
##4080550 Kai Bird 's formative years in the Middle East were not exactly the stuff of Leave It to Beaver : he learned to check his shoes every morning for scorpions ; had to negotiate Jordanian , UN , and Israeli checkpoints on his way to school ; went to sleep on occasion to the rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns ; was evacuated from East Jerusalem to Beirut during the 1956 Suez War , and again from Cairo to Greece in the 1967 war ; and had a girlfriend whose jetliner was hijacked and blown up by Palestinian terrorists in 1970 . Oh , and his mother used to play Joan Baez and Bob Dylan songs on the guitar in her Riyadh home with Salem bin Laden , Osama 's older brother . That 's fodder enough for an engrossing memoir . But Bird has loftier goals . A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has made a career of going mano a mano with the dead white males of the eastern Establishment , he wrote this book " in large part to understand why the Middle East of my childhood seems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Crossing Mandelbaum Gate is a gesture of atonement for a stone left unturned : for much of his career , Bird pointedly avoided grappling with the region . The book also encompasses Bird 's attempt to confront larger questions of identity , whether those embedded in the cultural miscegenations of the modern Middle East or those embedded in the jumbled allegiances of a boy plucked out of Oregon to tag along in the baggage train of Pax Americana . I can understand the inclination to avoid reckoning with the Middle East . Even as a Foreign Service Officer , and later as the executive editor of Foreign Policy magazine , I thought of the strife between Israel and its neighbors as a second-tier incubus that sapped the energy and attention of American policymakers and an intractable , insiders-only dispute that defied rational discussion . Bird 's book has n't entirely cured me of that view . But with its engaging and insightful reminiscences of growing up in Jerusalem , Dhahran , and Cairo , its sharp portraits of half-forgotten figures like Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett ( whose diplomatic efforts were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Bird 's own quest to make peace with his past , Crossing Mandelbaum Gate is a compelling corrective that can force even reluctant readers to look at the Middle East anew . One of the book 's more powerful aspects is its evocation of the Nakba , or " catastrophe , " the term that Palestinians use to describe their uprooting with the foundation of Israel . Bird 's family moved in 1956 to East Jerusalem , then under Jordanian control , where his father , Eugene , was an American vice consul . While his parents had friends and acquaintances on both sides of the line dividing Jerusalem -- the book 's title comes from the single open crossing -- they felt keenly the plight of the Palestinians , many of whom had been ousted from their homes in 1948 . As Bird 's mother wrote in 1957 , " I feel no sympathy for Zionism whatsoever and none for the Israeli society . " For Bird , the losers of Israeli independence were not faceless refugees , but people like his family doctor , a Christian , Arabic-speaking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taken over by Israelis . In one of the book 's more poignant moments , Bird recounts the story the doctor tells when , a half-century later , he returns as an American citizen with his daughters to visit his old house . An Israeli woman living there , knowing the neighborhood story of how the doctor had planted an apricot seed as a young child , hands him a fruit from that tree . Bird also usefully highlights the tangled and in many ways toxic history of relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia . When his family moved to Dhahran in 1962 , they joined 2,500 Americans ( almost all of them members of the Arabian American Oil Company , or ARAMCO ) , who represented the largest single community of Americans overseas , complete with bowling alleys , swimming pools , Girl Scout troops , Little League teams , and hootch stills in every pantry . As one longtime resident observed , " Dhahran was a utopia . " But the presence of so many cloistered Americans , who generally were more of the ugly than the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And that was long before Osama bin Laden began inveighing against the kingdom 's decision to welcome tens of thousands of American troops in the run-up to the Gulf War . ) Moreover , as Bird makes clear , the U.S. tendency in its relationship with Saudi Arabia to put oil before democracy , and to side with royalists over reformers , " would lead to many unsavory consequences for ... both the Americans and the Saudis . " In May 2007 , Bird visited his old compound in Dhahran . The four-foot rock wall that once surrounded it had grown to 15 feet . Gurkhas patrolled the perimeter , protected by machine guns and security gates : " My childhood home -- where I had once freely wandered in and out , completely unsupervised , a child unfettered -- was now an armed fortress under siege . " As Bird sees it , the failure to support reform in Saudi Arabia is one of many U.S. missteps in the region . Others include the U.S. reneging on its promise to help fund Egypt 's Aswan Dam and , more damningly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a preemptive strike on Egypt in 1967 , which Bird labels a " calamity " for the United States . The war not only led to the expulsion of 24,000 American expatriates across the Middle East and massive anti-American demonstrations , but also weakened secular leaders like Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and paved the way for the ascendancy of political Islam . But many of the " what-might-have-beens " that Bird singles out rightly involve regional protagonists -- everyone from Nasser to lesser-known figures like Abdullah Tariki , the progressive Saudi petroleum minister who helped create OPEC but was forced into exile when he accused Crown Prince Faisal of corruption , or like Hillel Kook , the iconoclastic ex-Irgun member who fought in his later years to turn Israel into a secular Hebrew Republic . Some of Bird 's historical narrative may at times feel potted , but his explorations of such characters illuminate the complexity of circumstances on the ground .. In one of the last segments of the book , Bird provides a convincing rejoinder to those who may feel that his pro-Palestinian sympathies blind him to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his Jewish wife 's parents , who both barely escaped the Holocaust in Austria and Italy ; is as gripping as it is moving . As Bird later points out , it is the inability of both Israelis and Palestinians to overcome their competing sense of historical victimhood that ultimately sustains the current impasse . But Bird stretches poetic license past the plausible when he calls the Nakba and the Shoah " the bookends of my life . " ( A la Tonto , a Palestinian and a Jew might say , " What do you mean ' your life , ' white man ? " ) And he gets a bit carried away with the powers of insight supposedly Conferred on him as an expatriate . ( " It is given to him to see both sides , " he intones of himself as a child -- a sentiment that I never attained or aspired to in more than a decade living overseas , including a chunk of my childhood in Japan . ) Still , give him credit for having written a powerful and unflinching book . Crossing Mandelbaum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the world 's most troubled neighborhoods , but it at least brings understanding a little closer . PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : Kai Bird as a boy in Giza , Egypt , in 1958 Review by James Gibney James Gibney is a deputy managing editor of The Atlantic . 
##4080552 I am standing in a room containing enlarged photographic portraits of about a dozen children , each labeled by name plus other identifying details obviously provided by relatives . One label tells about Francine , age 12 . Favorite sport : swimming ; favorite food : eggs and chips ; best friend , her elder sister Claudette ; cause of death : hacked by machete . Several displays describe the final moments of siblings . Killed by a " grenade thrown in their shower " where they were hiding , reads one label . A woman sobs in the next room ; there , spotlights direct the eye to display cases containing skulls in rows and leg bones in piles . Over the sound system , a woman murmurs something mournful over and over in Kinyarwanda , the language of Rwanda . I step out into the sunshine . Today is my second full day in Rwanda , and I am visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial on a hill overlooking Rwanda 's capital city of Kigali . I have come here as part of a research project on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Oslo , Norway . During my stay , I will interview representatives of local nongovernmental organizations , international development agencies , human-rights groups , reconciliation specialists , and private citizens . The Kigali memorial features a garden where a flame burns to commemorate the 100 days in 1994 when Hutu killers murdered 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hum . I had expected something dramatic at the mass graves of the murdered Tutsi . Instead , the graves are unremarkable large slabs of concrete bordered by lush garden plantings of roses , hibiscus , and birds of paradise . Perhaps 60 Rwandans , all dressed formally , pass by . Some carry small bouquets of roses , some wear purple ribbons on their chests -- the official color for genocide commemoration . Most of the women wear elaborate ankle-length , traditional dresses and head wrappings made from colorful geometric-patterned fabric . I erroneously assume they are part of a tour group . Down a walkway I catch