The site Hein 33: Typological and chronological problems of the New Stone Age of Southern Norway

In this issue of Norwegian Archaeological Review the article Hein 33 ‐ En steinalderboplass på Hardangervidda. Fors?k på kronologisk og kulturell analyse by Svein Indrelid (1973) has been chosen for discussion. The research into the Norwegian Stone Age has always been dependent on the results obtained by studies of the South Scandinavian material. Indrelid's main goal has been to free himself from this dependence when trying to establish local southwest Norwegian chronology. This new approach has given important results also for the understanding of the South Scandinavian Stone Age.

Comments by Egil Bakka, Carl Cullberg, Arne B. Johansen, and Egil Mikkelsen are followed by a reply from Svein Indrelid.     

Australian Defence Awareness and German Naval Planning in the Pacific, 1900–1914

Abstract

Australia has been re-echoing the alarm of Britain at finding herself out-Dreadnoughted by Germany, while Patriots … have waved cheques at club dinners … and Lord Mayors have intervened to save Great Britain.

Bulletin, 1 April 1909     

Domestication,Reindeer Husbandry and the Development of Sámi Pastoralism

Abstract

A recurrent topic in ethnographic, historical and archaeological research has been the origins of Sámi reindeer pastoralism. The article discusses how prevailing theories have been influenced by general conceptual schemes, apriori constructed models and an extensive use of taxonomies. The debate has centered around how and when domestication took place, presupposing a paradigmatic change from hunting to pastoralism. However, there has probably never been an abrupt change; hunting and herding have both been parts of a multifaceted adaption existing up to the nineteenth century. What did change was the social organization of herding when a pastoral economy became the norm at that time. Such a change also had qualitative consequences in terms of new values and economic strategies.     

Nettle Fibre: Its Prospects,Uses and Problems in Historical Perspective

Abstract

The stinging nettle plant (Urtica dioica L.) is perhaps best known as an abundant and perennial weed, but throughout history it has been used as a source of fibre in many parts of the world. This paper explores the potential uses of nettle fibre within a historical context and describes efforts made by the German and UK governments to cultivate and process the fibre for special war purposes during World War I and II. There has recently been a revival of interest in this fascinating fibre, and recent attempts to commercialise production are discussed.     

Editorial

Abstract

In this way, archaeology, which had been born beside ruined abbeys and whose purpose has not been knowledge but to keep alive in a small community the sense of the past and the continuity of history, became one of the whore sciences whose poxy favours can be bought by any government prepared to pay for them (Butler 1984, 178).     

Forty-Third Annual Congress,Darlington and Bishop Auckland, 1886

Abstract

Although the wall-paintings in the three first floor bedrooms and the connecting passage at Ellys Manor House, Great Ponton (SK 927 304), have been known to exist for a considerable time and are amongst the most extensive and important of their period in the country, very little has been written about them and no attempt has been made to co-ordinate the information that is available.     

Teaching industrial location — secondary data: second best?

Abstract

The study of industrial location has undergone several changes of emphasis. Neo‐classical location theories have been supplemented by studies based on the locational behaviour of individual firms. In turn, the value of these has been challenged by those of a structuralist persuasion. In order to engage in the resultant academic debates in an informed way, students need to know how specific businesses use geographic space. Ways of enhancing their knowledge by linking documentary searches with group presentations and field days are described here, both in general terms and by means of a case study.     

Natural Right and The Origin of Species

Abstract

This article concerns the relationship between Abraham Lincoln's natural right argument against slavery and contemporary Darwinian biology. It is frequently supposed that the latter undermines the former. I argue to the contrary that natural right has been rediscovered independently by modern Darwinian biology, and that it largely confirms Lincoln's understanding of human nature.     

Sovereignty,mercy, and natural law: King James VI/I and Jean Bodin

ABSTRACT

The affinities between Jean Bodin's and King James VI/I's political theories have been recognized, and the fact that James had owned Bodin's Six livres de la république has been recorded, but Bodin's specific influence on James has remained nebulous. This article examines the evidence for James's direct engagement with Bodin, by studying James's copy of the Six livres alongside James's political treatises. It provides substantial new archival evidence for Bodin's influence on James's political thought and, thereby, on Scottish and English theories of sovereignty.     

