Nicotine in the hair of mummies from San Pedro de Atacama (Northern Chile)

The consumption of plant-derived hallucinogenic substances through smoking and snuffing is a long-standing tradition in the south-central Andes. Chemical and archaeobotanical evidence point to the consumption of nicotine and tryptamine alkaloids in Northwestern Argentina and of tryptamine alkaloids in San Pedro de Atacama (SPA), in prehispanic times. In this paper, results are reported of gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS) analyses aimed at identifying nicotine and tryptamine alkaloids in the hair of mummies from different cultural periods of SPA. Fifty-six samples were examined. While tryptamines were not found in any of the samples, nicotine was found in 35 samples, assigned to the Late Formative (1 of 1 sample from this period), Late Formative or Middle (1 of 2 samples from either of these periods), Middle (4 of 6 samples from this period) and Late Intermediate periods (8 of 12 samples from this period), or without assignment to period due to lack of contextual information (21 of 35 samples unassigned to a period). These results show a continuous consumption of nicotine from the Late Formative to the Late Intermediate periods of SPA (ca. 100 B.C.–1450 A.D.). No associations were found between presence of nicotine in the hair of mummies and presence of snuffing trays or of other snuffing paraphernalia in the corresponding tomb; furthermore, neither the diversity of the funerary context, measured in terms of the number of types of objects, nor the presence of gemstone necklaces differed between tombs with mummies with or without nicotine in their hair. Overall, these results suggest that consumption of nicotine was performed by members of the society at large, irrespective of their social and wealth status.     

Nitrate ruins: the photography of mining in the Atacama Desert,Chile

A photographic album entitled Oficina Alianza and Port of Iquique 1899 illustrates the industrial development of nitrate mining in Chile. From the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, British capitalists dominated the extraction of Chilean nitrate and its export as a fertilizer and an explosive. The Oficina Alianza, a nitrate works at the centre of British monopoly of the trade, is, as other oficinas across the Antofagasta and Tarapacá regions of the Atacama Desert, a ruin. This article considers the correspondences between Alianza’s photographic album, a record of a working nitrate oficina, and its abandoned industrial structures. It examines the ruin and the photograph as Benjaminian allegories.     

On the provenience of wood used in the manufacture of snuff trays from San Pedro de Atacama (Northern Chile)

The consumption of hallucinogenic substances is a long-standing tradition in the Americas. San Pedro de Atacama (SPA) in Northern Chile is the archaeological zone with the highest incidence of snuffing implements in the world. Snuff trays from SPA have been studied under a variety of prisms but their provenience, in particular that of the wood used in their manufacture, has not yet been addressed. The delicate nature of trays and their excellent state of preservation call for the use of non-invasive analytical methods. Wood density was used to demarcate a possible range of species and hence as a broad provenience marker, and its value determined for 169 trays from the museum at San Pedro de Atacama. The results showed that although some of the SPA snuff trays studied may have been manufactured with local wood, most of them used exogenous wood as raw material. At this point, it is not possible to ascertain the precise origin of such wood, but Bolivia and NWA appear as likely candidates. Three distinct styles have been defined for SPA trays: Tiwanaku, San Pedro, and Circumpuneño (encompassing the area around the Puna de Atacama and including SPA). The effect of style on density points to different sources of wood in Tiwanaku style trays and trays in San Pedro and Circumpuneño styles. As expected from geographically and temporally dynamic patterns of interaction of SPA with neighboring regions, diachronic differences in wood density distributions were found. Tray manufacturing technique was not dependent on wood density, suggesting that the skill of artisans and the quality of their tools allowed them to use any type of wood for their art work, independent of its complexity.     

New and past geochemical data on fresh to brine waters of the Salar de Atacama and Andean Altiplano,northern Chile