sight of a young man carrying a cross and behind him six other men carrying a coffin draped in a purple cloth . About 25 more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ steps toward a wide dirt field : a mass grave . While a new American embassy was under construction in Kigali -- it opened in February 2008 -- workers discovered the remains of a dozen or so genocide victims on the site . Those remains , like others still being found in the city and nearby a decade and a half after the mass killings , are brought here for burial . More than 250,000 people are interred at this , the main national memorial . As you would expect , the memorial landscape is somber , and visitors speak in hushed , respectful tones . Still , I can only manage to view the memorial with a certain feeling of remove . Despite more than 10 years of research into the politics of the genocide , I find it almost impossible to conceive of the horrors of the killings and the hatred that propelled them . Intolerance and hostility in Rwanda date at least from 1918 , when Belgium colonialists arrived and accorded the Tutsi favored status , deeming them to be racially superior to the Hutu . Three years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tutsi king . Once in power , the oppressive Hutu government engaged in periodic killing campaigns against the Tutsi minority , causing hundreds of thousands to flee the country . In 1990 , an army of Tutsi exiles invaded from Uganda and nearly toppled the government . Both parties reluctantly signed a United Nations-brokered peace deal in 1993 . During the lull in fighting , Hutu leaders meticulously planned the genocide , launching their mass killing program in April 1994 . Today , the Hutu make up 85 percent of the population ; the Tutsi just 14 percent . With the exception of genocide survivors , who were all Tutsi , the people I encountered were reticent to identify themselves as Hutu or Tutsi , probably because of laws restricting discussion of ethnicity . My driver , Mr. Jean , a middle-aged man with an honest face and a strong inclination toward gospel music , asks if I saw the entire memorial . " Yes , " I answer , " and it made me very sad . " " Now you have seen our big mistake , our big mistake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take this , and I ca n't ask for clarification became I speak little French . We speed along dusty streets thronged with people who are shopping , visiting friends , waiting for a minibus . Mr. Jean delivers me to my hotel in time for dinner . Alone , I am absorbed in Dostoyevsky . I wonder if the great Russian could have imagined someone reading The Brothers Karamazov in such a place . In his story , the young aspiring monk , Alyosha , fervently claims , " There 's a great deal of love in mankind , an almost Christ-like love . I know that myself , Ivan . " The embittered older brother responds , " Well , I know nothing of it so far , and ca n't understand it , and the mass of mankind are with me there . The question is , whether this lack of ability to love is due to men 's bad qualities or whether it 's inherent in their nature . " Later in Ivan 's story , the Grand Inquisitor accuses Christ : " But Thou didst think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , of course , though rebellious by nature . Look round and judge ; fifteen centuries have passed , look upon them . ... I swear , man is weaker and baser by nature than Thou has believed him ! " ( The Anglican Archbishop of Rwanda , Emmanuel Kolini , later echoes the Grand Inquisitor when he tells me that the genocide highlighted the " weakness of mankind . " He laments that during the buildup to the killing , people were " walking away slowly from God . " ) The day after I visit the memorial , I meet with a UN worker and describe what I had witnessed . She says the government strongly encourages families to disinter their loved ones and reinter them in the mass graves , even if the family members would prefer not to . The government also recently adopted the terminology the genocide of the Tutsi rather than Rwandan genocide . What does this say to the families of the politically moderate Hutu who perished ? Subsequently , a pastor tells me that the phrase is accurate : The Hutu victims were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tutsi , not because of their Hutu identity . Still , I wonder . During the genocide , an army of Tutsi exiles swept in from neighboring Uganda , defeated the killers , and took over the government . In the ensuing 15 years , the minority Tutsi government , called the Rwandan Patriotic Front and led by President Paul Kagame , has made strides in improving infrastructure , health , and the economy . Every Rwandan I meet shows great pride in the country -- both its natural beauty and its remarkable recovery . Recovery has come at a cost , however . The Kagame regime has extended its control to every aspect of the country . To discuss ethnicity or to question the official interpretation of the genocide is to risk a prison sentence if the government labels such speech as divisionist . Press freedom barely exists . Many insist that such strict measures are necessary to prevent future atrocities ; how can you have a one-person , one-vote democracy when the majority tried to eliminate the minority and nearly succeeded ? Others whisper that the country is now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surface . The ostentatious wealth of a tiny minority of government officials and business people makes an ugly , perhaps dangerous , contrast to the poverty of most Rwandans , including Tutsi survivors of the genocide . " No one knows what will happen if Kagame takes his foot off the brake , " a U.S. government official admits to me . I am sitting on my hotel balcony on Sunday morning three days after my arrival . From a Catholic church somewhere beyond the garden comes the sound of robust , a cappella , harmonic singing . Set to words in Kinyarwanda , the singing has been going on , almost uninterrupted , for four hours , and I wonder what prompts such religious fervor and what it signifies . Is it a cathartic experience ? How has it changed since the genocide ? Officially , Rwanda is said to be 56 percent Roman Catholic , 26 percent Protestant , 11 percent Adventist , and 5 percent Muslim , but some Protestants insist that Catholics really represent no more than 40 percent . I ride by the church of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me that many people perished there . The priest colluded with the killers , Anatole says , and then escaped and is now living in France . I know that Catholics are generally viewed by government partisans as complicit in the genocide . Despite the political indelicacy , I ask those I meet how someone could hack a neighbor to death with a machete . Everyone at first expresses moral incomprehension . Many Protestants elaborate with references to the devil , or the spirit of evil , as a motivation for the genocide . They cope with the horror by isolating the evil spirit from the perpetrator . Archbishop Kolini , with whom I spoke in his office at the Anglican cathedral in Kigali , said that before and during the genocide , " the church opened the door to the devil . " But , he adds , people have a choice about saying no to the spirit of evil ; Satan is not an excuse . Here again , Dostoyevsky has something to contribute . In the novel , Ivan converses with the devil , who has taken the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In explaining the problem of evil , the devil dryly observes that " Nothing human is beyond the possibility of Satan . " As a follow-up to my machete question , I ask Rwandans " Who is human ? " Some of the answers trouble me . Archbishop Kolini interprets Saint Paul to claim that one must have love to be human and that , through repentance and reconciliation , perpetrators can " become human . " But that implies that there is a category of people who are not human . I receive a more universalist answer from Pastor Antoine , an Anglican priest who survived the genocide . We sit in a churchyard , where he is participating in a reconciliation training session for clergy , and he explains that all people on the planet are fully human and must recognize the humanity in each other , even though it might be more psychologically palatable to describe , for instance , a sadistic rape and murder as inhuman , animalistic , or monstrous . Reconciliation . I repeatedly encounter the word in Rwanda . Researchers write about it . @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What is reconciliation and how do we know it when we see it ? The term is overused . From nonprofit organizations and church groups , I hear heartwarming and astonishing stories about mothers of murdered children forgiving the killers , rape victims absolving their attackers , genocide survivors marrying perpetrators . I suspect that these remarkable reconciliations represent a very small proportion of the traumatized population . Widespread reconciliation is not imminent . Yet my cynicism dissipates when I meet Christians who devote their lives to increasing that minuscule number of healed and reconciled people . Josephine , a gentle , soft-spoken woman who founded an organization that trains church members in trauma healing , is one of them . She tells me she lost many loved ones in the genocide and yet refuses to pass judgment on perpetrators or to build a hierarchy of suffering . In contrast , other Rwandans make disturbing comparisons such as She was raped and her child was killed , whereas this one was only raped . Even if Josephine represents a minority of one , her compassion offers a precious example to Rwandans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mr. Jean and I make an excursion to another genocide memorial . This one is a Catholic church in the small town of Ntarama , about 20 miles