Kings and peasants from El-Zuma/El-Detti microregion in the Early Makurian period. Economic aspects of animal bones from funerary contexts

Tumuli fields at El-Zuma and El-Detti were dated to the 2nd phase of the Early Makurian period, c. AD 450–550. They represented three types of tombs of different sizes and structures. The animal remains from these graves were analyzed in the context of animal economy practiced by the people who lived in the vicinity of the burial sites. aDNA analysis was conducted for cattle remains to explain its origin and significance for the inhabitants of the region. The research showed agricultural nature of the settlement located to the north of the Nile Valley with a great importance of cattle and sheep breeding. It also indicated the northern direction of trade and cultural contacts of the society based in the El-Zuma/El-Detti microregion and the deep social stratification within this group.

No place, new places: death and its rituals in urban Asia

In many land-scarce Asian cities, planning agencies have sought to reduce space for the dead to release land for the living, encouraging conversion from burial to cremation over several decades. This has caused secular principles privileging efficient land use to conflict with symbolic values invested in burial spaces. Over time, not only has cremation become more accepted, even columbaria have become overcrowded, and new forms of burials (sea and woodland burials) have emerged. As burial methods change, so too do commemorative rituals, including new on-line and mobile phone rituals. This paper traces the ways in which physical spaces for the dead in several east Asian cities have diminished and changed over time, the growth of virtual space for them, the accompanying discourses that influence these dynamics and the new rituals that emerge concomitantly with the contraction of land space.

"The last thing that tells our story": the Roodepoort West Cemetery, 1958-2008

This article attempts to capture some of the complexity in the way that memory, meaning and agenda interact in the history of the cemetery of Roodepoort West. Roodepoort West was the 'old location' where Africans and others lived until 1955, after which a gradual process of removals took place until 1967, when it was finally destroyed. However, not everything was lost of the old location. The cemetery remained, after unrest caused by the proposed removal of the local cemetery during the late 1950s persuaded the authorities to leave it alone. More recently, the cemetery has played a part in land restitution, becoming both a site of tension and remembrance. This article explores the many meanings attached to the old cemetery, and funerals more broadly, over a period of time beginning from the 1950s to 2005. By looking at the history of funerals, and the cemetery, new insights and an alternative understanding of what it meant to live in an urban area in Apartheid South Africa can be gained.

Confessions of a Wannabe (American Folklore Society Presidential Invited Plenary Address, October 2009)

This paper is a written rendering of a plenary address delivered at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society. Drawing on materials from his forthcoming book Confessions of a Wannabe, the author provides a personal account of the deeply emotional sense of responsibility, obligation, and reciprocity involved in long-term ethnographic research among Native American communities, particularly the Omaha and Pawnee tribes of Nebraska. The author details the ways in which personal relations with the people and communities he has observed have shaped his personal and professional life, and he calls into question the ideal of purportedly neutral or distanced ethnography. Details are provided of the author's experiences in converting his farm into an appropriate reburial site for repatriated Pawnee remains recovered under the aegis of the Native American Graves Repatriation and Protection Act (NAGPRA).