Essays on Archaeology and Anthropology in the Western Pacific in Honour of Jim Specht

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Essays on Archaeology and Anthropology in the Western Pacific in Honour of Jim Specht www.amonline.net.au/publications/ ISBN 0-9750476-2-0 RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM CONTENTS RECORDS OF THE Jim Specht's brilliant career—a tribute .................................................................................... ......................................PAUL S.C. TAÇON, JACK GOLSON, KIRK HUFFMAN & DES GRIFFIN 1 Jim Specht: a bibliography ................................................................................. KATE KHAN 9 AUSTRALIAN Holocene vegetation, savanna origins and human settlement of Guam ................................ ................................................................................J. STEPHEN ATHENS & JEROME V. W ARD 15 The effect of objects: the return of a north Vanuatu textile from the Australian Museum to the Vanuatu Cultural Centre ............................................................................ LISSANT BOLTON 31 MUSEUM Ownership and a peripatetic collection: Raymond Firth’s Collection from Tikopia, Solomon Islands ................................................................................................. ELIZABETH BONSHEK 37 Early agriculture in the highlands of New Guinea: an assessment of Phase 1 at Kuk Swamp .......................................................................................................................... TIM DENHAM 47 Settlement history and landscape use in Santo, Vanuatu ...... JEAN-CHRISTOPHE GALIPAUD 59 A century of collecting: colonial collectors in southwest New Britain ................................. .................................................................................. CHANTAL KNOWLES & CHRIS GOSDEN 65 Phytoliths and the evidence for banana cultivation at the Lapita Reber-Rakival Site on 2004 Watom Island, Papua New Guinea ......................... CAROL J. LENTFER & ROGER C. GREEN 75 Trade and culture history across the Vitiaz Strait, Papua New Guinea: the emerging post- Lapita coastal sequence ...................................................................................... IAN LILLEY 89 From Misisil Cave to Eliva Hamlet: rediscovering the Pleistocene in interior West New Britain .................................................................................................. CHRISTINA PAVLIDES 97 Supplement 29 Walpole, a “Mystery Island” in southeast New Caledonia? .................. CHRISTOPHE SAND 109 A Pacific Odyssey: Oral tradition and the creation of Late Prehistory in Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands ..... ..................................................PETER SHEPPARD, RICHARD WALTER & SHANKAR ASWANI 123 Are the earliest field monuments of the Pacific landscape serial sites? ......... ANITA SMITH 133 Archaeology and Anthropology in the Western Pacific. Is there life after Lapita, and do you remember the 60s? The post-Lapita sequences of the western Pacific ....................................................................................... MATTHEW SPRIGGS 139 The nature of prehistoric obsidian importation to Anir and the development of a 3,000 year Papers in Honour of Jim Specht old regional picture of obsidian exchange within the Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea .......................................................................................... GLENN R. SUMMERHAYES 145 Stone mortar and pestle distribution in New Britain revisited ............. PAMELA SWADLING 157 edited by Pre-Lapita valuables in island Melanesia ................................................ ROBIN TORRENCE 163 Rethinking regional analyses of western Pacific rock-art .................... MEREDITH WILSON 173 Val Attenbrow and Richard Fullagar A M AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM Publications may be purchased at the Australian Museum Shop or online at: www.amonline.net.au/shop/ SUPPLEMENT 29 19 May 2004 INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS Manuscripts must be submitted to the Editor. Authors will then submitted either as digital images or as hard copy. The author and RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM liaise with a nominated Associate Editor until a work is accepted, figure number must be clearly marked on each piece of artwork or rejected or withdrawn. All manuscripts are refereed externally. in the name of each file. Extra costs resulting from colour production Director: Frank Howarth The Australian Museum’s mission is to research, interpret, Only those manuscripts that meet the following requirements are charged to the author. All artwork must (a) be rectangular or communicate and apply understanding of the environ- will be considered for publication. square and scalable to a width of 83 mm (one text column) or 172 ments and cultures of the Australian region to increase Submit either (a) three CDs each with all text and hi-resolution mm (both text columns) and any depth up to 229 mm (the number Editor: Shane F. McEvey their long-term sustainability. The Museum has main- image files, or (b) three hard copies and one set of all electronic of lines in a caption limits depth); (b) have lettering similar to 14 files. Attach one summary file or cover sheet giving: the title; the point, upper case, normal, sans serif font, in final print; (c) have no tained the highest standards of scholarship in these fields unnecessary white or black space; and (d) have vertical or horizontal for more than 175 years, and is one of Australia’s foremost name, address and contact details of each author; the author Editorial Committee: responsible for checking