outside Kigali . Along the road , women carry on their backs sleepy babies , snugly wrapped in bright-patterned cotton . Men , women , and children tote bundles of bananas , large sacks of grain , loads of firewood on their heads . Children in blue school uniforms run and play close -- very close -- to the road . Arriving at Ntarama , we read a sign explaining that 5,000 Tutsi perished in the small church and surrounding territory where they had flocked for sanctuary . Inside , daylight filters dimly through small , high windows . As my eyes adjust to the light , I can make out wooden benches , about eight inches off the ground , that had served as pews . Hanging from the walls and rafters are the tattered , bloodstained clothes of the victims ; their bones are arranged on shelves . Rows and rows of skulls predominate . Some of the skulls are tiny @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the opposite wall are the possessions the victims had brought with them to their refuge , including mattresses , cooking pots , utensils . Above the bones , a sign in Kinyarwanda reads , " If you knew me , and you knew yourself , you would not kill me . " I methodically take photos from several angles , sign the guest book , make a donation , and wonder at my own lack of emotion . After about 30 minutes , we leave . The shock wears off the next day , a Sunday . Again on my balcony , I hear the voices from the neighboring church . The music grows more ardent : drums beat , congregants clap rhythmically , women launch into an African-style descant . I shut my eyes and again see the rows of skulls and the pitiful collection of cooking pots , shoes , and blankets piled in the corner . The fervent churchgoers , both Tutsi and Hutu , have lived through the genocide experience , I realize . Every day , they live with their own particular memories of the horror @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the director of a Christian reconciliation organization , tells me about still another genocide memorial , at the town of Murambi , a couple of hours south of Kigali . He and all his family lived there in 1994 . As the genocide began , the government requested villagers from nearby to come for protection to the Murambi school . Leaders claimed that they could n't protect the Tutsi from the killers if they were scattered in the countryside , so people came voluntarily , trusting the government . Michel 's entire family was there . During the night of April 21 , the military , supported by Hum locals , attacked the school with guns and grenades . All who tried to escape were hacked to death . According to the Rwandan government , 27,000 Tutsi were murdered . The following day , the government brought in bulldozers to pile up the bodies and bury them , a clean-up operation that created a mountain of corpses , most of which were left basically intact . You could still identify individuals . The 800 bodies at the Murambi genocide memorial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lime , so that the victims stayed in the exact position in which they died -- for example , warding off a blow . Michel must have been elsewhere at the time or he would have been killed . I do n't ask . I will be driving near Murambi , but I wo n't visit . Each genocide memorial seems to outdo the other in horror , and I am feeling creepy about the possibility of becoming a genocide tourist . Some human rights groups object to gruesome displays like Murambi , saying they stir up hate toward Hutu residents . Indeed , Hutus , notably children left homeless because their parents are imprisoned , receive no sympathy or assistance . Their shame and poverty is met with indifference . And there are hundreds of thousands of Hutu who experienced the hell of the refugee camps in Zaire and are treated with suspicion . One traumatized former refugee tells me that she lost a year of her life in those violent and disease-ridden camps . Others report being hunted by the Rwandan Patriotic Front and living in the forest without @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suffering goes mostly unacknowledged . Tutsi survivors find scant resources to address post-traumatic stress , depression , guilt , or suicidal impulses . People involved in counseling and reconciliation describe a national trait of reserve and unwillingness to show emotion . Many people carry around their internal wounds for years ( or perhaps forever ) without sharing them . Reconciliation specialists also explain that listening to someone else 's sorrows does not come naturally to Rwandans . Even tears are rare . As I prepare to leave Rwanda , I feel the stress that the political culture imposes , even on a visitor . Freedom of speech barely exists , and the stifling effect on me as a political scientist is hard to describe . People are afraid to talk politics ; I am circumscribed in the questions I can ask . Some interviewees emphasize that their mildly critical comments are off the record . Others ask me point-blank to put down my pen while they talk . Those are the forthcoming ones . Before I came here I was dubious that I would react as had other researchers who told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rwanda . I now understand . Mr. Jean picks me up at the hotel for one last driving assignment . He is suffering from la grippe today , but he did n't call in a substitute driver . When we get to the airport he heaves my 50-pound suitcase out of the trunk and wheels it into the terminal . Then he faces me , and it 's clear he 's been rehearsing some English words of farewell . He earnestly asks God to bless me and says he will pray for my safe journey and to greet my family for him . He tries to express something else about our days together , but ends up saying that next time I come his English will be much better . I promise to practice my French before my next visit . We shake hands vigorously in a strangely emotional parting . PHOTO ( COLOR ) : In Ntarama , rows and rows of skulls and hones attest to nearly 5,000 who died in and around a Catholic church . By Sarah Kenyon Lischer Sarah Kenyon Lischer is an assistant professor of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dangerous Sanctuaries : Refugee Camps , Civil War , and the Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid . In this letter , she has changed the names of some Rwandans to protect their privacy . 
##4080558 Here are three essays dealing with computers . I intend that to sound sort of like " here are three essays dealing with ritual " or " here are three essays dealing with kinship " -- to sound as if it were entirely unsurprising to open up a copy of Anthropological Quarterly and see three essays about computers , alongside three on social organization , religion , or pragmatics and ideology . It should be entirely unremarkable by now that computers are involved in the social and cultural life of the people and processes anthropologists study , everywhere in the world ( digital divides notwithstanding ) . It should be clear by now that the interactions and uses by which people make meaning , act , or build societies is as inextricably linked to software , networks , computers , devices , and infrastructures as we insist it is to kinship or social organization . In all honesty , we should be well past the time when we need labels such as " digital life " or " the anthropology of the virtual " or " online sociality @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the one hand , it will not do to simply suggest that computers make no difference to the social and cultural lives of humans , and that we ought to go on as if information and communication technologies are simply a diacritical mark on otherwise fundamental features of human life . On the other hand , it can not change everything . The requirement to say what difference computers make to things like sociality , knowledge , language , or human life in general is not met by appending the word " digital " to whatever noun or verb commands more immediate attention ; but nor can the difference be approached as if it were one problem among many , parceled out after the fashion of area studies , or divvied up as if it were one qualifying field exam alongside others ( which we nonetheless know to be a frequent occurrence ) . Often such a problem can only be addressed by demonstration , and this is what makes the three essays gathered here so valuable . Each of them is , in its own subtle way , struggling with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ towards anthropology , yet bring it to bear on a problem whose significance is widely felt , over-analyzed , and poorly understood . The essays collected here do not seek to forge a new subfield , or to simply apply anthropological concepts to new objects like Facebook friends or cell-phone users ; they do not seek to radically reinvent the methods , fieldsites , or topics of anthropology ; and despite being written by people immersed in the technical details of software and networks , they are not any more inter- or trans-disciplinary than many other anthropological studies underway today . Instead , what they do is something that should be familiar to any anthropologist : they form concepts out of rich empirical fieldwork and try to rectify them against those realities . They criticize approaches to problems and concepts forged in other places and in other times ; and in doing so they leave open the possibility for future criticism that might take account of the changing technical conditions of our world ( Strathern 2006 ) . Each delivers good ethnographic value , explicating and orienting readers to very specific @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case what difference the difference engine makes . This is not special or new in any threatening sense ; rather it is simply what anthropology looks like today . These three essays each take on one of the