Palestinian Water: Resources,Use, Conservation,Climate Change,and Land Use

This article addresses the future of freshwater resources in the Palestinian West Bank through a discussion of contemporary issues that each plays a vital role in determining the long‐term sustainability of freshwater reserves, such as water resource availability, trans‐boundary water issues, water reuse and conservation, changes in land use, and the potential impact of climate change on long‐term water management. Climate change and changing land use patterns are already altering this region's water resources. Future predictions regarding the long‐term effects of these changes are complex and therefore inherently uncertain. However, the consensus among most studies on this subject indicates that currently water‐poor regions such as the Middle East will experience even greater water stress in the future. Nearly all of the freshwater consumed in the West Bank is obtained from local groundwater supplies that are suffering overdraft as well as decreasing water quality. Climate change will exacerbate water stress by increasing overall temperatures, decreasing and fluctuating precipitation, and reducing overall aquifer replenishment. Expanding urbanization will continue to strain freshwater supplies by negatively impacting the quality and quantity of available freshwater. Water management in the West Bank is further complicated by total Israeli control over water resources, which often causes water delivery to Palestinians in this region to be marginalized. This article finds that Palestinian and Israeli water managers must plan for future water crises, which will likely be a result of the combined effects of increasing urbanization and climate change coupled with exponential population growth.     

Fences, Boats and Teas: Engendering Patient Lives at Peel Island Lazaret

Within institutions, a separate social world comes into existence. Gender is a crucial shaper of relations in this new world, defining status, relationships to others and personal identity. Understanding the gendered conditions of, and responses to, institutional care is an important social contribution of historical archaeology to contemporary society. Research on the Peel Island Lazaret in Moreton Bay, Queensland, uses a model for engendering archaeology, with modifications pertinent to historical archaeology. Analysis builds on the work of others who have investigated the ways in which men and women of the confined and confining classes experienced institutions and interacted with each other. This study also extends beyond these approaches in exploring the areas of “interpersonal agency” and relationship building, and the ways in which disadvantage minimization was mediated by the structuring principle of gender.     

Early evidence of complexity in lithic economy: core-axe production,hafting and use at Late Middle Pleistocene site 8-B-11, Sai Island (Sudan)

Wear analysis indicates that Sangoan core-axes from site 8-B-11 at Sai Island, Sudan, were used while hafted. The middle Sangoan occupation level at 8-B-11 served as a locale where specialized activities were performed, including core-axe manufacture and hafting. Newly manufactured quartz core-axes served as replacements for exhausted items that were mostly fabricated out of raw materials other than quartz, which were carried back to the site in their hafts for re-tooling. The hafted core-axes appear as highly mobile, curated tools, being transported across a large territory. The evidence indicates that the Sangoan is the archaeological reflection of a complex behavioural system involving economic specialization, which appeared in this part of Africa for the first time around 200 ka ago.     

The Changing Face of Neolithic and Bronze Age Ireland: A Big Data Approach to the Settlement and Burial Records

This paper synthesizes and discusses the spatial and temporal patterns of archaeological sites in Ireland, spanning the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age transition (4300–1900 cal BC), in order to explore the timing and implications of the main changes that occurred in the archaeological record of that period. Large amounts of new data are sourced from unpublished developer-led excavations and combined with national archives, published excavations and online databases. Bayesian radiocarbon models and context- and sample-sensitive summed radiocarbon probabilities are used to examine the dataset. The study captures the scale and timing of the initial expansion of Early Neolithic settlement and the ensuing attenuation of all such activity—an apparent boom-and-bust cycle. The Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods are characterised by a resurgence and diversification of activity. Contextualisation and spatial analysis of radiocarbon data reveals finer-scale patterning than is usually possible with summed-probability approaches: the boom-and-bust models of prehistoric populations may, in fact, be a misinterpretation of more subtle demographic changes occurring at the same time as cultural change and attendant differences in the archaeological record.     

