Evaluating prehistoric finds of Arrhenatherum elatius var. bulbosum in north-western and central Europe with an emphasis on the first Neolithic finds in Northern Germany

The swollen basal internodes of the grass species Arrhenatherum elatius var. bulbosum (tuber oat grass) are recorded here for the first time for Neolithic Germany. These charred bulbs occurred in the Late Neolithic soil mantle of the megalithic tomb of Albersdorf-Brutkamp LA 5. They are interpreted as most probably originating from the natural vegetation on and around the grave mound. The bulbs were possibly charred in the course of a ritual fire. However, their use as gathered plants and their intentional deposition in a secondary burial ritual during the Late Neolithic cannot be excluded with any certainty. Identification criteria for Arrhenatherum bulbs as well as the ecological requirements of the species are introduced here. Furthermore, prehistoric bulb finds from north-western and central Europe, and different interpretations concerning the occurrence of Arrhenatherum in different archaeological contexts, are discussed. The compilation of finds from literature and excavation reports shows that bulbs of Arrhenatherum were found rather infrequently in the Neolithic. Most commonly, charred bulbs of A. elatius var. bulbosum are detected in Bronze Age cremation graves. In the Iron Age, however, they mainly occur in domestic sites. This shows that the interpretation of the plant remains is dependent on their archaeological context. A ritual meaning of the bulbs has to be considered in the interpretation, but they may also have contributed to people’s daily diet. This evaluation of bulb finds in prehistoric and historic contexts contributes to the debate on the relevance of plant gathering in early economies and in ritual activities.     

Was He Murdered or Was He Not?—Part II: Multi‐Elemental Analyses of Hair and Bone Samples from Tycho Brahe and Histopathology of His Bones

Hair and bone samples procured from the remains of Tycho Brahe were analysed by several analytical techniques. In segmented hair samples, concentrations of Fe, As, Ag and Au at the tips exceeded values for the contemporary population; however, they decreased towards the hair bulbs, similarly to Hg, indicating that recent exposure that was discontinued ~2 months prior to Brahe's death. Several other elements did not follow this pattern. Analyses of bones revealed signs of long‐term exposure to Au, while many other elements were within expected ranges. Histopathological examination of bone sections yielded no signs of severe bone metabolic disorders.     

Sego Lilies and Prehistoric Foragers: Return Rates,Pit Ovens,and Carbohydrates

Three experiments or simulations were undertaken to obtain a clearer understanding of the role of pit ovens and roots from dry, sagebrush-covered habitats in prehistoric forager subsistence. The archaeological record of north-central Wyoming containing cylindrical pits near dense stands of sego lily served as a model for these studies. They revealed that: (1) the post-encounter return rates for collecting and processing sego lily is relatively low at 207 kcal/h; (2) the design of pit ovens of this sort was for long-term moderate heat; and (3) long-term moderate heat transformed the large complex polysaccharides (probably starch) of sego lily into more easily digestible disaccharides and monosaccharides. Given the results of the experiments and archaeological and ethnographic evidence, small groups of foragers probably baked sego lily bulbs or a similar resource near the collection patches for immediate consumption. The use of this predictable, stationary resource would have served to buffer risk and would have provided required carbohydrates in the spring at the end of the nutritionally stressful time of the year.     

Large Kombewa flake production in north Oman

In this paper we present the results of surveys carried out in February 2016 along a palaeo‐drainage system near the village of Bisyah. We report first on the geological prospection, which was our main goal, and then present our discovery of the only known localities in north Oman of large Kombewa flake production (>10 cm up to 20 cm). Among the scatter of artefacts, we found cores and large Kombewa flakes with two opposed bulbs of percussion, a technology that had not been known in this region until now. In spite of the local features, the typo‐technological traits of the artefacts suggest that at least part of them resemble in some way the Acheulean techno‐complex, but there are still many questions remaining on the age of these artefacts.     

