Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images

Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images . Elizabeth Edwards and Janice Hart, eds. London: Routledge Press, 2004. 222 pp.     

Double Displacement: Indigenous Australians and Artefacts of the Wet Tropics

The history of dispossession of Indigenous Australians as a result of government policies has been well documented. Going beyond this established literature, this paper explores connections between the displacement of Aboriginal people of the rainforest region of North Queensland to reserves and the ethnographic trade in museum artefacts. I provide an analysis of how Aboriginal people and some of their material products were historically sent along different trajectories. The paper sheds light on debates about the political and economic aspects of a history of displacement, circulation, and emplacement that continues to produce inequalities today.     

Oxidative Damage and the Preservation of Organic Artefacts

Organic artefacts degrade by a number of mechanisms. Autoxidation is one of the most important and involves free radicals. The importance of free radical reactions in the degradation of paper and other cellulosic materials, rubber and other organics is described. In the case of paper, treatment with calcium and magnesium compounds can inhibit oxidation, while transition metals increase the rate. Antioxidants have not been used a great deal due to unwanted side effects. The Russell effect, a technique for detecting oxidation using photographic materials. is described.     

Reading and Time: Two Approaches to the Materiality of Scripture

In this article I examine Christian approaches to conceptions of time as expressed in approaches to reading the Bible. The first main focus in this effort is upon the work of Saint Augustine, whose arguments about the connections between reading and time have been, as I try to show, very influential. The second main focus is more ethnographic in nature, and comes from my work in Zimbabwe on a small group of apostolic Christians whose views differ significantly from Augustine. These two cases are framed by some more general remarks on Christian temporalities, as well as a call for the newly-emerging interest in the anthropology of Christianity to take note of more general work on literacy and the ethnography of reading.     

Oxidative Damage and the Preservation of Organic Artefacts

Organic artefacts degrade by a number of mechanisms. Autoxidation is one of the most important and involves free radicals. The importance of free radical reactions in the degradation of paper and other cellulosic materials, rubber and other organics is described. In the case of paper, treatment with calcium and magnesium compounds can inhibit oxidation, while transition metals increase the rate. Antioxidants have not been used a great deal due to unwanted side effects. The Russell effect, a technique for detecting oxidation using photographic materials. is described.     

Archaeology and Language III: Artefacts, Languages and Texts

Archaeology and Language III: Artefacts, Languages and Texts. Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs. eds. New York: Routledge, 1999.302 pp.     

Artefacts and collectors in the tropics of North Queensland

This paper outlines some of the ways early artefact collecting contributed to the definition of the Australian region now known and marketed as the ‘World Heritage Wet Tropics’. While others have collected in this region, we focus on the collecting activities of Hermann Klaatsch and the work of Norman Tindale to explore some factors that contributed to their claims that certain artefacts represent a region and its history. We argue that these understandings of region and the past, along with the now widely dispersed artefacts, maintain a lively, albeit transformed, presence in current debates about Aboriginal regional culture, linking assertions of rights to lost and stolen cultural property with notions of large‐scale environmental management within the ‘Wet Tropics’.     

Freeze-substitution of dehydrated plant tissues: Artefacts of aqueous fixation revisited

Summary This investigation assessed the extent of rehydration of dehydrated plant tissues during aqueous fixation in comparison with the fine structure revealed by freeze-substitution. Radicles from desiccation-tolerant pea (Pisum sativum L.), desiccation-sensitive jackfruit seeds (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lamk.), and leaves of the resurrection plantEragrostis nindensis Ficalho & Hiern. were selected for their developmentally diverse characteristics. Following freeze-substitution, electron microscopy of dehydrated cells revealed variable wall infolding. Plasmalemmas had a trilaminar appearance and were continuous and closely appressed to cell walls, while the cytoplasm was compacted but ordered. Following aqueous fixation, separation of the plasmalemma and the cell wall, membrane vesiculation and distortion of cellular substructure were evident in all material studied. The sectional area enclosed by the cell wall in cortical cells of dehydrated pea and jackfruit radicles and mesophyll ofE. nindensis increased after aqueous fixation by 55, 20, and 30%, respectively. Separation of the plasmalemma and the cell wall was attributed to the characteristics of aqueous fixatives, which limited the expansion of the plasmalemma and cellular contents but not that of the cell wall. It is proposed that severed plasmodesmatal connections, plasmalemma discontinuities, and membrane vesiculation that frequently accompany separation of walls and protoplasm are artefacts of aqueous fixation and should not be interpreted as evidence of desiccation damage or membrane recycling. Evidence suggests that, unlike aqueous fixation, freeze-substitution facilitates reliable preservation of tissues in the dehydrated state and is therefore essential for ultrastructural studies of desiccation.Abbreviations LM light microscopy - TEM transmission electron microscopy - CF conventional (aqueous) fixation - FS freeze-substitution - ER endoplasmic reticulum     