“吃讲茶”:成都茶馆、袍哥与地方政治空间

作为公共空间的茶馆成为袍哥的活动中心,他们在那里联络、聚集和开会,成为袍哥社会网络的一个重要部分。袍哥在茶馆里活动形成了他们独特的语言和行为,"摆茶碗阵"便是他们经常使用的联络方法。茶馆作为地方政治空间可以表现在很多方面,不过,"吃讲茶"仍然是最为典型和最具代表性的活动,这个实践显示了市民的相对自治状态,他们试图在没有官方介入的情况下解决冲突,说明一种国家之外社会力量的存在。     

Coarse Earthenware at the Dutch Colonial Cape of Good Hope, South Africa: A History of Local Production and Typology of Products

Coarse earthenware production at the Dutch East India Company (VOC) Cape settlement began shortly after the Company established its mercantile entrepôt on the shores of Table Bay in 1652. Made by European Company potters, these vessels reproduced the forms of the homeland in the raw materials of the colony. A history of VOC pottery manufacture and a typological examination of the products illustrates how the global movements of mercantile capitalism combined with the local circumstances of the Cape settlement to create a material form reminiscent of Europe, but purely colonial in the dynamics of its production and use.     

The Role of Culture and Technology in Civil Society Promotion in the Middle East: A Case Study Approach

For over a decade, the U.S. administration has been sponsoring capacity‐building efforts focusing on technology to support democracy activists in Middle Eastern societies; such efforts have often fallen short in their effectiveness. In this article, using a case study approach, we argue that capacity‐building efforts must be approached in a culture‐specific manner. It is imperative to begin exploring the specific nature of civil society in different Middle Eastern societies and translate the Western concept of “civil society” into terms appropriate to Middle Eastern contexts. Based on a culture‐specific understanding, programs involving technology to promote democratic institutions in Middle Eastern societies can be designed.     

The European Policy on Water Use at the Urban Level in the Context of the Water Framework Directive. Effectiveness,Appropriateness and Efficiency

The current European policy on water resources use in cities is undergoing radical reform in an attempt to confront the water quality problems and the dramatically intensified water scarcity. Among the most elaborate documents concerning current water policy is the Water Framework Directive (WFD), which spells out the targets of water policy at the European level. The confrontation of water scarcity, deterioration in quality, and the reduction in costs of the water supply industry emerge as decisive principles of the new European policy on water use in cities. These targets are currently assimilated in the agendas of national water policies in almost all European countries. To achieve these objectives several policy instruments have been applied in Europe. The more prevailing instruments are: demand management, privatization of water companies and efficient/full cost pricing of water use. The present article aims at systematically evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the current water policy for urban systems, by examining the coherence of its instruments as well as their appropriateness for achieving the policy's targets. To start with, the paper presents an elementary economic analysis of the current water policy. The effects of the most common policy instruments are systematically traced in the framework of economic analysis. Next, three indicative case cities are presented and examined. As it turns out, however, the results of the implementation of the main instruments are contradictory. This drastically reduces the effectiveness of the water policy. We indicate that these contradictory effects are inherent in the water policy and originate in the lack of appropriate social processes and institutions for the management of natural resources.     

Late Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic Evidence from the East European Plain and Caucasus: A New Look at Variability,Interactions, and Transitions

This paper presents analyses of Late Middle Paleolithic (LMP) and Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) material from the East European Plain and Caucasus. Late Middle Paleolithic industries show a highly variable pattern, although they are formally ascribed to a limited number of technocomplexes. Many of the LMP industries, especially in the Crimea, survived to the time of the transition to the Upper Paleolithic, but data suggesting a local origin of EUP are extremely rare. The transition is generally dated between 32/30,000 and 26/24,000 years, while the most crucial changes coincide with the Stillfried B interstadial. Aurignacian (two variants), Gravettian, and Transitional industries are recognized in the EUP. The presence of Middle Paleolithic traits in the Aurignacian may indicate acculturation, while the Transitional industries might reflect either acculturation or independent local development of new technologies, raising the possibility of local transformation of some Middle Paleolithic into non-Aurignacian EUP industries.     

