On January 14, 1806, Sidney Hanson was raped by John Deskins on a rough gravel path in the woods in Tazewell County, Virginia. In the early nineteenth century, trials for rape were rare. Scanty court records typically lacked the detail needed to reconstruct the lives of those involved and evaluate the social and physical setting of the crime. Yet the events on that fateful day in 1806 would be the exception.In A Rape in the Early Republic, Randal L. Hall reproduces the complete trial testimony of Alexander Smyth, the prosecutor for Hanson's trial. Smyth's detailed record offers a revealing glimpse into how early rape cases moved through the legal system, first at the local level and then in the state's recently created district court system. It also shows that Deskins was not the only one on trial -- Hanson's character was being scrutinized as well.Hall's introduction, rather than offering an analysis of Smyth's documents, provides important context and highlights historical themes that Hanson's situation illustrates. Featuring classroom discussion ideas and a list of suggested reading, A Rape in the Early Republic will be a valuable resource for students and scholars as well as anyone interested in gender, law, and society in the early republic.

While traditional studies of dress and jewellery have tended to focus purely on reconstruction or descriptions of style, chronology and typology, the social context of costume is now a major research area in archaeology. This refocusing is largely a result of the close relationship between dress and three currently popular topics: identity, bodies and material culture. Not only does dress constitute an important means by which people integrate and segregate to form group identities, but interactions between objects and bodies, quintessentially illustrated by dress, can also form the basis of much wider symbolic systems. Consequently, archaeological understandings of clothing shed light on some of the fundamental aspects of society, hence our intentionally unconditional title. Dress and Society illustrates the range of current archaeological approaches to dress using a number of case studies drawn from prehistoric to post-medieval Europe. Individually, each chapter makes a strong contribution in its own field whether through the discussion of new evidence or new approaches to classic material. Presenting the eight papers together creates a strong argument for a theoretically informed and integrated approach to dress as a specific category of archaeological evidence, emphasising that the study of dress not only draws openly on other disciplines, but is also a sub-discipline in its own right. However, rather than delimiting dress to a specialist area of research we seek to promote it as fundamental to any holistic archaeological understanding of past societies.

Following the 1992 breakup of Yugoslavia, the region descended into a series of bloody conflicts marked by intense ethnic and religious hatreds. Kosovo emerged at the epicenter of these disputes and the site of innumerable human rights violations, as Serbia, united with Montenegro at the time, sought to remove the Albanian presence. Kosovo (roughly ninety percent Albanian) declared independence in 2008, and although it is recognized by over one hundred UN member states, it is still not recognized by Serbia. This volume brings together scholars of Serbian, Albanian, Christian, and Muslim backgrounds to examine the Serbian-Albanian dynamic in Kosovo through historical, political, economic, and social perspectives.

Greenlanders gained reliable social entertainment from the oral retelling of their legends. With the only printed material available at the time being of Christian origin, interest grew for Greenlandic stories, leading to the formation of Atuagagdliutit—the first, and still published, periodical in the country. The stories collected in Kayakmen originally appeared there. This text represents a firsthand account of the civilization of Greenlanders depicting a true picture of their age.

Tuumarsi is a realistic depiction of the struggle for survival. A famine causes a family to pick up and relocate to fairer hunting grounds. The psyche and humor of the people is reflected through Nielsen’s own experiences with them. The struggle among the settlement members to make their lives better illustrates what was to become Greenland’s desire for sovereignty from Denmark.

As American interests assumed global proportions after 1945, policy makers were faced with the challenge of prioritizing various regions and determining the extent to which the United States was prepared to defend and support them. Superpowers and developing nations soon became inextricably linked and decolonizing states such as Vietnam, India, and Egypt assumed a central role in the ideological struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. As the twentieth century came to an end, many of the challenges of the Cold War became even more complex as the Soviet Union collapsed and new threats arose. Featuring original essays by leading scholars, Foreign Policy at the Periphery examines relationships among new nations and the United States from the end of the Second World War through the global war on terror. Rather than reassessing familiar flashpoints of US foreign policy, the contributors explore neglected but significant developments such as the efforts of evangelical missionaries in the Congo, the 1958 stabilization agreement with Argentina, Henry Kissinger's policies toward Latin America during the 1970s, and the financing of terrorism in Libya via petrodollars. Blending new, internationalist approaches to diplomatic history with newly released archival materials, Foreign Policy at the Periphery brings together diverse strands of scholarship to address compelling issues in modern world history.

