Edit, Dublin Institute of Technology Students\u27 Union College Guide, September 1998 - June 1999

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Discourses of language acquisition and identity in the life histories of four white South African men, fluent in isiXhosa

A post-structuralist framework (Foucault, 1976; Weedon, 1997) is used to explore language acquisition and identity construction in the life histories of four multilingual white South African men, who became fluent in the African language of isiXhosa in the racially-divided world of Apartheid South Africa, at a time when law and policy made fluency in an African language unusual for whites. Theories used within the 'social turn' in Second Language Acquisition (Block, 2003; Norton, 2000), as well as the social learning theory of Lave and Wenger (1991), support an exploration of how the men acquired this language on the farms in the Eastern Cape where they spent their early years. The identity implications of the men's multilingualism are examined using post-colonial studies of race, 'whiteness' and hybridity (Bhabha, 1994; Frankenberg, 1993; Hall, 1992a). The study was undertaken using Life History methodology (Hatch & Wisniewsky, 1995) and biographic interviewing methods developed within the Social Sciences (Wengraf, 2001). Poststructuralist discourse analysis (Wetherell & Potter, 1992), together with aspects of narrative analysis (Brockmeier, 2000), were used to analyse the data. The study contributes to research into naturalistic language acquisition, using theories from the 'social turn', and analysing a bilingual context in which language, power, race and identity interact in unique ways. The findings endorse the importance of a post-structuralist framing for the Communities of Practice model (Wenger, 1998), and show that participation in target-language communities requires investment by learners in identities which ameliorate the inequities of power relations. The study shows that isiXhosa can become linguistic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) for white South Africans, depending on context and the isiXhosa register they use. It demonstrates that Apartheid discourse ascribes to the men an identity which is indisputably white, but that early experiences shared with isiXhosa-speakers shape their lives and form a potentially antihegemonic facet of their identities

Albuquerque Morning Journal, 12-19-1915

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/abq_mj_news/2513/thumbnail.jp

Households of the Cape, 1750 to 1850 : inventories and the archaeological record

Bibliography: p. 193-208.The purpose of the research was to study changes that occurred in the material culture of the Cape during the period when the British took over control of the colony from the Dutch. There were three phases for investigation: the colony under the Dutch East India Company in the 18th century, twenty transitional years of interim British and Netherlands governments between 1795 and 1815, and the Cape as a British colony after 1815. An historical archaeological approach was applied to material remains surviving from those years, such as excavated artefacts, documents and buildings, that assumed these sources of material culture reflected the larger cultural, or cognitive, contexts in which they were conceived, made and used. Particular emphasis was placed on examination of household inventory manuscripts (lists of fixed and moveable properties, goods and chattels). Selected information from the inventories of more than 800 households was recorded, and further detailed analysis made of seventy-nine documents. Room-by-room appraisals indicate the layout (house plan), room numbers (house size), room names and activities (functions of spaces) within the house. These probate records thus provided invaluable information about houses, their contents and the placement of objects within the household, and could be investigated from the level of individual rooms on the day of appraisal to a range of houses over a number of years. By constituting the documentary evidence in a form compatible with assemblages of excavated artefacts, as a series uf space and time blocks, integrated information provided enhanced material cultural detail. Patterns were observed through time and across a range of regional and socio-economic situations. The first period covered a "I Dutch" Cape under the control of the eastern arm of the Dutch East India Company, but households were organised in a way distinctive to the Cape. Then there was a short period of relative freedom from governmental control, as transition was made from Dutch to British colonial status and trade options broadened, resulting in the wealthier urban households reflecting fashion, and to the benefit of many farmers. Finally, the Cape was fully incorporated into the networks of the British Empire, undergoing widespread adaptations to colonial society and changes in the material culture of households

Millet and What Else?

Broomcorn/common/proso millet (Panicum miliaceum) is a cereal crop that originated in East Asia and was transferred westward to Europe, where it was introduced in the mid-2nd millennium BCE, at the height of the Bronze Age. Archaeobotanists from the Collaborative Research Centre 1266, supported by many colleagues, conducted a large-scale programme of radiocarbon dating of millet grains from prehistoric Europe. They discovered that the spread of this crop on the continent happened quickly, extending far and wide. What do we know about the (pre)history of this crop in Europe? The workshop organised by the CRC 1266 at Kiel University in 2019 encouraged the discussion on the circumstances and consequences of early broomcorn millet cultivation in Europe. This book brings together many of the workshop papers and reflects the diverse topics and research areas covered. The contributions inform us on the range of cultivated and collected plants from the time before and after the start of millet cultivation in Europe; present the cultural setting in which millet arrived; discuss possible reasons driving the acceptance of this innovation; and reconstruct possible uses of millet and the methods of its cultivation, processing and storage. Not just the plant economy, but also the animal economy is represented, since millet was and is grown for both humans and animals. Techniques used to trace millet archaeologically are continually being developed or improved, and this book describes the application of a few of them. This broad-based compilation of papers adds another layer to the dynamic picture of the Bronze Age and the interconnected continent. It also illustrates the complexity of the research on the diffusion of agricultural innovations

Foodways of the mid-18th century Cape : archaeological ceramics from the Grand Parade in central Cape Town

