Archaeology of Identity

Quizás la concepción material más genuina de representación simbólica de los pueblos mesoamericanos puede hallarse en la plasticidad de las figurillas cerámicas. Este tipo de materialidades han sido elaboradas desde que se congregaron las primeras sociedades sedentarias en Mesoamérica, aproximadamente hace cuatro mil años. La alfarería constituyó una actividad primordial en esos primeros asentamientos debido a que permitió el almacenamiento, transporte, cocción y conservación de alimentos y bebidas. Asimismo, la producción de estos artefactos significó profundos cambios en la organización social, la especialización y división de trabajo y las diversas aplicaciones técnicas, estéticas y tecnológicas. Dentro de este campo de innovaciones aparecieron las figurillas.

Ziel der hier zusammengeführten Beiträge war es, den Sachsenaufstand aus neuen Perspektiven zu beleuchten. Dabei wurde nicht nur der Aufstand allein betrachtet, sondern eine thematisch wie räumlich weit gefasste Palette an Fragestellungen erörtert. Der Sammelband nahm dabei sowohl politische als auch soziale, wirtschaftliche und historiographische Dimensionen in den Blick. Die Ergebnisse bieten eine solide Grundlage für eine umfassende Neu- bewertung nicht nur dieses Ereignisses, sondern auch des historischen Rah- mens, in dem der Sachsenaufstand stattfand. Zentral ist die Erkenntnis, dass es sich dabei nicht um einen ethnisch oder territorial homogenen Volksauf- stand gehandelt haben kann, sondern vielmehr um einen komplexen, regio- nal wie personell vielgestaltigen Machtkonflikt, dessen Ursachen, Parteiungen und Verläufe erst durch die Zusammenführung struktureller, individueller und narrativer Faktoren klarer hervortreten. Die Beiträge zeigen damit, inwiefern neue methodische Zugänge und eine quellenkritische Perspektive dazu bei- tragen können, tradierte Deutungsmuster zu hinterfragen und die konfliktdynamischen Prozesse zwischen Königtum, Adel und Kirche trotz scheinbar eindeutiger Quellendarstellung differenziert zu erfassen.

IMAGES OF A CHILD IN TWO GROUPS OF MAYAN DESCENDANT CHILDREN. This article studies the image that two groups of children -in Merida, Yucatan and in the urban fringehave about children. The differences between both groups are explained in relation to the greater or les ser distance of such images with respect to the hegemonic perspective on infancy and to the Mayan notion of childhood. The failure of various approaches and metaphors employed by social sciences to explain the vision that children in this research have about themselves is also shown.

By exploring the nexus of martyrdom narratives in ancient sources, bioarchaeological evidence, and ultimately of modern canonization processes and the subsequent veneration of the remains by the Christian communities, our study seeks to unravel the multifaceted layers of identity (re)construction. Using as a focal point the case martyrs Epictetus and Astion from Halmyris in northern Scythia who were executed by decapitation in the early fourth century, the research engages with historical accounts and material remains associated with these figures while investigating the relationship between martyrdom narratives and identity. The analysis of skeletal remains and funerary context aims at reconstructing the bioarchaeological signatures of martyrdom, considering both the physical trauma endured and the elements embedded in the burial practices.

