Voting and Not Voting in Early 18th-Century English Parliamentary Elections

This article uses data from 28 poll books to explore voter behaviour over time in early 18th-century English parliamentary elections (from 1710 to 1735). Voters in this period exhibited a high degree of partisan loyalty from one election to the next. But voters were also quite likely to drop out of the electorate between elections. As a case study of Sussex elections in 1734 shows, even among voters who made a definite promise to vote for a given candidate or set of candidates, there was a significant proportion who did not vote. While some non-voting can be explained as an attempt to avoid disobliging powerful patrons, this article argues that voters needed to be motivated to appear at the polls. The electoral culture of the early 18th century – treats, balls, public appearances by the candidates, etc. – should be understood as attempts to mobilise rather than to persuade potential voters.     

Diseases in Early Modern Sweden

In early modern Scandinavia, the population’s sensitivity to disease and food supply shortages was great. Researchers have long been interested in the crises caused by these conditions, and the dominant causes of death have been well documented in Sweden since the late eighteenth century. But for the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, in the mortality regime preceding the initial stage of the demographic transition, our understanding of the infectious diseases is significantly limited. Through an analysis of causes of death and tithe levels, this article gives new insight regarding mortality rates, harvests and, above all, diseases in a parish located in a Swedish forested area during the mid- and late seventeenth century and first half of the eighteenth century. It presents new research about which diagnoses were most common, how often the more prevalent diseases of fevers, smallpox, and dysentery broke out, and the varying role of diseases on mortality rates during bad harvest years. The inhabitants in this parish presumably had a food supply buffer in their summer farm system, yet they remained vulnerable to bad harvests, and people in the area were just as susceptible to the common infectious diseases as the inhabitants in more tightly populated areas.     

The Imaging of Samoa in Illustrated Magazines and Serial Encyclopaedias in the Early 20th-Century

Drawing on English language sources and material relating to the colonial administrations of Western Samoa (now Samoa) and American Samoa, this examination of photographically illustrated serial encyclopaedias and magazines proposes an alternative historical analysis of the colonial imaging of Samoa, the most extensively covered field in Oceanic photographic studies. Though photographs published between 1890s and World War II were often ‘recycled’, without acknowledging the fact that they were taken much earlier, and despite claims in the text of illustrated publications of an unchanged, enduring, archaic tradition in Samoa, the amazing variety of photographic content often offered contradictory evidence, depicting a modern, adaptive and progressive Samoa. Contrary to orthodox historical analysis, the images of Samoa in illustrated magazines and encyclopaedias were not limited to a small repetitive gallery of partially clothed women and costumed chiefs; and the ways in which readers understood Samoa from photographs and text raises questions still to be explored.     

Stable isotopes as indicators of change in the food procurement and food preference of Viking Age and Early Christian populations on Gotland (Sweden)

Archaeological samples of human and faunal remains dating from the Viking (9–11th century AD) and Early Christian (11–12th century AD) periods of Gotland, Sweden were assayed through stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis in order to investigate whether changes in subsistence occurred between these periods, particularly regarding the importance of seafood. The study was concerned with how the dietary regime of the Baltic trading port and farming settlement at Ridanäs, Gotland was affected by the widespread environmental and sociocultural transformations that characterized the end of the Viking Age. More generally, the research considers how changes in both food procurement and preference may account for observed differences in the dietary regimes of individuals from the Viking Age and the Early Christian period.     

An Insular Reliquary from Melhus: The Significance of Insular Ecclesiastical Material in Early Viking-Age Norway

THIS PAPER presents and discusses a unique insular reliquary shrine discovered in an early 9th-century woman’s grave at Melhus, central Norway, over a century ago. In addition to a detailed re-evaluation of the shrine and its use in its original ecclesiastical context, the paper also proposes an alternative interpretation as to how the local pagan population may have conceptualised this Christian object after it arrived in Norse hands. While most of the insular ecclesiastical items in Scandinavia were broken up and transformed into personal ornaments, the Melhus shrine was kept complete, suggesting it was considered to be of special value. It is argued here that this status should be seen in association with the shrine’s involvement in local narratives and ritual aspects connected with the earliest voyages across the North Sea. The woman with whom the reliquary was buried may have played a central role in these rituals.     