Neurognostics question. Gordon Morgan Holmes

Gordon Morgan Holmes, MD, MRCP was an Irish born neurologist who received his medical education at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. He was trained in neuroanatomy and neuropathology at the Senckenberg Institute, Frankfort-Am-Main by Ludwig Edinger. He then returned to serve as a Registrar (House Officer) mentored by Richard Gowers and John Hughlings Jackson at the National Hospital, Queen Square, London. He collaborated with Thomas Granger Stewart in describing the loss of recoil in patients with cerebellar hemispheric tumors in 1904. Volunteering in 1914 for frontline hospital duty, he examined soldiers who had injuries to their occipital area causing hypotonia, dysmetria, staggering gait, and falling to the side ipsilateral to their injured cerebellar hemisphere. Holmes discovered that increasing the pace of the finger-nose manuever and applying slight resistance to a moving limb attenuated the dysmetria. Continuing observation of these patients afforded him to describe the evolution of their injuries to include increasing tremor and decreasing hypotonia. Holmes first attached levers to the limbs of hispatients to record their movements on a moving smoked paper kymograph. In 1939 he published photograh tracings made by low mass minature light bulbs attached to ataxic limbs that showed thehpometira and hypometria of their movements ipsilateral to their damaged cerebellar lobes. Holmes made sigficant contributions to understanding of the physiology of the human cerebellum.     

Challenger and Chernobyl Lessons and Reflections

Abstract

It is argued that Psychological research on 'race' and 'ethnicity' issues presents a number of ethical problems. These relate to the sociopolitical impact of such research, particularly when it purports to find differences of an 'innate' character; to the use of naive subjects, particularly children, in research which is aimed at demonstrating their 'inferiority'; and, within the academic community itself, to the working relationships between researchers who believe in 'innate' 'race' differences and colleagues belonging to allegedly 'inferior' groups – this being particularly significant within a teaching environment. Although the 'race differences' question has a long and controversial history, ethical issues relating to the research process itself have received less focused attention. Moreover, replacement of the genetically obsolete concept of 'race' with the idea of 'ethnicity' does not solve the problem entirely, and the term 'ethnicity' is itself unsatisfactory in several respects.     

Climate and energy security policies and measures: synergies and conflicts

Concerns about climate and energy security are leading to increased government intervention in the energy sector, in particular as they relate to the choice of energy supply options. While many of these options will improve both energy and climate security, many measures will benefit one while harming the other. This raises an important question for governments and energy planners: how can conflicts between climate and energy security be resolved? This article outlines some of the barriers and problems that may arise as governments and companies try to address climate and energy security concerns simultaneously in various energy supply areas. It concludes by arguing against choosing one objective over the other, and by outlining steps that can be taken to help resolve conflicts between the two agendas.     

Geography and psychoanalysis: Tensions and possibilities

I am concerned in this paper with the diversity of psychoanalysis, a feature of the discipline which we can connect with diasporas and the re-working of ideas in different locales. I try to demonstrate how experience and environment have contributed to the development of psychoanalysis. Key to the production of knowledge are the journeys of theorists, practitioners and ideas. Following Liz Bondi, I stress the importance of acknowledging the connection between experience, theory and practice in our own work. I suggest that geographers can follow those psychoanalysts who have moved from the clinic to broader political projects but that they should engage with recent critical research in psychoanalysis if a dialogue is to develop.     

China and global oil: vulnerability and opportunity

China has grown increasingly dependent on imports of oil and, as a consequence, has become a major and very visible player in the international energy markets. For a country which has traditionally been strongly committed to the principle of self‐reliance, this dependence on foreign oil has been a source of vulnerability and anxiety. But it has also been a strategic opportunity for China to chart its own ambitions and objectives as a global economic and political actor. This article addresses the various ways in which China has incorporated its energy import needs within its foreign policy. There are, it is argued, three dimensions to this. There is, first, integration and cooperation with the West and other large oil‐importing countries and a shift away from neo‐mercantilism to a growing reliance on international markets. Second, there is a complementary strategy of balancing, which seeks to develop the energy resources close to its borders, in Russia and Central Asia, which are not so vulnerable to western intervention. And third, there is the construction, though preliminary and nascent at the moment, of a hegemonic order which challenges the US and the West in the critical maritime routes from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and through to the Persian Gulf region.     

Garibaldi and Mazzini: thought and action

Abstract

The relationship between Mazzini and Garibaldi is described in its ideological roots and in its political developments, in order to show their different attitude towards the Italian unification. Although their first misunderstanding happened during the Roman Republic in 1849, Mazzini's influence is still strong in the organization and in the success of the liberation of Two Sicilies in 1860, particularly through Francesco Crispi. The final personal break was caused by the unlucky experience of the Mentana expedition (1867), when Garibaldi failed to free Rome. Fundamental ideas as democracy, republic, social justice, humanity and universal brotherhood have been however always common to them. The two protagonists of Risorgimento never intended accepting the role to which their fateful encounter prompted them – the one to provide the brawn and the other the brains for Italy's liberation. Just as Mazzini never renounced involving himself in the operational decisions of the movement, Garibaldi never gave up his own way of thinking and looking at things.     