Es bien sabido que la épica homérica nos presenta un universo primordialmente masculino y androcéntrico que narra la cólera de personajes como Aquiles o las narraciones de Odiseo. No obstante, en las últimas décadas hemos sido testigos de un aumento de los estudios de género en el terreno homérico. Autoras como S. Reboreda o C. Franco han centrado sus investigaciones en los universos femeninos homéricos en la Grecia antigua. Sin embargo, ¿cómo podemos aplicar estos aspectos a las zonas consideradas “marginales” del Egeo? Gracias a las fuentes arqueológicas obtenidas en los últimos años de la mano de arqueólogas como M. Kosma, A. Kottaridi o D. Ignatiadou, se ha descubierto que las mujeres de la élite en estos territorios “marginales” jugaron papeles importantes dentro del territorio. Con todo esto, el objetivo de la investigación es analizar, de forma crítica, qué conocimiento tenemos sobre la mujer a comienzos del I milenio -inicios de la época arcaica (950-900 a. C.)-, a partir de registros funerarios obtenidos en regiones como Macedonia, entre otras. Utilizando la épica homérica como fuente literaria sabemos que se describen dos tipos de mujeres: las diosas y la mujer mortal. Dentro de lo que algunos autores consideran que era una “monarquía”, las mujeres mortales estaban muy conectadas con las actividades domésticas y, también, con el mundo funerario y ritual. Por ello, conviene plantearse hasta qué punto es posible trasladar esta visión homérica de “reinas” y “amas de casa” hacia sociedades marginales y en construcción en una Grecia protogeométrica y, todo ello, a partir de los restos encontrados en la arqueología funeraria. Gracias a los nuevos marcos teórico-prácticos que se ha implantado dentro de la arqueología de género en las diferentes academias, es posible analizar si estas damas desarrollaron funciones más allá del oikos, y determinar las razones por las que sus tumbas y ajuares tienen un extremado valor material y simbólico.

The methodology adopted for the research project at Matrice follows an approach implemented by Simon Keay many years ago as part of the Roman Towns Project, which he directed together with Martin Millett. The Roman Towns Project used geophysical and topographical surveys to investigate the landscape around the Tiber Valley and study a variety of Roman urban contexts. The project dedicated specific attention to the methodological aspect, with a focus on geophysical prospection, demonstrating the importance of integrating different techniques (Keay et al. 2004; Johnson et al. 2004). The following is presented in acknowledgement of the value of Simon’s work in this field, as well as his faith in the extensive use of non-invasive survey methods to support and complement traditional excavation.

This publication reveals intricate relationships between the Viking Age and its pasts. The book explores previous studies of the past in the past and their theoretical foundations, drawing on relationality, materiality, and affectivity as productive ways of moving the field forward.

Three case studies examine the use of the past in the raising of ship settings in the Viking Age, the presence of antiquities and references to the past in Viking Age hoards, and the use of kerbstones as references to a specific past. Furthermore, it explores the relationship between social memory and reuse in the past. It demonstrates how active engagement with the past was integral to social identities and self-perceptions.

The analyses of the archaeological record point to some of the mechanisms through which the past was appropriated, altered, and integrated into Viking Age practices. The analysis underscores the political dimensions of memory, challenging established preconceptions of reuse as automatically being conducted to legitimise power relations. The study thus provides a nuanced lens through which to examine how Viking Age inhabitants conceptualised and utilised their temporal realities. By recognising the relational nature of pasts and their materials, the publication re-evaluates Viking Age society, underlining the relevance of collective memory in shaping identity and social relations across temporal boundaries. More than anything, it shows how uses of the past were varied and diverse practices in Viking Age society.

Concealed objects have been subject to increasing academic interest in the twenty-first century as awareness of the practice continues to grow. Current recommendations favour leaving concealments in situ, however, the museum remains the primary repository for unwanted concealed objects. Consequently, many studies have centred on concealments found in the home and the impact on their finders. As a result, the presence of these artefacts within museums collections has received very little attention.
Textiles, in particular, are both uniquely evocative and a primary source of dateable material in a cache or concealment. This study will therefore explore the complex web of meaning attached to concealed textiles using current theory. It will also assess how this impacts on their presence within museums, particularly in contexts of display and their interpretation. The presentation of concealed textiles in the form of two caches: one at Cuckfield Museum and the other at the Salisbury Museum will provide the primary basis for this study.