Materiality and Global Spiritual Networks: Old and new sacred places and objects

In this article, I am interested in how belief and religious materiality—sacred objects, places, infrastructures and digital media—are entangled in globalisation processes. Drawing on a case study of the John of God spiritual movement, I analyse the ways in which places and objects that have recently acquired sacred status enter into older, more established global spiritual networks, and by doing so are able to travel and ‘settle’ elsewhere. I argue that if we want to make sense of the place of religion in the world today, we need to link two fields of research on religion which have mostly developed separately: the fields of Material Religion and Globalisation of Religion. Furthermore, I contend that it is precisely because of its (mostly mobile) materiality that the John of God movement was able to survive somewhat after its charismatic leader was sentenced and jailed for sexual crimes in 2019.     

Artefacts of apes, humans, and others: towards comparative assessment and analysis

This paper explores issues of technology and artefacts in a comparative cross-species frame, using archaeological examples and modern data sets to illustrate points about process and content. It develops the argument that regardless of species, artefacts have a special significance as external projections of the mind, often necessitating cognitive judgements on the basis of several variables and subject to influences by cultural tradition, functional needs, and raw materials. In humans, apes, and other tool using animals, behaviour overlaps in some respects and is vastly different in others. Overlapping aspects are worth seeking out and exploiting, as they provide opportunities to investigate factors influencing variation and to gain insights into cognition. Recent primatological research establishes much more foundation for continuity, but many of the details of artefacts and their variation remain to be explored. This paper presents case studies of variability and standardisation that suggest the limits on variation are as tight in some chimpanzee produced artefacts as in many produced by humans, and functional constraints appear to operate more strongly on some parts of artefacts than others. Thus, degree of standardisation cannot be used as a simple index to ‘refinement,’ but the widespread overlap in standardisation between human and nonhuman artefacts greatly expands the scope for study.     

The Innovative Materiality of Revitalization Movements: Lessons from the Pueblo Revolt of 1680

ABSTRACT  Although Wallace's revitalization movement model has been successfully utilized in scores of ethnographic and ethnohistorical studies of societies throughout the world, revitalization is considerably less well documented in archaeological contexts. An examination of the materiality of revitalization movements affords an opportunity to redress this lack by investigating how material culture creates and constrains revitalization phenomena. In this article, I reconsider the revitalization model through a case study focusing on the archaeology of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, emphasizing the central role of materiality in the formation and mediation of these movements. In doing so, I examine the archaeological signatures of revitalization movements, concluding that they are highly negotiated and heterogeneous phenomena and that the materiality of these episodes cultivates cultural innovation. I also seek to demonstrate that the distinctive types of material culture produced through revitalization are not epiphenomenal but, rather, are crucially constitutive of revitalizing processes.     

Personifying Objects/Objectifying People: Handling Questions of Mortality and Materiality through the Archaeological Body

Death and the bodies of the dead are managed and handled in contemporary Western society by various professions that include archaeology. The bodies of the dead exist in a variety of material forms, and generate conflicting responses from the archaeologists who work with them. Positioning archaeologists as professionals within a wider society, this article explores the relationship between the physicality of the body, the (de)construction of personhood and the problem of mortality in contemporary Western (British) society.     

Artefacts of the pot environment on soil nutrient availability: implications for the interpretation of ecological studies

Pot experiments are frequently used to examine plant, soil, and microbial interactions that cannot be studied in situ. Although impacts of the pot environment on seedling growth have long been recognized, they are rarely addressed directly in current ecological studies. Here we examine how commonly used soil conditioners, often necessary to maintain adequate drainage in pots, can influence nutrient availability and seedling growth. Balsawood (Ochroma pyramidalis) seedlings were grown in central Panama in soil combined in a 50:50 mix with one of the following soil conditioners: marine sand, pure sand, perlite, vermiculite, or rice husks. Soil nutrient availability, foliar N and P, and seedling growth were compared after 1 month. Rice husks dramatically reduced soil nitrate, seedling growth, and foliar N. Other conditioners had smaller effects on growth, although vermiculite may be a significant source of base cations in infertile soils. Marine sand had a strong neutralizing effect on acidic soil due to the presence of calcareous shell fragments. Effects of soil conditioners need to be added to other known artifacts of the pot environment influencing nutrient availability, including alterations to N mineralization rates relative to bulk soil, and pot-size effects on N:P availability. These artifacts can strongly influence plant performance and therefore the interpretation of ecological studies.     