The concept of a socially constructed space of human activity in areas of everyday actions, as initially proposed in the field of anthropology by Tim Ingold, has actually been much more applied in archaeology. In this wide-ranging collection of 13 papers, including a re-assessment by Ingold himself, contributors show why it has been so influential, with papers ranging from the study of Mesolithic to historic and contemporary archaeology, revisiting different research themes, such as Ingold’s own Lapland study, and the development of landscape archaeology. A series of case studies demonstrates the value and strength of the taskscape concept applied to a variety of contexts and scales across wide geographical and temporal situations. While exploring new frontiers, the papers contrast British, Nordic and Mediterranean archaeologies to showcase the study of material culture and landscape and conclude with an assessment of the concept of taskscape and its further developments.

Waste represents a category of ‘things’, which is familiar and ubiquitous but rarely reflected in archaeological and cultural studies. Perception of waste changes over time and practices associated with waste vary. The ambiguity of waste challenges traditional archaeological approaches that take advantage of refuse to infer past behaviour. Recent developments in research in the social sciences and humanities indicate that waste offers many more dimensions for exploration. This interdisciplinary book brings together scholars who demonstrate the potential of research into waste for understanding humans, non-humans and their inter-relations. In 12 chapters the authors cover topics ranging from the relationship between waste and identity in early agricultural settlements to the perception of contemporary nuclear waste. Although archaeological approaches dominate the contributions, there are also chapters that represent the results of anthropological and historical research. The book is structured into three main sections that explore the relationship between waste and three domains of interest: value, social differentiation, and space. Archaeologies of Waste will interest archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and other readers intrigued by the potential of things, which were left behind, to shed light on social life.

Care-giving is an activity that has been practiced by all human societies. From the earliest societies through to the present, all humans have faced choices regarding how people in positions of dependency are to be treated. As such, care-giving, and the form it takes, is a central experience of being a human and one that is culturally mediated. Archaeology has tended to marginalise the study of care, and debates surrounding our ability to recognise it within the archaeological record have often remained implicit rather than a focus of discussion.In order to address this, the 12 papers in this volume bring together archaeological, historical, and philosophical perspectives to examine the topic of care in past societies, and how we might recognise the provision of care in archaeological contexts. The topic of care is examined through three different strands: care throughout the life course, namely that provided to the youngest and oldest members of society; care-giving and attitudes towards impairment and disability; and the role of animals as both recipients of care and as tools for its provision.

Deeply nestled in the rift valley, the hundreds of tombs and extensive remains of the Nabataean metropolis that was once that nation’s capital city of Petra, evokes a sense of geographic protection and isolation from the outside world. With its sprawling development, Petra became a bustling city with exciting and distinctive architectural and artistic styles as the Petraeans determined what a resplendent capital with a burgeoning population and assured economic future should represent. This third volume devoted to one of its most impressive edifices, the Great Temple, builds on the previous two volumes of excavation reports to examine many facets of Nabataean material culture. It exposes a cross-section of the material culture, from water-supply systems and architectural designs to studies of artifacts (sculpture, ceramics, numismatics, metal and bone) and subsistence patterns. Part I explores the principles of the temple layout and how it was built including Nabataean construction techniques, hydraulic systems, decoration, art and and subsidiary buildings of the precinct. Part II is devoted to additional aspects of Nabataean material culture, with chapters devoted to the site databases, ceramics and Nabataean potting traditions, lamps, figurines, glass, coins, faunal and worked bone analyses, metal objects, ballista balls, and sculpture. The volume is supported by an online database http://www.opencontext.org designed to assemble special research materials that could not be published here in print which provides the tools for researchers to perform their own analysis of the data.

Traditionally the study of early medieval burial practices in England has focused on the furnished burials of the early Anglo-Saxon period with those of the later centuries perceived as uniform and therefore uninteresting. The last decade has seen the publication of many important cemeteries and synthetic works demonstrating that such a simplistic view of later Anglo-Saxon burial is no longer tenable. The reality is rather more complex, with social and political perspectives influencing both the location and mode of burial in this period. This edited volume is the first that brings together papers by leading researchers in the field and illustrates the diversity of approaches being used to study the burials of this period. The overarching theme of the book is differential treatment in death, which is examined at the site-specific, settlement, regional and national level. More specifically, the symbolism of conversion-period grave good deposition, the impact of the church, and aspects of identity, burial diversity and biocultural approaches to cemetery analysis are discussed.

Any student of American history knows of Washington, Jefferson, and the other statesmen who penned the documents that form the legal foundations of our nation, but many other great minds contributed to the development of the young republic's judicial system -- figures such as William Littell, Ben Monroe, and John J. Marshall. These men, some of Kentucky's earliest law reporters, are the forgotten trailblazers who helped establish the foundation of the state's court system. In Writing the Legal Record: Law Reporters in Nineteenth-Century Kentucky, Kurt X. Metzmeier provides portraits of the men whose important yet understudied contributions helped create a new common law inspired by English legal traditions but fully grounded in the decisions of American judges. He profiles individuals such as James Hughes, a Revolutionary War veteran who worked as a legislator to reform confusing property laws inherited from Virginia. Also featured is George M. Bibb, a prominent U.S. senator and the secretary of the treasury under President John Tyler.To shed light on the pioneering individuals responsible for collecting and publishing the early opinions of Kentucky's highest court, Metzmeier reviews nearly a century of debate over politics, institutional change, human rights, and war. Embodied in the stories of these early reporters are the rich history of the Commonwealth, the essence of its legal system, and the origins of a legal print culture in America.