Este presente artículo analiza la Relación de las cosas de Yucatán de Fray Diego de Landa como dispositivo colonial de legitimación de la explotación de las mujeres mayas y del territorio peninsular durante el siglo XVI. A partir de cuatro ejes metodológicos —temporalidad y fuentes, espacialidad, escala e instrumentalización de la educación— se examina cómo el fraile franciscano construyó un paisaje social que equipara el territorio yucateco con los cuerpos femeninos mayas, atribuyendo a ambos cualidades de resistencia, fertilidad y utilidad productiva dentro del sistema de encomiendas. Se argumenta que las crónicas coloniales, lejos de ofrecer acceso directo al mundo indígena femenino, reflejan las lógicas de poder que las produjeron. La educación —entendida como evangelización— operó como instrumento de sujeción ideológica que despojó a las mujeres mayas de su agencia y redujo su saber-hacer textil a insumo económico susceptible de ser explotable. Se concluye que, aunque las fuentes coloniales son herramientas historiográficas válidas, resultan insuficientes e incluso peligrosas para comprender la experiencia de las mujeres mayas contemporáneas sin un análisis crítico riguroso.

What is kinship trouble? When and where did it emerge? Why does it matter and how can we overcome it? These questions guide our discussion of kinship trouble, a term meant to capture the difficulties in reconstructing ancient kin relations, but also an attempt to resolve them through interdisciplinary collaboration and ethically adequate approaches. Motivated by the importance of crossing disciplinary boundaries and the urgency of working together to understand human diversity in the past and present, we reconsider kinship not only as a biological or genetic but also as a social phenomenon for the study of societies through archaeogenetic, archaeological, and socio-cultural anthropological approaches. As to the question of how kinship trouble could be overcome, we propose making more 'oddkin' (sensu Haraway) to bring disciplines into the conversation and foster unexpected collaborations around three themes: ethical collaboration, the integration of biological and social approaches, and kinship studies as acts of care and (non)mutuality of being.

This chapter presents a discussion on the process of reconstructing past landscapes, with a case study from southern Central America. Geurds argues that the strictly impressionistic, Western definition of landscape is often an uncomfortable fit for archaeological analyses. Such tension easily becomes palpable when early-16th-century Spanish descriptions designate parts of present-day Nicaragua as a garden of paradise. Archaeological cases where forms of public architecture favour a view of the intentional creation of landscapes invoke notions of cosmological ordering and forge a strong link between the concept of monumentality and landscape. Geurds argues that in this context, landscape becomes a planned endeavour that rests significantly on a notion of human agency.

This study examines hunter-gatherer communities in southern Africa during the Later Stone Age, focusing on groups traditionally known in classical literature as "Bushmen", today referred to in academic discourse as San or Khoisan based on their linguistic and ethnic identity. The research is built upon a critical review of earlier archaeological and anthropological sources, integrating recent findings from paleogenomics, environmental studies, and new interpretative frameworks for rock art. Archaeological and genetic evidence confirms that these communities represent one of the oldest extant human lineages, exhibiting the deepest known genetic divergence in the history of Homo sapiens-meaning their ancestral line split from other human groups approximately 100,000-150,000 years ago. The San lived a mobile lifestyle based on hunting and gathering, developing sophisticated microlithic stone tools, advanced hunting techniques including the use of poisons and persistence hunting, and a rich rock art tradition. Contemporary scholarship interprets this art as part of shamanistic practices associated with trance states and healing rituals. The study also explores interactions between the San and incoming agro-pastoralist (Bantu) groups over the past two millennia, highlighting dynamics of exchange, conflict, and competition over resources-scenes clearly depicted in rock art. Furthermore, it offers comparative perspectives with other hunter-gatherer societies in Australia and Amazonia, and addresses colonial impacts as well as contemporary indigenous rights movements. The aim is to provide an integrated, updated picture of Later Stone Age societies in southern Africa that moves beyond outdated colonial perspectives toward a recognition of their cultural richness and pivotal role in human history.