Bibliography: pages 278-301.The principal intention of this thesis was to study the archaeologically excavated remains from the site of the Grand Parade in central Cape Town. The main lines of argument are centred around the question of the ceramics and how these can be interpreted to add to the knowledge of everyday life at the Cape. This involved excavation of the site, a descriptive report on the site, formulating a typological system of classification relevant to the sample, and interpretation of the ceramic data, considering its context within the local ceramic tradition and the overarching historical background of the Cape. The typological framework used in the ceramic analysis is largely based on the work by Mary Beaudry and others and the interpretive style draws heavily on the ideas about the food domain postulated by Anne Yentsch. A social history paradigm has been used to study the nature of the local evidence, to investigate how the excavated ceramics can be used to inform in one of the most basic cultural traditions involving the foodways of early Capetonians. It has been found: that the typological framework for the ceramic analysis set out in this thesis, is successful in interpreting the ceramics; that the ideological functions of the ceramics remain a less tangible aspect of recreating the past; that although the local food way tradition of the mid-18th century continues to be a complicated web of cultural interactions, through the use of a multi-disciplinary approach, the archaeological evidence can be successfully integrated with the faw:ial, inventory and other docwnentary sources; and that all the aforementioned are crucial to a better, more holistic understanding of the local Cape foodway tradition of the mid-18th century

Life Styles, Death Styles, and Posthumous Portraiture: Elite Female Burials in Iron Age Europe

This dissertation analyzes the grave good assemblages in 222 burial contexts from HallstattD (c. 600-400 BCE) tumulus cemeteries in west-central Europe to test the hypothesis that certain combinations of grave goods were associated with particular categories of persons based on an intersectional marking of gender, status, age and social role. The primary data set consists of high-status graves – male, female, ungendered/pre-gendered subadults, and those of indeterminate gender – in the Heuneburg interaction sphere in southwest Germany. The results of this analysis are compared to a secondary data set of comparable burials from other west-central European locations, to determine whether discernible patterns are due to regional traditions or may reflect deeper conceptions of gender ideology. The posthumous portraiture provided by these mortuary contexts is discussed in relation to identity and role, including gender, age, kin relations, and childbearing status. The distinction between lifestyles and deathstyles in identity marking and the relevance of these costume elements for accessing gender ideology in this preliterate society are presented using a visual body mapping approach that reveals the complexity of archaeologically accessing intersectional identities in the past

Heads North or East? A re-examination of Beaker Burials in Britain

This thesis compares burial practices of Beaker-using communities in Britain and provides a corpus of British Beaker burials. Chronologically, this study covers the period from around the 25th until the 18th century BC, from the Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Beakers were a new feature in late British prehistory and were probably introduced through small-scale migration and cultural transfer. Together with the pottery, a new style of funerary practices was introduced, that was comparable to continental practices at that time and strictly distinguished between male and female individuals. The standard continental practice, e.g. in Bohemia, was that men were buried with their head to the north, lying on their left side, thus facing east. Women were also facing east, but were buried on the right side and were consequently orientated to the south. This particular pattern can be found in southern Britain but is less strict in its application. This peculiar finding has attracted much scholarly interest since its discovery. Therefore, the research of Beaker funerary practices has a long tradition and still forms a core area of research. This study considers two main questions: does the data confirm established opinions on Beaker burial practices, including a distinct regional division of burial traditions, e.g. in terms of body orientation between northern and southern Britain, and is it possible to identify which area of continental Europe exerted the greatest influence on developments in Britain? In order to be able to structurally compare these burials, a database containing 311 entries has been compiled from the published literature. All available data on the skeletons has been integrated, including orientation, position, and limb position. Additionally, data on grave construction and artefacts has been collected. This data has been analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, both comparatively and statistically. Through the collected data, this thesis argues that the general image of Beaker burial practices is still valid. However, certain generalisations require revision, for example the orientations of individuals. Chronologically, early Beaker burials follow strict standards, while during the course of Beaker currency these standards become less strictly adhered to. Possible regions of the origin of British Beaker burial practices are usually connected with the Lower Rhine area. The study agrees that this area had strong influences in northern Britain, but argues that southern Britain, on grounds of orientations and positions of the bodies, had more varied influences with a stronger input from central Europe

Connectivity: An Ecological Paradigm for the Study of Bronze Age

“Connectivity: an ecological paradigm for the study of Bronze Age” addresses the relationship between historic and prehistoric people, and the landscapes they inhabited, moved about, and continue to inhabit. It suggests alternative methodological approaches that have broader ramifications for the discipline of (Bronze Age) archaeology. By engaging the code and innovations stemming from ecology and digital technology, the research questions concern the interface – referred to as connectivity – between the archaeological sites, resources, networks of communication, and the conditions of archaeological knowledge acquisition. Drawing on published and new data, the aim of the project is to put forward a strategy for a geographically and linguistically inclusive research of the Bronze Age Collapse, analyzing landscape connectivity that does not promote culture as a common denominator of archaeological data sets. Topics that are explored: archaeometallurgy, environmental pressures, mobility, pottery analysis - can be distilled to the issue of scalability of archaeological scholarship. The narrower case study focuses on the southeastern Europe 1650-1100 BCE