The magdalenian in Western Central Europe: Settlement pattern and regionality

Magdalenian material from northern Switzerland, southwestern and southeastern Germany, the middle Rhine, and central Germany is examined for differences among these geographical areas. Several regional features, including a broad range of archaeological data, can be identified and indicate two regional groupings, a southwestern and a northeastern. The first includes sites from central Germany and the middle Rhine, while the second includes northern Switzerland and southwestern Germany. The southeastern German sites cannot be firmly placed within this pattern because of the insecure data base. The main differences are in prey species, hunting and settlement patterns, and some characteristics of the mobile art. The comparison does not allow a finer separation, although the two regional groups could probably be subdivided into smaller geographical units. Alternative explanations are discussed and further avenues of research are proposed.     

Middle pleistocene adaptations in Central Europe

The biological evolution documented in the fossil and archaeological record of Central Europe between about 700,000 and 100,000 years ago reflects the transition fromHomo erectus to the earliestHomo sapiens. These populations created different types of industries, ranging from assemblages of small artifacts and industries with simple pebble tools to standardized units such as the Evolved Acheulean and the Early Mousterian. The industries of the Last Interglacial (Taubachian) show some regression in technological standardization and a reappearance of small artifacts. Other aspects of cultural adaptation (settlements, dwellings, hunting activity, symbolic and aesthetic expressions) are also summarized. It is suggested that the impact of climate and climatic changes on human settlement and behavior was greater in Central Europe (where two glaciations advanced from both north and south) than in the Mediterranean and Western Europe. The general trend of cultural veolution was toward greater technological and social complexity, but its course was not unilinear.     

Liberalism and cultural claims in Central and Eastern Europe: toward a pluralist balance†

ABSTRACT. This article relies on cases from new EU member states in postcommunist Europe to integrate two overlapping debates about majority–minority relations. Since the Second World War, political theorists and international institutions have tended to discourage group‐rights approaches in favour of individual rights; meanwhile, policy‐makers who achieved interethnic peace in postcommunist Europe have often opted for group‐rights approaches. On the basis of political theory, international norms and the conduct of political elites in this region, we argue that both the individual‐rights and group‐rights approaches can be differentiated internally along the dimension of pluralism – that is, their willingness to accommodate multiple processes of cultural reproduction. Moreover, both group‐rights and individual‐rights approaches can offer justifications for restricting minority cultural opportunities; furthermore, restrictive group‐rights approaches sometimes cloak their efforts behind ‘Western‐sounding’ individual‐rights rhetoric. Likewise, both group‐rights and individual‐rights approaches can permit group accommodation that can lead to political integration. We find that de facto pluralist approaches to minority accommodation – often spearheaded by moderate parties of the majority in coalition with minority‐group parties – encourage ethnic peace, regardless of their foundation in individual or group rights.     

The Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition in Southeastern Central Europe (Czechoslovakia and Hungary)

Southeastern Central Europe is quite rich in finds of progressive Neandertals from Middle Paleolithic contexts and early modern humans associated with evolved Upper Paleolithic (Aurignacian and Pavlovian). There are no human fossils that can be related to the transitional Middle-Upper Paleolithic units (the Bohunician and the Szeletian); thus, from anthropology we know only that the transitional period began with Neandertals and ended with modern humans. The archaeological record is more complex. The Jankovichian industries of Hungary differ from the mostly non-Levallois Middle Paleolithic of Central Europe in the presence of some Levallois; they seem to be technologically related to the Levallois-Leptolithic Bohunician industries of Moravia, dated to 43,000–38,000 B.P., which are the first transitional Upper Paleolithic unit. The appearance of the Szeletian before 42,000 B.P. in Hungary and at about 39,000 in Moravia represents a technological variation of the transition, although retaining marked local Middle Paleolithic elements. The date of the appearance of the typical Aurignacian, the first culture clearly related to modern humans, is unclear, but it certainly developed after 36,000 B.P. and has several dates between 35,000 and 30,000 B.P.     

Mechanisms Shaping the Transition to Farming in Europe and the North American Woodland

Despite the fact that Europe and Eastern North America both have similar woodland environments, the emergence of agriculture in these areas proceeded very differently varying in timing, speed, and mechanism. To analyze the different subsistence paths the Global Land Use and Technological Evolution Simulator was used, a numerical model for simulating demography, innovation, domestication, migration and trade within the geoenvironmental context. I demonstrate how Europe receives a large package of foreign domesticates and converts rapidly. In contrast, trajectories relating to Eastern North America exhibit a gradual transition in which hunting and gathering and agropastoralism coexist for a long period of time, and agriculture is integrated slowly into the existing subsistence scheme. I deduce from this a qualitative economic difference in the two regional transitions: limited population size in Europe, limited resources in Eastern North America.     