proofs; a suggested running head of less scale bars, with the lengths given in the caption and with the thickness publishers of original research in anthropology, geology than 40 character-spaces; and the number of figures, tables and of an upper case 14 point letter “i”. and zoology. appendices. Manuscripts must be complete when submitted. Hard copy artwork submissions must meet the following Chair: G.D.F. Wilson (INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY) The Records of the Australian Museum (ISSN 0067- Text files, tables and charts should all be in Rich Text Format requirements: (a) they must be no larger than A3; (b) the dimension F.L. Sutherland (GEOLOGY) 1975) publishes the results of research on Australian (RTF). Tables and figures should be numbered and referred to in of artwork should not be less than the desired final size; (c) halftones M.S. Moulds (INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY) Museum collections and of studies that relate in other numerical order in the text. Electronic copy is stripped and recon- and line-drawings must be mounted separately; (d) lettering, scales and edges—especially of halftone artwork—must be sharp and S.F. McEvey (INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY) ways to the Museum’s mission. There is an emphasis on structed during production, so authors should avoid excessive layout Australasian, southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean research. or textual embellishments; avoid using uncommon fonts, a single straight (images or maps should not be enclosed within a box); (e) J.M. Leis (VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY) The Records is released annually as three issues of one font should be used throughout (Times or Times New Roman are photographic negatives can be used in production, but positive S. Ingleby (VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY) volume, volume 55 was published in 2003. Monographs preferred). images with labels are, of course, required by referees. Halftone, colour or black and white line images may be sub- G.D. Edgecombe (PALAEONTOLOGY) are published about once a year as Records of the All copy is manipulated within a Windows (not Mac) environment mitted electronically; all such images must be presented as TIFF, or Australian Museum, Supplements. Supplement 28 (ISBN using Microsoft and Adobe software. If hard copy is submitted then D.J. Bickel (INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY) it should be printed from the electronic file that accompanies it. as multilayered PSD files suitable for Adobe Photoshop version 0-7347-2313-X) was published in June 2003. Catalogues, V.J. Attenbrow (ANTHROPOLOGY) Manuscripts should be prepared using recent issues as a guide. 5.0 or later. Halftone and colour images must be at a minimum lists and databases have been published since 1988 as S.T. Ahyong (INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY) There should be a title (series titles should not be used), author(s) resolution of 300 dpi at final size (2040 pixels = width of page) numbered Technical Reports of the Australian Museum with their institutional and e-mail addresses, an abstract (should and all labelling must be sharp (with anti-aliased active). Black (ISSN 1031-8062). Technical Report number 18 was be intelligible by itself, informative not indicative), introduction and white line images (bitmaps) must be at a minimum resolution published in February 2004. Australian Museum Memoirs (should open with a few lines for general, non-specialist readers), of 1200 dpi at final size (8160 pixels = width of page). (ISSN 0067-1967) ceased in 1983. materials and methods, results (usually subdivided with primary, When reference is made to figures in the present work use Fig. These three publications—Records, Supplements and secondary and sometimes tertiary-level headings), discussion, or Figs., when in another work use fig. or figs.; the same rule Technical Reports—are distributed to libraries throughout acknowledgments and references. If appropriate, an appendix applies to tables. Figures should be numbered and referred to in the world and are now uploaded at our website six months may be added after references. An index may be called for if a paper numerical order in the text. after they are published. Librarians are invited to propose is very large (>55,000 words) and contains many indexible
Recommended publications
  • The Archaeology of Lapita Dispersal in Oceania
    The archaeology of Lapita dispersal in Oceania pers from the Fourth Lapita Conference, June 2000, Canberra, Australia / Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and Island Melanesia — lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present. Since the beginning of the series, the basic colour on the spine and cover has distinguished the regional distribution of topics, as follows: ochre for Australia, green for New Guinea, red for Southeast Asia and blue for the Pacific islands. From 2001, issues with a gold spine will include conference proceedings, edited papers, and monographs which in topic or desired format do not fit easily within the original arrangements. All volumes are numbered within the same series. List of volumes in Terra Australis Volume 1: Burrill Lake and Currarong: coastal sites in southern New South Wales. R.J. Lampert (1971) Volume 2: Ol Tumbuna: archaeological excavations in the eastern central Highlands, Papua New Guinea. J.P. White (1972) Volume 3: New Guinea Stone Age Trade: the geography and ecology of traffic in the interior. I. Hughes (1977) Volume 4: Recent Prehistory in Southeast Papua. B. Egloff (1979) Volume 5: The Great Kartan Mystery. R. Lampert (1981) Volume 6: Early Man in North Queensland: art and archeaology in the Laura area.