peculiar burdens of anthropology : the ongoing remediation of the concept of culture . Culture , as a concept and as a feature of anthropological thought is both broken and yet impossible to leave behind . Within the discipline , it has been through so many changes , so much re-use and modification , and so much critique , that it seems impossible to see in it the distinctive form it might once have had ; and yet , there are no other serious nominees for the position it holds . Even more burdensome is the fact that all around anthropology , other disciplines wield this concept ( and the associated claim to investigate it via ethnography ) with abandon . Much of this work is conducted without much awareness of its peculiar failings , difficulties , and critiques . In information studies , in management , in consumer research , in public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a salience and a power it seemingly no longer possesses for scholars trained in the heart of anthropology . But even more troubling , very little of this work shows a grasp of the particular strengths of the concept either . Analyses of the " culture " of computing or the internet , to say nothing of its appearance in every microlocation from corporations and gymnasiums to gorilla troupes and hair salons , seem empty of theoretical force , barely distinguishable from norms and customs in some 19th century sense ; such analyses certainly almost never attain the heights of systematicity or recursivity we associate with the exemplary works of the discipline . The burden these essays bear is therefore a double one : first , to show that the objects of study chosen are adequate to some concept of culture , and second , to transform that concept in ways that will ( one hopes ) influence and remediate the ways neighboring disciplines employ and rely on this complicated notion . These articles all try to preserve the cultural at the expense of cultures -- by finding diverse ways to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , " as a constitutive dimension of human life , as one of the planes -- an open plane , to be sure -- of which it is always composed " ( Rabinow et al . 2008:106 ) . But they also raise the stakes for this concept by struggling with the question of how to work over the manifest importance of software , networks , and computers without going too far . There is obviously no shortage of work on this topic : the range of disciplines and methods brought to bear on the topics of information technology , computers , software , and networks is disturbingly large . One should ask : why is there so much written on this topic ? Then one should ask : why is so little of it any good ? In part , the answer is that , for some reason -- call it a cultural reason -- we are driven to see computerization and its incumbent technologies and social formations as so profoundly cutting-edge , so new , so revolutionary , that we lose sight of what might really be new about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing new about them but scale and speed -- is just as much a part of this cultural reason . Both the Californian enthusiasm of the technophile and the Edwardian reserve of the technophobe seem to signal the disappearance of any sufficiently rigorous concept of culture -- even as the repetition of the term and the proliferation of its sites seem to go on unhindered . Or to put it differently : why are both computers and cultures everywhere today ? In anthropology , studies of online interaction , virtual worlds , and computer-mediated communication have , over the years , made various moves towards thinking through the concept of culture , but not much theoretical work has emerged . There are the widely read reviews by Escobar et al . ( 1994 ) and by Wilson and Peterson ( 2002 ) , and seminal works by Miller and Slater ( 2000 ) and Hine ( 2000 ) ; and there is an increasingly large set of works in media anthropology that focus on the use of discussion , online interaction , and communication as part of larger issues like diaspora @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Axel 2004 ; Barker 2008 ; Bernal 2005 ; Larkin 2008 ; Lysloff 2003 ; Ginsburg , Abu-Lughod , and Larkin 2002 ) . Of the theoretical works in anthropology that provide a basis for rethinking the concept of culture , Michael M.J. Fischer 's article " Worlding Cyberspace , " more than any other , attempted to move the discussion towards worlding as a way to distinguish it from bounded space and placebased versions of culture ( Fischer 1999 ) . The essays here continue what Fischer initiated , especially Golub 's contribution , which very clearly positions its approach as a general attempt to understand how worlds of any kind form , in order to gain purchase on the question of what difference the computer makes to this process . Beyond this limited list there are plenty of contributions to the " ethnography of online communities " -- but few I would suggest that push forward the theoretical and conceptual challenges of understanding both the proliferation of studies of computing , and their inability to account for this proliferation culturally . The three essays collected here should therefore @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . All of them emerge from the heart of anthropology ( all graduates of the University of Chicago no less ) , and all of them are erudite , widely read scholars with extensive fieldwork experience in more than one area . That they have turned their attention to the issues explored here is no doubt connected to the general cultural desire to understand the meaning of computers , but it also emerges from a deep engagement with some of the central strengths and weaknesses of the anthropological analysis of culture . It is worth trying to bring these out a bit more sharply here . There are a series of moves towards specifying the role of the cultural addressed in these essays . There is a first move involved in trying to achieve purchase on these new phenomena , and that is to literally make up a new culture . This is something to which Golub objects in studies of the " virtual worlds " where the success of past anthropology is used to legitimate the treatment of virtual worlds as bounded wholes -- places with local everyday life , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is not there . Such a move is not wrong methodologically -- however , it creates an expectation , or hypothesis , that these worlds are both separate from and similar to the realclothes worlds we have always studied . This move generally excuses researchers from having to look closely at the distributed inhabitants in their real-clothes bodies ( which is admittedly time-consuming and painstaking work that does not feel very new ) and also from the necessity of engaging with the technical and economic conditions of possibility for these worlds ( which it must also be admitted , can take some of the fun , though not the interest , out of researching them ) . Rather than seeing virtual worlds and online environments as built on top of or extruded from existing worlds , organized in particular ways , much of the work in online ethnography both inside and outside of anthropology prefers to make up a culture instead , often implicitly , without giving it much thought . Only Tom Boellstorff 's recent book makes an explicit experiment of this move , reflecting on the implications of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Boellstorff 2008 ) . And it is in making an experiment of it that it is possible to attempt to hold apart the methodological decision from the epistemological ( or ontological ) claims that might be made about these worlds . A great deal of non-ethnographic work , for instance , relies on just this kind of confusion in order to treat online worlds and games as " laboratories of human behavior " ( e.g. the work of Edward Castronova ) . However , as Golub points out here , virtual worlds are built out of existing ones , and the previously existing actual worlds are necessary but not sufficient grounds for the emergence of the new " virtual " worlds -- which is to say , they are not a simple mirror or iteration of general human culture . And despite the manifest excitement with which scholars have approached these cases as novel and interesting , few seem to have actually taken on the task of characterizing this novelty -- this supplementary or extra " worlding " that takes place -- and instead have treated it as a variation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know . There is a second move in the analysis of online , networked cultural life , which is to return to behaviors and practices as themselves constitutive of a fieldsite . Here , it is not the boundedness of space or place that gives meaning to everyday life , but the nature of mediated interaction itself . In part , this is what Coleman attempts to capture through the analysis of hacker sociality . This move happens in opposition to the first one , invoking the necessity of looking at the dual sociality created by mediated communication -- both online and in person -- as that which makes it distinctive . In this respect , the camps and conferences that are a frequent feature of hacker 's lives ( and which are spreading to other domains as well ) are an effect of this dual sociality and not a face-to-face practice that precedes it . The " cultural " plane of hacking therefore is not place/spacebased but a zone of pragmatic stability that emerges out of multiple modes of interaction . These stabilities of practice are sustained and repeated in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ multiple modalities of communication and collaboration involved in creating software and networks . Hence , the object of " hacker sociality " comes to look similar in form to objects like rituals , carnivals , or feasts ( and thus the turn to theorists