POST‐MEDIEVAL CRUCIBLE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION: A STUDY OF MATERIALS AND MATERIALITIES*

This paper is concerned with the manufacture and trade of post‐medieval crucibles (14th–19th centuries). The analytical study of crucibles from different contexts in Europe and America employed optical microscopy and SEM–EDS, coupled with archaeological and historical data. We identified two major producers of crucibles, both of them in Central Europe, whose products appear widely distributed internationally. The analytical data allow an explanation of the technical reasons behind their superior reputation, as both crucible types shared comparable material properties, such as thermal, chemical and mechanical stability. Conversely, the two crucible types were radically different in their manufacture and appearance. We argue that, besides technical considerations, sensorial aspects such as texture and colour may have played an important role in the perception and choice of materials.     

From Karl von Frisch to Neuroethology: A Methodological Perspective on the Frischean Tradition's Expansion into Neuroethology**

This paper examines a tradition of eusocial insect research stemming from the Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch. As I show in this paper, one of the most enduring features of the Frischean tradition has been an experimental methodology developed by Frisch in the early 1910s. By tracing this methodology's use through Frisch's student, Martin Lindauer, and two of Lindauer's students, Rüdiger Wehner and Randolf Menzel, this paper illuminates a surprising aspect of ethology's development during the last half of the 20^th century. Namely, it sheds light on how the Frischean tradition, a tradition that had a complicated relationship with ethology since the discipline's formation in the 1930s, produced scientists who became leading figures in neuroethology, the most prominent contemporary field of behavioral research to retain the label of “ethology.” Some of the features that distinguished Frisch's training method from the program of classical ethology and the work of his contemporaries later helped his academic descendants adapt the method to the neuroethological program.     

Roman double-layered crucibles from Autun/France: a petrological and geochemical approach

Eighteen double-layered crucible fragments found in an archaeological excavation site of the Lycée militaire (Autun/France), which dates to the Gallo-Roman period, were analysed with a series of classical mineralogical techniques in order to obtain knowledge about the raw materials of the individual layers. This work focuses on the usage of the crucibles as well as technical aspects of their production. The crucible fragments were studied by using petrographical (optical microscopy), elemental (SEM-EDS, EMPA, XRF-WDS) and mineralogical (XRD) techniques.     

RAMESSIDE GLASS-COLOURING CRUCIBLES*

The preparation of glass in New Kingdom Egypt heavily involved the use of crucibles. Shape, mode of operation and function of these vessels have been reconstructed on the basis of new, stratified material from the excavation at Qantir, eastern Nile Delta. The crucible fabric, the internal layer protecting the vessel from the charge, and the glass melted in the crucibles are characterized by chemical and petrographic studies. The crucibles were apparently employed mainly to add the colourants to the glass. The broader archaeological context strongly suggests that glass production in the Late Bronze Age has been a highly developed, specialized and organized craft, with different factories for glass production, for colouring, and for working, connected by a wide-ranging trade network.     

‘Miserable San Damian—But What Treasures!’: The Life of Aleš Hrdlička's Peruvian Collection

This article examines the lives of artefacts collected by physical anthropologist Ale? Hrdli?ka during his expeditions to Peru. In 1910 and 1913, Hrdli?ka travelled to the Andean nation to gather materials that could shed light on the peopling of the Americas, health and disease in pre-Columbian societies, and the purported racial ‘types' of the region. The study focuses on cultural artefacts the scientist acquired, beginning with these materials’ collection as specimens meant to reveal the racial prehistory of the Andes, and continuing with their classification, display, and exchange as museum objects at the Smithsonian Institution. My analysis of Hrdli?ka's Peruvian collection draws attention not only to how scientific representations of Peru and the Andes have shifted over time, but also to the way in which a focus on museum objects can elucidate changing notions about the cultural agency of prehistoric populations and their present-day descendants.     