The changing identity of the Central European city: the case of Katowice

The issue of diverse identities imprinted on the urban landscape as the result of political changes and the struggle for power between different social and ethnic groups is analysed here using the example of Katowice, the capital and largest urban centre in Upper Silesia, Poland. Basing their conclusions on systematic investigation of the most important changes and features in the cityscape in five clearly distinct historical periods, the authors explore the conditions and mechanisms of the creation of the city’s symbolic landscape and its links with urban identity. They argue that Katowice represents a peculiar model of urban identity formation in Central and Eastern Europe that has to date not been researched in any depth, in which each successive historical period represents a rupture with the foregoing values and ideas and an attempt to make a new, lasting imprint on the material outlook of the city. The development of such a model of identity is the result of the complex interplay between the city’s changing geopolitical context and its economic and functional development path.     

The transition to farming in Eastern and Northern Europe

This paper presents a general survey of the transition to farming in Eastern and Northern Europe, approached within the framework of the availability model and treated from the perspective of local (Mesolithic) hunting and gathering communities. We argue that in Eastern and Northern Europe, the transition to farming was a slow process, which occurred through the adoption of exogenous cultigens and domesticates by the local hunter-gatherer populations, who may have been already engaged in some form of husbandry of the local resources. Contact and exchange with the Neolithic and later Bronze Age of Central Europe had a profound and prolonged influence on the process of the adoption of farming in Eastern and Northern Europe. During the slow process of transition, mixed hunting-farming societies emerged, which could be regarded as having a characteristic social and economic organization of their own (i.e., neither Mesolithic nor Neolithic). In conclusion, we argue for continuity in population and in social and economic traditions from the hunter-gatherer past until recent antiquity and, in some areas, into the historical period.     

Reexamining transport poverty,job access,and gender issues in Central and Eastern Europe

Tirana, the Balkan capital examined in this study, displays patterns of gendered job search behavior and access, which are unique within contemporary Europe and even within post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe. Here, it is a rather spatially constricted job search range rather than transport poverty that prevents women living in first-ring suburbs from attaining satisfactory employment. Female commutes are extraordinarily short and most often on foot. While the city now has nearly one million inhabitants and a high car ownership rate, and is located in Europe, the employment and mobility choices and behaviors of its female residents resemble those in developing rather than developed countries, and in small rather than large cities. The reasons underpinning this situation have more to do with socio-cultural gender barriers and less with transport poverty or labor market weaknesses. This finding might apply to other Balkan capitals or cities outside Europe, which have recently experienced large waves of internal migration and where both existing residents and newcomers have not yet adjusted to ‘big city’ life.     

移民网络与侨乡跨国移民分析——以青田人移民欧洲为例

介绍了移民网络理论,并运用移民网络理论分析了侨乡青田移民网络的形成、特点、演变、运作机制、发展趋势及其对移民潮的影响,认为移民网络是青田移民的主要途径,是侨乡的重要社会资本之一,也是侨乡移民潮得以延续的重要原因。移民的发生、方向、过程和持续都是由移出地和移入地社会、政治、经济结构的历史条件促成的,当条件产生变化,移民雪球滚动的速度自然会发生变化,或加速,或减速,甚至停滞。     

A resampling approach to gender relations: the Rebešovice cemetery

Early Bronze Age society in Central Europe is often depicted as a society dominated by males. It is suggested that archaeological evidence is not always in agreement with this view. This study reports the analysis of mortuary variability at the Early Bronze cemetery Rebešovice in Moravia (Czech Republic) that uses computer-intensive resampling techniques. The results indicate that there are only minor differences in the mortuary treatment of females and males. There is neither a qualitative restriction of body treatment and objects buried with males, nor a quantitative emphasis on burials of males. In fact, burials of females are equipped with a higher number of bronze artifacts. Funerals of females were at least as significant social events as the funerals of males. We argue that the model of a male dominated community that used this cemetery is unwarranted. These findings do not refute the existence of gender-specific activities and roles that may be valued differently, but instead suggest that both females and males had access to resources from which they could draw power.     

The spread of Neolithic plant economies from the Near East to northwest Europe: a phylogenetic analysis

Phylogenetic techniques are used to analyse the spread of Neolithic plant economies from the Near East to northwest Europe as a branching process from a founding ancestor. The analyses are based on a database of c. 7500 records of plant taxa from 250 sites dated to the early Neolithic of the region in which they occur, aggregated into a number of regional groups. The analysis demonstrates that a phylogenetic signal exists in the data but it is complicated by the fact that in comparison with the changes that occurred when the crop agriculture complex expanded out of the Near East, once it arrived in Europe it underwent only limited further changes. On the basis of the analysis it has been possible to identify the species losses and gains that occurred as the complex of crops and associated weeds spread and to show the influence of geographical location and cultural affinity on the pattern of losses and gains. This has led to consideration of the processes producing that history, including some reasons why the dispersal process did not produce a perfect tree phylogeny, as well as to the identification of some specific anomalies, such as the unusual nature of the Bulgarian pattern, which raise further questions for the future.     