原真性与完整性:质疑、新知与启示

在世界遗产理论发展路程中,对遗产原真性及完整性的质疑和思考是推动理论不断丰富完善的一股重要动力。完整性适用于所有遗产地,整体保护政策正是对完整性这一命题的呼应和阐释。对遗产原真性的质疑主要表现在非物质文化遗产方面,特别是活态遗产,现在遗产界已经越来越认识到非物质遗产不能简单套用物质遗产的原真性,非物质文化遗产环境的原真性要素也可以表现为一种"演进中的原真性"。因质疑而思考,进而获得新知。这一途径启示我们,应以一种开放性的、持续完善的思维和态度来对待遗产事业。     

Merryman and Milligan (and McCardle)

It has been said that only Jesus and Shakespeare have been the subject of more works than Abraham Lincoln. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't still keep trying to get things right. I am going to be adding to that body of literature, on the relationship between Lincoln, the Supreme Court, and the Civil War.     

Power and Ethnicity History and Anthropology

This essay reflects on the relationship between anthropological and historical scholarship of ethnicity, picking up on themes explored by Andre Gingrich, by considering the epistemological and evidentiary limitations of social scientific and historical analysis and reconstruction. Beginning with the consideration of the pioneering transdisciplinary efforts of Robert Darnton and Clifford Geertz, it argues that many of the weaknesses ascribed to such efforts are actually part of the nature of social scientific investigation which, in the terms of Peter Winch, must take into account two sets of relationships: that of the relationship between the scientist and the phenomena that he or she observes and the symbolic system that he or she shares with other scientists, which can only be understood from the social context of common activity. How these two relationships challenge social scientific analysis of ethnicity are examined through a consideration of the difficulties of applying Anthony Smith's definition of an ethnie to either Fredrik Barth's classic essay on “Pathan Identity and its Maintenance” or Helmut Reimitz's study of Frankish identity. It concludes that neither anthropologists nor historians are simply describing societies as they are or as they were but rather attempt to describe societies as witnesses within them thought they should be, and we do this for our own society, not for those of the participants, past or present.     

The handling and interpretation of dreams and visions in late sixth- to eighth-century Gallic and Anglo-Latin hagiography and histories

Early medieval attitudes to dreams and visions have been seen either as negative, products of an ostensibly repressive theological tradition, or positive, as suggested by the apparent ease with which many narratives treat these phenomena. This article explores the relationship of early medieval views on dreams to those of the church Fathers and suggests that views on the value and handling of dreams vary in accordance with the probable audiences and aims of our sources. Instead of uniform views either repressive or permissive, we see a variety of attitudes and techniques, aiming to satisfy both practical needs and theological concerns.     

改革开放与中国外交

1978年,在邓小平的倡导下,党的工作重心转向以经济建设为中心,开始注重借鉴发达国家发展经验,由此形成改革开放的战略思路,并在深圳、珠海、汕头、厦门打开对外开放的突破口。1988年4月,海南经济特区建立。1992年,开发浦东的战略开始实施。2006年天津滨海新区作为国家级经济新区正式进入实施阶段。改革开放的深入进行加快了中国同世界潮流融合的速度,中国同外部世界的关系越来越紧密,共同利益基础越来越坚实。面对国际风云变幻,中国坚持走和平发展道路,奉行互利共赢的开放战略,走有中国特色的富民强国之路,在改革开放中与国际社会互相合作、共同发展。中国的和平发展将为国际社会提供一种全新的发展模式,具有巨大启迪意义。     

Engineers and engineering history: problems and perspectives

In past decades, the history of engineers and engineering has seen spectacular development. Despite this, major interrogations are still left unanswered. This article examines some of these pending questions, like the type of relation that exists between engineering knowledge and practice, or the complex articulation between continuities and discontinuities that characterizes engineering history. Finally, the article proposes to focus on engineering rationality as a possible way to address some of these issues. In order to do so, engineering rationality is not to be confused with some kind of generic and abstract logic. On the contrary, it must be historicized.     

