Cambridge Archaeological Journal.

Cambridge Archaeological Journal. edited by CHRIS SCARRE. Annual volume 2 issues of 150 pages.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). ; ISSN ISSNabbr.International Standard Serial Number 0959-7743 paperback[pounds]48 & $75 (institutional subscriptions), [pounds]25 & $40(personal subscriptions). Almost a decade ago, Colin Renfrew (Disney Professor of Archaeology The Disney Professorship of Archaeology, also known as the Disney Chair is a professorship in the University of Cambridge. It was endowed with a donation of ��1,000 by John Disney in 1851, followed by a further ��3,500 in a bequest at his death. and Master of Jesus College, Cambridge) announced a massive endowmenttoward the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research is a research institute of the University of Cambridge in England. HistoryThe Institute was established in 1990 through a generous benefaction from the late Dr D. M. McDonald, a well-known and successful industrialist. . WhenCambridge Archaeological Journal (CAJ) started up in 1991 with the helpof the endowment, it raised eyebrows. After all, with ANTIQUITY beforeChippindale a virtual in-house publication, Cambridge archaeologyreceived significant international publicity already. Was Cambridgeplanning to corner English-reading archaeology? I decided againstsubscribing to CAJ at the time because its advertising suggested'Cambridge Outreach' and 'tool in British archaeologicalturfwars'. Such serials should be sent out for free! Of course, myreview accomplished exactly that, but also forced me to read the wholething. Endowment and editorial selection 'focus on the role anddevelopment of human intellectual abilities as reflected in the art,religion and symbolism of early societies'. This charge isrelatively unique, but difficult to make stick while the mainstream ispreoccupied with more mundane matters like taphonomy ta��phon��o��my?n.1. The study of the conditions and processes by which organisms become fossilized.2. The conditions and processes of fossilization. diet and fancymethod. Since 1991, Scarre has been editor, Renfrew head of an EditorialBoard with the US members Fagan, Flannery, Winter, Wynn and Zubrow;Cambridge members Hinde, Hodder, Kemp, Mellars, Postgate and Renfrew;and Mithen from Reading. Their modal age is somewhere between 50 and 60,and only one of them is female. CAJ's semi-annual issues fill about 160 pages. Theirbaby-blue, white-bordered cover is as reserved as AJA and PPS (Packets Per Second) The measurement of activity in a local area network (LAN). In LANs such as Ethernet, Token Ring and FDDI, as well as the Internet, data is broken up and transmitted in packets (frames), each with a source and destination address. , andillustrations, though numerous, are strictly black and white (STAID,PROFESSIONAL!). Three or four 'Articles' (to 40 pages) fillmore than 60% of an issue. 'Viewpoint' presents positionpapers from other disciplines, with Current Anthropology-like commentsand author(s)' rejoinders. 'Review Features' have thesame format. 'Shorter Notes' on archaeological topics (2-morethan 10 pages) and 2-7 (book) 'Review Articles' (confusingtypology) complete an issue. The interactive sections convey a goodsense of scientific competition and show that the issues are not closedor resolved, a point easily missed in 'Articles' and'Review Articles'. With the exception of the 'Shorter Notes' (relativelyparticularistic par��tic��u��lar��ism?n.1. Exclusive adherence to, dedication to, or interest in one's own group, party, sect, or nation.2. ; not meant to educate as much as to discharge anauthor's obligations, like Festschrift articles), most CAJ articlesdeal innovatively with sexy questions. Most authors are processualarchaeologists. Mercifully, the editorial charge discriminates againstthe more pedestrian representatives of the genre. Intellect, religionand art must strike that part of the profession almost aspost-processual. In CAJ processual archaeologists are imaginative,risk-taking and creative. This makes for much interesting reading, eventhough reproductive fitness and mechanics talk louder than social lifeand social dynamics. Post-processual archaeologists like Gero, Hodder, Shanks, Thomasand Tilley also contribute. Thankfully, this does not catalyse catalyseor US -lyzeVerb[-lysing, -lysed] or -lyzing, -lyzed to influence (a chemical reaction) by catalysisVerb 1. manure-throwing between paradigms. Instead, by editorial instigation(?),CAJ catalyses some very harsh critiques within post-processualarchaeology. Thus, Hodder chides Tilley; Blanton dumps on Parker-Pearsonand Richards; and Bender takes on Thomas and Hodder. Such'within' discussions characterize post-processual archaeologyas increasing its theoretical reach, compartmentalizing and controllingturf and, ironically, being very much 'in process'. The large presence of the Editorial Board surprised me: nine haveone or several contributions, with Mithen in every volume but one.Nevertheless, my prejudice of CAJ as in-house and parochial did not holdup. While there are many crypto-Cambridge folk (by