“Lachkabinett” und “großes Fest” der Physiker. Walter Grotrians “physikalischer Einakter” zu Max Plancks 80. Geburtstag

“Funhouse” and “Big Celebration” of the Physicists. Walter Grotrian's ?Physical One‐Act Play”? for Max Planck's 80th Birthday. On the occasion of Max Planck's 80th birthday on April 23, 1938, a “big celebration of the physicists” (großes Fest der Physiker) was celebrated at the Harnack‐House in Berlin. The festivities were organized by the German Physical Society. Part of the ceremony was a “Physical One‐act‐play” (Physikalischer Einakter) written by the Potsdam astrophysicist Walter Grotrian. The actors of the humorous play were chief protagonists in the development of quantum theory such as Debye, Sommerfeld and Heisenberg. In this essay we analyze Grotrian's drama against the background of both the festive event and the professional and social setting of the physicists. We argue that below the level of comedy a number of characteristic and normally unexpressed aspects of the epistemic culture of the German physics by the end of the nineteen‐thirties is treated in the play.     

Rediscovering famous assemblages: A rare Bronze Age crucible from El Argar,Spain

A rare open shallow crucible from the British Museum collection, excavated at the Bronze Age site of El Argar in south-east Spain by Louis and Henri Siret, was studied using X-radiography and scanning electron microscopy. The crucible has relatively thick walls, a spout and a non-refractory fabric. It was used for melting copper alloys for various possible purposes, such as alloying, refining, recycling or before casting, at around 1100°C. Both arsenic and tin were detected in various places and concentrations in the analysed specimens. This crucible could have been used during the period of transition from arsenic-rich copper to tin bronzes in the El Argar culture, or used for the recycling of arsenic-rich copper artefacts being alloyed with tin to produce tin bronzes. This melting crucible is a rare example of its kind to have been investigated scientifically, as most crucibles from contemporary sites on the Iberian Peninsula are generally associated with smelting. This study has also crucially shed more light on the types of alloys and variety of activities undertaken during that transitional period between the use of arsenical copper and tin bronzes in this region.     

Method and Confusion in the Study of the Household: A Review

Abstract

When analyzing Woodrow Wilson's narrow victory in the presidential election of 1916, students of the Electoral College have focused on the closeness of the popular vote in California. None of them have noticed that Wilson's victory in the Electoral College depended on non-enforcement of the Penalty Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Using Morgan Kousser's analysis of voter disenfranchisement across the South between 1880 and 1910, this article demonstrates that Charles Evans Hughes would have won the electoral vote if the Penalty Clause had been enforced when the House was reapportioned following the 1910 census.     

Mapping the Niger, 1798–1832: Trust,Testimony and ‘Ocular Demonstration’ in the Late Enlightenment

This paper is about the role of trust, testimony and direct observation in the making of maps and about the ways in which these issues were apparent in the mapping of the Niger River. By the late eighteenth century, the Niger River was a two‐thousand‐year‐old geographical problem. Although classical writers, Arab geographers and French authorities had produced maps of the river, its direction of flow was not confirmed by direct observation until 1796 when the explorer Mungo Park did so. Yet Park solved only one part of the problem, and he died in 1805 while attempting to solve the remaining question: where did the river end? This question was not answered by direct observation until 1830. By then, however, the ‘Niger problem’ had been resolved, and the solution mapped, by two early nineteenth‐century geographers who had charted the river's course without travelling to Africa. Attention is also paid to the maps that first presented the Niger's termination on the basis of field observation. What all this evidence raises is the question of trust in others' testimony and the role of travel and direct observation in the production of maps as ‘truthful’ documents in the late Enlightenment.

Cet article concerne le rôle de la confiance, du témoignage et de l'observation directe dans l'établissement des cartes ainsi que la manière dont ces questions se manifestaient dans la cartographie du fleuve Niger. A la fin du XVIIIe siècle, le Niger était un problème géographique vieux de 2000 ans. Bien que les auteurs antiques, les géographes arabes et les autorités françaises aient produit des cartes de ce fleuve, la direction de son cours ne fut confirmée par l'observation directe qu'en 1796 grâce à l'explorateur Mungo Park. Encore Park ne résolut‐il qu'une partie du problème et mourut en 1805 alors qu'il tentait de résoudre la question restante: o[ugrave] le fleuve finissait‐il? On ne répondit à cette question par l'observation directe qu'en 1830. Dès lors, cependant, le ‘problème du Niger’ était résolu et sa solution cartographiée par deux géographes du début du XIXe siècle qui avaient dressé la carte du cours du fleuve sans voyager en Afrique. Nous prêtons également attention aux premières cartes qui ont montré le cours inférieur du Niger sur la base d'observation de terrain. Tout ceci met en évidence la question de la confiance dans le témoignage d'autrui et le rôle du voyage et de l'observation directe dans la production des cartes comme documents fidèles à la fin du siècle des Lumières.

Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Bedeutung von Vertrauen in vorliegende Informationen, die Rolle von Beweisen und von unmittelbarer Beobachtung bei der Kartenherstellung und damit, wie sich diese Aspekte in der Kartierung des Nigerflusses niederschlagen. Am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts war die Frage nach der geographischen Lage des Nigerflusses schon zweitausend Jahre alt. Auch wenn klassische Autoren, arabische Geographen und französische Autoritäten Karten des Flusses hergestellt hatten, so konnte seine Fließrichtung doch erst 1796 durch die persönliche Beobachtung des Entdeckers Mungo Park bestimmt werden. Allerdings löste Park nur den ersten Teil des Problems und starb 1805 bei der Suche nach dem Mündungsgebiet des Flusses. Diese Frage konnte nicht vor 1830 durch unmittelbare Beobachtung geklärt werden. Dann allerdings war das Niger‐Problem gelöst und das Ergebnis in Karten niedergelegt. Dies gelang zwei Geographen des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts, die den Verlauf des Niger zeichneten ohne nach Afrika zu reisen. Zusätzlich werden in diesem Beitrag die Karten behandelt, die später die Nigermündung erstmals auf der Grundlage von Feldarbeit darstellten. Was alle diese Zeugnisse nahelegen, ist die Frage nach dem Vertrauen in anderer Leute Aussagen und die Bedeutung von Reisen sowie von unmittelbarer Beobachtung bei der Herstellung von wirklichkeitsnahen Karten in der späten Aufklärung.

El artículo trata sobre el papel de la veracidad, del testimonio y del reconocimiento sobre el terreno en la construcción de mapas y sobre las vías en las que estas cuestiones fueron evidentes en los mapas del río Níger. Al final del siglo XVIII, el río Níger constituía un problema geográfico que se remontaba a 2000 años. Aunque los escritores clásicos, geógrafos árabes y autoridades francesas habían hecho mapas del río, la dirección de su corriente no fue confirmada hasta el reconocimiento del explorador Mungo Park en 1796. Pero Park resolvió sólo una parte del problema y murió en 1805 cuando trataba de resolver el resto, es decir, donde terminaba el río. Esta cuestión no fue resuelta por reconocimientos sobre el terreno hasta 1830. Sin embargo, para entonces ‘el problema del Níger’ había sido solucionado sobre un mapa por dos geógrafos de principios del siglo XIX que cartografiaron el curso del río sin viajar a África. Se señalan también los primeros mapas que presentaron el diseño completo del Níger, basados en observaciones sobre el terreno. Todas estas evidencias plantean la cuestión de la veracidad del testimonio de los otros y del papel del viaje y del reconocimiento sobre el terreno, en la producción de los mapas en tanto que documentos ‘verdaderos’ a finales del siglo XVIII.     

Changing children's geographies

This keynote explores the changing nature of children's geographies as an academic project. It proceeds in four parts. Part 1 considers the shift away from research on children's spatial cognition which envisaged the child in largely biological terms, and contemplates contemporary efforts to rework the nature/culture dualism. Part 2 traces the incorporation of new social studies of childhood into geography, emphasising the importance of children's voices, their positioning within axes of power, and the need for quantitative and qualitative methods. Part 3 explores how feminist research led to interest in parents, educators and other actors/institutions which shape, and are shaped by, children's lives. Part 4 ponders what children's geographies might add to, and learn from, broader interdisciplinary debates, and the benefits and pitfalls of research impact. The conclusion argues that a well-informed appreciation of sub-disciplinary history provides a strong vantage point from which to engage with new ways of thinking.     

Seeing into hearts and minds: Part 1. The Pentagon's quest for a ‘social radar’ (Respond to this article at https://www.therai.org.uk/publications/anthropology-today/debate)

In this two‐part article, explored are the many funded programmes by which security agencies and private companies mine ‘big data’ and attempt to measure the sociocultural and psychological states of whole populations. How is failure or success measured? What kinds of new institutions/practices might these give rise to? Part 1 ‘The Pentagon's quest for a “social radar”’, published in this issue, comes to terms with today's many sociocultural modelling and forecasting efforts, looks in detail at one company in particular, and ends up reviewing the role of anthropologists in their development and critique. Part 2 ‘“Big data”, algorithms, and computational counterinsurgency’, to be published in a future issue, will analyze the rise of ‘predictive policing’ and its Pentagon connections, reviews two programmes, and poses these in the context of scientists' concerns over artificial intelligence and long‐term human survival.     

