Resilience Theory in Archaeology

The past can be characterized by periods of changing and stable relationships between human groups and their environment. In this article, I argue that use of "resilience theory" as a conceptual framework will assist archaeologists in interpreting the past in ways that are interesting and potentially relevant to contemporary issues. Many of the authors in this "In Focus" section primarily concentrate on the relationships associated with patterns of human extraction of resources and the impacts of those human activities on the continuing condition of the ecosystem. These processes are, of course, embedded in a complex web of relationships that are based on multiple interactions of underlying patterns and processes of both the ecological and social domains. In this article, I introduce a resilience theory perspective to argue that these transformations were characterized by very different reorganizations of the socioecological landscape and were the product of a variety of factors that operated at different scales of geography, time, and social organization.     

Between Artifacts and Texts: Historical Archaeology in Global Perspective

Between Artifacts and Texts: Historical Archaeology in Global Perspective. Anders Andrén. Translated by Alan Crozier. New York: Plenum, 1998. 216 pp.     

一个生者与死者的对话

“民族现象不是与生俱来,也不会永世长存。”发展与消亡是必然的过程,见证这样的过程,可以体会其中的苦涩。那么,我们能否减少其中的苦涩,为其充填更多的美好和憧憬?     

Intermediate Elites in Pre-Columbian States and Empires

Intermediate Elites in Pre-Columbian States and Empires . Christina M. Elson and R. Alan Covey, eds. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2006. 312 pp.     

Corn in Clay: Maize Paleoethnobotany in Pre-Columbian Art

Corn in Clay: Maize Paleoethnobotany in Pre-Columbian Art. Mary W. Eubanks. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999. 249 pp.     

Status and Role in Archaeology:

Abstract

Three categories of individuals currently interested in the recovery of prehistoric archaeological material on the Plains as well as in the United States generally, may be distinguished: the professional archaeologist, the amateur, and the pot-hunter, or vandal. Each of these types is placed in perspective in relation to the others and to the field of prehistoric archaeology, with special emphasis on the status and roles of different types of pot-hunters.

The amateur is aligned with the professional, especially in terms of objectives and approach, while each is differentiated in status and role from the existing variety of pot-hunters. The position is developed that pot-hunters decidedly do not comprise a homogeneous grouping, there being within their numbers at least 3 subtypes, each manifesting important differences.

Federal and state antiquities legislation is viewed as inadequate, by itself, to check the destruction of prehistoric sites, objects, and related material. Such laws must be coordinated, not only with the effort of the professional and the amateur in undertaking controlled excavations, but also with the equally important task of demonstrating to unwitting pot-hunters the implications of their destructive activity in contrast to the positive contributions of the scientific approach to antiquities.