A guide for the distinction of species, sex and body side in bones of sheep and goat

Morphological criteria are described that were found to be the most successful for distinguishing between skeletal fragments of adult sheep (Ovis) and goats (Capra) in the Western European, early medieval sites of Haithabu and Oldenburg in Holstein. It is emphasized that a sufficiently large sample should be observed. In addition, methods are given for distinguishing sex in the pelvis, and body side in distal metacarpus and metatarsus ends.     

The disappearance of a Rom community and the rejection of the politics of recognition

The politics toward Rom minorities in Italy is marked by a binary of recognition: on one hand, there exists the recognition of a nomad identity (present in various institutional practices), on the other a recognition of a cultural identity of Rom and Sinti (exemplified by many associations, either pro-Gypsy or Gypsy). But in the case of Melfi the predominant politics is a decisive refusal of recognition by Melfitani and Melfitani of Gypsy origins. The situation in Melfi should be read as the logical conclusion of a long process of assimilation which led to the dissolution of the historical Rom community.     

Luni in the middle ages: The agony and the disappearance of a city

Rich town, center of marble trading, and important port of transit during the Imperial Age, Luni outlived the end of the Roman Empire, although weakend, and experienced without major destruction domination by Byzantines and Longoboards, and annexation to the Carolingian kingdom. Luni held an advantage over other cities of Roman origin in lying along one of the most important land-based routes of the Middle Ages and in lying close to the sea on the mouth of a major river. Yet while neighboring cities were flourishing, Luni reached the lowest point in a decline that culminated in its final abandonment in 1204. The primary cause lay in the vast effects of the area's environmental deterioration. The natural modifications made it nearly impossible to restore its commercial and Mediterranean trading systems and for its population to grow, after the tenth century. Even the presence in town throughout the medieval period of a powerful episcopal authority could not ensure Luni's survival. For the period between the tenth and the thirteenth centuries, the documentation shows considerable activity on the part of the bishops. This was oriented towards the new and more profitable settlements in the countryside around Luni, however, rather than towards the organization and development of lasting economic structures in the city itself. Financial and social elites never arose in the city as in coeval Italian civitates and Luni was unable to become part of the new system of commercial and political relationships in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and was shortly thereafter abandoned.     

The appearance and disappearance of Birket El-Kamar,Jaffa, Israel

ABSTRACT

The harbor of Jaffa is one of the oldest in the land of Israel and was a significant entry from the sea for the last 4000 years, from the Middle Bronze Age to the twentieth century. Birket el-Kamar was a sandy bay in the coastal strip south of modern Jaffa harbor that had been part of the harbor during various past periods, but no longer exists. Its name, meaning ‘the Moon Pool’, occurs in historical archival documents, mainly maps, from the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. This study focuses on the changing outlines of Birket el-Kamar during the last 800 years, based on recently revealed archaeological remains, and documentary evidence. It seems that in addition to the natural processes, the Ottoman fortress that was built on the natural sand strip connecting the rocks in the sea with the coast, also affected the on-going processes, through which the inner port, the central port and the north anchorage suffered higher erosion rates and the shoreline retreated eastward.     

The body of power,the body of memory

Bioarchaeology is a relatively new and dynamic area of anthropological research, having grown out of the New Archaeology’s emphasis on understanding formation processes within a broader anthropological/behavioral context. Current bioarchaeological research is increasingly focused on questions of identity and social roles from the perspectives of agency and embodiment and with an emphasis on contextual interpretation, as illustrated by the edited volumes discussed in this review. The relevance of this bioarchaeology research extends to other areas of anthropological enquiry, especially when considering the importance of the body in power and identity construction in contemporary societies.     

Veblen goods and urban distinction: The economic geography of conspicuous consumption

A fundamental observation of 21st century cities is that they have become great centers of consumption. In this paper, we seek to understand the geographic variation in consumer behavior. Using Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE), we analyze how consumption differs across 21 major U.S. metropolitan areas, and the association between urban characteristics and consumption. We extend previous geographic analysis of consumption to include luxury goods that are socially visible (conspicuous consumption) and luxury goods that are relatively less visible (inconspicuous consumption). Our analysis shows that conspicuous consumption is more sensitive to an urban context than is inconspicuous consumption.     

