People, Places, Buildings and Society (Part 2)

Zamoste, Moscow Region, Russia: A wet landscape

The methods of aerial and space examination are successfully applied in archaeology to pre-excavation investigations of monuments. The most remarkable results were obtained at the studies of monuments dated from the Bronze Age up to the Middle ages. The detection of the Stone Age monuments as to aerial and space photographs has the number of special features. The reason is the considerable modification of natural conditions and relief for last millenniums.

It is known that the monuments of the Stone Age had glad distinct fastening to the definite peculiarities of relief. Therefore the main objective aerial survey of Zabolotskoe paleolake and surrounding wet lands in Serviev-Posad district of Moscow region was the reconstruction of paleorelief. The idea was to mark the areas that are the most perspective for surface archaeological surveys. It was suggested to carry out computer processing of aerial photographs and to check the obtained results by traditional methods of surface archaeological surveys.

The result of the computer processing of imageries was the definition of some paleorelief objects (ancient islands and rivers), which ancient settlements may be connected with. But a field checking showed, that these objects concerning belated ancestry and they have no direct traces of the monuments of the Stone Age. The more ancient objects of relief are superseded by powerful belated deposits and meanwhile are not recognised on aerial photographs. Nevertheless we believe, that combination of the methods of the computer processing of imageries with surface archaeological surveys and with drilling will give the opportunity to distinguish features connected directly with the most ancient (post glacial) relief of investigated area.

Geomorphological aspects of landscapes with reference to Neolithic sites in the central part of Russia

The Central European Russia relief developed at the beginning of Holocene. The relief predetermined in many respects the areas of settling, the economy specific character and the migrations that predetermined the cultural specificity. These features one can see evidently on the boarder of vast ethno-cultural areas connected with watershed areas. One of such areas is the Volga-Dnepr watershed at the region of the two largest European Russia rivers sources. Here Volga and Dnepr form two vast valleys which are separated by Smolensko-Moskowskaya height and Srednerusskaya one. The river valleys are bound up by Br'ansko-Djisdrinskaya lowland. This lowland breaks the elevated landscapes of Srednerusskaya height.

During the Neolithic period (V-III millennium BC) the sites were situated on the high places in flood-land and on first linchet upper the flood-land. It happened because of the specificity of hunters and fishermen economy. On the south one can see the confusion of the forest and forest-steepe areas population. The archaeological sites of Desna Neolithic culture located in the Desna-river basin. To the west there were the sites of the Upper Dnepr Neolithic culture. These are located in the basin of Sodg-river which is the large Dnepr tributary. These two cultures were separated from each other by Desna-Sodg watershed. It is the sites which display very close cultural similarity that were located at the territory linked by Desna and Sodg old river valleys. The country between two rivers of Desna and Oka was the natural border that separated Desninskaya culture from the archaeological sites of L'alovskaya culture located in the country between Volga and Oka rivers. Population of Desninskii look occupied the territory where the Desninskaya lowland bound up the Volg-Oka basin

The Domesticated Nature: Animals and Landscapes in East-European Eneolithic

Among the East-European eneolithic cultures, the Cucuteni culture with its polychrome ceramic is one of the most impressive compared to its contemporaries. In its final phase "B", the abstract decorative drawings are replaced by some iconic narrative scenes with animals or human silhouettes.

One of the narratives depicts animals in split representation or drawn alone in horizontal frames. Each of these images have small triangles positioned on the inferior register of the image, which could be taken for images of mountain ridges.

Another narrative depicts several animals following each other. I believe to have identified here a hunting scene with horses and dogs chasing a stag or a roe-buck. In this image the mountain landscape is very comprehensible, under the shape of twin mountains painted as small triangles positioned at the foot of the animals. The image of the horse and a dog chasing the game is an argument in favour of the existence in the Cucuteni culture of a hunting (ritual) on horseback with pack as described by Herodotus. The hunting, "over mountains and valleys" is a foundation myth frequent in folk cultures.

This narrative presents two instances of domestication: that of animals (the image of the domesticated horse is one of the earliest in Eastern Europe) and that of the (geometrized) landscape.

One can see in the Cucuteni example one of the oldest interpretations of landscape in prehistory. The landscape, like the domesticated animals, is controlled by rhythm, symmetry and perspective (dimension). If, because of its structure, the hunting image is asymmetrical, the landscape rhythms and confers to it a mythical-geographic dimension.

Round barrows in their landscape: A new interpretation of Bronze Age funerary ritual as two separate traditions, Conspicuous and Inconspicuous Barrows)

The placement of the Bronze Age barrows of southern England in the landscape is best understood in terms of two traditions; Conspicuous and Inconspicuous. Conspicuous barrows are large and prominently located, with a wider range of grave goods, including exotic materials; while Inconspicuous barrows are smaller and less strikingly placed, with funerary urns as the main grave goods, and a stronger association with agricultural land.

The Inconspicuous barrows were designed to honour the dead without altering the world of the living. They would not have established a new ritual landscape, and their grave goods are few, traditional and domestic. This may reflect a system of land-ownership based on a tradition of respect for the world of the ancestors. The same people may have been farming the nearby land and burying their dead in the local Inconspicuous barrows.

The Conspicuous barrows show a desire to change the landscape with new monuments. Both the grave goods and the barrows were expensive and spectacular: the Conspicuous barrow tradition represents an individualistic ideology in which access to exotic objects was important.