degree, say) amongthe 200+ authors so far, less than a quarter hails from Cambridge today,somewhat more than that from elsewhere in the UK, and about 30% from theUS (the remainder from 15 additional countries). Latin Americans,tropical Asians and Africans are virtually absent, but there areIsraelis, South Africans, and Australians. The centre of gravity centre of gravityNounthe point in an object around which its mass is evenly distributedNoun 1. centre of gravity liessomeplace in the North Atlantic, similar to ANTIQUITY or WorldArchaeology. A bit more than one in five contributors is female. If these volumes are symptomatic, CAJ highlights the kinds of datathat a course on 'The Rise of Western Civilization' wouldcover: that end of human materiality is seen as unfolding that shows'us' (Anglo-Americans?) as the pinnacle of human evolution.This is reflected in spatial coverage (primarily European,circum-Mediterranean and Near East); in temporal coverage: virtually anyperiod (from apes to dark age), but 'the earliest humanancestors' (our earliest identifiable relatives), the emergence of'modern humans' (our modern antecedents) and humans incivilization (our civilized ancestors) are dense clusters; and in thechoice of topics. Many archaeologists believe that art, religion and mind arerelatively evanescent ev��a��nes��centadj.Of short duration; passing away quickly. materially. But CAJ contradicts this to a curiousextreme: the (modernizing) mind is seen only in the most phallicallymaterial artefacts at a given time. For example, among foragers, thetemperature of human modernity is taken with 'rock-' or'portable art' in northern Eurasia and Australia. Less'impressive' contemporaneous material culture andcontemporaneous artless populations are not covered. When civilizationsare around, they are covered to the exclusion of contemporaneoushunter-gatherers or agriculturalists. Their humanity, art and religionare seen solely in their most impressively material materiality (royaltombs, Sumerian cities, pyramids, the Sphinx and the like). Such preoccupation makes it appear as if, to be modern and human,one must be heavily materializing (and decisions not to produce rock-artor fill stage-centre with impressive materiality become atavistic at��a��vism?n.1. The reappearance of a characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence, usually caused by the chance recombination of genes.2. An individual or a part that exhibits atavism. ). Itcompares through time and space decontextualized extreme points (of thecontemporaneous ranges of expression), not the contextualized range ofhuman action. Post-processually, such decontextualizing should bedistasteful. Processually also, this suppression of synchronic anddiachronic di��a��chron��icadj.Of or concerned with phenomena as they change through time. variation in materiality seems impractical. Without theranges there cannot be any talk of process: in extreme'points' there is no movement by definition. An implicit focus on past 'highest available culture'selects that as interesting and relevant that looks the most like thepresent. But even today - fairly extreme in the pervasiveness ofreification re��i��fy?tr.v. re��i��fied, re��i��fy��ing, re��i��fiesTo regard or treat (an abstraction) as if it had concrete or material existence.[Latin r - 'materiality' as a variable is highly contested.Even fully modern societies, religions and art styles differ and vary inthe degree of their materiality. Further, within societies, art stylesand religions, materiality is also in process and contested (compare ahermit's materiality with the pope's, or a nudist with across-dresser). An archaeology which allows only the most materializedpart of the past to talk, and lead up, to the present thus distorts thepast and interferes in the present. The modern human mind, art andreligion unfold in the evasion of materiality as much as in itsadulation. Which part of that range is sacred and which is profanevaries through time, space, context and social position. Archaeologistshave a responsibility to help uncover and understand the entire range ofthis variable and dynamic materiality. Save for this general critique, CAJ makes for good reading about'The role and development of human intellectual abilities asreflected in the art, religion and symbolism of early societies'.If you had something new to say about this during the last 7 years,versions of your argument would appear in CAJ (not necessarily as thefirst or only place where you would have published it). Nevertheless,this has created in a short time an internationally respected vehicle,where people with quite different paradigms, from a number of differentdisciplines, and from many different vantage points throw light on thetopics championed by the endowment. CAJ provides good evidence that wehave made a whole lot of progress thinking and communicating about thesetopics. There is thus good reason to be optimistic about the future of'an archaeology of human intellectual abilities' and aboutCambridge Archaeological Journal as a place to publish and to read aboutthem. I think even I will subscribe to it now.