‘SPROUTING LIKE COCKLE AMONGST THE WHEAT’: THE ST BRICE'S DAY MASSACRE AND THE ISOTOPIC ANALYSIS OF HUMAN BONES FROM ST JOHN'S COLLEGE,OXFORD

The recent discovery in St John's College of a mass burial of mostly young adult males with severe perimortem blade trauma has prompted the suggestion that these may be related to the St Brice's Day Massacre in Oxford on 13th November AD 1002. Three radiocarbon determinations suggest that a date in the tenth century is more likely. We have nevertheless undertaken an isotopic study of the bone collagen (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) and dental enamel (δ¹³C, δ¹⁸O and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) in an attempt to answer the question ‘were these individuals of Danish descent?’ Our conclusion is somewhat ambiguous, but the bone collagen suggests a diet more like other Scandinavian populations than that of local groups, and the enamel isotopes point towards a Scandinavian rather than a lowland English origin. Comparison with Oxford Archaeology's recently excavated Weymouth Ridgeway mass burial suggests, however, that the execution of a captured raiding party is more likely than the slaughter of Oxford inhabitants of Danish descent.     

In search of the physical: George Adam Smith's journeys to palestine and their importance

By any standard, George Adam Smith's was a remarkable career. Having established a reputation for himself as the first minister of a new congregation of the Free Church of Scotland in the west of Aberdeen, where he consolidated his liberal evangelical pulpit between 1882 and 1892, Smith went on to become a foremost Old Testament scholar in the Free Church College in Glasgow (1892-1910) and Principal of Aberdeen University (1910-1935). More than one student of the period has linked his name with that of A.B. Davidson and W.R. Smith, succeeding them as one of Scotland's leading Old Testament scholars in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.     

Colouring Agents in the Pottery Glazes of Western Anatolia: New Evidence for the Use of Naples Yellow Pigment Variations During The Late Byzantine Period

A group of the late 12th–13th century Byzantine pottery glazes, mostly related to Zeuxippus Ware Type pottery from the Ku?adas? Kad?kalesi/Anaia site in western Anatolia, was characterized non‐destructively using Raman spectrometry. SEM–EDX was also used complementarily for the glaze characterization. The nature and composition of the glazes, firing conditions, aspects of colour formation and pigments used were discussed. The glazes were found to be lead‐rich silicates, fired close to 700°C on the basis of the Si–O stretching peak maxima of the Raman spectra recorded at ～920–980 cm^–1, as also confirmed by SEM–EDX analysis. The polymerization index values calculated are between approximately 0.05 and 0.1. The use of biscuit‐fired bodies prior to glaze application was suggested based on the results of SEM–EDX analysis. In particular, the detection of Naples yellow pigment variations on a locally produced pottery sample is quite significant, since the use of this type of pigment has hardly ever been reported between the Roman period and the Renaissance.     

THE IMPLICATIONS OF ROBERT BRANDOM'S INFERENTIALISM FOR INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

Quentin Skinner's appropriation of speech act theory for intellectual history has been extremely influential. Even as the model continues to be important for historians, however, philosophers now regard the original speech act theory paradigm as dated. Are there more recent initiatives that might reignite theoretical work in this area? This article argues that the inferentialism of Robert Brandom is one of the most interesting contemporary philosophical projects with historical implications. It shows how Brandom's work emerged out of the broad shift in the philosophy of language from semantics to pragmatics that also informed speech act theory. The article then goes on to unpack the rich implications of Brandom's inferentialism for the theory and practice of intellectual history. It contends that inferentialism clarifies, legitimizes, and informs intellectual historical practice, and it concludes with a consideration of the challenges faced by inferentialist intellectual history, together with an argument for the broader implications of Brandom's work.     