Earliest urbanism: structure and functions of a city in some primary civilizations (Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica)

For the solution of the problems of ancient cities it is particularly important to analyse materials from the primary areas of urban civilizations (Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica), where the process of emergence and development of urban settlements was progressing in its "pure form", without any outside influence of more developed cultures. It would be noted at the same time that these were the earliest and most archaic examples of cities in general.

These cities were unlike to the modern ones. Economically they were based on agriculture, crafts' specialization and trade (external in a major part). However the main thing in the understanding of an essence of an ancient city is a hierarchy of communal structures; extended patriarchal family, village community (inside of a city - "ward", "district", "block") and a group of united village communities transformed in a process of the merging in the qualitatively new whole - a city.

During the époque of early antiquity city is usually as a centre of a small state (city - state). There were located a residence of a ruler (king) of this state and a temple of the supreme deity.

All earliest cities of Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica were primarily polyfunctional; they had politic-administrative, ideological, economic, military-defensive (refuge) functions.

Flour power: A Marxist-systems approach to the contextual preservation of industrial buildings

Whilst physical preservation helps to retain the architectural appearance of a building, its context can become eroded and eventually lost by the increasing urbanisation and modernisation of its immediate surroundings. The artefact, in this case, is not removed from context - context is removed from the artefact. An industrial building can be visualised as a product of change, or political conflict, in an inter-connected framework of society. The preservation of its meaning, therefore, relies on the understanding or its context which can be achieved through the study of, not just the building, but its place within the landscape of industry. This raises the question of whether it is always the case that the physical preservation of a single site should be more important than the investigation of its regional and social context. Although the underlying theme can be applied to any archaeological site, the water power sites of the River Nene, Northamptonshire provide the main case study for discussion.

Domestic architecture and sedentism among prehistoric and historic inhabitants of Eastern Chukota

Ancient Eskimo cultures (Okvik, Old Bering sea, Punuk, Birnirk and Western Thule) occupied the coastal areas of Chukotka from I-II century BC until XV century AD. Their economy mostly based on marine resources (hunting on sea mammals: walruses, whales, seals, ringed seals). So settlement strategy of ancient Eskimos was oriented to sedentary occupation of certain places on seacoast. The houses of ancient Eskimo were semisubterranian, their supporting constructions were built from logs of driftwood or whale bone, roof was covered by walrus skins and pieces of turf. Although, Eskimo dwellings had some similarities with constructions of other maritime cultures of Northern Pacific (ancient Karyak culture, ancient Kerek culture), but they differed in such features as : supporting constructions (the main supporting poles were situated in the corners of floor or along walls; two central timbers); absence of hearth; building materials (stone and whale bones). Development of house constructions, which are traced from simplest forms (Kaniskak, Seshan sites) to complex one, concerned with degree of sedentarization and periods of occupation of each ancient Eskimo site.

The re-building of the choir of Canterbury Cathedral

The rebuilding of the choir of Canterbury Cathedral in the late 12th century took place in a specific historic context and was exceptionally well recorded in the chronicle of the monk Gervase. It is thus possible to look at the relationship of landscape, monument and society in this case through a contemporary record.

The concepts of signification, domination and legitimation derived from Giddens (1984) offer a way of analysing the relationship, and can themselves be related to early mediaeval theory and concerns.

Although the monument visually dominates its urban setting and rural surroundings, the role of landscape in the rebuilding was economic and thus concerned with domination through the ownership and allocation of resources. As a resource it provided stone, timber, metals and minerals, most of which were not local. These and other construction costs were paid for by funds derived from the ownership of land by the monastery and other donors. Landscape appears to have had little or no value as signification.

The monument was built because the previous choir had burnt down. Four years after the fire, Archbishop Thomas a Becket was murdered in the cathedral, so the new building would also have to house the tomb of a potential Saint. Thus the monument has many levels of signification. It is arranged both for existing religious purposes and for the new role of pilgrimage to a shrine. Religious signifiers are built in: the windows, for example, provide several iconographic schemes. The shrine, though, has more than a spiritual meaning. It is solid and visible reminder of a range of social issues, many concerned with legitimation.

In an age which saw a fist-fight between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York it is not surprising that the social issues concern conflicts of legitimation not only between institutions - Church/State, Papacy/Monarchy, King/Archbishop - but within them. Giddens' underlying concept of duality of structure is well displayed in the insecurities of the holders of apparently secure offices. The same duality can be demonstrated within another social system, that of the building trade, whose role is described in details which are checkable against the monument.

The paper will conclude with the notion that sound explanatory concepts can be of value over extensive historical periods. Giddens' model helps to explain, rather than simply describe, the rebuilding of Canterbury choir.

Conserving Artefacts in the Wild: Issues in Building Conservation

Historic buildings face problems which differ from those faced by historic artefacts and require different treatment. The difference in the physical, environmental conditions in which they are preserved is closely bound up with the perceptual difference between these two categories of man made thing, a perception based on immobility, place and context. This has hidden both a difference in approach to building conservation and artefact conservation and a difference in context which has helped mould these approaches. This paper concludes that the museum context is so different from that of historic buildings in situ that, while the principles of artefact conservation are relevant to the care of buildings, their concentration on physical material has important limitations. It also concludes that an approach which addresses both the physical and intangible qualities of historic buildings is of interest to museums for its contrast with the museum context.