Thomas C. Patterson

Making alternative histories : the practice of archaeology and history in non-Western settings

After working in Third World contexts for more than a century, many archaeologists from the West have yet to hear and understand the voices of their colleagues in non-Western cultural settings. In Making Alternative Histories, eleven scholars from Africa, India, Latin America, North America, and Europe debate and discuss how to respond to the erasures of local histories by colonialism, neocolonial influences, and the practice of archaeology and history as we know them today in North America and much of the Western world. Making Alternative Histories presents a profound challenge to traditional Western modes of scholarship and will be required reading for Western archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians.

SONG DIALECTS AS BARRIERS TO DISPERSAL: A RE-EVALUATION

Although much has been written on the subject of song dialects in birds (reviews in Thielcke, 1969; Lemon, 1975; Bitterbaum and Baptista, 1979), few data exist testing the current theories regarding the adaptive significance of these vocalizations. Two popular ideas presented by Marler and Tamura (1962) and Konishi (1965), and developed by Nottebohm (1969), are that: 1) song dialects reduce gene flow across demes by attracting birds to settle near their place of birth on hearing their familiar natal song; 2) females select males that sing their own song for mates, thus promoting deviation from panmixia. Baker (1975) and Baker and Mewaldt (1978, 1979) have tested the first using biochemical and capture/recapture techniques on sedentary White-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys nuttalii). Between 1975 and 1979, we conducted a similar study on the same species at the Presidio (P) of San Francisco (see map, Fig. 1). The habitat consists of coastal soft chaparral, and is, therefore, similar to that of the Point Reyes Peninsula, 38 km to the northwest, where Baker and Mewaldt (1978) conducted their study. One might expect the local dispersal biologies of the two populations to be similar. The Presidio study area is unusual; while most birds sing the local (Presidio) dialect within the 1.5 km by 370 m area, scattered throughout this population are breeding birds singing the dialect of the adjacent San Francisco city. Additional data were gathered at a site 5.6 km south at Twin

White-Crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys nuttalli) to Song.

The pattern of responses of both male and female white-crowned sparrows to playback of recorded song depends on whether the female has eggs, nestlings, or fledglings, and on the behavior under consideration. These patterns can be understood in the context of the behavior patterns appropriate during each of the different stages of the reproductive cycle.

Social Archaeology in Latin America: An Appreciation

No school of thought, except perhaps positivism, has been more pervasive among intellectuals in Latin America than Marxism. The areas social, political, and economic problems have not been solved under capitalism and the techniques of its positivist thinkers. Thus Marxisms utopian promise, coupled with its scientific means of comprehending, in order to improve, societal conditions, holds considerable appeal for many of Latin Americas intellectuals.

Some theoretical tensions within and between the processual and postprocessual archaeologies

Abstract This paper outlines the philosophical underpinnings of the various processual and postprocessual archaeologies. By pointing out shared features and areas of dissent, it attempts to provide a map of the contested terrain. It advocates coherent, theoretically informed explorations of the various processual and postprocessual archaeologies and critical evaluations of their assets, liabilities, and implications.

Craft specialization, the reorganization of production relations and state formation

Since the late 1970s, archaeologists have been concerned with the origins and development of craft specialization in early civilizations. More recently, some have examined the organization of production, the identities of artisans, the use and consumption of the goods they produced, and the cultural and social meanings of those objects. Much of this literature is rooted in the conceptual framework of societal evolutionism, which was formulated by eighteenth-century theorists, who were attempting to account for the rise of capitalist agriculture rather than the development of precapitalist forms of craft production. This article examines the premises of the conceptual framework as well as the political-economic and ideological context in which societal evolutionism was formulated. It suggests that a theoretical framework derived from Marx’s writings after 1857 provides insights into the organization of craft production and an alternative explanation of the role specialization played in the rise of civilization.

The behavior of a group of captive pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus)

A group of captive pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus) was studied in the San Diego Zoological Gardens. The behavior patterns that these animals exhibit are described. Each of these behavior patterns is compared to those described for wild and captive common chimpanzees (P. troglodytes). Differences in behavior between these two species are attributed to specialization of the pygmy chimpanzee to a rain forest habitat and to a monogamous social system.

The Turn to Agency: Neoliberalism, Individuality, and Subjectivity in Late-Twentieth-Century Anglophone Archaeology

The aim of this paper is to consider why the idea of agency—which was elaborated by Roy Bhaskar, Anthony Giddens, and others in the 1970s—was adopted by and became so popular among archaeologists in the 1990s. This involves examining not only the idea of agency itself, but also its connections with an array of closely related notions in everyday and philosophical discourse: the individual, subject, self, and person. It also requires consideration of the sociopolitical and ideological contexts in which agency theory was developed and how changing notions of choice, determination, individuality, and subjectivity are implicated.

Class conflict, state formation and archaism: Some instances from ancient Peru

During the last decade, archaeologists have written with steadily increasing frequency about processes of class and state formation that occurred in various precapitalist societies. While some have focused on the origins of states, others have considered the reorganizations that took place in the wake of the expansion of territorially based states. Many acknowledge a causal connection between social stratification and the state, even though they disagree about the nature of the state, social hierarchies and their linkages. While this article adopts an explicitly Marxist interpretation of the interconnections between the processes of class and state formation, on the one hand, and class conflict, on the other, it is also concerned with archaism as a related phenomenon. Its thesis is that archaism - those attempts to imitate or revive past symbols, styles, institutions and practices, to incorporate the old into new contexts - is often an integral feature of class and state formation and the struggles that ensue in such contexts.

CLASS AND STATE FORMATION: THE CASE OF PRE-INCAIC PERU

Recently, Andean archaeologists have ex? pressed renewed interest in the processes of class and state formation in pre-Incaic Peru. This is merely one expression of a wider, more pervasive concern today with questions about the nature and origins of social stratification and the state. Scholars with diverse theoretical perspectives have already contributed to the debate. So far, Andean archaeologists from the United States, with the notable exception of Richard Schaedel, have not participated in any mean? ingful way in this discussion [2]. There are two reasons why they have failed to do so. First, their studies of class and state for? mation have been largely empirical and al? most totally devoid of theoretical considera? tions. They have uncritically adopted theoret? ical categories and have emphasised the peculiarities or oddities of Andean historical development at the expense of its comparabil? ity with other parts of the world. The cost of this particularism has already been quite high. It has promoted a kind of relativism where specialists in other areas display indif? ference to Andean research or reluctance to engage Andeanists in a dialogue on any aspect of their subject. This effectively removes the Andean past and modern Andean peoples from a place in world history and deprives them of their contributions to it.