海岛型旅游目的地生态补偿标准及其差异研究——以普陀山、朱家尖、桃花岛和南北长山岛为例

国际上,旅游税(污染者付费原则)和旅游费(使用者付费原则)是广泛应用的解决旅游引起的环境外部性问题的方法,其中,住宿税、燃油税和(额外)门票费是一些最常见的例子;作为科斯市场解决环境外部性问题的方法,生态系统(环境)服务付费(受益者付费原则)在旅游领域已逐渐引起重视.海岛生态系统脆弱,海岛型旅游目的地环境的可持续性是海岛旅游可持续发展的必要条件,海岛旅游发展威胁海岛型旅游目的地环境的可持续性.本文运用生态系统(环境)服务付费(PES)和条件价值评估法(CVM),以普陀山、朱家尖、桃花岛和南北长山岛为例,以2013年为评价基准年份,通过调查游客对4个海岛型旅游目的地海洋生态系统提供景观、游泳、调节温度、吸收CO2等服务和森林生态系统提供景观、乘凉、蓄积淡水、吸收CO2等服务的支付意愿,评估了4个海岛型旅游目的地的生态补偿标准;并从游客个人收入差异、生态系统服务差异、游客旅行成本差异等3个方面分析了4个海岛型旅游目的地人均生态补偿标准差异的原因.结果表明:①2013年,4个海岛型旅游目的地的生态补偿标准分别为普陀山44464.22×104元,朱家尖7736.76×104元,桃花岛4324.54×104元,南北长山岛6756.98×104元;②4个海岛型旅游目的地人均生态补偿标准(人均WTP值或人均PES值)分别为普陀山74.77元/人次,朱家尖72.34元/人次,桃花岛68.95元/人次,南北长山岛51.58元/人次;③游客个人收入差异是海岛型旅游目的地人均生态补偿标准差异的主要影响因素.     

New ages for the post-Howiesons Poort,late and final Middle Stone Age at Sibudu,South Africa

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) measurements are reported for single grains of quartz from deposits within Sibudu rock shelter. Such measurements enable rejection of unrepresentative grains and application of the finite mixture and central age models to obtain the most reliable age estimates. Three types of single-grain equivalent dose (D_e) distributions were observed: one sample represented a single dose population, three samples indicated mixing between Iron Age (IA) and Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits, and 10 samples (in addition to the three mixed samples) showed scattered distributions. The latter type resulted from differences in the beta dose received by individual grains. For these samples, the beta doses were modelled and adjusted accordingly. Ages for the 14 samples collected from MSA deposits post-dating the Howiesons Poort (HP) resulted in three age clusters, which are stratigraphically consistent with the three informally named cultural phases at Sibudu: namely, the post-HP, late MSA and final MSA. Weighted mean ages of 58.5 ± 1.4 ka, 47.7 ± 1.4 ka and 38.6 ± 1.9 ka were calculated for these phases, respectively. The three phases were separated by two occupational hiatuses with durations of 10.8 ± 1.3 ka and 9.1 ± 3.6 ka. We hypothesise that the punctuated presence of humans at Sibudu was determined by large-scale fluctuations in climate during oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 3, which resulted in alternating wet and dry periods. Phases of occupation correspond to wet periods when fresh water was available in the Tongati River, whereas intervals of site abandonment correspond to dry periods when people were forced to migrate in search of a reliable source of fresh water. Where people migrated to, remains unresolved.     

A double dog burial from San Nicolas Island, California, USA: osteology, context, and significance

Recent archaeological excavations on San Nicolas Island, located off the coast of southern California, revealed the remains of a double dog burial interred sometime during the 13th and 14th centuries. Two carefully laid to rest and possibly sacrificed juvenile, female domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) between the ages of 1 and 6 months were found within a Native American village. Digestive tract residues include burned and unburned fish and marine mammal bone that suggest scavenging behavior or direct feeding by humans. Breed classifications place it between the Short-Nosed Indian dog and the Plains-Indian dog, likely representing a cross between those and other varieties of North American dogs. Comparisons with other dog burials from archaeological sites across southern California suggest commonalities and possible cultural linkages.     

Abbots and Aristocrats: Patronage,Art and Architecture at Hailes Abbey in the Late Middle Ages

This article focuses on the art and architecture of the Cistercian abbey of Hailes, home of a famous relic of the Holy Blood, in the two centuries before the Suppression. It is intended to be a contribution to evolving literature on late medieval monasticism, showing the enduring spiritual vitality and relevance of Hailes between the 14th and early 16th centuries. The article discusses the planning and architecture of the late medieval monastery, the extent of and motives for the internal and external patronage and the relationship of the monastery with its sister Cistercian houses, especially those in northern England.