    [Show full text]
  • 24 Labor As Seen by Social Anthropology José Sergio Leite
    24 Labor As Seen By Social Anthropology José Sergio Leite Lopes 1 1. Introduction: the economic sphere and labor in social anthropology Anthropologists have traditionally studied labor in their monographs about indigenous groups, ethnic minorities, the peasantry, fishers and artisans. In these studies of labor, as in the economic sphere in general, it appears as enmeshed in the totality of the social life of these “traditional”, “pre-capitalist” groups. Generally such anthropological studies focus on the centrality of gift giving and reciprocity, which negate or obscure economic interests for the benefit of the logic of honor or of symbolic capital. They regard the gift as a total social fact where the market principal is subordinated to that of reciprocity and redistribution. Labor in these studies is not the central theme of interest, but appears in a form subordinated to other aspects with which it is interrelated. Between the 1950s and 1970s, anthropologists engaged with the question of the critical application or appropriation of concepts from diverse currents of so-called economic theory. Such concepts were constructed to explain the capitalist economy, but anthropologists embraced these economic principles in general to understand all societies. A debate arose between “substantivists”, who praised the historicity of concepts and the necessity of new instruments for the economic analysis of non-capitalist societies and the “formalists” who gave a wider reach to existing economic theories to apply to their ethnographies. The substantivists were located in some American universities and drew heavily on the work of and disciples of the Hungarian economic historian Karl Polanyi; later they would have an important repercussion in the whole anthropological field.
    [Show full text]
  • Samoan Archaeology 2006
    Samoan Archaeology 2006 ' David J. Addison and Tautala S. Asaua 2 1 Samoan Studies Institute, American Samoa Community College 2 Centre for Samoan Studies, The National University of Samoa This issue of the Journal of Samoan Studies brings together selected papers from two recent sessions on Samoan archaeology: at the Oceanic Explorations Conference held in Tonga in August 2005; and at the 18th Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association held in March 2006 in Manila. The authors address a richly diverse set of archaeological topics ranging from community outreach and the use of oral history to more traditional site reports and technical analyses. Geographically the papers are equally diverse, covering all of Samoa from Manu'a to Savai'i. Sand's paper exemplifies the advantages of utilizing oral traditions in archaeology. In addition to incorporating archaeological and linguistic evidence, the long-standing yet often neglected relationship of Samoa with 'Uvea and Futuna is a dominant focus in this paper. The impacts of colonialism during prehistoric and historic times is well documented in oral traditions and is dissected by Sand to reveal the depth of the relationship between Samoa, 'Uvea and Futuna. An exciting aspect of this paper is its demonstration that archaeological and traditional knowledge need not be in conflict, but can complement each other. The archaeological evidence from 'Uvea and Futuna also shows similarities to Samoa, and in turn will hopefully encourage more work in furthering our understanding of all three island groups prehistoric relationship, in relation to the wider Fiji-West Polynesia region. Morrison's paper indicates the value of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for predictive modelling of possible archaeological site locations.
    [Show full text]
  • The Molecular Phylogeny of Alpinia (Zingiberaceae): a Complex and Polyphyletic Genus of Gingers1
    American Journal of Botany 92(1): 167±178. 2005. THE MOLECULAR PHYLOGENY OF ALPINIA (ZINGIBERACEAE): A COMPLEX AND POLYPHYLETIC GENUS OF GINGERS1 W. J OHN KRESS,2,3,5 AI-ZHONG LIU,2 MARK NEWMAN,4 AND QING-JUN LI3 2Department of Botany, MRC-166, United States National Herbarium, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012 USA; 3Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, Yunnan 666303 China; and 4Royal Botanic Garden, 20A Inverleith Row, Edinburgh EH3 5LR, Scotland, UK Alpinia is the largest, most widespread, and most taxonomically complex genus in the Zingiberaceae with 230 species occurring throughout tropical and subtropical Asia. Species of Alpinia often predominate in the understory of forests, while others are important ornamentals and medicinals. Investigations of the evolutionary relationships of a subset of species of Alpinia using DNA sequence- based methods speci®cally test the monophyly of the genus and the validity of the previous classi®cations. Seventy-two species of Alpinia, 27 non-Alpinia species in the subfamily Alpinioideae, eight species in the subfamily Zingiberoideae, one species in the subfamily Tamijioideae, and three species in the outgroup genus Siphonochilus (Siphonochiloideae) were sequenced for the plastid matK region and the nuclear internal transcribed spacer (ITS) loci. Parsimony analyses of both individual and combined data sets identi®ed six polyphyletic clades containing species of Alpinia distributed across the tribe Alpinieae. These results were supported by a Bayesian analysis of the combined data set. Except in a few speci®c cases, these monophyletic groupings of species do not correspond with either Schumann's (1904) or Smith's (1990) classi®cation of the genus.