like Turner and Bakhtin as resources for understanding them ) . The question remains , however , what difference does online software-mediated interaction make to this formation of pragmatic stabilities ? Coleman answers that it is the very details of technical practice -- hacking , coding , designing , tinkering , writing licenses -- which provides the content of these ritual-like pragmatic stabilities , and hence remediates the cultural as something endemic to ( and located only in the practices of ) this community of individuals . Finally there is a third and lateral move , which is away from culture and towards " social imaginaries . " A focus on social imaginaries ( especially those such as the public sphere and the economy ) at first rejects the " cultural " as a meaningful word , but without sacrificing the complex combination of ideal and material @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than many cultures ( each distinct ) , social imaginaries come in only a handful of historically ramified forms tethered to global secular modernity of the last 400 years or so ( Taylor 2004 , Kelty 2008 ) . A focus on " social imaginaries " as a replacement for culture can then be employed to analyze public spheres , democratic deliberation , and diasporic identities , both in person and via new media technologies . Such a move can push analysis so far beyond the question of information technology that it disappears or ends up making little or no difference to the case under consideration . Frequently this leads people to ask , for instance , whether the Internet is a public sphere ( usually in the sense given by Habermas ) or whether new forms of political speech ( blogging , chat , IM , Twitter ) change the dynamics of mass media politics , frame issues in new ways , and include , or exclude , people in new ways . Such questions are obviously productive , but they ignore the specificity -- the cultural specificity -- of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dominic Boyer 's piece demonstrates , the analysis of social imaginaries really only gets interesting when some version of the cultural is retained . Understanding the production and movement of social imaginaries itself requires a cultural analysis of the people , practices , places , and techniques that make them go . Practices of journalistic knowledge-making are a crucial component of the formation of imaginaries and are themselves under assault from the very proliferation of information technologies , software , and networks . It is the cultural features of journalism that structure the way an imaginary of the public sphere takes shape -- not just the content that circulates , as we say , " in the public sphere . " New technological possibilities , disastrous financial arrangements , and new forms of writing , blogging , tweeting , and chatting are all transforming the organizations , the life-worlds , and the practices of the people who make journalistic knowledge and make it circulate . It is therefore incumbent on us ( anthropologists , as well as the journalists in Boyer 's account ) to ask how this reformed consciousness determines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the words that circulate , or by the ( recursive ) technological layers that give it form , but also by the self-understanding of the actors who occupy it . What at first might seem a contradiction -- that social imaginaries replace the concept of culture , yet analyses of social imaginaries are only interesting when they retain a cultural analysis -- is in my understanding a response to the other two moves : making up worlds and treating embodied techniques and practices as the site of culture . For a cultural analysis to work , there must be more at stake in understanding the role of networked information technologies than simply treating them as one more kind of place where human behavior occurs , or as one more form of life among many . Rather , the technical and epistemic practices of well-chosen groups of people -- journalists in Boyer 's case -- must be explored if one wants to understand the difference that new technologies make to human behavior . Indeed , it is Boyer who comes closest to embarking on a cultural understanding of the ubiquity of attempts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ " cybernetic-informatic consciousness " that he uses to link journalists and anthropologists together opens a door to understanding why computers and cultures are equally everywhere today -- and maybe for some surprising reasons that have a lot to do with the mid-century successes of both cybernetics and anthropology . Cybernetics ' fortunes look a lot like culture 's -- overused , diffuse , heavily critiqued , yet nonetheless compelling in their most rigorous forms . Cybernetics ' dissemination looks a lot like culture 's -- taken up across nearly every discipline , attenuated by circulation , unpoliced by classic disciplinary modes of ownership and exclusion . One might re-think , therefore , the critiques of ethnographic authority in the 1980s through this lens . They can be read not as critiques of the culture concept , or of the pretensions to scientificity ( they certainly were in some quarters ) , but as critiques of the authority of the concept of culture ( or of science more generally ) . What these critiques proposed was the impossibility of authoritative knowledge about the social world ; what they brought about was the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that point real , authority of the concept of culture . It is for this reason that these essays should be seen as part of a project of reconstruction -- not only of the concept of culture , but of culture and computers together . If some analysis of the cultural is still central here -- both to anthropology and to a rich understanding of the transformation of the world by information technology -- then it might just be that these essays are at the cutting edge , not for their focus on technology , but for their stubborn insistence on saving and refining the concept of the cultural itself . What is also clear , however , is that such a task is intimately tied to the practice of anthropological fieldwork and that each of these papers in different ways seeks to demonstrate the difficult work that is necessary for the concept of culture to be of any use at all . There is , for instance , a difference between really studying the lifeworld of hackers , as they live and breath , and simply treating them as cloistered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are , which is nonetheless both very interesting and not easy to elicit ) . There is a difference between playing an online game once or twice and writing an essay about that experience , and spending two years creating two level 80 healers , raiding on weekends , and developing strong emotional bonds with a collection of other game-players in order to understand the nature of action and worlding . There is a difference between reading a bit of Habermas and loudly proclaiming the epochal changes wrought on our public sphere by the decline of newspapers and actually talking to journalists about their practices . Golub 's contribution , for instance , does not shy away from the details of World of Warcraft , the way many articles by lawyers do ( just to pick on those who can take it ) . Legal analysis of these games eschews detailed description , either because it seems way too geeky to do so , or more likely because it is seen as irrelevant to the argument being made ( which in many circles of legal studies today is a deliberately thin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Golub must demonstrate the details of this lifeworld in order to make his case that players in WoW deliberately break down and limit the sensory aspects of the game in order to achieve other goals . What he demonstrates thereby is not the sensory realism of these games , but their social realism -- the ways in which the game facilitates , and perhaps transforms , affectively intense social bonds . Coleman 's contribution does something similar , by showing in detail the nature of hacker embodiment and sociality across both the lived experience of the conference or hacker camp and the everyday interaction online . This analysis of conferences as an innovation of virtuality , not something that precedes them , has general applicability . It has long been true of scientific and scholarly fields ( Diana Crane 's famous " invisible colleges " and the essential role of the scientific congress and yearly conferences ) , but is now also true of many other fields , from security guards to struggling musicians , where people develop social bonds according to professional and work affinities , not geographical or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ congresses , and festivals to enhance their careers and make new relationships , to experience fun and exhaustion , and to enhance storytelling and history-making . It will be only a matter of time before Facebook conferences emerge in the same fashion -- not as a re-connection of old friends , but as a new form of cultural life . Do we still need a " digital " anthropology to understand such a transformation ? Yes and no . In the end , it may be that ( as Boyer suggests ) anthropologists have been thinking through these issues along -- at least since Gregory and Mary were invited to the Macy conferences , if not beginning with Boas . Computer programmers are fond of the saying : " Garbage in , Garbage out . " It 's a way of saying that no matter how carefully or precisely one focuses on the computer itself , if one puts bad data in , one will get bad data out . The same might be true of anthropology . If the problem of culture and the cultural remains anthropology 's most lasting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Culture in , Culture out " should be our mantra and our warning . REFERENCES Axel , Brian Keith . 