Academic literature on the topic 'Excavations (archaeology), fiction'

This article is a type of journey into the depths of the Earth, where we find rare-earth metals and geological fiction by Nora K. Jemisin. It interweaves stories of global capitalism, underground deities, and digital excavations. The mythical is combined with the technological, while the verbal and visual narrative oscillates between a report on the state of the lithosphere and a diagnosis of the condition of the geological imagination. Key-words: rare-earth metals, deep time, geological fiction, terraforming, noosphere, cosmic sto-rytelling, sedimentation of the mind, archaeology of the future

Abstract The following article analyses the ways in which the developing field of Egyptology found its way into Victorian culture, more especially via the romances of H. Rider Haggard. It considers the process of acculturation in terms of the Christianizing tendency of a biblical archaeology which was looking for evidence of biblical narratives in opposition to Higher Criticism of the Bible. It focusses on the specific influence of the Egyptologist and Assyriologist E. A. Wallis Budge’s ideas on Haggard’s fiction and also examines how the prominence of excavations at Amarna produced a Victorianization of the household of the pharaoh Akhenaten in the phenomenon of “Amarnamania.”

Few – if any - would deny that cartography is one of the most essential disciplines within the multi-layered scope of urban history. Elizabeth Baigent pays tribute to the possibilities and problems posed by maps in her ‘Fact or fiction? Town maps as aids and snares to the historian’, Archives: The J. of the British Records Association, 29, 110 (2004), 24–37. By looking at a map of Gloucester, compiled in 1455, and two late medieval Bristol maps (one by Robert Ricart, the other by William Smith), she outlines their usefulness as well as the problems that the modern urban historian faces. Although medieval maps can clearly help to identify ‘lost’ streets, and to elucidate the town's social geography, it is essential to consider the purpose for which any individual map was drawn, the context in which it was published (and re-published) and not least the skills of the cartographer concerned. Cartography may be an essential tool for the urban historian, but there are many other tools and topics, and this year's medieval urban periodical literature again reflects the wide scope of the subject. This is especially true for the German language periodicals which tend to relate to traditionally powerful concepts rather than to recent departures. This trend largely reflects the nature of those periodicals concerned for they are almost entirely devoted to strictly local, or at most regional concerns. They are naturally home to brief essays on mainly local matters, particularly the commemoration of anniversaries of urban charters (e.g., Paul Wietzorek, ‘Zum Titelbild: 100 Jahre Stadtwappen Zons – 1904–2004’, Der Niederrhein. Die Zeitschrift des Vereins Niederrhein, 71, 1 (2004), 2–5; Paul Wietzorek, ‘Zum Titelbild: 750 Jahre Stadtrechte Grieth 1254–2004’, ibid., 71, 2 (2004), 54–5; Paul Wietzorek, ‘Zum Titelbild: 650 Jahre Stadt Dahlen (Rheindalen) 1354–2004’, ibid., 71, 3 (2004), 114–15), overviews of town histories (e.g. Eberhard Lebender, ‘Die Weizackerstadt Pyritz. Ein Gang durch die Geschichte – von der Bronzezeit bis zur Zerstörung 1945’, Pommern. Zeitschrift für Kultur und Geschichte, 42, 2 (2004), 8–17) and recent archaeological excavations (e.g., Sven Spiong, ‘Archäologische Ausgrabung an der Paderborner Stadtmauer’, Die Warte, 65, 123 (2004), 23–6; Sven Spiong, ‘Den Stiftsherren auf der Spur: Archäologische Ausgrabung nördlich der Busdorfkirche in Paderborn’, ibid., 65, 124 (2004), 9–10). Anna Helena Schubert's ‘Archäologische Untersuchungen im Bereich der “Untersten Stadtmühle” in Olpe’, Heimatstimmen aus dem Kreis Olpe, 75, 3 (2004), 195–202, is another example of local archaeological case studies. Olpe received its urban charter in 1311; in the German context such an urban charter necessarily involved fortification. Schubert is concerned whether the ‘lower mill’ which was situated outside the first urban wall was erected at the same time or at a later date than this wall, yet has to admit that despite extensive archaeological excavation this question has to remain – at least for the time – unanswered. English articles on local excavations are too numerous to be dealt with adequately in this short review. Two examples may suffice: Robert Cowie's ‘The evidence from royal sites in Middle Anglo-Saxon London’, Medieval Archaeology, 48 (2004), 201–8, looks at the evidence for palaces c. 650 – c. 850 that emerged from recent archaeological investigations in the Cripplegate area of the City and at the Treasury in Whitehall. Mary Alexander, Natasha Dodnell and Christopher Evans have published ‘A Roman cemetery in Jesus Lane, Cambridge’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 93 (2004), 67–94. 32 corpses were unearthed (three of them decapitated), and modest grave goods were found. This cemetery seems to have served a suburban settlement within the lower Roman town. Pottery assemblage indicates industrial activity. The excavation added significantly to our knowledge of the layout and scale of Roman Cambridge. Cambridge clearly remained a significant centre during the fourth century and sustained an economic and commercial role.

