Paint It Black: The Rise of Metallurgy in the Balkans

This paper integrates archaeological, material, microstructural and compositional data of c. 7,000 years old metallurgical production evidence with the aim to address the knowledge of the world’s earliest metalworkers. The main focus is placed on copper minerals, ores, slags, slagged sherds and metal droplets coming from four Vin?a culture settlements in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina: Belovode, Plo?nik, Vin?a and Gornja Tuzla, all dated between c. 5400 and 4400 BC. Chemical study of copper minerals throughout all sites points at striking uniformity in selecting black and green minerals from the early days of the settlements’ occupation, some of which predate the metal smelting events. Microstructural examination of metal production debris showed convincing technological similarity throughout c. six centuries of copper making in the studied sites, as well as a consistent choice of black and green ores for metal extraction. We argue that black and green ores were intentionally selected as ingredients for the metal smelting ‘recipe’ in the early stages of Balkan metallurgy based on the knowledge related to their characteristic visual aspects. This finding demonstrates how important the adequate combination of colours was for the early copper metalworkers and suggests a unique technological trajectory for the evolution of metallurgy in this part of the world. It also illustrates the capacity that micro-research carries in addressing the how and why of the emergence of metallurgy, and outlines a methodology for future studies of early metallurgies worldwide.     

古代巴尔干伊利里亚人述论

巴尔干半岛素来民族关系错综交织,兼之列强长期觊觎和插足,遂以“多事之地”而称。近年阿尔巴尼亚一塞尔维亚族际矛盾凸现,演成国际政治一大热点,倍受世人瞩目。其实究其族源,两都不同程度地与古代伊利里亚人(Illyrii或Illyrians)有关。     

The Soviet government since Khrushchev

In 1965 Khrushchev's successors reversed most of his innovations in the structure of the Council of Ministers. Since then turnover in its membership has been very low, but has lately accelerated owing to age‐related deaths and retirements and other places have been created to head new agencies, so that it is again becoming an important arena for competition for high office. New government members are of two career types: “career specialists”, who have worked mainly in the field concerned, if not the particular ministry, and “party generalists”, who have risen mainly through the regional party machine. Some expansion of the latter at the expense of the former is identified, and the distribution of the two types in various policy areas is examined. The 1965 changes sharply reduced party tutelage over the government machine, but various internal and international factors have since led to a progressive reversal of this, and the channels through which this has been pursued are considered. Next, recent and possible future developments in the “inner cabinet” are discussed in relation to the structure of supreme power, and finally the significance of continued delays in long‐promised constitutional revision is noted.     

中国考古学百年成就

中国考古学从1921年兴起以来,至今已有百年的发展历程。100年来,中国考古学在早期人类至宋元明清各个时期的研究中,都取得了引人瞩目的成就,在揭示中华古代文化与文明以连续发展和传承优秀文化传统、“展示和构建中华民族历史与中华文明瑰宝”、丰富世界古代文明史研究方面,功绩卓著。尤其是在中国史前史和夏商历史的研究领域中起着主导作用,初步建立起夏王朝以前约200万年的中国史前史,探索的夏文化成为广为接受的认识,填补了商代历史研究的空白,为重建中国上古史做出了极为重要的贡献。     

The historical geography of Scotland since 1707

This article pays special attention to the large number of references to political theology by Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, particularly in the interwar period, and seeks to interpret these references in a new way. While Schmitt's analogies between God and state are to be expected considering his strong Catholic roots, such comparisons are much more surprising for a positivist like Hans Kelsen, who always tried to relieve state and law from transcendental elements. The article concludes that, far from being marginal in the doctrinal dispute between Schmitt and Kelsen, references to political theology express and summarize their major controversy about the relation between state and law, as well as about the sources of the state's unity. The heart of the disputatio between the two jurists concerned the ability of the political power to emancipate itself from the juridical order. The ‘legal miracle’—in this context meaning the occasional autonomization of the state from law—was for Schmitt the manifestation of sovereign power. However, for Kelsen it represented the negation of the state's essence, whose actions must be determined only by the legal order.     

1960年以来中国古文字学的发展(上)--钱存训著《书于竹帛》英文本第二版后序

钱存训教授的这部《书于竹帛》今日已成为经典著作.当他从事此书写作时,虽然他自己并未想到,但其时机的重要恰与此书的内容相同.他开始写作是20世纪50年代末期,当时长期的抗日战争和其后的内战方告结束,在继起的那一段相当和平的年代,才能出版考古学者在战前所发掘的许多重要成果①.以此,钱氏方能将这些资料综合归纳成为他的一家之言,用以述说中国古文字的发展和古代书籍的制作.他的这部书原刊于1962年,但却成为此后十年间在此领域内最后的出版品之一②.首先,在这一段时间内中国的纸张极其缺乏,学术性的出版物都陷于停顿;紧接着就是文化大革命,使所有学术工作都几乎停顿了六年之久.所以钱氏的这部《书于竹帛》堪称为中国古文字学初期研究的总结.     

Concrete and coal: China's infrastructural assemblages in the Balkans

This article analyzes Chinese-financed infrastructural projects in the Balkans to further our thinking about how infrastructures shape international politics. By adopting an assemblage approach, which views infrastructures as part of a complex and dynamic interaction of both human and non-human actors and capacities, it questions the vascular trope that sees infrastructures as arteries of influence and power. Building on research into the construction of roads and coal power plants, assemblage analysis provides the nuance that refutes simplistic accounts of China's grand strategy in its Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese actors are not geostrategic players exerting influence from afar, but have become thoroughly linked to the region's politics through their specific modes of entry. The business priorities of Chinese state-owned enterprises required formal disentanglements, yet the political arrangements underpinning such deals have ironically caused Chinese actors to become entangled in the Balkans through its political instability, developmental discourses, fiscal exigencies, the traces of previous infrastructures on its society and ecology, and the often overlooked anchoring role of materials such as concrete or coal.