The paper deals with the major chemistry and stable isotopes (hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, sulfur, strontium) of waters and solutes from the Salar de Atacama basin (Rio Pedro, Honar Creek and Laguna Chaxa) and Andean Altiplano (Laguna Miñique and Laguna Miscanti). The water inflows of the Salar are chemically quite different, the Rio San Pedro being of Na‐Cl type and the Honar Creek of Na‐HCO₃ type, in keeping with the sedimentary‐evaporitic and volcanic nature of the catchment rocks respectively. The δ³⁴S and δ¹⁸O values of sulfate and the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio of strontium in the streams match those of drained rocks, whereas the δ¹³C values of dissolved carbonate are largely controlled by vegetation. The lagoons are evaporated meteoric water bodies, and the relative air humidity estimated from the slope of the isotopic evaporation line is in accordance with historical data on air humidity in the area. The Laguna Chaxa is Na‐Cl rich, and its isotopic composition are consistent with a mixed sedimentary‐volcanic provenance of sulfur and strontium solutes. The Laguna Miñique is Na‐SO₄ rich, and its sulfate δ³⁴S is nearly identical to that of Laguna Chaxa. The δ¹³C(HCO₃) values are quite different in the Laguna Chaxa and Laguna Miñique, with the former being notably enriched in ¹³C probably because of preferential uptake of ¹²C by the high biological productivity occurring in the lagoon. The limited set of new data is interpreted in the context of a much larger literature database. In particular, previous chemical data on inflows and brines in the Salar de Atacama were revisited, and compared with evaporation path models and mineral stability diagrams (boron, lithium and Mg‐minerals) computed using updated software and thermodynamic databases. The modeling shows that the removal of boron and lithium from sulfate‐rich brines possibly occurs, respectively, as ulexite and sulfate salts, and carnallite should be the final magnesium phase of the brine evolution.     

北方有江南:一项景观史的研究

隋唐以降,"江南"不仅是地域概称,亦作为一种美称在北方地区广泛流行。根据各地被称为"江南"的缘由,可大致分为水利型、稻作型、文化型、富足象征型以及景观型。各种类型的"江南"并非泾渭分明,北方各地之"江南"多是几个类型的集合体,是为复合型"江南"。北方"江南"多位于自然条件优越之地,多数"江南"指代地域为一县之隅。"江南"本是对某地社会之赞美,但美称亦会转化为"实累",明代宁夏即为此例。综合来看,传统时代北方民众对"江南"美誉的认可,缘于江南地区的繁荣兴盛,其本质上体现的是对于富足美好生活的向往与追求,亦是传统时代北方民众对于"何谓江南"的理解。     

From a Geography of Labor to a Labor Geography: Labor's Spatial Fix and theGeography of Capitalism

Mainstream neoclassical economic geography and its Marxist critique have largely failed to incorporate active conceptions of working class people in their explanations of the location of economic activities. Neoclassical approaches tend to conceive of workers simply as factors of location, whereas Marxist approaches primarily focus on how capital structures the economic landscape in its search for profit and frequently relegate labor to the status of "variable capital." Both approaches present Geographies of Labor. They have not really examined how workers try to make industrial landscapes. In contrast, I argue that workers have an interest in how the economic geography of capitalism is made; consequently, they seek to impose what we might call "labor's spatial fix" and so play an active role in the unevenly developed geography of capitalism. Examining how workers try to develop their own spatial fixes allows us to incorporate a more active sense of workers as geographical agents into understandings of the production of space under capitalism. Recognizing that workers' efforts to create "labor's spatial fix" are significant allows us to theorize how workers attempt to make space as an integral part of their social existence (a Labor Geography ) and so to write less capital-oriented economic geographies.     

西安地区出土的北朝隋唐石刻造像塔

佛塔源于印度,因用于藏舍利而被神化,受到佛教信徒的虔诚礼拜,多于其外刻浮雕。大塔一般露天建造,称露塔,小塔则在庙内供奉,称堂塔或塔庙。本文所论及的只是小型石刻佛塔。     

论汉魏南北朝洮西地区之开拓

甘肃南部洮西地区是古代边疆要地。伴随着对羌人的征服,西汉在洮西推行了郡县制,但两汉在军事上仍固守洮河一线。十六国时期前凉在洮西设河州,完善了该地区的军政建设,河州成为西北地区重要的政治单元。西秦因定都枹罕据有洮西而称霸西北。北朝在保持河州军镇的同时,又在洮西南部设立了洮州,自此洮西分为两个政治区域。洮西地区开拓历程表明,分裂时代割据政权的局部拓边也是边疆开发的重要方式。     

从赈务到洋务:江南绅商在洋务企业中的崛起

本文围绕着对洋务企业中一个活跃群体即江南绅商崛起过程的细致分析,对学界此前观察中国近代绅商阶层的起源和中国近代工业化兴起进程的视角和进行历史定位的方式进行了反思.本文的研究表明,这两个历史事件决非是仅仅构成宏大叙事的重大事件,而是都包含着由冲击与回应、传统与近代、内因与外因、整体性与地方性等一系列二元关系发生复杂的交织和互动而形成的实践逻辑,也只有综合运用宏观与微观、自上而下与自下而上的视角,才能准确理解和把握这样的实践逻辑.     

