Archaeology and the Savage Slot: Displacement and Emplacement in the Premodern World

Many attempts to understand the cultural impact of the forces of modernism, capitalism, and globalization have come to highlight contemporary cultural diversity at the expense of reifying a homogenized past of traditional, static societies. The savage slot still provides a convenient myth for characterizing small-scale communities before the advent of modernism—communities that experienced dramatic change only as they were pulled into the world system. Archaeological evidence from the southeastern United States challenges this stereotype, as Native American groups routinely migrated and continually redefined notions of place and locality—processes often treated as distinctly (post)modern. Such case studies emphasize the importance of working toward a deep historical anthropology that will continue to undermine stereotypes about the Other in the past as well as the present.     

Volatility of animal wealth among Southwest Asian pastoralists

Accounts of Southwest Asian pastoralism often suggest that wealth in animals is volatile. However, no systematic study has been undertaken to determine either the potential for herd increase and loss or the likely long-term implications of this potential. Drawing on an analysis of data from the Komachi nomads of south-central Iran and other Southwest Asian pastoralists, this paper addresses these questions. It argues that, contrary to conventional expectations, (a) herds in the region do not show potential for dramatic increase; (b) radical shifts in individual economic status are unlikely to occur through normal gains and losses; and (c) to the extent that short-term gains or losses of individual holdings do occur, long-term economic differentiation within a population can be expected.     

人类学视野下的乡村聚落景观研究——以龙脊村和弗林村为例

将乡村聚落景观研究置于人类学视野之下有利于科学认知乡村所独具的人地关系价值。对山区聚落的典型代表——桂北龙脊村和瑞士弗林村的聚落景观分别展开研究,首先剖析其空间单元与社会建构、生产活动的关系,进而阐释中观层面的组团分布或受自然地理限定或以公共活动为中心,而两者在宏观格局上则因农业生产活动的不同呈现出截然不同的形态。从乡村聚落景观生成的源头探索人类活动与空间的深度交融;通过2个跨文化案例的比较研究,剖析乡村聚落景观多样性的成因——自然要素、文化要素、生产要素与空间要素之间丰富的关联,揭示乡村聚落景观的多元价值内涵。     

Powhatan's Werowocomoco: Constructing Place, Polity, and Personhood in the Chesapeake, C.E. 1200--C.E. 1609

Colonial encounters within the Powhatan village of Werowocomoco in Tidewater Virginia have captured the public's imagination through romantic literature and popular films. Shifting the focus of inquiry away from English colonial narratives and toward a history of landscape provides an alternative understanding of Werowocomoco as a Native place. Archaeological investigation has identified evidence of earthworks and related social practices that altered Werowocomoco's built environment and subjective experiences of its spaces in ways that colonial chroniclers failed to appreciate. A landscape history combining built environments, cognitive maps, and spatial practices across the historic—precontact divide indicates that the settlement became a ritualized location for the production of political status and social personhood well before English colonization in the Chesapeake. Spatial practices rooted in Algonquian cosmology and centered on Werowocomoco shaped the origins of the Powhatan chiefdom and early colonial history through which Powhatans sought to incorporate Jamestown colonists into their world. A biography of Werowocomoco as a Native place illustrates how a deep historical anthropology may challenge notions of a "prehistoric" past comprised of homogenized societies lacking history.     

History of Human Impact on Natural Environments

Anthropology, in the sense of the Natural History of Humanity, not only satisfies our curiosity about the past but is also essential in understanding our place in the natural world, confronting the environment and facing future adversities. Sociality and intelligence are the two basic interacting features that marked human evolution, which mutually enhanced control over the environment. Interactions between humans and the environment also gave rise to technological developments leading to agriculture and animal domestication, innovations that made possible the accumulation of energy-food surpluses and removed the most important restraint on demographic increase in hunter–gatherer communities. In the last two centuries, increase in life expectancy at birth, exploitation of resources and control of humans over the environment have contributed to a dramatic demographic increase. It is necessary to ask what is the number of people that can be supported by the planet and hypothesize some possible scenarios for the future. Three different scenarios are presented and discussed. A balance between the human population and the natural environment must be preserved for the very survival of our species. A new political and ethical approach is needed. Bioethics is an anthropological and naturalistic science, which attempts to form a pact between humans and nature in order to ensure the possibility of our continued life on this Planet.     

