Experimental Flake Scatter-Patterns: a New Interpretative Technique

Abstract

Scatters of flint waste flakes are among the commonest finds on prehistoric sites. To understand how such patterns are formed, we made a series of Neolithic axe roughouts and other tools and recorded the distribution of waste flakes. The most important variable affecting the size and shape of flake scatter patterns seems to be the knapper's position. The applications of these experiments to prehistoric data are considered.     

From the Preface to the French edition of Une exigence infinie

Abstract

In 2008, Rowan Williams sparked a huge controversy in Britain by pleading for more recognition of shari'a law. The present paper aims to explore Mike Higton's suggestion that this plea actually results from Williams's defence of the Enlightenment. The paper will first show that Williams's plea for increased recognition of shari'a is in line with the Enlightenment ideal of sociability. It will subsequently show that this does not mean that Williams gives up on the importance of the secular law. Special attention will be given to the two fundamental principles behind Williams's views on shari'a and these principles will be developed with the help of Edward Schillebeeckx's view of ‘the humanum’. Finally, the paper will also indicate that Williams's two fundamental principles offer a way to better understand the biblical commandment to love one's neighbour—a view that will be developed with reference to the work of Slavoj Zizek.     

Archaeological Applications of the Electra-Level

Abstract

The Electra-Level is a leveling device with applications in field archaeology. It offers advantages over the line level and optical leveling instruments in situations where visibility, obstructions, or shortage of personnel are factors. Some specific applications in archaeological fieldwork by Boston's City Archaeology Program are described.     

The Changing Cycle of Engineering Materials A Tribute to H. M. Finniston,Materials Scientist and Engineer

Abstract

In this, the second Finniston Lecture, the growth in the production, usage and disposal of engineering materials is reviewed on a worldwide scale over the period of Sir Monty's lifetime. He worked in all stages of the cycle. The materials treated are steel and the common non-ferrous metals, the bulk plastics (polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinylchloride, polystyrene) and Portland cement. The total tonnage used is determined by improvement in quality, both in production and in service, the market demands, substitution by other materials and waste minimisation. These are considered for each material so as to show an emerging future in which demand per caput decreases as living standards rise. This fact, coupled with a philosophy of 'do more with less' and the pressures of environmental concerns are leading to an important change of emphasis within the materials cycle occasioned by the demand to increase the recyclability not only of the materials but also of the components made from them.     

The West March on the Anglo-Scottish Border in the Twelfth Century,and the Origins of the Western Debatable Land

Abstract

'The West March on the Anglo-Scottish Border in the twelfth century and the origins of the Western Debatable Land'. Although there was a frontier zone between medieval England and Scotland where March Law applied, within that zone there was, at any rate in time of peace between the Crowns, an ascertainable frontier line. Two conflicting views on the location of this line west of the Cheviot are reviewed and a third proposal advanced. From William II's conquest of Cumberland in 1092 up to 1552, the line lay along the River Esk and Liddel Water, except when the Scots possessed Cumberland and Westmorland in 1136–1157 and 1216–1217. After 1136, David I granted to the lords of the English barony of Liddel additional land comprising the parishes of Kirkandrews-on-Esk and Canonbie, north of the Esk. From 1157, the barony remained a cross-Border holding until the Scots dispossessed the English lords of Kirkandrews and Canonbie between 1300 and 1318. The English lords continued to claim that land, however, and their claim was assigned to the English Crown after 1349. At that point, what had been a claim to private rights started to become confused with national sovereignty. In 1552, arbitrators partitioned what had become known as the Western Debatable Land, a no-man's-land, and the Border then assumed its present line.     

The Archaeological Heritage of the Jerusalem Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion

Abstract

Ever since the purchase of land in 1848 for the establishment of the Jerusalem Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion, the south-western brow of the hill has attracted the attention of scholars. Initiated by the discovery of a series of rock-hewn steps in a scarp that was traced for over 200 metres and thought to be the line of Jerusalem's ancient fortifications, archaeological investigation within the confines of the cemetery continued for some 150 years. In this paper, the results of a century and a half of excavations are summarized and synthesized, providing important evidence regarding the development and chronology of Jerusalem's fortifications from the Iron Age to the Ayyubid Period. Also, the idea of an Essene Quarter on Mount Zion during the Second Temple Period, based on the discovery of a gate believed to be Josephus' 'Gate of the Essenes', is re-examined in light of the rest of the archaeological evidence from the cemetery.     

The maginot line: An indestructible inheritance

Abstract

Every French town has its rue Charles de Gaulle. None has a Boulevard Pétain or Place Maginot. These names associated with the defeat and dishonour of France in 1940 have no place in the national heritage. Pétain died disgraced, But the line bearing Maginot's name remains, though kept firmly off the official tourist map. Constructed as ‘France's Shield’ amd beheld as the eighth wonder of the world’, it nevertheless, warped conceptions of modern warfare and bred defeatism. Hence the Fall of France, hence the line's heritage oblivion. And yet, amateur enthusiasts (German as well as French) persist in their efforts to restore the forts of the Maginot line to an order approaching their original state. Their passion has less to do with revising historical reputations than with archaeological engineering. Visitors witness the spectacle of a private heritage‐subverting dedication to make these vast underground ships ready to sail again.     

