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This book explores the diverse understandings of the archaeological record in both historical and contemporary perspective, while also serving as a guide to reassessing current views. Gavin Lucas argues that archaeological theory has become both too fragmented and disconnected from the particular nature of archaeological evidence. The book examines three ways of understanding the archaeological record - as historical sources, through formation theory and as material culture - then reveals ways to connect these three domains through a reconsideration of archaeological entities and archaeological practice. Ultimately, Lucas calls for a rethinking of the nature of the archaeological record and the kind of history and narratives written from it.

The disintegration of the Classic Maya civilization in the Yucatán Peninsula and Central America was a complex process that occurred over an approximately 200-year interval and involved a catastrophic depopulation of the region. Although it is well established that the civilization collapse coincided with widespread episodes of drought, their nature and severity remain enigmatic. We present a quantitative analysis that offers a coherent interpretation of four of the most detailed paleoclimate records of the event. We conclude that the droughts occurring during the disintegration of the Maya civilization represented up to a 40% reduction in annual precipitation, probably due to a reduction in summer season tropical storm frequency and intensity.

Focusing mainly on Asia, this article tracks a link between the collective, inalienable land‐tenure regimes currently associated with indigeneity and attempts to prevent piecemeal dispossession of small‐scale farmers through land sale and debt. Collective landholding is sometimes imposed by local groups on their own members as they act to defend their livelihoods and communities. More often, however, it has been imposed from outside, first by paternalistic officials of the colonial period and now by a new set of experts and advocates who assume responsibility for deciding who should and who should not be exposed to the risks and opportunities of market engagement. From the perspective of their proponents, however, attempts to institutionalize collective landholdings are not impositions at all. They simply confirm a culturally distinct formation naturally present among “tribal” or “indigenous” people. Yet rural populations have repeatedly failed to conform to the assumptions embedded in schemes designed for their protection. They cross social and spatial boundaries. Some demand recognition of individualized land rights as they respond to market opportunities. Others are unable to escape the extractive relations that visions of cultural alterity and harmonious collectivity too often overlook. Meanwhile, dispossessory processes roll on unrecognized or unobserved.

A bold reimagining of the literary history of Decadence through a close examination of the transnational contexts of Oscar Wilde's classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.Building upon a large body of archival and critical work on Oscar Wilde's only novel, Dorian Unbound offers a new account of the importance of transnational contexts in the forging of Wilde's imagination and the wider genealogy of literary Decadence. Sean O'Toole argues that the attention critics have rightly paid to Wilde's backgrounds in Victorian Aestheticism and French Decadence has had the unintended effect of obscuring a much broader network of transnational contexts. Attention to these contexts allows us to reconsider how we read The Picture of Dorian Gray, what we believe we know about Wilde, and how we understand literary Decadence as both a persistent, highly mobile cultural mode and a precursor to global modernism. In developing a transnational framework for reading Dorian Gray, O'Toole recovers a subterranean network of nineteenth-century cultural movements. At the same time, he joins several active and vital conversations about what it might mean to expand the geographical reach of Victorian studies and to trace the globalization of literature over a longer period of time. Dorian Unbound includes chapters on the Irish Gothic, German historical romance, US magic-picture tradition, and experimental English epigrams, as well as a detailed history and a new close reading of the novel, in an effort to understand Wilde's contribution to a more dynamic idea of Decadence than has been previously known. From its rigorous account of the broad archive of texts that Wilde read and the array of cultural movements from which he drew inspiration in writing Dorian Gray to the novel's afterlives and global resonances, O'Toole paints a richer picture of the author and his famously allusive prose. This book makes a compelling case for a comparative reading of the novel in a global context. It will appeal to historians and admirers of Wilde's career as well as to scholars of nineteenth-century literature, queer and narrative theory, Irish studies, and art history.

Documentary sources have become increasingly neglected in education and the social sciences. This book seeks to emphasise their potential value and importance for an understanding of modern societies, while also recognising their limitations, and explores their relationship with other research strategies. This up-to-date examination of how to research and use documents analyzes texts from the past and present, considering sources ranging from personal archives to online documents and including books, reports, official documents, works of fiction and printed media. This comprehensive analysis of the use of documents in research includes sections covering: * analysing documents * legal frameworks and ethical issues * records and archives * printed media and literature * diaries, letters and autobiographies. Gary McCulloch is Brian Simon Professor of History of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London.