Archaeological excavations at Queen Street Gaol and Mount Eden Prison in central Auckland, New Zealand revealed architectural and artefactual evidence shedding light on penal practices in the colony of New Zealand. The Queen Street Gaol, established in 1841 on the outskirts of the growing Auckland settlement, served as a showcase of the colony's power, featuring public displays of punishment such as stocks and hangings. In the latter half of the 19th century, Mount Eden Prison was constructed to replace the outdated Queen Street Gaol, relocating it two kilometres away to the city's periphery. Our analysis of the architectural and archaeological evidence shows how this shift hid the social punishment aspect, pushing criminals away from city life, but how it maintained a visually striking façade that advertised state-inflicted consequences. As the city expanded during the 20th century, Mount Eden Prison once again found itself surrounded by urban development, leading to the decommissioning of the Victorian-era radial prison and the construction of high-rise security units, which now camouflage the penal function of these institutions. Our analysis demonstrates how the standing structures and sub-surface evidence at these two sites reflect the changing attitudes towards social reform and the evolving landscape of punishment in modern suburban areas.

In this article we discuss the possible theoretical and methodological connections between approaches to the material culture of slavery and the postemancipation period. Based on the thematic bibliography, we both evaluate the current stage of studies in historical archeology and present an ongoing research project that is excavating archaeological sites on farms in the slaveholding Southeast of Brazil.

That tale of the elephants carrying brushwood to the pits and giving their fallen comrade a ramp to mount is monstrous and far-fetched and dictates, as it were, that we are to believe it on a king's prescription-that is, on the writs of Juba (Plu. Mor. 977d).

The female graves 12 and 13 in the Early Bronze Age
(EBA) cemetery in Mikulovice (Eastern Bohemia, Czech
Republic) contain tools to process precious metals as
well as silver-plated copper/bronze jewellery. The collections
of tools in both burials are very similar. The
neighbouring location of the two graves close to each
other is probably no more a coincidence than the almost
identical jewellery sets of both women — namely the
ring-headed pins otherwise missing on the necropolis,
necklaces made of (silver-plated) copper spiral rolls and
spiral rings used as ear/hair ornaments – which clearly
differ from other jewellery sets found in the cemetery. At
least one of the two women also wore silver-plated jewellery
that was unique for this time.
For all these reasons, we interpret these two graves
as burials of goldsmiths or finesmiths who lived in the
small region for a long time. With regard to the direct
proximity of both burials in the necropolis, the identical
jewellery sets and also the two tool collections, we
assume that they had a close (social, professional) relationship.
On the one hand, large metallurgical workshops
are certainly to be expected during the European
Early Bronze Age. On the other hand, it is also very likely
that individuals or very small domestic or family
workshops worked with small quantities of high-quality
materials such as gold or silver. Our two women from
Mikulovice probably belonged to this kind of goldsmith.
The fact that they are found at an important junction
along the Amber Road is certainly no coincidence.

This photo-essay documents the indigenous Mexican ballgame pelota mixteca and the way it is played by indigenous Mexican migrants in California. The focus is on the migrant experience, the role pelota mixteca plays in creating and maintaining transnational/transborder communities, whose members live on both sides of the Mexico/US border, and the way it creates spaces for these communities, in which they can perpetuate their own culture, in a country with ever harsher immigration policies. It also explores the question of what the game means to future generations of players, who are starting to lose interest in the game, and the way that local promoters try to encourage youngsters to play the game in an attempt to secure its survival.

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to examine the evolution of the tourism sector on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and its interaction with social transformations before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach-The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with residents, tourism stakeholders and public authorities, complemented by participant observation and analysis of policy documents, official reports and tourism initiatives. Findings-The findings show that tourism has been a key driver of social transformation on Rapa Nui, generating both pressures and opportunities. Originality/value-The originality or value of this study lies in its focus on Indigenous perspectives and cocreation processes in a small, remote island context, demonstrating how crisis moments can catalyse shifts toward more locally driven and sustainable tourism models.

