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Abstract: Abstract A sensory perspective in archaeology provides insight into a range of past cultural practices, including foodways. An ongoing examination of the role of maize, a New World domesticate, in the diet of 17th-century New Englanders highlights the importance of a sensory approach to understanding colonial encounters with cultural “Other.” By foregrounding sensory experience to consider the tastes, flavors, and textures of maize dishes, but also the physical labor of growing and preparing maize for consumption, this study demonstrates that maize, though a novel foodstuff, was for many colonists good to grow and eat. For others, this cereal was laborious to produce and, even if sustaining, neither good to eat nor, as Levi-Strauss (1983) said, good to think. By considering the physical and sensorial implications of growing, processing, preparing, and consuming maize, archaeologists may gain insight into a broader transformation in cultural understandings and perceptions about the New World. The incorporation of maize into colonial households suggests that daily encounters with this food were integral to the formation and negotiation of identity in colonial society. PubDate: 2022-04-26
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Abstract A fragment of a makeup compact was recovered at a postbellum, rural home site in the South Carolina Sandhills. This article explores the meanings accumulated by this object through its interaction with various individuals during its design, manufacture, advertisement, and use. The life cycle of this compact reveals the many ways personal adornment can mediate sociopolitical and economic structures of racial and gender supremacy and oppression. This analysis finds that consideration of the meanings of even the smallest artifacts adds depth to the interpretation of rural agents’ everyday lives. PubDate: 2022-04-25
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Abstract: Abstract Identity, as a central concept in contemporary historical archaeology theory, has been enlivened by recent scholarship that is increasingly mindful of the bodily experience. While some scholars espouse a focus on embodiment, others explore further sensory dimensions of historical identities embodied in human and material interactions. Using such concepts as emotion, memory, sensuality, and nostalgia, they investigate the sensing body in the material world through sound, smell, touch, sexuality, and emotion. The intent in focusing on sensual concerns is not to set sensuality against materiality, but rather to seek greater balance between the exploration of the material world and bodily experience and expression. In this article, I discuss a sensual approach to the archaeology of colonial New England by focusing on small finds from 17th- and 18th-century Harvard College that are related to bodily care for physical and spiritual health. PubDate: 2022-04-22
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Abstract In contrast to what films such as Titanic would have people believe, scientific knowledge about ocean liners is fairly limited. These boats and their material culture, however, functioned as symbols of modernity par excellence and thus allow a better understanding of the advent of a new world at the turn of the 20th century. The focus of this article is a ceramic assemblage from the Red Star Line, the shipping company that transported some two million migrants from Antwerp (Belgium) to the United States between 1873 and 1934. The analysis of this material provides new insights into the furnishings and daily life aboard these ships. Moreover, the possible reuse of these maritime objects ashore forms a basis for a discussion of the ways in which ordinary people entered into the modern world using material culture and to what extent they might have embraced the values associated with these mass-produced goods. PubDate: 2022-04-11
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Abstract: Abstract Catholic missionaries were active among rural populations in Manchuria, in northeast China, around the turn of the 20th century. Their presence influenced everything from the role of women in religious and family life, to the adoption of new material culture, to local burial customs. This investigation of the Pianliancheng cemetery in Jilin Province, in use from the 1890s to the 1930s, reveals the material and embodied traces of this history. Archaeological, bioarchaeological, and historical evidence for cultural hybridization and transnational connections are presented. Specific findings include the history of individual Catholic priests in the mission, the hybridization of Catholic and Confucian burial practices by the Chinese converts, material connections to Chinese immigrant communities abroad, the labor burden and nutritional status of various members of the community, the continuation of foot binding in rural Manchuria, and the influence of conversion on gender roles and family life. PubDate: 2022-04-11
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Abstract: Abstract Nineteenth-century sites of prostitution, such as the brothel at 27/29 Endicott Street in Boston, Massachusetts, were inherently sensual spaces. Entertainment and erotic exchange depended upon the complex and multisensory experiences of the clients who visited these spaces and engaged with a carefully crafted fantasy environment. Just as important, however, the sex workers employed in prostitution also negotiated their experiences in a multisensory world as they mitigated the effects of selling their time and bodies. Because of its rich data concerning practices of dress and adornment, health, and hygiene, the assemblage from the 27/29 Endicott Street brothel has the potential to provide nuanced information about the sensory experience of the daily embodied practices of women in sex work. PubDate: 2022-04-04
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Abstract: Abstract “Prairie madness” is a documented phenomenon wherein immigrants who settled the Great Plains experienced episodes of depression and violent behavior. The cause is commonly attributed to the isolation of the households and settlements. Historical accounts and literature from the late 19th and early 20th centuries also specify the loud sound of the winds on the plain as a catalyst for prairie madness. This study uses audiometric analysis of general human-hearing patterns combined with spectral data on the soundscape of the Great Plains region to investigate the possible effect of soundscapes on historical-period plains settler populations. I propose that a number of settlers may have suffered from conditions such as misophonia and acute hyperacusis that can cause increased sensitivity to environmental sounds. Both conditions can result from high-stress environments and cause behavior consistent with descriptions of prairie madness, such as depression, insomnia, and violent or irrational behavior. PubDate: 2022-03-30
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Abstract: Abstract Examination of northern Finnish postmedieval funerary attire and coffins reveals culturally constructed sensory experiences and emotions of the individuals who took care of preparing dead children for burial. Based on historical sources, the attire and coffins for small children were generally made by adolescent godparents, whereas dressing and handling of the dead bodies were left to mature women. Because of their beliefs, parents rarely took care of these duties. Archaeological funerary remains provide an avenue through which to explore the sensory experiences of social groups with strongly held religious beliefs and conceptions regarding the dead and the deceased. Common features in the burials allow the interpretation of emotional patterns and collective memories of contemporary people from three starting points: sleep and eternal life, the innocence of children, and coping mechanisms dealing with child deaths. PubDate: 2022-03-28
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Abstract: Abstract The British Garrison Cemetery is a burial ground for Europeans that is located in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Consisting of graves that date from the early to late 19th century, it provides information on the social status and individual identities of the European settlers in the hill country of the island, and also the circumstances of their deaths. The cause of the high mortality rates among infants, children, and young adults there may be related to the lack of medical facilities, cholera epidemics, and the vulnerability of Europeans to tropical diseases. Graves of individuals who belonged to Nonconformist groups, such as Methodists and Presbyterians, are located on the same grounds as the graves of Anglicans. This apparent harmony indicates that the political and religious rivalry that existed between Anglicans and Nonconformists in England was minimal in British colonies. PubDate: 2022-03-24
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Abstract: Abstract Set in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Old Panama (1519–1671), the House of the Genoese––Slavery Memorial Museum project brings together the lessons of over a decade of archaeological and archival research concentrating on the ruins of one of the largest centers of human trafficking to have operated in Spanish America in the late 1600s. Building upon a growing body of literature addressing phenomenological approaches in historical archaeology and museum studies, this article explores how an object-based reenactment of the soundscape of Old Panama’s slave market can allow the rethinking of its remains as a powerful lieu de mémoire, critically showcasing the difficult legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. Moving beyond traditional visual cues tending to essentialize the experience of both slavers and the enslaved in the New World, this preliminary work examines the acoustic dimensions of the slave trade as a relevant field of memorialization. PubDate: 2022-03-22
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