A Late 13th and Early 14th-Century Tile Factory at Danbury,Essex

THE EXCAVATION of a practically complete medieval tile factory, in operation between c. 1275/85 and 1325/35, is described. The establishment comprised three buildings, interpreted as workmen's accommodation (A), a workshop (B), and a drying shed (C), together with two kilns, within a ditched roadside enclosure. The kilns were of the normal type, with two parallel flues; one had a walled stokepit reached by a tile staircase. The methods of tile manufacture and firing are discussed, the conclusions being partially supported by experimental evidence. The patterns of the decorated tiles are seen as derivatives of the Chertsey-Westminster School, mostly via the 13th-century ‘Central Essex Group’; a relationship with Penn is also suggested. Distribution of Danbury products is largely confined to the Chelmer valley, but a waterborne distribution is suggested by a group of floor tiles from Virginia Water, Surrey.     

Monuments and nationalism in modern Mexico

A key feature in the cultural repertoire of Mexican nationalism has been the excavation and reconstruction of the archaeological sites and monuments of the pre‐Hispanic past. They afford tangible witness to the foundations of Mexican history and the putative existence of the Mexican people in the civilisations of Mesoamerica. Although in the colonial period creole patriots identified the Aztec empire as their classical past, it was not until the Mexican Revolution that archaeological sites and monuments were integrated into the nationalism that accompanied and characterised that movement. The chief author of this cultural turn was Manuel Gamio, a professional archaeologist and liberal nationalist, whose extensive writings thus demand attention. But although he emphasised the grandeur of the pre‐Hispanic civilisation, he advocated the complete incorporation of the contemporary Indian peasantry into the Mexican nation.     

Lasting Alliances and Emerging Competition: Economic Developments in Early Mesopotamia

In this paper, I argue that archaeologists have overlooked variability within the category of "prestate Mesopotamian societies" by focusing exclusively on political organization. If economic and not only political criteria were used to evaluate developments in early Mesopotamia, a different perception of prehistory and history would result. Mesopotamian societies in the 6th millennium B.C. can be shown to be politically "stable" but economically changing. The analysis of economic processes is based on the structural Marxist concept of "modes of production."     

An Early Christian Cemetery and Chapel on Ardwall Isle,Kirkcudbright

THE PURPOSE of this paper is to describe a particular stage of modification of existing hall-houses effected during the period of about 1480–1660, as found in a number of houses mostly situated in SE. England. The main area is thus delineated because most of the research for this study was undertaken there. It is extremely probable that the structural changes here discussed were accepted practice in a much wider area, and that evidence supporting this will be forthcoming.     

从安达里殉葬墓的发掘谈清初的人殉制度

本文记述了安达里生前因战功屡受晋升,太宗皇太极驾崩后,安达里为报太宗“知遇”之恩,主动要求殉葬太宗一事,介绍了安达里墓地的概况,安达里殉葬墓的发掘情况、墓室结构,对现藏于沈阳市文物考古研究所的七件出土文物及现藏于沈阳故宫博物院的安达里墓碑的情况做了详细介绍,从而对中国从远古到清初的丧葬礼俗——人殉制度进行了探讨和揭露。     

The Afterlife of Monuments in the English Peak District: The Evidence of Early Bronze Age Burials

This research is an investigation of the locations of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age round barrows in the Peak District. The work involved close examination of the barrows present around two earlier monuments: the Long Low bank barrow and the henge at Arbor Low. Using a Geographic Information System, it considered the densities of the barrows around these focal monuments, inter‐visibility between the sites, and the distribution of distinctive artefacts in the surrounding area. The results raise important questions about the role of memory in the past.