苏皖江北地区的崧泽文化因素

崧泽化的北上曾极大地加强了海岱化区和太湖化区的相互交流和促进。崧泽的西渐,曾为江淮之间的史前化作出过杰出的贡献,安徽薛家岗化的繁荣即与之密切相关。     

Re-evaluating the Neolithic: The Impact and the Consolidation of Farming Practices in the Cantabrian Region (Northern Spain)

Research projects undertaken in the Cantabrian region since 1980 have produced new, high-quality information about the neolithisation process(es) in this area. It is now necessary to review this archaeological information and test the main hypotheses put forward to explain it. This paper presents an update on the archaeological evidence (sites, chronological dates, archaeozoological, archaeobotanical and technological information) for the early Neolithic in the Cantabrian region. It summarizes recent research on neolithisation in the region, and assesses the impact of this process during the early Neolithic, and its later consolidation. Although the available information is still incomplete, it is now possible to identify the focal point of the introduction of elements characteristic of the Neolithic way of life in the region. Current evidence suggests that it is in the eastern sector, where the earliest arrival of domesticates and new technologies such as pottery has been attested. The existence of continuities—such as sustained reliance on hunting and gathering and the coexistence of old and new funerary rites—suggests the persistence of native populations, which gradually participated in the neolithisation process after an ‘availability phase’.     

从阿拉善旗专员到军事专员:南京国民政府介入蒙旗地方政治的尝试

为防止日本侵略势力的渗透,南京国民政府创设了阿拉善旗专员制度。因专员在派驻过程中,遭遇层层阻碍,最终被迫改置为军事专员,权责缩减。专员制度作为南京国民政府介入阿拉善旗地方政治的首次尝试,其尴尬境地也反映了在缺乏稳定环境与足够控制力的条件下,边疆政治整合所面临的困境。军事专员虽远未实现其设置的预期目的,但客观上有利于加强中央与阿拉善旗地方联系,从而有效地维护了边疆主权与统一。     

鬼方:殷周时代北方的农牧混合族群

本文认为鬼方是殷周时代北方的农牧混合族 群,不是如后世匈奴那样的骑马游牧族群。在山陕北部发现的 鬼族考古遗存可以证明这一点。自鬼族之后,战国匈奴出现之 前,在山陕北部也没有真正意义上的骑马游牧民族。自新石器 时代始,今山陕北部长期以来是原始农业的分布地区,后因气 候变化,逐渐演变为半农半牧地区,遂以这种形式长期与晋南 的农业区相对峙,其间出现比较稳定的半农半牧地区与纯农 区的分界线,即后来司马迁所说的龙门——碣石线。     

"承上制下"与"从左转右":北宋物资转输区域的互动——以东南地区为中心

北宋时期,朝廷在淮南地区运河沿岸州军设置转般仓,这些州军具有了转般粮食物资进京的功能;又先后置发运司于真州和泗州,使其开始具有总管东南漕运事务的职能;盐利也集中于此,同时亦掌控着地方物资的上供经费.其他物资转输区域则经常出现改变转运方式的情形,中转区域改变了起始区域输出物资的运输方式,减轻了部分运输成本.起始区域在加重中转区域负担的同时,亦对中转区域的经济繁荣有促进作用.     

一战华工的归国境遇及其影响——基于对山东华工后裔（或知情者）口述资料的分析

山东淄博周村是当年英法招募华工的重要站点。论文根据对＂周村华工＂后裔或知情者采访整理出来的65份口述资料,从华工归国所带物品、节余工薪的使用状况、归国后从事的行业、思想观念与自身素质的转变等方面进行了考察研究。比照当时知识界和政界对于归国华工影响力的乐观预期,得出结论：华工归国后的总体境遇不够理想,归国华工对中国社会所能发挥的积极影响极为有限,甚至其中不乏悲剧性的一面。