However, the influence of lucrative trade networks on political developments was also illustrated. The utility of provenance studies of ceramics for understanding the complex relationship between trade and politics was confirmed. Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/226319 2010-06-07T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/221760 Title: Archaeo-zoological analysis of some Upper Pleistocene horse bone assemblages in Western Europe Authors: Levine, Marsha Mon, 30 Apr 1979 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/221760 1979-04-30T23:00:00Z