Prehistory and Protohistory ; Sarah C. Murray, The Collapse of the Mycenaean Economy. Imports, Trade and Institutions 1300–700 BCE / Chrysanthi Gallou, Death in Mycenaean Laconia. A Silent Place /James C. Wright and Mary K. Dabney (with contributions by Phoebe Acheson, Susan F. Allen, Kathleen M. Forster, Paul Halstead, S.M.A. Hoffman, Anna Karabatsoli, Konstantina Kaza-Papageorgiou, Bartłomiej Lis, Rebecca Mersereau, Hans Mommsen, Jeremy B. Rutter, Tatiana Theodoropoulou, and Jonathan E. Tomlinson), The Mycenaean Settlement on Tsoungiza Hill (Nemea Valley Archaeological Project III) – Oliver Dickinson ; Gioulika-Olga Christakopoulou, To Die in Style! The Residential Lifestyle of Feasting and Dying in Iron Age Stamna, Greece – John Bintliff ; Archaic to Hellenistic ; Oliver Hülden, Das griechische Befestigungswesen der archaïschen Zeit. Entwicklungen – Formen – Funktionen – Hans Lohmann ; Peter van Alfen and Ute Wartenberg (eds) (with Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert, Haim Gitler, Koray Konuk, and Catharine C. Lorber), White Gold: Studies in Early Electrum Coinage – Keith Rutter ; Marta González González, Funerary Epigrams of Ancient Greece: Reflections on Literature, Society and Religion – Fabienne Marchand ; Robert S. Wagman, The Cave of the Nymphs at Pharsalus. Studies on a Thessalian Country Shrine – Maria Mili ; Natascha Sojc (ed.), Akragas. Current Issues in the Archaeology of a Sicilian Polis – Johannes Bergemann ; Roman to Late Roman ; Laura Pfuntner, Urbanism and Empire in Roman Sicily. – Michalis Karambinis ; Walter Scheidel, Escape from Rome. The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity – Bryan Ward-Perkins ; Rinse Willet, The Geography of Urbanism in Roman Asia Minor – Mark P.C. Jackson ; Medieval to Postmedieval ; Charalambos Bouras, Byzantine Athens, 10th-12th Centuries / Nickephoros I. Tsougarakis and Peter Lock (eds), A Companion to Latin Greece / Joanita Vroom (ed.), Medieval and Post-Medieval Ceramics in the Eastern Mediterranean - Fact and Fiction. / Joanita Vroom, Yona Waksman and Roos van Oosten (eds), Medieval Masterchef. Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on Eastern Cuisine and Western Foodways – John Bintliff ; Multiperiod ; María-Paz de Hoz, Juan Luis García Alonso and Luis Arturo Guichard Romero (eds), Greek paideia and local tradition in the Graeco-Roman east – Dorothea Stavrou ; John Ellis Jones and Ourania Kouka, Elis 1969. The Peneios Valley Rescue Excavation Project: British School at Athens Survey 1967 and Rescue Excavations at Kostoureika and Keramidia 1969 / Effie Photos-Jones and Alan J Hall, Eros, mercator and the cultural landscape of Melos in antiquity: The archaeology of the minerals industry of Melos – John Bintliff ; Bleda S. Düring and Claudia Glatz (eds), Kinetic Landscapes, the Cide Archaeological Project: Surveying the Turkish Western Black Sea Coast – James Crow ; J. Rasmus Brandt, Erika Hagelberg, Gro Bjørnstad and Sven Ahrens (eds), Life and Death in Asia Minor in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Times: Studies in Archaeology and Bioarchaeology – Willem M. Jongman ; Caroline Arnould-Béhar and Véronique Vassal (eds), Art et archéologie du Proche-Orient hellénistique et romain. Les circulations artistiques entre Orient et Occident Vol.1 / Caroline Arnould-Béhar and Véronique Vassal (eds), Art et archéologie du Proche-Orient hellénistique et romain. Les circulations artistiques entre Orient et Occident Vol. 2 – Andrew Erskine ; Historiography and Theory ; John Boardman, A Classical Archaeologist’s Life: The Story So Far. An Autobiography – Robin Osborne

