During archaeological excavations at Khovle Gora, in Georgia, in the early 1960s, a remarkable artefact was discovered in the form of a footwear-shaped vessel. The vessel strongly resembles an authentic leather boot, not only due to its colour, which results from a reducing firing process, and its smooth, polished surface, but also because of its decorative elements that imitate stitching. While this particular object, unearthed at level V of Khovle Gora, is a unique find both in Shida Kartli and in the wider context of Georgia, it belongs to a widespread tradition of footwear-shaped ceramic vessels, whose presence has been documented in settlements and burial contexts across Anatolia, the South Caucasus, Northern and Northwest Iran, and Mesopotamia since at least the Late Chalcolithic period. From a cultural perspective, the pottery found alongside the footwear-shaped vessel at Khovle Gora shows typical features of East Georgian pottery of the ninth-to-seventh centuries BC, implying a chronological placement within this time period. This article examines the morphology of the vessel, which incorporates typical elements of ancient, traditionally inherited elements of South Caucasian footwear, while also highlighting its differences from contemporaneous Urartian footwear-shaped vessels.

This article traces the early origins of Black consumer culture as it was portrayed in the Black press from the late 1800s to the early 1920s. It argues that Black newspapers were important agents in shaping how African Americans conceived of and interacted with the evolving commercial sphere around the turn of the century. Papers such as the Pittsburgh Courier, the Broad Ax, the Tulsa Star, and many others celebrated participation in the consumer arena as a respectable and desired practice. They also distinguished between shopping, as a social feminine pursuit, and patronizing Black-owned businesses, which was perceived as a gender-neutral, or even manly, racial duty. Espousing African American elite ideologies such as racial uplift and self-help, Black editors presented any purchasing of goods as an upright activity, which adorned its performer with affluence, respect, and power. Such portrayal encouraged the participation of African Americans in the consumer sphere and implied that it was an arena of similarity rather than difference.

This article offers an explanation for gendered patterns of work in emerging Chinese cotton spinning mills during the early twentieth century from the perspective of household labour allocation. Female workers were rarely employed in mills in the north of the country, but the Yangtze Delta showed a much higher proportion of female factory labour. Whereas many authors have explained women’s participation from the viewpoint of patriarchal culture, or physiological differences, this article brings to the fore another, largely neglected but important, explanatory factor for differences in labour allocation in modern factories during early industrialization: the development of handicraft textile production in sending regions. In districts where household cotton textile production persisted, fewer women supplied their labour to the urban factories. Landholding size, real wages, and local agricultural-industrial structures contributed to variations in the living strategies of rural households, affecting the deployment of female family members. Our argument is supported by analyses of gender wage ratios and rural–urban income disparities in different parts of China in order to expose the opportunity structures under which households decided to supply their labour to modern textile factories.

Geophytes are hardy, resilient plants that are tolerant of cold temperatures and drought and are well documented as a reliable food source for hunter-gatherers worldwide. Human settlement patterns and foraging behaviors have long been associated with the use of nutrient-dense geophytes rich in carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Indigenous communities in the northern Great Basin developed cultural practices centered around gathering, preparing, and consuming important geophytic plants. These practices became deeply embedded in their cultural identity, forming rituals, stories, and traditions that persist today. Although there is strong ethnographic precedent for the significance of geophytes, finding evidence of their use in the archaeological record remains a challenge. This study analyzed archaeological starch residue extracted from bedrock metates in the uplands of Warner Valley, Oregon. Systematic studies of starch granules collected from extant plant communities growing near archaeological sites were applied to the identification of archaeological granules. Starch granules from geophytes, specifically Lomatium spp. (biscuitroot), were identified on metate surfaces at all sites, thus providing direct evidence for the collection and processing of geophyte vegetables. Evidence of geophyte plant processing on bedrock metates contributes to archaeological theories about subsistence strategies, food-processing technologies, social organization, and cultural practices in past human societies.