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Authors:Adnan Almohamad, Husam Al Saad, Ibrahim Mehmet ali Abstract: Journal of Social Archaeology, Ahead of Print. The grave damage to Syrian antiquities inflicted during the war has demonstrated the failure of international organizations and cultural agreements to protect antiquities in Syria and highlighted the divergent attitudes of Syrians themselves regarding their antiquities. Initiatives were undertaken in some areas to safeguard antiquities, but were lacking in others, and some Syrians were themselves involved in plundering and destruction actions. This paper aims to identify the reasons for such stark differences in local communities’ responses to safeguarding Syrian antiquities. A total of 46 semi-structured interviews were conducted with residents of Idlib and northern rural Aleppo, including local archaeologists. The study demonstrated differences between the two areas regarding knowledge and attitudes and revealed that a range of factors led to clear differences in the responses of the local communities in Idlib and those of northern rural Aleppo regarding antiquities protection. Some factors were anticipated, such as the impact of war, the security situation, and the deteriorating economic situation, while new factors have been identified. Understanding the local attitudes to antiquities, including the reasons for its protection or destruction, will support plans for enhancing the role of local communities in preserving their antiquities during the conflict. Citation: Journal of Social Archaeology PubDate: 2023-05-17T10:49:25Z DOI: 10.1177/14696053231172124
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Authors:Maciej Wyżgoł, Agata Deptuła Abstract: Journal of Social Archaeology, Ahead of Print. Old Dongola, with a history reaching back to the 5th century AD, was originally the capital of Makuria, one of the three medieval Nubian kingdoms. After the collapse of Makuria, its capital city saw migratory movements and political changes that resulted in the emergence of new power relations. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the city was the seat of a local ruler subordinate to the Funj Sultanate. New communities that emerged in this setting inhabited the city until the colonial era. This paper examines the ways in which Funj-period households, as fundamental social units in Old Dongola, were mutually constitutive with houses, engaging with their spatiality and materiality through social practices. The authors investigate domestic labour, which was an essential factor in the negotiation of social differences and identities within the household. Differences in building techniques are analysed to compare various ways in which dwellers engaged with houses and to assess their implications for social differentiation within the city. Citation: Journal of Social Archaeology PubDate: 2023-05-05T06:29:44Z DOI: 10.1177/14696053231170023
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Authors:Seren Griffiths, Neil Carlin, Ben Edwards, Nicholas Overton, Penny Johnston, Julian Thomas Abstract: Journal of Social Archaeology, Ahead of Print. In this paper, we discuss how the history of our discipline continues to shape how we think with material culture to produce narratives. We argue that recent developments in scientific dating—in combination with New Materialist and Big Data approaches—offer the potential to produce radical new interpretations. However, we can only achieve this if we adopt ‘ethically Bayesian’ approaches which recognise that some of the most fundamental aspects of our epistemological structures are highly situated, reflecting a Eurocentric, colonial legacy. This legacy is especially important when we study societies that did/do not produce texts—so-called ‘prehistoric’ societies. We suggest that the revolutionary potential of radiocarbon dating on archaeology has not been fully achieved, precisely because chronometric data have not yet been made sufficiently independent from materials-determined narrative structures. We outline the importance of ethically Bayesian approaches as means to challenge this disciplinary inheritance. We argue that we need to describe the richness and specificity of the pasts we bring into being in ways that take better account of the historical processes through which heterogeneous assemblages emerge, rather than to search for preconfigured entities (like ‘the Bronze Age’). Times have changed; we need our approaches to time to catch up. Citation: Journal of Social Archaeology PubDate: 2023-02-13T05:23:26Z DOI: 10.1177/14696053231153499
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Authors:Hannah Mattson First page: 51 Abstract: Journal of Social Archaeology, Ahead of Print. Although the application of semiotics to the archaeological study of rock art is not new, Peircean perspectives are still uncommon, and those implementing the concepts of qualisigns and qualia are only rarely employed. Yet, an approach centered on sensuous properties can serve as a valuable complement to other materiality- and landscape-based frameworks popular in contemporary rock art research. Using Ancestral Pueblo rock art from the Middle and Northern Rio Grande region of the U.S. Southwest as an example, I offer an archaeological narrative of how social values may be attached to conventionalized qualia rooted in sensorial experiences. Specifically, I examine how diverse media—rock art, shields, objects of adornment, and feathers—were connected through luminosity and security, culturally conceptualized qualitative properties that became formalized and enregistered in the context of new social institutions and modes of group conduct appearing during the 14th century CE. Citation: Journal of Social Archaeology PubDate: 2023-02-13T09:18:32Z DOI: 10.1177/14696053221146562