ABSTRACT Archaeologists frequently use probability distributions and null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) to assess how well survey, excavation, or experimental data align with their hypotheses about the past. Bayesian inference is increasingly used as an alternative to NHST and, in archaeology, is most commonly applied to radiocarbon date estimation and chronology building. This article demonstrates that Bayesian statistics has broader applications. It begins by contrasting NHST and Bayesian statistical frameworks, before introducing and applying Bayes's theorem. In order to guide the reader through an elementary step-by-step Bayesian analysis, this article uses a fictional archaeological faunal assemblage from a single site. The fictional example is then expanded to demonstrate how Bayesian analyses can be applied to data with a range of properties, formally incorporating expert prior knowledge into the hypothesis evaluation process.

Bayesian chronological modelling in Danish archaeologyIn Danish archaeology, radiocarbon dating has become an integrated part of the archaeological toolbox. A certain scepticism towards the accuracy of the method means, however, that it often remains a supplement to archaeological interpretation and other informal dating methods.Bayesian modelling counters this scepticism by combining radiocarbon dating with archaeological observations and other dating methods such as stratigraphy, dendrochronology and numismatic dating. Based on data from sources such as these, a Bayesian model calculates the statistical probability distribution of individual radiocarbon dates. Because the modelled dates consider all available information relating to the samples and their context, they can produce more accurate, robust dates and chronologies than those based on simple calibrated dates. Moreover, through Bayesian modelling, it is possible to estimate the dates of events that cannot be dated directly, such as the beginning or end of a settlement phase.The benefits of implementing Bayesian modelling in Danish archaeology are considerable. However, given that it can seem confusing and difficult to comprehend, in the following we will introduce the method by presenting and discussing some examples of Bayesian modelling.Radiocarbon dates are probabilistic, which means that each radiocarbon measurement holds considerable uncertainty. Each radiocarbon date is expressed as a bell-shaped normal distribution around a median (fig. 1). The date is reported as a radiocarbon age and a standard deviation (e.g. 1690 BP ± 30 years). The uncertainty of the radiocarbon measurement is often increased through calibration to calendar years by matching with the wiggles and plateaus of the calibration curve. Since calibrated radiocarbon dates are distributed around the radiocarbon sample’s actual age, a visual assessment of the calibration plot will often lead to misinterpretation of the date of specific events or the beginning, end, or duration of phases. Bayesian statistics is a way of countering these uncertainties and misinterpretations. In the following, we use the calibration program OxCal. The first example is a fictional case where ten simulated radiocarbon dates, corresponding to known years at 10-year intervals between AD 970 and 1060, are calibrated (fig. 2). From a visual assessment of the calibrated dates, it seems they are contemporaneous since the probability distribution of each individual date is up to 200 years. The wide probability distribution blurs the fact that the events are each ten years apart. If we add the prior information that the events form a sequence in which sample A is older than sample B etc., the modelled dates then display narrower probability distributions (fig. 3). These are called posterior probability distributions. A so-called Boundary is added to the model to limit the sequence and mark the first and last non-dated event, since it is unlikely that a sample representing the first and last event in a sequence has been taken.Stratigraphic information is termed an informative prior, while an uninformative prior represents a situation where the only information about the samples is that they belong to the same phase. Uninformative priors are illustrated by five samples from the postholes of an Iron Age house. The house had been in use for 30 years. The simulated dates are then placed within a 30-year period (fig. 4). Again, the unmodelled dates blur the actual duration of the use-phase of the house. The prior information that the samples are interpreted as being contemporaneous is now added to the model using the Phase command. The model then estimates when the use of the house began and when it ended. In OxCal, the Agreement Index, A, is an indicator of the match between the data and the model. It is based on the overlap of the calibrated probability distribution and the posterior distributions. An Agreement Index below 60% is an indication of a problematic sample. An Agreement Index is also calculated for the whole model (Amodel).In a more complex example, stratigraphical information regarding the Iron Age house is added. Samples from a stratigraphically younger house and a younger pit are added to the model as two phases in a sequence (fig. 5). The three samples from the pit are regarded as being contemporaneous, and the ‘combine’ command is used.In the simulated example, five samples are enough to create a robust model for a house’s use-phase. But the number of samples needed also depends on where on the calibration curve the dates end up, and a small number of samples may be compensated for by strong priors. The following example is not simulated but from the excavation of an Iron Age house. Three samples were taken from a roof-bearing post. The samples were taken from growth rings spaced, respectively, 10 and 12 years apart. The charred remains of hazel wattle were found between the stones in the cobbled floor (fig. 6). The hazel was interpreted as the remains of the wattle walls of the excavated house. Two ditches surrounding the house were sampled, one of which was stratigraphically older than the other. The samples and the prior information were combined in a Bayesian model. The house’s date was narrowed from 158-8 BC to 91-6 BC (fig. 7).The final example is from the excavation of a medieval house in a town (fig. 10). Five samples from the floors in the house’s basement were added in a Bayesian model (fig. 9). The floors superseded each other. Moreover, two dendrochronological samples from latrine barrels, older than the house, and samples from the barrels’ content were added to the model (fig. 10). Based on the archaeological interpretation, the use of the house was dated to between AD 1250 and 1450. However, the model showed that it was more likely to have been in use between AD 1413 and 1487 (fig. 11). This new date suggests that the potsherds found in the floor layers were redeposited. These examples demonstrate the considerable potential of Bayesian modelling. However, they also show that it is essential to exercise great care in constructing the model and providing a thorough account of the archaeological priors. It may be necessary to create several models to test the priors’ robustness or to test different priors. Bayesian modelling presents a systematic and formalised way to test various archaeological interpretations.