    [Show full text]
  • Abstract of Counting Systems of Papua New Guinea and Oceania
    Abstract of http://www.uog.ac.pg/glec/thesis/ch1web/ABSTRACT.htm Abstract of Counting Systems of Papua New Guinea and Oceania by Glendon A. Lean In modern technological societies we take the existence of numbers and the act of counting for granted: they occur in most everyday activities. They are regarded as being sufficiently important to warrant their occupying a substantial part of the primary school curriculum. Most of us, however, would find it difficult to answer with any authority several basic questions about number and counting. For example, how and when did numbers arise in human cultures: are they relatively recent inventions or are they an ancient feature of language? Is counting an important part of all cultures or only of some? Do all cultures count in essentially the same ways? In English, for example, we use what is known as a base 10 counting system and this is true of other European languages. Indeed our view of counting and number tends to be very much a Eurocentric one and yet the large majority the languages spoken in the world - about 4500 - are not European in nature but are the languages of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific, Africa, and the Americas. If we take these into account we obtain a quite different picture of counting systems from that of the Eurocentric view. This study, which attempts to answer these questions, is the culmination of more than twenty years on the counting systems of the indigenous and largely unwritten languages of the Pacific region and it involved extensive fieldwork as well as the consultation of published and rare unpublished sources.
    [Show full text]
  • Wessex Article Master Page 29/11/2012 11:41 Page 51
    McNabb and Beaumont _Wessex Article Master Page 29/11/2012 11:41 Page 51 Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 78, 2011, pp. 51–71 Excavations in the Acheulean Levels at the Earlier Stone Age Site of Canteen Koppie, Northern Province, South Africa By JOHN MCNABB1 and PETER BEAUMONT2 The fluvial gravels of the river Vaal in South Africa have long been known as a source for Earlier Stone Age (ESA) artefacts. Most were discovered through the open cast mining for diamonds that has left very little in situ fluvial sediment remaining today. The site of Canteen Koppie is an internationally famous location with a reputation for prolific Acheulean artefacts, especially handaxes and the enigmatic prepared core and Levallois-like technology known as Victoria West. Our understanding of this site, and most other Vaal locations, is almost solely based on highly selected artefact collections. Here, we report on the first controlled excavations ever to be conducted at Canteen Koppie. The deposits are likely to date to the Early and Middle Pleistocene, and our excavations sample the full depth of the stratigraphic sequence. The lower units, first identified in these excavations, add a considerable time depth to the Acheulean occupation of the site, making this the longest chrono-stratigraphic sequence in South Africa to our knowledge. Given the current international interest in the origins of Levallois/prepared core technology (PCT), its occurrence in Unit 2b Upper, and its presence alongside Victoria West technology in Unit 2a has significant implications for debates on the role of Victoria West in the origins of PCT.