Consociationalism and the politics of the census in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Ireland

Population censuses have symbolic and instrumental importance for ethnic, national, linguistic or religious groups and their political representatives. This is particularly apparent in deeply divided societies, where political institutions are designed to accommodate groups through forms of power sharing. Existing literature posits that consociational power-sharing institutions, which are commonly employed to manage inter-group conflict, are likely to incentivise contestation and mobilisation in relation to the census, but this claim has not been tested empirically. Employing the case studies of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Ireland, this article tests a proposition about the relationship between consociationalism and the politics of the census: that it is corporate consociational designs that are likely to result in contestation of the census and mobilisation of groups during enumeration, whereas liberal consociational designs will not. The analysis offers support for this proposition, but also suggests that other features of power-sharing settlements, such as the federal nature of the Bosnian state and the majoritarian provision for a ‘border poll’ in the Northern Irish settlement, also play an important role in shaping census politics. These insights contribute to political geographic debates about the census by highlighting the influence of institutional design on struggles over how and where populations get counted, which are applicable beyond the immediate context of deeply divided societies.     

Memory and History: Liturgical Time and Historical Time

This article investigates the differential structure and representation of time in memory and history. It examines two moments in Jewish historical thought—in the Middle Ages, and in works written within and after the Holocaust—and demonstrates the fundamentally liturgical nature of Jewish historical memory in selected texts from these two periods. Following the groundbreaking work of Yerushalmi, it seeks to demonstrate that for Jews, historical experience is incorporated into the cyclical reenactment of paradigmatic events in Jewish sacred ritual. Recent or contemporary experiences acquire meaning only insofar as they can be subsumed within Biblical categories of events and their interpretation bequeathed to the community through the medium of Scripture, that is to say, only insofar as they can be transfigured, ritually and liturgically, into repetitions and reenactments of ancient happening. In such liturgical commemoration, the past exists only by means of recitation; the fundamental goal of such recitation is to make it live again in the present, to fuse past and present, chanter and hearer, into a single collective entity. History, in the sense that we understand it to consist of unique events unfolding within irreversible linear time, is absorbed into cyclical, liturgical memory.
This article argues that the question of Jewish history—both medieval and post-Holocaust—poses in a compelling fashion the question of the relationship between memory and history more generally, and serves to contest the current tendency in academic historiography to collapse history into memory. It claims that to the extent that memory "resurrects,""re-cycles," and makes the past "reappear" and live again in the present, it cannot perform historically, since it refuses to keep the past in the past, to draw the line, as it were, that is constitutive of the modern enterprise of historiography.     

Plasticity and the Future of Philosophy and Theology

Abstract

This article develops a theoretical and political critique of the contemporary notion of the deconstruction of Christianity, primarily in the later work of Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy. The deconstruction of Christianity relies upon an understanding of temporality and messianicity derived from Heidegger and Benjamin, and we challenge this privileging of messianism in contemporary philosophy and theology. Messianism is contrasted with plasticity, and plasticity is shown to have resources to overcome the impasses of contemporary thought in a counter-messianic way. To oppose messianism is not to oppose theological thinking, but to open a creative and productive political space for a radical theological and philosophical reflection.     

Reproducing,transforming and contesting gender relations and identities through migration and transnational ties

This article contributes to conceptual debates on gender transformations in the context of migration and transnationalism. We do so by discussing developments in gender relations and identities among Polish post-accession migrants in Norway; analysing the intersections of continuities and changes, relationally, as these are produced spatially and temporally. We draw on ethnographic data collected among Polish migrants in the Norwegian cities Oslo and Bergen (2009–2012). Our focus on continuity and change in gender relations and identities, in the context of migration and transnationalism, stems from a realization that migration often leads to assumptions of either radical change, or conservative continuity. Meanwhile through an analytical lens sensitive to relationality and socio-spatial circumstances, we find friction, disagreement, as well as negotiation and resolution, and we argue for the variety of ways in which continuity and change may run parallel, reflective of variations in transnational habitus produced in relation to social class. We pay attention to locations and scales, as salient for how gender relations and identities are reproduced, transformed or contested. The flexible continuum we find reveals diverse strategies of coping with migratory situations, as well as complex interplay between migrants’ agency, existing structures and engendered understandings.