Justinian's Coinage and Easter Reforms and the date of the Secret History

Abstract

The several Byzantine oneirocritic texts have been edited and more recently translated and commented upon, but a study to match Dodds' on Greek antiquity has still to appear.     

Preservation of the Stone Age site of Isimila,Tanzania

Abstract

The Stone Age Acheulean site of Isimila is one of the most important sites in Tanzania. Excavated in the late 1950s, it has been open to the public since 1958. This note reviews the problems of preserving in situ the open-air activity floors excavated at Isimila, and describes measures taken by the Tanzanian authorities to manage and protect the site.     

The Flood Problems of Venice

Abstract

Although Venice has been flooded occasionally for centuries, it experienced its highest flood in 1966, with water 1.94 m above sea level. Since then there has been wide controversy, scientifically and politically, about the best measures to prevent a re-occurrence; these are here reviewed in some detail. Of the five civil engineering solutions proposed, only one, the Agiltec Project A and B, has ever been made public and the arguments for and against it are here presented; the Project as well as the other four solutions were rejected by the Government. The flood problems of Venice have now been submerged in the general Italian political turmoil and if government in action persists, the consequences may be tragic.     

The judicialization of politics,Italian style

Abstract

The recent dramatic changes in the Italian political scene have been related to the expanding role of the judiciary. The judicialization of politics is a process at work in many other democracies, but in Italy the judicial revolution has been supported by an institutional setting of increasing independence and by the strong powers entrusted to public prosecutors. However, until 1992 judicial power was somewhat balanced by the strength of the political class. But the political crisis that came to a head in 1992 has opened a political vacuum that the judiciary has been able to fill.

The 1996 elections have brought to power a new and stronger political alliance, the Ulivo. A new political stability could lead to a containment of judicial power but it is unlikely that the Italian judiciary will be brought back to its traditional passive role. Judicialization has to be considered a permanent trait of the Italian political system.     

The Greeks' sense of language and the 1976 linguistic reforms: illusions and disappointments

Abstract

Even the most desired reforms often become soured by doubt and hostile reaction. Since D(imotiki) replaced K(atharevousa) as the ‘official’ language of Greece after the fall of the Colonels' dictatorship, public unease at the ‘state of the language’ has been marked.     

Photius and Poetry

Abstract

‘No art or science, except poetry, was foreign to this universal scholar’. Thus Edward Gibbon. It has long been notorious that poets are excluded from the Bibliotheca. Why? The question persists. Hence the present paper.     

The Compulsory Exchange of Populations : Greek-Turkish Peacemaking, 1922–1930

Abstract

As a precedent in the resolution of Middle Eastern crises, the settlement of the embittered Greek- Turkish conflict of 1919–1922 constitutes a landmark. The swiftness and comprehensiveness of the settlement was hailed from the moment it was formally achieved by the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 23 July 1923. It has been rendered even more impressive since World War II by what, until recently at least, has seemed like the intractable Arab-Israeli dispute.     

Early medieval T⊘nsberg — dating problems and the results

According to the 13th century Icelandic Saga writer Snorre Sturlasson, there was a marketplace (in old Norwegian: Kaupstadir) in the T?nsberg area by the end of the 9th century. The origin of the medieval town of T?nsberg has therefore been much discussed in the light of this statement. Viking Age and early medieval settlements often lack material datable by archaeology alone. In T?nsberg radiocarbon dating has been used to distinguish between Viking Age deposits and medieval deposits, when stratigraphy alone does not state the differences. However, this dating method has produced various results and there is obvious need for a local calibration.     

A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World

Abstract

The reasons for the lack of communication between economists and econophysicists are clarified by giving an outline of the methodological differences between economics and econophysics, which has emerged as a new field of research over the last decade. Theorists working in econophysics see economic and financial phenomena through the ‘lens’ of statistical physics. So far, there has been no real dialogue between economists and econophysicists because both communities adhere to their own methodological precepts.     

The Antiquities Market

Abstract

The computer has not been widely used for the study and analysis of Greek and Roman pottery. Recently at Stobi in Yugoslavian Macedonia a considerable quantity of pottery has been coded according to a system devised specifically for the rather complex situation presented by the wide-reaching market for ceramics in the Greek and Roman periods. The system and coding procedures, as well as the preliminary results of the analysis, are published here in the hope that they will serve as an aid to others working with similar material.