    [Show full text]
  • JVR FEIR Appendix E Cultural Resources
    APPENDIX E Cultural Resources Report Part 1 CULTURAL RESOURCES REPORT for the JVR ENERGY PARK PROJECT, SAN DIEGO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA Lead Agency: County of San Diego Planning and Development Services Contact: Donna Beddow 5510 Overland Ave, Suite 110 San Diego, California 92123 Prepared by: Matthew DeCarlo, MA, Jessica Colston, BA, and Micah Hale, Ph.D., RPA 605 Third Street Encinitas, California 92024 Approved by: _________________ Micah Hale, Ph.D., RPA Prepared for: Patrick Brown Director of Development BayWa R.E. Solar Projects, LLC 17901 Von Karman Avenue, Suite 1050 Irvine, California 92614 JUNE 2021 Printed on 30% post-consumer recycled material. National Archaeological Database (NADB) Information Authors: Matthew DeCarlo, MA, Jessica Colston, BA, and Micah J. Hale, PhD, RPA Firm: Dudek Project Proponent: BayWa R.E. Solar Projects, LLC 17901 Von Karman Avenue, Suite 1050 Irvine, California 92614 Report Date: July 2020 (Updated June 2021) Report Title: Cultural Resources Report for the JVR Energy Park Project, San Diego County, California Type of Study: Survey and Archaeological Evaluation New Sites: CA-SDI-22725, CA-SDI-22726, CA-SDI-22727, CA-SDI-22728, CA-SDI-22729, CA-SDI- 22730, CA-SDI-22731, CA-SDI-22732, CA-SDI-22733, P-37-038609, P-37-038610, P-37- 038611, P-37-038612, P-37-038613, P-37-038614, P-37-038615, P-37-038616, P-37- 038617, P-37-038618, P-37-038619, P-37-038620, P-37-038621, P-37-038622, P-37- 038623, P-37-038624, P-37-038625, P-37-038626, P-37-038627, P-37-038628, P-37- 038629, P-37-038630, P-37-038631, P-37-038632,
    [Show full text]
  • Of Vegetation in New Isolated Landslides, Localised Cyclonic
    BLUMEA 31 (1986) 341-371 The instability of the tropical ecosystem inNew Guinea R.J. Johns L.J. Brass Memorial Herbarium, P. N. G. University ofTechnology, Lae, Papua New Guinea INTRODUCTION authorities stable The tropical ecosystem has been considered by many as a vege- has tation type that, in some areas, ‘existed uninterruptedly since a very remote geo- logical time’ (Richards, 1952). The long term stability of rainforest ecosystems was showed that there of first questioned when studies was a marked contraction rain- Pleistocene Within New forest areas in the tropics during times (Flenley, 1979). Guinea two major effects are reported: altitudinal fluctuation of the major vegeta- described Powell tion zones at higher altitudes, as by Flenley (1972), Hope (1976), and decrease result of the lower (1970), and Walker (1970); a in precipitation. As a rainfall during the Pleistocene era (17,000—14,000 yrs BP) extensive areas of New Guinea characterised climate & were by a very dry savanna type (Nix Kalma, 1972). This is still reflected in the distribution of savanna elements in the present vegetation, in both lowland and lower montane areas. the Pleistocene However, extensive disturbances are by no means restricted to times. Studies in New Guinea show that the environment has been recently subjected caused These often to major disturbances by natural disasters. phenomena are easily plotted from aerial photographs and by using remote sensing techniques. An under- standing of environmental instability is important, not only for the interpretation of the structure and floristics of the extant vegetation, but is also of major importance in the managementof the tropical environment in New Guinea.
    [Show full text]
  • Ritter Island Volcano—Lateral Collapse and the Tsunami of 1888
    August 6, 2003 18:4GeophysicalJournalInternational gji2016 Geophys. J. Int. (2003) 154, 891–902 Ritter Island Volcano—lateral collapse and the tsunami of 1888 Steven N. Ward1 and Simon Day2 1Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. E-mail: [email protected] 2Benfield Hazard Research Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, University College, London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT. E-mail: [email protected] Accepted 2003 April 9. Received 2003 April 7; in original form 2002 September 8 SUMMARY In the early morning of 1888 March 13, roughly 5 km3 of Ritter Island Volcano fell violently into the sea northeast of New Guinea. This event, the largest lateral collapse of an island volcano to be recorded in historical time, flung devastating tsunami tens of metres high on to adjacent shores. Several hundred kilometres away, observers on New Guinea chronicled 3 min period waves up to 8 m high, that lasted for as long as 3 h. These accounts represent the best available first-hand information on tsunami generated by a major volcano lateral collapse. In this article, we simulate the Ritter Island landslide as constrained by a 1985 sonar survey of its debris field and compare predicted tsunami with historical observations. The best agreement occurs for landslides travelling at 40 m s−1, but velocities up to 80 m s−1 cannot be excluded. The Ritter Island debris dropped little more than 800 m vertically and moved slowly compared with landslides that descend into deeper water. Basal friction block models predict that slides with shorter falls should attain lower peak velocities and that 40+ ms−1 is perfectly compatible with the geometry and runout extent of the Ritter Island landslide.