The Cooper in Liverpool

Abstract

This report assesses the efficiency in timing and layout of the mass-production system at the Portsmouth Dockyard block mill in the early 1800s. It is based on study of the extant buildings and machines as well as pictorial and written evidence from the past. Early output figures for some of the block-making machines reveal 8 to 17 per cent discrepancies from perfect coordination in timing. This difficulty was apparently offset by use of duplicate machines and by short-term stacking up of semi-finished parts between machine processes. An old line shafting diagram implies that the three sets of machines for making pulley-block shells of different sizes were arranged on one shop floor in a hollow rectangle, each set in its own production sequence. Although not ideal, the machinery's coordination and layout showed a greater rationality of design for efficient production 'flow' than has heretofore been documented for it.     

An Island Divided: Politicised Landscapes,Modern Borders,and Shifting Identities

Abstract

This paper looks critically at the division of Cyprus into North and South (the politically unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus respectively) and will consider how this physical division emphasised and further developed a divided identity based on 'ethnic' differences (and the development of the 'other') between the two major populations—Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. The Green Line is just one of several recent manifestations in the landscape of social contestations between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. This paper outlines how the Green Line has structured the lives of people in relation to the ways that they conceptualise their environment, the past and, importantly, the 'other' side. Further, it addresses how this division, this physical line across the landscape, impacts upon the social landscape as it defines and reinforces identity through the processes of memory and forgetting.     

Otto Warburg

Abstract

In the ancient world the dividing line between the Arts and the Sciences was not so rigidly drawn as in recenl times. Poets and prose authors alike frequently crossed the boundaries in their literary works. Notable Greek interdisciplinary writers include Hesiod, Aristotle and Theophrastus and, among the Romans, Lucretius, Virgil and Pliny the Elder are the best known. Thus Aristotle wrote the Poetics on the nature of drama and related topics and, in addition to many other philosophical and scientific works, the Meteorologica, a mixture of sciences. Virgil composed the Aeneid, a national epic glorifying Rome and the emperor Augustus, and the Georgics, a handbook of agriculture. Pliny the Elder, the nineteenth centenary of whose death was celebrated on 24 August 1979, had wide-ranging interests. His works include a treatise on the javelin, a history of Rome's wars against the Germans and the unique encyclopaedic Natural History. The present review examines Pliny's career and assesses his contribution to the early history of mineralogy.     

The Description of Agamemnon in Digenis Akrites

Abstract

At 7.85 in the Grottaferrata version, having described the biblical mosaics in the palace, the poet proceeds to juxtapose pictorial episodes from pagan poetry and history. The first line about Achilles' campaigns causes no trouble, but the second and third, <inline-graphic href="splitsection8_in1.tif"/><inline-graphic href="splitsection8_in2.tif"/>, have provoked much scholarly consternation and conflict.     

I Quindici Giorni di Scanzano: identity and social protest in the New South

Abstract

This paper examines the dramatic events of ‘I Quindici Giorni di Scanzano’, the vast popular uprising in Basilicata in November 2003 that thwarted a government decree to create a consolidated national nuclear waste dump at Scanzano Jonico. The struggle cut across lines of locality, age, social class and political affiliation, mobilizing the populace with various symbols, including references to brigandage, postwar struggles for land, and the Madonna of Loreto. Solidarity for the protest came from all quarters of the South, especially the neighboring regions of Apulia and Calabria. Although government representatives and some of the media portrayed the Lucanians in recognizably anti-Southern tropes of ‘uncivicness’, this paper argues that this remarkable moment in Basilicata's history created a new sense of public identity and action that in many ways reflected recent intellectual discourses on the South.     

Joshua’s Tomb

Abstract

Following the recent excavations of the Jerusalem 'Warren's Shaft System' and its attribution to the Middle Bronze II period, the authors re-evaluate the dating of the Gezer water system. R. A. S. Macalister attributed it to the 'Second Semitic' period, which roughly corresponds to the ME II period. Several scholars challenged this dating, suggesting a lower date in the Late Bronze or the Iron Age. The article draws attention to a detail which escaped the types of scholars, namely that the cave at the bottom of the system has in fact a lower outlet, to the tell's southern perimeter. This detail appears on a plan and section drawn by L Vincent, when visiting the excavation. This explains how the miners knew where to locate the entrance to the system within the city's boundary, and to what direction and angle to aim their tunnel to hit that cave. This increases the similarity between the Jerusalem and the Gezer water systems, and corroborates the MB II dating for the Gezer system, originally suggested by Macalister.     

