Colonialism,Dining, and Changing Strategies of Power: the Example of Iron Age and Roman Mediterranean France at Lattara (ca 150 bc–ad 50)

The establishment of colonial rule by one society over another, both in ancient and modern examples, often has dramatic consequences for the establishment and maintenance of political relationships within the context of everyday life in colonial society. In this article, I examine the ways in which the performative acts of dining can play an integral role in this reconstruction of political relationships that is so often implicit in colonial encounters and state expansion. In particular, I suggest that an analysis of the ceramic evidence of vessels used in dining and the frequency of specific forms in the overall assemblages can help to reveal the ways in which the politics of commensality play an active role in transforming political relationships and strategies of power in colonial societies. This article uses the example of ancient Mediterranean France after the Roman conquest in the late second century bc at the Celtic-speaking settlement of Lattara (modern Lattes). I argue that by the end of the first century bc, coinciding with a time period when the political structure of the region was being significantly reorganized, there was a notable change in dining practices, with a move away from a more communal ethos in dining to one emphasizing the individual. These new practices served the strategic interests of individuals in local society at Lattara seeking to break with earlier political systems and integrate themselves into larger colonial society.     

Don’t abhor your neighbor for he is a pastoralist: the GIS-based modeling of the past human–environment interactions and landscape changes in the Wadi el-Hasa,west-central Jordan

Recently developed modules in GRASS GIS combine a wide variety of spatial data such as climatic, geological, and cultural in order to estimate how long-term interactions among these factors contribute to the evolution of natural environment and anthropogenic landscapes. Additionally, these modules allow users to visualize anthropogenic impacts of extensive agropastoralism on landscapes by subjecting the pre-defined catchment areas to repeated land use activities. The results emphasize the economic and ecological value of extensive agropastoralism in the marginal landscapes, which make anthropogenic activities more sustainable in the long-term. The results of this research are not only significant for its methodological contributions in anthropological archaeology but also have broader significance for researchers interested in interdisciplinary approaches in assessing the long-term dynamics of human-environment relations.     

A long-distance copper alloy trade to the North Eastern Baltic during the late pre-Roman and Roman Iron Age (250 BCE–450 CE) explored with lead isotope MC-ICP-MS

The North Eastern Baltic has no copper resources of its own, meaning that Cu alloy was imported either as raw material or as finished objects. The north-eastern coastline of Estonia during the late pre-Roman and Roman Iron Age was connected to the south by sea to the long-distance ‘amber’ trade route and to the east by Russian river systems. This study quantitatively assesses the direction of the Cu alloy supply in the region before and after brass enters circulation at the beginning of the Roman Iron Age. After an initial portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) survey, 18 objects were chosen for Pb isotope analysis. This isotope analysis resolved a group of nine brass artefacts from the Roman Iron Age amongst a ‘melting pot’ of other Cu alloys. The similarity between the isotope ratios found in the Roman world suggests the presence of the same ‘melting pot’ in the North Eastern Baltic, possibly created by a large amount of Roman Cu alloy being traded north. No evidence for Cu alloy from Scandinavia or the Ural Mountains could be found. The hypothesis from this small study is that the Cu alloy entering Estonia was dominated by metal from Southern Europe from the late pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman period.     

Red outposts in a hostile landscape: People's houses,People's parks and the reconstruction of rural southern Sweden's political geography, 1889–1909

Organizing rural workers has always proved to be a challenge for the labour movement. This was especially the case in Scandinavia where well into the industrial era, labour and property relations in the agricultural countryside remained essentially feudal in character. Nonetheless, and especially in the rich agricultural districts of the southernmost province of Skåne, the Swedish labour movement had succeeded spectacularly by the interwar years. Perhaps unintuitively, a key to its success was that it focused as much money and energy on constructing new spaces of culture and leisure – so-called People's Houses and People's Parks – as it did to direct workplace organizing. Drawing on Kevin Cox's concepts of “spaces of dependence” and “spaces of engagement,” this paper explains how and why Sweden's labour unions succeeded in remaking Skåne's political geography and transformed the region into one of the strongest social-democratic districts in early-twentieth century Sweden.     

Three-component a.c. E-field observations during the rocket and scatter experiment in 1988–1989 under radar auroral conditions in northern Scandinavia

During the ROSE (ROcket and Scatter Experiments) campaigns of 1988–1989 in northern Scandinavia a newly designed spherical probe (short name: KUSO, KUgelSOnde) was used to determine, in the frequency range 120–3500 Hz, the three components of the a.c. electric field being present under radar auroral conditions in the auroral E-region. Different from the normally utilized large d.c. double probes observing potential differences, the small (d = 23 cm) metallized KUSO probe measured the a.c. currents flowing through the sphere. These are mainly determined by the a.c. electric field existing in the surrounding plasma, and by the resitivity of the (small) Debye layer around its surface. Thus, if the relevant parameters are measured at the same time on one rocket the required a.c. E-field vectors can be deduced. With the aid of a simultaneously recording star sensor the rocket attitude could further be traced back to a non-rotating ground-based coordinate system. Afterwards the directions of the oscillating E-fields were deduced, both in the plane perpendicular to the Earth's magnetic (H-)field and relative to the H-field vector at the same time. The frequency distributions of these directions for about every second of flight time, for example, of more than 8000 E-field vectors contained in one such distribution, are discussed. Moreover, using FFT analyses, the spectral energy distributions of the total a.c. E-fields are obtained for the different heights. Different smaller spectral ranges of the E-field could be synthesized within the total bandwidth. The results of all the analyses are compared with the STARE, the EISCAT and the d.c. E-field observations. The electron densities measured by the Digital Impedance Probe (DIP) are also presented.