Heroes and Invaders: Gay and Lesbian pride parades and the public/private distinction in New Zealand media accounts

Public space is constructed as heterosexual space in at least two senses. First, heterosexuality in public is regarded as unproblematic, whereas lesbian and gay identities are policed by subtle or overt means. Second, heterosexuality is not obviously marked in public. In this article these positions are used as a starting point to investigate the complexities of the relationships between heterosexuality, homosexuality and the public and private spheres. Much of the discussion takes as its basis the media coverage of New Zealand's lesbian and gay pride parades. Recent heterosexist discourse in New Zealand implies that gay men and lesbians are leaving the private sphere and are forcing a politicisation of both the public sphere and the metaphorical space of the private, heterosexual mind. A discursive inversion occurs whereby the homosexual subject becomes powerful and tyrannous, and the heterosexual is coerced and oppressed. Crucial to such discourse is a mobilisation of the conservative tendencies of liberalism, and an attendant denial of the privileged position granted to heterosexuality .     

The disappearance of the ancient landscape and the climatic anomaly of the early Middle Ages: a question to be pursued

Archaeological surveys and rescue archaeology have now dated the disappearance of occupied sites in late antiquity with considerable precision, especially in the Rhône valley and northern Gaul. Landscape archaeology has shown a conversion from arable to pasture and reforestation during the same period. Recent studies of the climate of the first millennium show that this was also an extended period of wet and cold climate. How these phenomena were connected is an important research question. A preliminary suggestion made here is that since reversion from arable to pasture affected regions as far apart as Italy and Poland it cannot simply be ascribed to the political and fiscal dislocation of the ancient world, but should be understood as one effect of the climatic anomaly.     

II War of the worlds/invasion of the body snatchers

In this second commentary on Gillian Youngs' article, Terrell Carver turns from Youngs' image of the 'gulf between mainstream/malestream International Relations on the one hand, and feminist International Relations on the other, to that of 'war' and asks if critical feminist and mainstream/malestream scholars in IR are even in the same world. He senses a level of intellectual and professional conflict that amounts to a 'war of the worlds' and argues for new skills to be adopted and new ways of thinking introduced into the discipline transforming it so that gender no longer divides its practitioners methodologically and personally. Most men in IR still need to address the 'lived experience' that feminists have so far successfully tackled in mainstream IR.     

Re/membering the town body: methodology and the work of local history

This paper seeks to rework connections between material productions of memory and formations of local identity, both theoretically and empirically. A growing literature about sites of memory suggests that social groups continually reconstruct the past for political-economic purposes. Often, this literature does not sufficiently theorize the production of social groups, particularly when these groups are taken to be a priori units of analysis. Identity is thereby presumed while showing that some version of history was invented. I suggest that presumed and contested histories embody the performance of group identifications just as social groups construct the past. Commemorative books from Stockbridge, a small rural New England community with national cultural prestige, are then used to outline a town narrative in «double-time» where history both structures and is structured by performances of identity. The projects of local historians, I argue, performatively reconstitute local identity through ongoing processes of union and differentiation. Yet in the production of literature memorializing a town body called Stockbridge, the projects have presumably drawn from localized resources. Narration in double time thus works methodologically both to erase and to evoke the small community, endeavouring to make it visible as a fundamental yet fictitious social formation.     

Invisible cities: Geography and the disappearance of 'race' from mortgage-lending data in the USA

