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.     

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.     

Memories of an Imperial City: Race,Gender, and Birmingham,Alabama

September 15, 2013, marked the 50^th anniversary of the 16^th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. The bombing remains one of the most infamous events in the history of white supremacist violence in the United States. While conventional accounts of the event and its aftermath often consider the legal restructuring of the US state following the passage of subsequent Civil Rights legislation, little has been written about the transnational significance of Birmingham in shaping the character of US power abroad. This article argues that memorialisation and cultural architecture of Birmingham represent a significant crucible forging a particular style of liberal empire. Tracing a cultural genealogy of Birmingham through the writings of former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and famed scholar-activist Angela Davis, I demonstrate how Birmingham, as a site of historic black struggle, has been remembered alongside the place-making of empire.     

INTENTIONALISM,INTENTIONALITY, AND REPORTING BELIEFS1

The dominant view of twentieth‐century analytic philosophy has been that all thinking is always in a language, that languages are vehicles of thought. The same view has been widespread in continental philosophy as well. In recent decades, however, the opposite view—that languages serve merely to express language‐independent thought‐contents or propositions—has been more widely accepted. The debate has a direct equivalent in the philosophy of history: when historians report the beliefs of historical figures, do they report the sentences or propositions that these historical figures believed to be true or false? In this paper I argue in favor of the latter, intentionalist, view. My arguments center mostly on the problems with translation that are likely to arise when a historian reports the beliefs of historical figures who expressed them in a language other than the one in which the historian is writing. In discussing these problems the paper presents an application of John Searle's theory of intentionality to the philosophy of history.     

The Rigging and the 'Hydraulic System' of the Roman Wreck at Grado, Gorizia, Italy

The hull of the Roman wreck at Grado has been preserved under the cargo of amphoras. On the site, a lot of wooden elements of the rigging are preserved, including deadeyes, blocks, and toggles. Three possible bitts were identified, one of them sculpted; two were nailed to the hull while one was loose. Near the keel a lead tube, protected by a wooden box, has been interpreted as a bilge-pump but more probably it was a suction-pump. The tube would have been connected to a piston pump which has not survived. Possible explanations for its use are presented.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

Technology,strategy and counterterrorism

For as long as there has been technology (the application of science and innovation) and for as long as there has been strategy (the use of forces and resources to achieve political goals) there has been a relationship of sorts between these two preoccupations. This article inquires into the nature of the technological–strategic relationship which governments, such as that in the UK, draw upon as they confront international terrorism. To what extent has the historical technostrategic dynamic remained relevant and useful, and where has new thinking been required? The article suggests that a new and more complex understanding of the technology–strategy relationship is emerging in the context of counterterrorism. The challenge facing government is to maintain a technological edge against its terrorist adversary, without exaggerating the adversary's capability, and while ensuring that its counterterrorism strategy pursues a coherent and persuasive political goal.     

Benefits,safety, and risks of immunisation programmes

Abstract

Immunisation is potentially the most effective and efficient of all preventive medical activities. It is also unique among interventions in that it protects both the individual and the community. The UK's immunisation programme has been highly successful in controlling a number of life threatening infectious diseases, and consequently public concern has shifted from the diseases to vaccine safety. In recent years a series of vaccine myths and vaccine safety scares have affected the UK and other industrialised countries. Although an effective vaccine without any risk is probably unachievable, the vaccines in use in the UK are very safe. Serious adverse outcomes truly attributable to vaccination are extremely rare, always far rarer than adverse outcomes among individuals acquiring the vaccines' target infections. Vaccine safety may be called into question, however, on the basis of spurious coincidental associations between vaccination and adverse events. An inadequate public health response in the 1970s to a scare over whooping cough vaccine allowed substantial losses of professional and public confidence to take place. Vaccine coverage halved and much preventable morbidity and mortality resulted. Plausible vaccine associations must be investigated thoroughly, and the UK has become a world leader in developing techniques for rapid investigations. The public health response to scares over MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine safety has been faster and firmer than for whooping cough and no link has been found between MMR vaccine and inflammatory bowel disease or autism. Consequently the impact on immunisation coverage has been small, though the cumulative threat of measles, mumps, and rubella epidemics is growing. Recently an international investigation excluded a possible association of intussusception with oral polio vaccine before it could become a vaccine scare. A clearer chain of communication in responding to vaccine myths and scares is needed. This must provide rapid information and, if appropriate, reassurance to professionals and the public. Considerably more training is needed for professionals in providing information to the public and supporting parents in making difficult decisions over vaccination. Though there is no place for complacency, and improvements are needed, the UK's ability to monitor vaccine effectiveness, safety, and risks is strong. As a consequence it has a vaccination programme that is very safe and very effective.     

Counterinsurgency Reexamined: Racism,Capitalism, and US Military Doctrine

The US has been engaged in coercive projects of counterinsurgency since the Indian Wars in the 19^th century. Racist constructions of the enemy have been central to this process. Counterinsurgency has called forth new waves of contestation at every juncture, which has in turn shaped the very texture of military doctrine. This article draws on archival research, historical geography, and Marxist theory to trace the dialectics of counterinsurgency and insurgency through a series of turning points in US imperial history from the development of small wars doctrine in the 1930s to renewal of counterinsurgency during hybrid wars in Venezuela and Latin America in the current conjuncture. Through a conjunctural analysis, we argue that racism performs fundamental work in achieving consent to counterinsurgency wars, allowing capitalism to survive challenges to its legitimacy.     