2004 . " The Context of Diaspora . " Cultural Anthropology 19:26-60 . Barker , Joshua . 2008 . " Playing with Publics : Technology , Talk and Sociability in Indonesia . " Language &; Communication 28:127-142 . Bernal , Victoria . 2005 . " Eritrea On-Line : Diaspora , Cyberspace , and the Public Sphere . " American Ethnologist 32:660-675 . Boellstorff , Tom . 2008 . Coming of Age in Second Life : An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human . Princeton University Press . Escobar , Arturo et al . 1994 . " Welcome to Cyberia : Notes on the Anthropology of Cyberculture and Comments and Reply . " Current Anthropology 35:211-231 . Fischer , M. M.J. 1999 . " Worlding Cyberspace : Toward a Critical Ethnography in Time , Space , and Theory . " In George Marcus , ed . Critical Anthropology Now : Unexpected Contexts , Shifting Constituencies , Changing Agendas , 245-304 . Santa Fe : SAR Press . Ginsburg , Faye D. , Lila @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Worlds : Anthropology on New Terrain . Berkeley : University of California Press . Hine , Christine . 2000 . Virtual Ethnography . London : Sage Publishers . Kelty , Christopher M. 2008 . Two Bits : The Cultural Significance of Free Software . Durham : Duke University Press . Larkin , Brian . 2008 . Signal and Noise : Media , Infrastructure , and Urban Culture in Nigeria . Durham : Duke University Press . Lysloff , Rene T. A. 2003 . " Musical Community on the Internet : An On-line Ethnography . " Cultural Anthropology 18:233-263 . Miller , D. , and D. Slater . 2000 . The Internet : An Ethnographic Approach . Berg Publishers . Rabinow , Paul , George E. Marcus , Tobias Rees , and James Faubion. 2008 . Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary . Durham : Duke University Press . Strathern , Marilyn . 2006 . " A Community of Critics ? Thoughts on New Knowledge . " The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 12:191-209 . Taylor , Charles . 2004 . Modern Social Imaginaries . Durham : Duke University Press @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . 2002 . " The Anthropology of Online Communities . " Annual Review of Anthropology 31:449-467 . By Christopher Kelty , University of California , Los Angeles 
##4080566 ON FIRST IMPRESSION , the temple-fortress complex of Chankillo seems like the result of bad ideas and an extreme surplus of free time . From the outside it appears to be defending nothing more important than a sandy hillside where northern Peru 's Atacama Desert meets the Andes . The Casma River runs down the valley floor three-quarters of a mile away , giving life to a vein of green vegetation in the unrelenting beige of the desert . More than 2,000 years ago , the people living nearby left their villages to build three concentric walls totaling more than a mile in length , some of them 30 feet high and more than 20 feet thick , around a stone temple devoted to the sun . Any modern general would have been severely disappointed in Chankillo 's fortifications . The difficulties of defending the place seem so great that some archaeologists have questioned whether it was a fortress at all . The first problem is that despite being on a hill , Chankillo does not command the high ground . The hilltop is northwest of the fort @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sling stones onto defenders manning the fortress 's outer walls with little fear of counterattack . Second , the fort has no source of water or place to store food during a siege . As if that is n't enough , the outer wall has five gates to defend , and the second and third walls each have four gates . Rather than putting these entrances in places where the terrain is steep or difficult to cross , they are located where it is easiest to walk or run up the hillside . The temple at Chankillo was built sometime between 400 and 200 B.C. , around the same time a religion that seemed to unify the region was starting to decline . The Chavn cult was first identified at the ancient city of Chavn de Huntar 75 miles east . The cult may have provided a politically stabilizing influence throughout much of northern Peru . As the religion lost its influence , however , localized groups began developing independent religions and probably political systems as well . " The collapse of Chavn ... may have been followed by increased conflict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Peru . " Combat and weaponry were known before , but only at this time does conflict rise to the scale of true warfare . " It was the beginning of the end of a time period Andean archaeologists call the Early Horizon . Very little is known about the people who built Chankillo . Not much archaeology has taken place outside the fortress , and the villages where the builders lived have not yet been discovered . But like many people from across northern Peru at this time , they began to feel threatened by neighboring groups and built hill forts . Those forts , however , are often located in places that would not have protected their crops or homes . Chankillo and other Early Horizon fortresses are raising questions about the use of violence in ancient Andean societies . GHEZZI LEADS ME TO a gate in the complex 's outer wall . Even as the wind scours me with grains of sand and the sun threatens to peel the ears off my head , I can at least be glad that I did n't @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 100 pounds , as people did thousands of times to build the fortress walls . Ghezzi has been excavating Chankillo since 2001 and through his investigation he has developed some surprising insights into how these buildings were used . " I think you have to turn around and think of the gates as defense mechanisms and not weaknesses , " says Ghezzi . " The gates contain an element of surprise . " He leads me through one of them . It is basically a narrow tunnel in the 20-foot-thick wall . As we exit the gate , we are confronted by another wall and a choice of turning left or right into a narrow passage where defenders could hurl stones or spears onto us from parapets above . Anyone making it out of the corridor would end up in a no man 's land between the first and second walls with no options but retreating or running along the wall to attack the next gate . Ghezzi believes that Chankillo was a temple first and a fortress second . The location of the gates would have allowed easy access @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ locations so that the complex could be defended by a relatively small number of warriors . A small number of clay figurines discovered at the site gives Ghezzi a clear picture of the equipment that the warriors at Chankillo used . The figurines are about six inches tall and wear crescent-shaped ornaments in their noses . Their necks and shoulders are covered with striped cloth . The way the figurines are decorated makes it easy to imagine that pageantry was an important aspect of battles fought here . Andean warriors protected themselves with quilted tunics and rectangular shields , and armed themselves with spears and spear-throwers , slings , and maces with stone heads . " The technology of warfare developed quickly , much like in the rest of the world , but then remained stable for a very , very long period , " says Ghezzi . Andean cultures never invented the techniques necessary to make iron and bronze , which probably limited the development of new and deadlier weapons . " The weaponry that an Inca warrior carried is very similar in general terms to that of a Moche @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The lack of a water source at the site might also be an important indicator of the way wars were fought in this region . " You are going to have to store a lot of water out there if you are going to garrison Chankillo , " says John Topic , an expert on Andean warfare at Trent University in Ontario , Canada . " Maybe you do n't garrison these things and when you want a battle you arrange it . " Ghezzi agrees that the strategies and tactics of warfare at Chankillo and other fortresses dating to the same time period were probably influenced by the religion and cosmology of these ancient civilizations . Conquest probably meant something entirely different to the rulers of Chankillo than it does to people today . " It does n't seem as though the control of territory is the actual purpose , " says Ghezzi . " The focus seems to be on controlling the main symbols of society as they are expressed through ceremonial architecture . " The purpose of the fighting at Chankillo may have been to capture and control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the people in the Casma Valley . " In much later periods in the Andes , the control of populations was far more important than the control of any other resource , " says Ghezzi . " It 's an economy that has no money ; therefore , access to labor is the most important thing . " Being able to control holy places and the gods who occupied them provided rulers with the means to control people and their labor because they could intercede with gods to ensure better harvests and more wealth for the community . According to Ghezzi , warfare between two groups was seen not as a battle between men , but a struggle between gods . " The battle is a representation of who has a stronger god , and the one who has the stronger god then has the right to dominate the losing society , " says Ghezzi . Ritual warfare was common among the Inca , according to historic accounts , and ritual combat called tinku battles still take place in certain parts of the Andes . Tinku battles are fought between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same or related communities . " If you win , your group is better , " says Topic . " If you win consistently , people will find ways to change their allegiance from one side to another . " The architecture at