0e Agro Falisco o*ers clear evidence of how humans adapted to its challenging terrain. From
the ritual use of natural caves – like the so-called cavernette falische – to the large-scale management of
farmland and flood risk after the Roman conquest, the landscape tells a story of close interaction between
people and environment. Starting in the late Republic, the area became a key site for experimenting with
agricultural infrastructure. Land was reorganized around watercourses, the rivi finales mentioned in the
Liber Coloniarum, through the construction of dams, canals, and masonry embankments. 0ese works not
only expanded arable land but also protected it from erosion, forming part of a wider system of water
management developed alongside major roads like the via Flaminia and via Amerina. Using historical,
epigraphic, and archaeological sources, this paper examines how the need to manage this complex landscape
shaped farming practices and helped define the ancient Ager Faliscus

Academic discussions about the interethnic relationships operating during the colonial period in Atlantic Patagonia are relatively recent, in contrast with research carried out in the rest of the Argentine Republic. It has resulted in a significant gap –both empirical and epistemological- in the inquiry of the encounter between Europeans and natives, colonialism itself and its related materiality in the region. From historical archaeology approach, the purpose of this chapter is to discuss the agency and the diverse kinds of controls indigenous groups imposed over the Spanish colonial order established in Patagonian Atlantic coast (Argentina Republic) by the end of the 18th century. Interethnic relationships are explored in three study cases from the same colonizing project: Nueva Colonia y Fuerte de Floridablanca (San Julián Bay, Santa Cruz province), the settlement of Real Compañía Marítima (Puerto Deseado, Santa Cruz province) and Fuerte San José and Puesto de la Fuente (Valdés peninsula, Chubut province). Social practices, material conditions of the colonial settlements, and particularly, the indigenous perceptions of the colonial posts are thoroughly considered. This information is thus intended to discuss the divergent trajectories of interethnic relationships, as well as to approach colonialism in Patagonia from the natives’ logics and experiences.

This paper presents an inscription incised before firing on a handmade coarse ware fragment discovered at Falerii, Vignale, one of the two hills on which the ancient city stood. Although fragmentary, difficult to read, and uncertain in terms of analysis and interpretation, the inscription may represent a document of potential significance for the history of literacy in the Faliscan region and, more broadly, in ancient Italy. Its potential importance lies in its chronology, as it may constitute the earliest known inscription in Faliscan – or, more cautiously, from the Faliscan territory.

In 1886, a terracotta tile inscribed with an Etruscan inscription was recovered from Tomb 11 in the first cemetery of S. Antonio, located in the environs of Corchiano, an important settlement in the Ager Faliscus. Soon after the tile's discovery, it disappeared from the scholarly record and was assumed to have been lost. A collector for the Field Museum purchased the tile and other artifacts from an antiquities dealer in Rome and shipped them to the Museum. Recently, a photograph of the tile appeared on the Field Museum's Web site. The rediscovery of the inscribed tile in the Museum's archives permits us to confirm the reading of the inscription and to document its distinctive paleographic features. In this paper, I discuss the inscribed tile, its background, and the Etruscan inscription.

A fragmentary kylix in the J. Paul Getty Museum's collection of Faliscan ceramics stands out. Its interior was decorated by overpainting. Two goats, male and female, standing on their hind legs occupy the central portion of the tondo of the kylix. A Faliscan inscription, iuḷ ⋅ iuinio, was overpainted on the left side of the tondo. The paleography, language, and interpretation of the onomastic phrase are discussed.

The authors seek to outline the main aspects of the occupation of the westernmost area of the Iberian Central System, consisting, from East to West, of the Gata, Malcata,
Estrela and Gardunha mountain ranges, during the transition between the 2nd to the 1st millennium BC. The approach revolves around “stelae”: stone monuments that not only marked specific places in their territory, but continuously (re)built their own landscapes. They amount to about a dozen, located, mostly, around the mountain edges, and while apparently isolated, deeply connected to the settlements, the true references of the living experiences of these communities.
The study will tackle different aspects inherent to stelae, with emphasis on those of spatial and territorial nature, namely the relationship between its raw materials and the
regional lithology, and, at the same time, between these monuments and the proximity / distance to the most critical resource at the time: metal. The studied region is particularly rich in copper, tin, and gold mineral resources, available both in veins and in alluvium, and the stelae depict it in a figurative and sublime way, through weapons and other assets of power