Village Drift and Riverine Settlement: Modeling Akimel O'odham Land Use

Regular unscheduled movements of rancherías within a confined area or settlement district result in the phenomenon described as "village drift," a process whereby a settlement may change its location gradually by several kilometers over a period of years. This article presents a model of village drift based on data acquired from recent archaeological and geomorphological field studies and archival research on the Akimel O'odham, the Gila River Pima of south-central Arizona. The model provides an excellent example of human ecodynamics---an emerging landscape perspective that emphasizes the coevolution of humans and their ecosystem---with implications for understanding prehistoric and historic settlement in desert riverine environments.     

A Sea Change in Anthropology? Public Anthropology Reviews

ABSTRACT  In this article, we introduce the inaugural issue of the \"Public Anthropology Reviews\" section. We suggest that the new section reflects significant changes underway in the discipline, including an expansion in the kind of work valued among anthropologists, new ways in which anthropological knowledge is being produced and disseminated, and an acknowledgment that anthropologists have a responsibility to dedicate their skills to issues of broad public import. The section will, thus, expose AA readers to some of the new anthropological work appearing in a wide variety of media and nontraditional academic formats that aims both to communicate primarily with nonanthropological audiences and to have an impact on critical issues of wide social significance. We here present the reviews in this issue, identify additional contemporary issues likely to be addressed in future reviews, and welcome submissions and critical feedback for the section.     

北京薹草属植物资源调查与园林应用评价

薹草属植物适合在城市园林中作为草坪地被植物应用,对恢复与改善生态环境具有重要作用。该文为了解北京市野生薹草资源,为薹草属植物新种质选育奠定基础,从2006年春季至2008年春季在北京20个区域进行薹草属植物资源调查、收集及园林应用评价。结果表明：薹草在北京地区分布较广,在山谷路旁、田边、山坡草地,疏林下、密林下和水边湿地不同生境类型均有分布,表现出耐荫、耐旱、耐瘠薄、耐水湿等适应性强的特点。共收集与保存了21种薹草属植物,并在田间小区观测其生长情况和物候期,通过抗逆性和质量性状综合评价,筛选出适于北京地区应用的3种草坪地被植物：青绿薹草、矮丛薹草、披针叶薹草。     

厦门常见观赏竹在园林造景中的应用

在对厦门岛内外公园、绿地竹类植物调查的基础上,选择常见观赏竹31种,分析其观赏特性,并阐述其在现代园林绿化中的应用。     

世界自然遗产美学价值的识别与评估概述

将自然与文化完全对立的现代西方经典范式二元论,使自然遗产美学价值的评估标准（vii）在界定“自然美”方面往往有所局限：仅仅从物的存在而不是从人的审美活动出发来考察“美”。具体通过回顾依据标准（vii）列入《世界遗产名录》的历史案例,分析标准（vii）的两类评估要求（“绝妙的自然现象”与“特殊自然美和美学重要性”）所要识别的“自然美”。由标准（vii）的使用情况可以发现,为区别于自然的科学价值,美学价值必须把“自然美与自然审美”作为一个有机整体进行研究。而通过分析目前广泛使用的风景资源与风景美学评价方法,指出自然遗产美学价值的识别与评估应从现成的物质实体转向生成的关系存在,聚焦于“自然美”产生的社会文化背景,以此实现对自然和文化价值体系的整体关照。     

A Neo-Boasian Conception of Cultural Boundaries

For the past 30 years, anthropology's critics have repeatedly questioned the notion of "cultural boundaries," arguing that concepts of culture inappropriately posit stable and bounded "islands" of cultural distinctiveness in an ever-changing world of transnational cultural "flows." This issue remains an Achilles' heel—or at least a recurring inflamed tendon—of anthropology. However, in the conception of boundaries, we still have much to learn from Boasian anthropologists, who conceived of boundaries not as barriers to outside influence or to historical change, but as cultural distinctions that were irreducibly plural, perspectival, and permeable. In this article, I retheorize and extend the Boasians' open concept of cultural boundaries, emphasizing how people's own ideas of "the foreign"—and the "own" versus the "other" distinction—give us a way out of the old conundrum in which the boundedness of culture, as conceived in spatial terms, seems to contradict the open-ended nature of cultural experience.