    [Show full text]
  • Early and Middle Woodland Campsites on Three Mile Island
    r t ~ ..... I. .. ~, .....: .~ ~.:. " ,.-..,;;' ;-...... ~: '. "':.- '.~ : . ,,' . ~. -'.; . .~: .. ; . .,:" "<;r': PEN EARLY AND IUDDLE WOODLAND CAMPSITES ON THREE MILE ISLAND, DAUPHIN COUNTY, PENNS~LVANIA by Ira F. Smith III Field Archaeologist and Associate Curator Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Metropolitan Edison Company Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station Project Pennsylvania Historical and Museum commission William Penn Memorial Museum Harrisburg, Pennsylvania January, 1977 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project was funded by a grant to the Pennsylvania aistorical and Museum Commission from the Metropolitan Edison Company. The author would like to acknowledge this grant and also Dr. W. Fred Kinsey III, Director of the North Museum in Lancaster, who arranged to have the money administered by Franklin and Marshall College. The author would especially like to acknowledge the codirector of the project, Dr. Barry C. Kent, Pennsylvania state Archaeologist. An expression of appreciation is due to various members of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Inc., particularly Mr. William Taylor and Mr. Thomas Carroll, who helped to locate and excavate several of the archaeological sites. Thanks also to Mr. Robert Ditchburn, crew chief, and to crew members Donald Boggart, David Ferrell, and Eugene Erwin. I am deeply indebted and grateful to Mr. James T. Herbstritt who prepared the line drawings used in Figures 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 18. Finally, I would like to thank Mr. Donald H. Culp, artist for the William Penn Memorial Museum, for his assistance in preparing the remaining illustrations for publication. iii ABSTRACT Archaeological investigation in 1967 at Three Mile Island, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania revealed in situ evidence of Early and Middle Woodland occupation in the Lower Susquehanna River Valley•.
    [Show full text]
  • An 'Economic Man' in Every Society
    An ‘Economic Man’ in Every Society An Overview of Economic Anthropology and its cross-cultural development as a discipline as it relates to the notion of the ‘Economic Man’ Michelle D’Ippolito 109873628 [email protected] (303) 817-5462 12-16-10 Key Terms: Economic Anthropology, Anthropology, Economics, Institutional Paradigm, Formal Paradigm, Ecological Paradigm, Marxism, Feminism, Economic Man Abstract This paper will give an overview of economic anthropology both in terms of the history of ideas and the philosophy of science. It will look at how the field has developed from several distinct philosophies in economics to the multifaceted approaches within the field today. The first section will look at the roots of the field and the major philosophies and proponents of those philosophies. The second section will look at the more recent trends in terms of how they draw on the earlier philosophies and the new elements they incorporate. The final section will look at how the multifaceted approaches in the field has allowed for new avenues of study. In particular, this section will look how these multifaceted approaches have made the definition of the “economic man” more cross- cultural. ANTH360 Fall 2010 UMCP American Anthropologist Introduction Recent trends in economic anthropology have started to branch out from the traditional schools of thought and paradigms. Anthropologists are now finding that the formerly rigid distinctions between the various schools are more flexible than previously thought. The work of a given anthropologist’s may fit more within a specific approach, but his work will also reflect the influence of several other approaches as well.
    [Show full text]
  • Excitantia and the Everyday: the Rise of Plebeian Luxuries
    Sidney W. Mintz EXCITANTIA AND THE EVERYDAY: THE RISE OF PLEBEIAN LUXURIES his paper1 sets forth a discussion of the does this mean that the ethnographic portraits consumption of goods and services, that we have been given of these societies by our Tas anthropologists have focused upon it. predecessors are complete or correct in every Consumption is a subject beloved of economists, detail, or that the societies themselves are frozen and it has gained popularity as a research topic in time, unchanged and unchanging. Yet it can among historians and sociologists in the last two be argued that they were more like each other decades or so. The history of its study among than any was like, say, Finnish society, or British anthropologists, however, has been curious—a society, or Japanese society. coefficient, really, of the kinds of society at which In that first era of ethnography, it addressed the ethnographic, data-collecting aspect of our societies such as these for good reasons. But discipline was traditionally aimed, especially anthropology did not feel limited by its own during that era when the field of anthropology choices. Alfred Louis Kroeber writes: was achieving its greatest growth. The societies with which ethnography After all, the subject of anthropology is concerned itself—those of the so-called non- limited only by man [he means man and literate or ‘primitive’ peoples—were typically woman; this was written almost fifty years small, relatively unstratified, non-Western, ago]. It is not restricted by time—it goes highly localized, non-machine in their back into geology as far as man [and technology, and both integrated and divided woman] can be traced.
    [Show full text]