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Friday Seminar: Gail Wagner

by eric — last modified October 25, 2010 03:46 PM
What Friday Seminar
When November 05, 2010
from 04:00 pm to 06:00 pm
Where A 222 Fowler
Contact Name Lana Martin
Contact Email
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Colonial Exchanges: New Worlds, New Plants

By Gail E. Wagner, Associate Professor of Anthropology (University of South Carolina)

 

The period of initial Colonial entanglement was long and complex in South Carolina, and included Spanish, French, English, and far-distant Indian colonization beginning as early as 1521. Colonial groups potentially brought food customs, crops, and even livestock new to the Indians who lived here. Colonial settlement, the establishment of the deerskin and slave trades, and the introduction of diseases contributed to comprehensive changes in Indian life. Beginning with the assumption that all groups prefer to maintain their own food customs and foods, I examine the dietary practices of South Carolina Indians during the Colonial period as revealed by flotation-recovered macrobotanical plant remains from five coastal and inland Indian settlements dating between A.D. 1590 and 1715. It appears that during the early Colonial period in South Carolina, Indian knowledge of plant foods affected Euroamericans more than Euroamerican plant foods affected Indians.

Part of the Fall 2010 series "Food for Thought: The Archaeology of Diet and Subsistence." Guest scholars explore approaches to and methods of investigating the foodways of past human societies.

 
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The Construction of Value

Scholars from Aristotle to Marx and beyond have been fascinated by the question of what constitutes value. The Construction of Value in the Ancient World makes a significant contribution to this ongoing inquiry, bringing together in one comprehensive volume the perspectives of leading anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, philologists, and sociologists on how value was created, defined, and expressed in a number of ancient societies around the world. Based on the basic premise that value is a social construct defined by the cultural context in which it is situated, the volume explores four overarching but closely interrelated themes: place value, body value, object value, and number value. The questions raised and addressed are of central importance to archaeologists studying ancient civilizations: How can we understand the value that might have been accorded to materials, objects, people, places, and patterns of action by those who produced or used the things that compose the human material record? Taken as a whole, the contributions to this volume demonstrate how the concept of value lies at the intersection of individual and collective tastes, desires, sentiments, and attitudes that inform the ways people select, or give priority to, one thing over another.

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