The Origins of the Neolithic Along the Atlantic Coast of Continental Europe: A Survey

The main aim of this work is to compare the processes of transition to the Neolithic along the Atlantic coasts of continental Europe. Archaeological data on the late Mesolithic and the early Neolithic in the best known regions (central and southern Portugal, Cantabrian Spain, Atlantic France, the shores of the North Sea, and southern Scandinavia) are discussed. The transition to the Neolithic in Atlantic Europe can be viewed as a relatively late phenomenon, with several interesting particularities. Among those, we point out the fundamentally indigenous character of the processes; the existence of a long availability phase, in which hunter-gatherer groups maintained contact with neighboring agriculturalists and probably were familiar with farming and animal husbandry without applying them in a systematic way; and the later development of megalithic monumental funerary architecture. Finally, the main hypotheses so far proposed to explain the change are contrasted with the available evidence: those that argue that the change derives from economic disequilibrium, and those that opt for the development of social inequality as the fundamental cause.     

隔洋情怀：欧洲的东南亚华裔与海洋亚洲

在上世纪内,因东南亚国家时事风云变幻,先后有大约20万华人华裔从东南亚移居欧洲,他们构成了欧洲外来移民群体中一个独具特色的次级群体。本文追溯该群体的迁移历程,剖析其群体特征,并以其穿行在多元化世界的生活状况为个案,结合流散族群理论,探讨与当代某些跨境移民共生的跨国主义文化特点。     

EUROPEAN BRIEFING: The Transition to Environmental Agriculture in Europe: Learning Processes and Knowledge Networks

Environmental policies in agriculture have now been fully incorporated into policy throughout Europe both within and outside of the European Union. One of the cornerstones to the successful implementation of these policies is both the willingness and ability of farmers to implement them. Many actors influence both the formulation and implementation of such policies, from governments, through pressure groups and the agricultural knowledge networks (AKNs) in various countries, to farmers themselves. In assessing the principal objectives of all of these actors, it can be seen that none has environmental goals as their principal objective, and the development of policies is thus both difficult and a residual priority. This situation is likely to be ameliorated not through a focus on more effective policy instruments for agri-environmental polices, but through adjustments of administrative structures for both their development and in carrying them out.     

Exchange Rate Policy and Economic Growth after the Financial Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe

In a paper on the effects of the global financial crisis in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), a European Union economist reacts to a companion paper (Åslund, 2001) published in the same issue of Eurasian Geography and Economics on the influence of exchange rate policies on the region's recovery. The author argues that post-crisis corrections in current account deficits in CEE countries do not in themselves signal a return to steady economic growth. Disagreeing with Åslund over the role of loose monetary policy in fostering the region's economic problems, he outlines a number of competitiveness problems that remain to be addressed in the 10 new EU member states of CEE, along with improvements in framework conditions supporting future macroeconomic growth.     

The birth of a united Europe: on why the EU has generated a ‘non‐emotional’ identity

ABSTRACT. In several respects, the European Union (EU) represents both a novel system of quasi‐supranational governance and a novel form of political community or polity. But it is also a relatively fragile construction: it remains a community still in the making with an incipient sense of identity, within which powerful forces are at work. This article has three main aims. Firstly, to analyse the reasons and key ideas that prompted a selected elite to construct a set of institutions and treaties destined to unite European nations in such a way that the mere idea of a ‘civil war’ among them would become impossible. Secondly, to examine the specific top‐down processes that led to the emergence of a united Europe and the subsequent emergence of the EU, thus emphasising the constant distance between the elites and the masses in the development of the European project. Finally, to explain why the EU has generated what I call a ‘non‐emotional’ identity, radically different from the emotionally charged and still prevailing national identities present in its member states.     

区域史研究的考察——以中亚史为例

地区史或区域史的研究应是世界史研究的一部分。在全球化的今天,世界历史的研究,既应是跨区域跨文化的综合整体研究,同时又是各个地区或区域研究的深入。在地区史研究中,地理上的划分是否能够提供一个满意体系,一直存有疑窦,而中亚史研究中更突出地存在着地理划分的争议。事实上,每一部有关中亚的著作都有自己的地理界定,不同的界定又体现出作者对自己所研究的地区的理解和期望,划定地域界限,就是确定、分析、重建,从而选择和采纳某种历史哲学。国内中亚区域史的研究,起步较晚,很大程度地受语言因素的制约,因此,在一些具体研究领域上,与国际最高水准还有不同程度的差距。     

Institutionalization of Islam in Secular Europe: The Influence of State–Religion Relations on Anti‐Muslim Attitudes

This study examines church–state relations in Europe, and analyzes their influence on anti‐immigrant attitudes. The literature explains this relationship primarily with religious demographics, or state privileges for the majority faith. Alternately, this study focuses on the status of the majority religion. It argues that, in countries with a national church, citizens are more likely to consider the institutionalization of a new religion to be occurring at the expense of the national heritage, and react negatively. To test that hypothesis, the study focuses on Muslim immigrants in Europe, and builds an index that gauges the extent to which European states institutionalize Islam. Then, employing multilevel regression analysis, it investigates how the institutionalization of Islam influences anti‐Muslim prejudice in different contexts of church–state regimes. Individual‐level data come from the latest wave of the European Values Study, and cover 31 countries. Findings indicate that, in European countries with a national church, institutionalization of Islam increases anti‐Muslim prejudice. In countries without a national church, however, institutionalization leads to tolerance. These results confirm the continuing relevance of religion on the national level in Europe, despite the decline in individual religiosity.