Philosophy,Eros, Judaism

Abstract

A careful reading of Caritas in Veritate shows it to be framed and permeated by two principles. The first is that human persons in their consciences and deeds are the principal agents of economic and political life, whether directly in interpersonal relations or mediated through their work in and for institutions. The second is that human persons as citizens are best prepared to promote “integral human development” and “the common good” when they are urged on by charity or love that is lived in truth. In these respects Caritas in Veritate is a clear continuation of the line of thought that Benedict developed in his earlier encyclicals Deus Caritas Est and Spe Salvi, and before that in his theological writings as Joseph Ratzinger. Benedict's work thus underscores the need modern societies and political communities have for charity, and thus for faith and for hope. We explicate this aspect of Benedict's political vision throughout this essay, anticipating and beginning to respond to some objections to the thesis that politics even in a secular age requires theological virtues to flourish.     

Houselot Refuse Disposal and Geochemistry at a Late 19th Century Hacienda Village in Yucatán,Mexico

Abstract

In the 19th century, an increasing percentage of the rural, Maya-descent population in Yucatán, Mexico, became tied to hacienda estates through legally sanctioned debt peonage. Recent investigations at Hacienda Tabi, a pre-revolutionary sugar plantation in the peninsula's Puuc region, shed light on non-architectural domestic spaces occupied by debt peons. Spatial distributions of ceramic debris and soil phosphorus concentrations in four houselots approximate models of waste management in contemporary domestic settings. The size sorting of inorganic refuse, in particular, is a consistent indicator of patio zones. The data suggest that houselot structure under conditions of forced labor was not appreciably different from what has been documented for independent subsistence farmers in Mesoamerica. Nevertheless, discard patterns at Tabi suggest that some lots were more intensively maintained than others, and this variation may be related to population density or workforce stratification. The site's good state of preservation, resulting in part from a relatively short period of occupation and a rapid abandonment event, facilitates the study of cultural formation processes in domestic contexts of the northern Maya Lowlands.     

Edmund Spenser at Kilcolman Castle: the archaeological evidence

Abstract

As part of a broader study of the Elizabethan colonization of Munster, the home of a member of the colonial elite was the object of four seasons of fieldwork, 1993–96. Kilcolman Castle in north County Cork now comprises a ruined tower-house and some mounds of masonry overlooking Kilcolman Bog. The castle and 3,000 acres had been granted to the poet Edmund Spenser, who refurbished and occupied it from 1588 to 1598, when Tyrone's rebellion burned Kilcolman. Spenser's family fled, the poet soon dying in London, and the castle was finally abandoned after a second fire ante 1622. The excavations established that archaeological remains survived to a significant extent: the bawn (bailey) wall line was traced, structures identified as the Great Hall and Parlour were located, and artefacts and ecofacts from the occupancy of Spenser's family were recovered.     

Neither Cyclops nor Sophist: Christian Formation Against the State

Abstract

This article identifies a deep paradox at the heart of the modern state—in its ability and professed purposes to form the moral characters of its citizens—and then offers a Christian response. Were it not for the manifest success of states in persisting in this paradox, it would delegitimize them on grounds of incoherence and duplicity. In an argument that is occasionally Aristotelian, the article shows how modern (secular, liberal) states morally form citizens who willingly submit to the state's formation on grounds that the state has legitimacy so long as it does not claim moral authority. This line of reasoning is explicated with reference to Sheldon Wolin on Alexander Hamilton and feudalism as well as Martha Nussbaum on Aristotle. In response, Christian freedom, ecclesial peoplehood, and poverty not only run counter to state formation but positively resist it.     

Oliver O'Donovan's Critique of Autonomy

Abstract

More than any other contemporary theologian, Oliver O'Donovan has revived political theology as a field of enquiry. Yet O'Donovan has been consistent in his critique of the modern idea of autonomy, judging it to be at odds with the more communitarian idea of covenanted community found in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. He contrasts this modern idea, and its political implications, with the older biblical idea, also adding some basic points from Aristotle's idea of the polis. But unlike many contemporary communitarians, O'Donovan is also able to incorporate the idea of human rights into his political theology. He sees this supposedly modern idea having fuller precedence in the biblical idea of mishpat ("justice"), which he takes to be God's primordial claim on His covenanted community, a claim that sufficiently grounds both individual rights and communal rights and which enables them to function together. However, O'Donovan draws the line when it comes to the modern social contract theory, arguing that it is at odds with biblical teaching that the primary responsibility of rulers is to divine law. While agreeing with O'Donovan's rejection of autonomy and his acceptance of human rights, this paper argues against O'Donovan's theological rejection of social contract theory. Instead, it argues that a social contract is consistent with the doctrine of the covenant; indeed that the very possibility of the social contract is best explained by the doctrine of the covenant, and that this acceptance of the social contract serves the best political interests of covenanted communities (like the Jewish People and the Christian Church) in an otherwise secular world.