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This essay identifies "selling out" as an enduring yet evolving concern in anglophone literary history, from the late nineteenth century's divided literary field to the "program era" to the increasingly global circuits of contemporary literary commerce. It begins with Henry James, showing how his canonical statements on modern narrative form emerged from commercial negotiations--an economic prehistory of "craft." Selling out becomes a salient concern as intellectuals come to see commercial success as antithetical to modern art. This cultural anxiety changes, however, once creative writing programs begin systematically reconciling craft and commerce. Turning to Nam Le's celebrated short story collection The Boat, the second section shows how selling out came to entail a fear that minority writers might betray group solidarity through reductive or essentialist portrayals of identity. Finally, the essay's third section closes by situating Le within a global market for postcolonial fiction and its attendant concerns over commodifying exoticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research emphasizes that empiricist approaches already emerged long before the seventeenth and eighteenth century. While many of these contributions focus on specific professions, it is the aim of this article to supplement this discourse by describing certain social spaces that fostered empiricist attitudes. A particularly interesting example in this respect is the mining region of the Erzgebirge (Saxony) in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. The following article will use this mining district as a kind of historical laboratory, as a space not only for scientific observation but also as a structure within which specific forms of knowledge were socially tested, to show how the economic transformation of this region supported the rise of characteristic elements of empiricist thinking. It is common practice to link the appraisal of useful knowledge, (personal) experience and the distrust towards (scholastic) authorities in those days with only small minorities. By addressing not only the struggles of the commercial elites but also the challenges faced by the average resident of a mining town, this paper tries to add to this view by demonstrating how entire masses of people inhabiting the late medieval Erzgebirge were affected by and schooled to think in empiricist ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Stock Cove site (CkAl-3) is a large, deeply stratified, multicomponent site located in southeastern Newfoundland. The richest strata at the site, which have yielded thousands of artifacts and multiple overlapping house features, provide evidence of a substantial Dorset presence. Earlier researchers proposed that the Stock Cove site additionally contained the Province's only Dorset longhouse, which this paper disputes. The high frequency of sea-mammal hunting implements and identified faunal remains, as well as the site's location, all suggest that coastal and marine resources figured prominently in the Dorset's food economy at Stock Cove. Faunal remains further suggest that the biogeography of the region when the Dorset were living at the site, particularly the distribution of migratory harp seals, may have differed significantly from historical distributions. The recovery of harp seal remains on the site has broad implications for understanding Dorset colonization and abandonment of the island, as well as the appropriateness of using historical biogeographic data to interpret prehistoric economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Wells constitute a seldom, but important archive particularly as a source for reconstructing prehistoric economy. For the newly discovered Middle Neolithic well of the Funnel Beaker North Group at the domestic site of Oldenburg-Dannau LA77 (North Germany), a deposition of settlement refuse in a former well was documented. Due to depositional processes, the remains provided a detailed palaeo-ecological and archaeological archive for a short time-span around 3050 cal BC. The integration of wells in Middle Neolithic water management strategies, the high value of cereal production – including cereal threshing in the settlement and the documentation of a large number of querns – as well as the early management of “fruit gardens” were reconstructed. Subsequently, the probabilities of profane versus ritual social praxis associated with the depositional process were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Stable oxygen isotopes (δ18O) from human bone apatite from central western Argentina (30º-37ºS latitude) were analysed to understand changes in human residential mobility during the Late Holocene. This region contains evidence for the use of domesticated plants over the last 2000 years ( Zea mays, Cucurbita sp. and Phaseolus sp., among others), and previous models of prehistoric occupation have suggested a distinct change in mobility and population movement associated with their incorporation. The importance of these domesticates also seems to have varied geographically, being greater in the northern part of the region and declining as one moves south toward the limit with Patagonia. Expectations about patterns of residential mobility have varied accordingly. To better evaluate these models, we analysed carbonate δ18O from the bone apatite of 71 individuals with radiocarbon dates spanning the last 6000 years. Given the existing evidence, we expected to see temporal and geographic differences in their oxygen isotope values associated with changes in residential mobility and the incorporation of different sources of drinking water available within the region. These expectations were not met. Significant variations were seen across all samples compared, both temporal and geographic, with no discernible differences among them. The data suggest that populations throughout the area were all highly mobile, and that this did not change with the incorporation of domesticates. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Questions of mobility, settlement pattern, and their relation to economic organization and resource use are central to ongoing work in central-western Argentina. Here we analyze geographic patterns in the distribution of 178 human bone carbonate δ 18O samples, 46 human tooth enamel carbonate δ 18O samples, and 48 water δ 18O samples from throughout the Andean Cordillera and Monte Desert and evaluate their implications for prehistoric mobility and economy. We confirm and refine previous generalizations regarding a highland/lowland dichotomy in water δ 18O values and show that the range of human carbonate δ 18O values generally reflect available water sources. While there is little within-lifetime change in patterns of water use, we show that most individuals have stable isotope signatures consistent with water use from multiple areas or areas other than where they were ultimately interred. These data indicate high levels of residential mobility, and we conclude by discussing their implications for our understanding of regional prehistory. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We describe the Bronze Age ceramic economy of the Benta Valley in Hungary. In the Bronze Age, long-distance trade in metals, metal objects, and other specialty items became central to expansive prestige goods exchange through Europe. Was that exchange in wealth, however, linked to broader developments of an integrated market system? The beginnings of market systems in prehistory are poorly understood. We suggest a means to investigate marketing by studying the changing ceramic economy of a region, rather than at a single site. Analysis of the ceramic inventory collected as part of the Benta Valley Project strongly suggests that, although ceramic production was quite sophisticated and probably specialized, exchange was highly localized (mostly within 10 km) and conducted through personalized community networks. Our ceramic study used three progressively finer-scaled analyses: inventorying ceramic forms and decoration to evaluate consumption patterns, petrographic analysis to describe manufacturing sequences, and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) to describe exchange. We conclude that, based on present evidence, market systems had not developed in Hungary during the Bronze Age. We describe the Bronze Age ceramic economy of the Benta Valley in Hungary. In the Bronze Age, long-distance trade in metals, metal objects, and other specialty items became central to expansive prestige goods exchange through Europe. Was that exchange in wealth, however, linked to broader developments of an integrated market system? The beginnings of market systems in prehistory are poorly understood. We suggest a means to investigate marketing by studying the changing ceramic economy of a region, rather than at a single site. Analysis of the ceramic inventory collected as part of the Benta Valley Project strongly suggests that, although ceramic production was quite sophisticated and probably specialized, exchange was highly localized (mostly within 10 km) and conducted through personalized community networks. Our ceramic study used three progressively finer-scaled analyses: inventorying ceramic forms and decoration to evaluate consumption patterns, petrographic analysis to describe manufacturing sequences, and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) to describe exchange. We conclude that, based on present evidence, market systems had not developed in Hungary during the Bronze Age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we address the historical question of why Aegean Bronze Age economies are characterized as redistributive systems and whether it is appropriate to continue to describe them as such. We argue that characterizing the political economies of the Aegean as redistributive is inacctlrate and misleading. Instead, we suggest it is more fruitful to describe how specific prehistoric social institutions were used to organize and allocate goods and services and thereby to study how political and economic systems interacted with one another. By examining how Aegean social institutions were constituted and changed over time, we will be in a position to use the prehistoric Aegean to develop and refine general models of political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exploits cross-country variation in the degree of geographical isolation, prior to the advent of seafaring and airborne transportation technologies, to examine its impact on the course of economic development across the globe. The empirical investigation establishes that prehistoric geographical isolation has generated a persistent beneficial effect on the process of development and contributed to the contemporary variation in the standard of living across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harkening back to the debates associated with "dualistic economies" in addressing emerging nation states, we examine aspects of the ancient economy of the lowland Maya. Resource-specialized communities were knit together in a network of interdependencies that allowed high degrees of self-sustaining separation from the large monumental centers about which we know most. The social and biophysical environs of the ancient Maya permitted multiple economic spheres that influenced their political organization and affected their lack of developed hegemonic controls. Evidence is presented from the present-day ecological set aside of the Programme for Belize in northwestern Belize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over a decade ago Kenneth Hirth (1998, 2000) developed a "distributional approach" for archaeologically inferring the existence of marketplace exchange based on analyses of domestic artifact collections. Domestic collections, he reasoned, will be relatively homogeneous in areas where most or all households rely on marketplace exchange to acquire domestic provisions. The present study evaluates Hirth's distributional approach using a statistical measure of diversity (heterogeneity) to quantify variability among domestic collection units over a large area. The data for this study come from the Middle Postclassic lower Blanco region of Veracruz (A.D. 1200-A.D. 1350), an unknown context of marketplace exchange. A comparison of diversity scores calculated on surface sherd collections from the lower Blanco region with scores from Late Postclassic Teotihuacan (A.D. 1350-A.D. 1520)—a known context of marketplace exchange—suggests the existence of a marketplace exchange system in the lower