Religious and secular death: a parting of the ways

Most organized religions have indicated a level of support for organ donation including the diagnosis of death by the brain criterion. Organ donation is seen as a gift of love and fits within a communitarian ethos that most religions embrace. The acceptance of the determination of death by the brain criterion, where it has been explained, is reconciled with religious views of soul and body by using a notion of integration. Because the soul may be seen as that which integrates the human body, in the absence of any other signs of human functioning, loss of integration is considered to be an indication that soul and body have separated. To some extent this view would seem to be informed by an Aristotelian notion of the soul, but it fits well enough with religious notions of the person continuing after death. There have been several developments internationally that indicate that the acceptance of so-called 'brain death' by organized religions has been challenged by new developments including the acceptance of a lesser standard than loss of all brain function and a rejection by the US President's Council on Bioethics of the notion of loss of integration as an explanation of death by the brain criterion.     

Assessment of Still and Moving Images in the Diagnosis of Gastric Lesions Using Magnifying Narrow-Band Imaging in a Prospective Multicenter Trial

Objectives

Magnifying narrow-band imaging (M-NBI) is more accurate than white-light imaging for diagnosing small gastric cancers. However, it is uncertain whether moving M-NBI images have additional effects in the diagnosis of gastric cancers compared with still images.

Design

A prospective multicenter cohort study.

Methods

To identify the additional benefits of moving M-NBI images by comparing the diagnostic accuracy of still images only with that of both still and moving images. Still and moving M-NBI images of 40 gastric lesions were obtained by an expert endoscopist prior to this prospective multicenter cohort study. Thirty-four endoscopists from ten different Japanese institutions participated in the prospective multicenter cohort study. Each study participant was first tested using only still M-NBI images (still image test), then tested 1 month later using both still and moving M-NBI images (moving image test). The main outcome was a difference in the diagnostic accuracy of cancerous versus noncancerous lesions between the still image test and the moving image test.

Results

Thirty-four endoscopists were analysed. There were no significant difference of cancerous versus noncancerous lesions between still and moving image tests in the diagnostic accuracy (59.9% versus 61.5%), sensitivity (53.4% versus 55.9%), and specificity (67.0% versus 67.6%). And there were no significant difference in the diagnostic accuracy between still and moving image tests of demarcation line (65.4% versus 65.5%), microvascular pattern (56.7% versus 56.9%), and microsurface pattern (48.1% versus 50.9%). Diagnostic accuracy showed no significant difference between the still and moving image tests in the subgroups of endoscopic findings of the lesions.

Conclusions

The addition of moving M-NBI images to still M-NBI images does not improve the diagnostic accuracy for gastric lesions. It is reasonable to concentrate on taking sharp still M-NBI images during endoscopic observation and use them for diagnosis.

Trial registration

Umin.ac.jp UMIN-CTR000008048     

Materiality and Cosmology: Old Georgian Churches as Sacred,Sublime, and Secular Objects

Discourses about Georgian churches have since the nineteenth century treated the material quality of'ancientness’ associated with existing churches as being among their essential defining properties. This paper first explores how different material qualisigns of churches, including oldness and qualisigns attendant on oldness, allow churches to be interpreted as secular objects, by ordering them with theatres (as expressive of'civilization'), the natural landscape (expressive of an aesthetics of the sublime) or other monuments, including texts (expressive of culture). One result of such discourses is that the contemporary Orthodox Church finds it difficult to have ‘new’ churches accepted as being churches at all. These nineteenth‐century discourses thus provide a context for the complex and contested reception of old and new Orthodox churches, as well as other religious structures, such as mountain shrines, which have a more ambiguous relation with Orthodoxy.     

模拟打制实验及其在丁村角页岩石器研究中的应用

模拟打制是史前考古研究中的重要实验考古方法之一,对于正确认识考古标本的类型和技术、解读当时人类的认知水平和知识积累具有不可取代的作用。本文简要回溯了模拟打制实验的发展史,并评述其应用现状。模拟打制实验在欧美有较长的发展与应用历史,但最终趋向了不同的发展方向。传统的模拟打制实验研究在欧洲得到了更加深入的继承和发展,而美国在上世纪90年代后期逐渐发展起了以定量控制、数理统计为核心的实验方法。本文以近期在山西丁村开展的角页岩模拟打制实验为例,介绍传统的模拟打制实验的基本流程和内容,包括实验的内容设计、实施及记录和分析等。本次实验结果肯定了硬锤锤击技术在丁村角页岩石核剥片和修理中的广泛应用,并在一定程度上否定了以往对使用碰砧法的推测。文章最后对模拟打制实验存在的问题和应用前景作了讨论和展望。