This chapter explores the relationship between time and identity through an excavation of three science fiction novels set in a futuristic London or London-esque city. The interplay of past, present, and future in the production of identity is seen in the excavation of the protagonists’ lives. Each faces a personal crisis of identity that can be resolved only by excavating the past in order to navigate the present and construct the future.

This chapter returns to the semi-fictional narrative of Student X, who is now attending her first excavation. Student X’s experiences on the excavation are a mixture of elation and increasing frustration, and they are compounded by her experiences of off-site dynamics, which in turn feed into her learning experience when she returns to the campus after the field school. This semi-fictional narrative demonstrates how learning assemblages do not exist in a politically neutral vacuum; teachers and learners alike bring a multitude of socio-political differences to the archaeological process, and the intersection of these with the materiality of the site, lab, or classroom creates and reproduces a microcosm of social relations and political inequalities.

This chapter develops the central thesis of Chapter 1, namely that paramilitary archaeology is a means of invoking then containing dangerous pasts as an imaginative extension of U.S. foreign policy. Aired in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, Stargate (1994) translates the colonial milieu of 1930s Egyptology to the science fictional terrain of Abydos and the battle against Ra. But the shift to the small screen's televisual identity is symptomatic of the deepening complexities of representing geopolitical activity in the region. Just as archaeology passes from a source of wonder into a vehicle for military adventure, the show's ideological commitments to global (read intra-galactic) security become increasingly destabilized, particularly in the Mesopotamian-themed episodes aired after 9/11. The mercurial figure of Babylon offers a counterpoint to the film's overlay of archaeology and militarism, and indeed to the rhetoric of military stewardship at the heart of the "military-archaeology complex." The shifting representation of Mesopotamian antiquity in SG-1's ten-year run (1997-2007) offers powerful cultural criticism of the show's own premise.

Focusing on the History Channel's popular series Ancient Aliens (2009-), this chapter examines how the (pseudo)documentary mode of representing the incredible idea that extra-terrestrial intelligences intervened in human history directs amateur experiences of archaeology towards SF conventions. Integral to these viewing experiences of Ancient Aliens are the kinds of future-pasts exposed in the series. Of particular interest is the threatening sense of the past, which capitalizes and obliquely comments on the current state of insecurity generated in all sorts of news, documentary and fictional media. This chapter contends that recurrent themes such as doomsday weapons, extra-terrestrial invasion threats, government conspiracies, genetic tampering, the rise and fall of civilizations, the Mayan calendar, and the insistent focus on the Middle East as the origin of civilization and setting for the (imminent) apocalypse cast palpable contemporary geopolitical anxieties into challenging narratives of cultural origins. As such, the ancient alien topos, though pseudo-archaeological, is a significant cultural expression of the dialogic relationship between archaeology and SF film and television as popular and imaginative expressions of historical identity and geopolitical mediation.

Chapter 7 addresses the peculiar archaeology of the blitzed landscape, when air raids made new ruins out of modern-day infrastructure, even while revealing older ones from London’s Roman past. Theorists have often conceived of the temporality of ruins as a dialectic between pastness and futurity, ending and return, and these tensions pose representational challenges in the wartime present, when ruins from different eras populated the visual landscape. This chapter argues that wartime works responded to this environment by engaging in their own acts of imaginative archaeology, excavating past ruins to find continuity with those of the dislocated present. It reads a wide array of visual and literary texts: from the romantic paintings of the Recording Britain scheme to portraits of bomb damage made by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, and from the paratactic poetry of H.D. to the hallucinatory short fiction of Elizabeth Bowen.