You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2012.
Silbury from Waden Hill, Avebury. Image credit Moss
Lewis Cowen writing in the The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald yesterday reports that –
TV archaeologist Julian Richards is to lead a series of walks around the World Heritage site of Avebury this summer and autumn. Dr Richards, who presented BBC’s Meet the Ancestors, is a noted expert on the archaeology of Avebury and Stonehenge and will be leading the Wessex Walks on Wednesday, June 6, Saturday, September 1, and Sunday, October 21.
The Wessex Walks are part of a programme of study days running at museums, galleries and sites all over Britain throughout 2012.
More here.
The Prehistory of Japan
by Gerard J Groot S. V. D. Director, Archaeological Institute of Japan
Edited by Bertram S Kraus
First published 60 years ago by Columbia University Press, The Prehistory of Japan by Gerard J Groot remains an invaluable reference work for those interested in the archaeology and the prehistory of Japan.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
IN THIS BOOK I have endeavored to describe the various stages of the Japanese Stone Age and their relationships with foreign cultures. I realize, however, that I have but summarily treated the many problems that are connected with Japanese prehistory.
Because of a number of conditions related to the study of Japanese prehistory any present treatment of the subject will eventually require numerous revisions, some of a fundamental nature. In addition, certain materials and problems of, perhaps, major importance may have been over- looked. The conditions that have, in part, been responsible for such errors of interpretation or omission are the following: the vast number of prehistoric sites in Japan which have been dug and which still await excavation; the great quantity of archaeological reports, of scientific or of amateurish caliber, which are dispersed throughout hundreds of books, journals, and papers; and the inadequate number of studies devoted to the problem of prehistoric cultural interrelationships.
Nevertheless, I hope that this presentation may be of some service to archaeologists who are unfamiliar with the Japanese field and that it may provide a jumping-off point for a future revised work on the prehistory of Japan.
GERARD GROOT, S.V.D.
Archaeological Institute
Kichijoji, Japan
April 18, 1946
CONTENTS
I. Introduction
II. The Relative Chronological Sequence of Jomon Pottery Types
III. Geology and Relative Chronology in the Jomon Period
IV. The Proto-Jomon Period
V. The Early-Jomon Period
VI. The Moroiso Culture
VII. The Middle-Jomon Period
VIII. The later-Jomon Period
IX. The Final-Jomon Period
X. The Problem of the Identity of Jomon Man
Appendix A: The Jomon Period and Absolute Chronology
Appendix B: The Shouldered-Axe Culture in East Asia and Japan
Appendix C: The Violin-Shaped Axe on Formosa
Appendix D: Alphabetical List of Jomon Sites in Japan Correlated with List
by Region, Province, and District
Appendix E: List of Jomon Period Sites by Region, Province, and District
Bibliography
Plates following
Index
Columbia University Press, New York 1951. Published in Great Britain, Canada, and India, London Toronto and Bombay by Geoffrey Cumberledge, Oxford University Press.
The Mersea Museum
The Mersea Island Museum is an independent museum established in 1976 and occupying purpose-built premises in the centre of West Mersea, just to the east of the Parish Church. The traditional local activities of fishing, oystering, wild fowling and boat building are represented. The reconstruction within the museum of a typical weather-boarded fisherman’s cottage provides an interior display centred on a Victorian coal-fired kitchen range, with adjoining facilities for washing clothes using old-fashioned manual equipment. Children are welcome, with puzzles and quizzes available.
More here.
More here.
A 57 second video in support of the international campaign by S.E.A. (Greek Archaeologists Association) against IMF/EU cuts in culture – not only in Greece but elsewhere. This video was published on 18 May 2012 by S.E.A. ARCHAEOLOGISTS and is inspired by recent museum thefts in Athens and Olympia. Nineteen thousand archaeological sites are now in danger.
ACT NOW: MONUMENTS HAVE NO VOICE. THEY MUST HAVE YOURS
The Buddhas had stood for a millennium and a half; the smaller figure, 38m tall, was built around AD550, and the larger – at 55m only a little shorter than London’s Monument – around AD615. In The Buddhas of Bamiyan, Llewelyn Morgan, a lecturer in classics at Oxford University, explores not so much the heartbreaking demise of the statues as their remarkably long lives. How and why did the Buddhas survive more than a dozen centuries of an Islamic Afghanistan, only to meet their end at a particular political moment in 2001? The final downfall of these sculptures – their arms already snapped off, their surfaces pitted by erosion and minor vandalism – represented the nadir of a long and complex process of civilisation. In the plangent words of the Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, perhaps the Buddhas could take no more: “Even a statue can be ashamed of witnessing all this violence and harshness happening to these innocent people and, therefore, collapse.”