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Authors:J. A. Baird, Zena Kamash, Rubina Raja First page: 76 Abstract: Journal of Social Archaeology, Ahead of Print. During the Syrian conflict, ongoing since 2011, Palmyra became notorious for the destruction and looting of its Roman-period remains, giving rise to many narratives of what Palmyra’s future should bring, often without attention to how we have come to know its past. This article explores that past through a key period—the French Mandate—when European archaeologists categorically reshaped the site, culminating in the relocation of the site’s population from mudbrick houses in and around the Temple of Bel to a new, military-built town north of the original. We examine the site immediately prior to that transformation through contemporary archaeological diaries from 1924 to 1928, written by Danish archaeologist Harald Ingholt. Through his diaries, it is possible to reconstruct the complexity of knowledge production at the site, which disrupts the authorized discourses of archaeological discovery with important consequences for how we understand the contribution of local inhabitants to scientific knowledge. Citation: Journal of Social Archaeology PubDate: 2023-02-02T05:21:49Z DOI: 10.1177/14696053221144013
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Authors:Adria LaViolette, Jeffrey B Fleisher, Mark C Horton First page: 99 Abstract: Journal of Social Archaeology, Ahead of Print. Spanning c. 1050–1500 CE, a burgeoning Swahili community called Chwaka built a sequence of four mortared coral mosques in their town of wattle-and-daub houses on Pemba Island, Tanzania. The mosques’ placement, construction, and use played an active role in creating and strengthening an Islamic community and help us define changes in social practice within the town and the larger polity in which it existed. It is argued that the construction of each mosque was an act of assembling, drawing people, other-than-human things and affective social practices together in ways that help tell an urban story. This research provides insights into the residents’ socioeconomic and cultural priorities and the town’s changing relationship with villagers from the surrounding region, contributing to understandings of Swahili urbanism and urban practice. Citation: Journal of Social Archaeology PubDate: 2023-02-15T10:02:51Z DOI: 10.1177/14696053231151667
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Authors:Stephanie C Martin First page: 3 Abstract: Journal of Social Archaeology, Ahead of Print. The critical role of material objects for migrants in resettlement contexts is well established, but less work has been done to investigate the role of materiality in shaping migrants’ experiences and lives in transit. This paper provides insights into the materiality of migration journeys in the eastern Mediterranean with an approach situated at the intersection of ethnography and archaeology. A focus on items migrants carried, kept, and valued, as well as items lost or gained during their journeys, is used to investigate the importance of material objects in transit, behaviors and experiences of migration journeys which may be otherwise unseen, and the ways in which migration restructures relationships between people and objects. Citation: Journal of Social Archaeology PubDate: 2022-12-12T07:16:45Z DOI: 10.1177/14696053221144754
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Authors:Andrew M. Bauer, Peter G. Johansen First page: 25 Abstract: Journal of Social Archaeology, Ahead of Print. This paper considers the intersections of memorialization practices and politics throughout a period of emergent social differentiation during the Neolithic and Iron Age periods in the Deccan region of southern India. Rather than focus on how mortuary architecture and grave assemblages might correlate with the status, rank, or class of the deceased individuals—as has often been suggested—we place emphasis on how mortuary practices and the production of megalithic places contributed to the establishment and maintenance of social collectives among living communities. More specifically, we identify at least two modes of political practice associated with megalithic production in prehistoric South India: one related to the constitution of collectives of labor and shared consumption activities involved in the process of making monuments; and a second related to the material legacy of monuments in constituting cultural and historical places of social affiliation. In making these arguments about the social significance of megalithic places, we also critically consider new materialist and posthumanist theoretical frameworks in archaeology. Citation: Journal of Social Archaeology PubDate: 2022-12-14T02:15:57Z DOI: 10.1177/14696053221138580
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