While at the end of the Early Iron Age the southern part of the Balkan peninsula saw the emergence of the Greek city-states, the rest of the modern Balkan territory remained the home of numerous stateless societies. In the frame of the culture-historical and world-systems approaches, these societies have been conceptualized as “barbarian tribes”, which fell within a single societal type and were eventually influenced by but “failed” to emulate the Greek polis. Moreover, the discovery of highly ostentatious burials at several sites has given rise to the view that the political landscape of the Iron Age Balkans was marked by the formation of “tribal kingdoms”. Aside from the fact that this term remains ill-defined, over the last years the aforementioned hellenocentric assessments have been severely criticized. More importantly, recent studies of older and new archaeological finds leave no longer any doubt that sociopolitical developments were neither uniform nor synchronous across the Balkans.

In order to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the organization and functioning of stateless societies within the region, this session will combine bottom-up analyses of material evidence with recent approaches of social complexity, which do not necessarily dismiss neo-evolutionary categories such as “tribes” and “chiefdoms”, but they acknowledge, first, the culturally- and historically-contingent character of sociopolitical processes and second, the fact that power may be diffused across multiple and not necessarily hierarchical networks. We welcome papers that undertake contextual analyses of settlement and/or funerary evidence from any phase(s) of the Iron Age and any part(s) of the Balkans with the aim of investigating social inequalities, their extent and duration over time, their intersection with different facets of identity (such as age, kinship affiliation and gender) and their association with specific spheres of social interaction (such as feasting, warfare, craft production and supra-regional exchange).

O Santa Clara 02 é um sítio arqueológico situado na região Seridó, no sertão do Rio Grande do Norte, descoberto em um contexto de licenciamento ambiental e rico em artefatos históricos. Dentre os achados estão as louças, categoria que inclui faianças, faianças finas, porcelanas e grés. Com base nesse material, o objetivo deste artigo é apresentar essas louças e refletir sobre como elas podem ter sido incorporadas ao cotidiano e às categorias sociais simbólicas dos sertanejos moradores da fazenda. Para tanto, o artigo se inicia com uma caracterização conceitual e uma contextualização do sertanejo potiguar. Posteriormente, discute-se o uso desses artefatos no processo de datação do sítio arqueológico, considerando a ausência de inventário e de documentos históricos. Utilizam-se a fórmula de South, gráfico de barras e o cruzamento de dados com conversas informais com moradores, além de revisão bibliográfica secundária sobre a história da região, para se chegar a uma datação aproximada de ocupação do local. Discute-se, então, como as louças, enquanto itens importados e industrializados em massa, podem ser utilizadas como marcadores de status, bem como indicadores de memória e identidade. Nesse sentido, destaca-se a louça shell edge. Apesar de ser um tipo ordinário na Europa, ela aparece no Seridó como uma escolha ativa dentro de um leque restrito de possibilidades. Evoca-se, assim, o conceito de ‘gosto de necessidade’, no sentido bourdieusiano, para explicar esse fenômeno de construção social de camadas intermediárias, por meio do qual se expressa uma seleção deliberada.

This study investigates the transportation and integration of Western Iberian stelae within Late Bronze Age landscapes through GIS-based spatial analyses. Leveraging extensive spatial data from “The Iberian stelae of the Final Bronze Age” interdisciplinary research project, we focus on the movement of stelae from their potential quarries, determined through provenance studies, to their chosen places. We explore the cultural and territorial significance of these monuments between the Tagus River and the Iberian Central System. The analysis utilizes Least-Cost Analysis, employing Tobler’s hiking function to create Least-Cost Surfaces, and includes Least-Cost Paths and Focal Mobility Networks to trace potential routes. Topographic profiles of these paths are examined to determine and compare distance, slope, and walking time. Labour estimates and visibility and accessibility analyses further contextualize the complex and dynamic relationship between paths, quarries, and stelae within the Late Bronze Age landscape. Our findings shed light on how quarries were procured and how the transportation routes integrated into the existing natural and cultural landscape, offering new insights into the spatial dynamics of Late Bronze Age communities. Lastly, this study underscores the methodological potential of GIS in multi-scalar Landscape Archaeology analyses.

