The Iron in the Posthole: Witchcraft, Women’s Labor, and Spanish Folk Ritual at the Berry Site

Apotropaic devices—folk ritual objects and deposits intended to ward away witchcraft or ensorcellment—were often deliberately concealed near the vulnerable parts of a structure (doors, windows, hearths, and chimneys). Because such devices typically consisted of otherwise mundane materials, they can be difficult to identify in archaeological deposits. It is the unusual context of the deposit that alerts us to the potential of its apotropaic meaning and intent. Here, I discuss the social and spatial contexts of an iron jack plate fragment concealed near the doorway of a Spanish colonial kitchen at the Berry site. Berry, located in present‐day western North Carolina, was the site of Fort San Juan de Joara (1566–1568), the first European settlement in the interior of what is now the United States. Recognizing the iron jack plate fragment as a potential apotropaic device opens a window onto Spanish male anxieties about women’s labor, especially the domestic labor associated with food. Spaniards and other Europeans believed that “wild” women regularly used ensorcelled food to entrap or punish male victims. Nowhere were fears of ensorcelled food more pronounced than along the frontiers of colonial America, where indigenous women usually prepared meals for Spanish men as wives, servants, and concubines. [colonialism, witchcraft, gender, food, folk ritual, the Berry site, colonial America]RESUMENLos objetos apotropaicos—objetos y depósitos rituales populares con el propósito de protegerse contra hechicería o encantamiento—fueron a menudo deliberadamente ocultos cerca de las partes vulnerables de una estructura (puertas, ventanas, fosos del fuego, y chimeneas). Desde que tales objetos típicamente consistieron de materiales por lo demás mundanos, pueden ser difíciles de identificar en depósitos arqueológicos. Es el contexto inusual del depósito lo que nos alerta del potencial de su significado e intento apotropaico. Aquí, discuto los contextos sociales y espaciales de un fragmento de una placa de hierro de una armadura oculto cerca de la entrada de una cocina colonial española en el sitio Berry. Berry, ubicado en la parte Oeste de la actual Carolina del Norte, fue el sitio del Fuerte San Juan de Joara (1566–1568), el primer asentamiento europeo en el interior de lo que es ahora los Estados Unidos. Reconociendo el fragmento de la placa de hierro de una armadura como un potencial objeto apotropaico abre una ventana hacia las ansiedades de los hombres españoles acerca del trabajo de la mujer, especialmente el trabajo doméstico asociado con la comida. Los españoles y otros europeos creyeron que las mujeres “salvajes” regularmente usaban comida “encantada” para atrapar o castigar a las victimas hombres. En ninguna parte fueron los miedos de comida encantada más pronunciados que a lo largo de la frontera de la América colonial, donde mujeres indígenas usualmente prepararon alimentos para los hombres españoles como esposas, sirvientas, y concubinas. [colonialismo, brujería, género, comida, ritual popular, el sitio Berry, América colonial]Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134179/1/aman12604.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134179/2/aman12604_am.pd

Arc Jet Testing

This course will cover an overview of the Entry Systems and Technology Division (TS) at NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) and descriptions of the extensive arc jet testing complex managed within the branch. After a quick look at the Earth and Planetary Entry projects supported by TS, along with the inventions and software developed within the division, a description of the entry environments to which thermal protection systems (TPS) are exposed will be discussed. The question of "How do we insure TPS survival?" will be answered with descriptions of the various test facilities across the agency and beyond and their applicability. The Ames Arc Jet Complex will then be described, starting with how an arc heater works, adding in the associated infrastructure required to run an arc heater, and the capabilities of each of the test tunnels. Finally, examples of TPS test articles will round out the course

Vacuum Infusion Process Development for Conformal Ablative Thermal Protection System Materials

Conformal ablators are low density composite materials comprised of a flexible carbon felt based fibrous substrate and a high surface area phenolic matrix. These materials are fabricated to near net shape by molding the substrate, placing in a rigid matched mold and infusing with liquid resin through a vacuum assisted process. The open mold process, originally developed for older rigid substrate ablators, such as PICA, wastes a substantial amount of resin. In this work, a vacuum infusion process a type of liquid composite molding where resin is directly injected into a closed mold under vacuum is advanced for conformal ablators. The process reduces waste over the state-of-the-art technique. Small, flat samples of Conformal Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator are infused using the new approach and subjected to a range of curing configurations and conditions. Resulting materials are inspected for quality and compared to material produced using the standard process. Lessons learned inform subsequent plans for process scale up

Turkish correlatives in monolingual Turkish and bilingual Turkish-German grammar

Our paper presents an experimental study on multiple correlatives in Turkish. The research questions that guided our study are twofold: (a) What are the presuppositions of multiple correlatives in Turkish? (b) Is there a difference between monolingual Turkish speakers and bilingual Turkish-German speakers with respect to multiple correlatives? Question (a) targets the presuppositions of interrogative-based correlatives. Since the presuppositions of multiple questions are crosslinguistically variable, are the presuppositions of correlatives based on them variable in a parallel way? Question (b) targets crosslinguistic variability in the acceptability of multiple correlatives. While Turkish permits them, German does not. Does this variability affect bilingual speakers’ grammars? Our results indicate that (a) multiple correlatives share the presuppositions of the questions they contain and (b) bilingual speakers’ grammar of correlatives is different from that of monolingual speakers. The paper sheds a new light on crosslinguistic variation in the domain of questions and correlatives and on bilingual grammar

Mammalian Evolution: A Jurassic Spark

SummaryThere is increasing evidence that early mammals evolved rapidly into a range of body forms and habitats, right under the noses of the dinosaurs