Blanco region, likely centered at the town of El Sauce. In addition, changes in intercollection diversity (sherds) and obsidian concentrations with increasing distance from the center suggest El Sauce's market service area encompassed a radius of approximately six to nine kilometers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been known for several decades that certain regions of the Maya Lowlands were characterized by specialized production of chert tools in ancient times. The extent, intensity, organization, and net social effects of centralized lithic production in the Maya area as a whole, however are not well understood. In order to address issues of broader relevance to social and economic processes, lithicists working in the Maya region need to develop analytical approaches suited to the study of complex economies. The research presented here attempts to establish simple baseline measures for use in comparing the production of siliceous stone tools, both formal and expedient, at different scales across the Maya area. Scholarship in this region has been chronically plagued by prolonged, unresolved debates—mostly a factor of the multitude of single-site-focused projects employing different methodologies and research emphases. The present study therefore proposes a new direction in Maya lithic studies with the goal of enhancing comparability of data on ancient economic structure through the use of standardized statistics that facilitate spatial analysis. Using the proportion of early-stage core reduction debris to the total of all debitage from a given context, for instance, enables the analyst to roughly assess the amount of tool manufacture taking place locally. By extension, inferences can be made about the degree of economic integration and interdependence characterizing any given geographic scale, including the architectural group, site, region, and so on. Preliminary analysis of patterns in early-stage reduction illustrates differential spatial distributions of chert tool production and consumption at several scales from across the southern Lowlands, allowing for the refinement of current models of ancient Maya lithic economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southern Anatolian plateau sites such as Çatalhöyük, Kuruçay and Hacιlar have provided detailed knowledge on the socio-political and economic lives of their prehistoric residents. In comparison, the nod central area of the plateau has been virtually a blank slate due to a relative lack of data. Our excavations at the site of Çadιr Höyük have added substantially to our understanding of Late Chalcolithic (ca. 3500-3100 B.C.) occupation on the nod central Anatolian plateau. In addition to residential areas, excavations have uncovered evidence of large-scale non-domestic architecture, as well as regional and long distance trade. This report summarizes our findings from a decade of research at the site. We use architectural analyses to describe the social and economic structure at this Late Chalcolithic regional center: Analyses of the ceramic assemblage allow us to offer observations regarding Çadιr's involvement in interaction spheres that extended across the plateau and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arabia lies outside the focus of most archaeologists working in western Asia and is considered to have been a periphery in the past and therefore peripheral to contemporary research interests. The reasons for this include generalized assumptions about human-environmental dynamics and a belief in the necessity of foreign intervention as a spur for innovation and change in arid environments. In this paper, these two assumptions are examined, and a case study from southeastern Arabia is presented which details evidence for indigenous adaptation and a concomitant emergence of political and economic complexity in the early first millennium B.C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

G. Laplace defined the Protoaurignacian in Liguria (“abri Mochi”) as the earliest occurrences of Upper Paleolithic in Italy. Stratigraphic sequences in Var exemplify that the Protoaurignacian is the first sequence of Upper Paleolithic in Provence and widely different from classic Aurignacian defined in southwestern France. Recorded in Languedoc-Roussillon, that one is documented in some other stratigraphic sequences from Monaco to southern Spain (“cueva del boquete de Zafarraya”). The Protoaurignacian argue that first modern humans arrived and occupied all along the Mediterranean coasts from Gibraltar to Toscana. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The thick Quaternary deposits of the Caune de l’Arago (Pyrénées-Orientales, France) are dated to between 690 000 and 90 000 years old. At least fifteen different archeostratigraphical units have been identified within these deposits, each corresponding to distinct prehistoric occupations. Numerous stone tools made from several different rock types, have been discovered in each unit. The tools present specific characteristics concerning the choice of raw materials, the typology, and the technology used to produce them. Morpho-technological study of the different components of the assemblage contributes to a better understanding of the debitage methods used for their production. Each raw material is considered individually in order to ascertain its origin in the environment, its typological role and the technology applied during its exploitation. Defining production systems leads to the characterisation of the assemblages from each unit. When compared, they reveal common elements, as well as differences, suggesting evolutionary trends. Some observations are also made concerning the extent to which changing uses of the site may have influenced the general morphology of each assemblage, therefore taking into account exterior factors. Analysis of this rich stone tool assemblage helps to situate the Caune de l’Arago industry within the larger evolutionary context of the Lower Paleolithic in Mediterranean Europe. