Much of our knowledge about the nineteenth-century natural history boom resides with the collectors themselves and their collections. We know much less about the conduct of the global trade that made collecting possible. That such a trade occurred in the face of significant obstacles of distance, variable prices, inadequate information, and diverse agents makes our knowledge deficit the more significant. William John Macleay, based in Sydney, built his significant natural history collection by trading locally as well as across the globe. (...) Our study of Macleay measures his complete set of trading transactions at a time of rapid expansion of his collection. It analyses how he chose between different forms of exchange and agreed fair value in order to complete long-distance specimen trading. (shrink)

The fossilized primate skull known as the Taungs Baby, discovered in South Africa, was put forward in 1925 as a controversial ‘missing link’ between humans and apes. This essay examines the controversy generated by the fossil, with a focus on practice and the circulation of material objects. Viewing the Taungs story from this perspective provides a new outlook on debates, one that suggests that attention to the importance of place, particularly the ways that specific localities shape scientific practices, is crucial (...) to understanding such controversies. During the 1920s, the fossil itself did not move or circulate from its South African location, a fact that raised methodological concerns in understanding its significance and drew immense criticism from a range of experts. Examining the criticisms regarding the fossil’s failure to circulate draws attention to the importance of centers of accumulation in the analysis of hominid fossils. Diverging from existing histories that primarily emphasize the role of theory in paleoanthropological debates, then, this article argues that scientific practice played an important role in the Taungs fossil controversy. Examining this dimension of the debates has broader implications for revealing the underlying imperial assumptions that guided hominid paleontology during the early twentieth century. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung1958 startete vor der kleinasiatischen Küste eines der ersten Vorhaben für eine systematische archäologische Kampagne unter der Wasseroberfläche. Dabei wurde vor dem Kap Gelidonya das Wrack eines bronzezeitlichen Schiffs untersucht. Um die Arbeitsweise und die konkreten Probleme der Unterwasserarchäologie näher zu beleuchten, umfasst dieser Beitrag neben einer Beschreibung der konkreten Forschungsgegenstände und der eingesetzten technischen Hilfsmitteln auch die naturräumlichen Eigenschaften sowie die politischen Rahmenbedingungen jener Zeit. Am Übergang zwischen kolonialem Zeitalter und Kaltem Krieg zeichnet er zudem die biografischen Wege nach, (...) welche die zentralen Akteur*innen der Kampagne am Fundort zusammenführten. Das ist notwendig, um zu verstehen, wieso Taucher*innen, die keine etablierten Archäolog*innen waren, diese Kampagne anstießen und durchführten. Der Artikel analysiert außerdem den Stand der Forschung im Jahr 1960 in diesem Feld und die Schwierigkeiten und Lösungen bei der Arbeit unter Wasser. Er versteht sich als Beitrag zur noch ungeschriebenen Geschichte der Unterwasserarchäologie. (shrink)