Resumen A lo largo del tiempo, las comunidades mayas prehispánicas no sólo se encargaron de la producción de elementos cerámicos como vasijas, figurillas o incensarios; también reaprovecharon objetos y fragmentos rotos para distintos fines. Este tipo de prácticas refleja una respuesta ante un principio de escasez, también forma parte de una visión integral del entorno y de los materiales. En el caso de Palenque, la evidencia de artefactos reciclados nos remite a relaciones sociales entrelazadas con el simbolismo y la ritualidad, las cuales han sido interpretadas de acuerdo con la arqueología del reciclaje en el área maya.

El yacimiento de Bayra (Vera, Almería), sellado por el terremoto de 1518, preserva los restos de una producción textil doméstica de la primera mitad del siglo XVI. Este articulo transciende el análisis técnico para interpretar estos vestigios como huellas de una agencia femenina y una economía del cuidado silenciadas. Desde una perspectiva arqueológica feminista, sostenemos que el trabajo textil en este contexto postconquista constituyó una práctica de resistencia cotidiana y un saber encarnado que sostuvo el tejido social. Los instrumentos textiles emergen así como claves para deconstruir narrativas androcéntricas y recuperar la centralidad del trabajo femenino.

Part 1 of a two-part account of a studio design project at one of New Zealand's most sacred Māori sites - where, in 1881, the settler Government  authorised more than 1500 armed militia to invadedthe peaceful village of Parihaka, and arrested and imprisoned the leaders Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakah who were committed to passive resistance and civil disobedience fifty years before Mahatma Gandhi. They had been arrested for resisting the confiscation of their land under the New Zealand Settlement Act of 1863, in violation of the Treaty of Waitangi.  In 1995-1996, the Community Design Studio at the University of Auckland School of Architecture was invited by the Parihaka community to support their attempts to rebuild the Parihaka economy and to develop designs for the rehabilitation of Te Whiti’s House, Te Pae Pae. This is their story.

Rosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway. Guildenstern: What? Rosencrantz: England. Guildenstern: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then? 1 Stoppard is humorously expressing what seems to be an amazing ability of the human mind -the construction of a landmass to suit one's desires or expectations. Western cartographers have often achieved such effects by producing maps with little to no reference to reality. The result is a malleable geography, one that conforms, or can be made to conform, to the expectations of the Western point of view and sense of morality. What, then, is implied about the Western psyche that has a penchant to destabilize even terra firma? What is insinuated about an unexpected indigenous population "found" inhabiting newly "discovered" lands when their claims in regards to their history, culture, and home are ignored or rejected? It is my intention to examine these questions using Easter Island, and three centuries of Western contact with the island and its inhabitants, as a test case. In 1687, the English privateer Edward Davis, blown off course in the South Pacific, sighted a sandy beach silhouetted by mountains. Convinced he had found the fabled southern continent, Terra Australis Incognita, Davis dubbed it "Davis Land" and sailed on without further exploration. This first recorded sighting, mentioning only an indistinct landmass on the horizon and surmised to be part of a great southern continent, spurred further explorations in the South Pacific. Many navigators traversed those waters for the following century to find this illusive landmass; the coastline of which never once interrupted their journeys. Expeditions of navigators and whaling crews found only small islands amidst the vast expanse of water. One of the islands discovered was found on Easter Sunday, 1722, by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen aboard the Arena. It was a small, unimposing island which he named in honor of the holy day. Having gone on shore and met with the inhabitants of Easter Island, the Dutch were amazed by large statues, or moai, found on the island to which several of the islanders fled to when threatened. The judgment was rendered that the islanders were incapable of erecting these stone colossi. Unless, Roggeveen inferred, they were hollow and made out of clay. "Davis Land" was still considered a possibility, and clearly, to the Dutch, this island -despite its contents, human and otherwise -was a disappointment. 2 ~ 125 ~