Mesowear as a means of determining diets in African antelopes

Analysis of dental mesowear is a useful tool to examine dietary strategies in ungulates, and provides a palaeoenvironmental proxy at archaeological and palaeontological sites. We examine the distribution of traditional qualitative mesowear variables amongst 33 species of extant African antelope. We also examine the relationship of our dataset with the original dataset of Fortelius and Solounias (2000). We find that confining mesowear analyses to antelope species alone reduces their discriminating power relative to that found in analyses using a broader range of taxa. Variability in mesowear scores along the toothrow suggest that different teeth do not wear equivalently over an individual’s life-time, so it is important to confine comparisons to individual tooth positions for palaeodietary classifications. Mesowear scores from the third upper molar were found to have the greatest discriminating power. Frugivores displayed unique mesowear signatures, suggesting that this trophic guild should be taken into consideration separately in future mesowear analyses. These results have implications which can improve the application and the discriminatory power of mesowear analyses for the determination of the palaeodiets of extinct taxa, and, by extension, their palaeoenvironments.     

Petrography as a technique for investigating Iroquoian ceramic production and smoking rituals

Petrographic data and macroscopic observations are used to examine some of the social contexts and functional considerations underlying the production of pottery containers and smoking pipes at Antrex, a Middle Ontario Iroquoian village site located in southern Ontario. Results suggest that while pottery was produced by small groups of people for widespread consumption within the community, pipes were made by individuals for their own personal use. Overall, this research supports the hypothesis that by the beginning of the Late Woodland period, a shift away from communal ritual practices led by ritual specialists or shamans had occurred. Smoking might have, in some contexts, become a solitary religious experience.     

The anthropologist as historian and as scientist,or the uses of history

Margaret T. Hodgen. Anthropology, History, and Cultural Change. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology No. 52. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974. vii + 108 pp. Tables, maps, references, and index. $4.50 (paper).

Annemarie deWaal Malefijt. Images of Man: A History of Anthropological Thought. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. ix + 383 pp. Bibliography and index. $10.00 (cloth); $3.50 (paper).     

以党员先进性教育活动为契机积极探索流动党员教育管理的新机制

流动党员的教育和管理问题是新形势下党建工作面临的一个突出课题。如何针对流动党员形成的特点和规律,积极探索加强流动党员教育和管理工作的新机制,不仅是各级党组织肩负的重要责任,也是加强党的执政能力建设和先进性建设、巩固党的执政基础以及加强党的基层组织建设的迫切要求。     

Thermoluminescence dates for the Middle Palaeolithic site of Chez-Pinaud Jonzac (France)

Thermoluminescence dating of heated flint artefacts from the Middle Palaeolithic sequence of Chez-Pinaud Jonzac (France) places an assemblage of Quina type Mousterian into MIS 4, while the overlying assemblage of Denticulate Mousterian which is followed by two layers with Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition are all assigned to MIS 3. TL dating is used to verify the mixed nature of deposits from which diagnostic Middle as well as Upper Palaeolithic tools were recovered. The TL ages are significantly different for samples from this layer and broadly agree with the archaeological attributions. While the study is generally limited by the low number of heated samples available, a correlation with a generalized chronostratigraphic sequence is possible by including proxy data from the faunal remains associated with the lithic assemblages in question. The Quina Mousterian in southwestern France, therefore, can be placed by chronometric dating methods in MIS 4 to MIS 3.     

Millet cultivation history in the French Alps as evidenced by a sedimentary molecule

We report on the detection, in a sediment core drilled in Lake Le Bourget (French Alps), of a fossil molecule (miliacin) that was synthesized by broomcorn millet cultivated in the watershed, and then exported to the sediment. The variation in abundance of this molecule allows us reconstructing the history of millet cultivation around Lake Le Bourget. Our results support the introduction of millet around −1700 BC in the region. After an intensive cultivation during the Late Bronze Age, the failure of millet cropping during the Hallstatt period coincides with a phase of climatic deterioration. Millet cultivation recovers during the Roman and Mediaeval periods before falling most probably due to the introduction of more productive cereals. These pioneering results constitute the first continuous record of an agrarian activity covering the last 6000 years and emphasize the close relationships between local hydrology, land use and agro-pastoral activities around Lake Le Bourget.     

Households as units of analysis in history and anthropology

Netting, Robert McC., Richard R. Wilk, and Eric J. Arnould, eds. Households: Comparative and Historical Studies of the Domestic Group. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. xxxviii + 480 pp. including list of contributors, individual chapter references, index. $34.95 cloth, $14.95 paper.     

The correspondence between Élisée Reclus and Pëtr Kropotkin as a source for the history of geography

The State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) contains a corpus of around one hundred letters sent by Élisée Reclus to Pëtr Kropotkin between 1882 and 1905. The correspondence is mainly concerned with their geographical works, notably the collaboration of Kropotkin with the Nouvelle Géographie Universelle (1876-1894) and the Brussels edition of Kropotkin’s Orographie de la Sibérie (1904), edited by Reclus. In this paper, we deal first with the importance of this source: it is an example of the material work of a network of geographers who were at the same time the founders of the international anarchist movement. We suggest the correspondence falls into two parts: the first period (1882-1886) when Reclus was in exile in Switzerland after the Paris Commune of 1871, and Kropotkin was in prison in France; and the second period (1888-1905) when the two anarchist geographers discuss the role of geographical education, historical geography in Europe and its part in the globalisation of their era. The archive also contains significant evidence of their relationships with British geography: Kropotkin lived in London and joined the Royal Geographical Society and was on familiar terms with leading Fellows, such as John Scott Keltie and Halford Mackinder. The paper addresses the significance of the correspondence for understanding the relationships between geography, politics and public education, and the role of these heterodox geographers in the construction of geographical knowledge. The paper is accompanied by the publication, for the first time, of an edited selection of the letters.     

A graduates and employers database system as a strategic resource for geography departments

Abstract

With greater competition in the mass higher education market in the UK, each institution will have to stimulate and promote greater interaction between itself and the world outside if it is to compete successfully. Presently, such interaction occurs for a variety of reasons, at many different levels and over different time scales. This paper proposes an approach to fostering greater interaction at departmental level through a network of former graduates in geography and their employers. It describes the concept of a graduates and employers database system (GEDS) and outlines how such a system should become a key resource for strategic management and planning in geography departments.     

论科学发展观的时代性与前瞻性

科学发展观具有正确的哲学前提、科学的理论渊源、坚实的实践基础和广阔的应用前景,完全符合人类发展的共同意愿,是指引中国未来发展的重要指导思想。     

Evaluation of treated and un-treated Nubia Sandstone using ultrasonic as a non-destructive technique

Deterioration factors, both “exogenous” and “endogenous”, are major sources of damaging monumental stones in Egypt. In the current study, the change state of one of the major Egyptian stones (Nubia Sandstone) is investigated and evaluated before and after consolidation by the use of wave velocity as a new method for detecting its elasticity modulus. Wave velocity propagation (Vp) is one of the most important and effective methods for estimating the durability of monumental stones without using any other harmful method as a compressive strength. This technique is usually used for a number of purposes, the first of which is the qualification of masonry building through its morphology and detection of internal defects (e.g. voids and cracks). The second is the examination of the changes of material physical properties, and the control conservation procedures. Third, it is used with some samples of Nubia sandstone for a laboratory test. The study concludes that the durability of samples increases due to the increase of material compacting as a direct result of using consolidant materials. Using the Vp as a non-destructive technique in examining monumental materials gives the same results of other harmful techniques.