Archives of Times Past: Conversations about South Africa's Deep History explores particular sources of evidence on southern Africa's time before the colonial era. It gathers recent ideas about archives and archiving from scholars in southern Africa and elsewhere, focusing on the question: 'How do we know, or think we know, what happened in the times before European colonialism?' Historians who specialise in researching early history have learnt to use a wide range of materials from the past as source materials. What are these materials? Where can we find them? Who made them? When? Why? What are the problems with using them? The essays by well-known historians, archaeologists and researchers engage these questions from a range of perspectives and in illuminating ways. Written from personal experience, they capture how these experts encountered their archives of knowledge beyond the textbook. The book aims to make us think critically about where ideas about the time before the colonial era originate. It encourages us to think about why people in South Africa often refer to this 'deep history' when arguing about public affairs in the present. The essays are written at a time when public discussion about the history of southern Africa before the colonial era is taking place more openly than at any other time in the last hundred years. They will appeal to students, academics, educationists, teachers, archivists, and heritage, museum practitioners and the general public. Archives of Times Past explores particular sources of evidence on southern Africa's time before the colonial era. It gathers recent ideas about archives and archiving from scholars in southern Africa and elsewhere, focusing on the question: 'How do we know, or think we know, what happened in the times before European colonialism?' The essays by well-known historians, archaeologists and researchers engage these questions from a range of perspectives and in illuminating ways. Written from personal experience, they capture how these experts encountered their archives of knowledge beyond the textbook. The essays are written at a time when public discussion about the history of southern Africa before the colonial era is taking place more openly than at any other time in the last hundred years They will appeal to students, academics, educationists, teachers, archivists, and heritage, museum practitioners and the general public.

In 2011, the centennial of Tennessee Williams's birth, events were held around the world honoring America's greatest playwright.There were festivals, conferences, and exhibitions held in places closely associated with Williams's life and career--New Orleans held major celebrations, as did New York, Key West, and Provincetown.

Since the mid-1990s, heightened U.S. border security in unauthorized crossing areas near urban ports of entry has shifted undocumented migration toward remote regions such as the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, where security is more penetrable but crossing conditions are more difficult. Subsequently, a complex smuggling industry has developed in Northern Mexico that profits from helping migrants cross the desert on foot to enter the United States undetected. Desert crossing is now a well-established social process whereby items such as dark clothes and water bottles have been adopted as tools used for subterfuge and survival by migrants. This article highlights ethnographic data on the experiences of migrants and archaeological data collected along the migrant trails that cross the Arizona desert to illustrate the routinized techniques and tools associated with the violent process of border crossing, as well as the dialectical and often oppressive relationship that exists between migrants and objects. Desde los 1990s, el augmento de seguridad fronteriza de EE.UU. en áreas cerca de puertos oficiales de entrada ha desplazado la migración indocumentada a regiones remotas como el desierto de Sonora en Arizona donde la seguridad es más penetrable, pero las condiciones para cruzas son más dificiles. Posteriormente, una industria para ayudar los migrantes a cruzar la frontera illegalmente ha desarrollado en el Norte de México. Hoy cruzando el desierto es un proceso social bien establecido. Los migrantes utilizan herramientas como ropa negra y bottelas de agua para eluden la Patrulla Fronteriza y sobrevivir el desierto. Este artículo presenta datos etnográficos de las experiencias de migrantes y datos arqueológicos hubo collectado en los caminos de migrantes en el desierto. Ha demonstrado que las técnicas y instrumentos associado con el proceso violento de cruce son normalizados, tambien la relación entre los migrantes y sus objetos son dialéctica y a veces opresivo.

Archaeologists have made great strides in understanding prehistoric migration, yet they have tended to focus on only part of the continuum of human movement. In nonstate societies, individuals and groups moved frequently across social and environmental boundaries for a range of reasons. Although archaeologists are well aware of the fluid nature of social boundaries, we are only beginning to use this knowledge to understand human movement. I use ethnohistoric and ethnographic examples to show that people in nonstate societies moved frequently as a result of warfare and captive taking, processes of fission and fusion, and random demographic events typical of small-scale societies. Such movement was often hurried, sometimes coerced, and decision making could be constrained by social factors beyond migrants' control. Illustrated with a case study from the American Southwest, I argue here that consideration of such forms of movement can significantly improve our interpretations of the past. Arqueólogos han hecho grandes avances en el entendimiento de la migración prehistórica, sin embargo han tendido a concentrarse solo en parte del continuum del movimiento humano. En sociedades sin estados, los individuos y grupos se movieron frecuentemente a través de fronteras sociales y ambientales por una variedad de razones. Aunque arqueólogos son bien conscientes de la naturaleza de las fronteras sociales, estamos solo empezando a usar este conocimiento para entender el movimiento humano. Utilizo ejemplos etnohistóricos y etnográficos para mostrar que las personas en sociedades sin estado se mueven frecuentemente como resultado de guerras y toma de prisioneros, procesos de fisión y fusión y eventos demográficos al azar típicos de sociedades a pequeña escala. Tal movimiento fue a menudo apresurado, algunas veces coaccionado y la toma de decisiones pudo ser constreñida por factores sociales mas allá del control de los migrantes. Ilustrado con un estudio de caso del Suroeste Americano, argumento aquí que la consideración de tales formas de movimiento puede significativamente mejorar nuestras interpretaciones del pasado.