Chankillo may indicate that the community that used the fort separated itself into moieties . " At Chankillo , inside those walls there are two separate towers that are side by side but are separate from each other . " In the past , people were killed during tinku battles and their deaths were believed to serve an important purpose . " The universe consists of multiple levels , and energy flows from one level to another and it 's that flow of energy that keeps the world functioning . That flux of energy requires death , " says Topic . The Quechua word " tinku " refers to the meeting of two complementary halves to create a larger whole . It can refer to the confluence of two rivers , the pairing of a man and woman , or , in this case , the joining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warriors in battle are engaged in an almost sexual act where the product is death , in much the same way that a man and a woman have sex to produce a new life . " People are participating in warfare , in part , to reproduce the world , " says Topic . The practice of ritual warfare such as tinku battles has probably changed over the past 2,400 years , but Ghezzi believes that it provides a good general framework for the methods and motivations of warfare at Chankillo . " Perhaps it was n't necessary to have a confrontation of two armies , " says Ghezzi . " Perhaps it was a confrontation of relatively small groups for the possession of these religious centers or even the religious artifacts contained in them , and if that is captured then the defeat is conceded and the victorious party gains access to labor , probably some kind of taxation , women , or the right to control this or that resource .... You go to the head and then you control the rest of society . " If the purpose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than another , sneak attacks and siege warfare might have been counterproductive . How does one god defeat another if only one side shows up to the fight ? Staged battles may have been necessary to gain a legitimate right to rule over a group of people , and that was probably the most important thing for societies where vast amounts of labor were necessary for creating food and wealth . According to Ghezzi , " the territory without the population is worthless . " WE MAKE OUR WAY across the rubble-filled spaces between the walls , moving through two more gates on our way to the buildings at the heart of the temple-fortress to see what made Chankillo a place worth defending . The remains of two round buildings , which Ghezzi has not yet excavated , occupy the hilltop . South of them lies a 21,500-square-foot pile of rubble that was probably the spiritual center of an entire culture . The bases of massive stone pillars still rise out of the pile , so Ghezzi named the building the Temple of the Pillars . Far below us , on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rise with 13 rectangular towers on top of it looking like a row of teeth badly in need of braces . The remains of square buildings lie to the east and west of the ridge . Ghezzi interprets the buildings as observatories with the towers on the ridge serving as an artificial horizon . The line of the towers curves in a way that makes only 12 of them visible from the eastern observatory . Ghezzi has determined that standing in the observatory and marking the place where the setting sun crosses the line of towers would allow priests to divide the year into 12 months lasting 28 days , which would correspond with the time between full moons . To make this calendar of lunar months correspond with the solar year , a 13th month needs to be added every fourth year . To do that , the astronomer priests at Chankillo would move to the western observatory where all 13 towers are visible and mark the passing days by watching the rising sun cross the line of towers . Ghezzi points out a small notch in the temple wall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ notch aligns with the towers and the observatories . On the summer solstice the sun would set behind the temple , aligning with the notch in the wall and the gap between the 12th and 13th towers , indicating the date had a special significance for the people of Chankillo . This astronomical alignment may have been what made the temple 's location so important . The ability to control the calendar -- in effect , controlling time -- could have provided a source of power for whoever ruled Chankillo . Unlike the round buildings , the temple floor is covered by an evenly spread layer of stones from the collapsed walls and fallen pillars . The footing is treacherous enough that we walk along the remains of the temple walls . When the walls of Chankillo were finally breached the attackers took special care to destroy the temple thoroughly . " Destroying a ceremonial site may have been a way of destroying the legitimacy of a group , " says Elizabeth Arkush , an Andean warfare expert at the University of Virginia . The conquest of the temple not only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ destroyed an entire faith . " Very often when you captured a deity or a sacred place you waited a while and you saw what happened . If you had good luck that deity , or huaca , might be on your side and there was no point in destroying it , " says Topic . " If , on the other hand , it was obvious that the huaca was not on your side , then you went out and destroyed it . " PHOTO ( COLOR ) : In northern Peru , a 2,400-year-old temple-fortress complex overlooks a small ridge topped by a series of towers that served as an astronomical observatory . How the complex was built and conquered is changing ideas about the origins of warfare . PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Archaeologist Ivan Ghezzi stands atop the ruins of a gate in Chankillo 's outer wall . Invaders would have had to run through this narrow , now rubble-filled , corridor while being attacked from above . PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Fragments of a vessel found at Chankillo reveal the equipment and dress of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them using shields and spear-throwers . PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : The temple-fortress of Chankillo was built in the third century B.C. The rectangular building , called the Temple of the Pillars , may have been the spiritual and political center of the region . PHOTO ( COLOR ) By Zach Zorich Zach Zorich is a senior editor at ARCHAEOLOGY . Correction In " Fall of a Sacred Fortress " ( May/June ) , we state that Chankillo is located where the Atacama Desert meets the Andes ( page 31 ) . The site is actually located in Peru 's coastal desert , between the Andes and the sea . 
##4080568 The full moon casts a warm glow across the dirt plaza of Ranchos de Taos and the adobe walls of the church of Saint Francis of Assisi , made famous by the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe . Inside the parish hall , archaeologist Sunday Eiselt of Southern Methodist University ( SMU ) faces a small crowd . She 's a little nervous . Eiselt is about to ask the residents of this conservative Hispanic community near Taos , New Mexico , for permission to dig up their backyards and the floors of their centuries-old homes . Today , the area is known as a ski town and a magnet for both the super-rich and hippie artists , but the community was founded in the 17th century , and is one of the oldest in the country . " We 're not here to dig and leave " Eiselt says once the audience is settled . " We want you to tell us where to look and what to look for . " She emphasizes that the Taos Collaborative Archaeology Project can only move forward with the community 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the project is part of a broad-based effort to investigate the history of Taos ( see " Whiskey Rebellion " page 42 ) . Locals begin to ask questions about the excavations and eventually offer suggestions on where to look . Father Francis Malley , the parish priest , promises to announce the project in next week 's mass and put it in the church bulletin . Everyone is enthusiastic , which probably has something to do with the project 's surprising goal : instead of ancient ceramics or prehistoric fire pits , Eiselt and her SMU students are looking for toys . Some of the discoveries they 've already made cover a folding table in the back of the room : jacks and marbles , a doll 's head , part of a tiny teacup , a gray Lego plank . Residents gather around when the meeting is over and point out items they recognize . One woman identifies a scrap of gauzy fabric as a doll 's veil . " We did n't have dolls until the 1960s , " she says . " We used homemade toys before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's lives have changed in the past 150 years , the project is revealing an often overlooked aspect of society and showing that " Barbie dolls and bubble gum wrappers can be part of archaeology , too , " says Eiselt . She is interested in how the introduction of American consumer culture and a changing educational system affected the lives of Hispanic children in the area , where Catholic and Presbyterian parochial schools existed alongside American public schools/The introduction of American wage labor economies in the early 20th century brought many economic benefits , but at a cost , " she says . It also changed the way children were raised , and this should show up in children 's material culture over time . A purely historical approach to this change is n't enough , Eiselt says . " Archival documents pertaining to children are selective , " and written by adults with their own biases toward children , especially their own . Archaeology contributes a different perspective by looking at the objects children actually interacted with , as well as direct evidence of their activities . As a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are " active cultural agents who can have major influences on society . " THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD is a very new field , " says Jane Eva Baxter of DePaul University 's Department of Anthropology , one of the few experts on the subject . In the past , archaeologists have seen children as passive recipients of culture , and assumed they were either invisible in the archaeological record or a source of randomizing " noise " that distorts adult patterns ( an idea with which many parents would agree ) . But concentrating on children " forces us to question our own assumptions about the past in ways that adult archaeology does n't , " says Baxter . Rethinking assumptions about who contributes to a culture is a positive shift , she adds , considering that people under the age of 15 , one common definition of childhood , make up about a third of most cultural groups . Previous archaeological investigations into childhood have involved reexamining sites excavated for other purposes . Baxter herself has examined toys , clothing , and other related items excavated from 19th-century American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nevada , and a plantation in Jefferson Parish , Louisiana , among others . She wrote the first archaeological dissertation focused on children . Her work shows that children 's behaviors leave identifiable patterns in the archaeological record through the distribution of child-specific artifacts . For example , the grouping of toys at some sites showed that kids had specific places to play , some where adults could watch them and others out of sight . Boys ' and girls ' toys were more segregated in urban environments , suggesting children played separately , while the toys were more mixed in rural settings . Baxter says Eiselt 's project may be the first excavation to focus explicitly on childhood . " One way society creates value is through kids , how they 're treated and raised , " Eiselt says . " They can tell us things we ca n't get otherwise . " Children 's tendency to accept new technologies and push the bounds of tradition more readily than adults is n't just a modern phenomenon . Archaeologists are just starting to recognize that children are a source of innovation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ affect how we understand technological and social change over time . This is especially useful in understanding the culture of northern New Mexico , where Native American , Hispanic , and Anglo populations have mixed and clashed for centuries , and where many children are the product of the blended society that results . Eiselt 's project encompasses Ranchos de Taos and three other tiny communities , mainly Hispanic , that surround Saint Francis . She first came to the Taos area to study the relations between Native Americans and Hispanics , but when her initial test pits resulted in a surprising number of toys , she decided to change her focus . Excavations are now geared toward investigating the two cornerstones of childhood : school and play . IN 2008 AND 2009 , students excavated at two houses . One , on the Ranchos de Taos plaza , belongs to Guadalupe Tafoya , executive director of the Questa Chamber of Commerce . The other , in the nearby community of Talpa , is owned by her brother , Felipe . By Guadalupe Tafoya 's estimate , her family has lived @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tree-ring dates from her home 's ceiling beams go back to 1827 . The houses packed-earth floors yielded hundreds of childhood artifacts dating at least to the 19th century , including miniature versions of stone tools used to grind wheat or corn . A handmade clay horse still bears the mark of a tiny fingernail , and may even be prehistoric , but most of the items date to the 20th century , from Depression-era train wheels to an eye from a stuffed animal and a doll-sized set of binoculars . Fragments of crayons , chalk , and pencil lead suggest art and education became part of play at home . Child-care relics include diaper pins , a strainer spoon , and a small bottle that once held Skuft Shine for Children 's Shoes . Tafoya endorses the project wholeheartedly , even if it means large holes in her living room floor for weeks at a time . " I think it 's very important , " she says . " Children are not recognized for their contributions to society . But you learn about a society or culture through children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their kids . " In excavation units outside Tafoya 's home , students found plastic coins , a bicycle pedal , and a cowboy pendant , probably from a necklace . They also excavated about 20 community dump sites scattered around the study area . A metal toy gun , pieces of a plastic rocking horse , and a red Power Rangers figure show how toys have evolved through the 20th century . " In many cases , we can date them to specific years based on the manufacturing dates provided by the toy companies , " Eiselt says . It 's already clear that kids in Taos had more toys in the modern era , starting in the 1950s . Children in the 19th century had few toys , almost all homemade , or they went without . In the mid-20th century , manufactured toys and other children 's goods flooded Taos , in large part through the secular education system . Many Anglo schoolteachers were from outside the community . " They brought new songs and games and toys to occupy children during recess , " says Eiselt . @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system was instituted , the children played with clay , corn husks , and flowers . Communal toys and games such as jacks and marbles were gradually replaced by toys allowing more solo play , such as with dolls and Legos . This may reflect a larger shift in the economy of the area , in which children moved from being members of a rural workforce to more educated , individualized , and indulged roles within the family , with more leisure time . The 1950s were a period of great change in this isolated community . In the midst of a postwar boom , the economy was shifting from rural agriculture to wage labor . Both the availability of affordable plastic toys and the arrival of department stores to replace mail-order catalogs and locally run stores affected children directly . " Basically , I think we 're documenting what happens when ' modernity ' hits a village and starts affecting how children are raised , " Eiselt says . To deduce the cultural effects , she says , it 's essential to consider the cultural models children 's items embody @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with a message . Look at Barbie -- she 's not just a doll . She 's an icon of feminine beauty , which acknowledges a narrow range of feminine ideals . " With a little sleuthing , one student traced a truck wheel to a company whose motto was " Structo Toys Make Men Out of Boys . " One of the greatest effects of modern changes at Ranchos de Taos was the homogenization of the educational system . Although parents welcomed the arrival of Anglo schools , they also fought -- unsuccessfully , it turned out -- for control of what and how their children were taught . Eiselt hopes that excavations at the Saint Francis of Assisi Catholic parish school , which closed in 2006 , will clarify her hypothesis that the institutionalization of education began a process that parents today would recognize : the gradual convergence of education and entertainment , the start of the era of " edutainment . " If she and her team find a number of toys at the school they might be able to track an increasing link between education and play @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to study is looking less and less valid , Eiselt says . " Our work will show that it is complex but not impossible to study children , and that new perspectives on cultural contact and change are possible through the study of children 's lives . " Kids ' play is n't pointless and random , she says . It 's an opportunity to act out adult roles , and it can shape attitudes that are carried into adulthood . By looking at childhood directly , archaeologists hope to complement historical accounts and create a richer picture of a crucial but overlooked segment of society . " Children do n't write their own memoirs , " Eiselt says . " We think they have something to say . " She is already amazed at how the community has embraced the project . " Anything relating to childhood has some sort of magical , instant appeal . Everyone relates to it . Everyone was a child once . " PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Taos Collaborative Archaeology Project members Pipad Krajaejun , and Allison McCabe excavate a house in Ranchos de @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Depression-era toy train wheel were found under the packed-dirt floor . PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Archaeologists excavated mass-produced toys , such as this torso from a Lego figure and a teddy bear eye , that postdate the 1960s . PHOTO ( COLOR ) : A glass heart and a Jack are both difficult to date , but were found within a foot of the surface , suggesting they were manufactured relatively recently . PHOTO ( COLOR ) : Archaeologists pitch in during the annual mud replastering of the church of Saint Francis of Assisi , one of painter Georgia O'Keeffe 's most well-known subjects . PHOTO ( COLOR ) : This Leslie-Henry Young Buffalo Bill toy pistol ( 1955-60 ) was found during excavation of a historic-period dump site . PHOTO ( BLACK &; WHITE ) : A 1943 photograph of children playing in a community south of Taos is one of hundreds that project archaeologists are scrutinizing , even as they analyze excavated artifacts such as these two " peewee " marbles . PHOTO ( COLOR ) By Julian Smith Julian Smith is a frequent contributor to ARCHAEOLOGY @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ summer . 