The Force of Custom presents a finely textured ethnographic study that sheds new light on the legal and moral ordering of everyday life in northwestern Kyrgyzstan. Through her extensive fieldwork and firsthand experience, Judith Beyer reveals how Kyrgyz in Talas province negotiate proper behavior and regulate disputes by invoking custom, known to the locals as salt. While salt is presented as age-old tradition, its invocation is shown to be a highly developed and flexible rhetorical strategy that people adapt in order to meet the challenges of contemporary political, legal, economic, and religious environments. Officially, codified state law should take precedence when it comes to dispute resolution, yet the unwritten laws of salt and the increasing importance of Islamic law provide the standards for ordering everyday life. As Beyer further demonstrates, interpretations of both Islamic and state law are also intrinsically linked to salt. By interweaving case studies on kinship, legal negotiations, festive events, mourning rituals, and political and business dealings, Beyer shows how salt is the binding element in rural Kyrgyz social life and how it is used to explain and negotiate moral behavior and to postulate communal identity. In this way, salt provides a time-tested, sustainable source of authentication that defies changes in government and the shifting tides of religious movements.

Desert exploration, like climbing Everest or polar expeditions, is not for the faint-hearted, and many of the vivid tales within this fascinating biographical history end in tragedy. However, the informative and absorbing descriptions of the extraordinary journeys, challenges and achievements of these intrepid figures, are captivating. They risked their lives variously for good old fashioned epic adventure, solitude, fame, the answer to mythical questions and some were even spies. They experienced fear, excitement and hardship in their journeys into the unknown. There are many books on exploration but remarkably few on desert exploration. Moreover, some of the great desert explorers of the last three hundred years are now very little remembered or appreciated in comparison, say, with those who ventured to the poles, climbed Everest, or sought the source of the Nile. Yet, crossing unknown deserts is no less challenging. This volume finally brings these Great Desert Explorers into the limelight, with short, illustrated biographies of around 60 of the most interesting, intrepid and important explorers of the world’s greatest deserts. There is also a brief introduction to each desert region. The many original quotations, illustrations and maps, contemporary figures, as well as plates of a range of desert landscapes make this a colourful, lively and informative read.

If we think of the beginnings of psychoanalysis, we certainly recognise that it overturned the vision human beings had of themselves, the illusion of ownership of their thoughts and actions. And in reality it still remains a way of reading the world, both inside and outside, that is admittedly disorienting. However, especially in recent years, the principles on which psychoanalysis was founded have been subjected to considerable pressure from the outside that forces psychoanalysis to problematise still more its vision of humankind and to abandon everything connected with prejudice toward the culture and history it was born out of, i. e. Western, in order to recognize the link between individual and social boundaries and the differences of various cultures. It is at this intersection between individual horizon and collective sphere that the psychoanalysis could be a galvanising force for knowledge and social growth. The book poses these questions and brings together the different experiences of psychoanalysts living and working in a variety of realities and cultures.

A lamak is a long narrow ritual hanging that is an essential requirement at almost all rituals in Bali. It is hung from altars and shrines at temple festivals and on festive holy days. Made usually of palm leaves, it is by nature ephemeral and it is made time and again. Even though permanent forms of the lamak, made of cloth or coins, do exist, the ephemeral palm leaf form must be present. Sometimes reaching a length of several metres and decorated with a range of motifs, its most elaborate forms are made by specialist craftsmen and women. The lamak serves as base for offerings and attracts deities and deified ancestors to them. Decorative motifs representing sources of life are ordered according to Balinese concepts of the vertical structure of the cosmos. Best known among the motifs is the cili, a human figure in female form that symbolizes human fertility and regeneration. Through offerings and the active role of the lamak, worshippers offer thanks to their deities and request prosperity and protection. Despite decades of change and modernization that have affected all aspects of life in Bali, the essential role of the lamak has survived intact. Although there are many studies of Bali’s internationally appreciated arts and crafts, this is the first one to examine in detail this fascinating and unique form of ephemeral material culture which is a prominent feature of Balinese creativity. The study answers the question: why do Balinese make lamak and why do they continue to make them time and again? It examines the use and function of the lamak in ritual, the motifs that decorate them, the materials and techniques to make them, regional and individual styles, and processes of change and commercialization. Francine Brinkgreve is curator for the Insular Southeast Asia collection at the National Museum of World Cultures, which includes Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden and the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. During her study Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University, she specialized in the cultures of Indonesia.