Indigenous Autonomy,Delinquent States,and the Limits of Resistance

This paper focuses on struggles by Mexican indigenous communities to defend their patrimony and guarantee their own security in an environment dominated by the parallel power of organized crime, paramilitary violence, impunity, and a neo-extractivist economy. After reviewing the relationships between the radicalization of indigenous autonomy demands and transformations of the Mexican state, analysis focuses on recent developments involving a Nahua community on the Pacific coast of Michoacán state that has a long history of successful defence of its communal lands, alongside a Purépecha community in the central highlands that has been its longstanding ally. The violence of external actors reflects the penetration of all levels of government by organized crime, but violence is not a new historical experience in this region. What has changed is that the capacity of these communities to resist has been affected by their internal disarticulation by the same forces.     

Phenetics,cladistics, and the search for the Alaskan ancestors of the Paleoindians: a reassessment of relationships among the Clovis,Nenana, and Denali archaeological complexes

Clovis, Nenana, and Denali are the earliest well-documented archaeological complexes in the New World. Clovis has been found at sites throughout the lower 48 states of the USA and in parts of Canada but not in Alaska, whereas Nenana and Denali have been found in Alaska but not elsewhere in North America. In 1991, Goebel and colleagues reported phenetic analyses of tool types from Clovis, Nenana, and Denali. They found that Nenana clustered more closely with Clovis than with Denali, and concluded from this that Nenana was likely ancestral to Clovis. Goebel et al.'s study has been cited frequently since it was published, and their conclusions have been widely accepted. Here we explain why analyses of the type performed by Goebel et al. are problematic and also demonstrate empirically that their results are dependent on the algorithm and distance measure used. We then reanalyze their dataset with a technique from biology called cladistics. Cladistics has replaced phenetics as the method of choice for reconstructing evolutionary relationships in biology, because it is more objective. The results of this analysis differ from those obtained by Goebel and colleagues. The results strongly suggest that Denali and Clovis are in fact more closely related to each other than either is to Nenana.     

DOGS, 'WATER' AND WALL

1 Sam 25 describes David and Nabal on a collision course diffused by Nabal's wife Abigail. Had she not been successful, David would not have left ''a single one who urinates against a wall'' (25,22.34). The phrase also appears a number of times in 1-2 Kgs. Much has been written about this phrase either in reference to dogs or male humans, but very little scholarship has discussed it in terms of canine realia. We intend to re-examine all of the verses and will attempt to show that some of the later Rabbinic commentary was sensitive to canine realia and maybe of help in determining the meaning of the phrase.     

Preliminary Analysis of the Hull of the Roman Ship from Grado, Gorizia, Italy

The hull of the Roman wreck at Grado has been partially preserved under the cargo of amphoras. The right side presents a rare evidence of a section of the waterway. The ship has been assembled by mortise-and-tenon technique following a shell-first conception. All the frames, except one, are of pine while planking is either of pine and elm. Some strakes, of larix , are a repair made by patch-tenons; a wale shows an other kind of repair. Various signs left by the shipwright are on the hull. In the stern area, a box of wooden elements had to protect a 'hydraulic system'.
© 2006 The Authors     

Life and death at precolumbian Lavoutte,Saint Lucia,Lesser Antilles

Abstract

The Caribbean archaeological record requires immediate attention and protection. Development and natural forces have impacted archaeological sites, destroying or severely damaging them. The precolumbian site of Lavoutte, located in northern Saint Lucia, has been known as a major Late Ceramic Age (a.d. 1000–1500) settlement since the 1960s, but it has been damaged over the past decades by both natural and human processes. Multidisciplinary field and laboratory methodologies were implemented during a rescue project at the site from 2009 to 2010. This paper presents the results of collaborative efforts between local and international organizations. The first goal was to demonstrate the importance of protection and rescue of endangered archaeological sites. Secondly, we aimed to show that by adopting a multidisciplinary approach including artifact analysis, bioarchaeology, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and geochemistry, severely damaged sites can be of significant informational value.     

Nitrates,water and salt: maintaining the fertility of agriculture

Abstract

The fertility of the soil depends on an ample supply of nitrogen compounds and on a variety of other nutrients and trace elements. The supply of nitrates by natural means has posed a limit to productivity since the inception of agriculture, and the avoidance of soil salination has been a necessity in many environments. Since the invention of an industrial process for fixing atmospheric nitrogen (the Haber process), there has been an ample supply of nitrates in the form of chemical fertilisers, capable of sustaining agriculture worldwide, and enabling it to feed the burgeoning human population. The growth in agricultural supply has been attributable, in the second half of the twentieth century, to the combined agency of hybrid crop species, chemical fertilisers and irrigation. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the problem of soil salination is limiting this growth and threatening to reverse it.     

Globalisation,soft power,and the rise of football in China

Sport, especially football, has rapidly acquired global cultural, commercial, and also political prominence. China recently and belatedly has sought to acquire international recognition in sport and participate in global development by linking soft power, national status, and football. Market principles have been adopted, football clubs are owned by wealthy corporations, partly directed by government, and expensive coaches and players have been transferred from Europe. Conversely, Chinese corporations have invested in European football clubs. State plans are oriented to success in the World Cup and the adoption of the ‘world game’ throughout the nation, but cannot easily be implemented from above in a team sport with weak ‘grassroots’. Successfully developing the ‘people's game’ in the People's Republic has proved difficult. In this sporting arena, soft power has been limited because of domestic and international failings.     

ARCHAEOLOGY, ECONOMICS AND EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE

This paper assesses the contribution Richard Hodges has made to the archaeological study of the early medieval economy. After a review of methodology, three themes are considered: reciprocal exchange; the emporia; and regions and markets. The nature of exchange may be more complex, and more difficult to characterise, than Hodges allows. It is argued that the role of the king in exchange has been exaggerated, particularly with regard to Dorestad, while the extent to which inland regions and inland ports were involved in exchange may have been underestimated; this has led to a false appreciation of the emporia. Further work is needed to characterise the economy of the regions of early medieval Europe.