Examples of “land stewarship” in Brazil. The “Projecto Sempre Viva” (Mucugê-Bahia)

In recent years the concept of "Land Stewardship" has gained a great importance. In short, it means that local entities and individuals can protect enclave of high ecological and cultural value. This vision has been effective in some places in the world with success. For example, the “Projeto Sempre Viva”, created in the town of Mucugê, a place located in one of Brazil´s most renowned Natural Protected Areas: the Chapada Diamantina (State of Bahia). We had looked over the available information about this project on the Internet, as well as a personal visit that was made to the site to know it and to have the possibility to talk to their managers. On this basis, it has been reached to the conclusion that this project, born to protect a Sempre Viva´s endemic species in danger of extinction, has turned into an important site for tourism and environmental education, completed with the preservation of the cultural identity of this region which is linked to diamond mining.

These things are alive: relationships between material culture, communities, and archaeological legislation

This paper deals with the relationship between different sets of archaeological legislation, material culture and communities. First it presents a historical sketch of the heritage legislation in the West and its contemporary uses. Secondly, it shows how alternative archaeological agencies, such as community archaeology, deal with these problems. The discussion is especially relevant in Brazil, where contract archaeology is presently overwhelming, and the issue is raised in the last part of the paper.

Negative Archaeology. The Archaeological Borders of the Present

Nowadays, archaeology is trying to redefine its relation with objects. This change is taking place at the same time as the West is breaking once and for all with the generation who did the rural exodus in the mid of the twentieth century. The present paper proposes a revision of the conditions that allow us to both define this rupture and at the same time determine our affinity with materiality. This is done through a reconsideration of the relation between the past and the present and the dynamics marking this difference. We are situated in a moment when the experience of time is shifting and thus so is the integrity of archaeological objects. Under the name of Negative Archaeology, the border between past and present is explored. This border determines the creation of the past in a present which intends to homogenise changes. Archaeology is a unique discipline which could prevent this process, or at least bear witness to the dynamics to which objects seem to be subjected. Obscolescence is introduced as a concept in an attempt to name the aforementioned problem.

La estructuración del espacio urbano y productivo de Gadir durante la fase urbana clásica: Cambios y perduraciones

La reafirmación del modelo político-administrativo ciudadano tras la fase arcaica colonial abre una nueva etapa de prosperidad en la antigua fundación tiria. El esplendor de Gadir en el s. V a.C. se refleja en los textos clásicos y en los hallazgos arqueológicos y, sin embargo, nuestros conocimientos sobre el desarrollo histórico de la ciudad de época púnica son muy limitados. El horizonte arcaico comienza a esclarecerse tras los hallazgos del Teatro Cómico que han sacado a la luz los restos de la fundación tiria y, sin embargo, la ciudad posterior continúa siendo una gran incógnita. ¿A qué lugar se traslada la población una vez que se abandona el asentamiento primitivo? ¿Quiénes son los individuos enterrados en los excepcionales sarcófagos antropoides? ¿Qué relación jerárquica existe entre el asentamiento insular y los situados en tierra firme? ¿Qué papel jugó la industria y comercialización de las salazones? Los interrogantes planteados son múltiples y no hacen más que evidenciar la incapacidad del paradigma tradicional para explicar el desarrollo histórico de la Gadir postcolonial y la necesidad de buscar nuevos modelos interpretativos.

Cova dels Jurats at Calescoves (Alaior, Minorca). A Cave Shrine in the Talayotic context?

Excavations carried out in the Cova dels Jurats between 2010 and 2012 served to establish that, unlike the rest of the caves Calescoves, this one functioned as a sanctuary, with two different phases. The first one corresponds to the Final Talayotic Period, as the first cave shrine documented in the Talayotic culture. In Roman times, the place was still used as a sanctuary, but with a totally different ritual, linked to the inscriptions discovered at the entrance of the cave.