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Using ethnohistorical, ethnographical, historical, and archaeological evidence, this article reconstructs the development of exchange systems in Roviana, Solomon Islands, and explores their long-term transformation. It suggests that a Roviana system of multiple coexisting standards of valuation of goods and services gained preeminence in precolonial times in the context of a regional exchange system and political expansion and explores this system’s subsequent articulation with European economic forms. It traces the dynamics of this system and shows its importance in the consolidation of political stratification and sociopolitical differentiation. In this system, objects moved between spheres of exchange as ‘gifts,’ ‘commodities,’ and ‘inalienable possessions’ depending on the social, economic, and political context in which they were exchanged and/or transferred, with each sphere specifying not only the objects exchanged but also the appropriate modes of exchange and a set of attendant social relationships. Explanatory priority is given to the development of multiple modes of exchange from an autochthonous entanglement of diverse regional polities long before significant contact with Europeans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Zealand provides one of the earliest examples of foraging theory applications to archaeological situations (Anderson 1981). Since this landmark study, significant developments over the last twenty years have led to an increasing number of detailed analyses examining the effects of resource depression on human foraging. In particular, foraging theory analyses have become better at documenting resource depression and integrating butchery/transport studies into these analyses. Using the faunal data from the Shag River Mouth site, I illustrate how these methodological advances have resulted in a more comprehensive understanding of the processes of subsistence change in southern New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models in evolutionary ecology have been applied to non-human decision making for decades. Archaeologists have been especially attracted to foraging models, because the evidence of past subsistence activities is a common component of the archaeological record world-wide. No foraging model, though, accounts for the effects of subsistence technology. The 'Tech Investment Model' we describe here does just this. Assuming that most technologies serve to reduce handling time, a critical component of a resource's profitability, the model generates predictions about how much time an individual should invest in any particular technology. Although preliminary, data from an initial test case in the Great Basin conform to the general expectations of the model. Most importantly, the exercise forces attention to the relationships between tools and the resources handled with them, and has implications for subsistence transitions world-wide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents data from the Classic period Hohokam multi-site community of Marana in the American Southwest which reveal patterns that do not match idealized expectations of economic redistribution. Data's support for the interpretation of restricted obsidian consumption at communal ceremonial gatherings; Inadequacy of normative model of exchange in prehistoric economy.

Big game and big-game hunting play a major role in hominid evolutionary models, cultural evolutionary models, and ethnographic descriptions. In western Europe's Late and Terminal Pleistocene sites, the remains of big game, including red deer, are common, and these remains figure prominently in economic re- constructions. However, assumptions about the dietary role of big-game animals guide critical aspects of these reconstructions, eliminating from consideration alternative economic strategies. Since archaeological data are usually ambiguous, inferences and models about the past can be substantially altered by applying different assumptions and methodologies to the same data. The case of Pleistocene Cantabria is used to show how an economy focused on resources other than big-game may be modeled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the dietary adaptation of humans in the Pleistocene in the Middle East. The author explores the hypothesis of Kent Flannery in 1969, that at the end of the Pleistocene, humans grew in number in the Near East and thus began to eat broader range of animals and plants. Generalizations concerning the economic base of the early agricultural societies and their predecessors are also presented. However, the nature of the dietary adaptation entailed by the material culture and settlement changes that emerged between about 12,000 and 9000 B.C. in the Levant, Anatolia, and Iraqi Jezira was still unresolved. Moreover, analysis of the Ali Kosh and Abu Hureyra Epipaleolithic settlement were discussed.

The article comments on the paper of E. Wilmsen entitled "On the Search for (Truth) and Authority: A Reply to Lee and Guenther," which was published in volume 34 of the "Current Anthropology" journal. Wilmsen claimed that the mid-19th-century, Dobe region was an area of mercantile activity. The author remarks that Wilmsen's evidence for the early penetration and subjugation of the Nyae Nyae-Dobe by merchant capital is entirely incorrect, revealing an error and misrepsentation unrivaled in recent anthropology, citing the detailed 19th-century maps where the Nyae Nyae-Dobe was represented as virtual blank from the period of Wilmsen's alleged mercantile boom.

The article explores the trade and other forms of exchange among prehistoric peoples as an enduring and indeed traditional topic in archeology. This topic has been recently realized as an object of extremely innovative and exciting research. Its historical value lies in the artifactual and stylistic exotics used for cross-dating and relative chronology as well as in the presumed social mechanism in diffusion or in the stimulation of tribal societies by more advanced groups. However, the incidence of exchange and the nature of the various institutions through which it may have taken place are becoming much less matters of indirect interpretation because these determinations of raw material sources, identification of routes of movements, and other reasons have surpassed these.

Presents an abstract of a paper discussed during the 1993 Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. Comparison of the results of archaeometry and traditional archaeology in the analysis of ancient economic systems in the Mediterranean.