Full article here. See also Emma Graham-Harrison’s article in The Guardian here and our earlier feature here.
The 16th century fountain of Fuente Nueva. Source Wikimedia. Image credit Monti B Sampayo
The “Martos project” is an international workshop on Stone Conservation and Urban regeneration, for graduates and young heritage professionals. It will be held in August & September 2012 on the 16th century fountain of ‘Fuente Nueva’, at Martos, Andalusia, Spain. The fountain is a project of architect Francisco del Castillo, who had studied near the Italian Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola.
The workshop is organized with the consent of the Junta de Andalucía, under the patronage of ICCROM and in collaboration with the University of York, the City of Martos Council, Department of Culture, ADSUR and the IPCE.
More here.
The 2012 World Monuments Watch: Treasured Places and New Challenges, an illustrated lecture by Lisa Ackerman
On Thursday, 24 May 2012, Lisa Ackerman, Executive Vice President of World Monuments Fund, will present an illustrated lecture on the 2012 World Monuments Watch entitled Treasured Places and New Challenges –
Announced every two years since 1996, the World Monuments Watch calls international attention to cultural heritage around the globe that is at risk from the forces of nature and the impact of social, political, and economic change. From the famous (Lines and Geoglyphs of Nasca, Peru) and little-known (Cour Royale at Tiébélé, Burkina Faso), to the urban (Charleston, South Carolina) and rural (floating fishing villages of Hạ Long Bay, Vietnam), the 2012 Watch tells compelling stories of human aspiration, imagination, and adaptation.
More here.
Mustang (moo-stahn), one of the last outposts of Tibetan culture, is so isolated and protected that no Westerner set foot inside its borders for centuries. But in the early 1990s, this untouched society set high in the Himalayas opened its borders for the first time, exposing an ancient world’s dazzling sacred relics long damaged by the elements and neglect.
In this remarkable NOVA documentary western conservators are shown helping to preserve a Buddhist temple and its murals using both traditional and modern techniques.
The Ancient Monuments Society: Defending Historic Buildings
The Ancient Monuments Society was founded in 1924 ”for the study and conservation of ancient monuments, historic buildings and fine old craftsmanship’. We are committed not only to campaigning for historic and beautiful buildings, but to furthering the study of them.
More about the Ancient Monuments Society here.
The New Antiquarians: 50 years of archaeological research in Wessex. Edited by Rowan Whimster
For many people, Wessex means Stonehenge, Avebury and the other iconic monuments of prehistory. In reality its chalkland landscapes have played host to a far longer and richer sequence of communities – from Palaeolithic hunters to Iron Age farmers and Roman citizens; from Anglo-Saxon settlers and medieval merchants to the navvies who built the Kennet & Avon Canal and the Australian soldiers who trained for the trenches of the First World War.
More here.
The Heiseikan Gallery, Tokyo Museum
The Heiseikan Gallery of Tokyo National Museum (東京国立博物館) was –
…built to commemorate the crown prince’s wedding in 1993 [and] serves primarily as the space for special exhibitions. For this purpose there are four special exhibition galleries on the second floor, as well as the Japanese Archaeological Gallery.
The Heiseikan Gallery is presently featuring chronological and thematic exhibitions on Japanese archaeology until 24 June 2012.
The Gribin Ridge on the left curving its way between two iron age forts. Image credit Moss
The Heritage of Wales News reports that –
Last week, Royal Commission investigator, Louise Barker, and CBA Community Archaeologist Training Placement holder, Sophie Gingell, conducted an archaeological survey of two prehistoric forts at Solva, near St. Davids in Pembrokeshire. The two forts, most likely Iron Age in date, are situated on a narrow rocky ridge overlooking Solva harbour, known as the Gribin. There are, in fact, three prehistoric forts on this ridge all within a space of 900m (SM82SW). The archaeological surveys were carried out following a request from the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park archaeologist, Peter Crane. The first site surveyed was the promontory fort on the end of the ridge; a well-known site that has recently been cleared of vegetation. In comparison, the second fort surveyed 500m to the North-East has never been recorded or documented within the Historic Environment Record, thus making it a new and exciting discovery. Having now been cleared of vegetation, the features of this ridge fort are clear to see and include a northern rampart and numerous closely spaced hut platforms.
More here. See also The Heritage Trust’s 2012 Outreach Event in Solva this summer.
Adam Stanford is an archaeological photographer in the UK. He is in need of funding for his field trip to record the excavations and archaeology at the Ness of Brodgar during the field work season of July-August 2012.
More here.