CANADA AND ITS MAJOR REGIONS: BOUCHETTE, PARKIN, ROGERS, INNIS, HUTCHISON

Through their analyses and interpretations of Canada's major regions, selected significant authors from the early-19th to the mid-20th century provide a deeper understanding of Canada. Each author reveals the geographical circumstances and life of the country for the period in which he writes. Joseph Bouchette in the 1830s grapples with devising regional divisions in British North America in a mercantilist era and when parts of the continent were only dimly known; George R. Parkin and J.D. Rogers in the 1890s and 1910s depict Canadian regions in the process of being transformed in the decades when the CPR finally made it possible for Canada to function effectively across an entire continent; Harold Innis in the 1920s links the origin of the CPR to its regional underpinnings, in the context of sectional power relationships; and Bruce Hutchison in the 1940s and 50s portrays the ‘personality’ of Canada's regions, and regional tensions through the lives and perceptions of inhabitants in the various sections. The thick slice of Canadian regional writing represented by these authors shows that regions change profoundly, but regional and cultural distinctiveness persists, and that sectional rivalries have deep roots. Une sélection d'écrivains connus ayant vécu entre la première moitié du 19^ème siècle nous offre une compréhension plus approfondie du Canada grâce à leurs analyses et à leurs interprétations des plus importantes régions du Canada. Chaque auteur révèle les conditions géographiques et la vie du pays à l'époque à laquelle il écrit. Au cours des années 1830, Joseph Bouchette travaille à délimiter les divisions régionales de l'Amérique du Nord britannique à une époque mercantiliste, époque où certaines parties du contient étaient fort peu connues; au cours des années 1890 et 1910, George R. Parkin et J.D. Rogers décrivent les régions du Canada en train d'évoluer au cours des décennies où le CPR rend enfin possible l'ouverture du Canada d'un bout à l'autre du continent, assurant ainsi le fonctionnement efficace du pays; au cours des années 1920, Harold Innis rattache l'origine du CPR aux conditions préexistant dans les régions, dans le contexte d'une dynamique des pouvoirs opérante entre ces régions; au cours des années 1940 et 1950, Bruce Hutchinson fait le portrait de la ‘personnalité’ de chaque région du Canada ainsi que des tensions interrégionales à travers la vie et les perceptions de leurs habitants. L'importante somme des témoignages écrits sur les régions du Canada tels qu'offerts par ces auteurs démontre que les régions se transforment profondément, mais que les distinctions régionales et culturelles demeurent et que les rivalités entre régions ont de profondes racines.     

Several Thoughts on Newell's Tyrants

This critical review of Newell's Tyrants consists of two parts. The first one departs from questions Jan Pato?ka, the most important Czech philosopher of the 20^th century, raised in the 1970s in the context of his critical reading of a book by Geoffrey Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History. Pato?ka's criticism of Barraclough, suggested here as a starting point for a dialogue with Newell, departed from Husserl's Crisis of European Sciences and his own interpretation of the current phase of history of mankind as the end of Europe and the arrival of a post-European age. The second part confronts Newell's treatments of tyrants usurping power throughout the human history and his efforts to offer a “homeopathic cure for the tyrannical temptations” that we might see emerging in the future with the concept of totalitarianism elaborated in the political thought of Hannah Arendt.     

Dualistische Entwürfe zur Einheit der Naturphänomene und die Anfänge der Romantischen Naturphilosophie

The importance of German Naturphilosophie for the development of a unified view of nature is often emphasized. The search for ultimate unity of natural phenomena, however, was already too common among physicists of the waning 18th century to ascribe its popularity to the influence of philosophers. To avoid the plethora of imponderable fluids, many ?atomists”? reduced electric, magnetic, thermal, and chemical phenomena to a dualism of contrary principles, thereby prefiguring the ?dynamic”? ideas of romantic Naturphilosophen. In particular we show how Schelling's early account of his Naturphilosophie was shaped by J. A. Deluc's atomistic theory of gases and vapours.     

Thomas Graham Brown (1882–1965): Behind the Scenes at the Cardiff Institute of Physiology

Thomas Graham Brown undertook seminal experiments on the neural control of locomotion between 1910 and 1915. Although elected to the Royal Society in 1927, his locomotion research was largely ignored until the 1960s when it was championed and extended by the distinguished neuroscientist, Anders Lundberg. Puzzlingly, Graham Brown's published research stopped in the 1920s and he became renowned as a mountaineer. In this article, we review his life and multifaceted career, including his active neurological service in WWI. We outline events behind the scenes during his tenure at Cardiff's Institute of Physiology in Wales, UK, including an interview with his technician, Terrence J. Surman, who worked in this institute for over half a century.