Geochemical provenience of 16th–19th century C.E. Asian ceramics from Torres Strait,northeast Australia

Existing insights into the history of southeast Asian contacts with northern Australia prior to British colonization in 1788 are limited to Macassan visitors and the trepang industry beginning in the early 18th century and perhaps 16th century. Neither historical nor archaeological evidence indicate extension of such contacts to Torres Strait of northeast Australia. To shed further light on this issue, a collection of 16 Asian ceramic sherds surface collected and excavated recently from the islands of Pulu and Mabuyag in Torres Strait were compared to a large database of Southeast and East Asian stoneware jars that are well characterised, elementally, typologically and chronologically. This comparison matched a number of sherds with two jar types with likely production origins in Thailand and southern China. While the surface collected sherds from Pulu sourced to Thailand date probably to the 19th century, the small glazed sherd from Mabuyag island is typical of a southern Chinese decorated jar type dating to c. 1500–1600 C.E. This Chinese sherd is the earliest known Asian artefact in Australia and parallels recent archaeological evidence on the antiquity of contacts between Macassan trepangers and Aboriginal Australians. It is unknown if the Chinese sherd came ashore to Mabuyag through direct contact with Asian traders or from a nearby shipwreck through salvage.     

Service or Benefice? Officeholders in Poland and Sweden of the seventeenth century

Exploring the differential structures of social and political power in early modern Europe, this paper examines the contrasting experiences of Poland and Sweden by focusing on the growth of civil office in each country. Central to the study is an understanding of the books of disciplinary regulation imposed on office holders, and how and why these measures were enforced. As the author illustrates, the two case studies give very different conclusions. In Sweden, as exemplified in the trial of leading members of the Swedish Council in 1680, the holder of civic office was constrained by a ‘corset of bureaucratic routine’. Strict, and widely enforced, rules governed activities such as office hours, dress and rates of remuneration. In contrast, Polish office holders pursued appointments not in the name of civic efficiency but to grasp social and political privilege. At the end of the article Kopczyński discusses some of the factors involved in these differences, laying emphasis on the structures of political and military power in each state.     

Blood,Mud and Futility? Patrick MacGill and the Experience of the Great War

Despite a growing body of detailed studies of key aspects of the Great War, there remains a dominant image of the war as a major tragedy in which the idealism of a generation of young men was exploited by their incompetent and callous elders and out of which there emerged a profound disillusionment and rejection of past values. Such an interpretation rests on the evidence of a small, and untypical, number of ‘soldier-writers’. By exploring the contemporaneous writings of a relatively unknown figure, Patrick MacGill, this article offers an alternative perspective that recognises both the well-known horrors of the Great War but also the persistence of certain ‘heroic’ values that have been misleadingly obscured by the well-known retrospective accounts of the war.

Résumé:?Malgré de nombreuses études détaillées sur la grande guerre, une image domine qui présente le conflit comme le tombeau des idéalismes et dont ne sortiraient que la désillusion et le rejet des valeurs du passé. Bien des éléments de cette interprétation dépendent des écrits de quelques auteurs atypiques. Une lecture de Patrick MacGill permet de voir en son contexte la persistance des valeurs héroïques de la grande guerre souvent minimisées par la suite.     

Aranda,Arrernte or Arrarnta? The Politics of Orthography and Identity on the Upper Finke River

The Aboriginal people of the Upper Finke River in central Australia have followed a literacy tradition for over 130 years. When the first Lutheran missionaries arrived, they immediately started to study the local Arandic language and were teaching reading and writing by 1879. Despite this long exposure to literacy and the Lutheran influence on it, the issue of the right orthography for this Arandic language variety is emotionally charged and politically very contested. In this post‐colonial context, orthography has become a sociocultural and symbolic, rather than a phonemic, matter.     

Cattle herds and banana gardens: the historical geography of the western Great Lakes region,ca AD 800–1500

This paper discusses the importance of economic specializations in banana farming and cattle pastoralism in eastern Africa's Great Lakes region. I present comparative linguistic evidence for the careers of these two socially and economically important food sources. Next, I review some recent archaeological work on pastoralism and Later Iron Age pottery traditions. A final section considers some of the forces that shaped the choices of some Lakes Africans to take up more intensive forms of banana farming and/or pastoralism.

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Résumé Cet article discute de l'importance des spécialisations économiques dans la culture de la banane et l'élevage du bétail dans la région des grands lacs d'Afrique orientale. J'y présente des témoignages linguistiques comparatifs sur les trajectoires de ces deux sources alimentaires socialement et économiquement importantes. Ensuite, j'examine des travaux archéologiques récents sur l'élevage et les traditions de la poterie de la fin de l'âge de fer. Une dernière section étudie certaines des forces qui ont orienté le choix par certains africains de la région des lacs d'adopter des formes plus intensives de culture de la banane et/ou d'élevage.

     

Useful work for idle hands or a brightening and elevating influence? The introduction of the Brabazon Employment Scheme to Glasgow’s public institutions in the late 19th century

Women’s ability to effect changes in welfare policy during the later workings of the new Poor Law has been presented as a ‘marginal influence’ within past historiography. This perspective is contested in recent empirical work, which argues for a more positive view of female agency. The Brabazon Employment Scheme was a charitable initiative, which occupied the poor unable to take part in the routine work of public institutions. Findings from its operation in Glasgow demonstrate how women drew upon philanthropic experience as well as elected positions in the management of institutions to secure the scheme’s introduction in these settings. While the initiative originated in the English workhouses, local women extended the Brabazon activities to address gaps in welfare provision for asylum patients. In doing so, the article shows how organised charity continued to function as an avenue of support for the poor alongside municipal relief into the early 20th century.     

Ascetic or affluent? Byzantine diet at the monastic community of St. Stephen’s,Jerusalem from stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios from bone collagen in skeletons from the Byzantine (5th–7th century AD) monastery of St. Stephen’s in Jerusalem were examined in conjunction with a review of historical sources detailing dietary practices during this period in the Levant. Relatively low δ¹³C ratios (−19.0 ± 0.5‰, 1σ) indicate a diet consisting primarily of C₃ sources and display continuity with textual records describing monastic daily life. Conversely, human δ¹⁵N values (9.6 ± 1.2‰, 1σ) are enriched in ¹⁵N relative to local fauna (7.3 ± 1.1‰, 1σ) and point to the contribution of animal protein to the diet, an unexpected result based on both the rarity and expense of these luxury food items as well as dietary prohibitions associated with an ascetic monastic lifestyle. No sex-based differences in diet were detected for either δ¹³C or δ¹⁵N values, suggesting that men and women consumed isotopically similar foods. As the vast majority of monastic communities in the ancient Near East were located in the desert, the urban setting of St. Stephen’s monastery allows for a unique glimpse into a rarely-explored facet of Byzantine life.