Recent scholarship on race and ethnicity has unpacked taken-for-granted categories of difference and the processes of social construction of racialized identities. In the USA, however, legal and policy frameworks established during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s are based on problematic, reified categories of race and ethnicity. Yet these frameworks have opened limited opportunities for activist challenges, and among the most successful is the community reinvestment movement, a broad alliance of local groups using simple quantitative analysis of public data and strategic essentialist tactics to win major victories against racial discriminatory mortgage lenders. In this paper, we analyse recent trends that have undermined procedures used to collect the racial data used by reinvestment activists, regulators and housing researchers. The second-largest racial/ethnic group among US home loan applicants is now officially known as 'information not provided,' and non-reporting varies widely across different cities. We analyse the causes of this disappearance and its metropolitan contingency, using multivariate models to evaluate theories of consumer choice and lending industry segmentation. The disappearance of race stems primarily from structural changes in housing finance, including the emergence of a new breed of aggressive, high-risk subprime and predatory lenders; but distinctive contextual factors persist in the emergence of a complex urban system of racially 'invisible' homeowners and homebuyers. The erosion of racial data creates an accidental epistemology, threatening the progressive potential of strategic essentialism for activists and scholars while offering none of the emancipatory possibilities of social constructionist theories of race. Les récentes recherches académiques portant sur la race et l'ethnicité ont exploré les différentes facettes de la différence et les processus sociaux de formation d'identités raciales. Toutefois, aux Etats-Unis, les cadres politiques et légaux établis durant les luttes pour les Droits Civils des années 1960 et 1970 se fondent sur des concepts de race et ethnicité réifiés; ce sont pourtant ces cadres qui ont ouvert la voie à la critique des activistes. Parmi ces critiques, le mouvement de réinvestissement communautaire est celui qui a connu le plus grand succès. Ce mouvement était composé d'une large alliance entre divers groupes locaux utilisant une analyse simple de données publiques quantitatives ainsi que des stratégies d'essentialisme tactique. Ces moyens ont servi à remporter d'importantes victoires contre le racisme des prêteurs hypothécaires. Dans cet article, nous analysons certaines tendences récentes qui ont menacé les procédures de collecte des données raciales par les activistes du réinvestissement, régulateurs, et chercheurs. Le deuxième plus grand groupe racial/ ethnique chez les demandeurs de prêts hypothécaires aux E.U. est maintenant connu officiellement sous la rubrique 'information non-fournie' et le fait de ne pas indiquer sa race ou ethnicité varie énormément d'une ville à l'autre. Nous analysons les causes de ce manque d'information ainsi que son contexte métropolitain à l'aide de différents modèles d'évaluation du choix des consommateurs et de la segmentation de l'industrie du prêt. La disparition d'information ayant trait à la race est principalement issue de changements structuraux dans le financement immobilier, incluant l'émergence d'un nouveau groupe de prêteurs agressifs, prédateurs et à haut risque. Par contre, certains facteurs contextuels distincts persistent dans l'émergence d'un système urbain complexe de propriétaires et acheteurs dont la race demeure 'invisible'. L'érosion de données raciales crée une épistémologie accidentelle et menace le potentiel progressiste de l'essentialisme stratégique utilisé par les activistes et les chercheurs sans toutefois offrir les possibilités émancipatoires des théories raciales constructivistes. Reciente erudición sobre raza e identidad étnica ha deshecho las aceptadas categorías de diferencia y también los procesos de la construcción social de identidades basadas en raza. Sin embargo, en los Estados Unidos, los marcos legales y políticos que fueron establecidos durante la lucha por Derechos Civiles en los años 60 y 70 se fundan en categorías de raza e identidad étnica que son problemáticas y sustancializadas. Y, no obstante, estos marcos han abierto limitadas oportunidades por los desafíos de activistas, y entre los más exitosos es el movimiento de reinversión comunitaria, una extensa alianza de grupos locales que utilizan un sencillo análisis cuantitativo de datos públicos y tácticos estratégicos esencialitas para ganar victorias importantes contra los prestamistas de hipotecas que discriminan por motivos racistas. En este papel, analizamos recientes tendencias que han arruinado los procedimientos implementados para recoger datos raciales utilizados por los activistas reinversionistas, reguladores, e investigadores de viviendas. Hoy en día, el segundo grupo racial/étnica más grande de solicitantes de hipotecas en los Estados Unidos es oficialmente conocido como 'información no proporcionada' y este no revelación de información varia bastante en las varias ciudades. Analizamos las causas de esta desaparición y su contingencia metropolitana por el empleo de modelos multivarios para evaluar teorías de opciones para consumidores y la segmentación de la industria de préstamos. La desaparición de raza viene principalmente de los cambios estructurales en la financiación de viviendas, incluso la emergencia de nuevos prestamistas agresivos y predadores; pero factores contextuales distintivos persisten en la emergencia de un complejo sistema urbano de propietarios y compradores de viviendas racialmente 'invisibles'. La erosión de datos sobre raza crea una epistemología accidental que amenaza el potencial progresivo de esencialismo estratégico para activistas y eruditos y que no ofrece ninguna de las posibilidades emancipadoras de las teorías de construccionismo social sobre raza.