The consilience of historical and isotopic approaches in reconstructing the medieval Mediterranean diet

During the Middle Ages, the economies of Europe, the religious directives involving dietary requirements, and the general human subsistence base were transformed. These complicated and intertwined issues are starkly revealed in an isotopic study of two inland Italian human populations that are separated by approximately 850 years in time. Stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotopic values observed in human dentin and bone collagen from the sites of early medieval Castro dei Volsci and late medieval Rome are consistent with diets that differed substantially. As the North Atlantic opened to fishing and food preservations methods improved, Mediterranean peoples increased their fish consumption dramatically, and in doing so, met the religious directives of the Catholic Church. By analyzing both teeth and bone collagen within individuals, long-term feeding behaviors are documented, and the utility of last erupted teeth collagen as sources of adult dietary information is established. This study offers the first physical evidence of this new economic reality linking the Atlantic and Mediterranean economies at the end of the Middle Ages.     

史学话语权与20世纪的中国民族史学——兼说10卷本《中国史学思想通史》

20世纪中国社会发生变动,受到西方学术思潮的影响,中国史学进入到近代化时期.西方学术话语处在强势地位,在这样的大背景下,近代史学理论、思想的争论,基本是按照西方的史学理论的热点而展开,也随着西方史学理论的热点的变动而变动.这对扩大研究视野、深化相关的史学认识有一定的意义,但另一面是,民族史学的重要思想失去应有的地位.传统民族史学思想、理论具有重要的价值,是西方史学理论不能完全替代的;民族史学话语权的失落,对于中国史学发展是不利的.进入到21世纪,史学理论发展不能忽视中国民族史学思想的研究".认真总结民族史学思想遗产,对于当代史学具有重大的意义,是振兴民族史学的重要工作,也是民族史学走向世界的基本要求.     

Visitor experiences: art,architecture and space at the papal curia c.1200

ABSTRACT

The Lateran Palace in Rome was the main papal residence and the administrative centre of the papacy in the central Middle Ages. The physical setting that confronted visitors to the Roman curia at the Lateran Palace during the pontificate of Innocent III (1198–1216) can be explored by piecing together information from curial material and the few visitors’ accounts about the architecture, art and use of space within this no-longer existent building. The article examines how visitors perceived the palace and the use of space within it, placing particular emphasis on visitors’ admission to the different areas of the palace which determined their access to the pope and other members of the curia. The ways in which the layout and decoration of the palace reflected and reinforced notions of papal authority are also discussed.     

晚近史的史料边际与史学的整体性——兼论相关史料的编辑出版

With a dramatic expansion in quantity and variety, the amount of recent history source materials has surpassed the sum total of those available for all earlier dynasties. At the same time, compared with the case in ancient history study, the obscure boundary of source materials has made it difficult for historians to locate and obtain what they need for their research. Since it is impossible to exhaust or to ascertain the boundary of relevant sources, scholars either retreat into narrower fields or make arbitrary interpretations of materials, both contributing to the loss of orientation in historical study, and, for that matter, eroding the integrity of historiography. Historians must, first and foremost, acquire a comprehensive understanding of the discipline before they can undertake studies on any particular subject, which is the proper way to conduct historical study and to avoid short-sightedness or a tunnel vision of the scene. The author of this paper believes that it is urgent to resolve the dilemma in preserving and utilizing source materials by publishing as many materials as possible efficiently so that scholars on recent Chinese history can stand on an equal footing as far as materials are concerned. Only in this way will they be able to undertake deeper investigations, to uncover the complex correlation between source materials and historical study, and ultimately, to contribute to recent history study as a whole.     

The art of science at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory: The rhetoric of aesthetics and humanism in the national laboratory system in the late 1960s

This paper examines how rhetoric shaped the early history of the National Accelerator Laboratory. In a situation defined by a contentious site search and shrinking budgets for research, Robert Wilson crafted an institutional identity for the NAL that emphasized both aesthetic and scientific experience. The paper addresses the circumstances of the laboratory's founding, the "audiences" important to its success, and the ways in which the physical environment and management structure--framed by Wilson's vision of a scientific utopia--reorganized existing perceptions of physics within a humanistic framework intended to distinguish the NAL from its predecessors in the National Laboratory system.     

Madrid's Retiro Park as publicly-private space and the spatial problems of spatial theory

The scholarly focus on the production of space necessitates a thorough reassessment of the static categories employed in the analysis of spatial processes. Emphasizing space as a process, this essay calls attention to the recent implication of Madrid's Retiro Park in larger processes of capital accumulation. At the same time, it highlights the insufficiency of the tempting yet problematic distinction between public and private space that obtains in easy solutions to the struggles over city-space. As many critics have pointed out, there is design flaw in the idea of public space—it can never explain how a given space, such as a park, comes to be free of the ‘private’ (personal and structural) interests operating throughout its societal context. The story of the Retiro ultimately foregrounds the pivotal role of city-space in the drive for capitalist intercity-competition and suggests that the latter process is insufficiently confronted by idealized notions of the role truly ‘public’ spaces might play in radical democracy and citizenship.     

In the lure of Geistesgeschichte: the theme of decline in Hungarian historiography and historical thinking in the first half of the twentieth century

Decline was the fundamental issue in Hungarian historiography and historical thinking between the two world wars. This article primarily analyses the views of historian Gyula Szekf?, the writers and essayists Dezs? Szabó and László Németh, and those of philosophers Lajos Fülep and György Lukács. In this period, the so-called spiritual history (Geistesgeschichte) prevailed in Hungarian intellectual circles, in which the themes of decline and even fall were fundamental. Of the most important representatives of Geistesgeschichte, Spengler, Ortega, Huizinga, Croce and Maritain had significant influence on the authors mentioned above. Historians were ready to reject the ideas of these thinkers regarding the criticism of culture, and rather followed the power- and state-centred streams of Geistesgeschichte, conceived by Ranke, Troeltsch and Meinecke. At the same time it is also true that the decline and generation theory developed by the historian Gyula Szekf? (e.g., in his book Three Generations), is one of the most original interpretations of modern Hungarian history. It was shared by many Hungarian intellectuals of the period. Paradoxically, the theme of decline also appeared in the views of the so-called ‘Századok’ (Centuries) circle, mainly in the writings of the historians István Hajnal and István Szabó. They rather followed the social-history-oriented French Annales School, and even attempted to offer a solution to the problems of the so-called ‘third way’ alternative. Almost all of the above-mentioned concepts were tied in the later political discourse to the so-called right-wing tradition of Hungarian political–historical thinking, but the author also touches briefly upon the notion of decline in the leftist (Marxist) tradition of György Lukács, whose ideas had an impact on the beginnings of the Frankfurt School. The article also offers a brief overview of the main ideas of spiritual history/Geistesgeschichte, since the author suggests that this was a common feature in all the interpretations of decline in the period treated here.     

Rock art as an archaeological and social indicator: The neolithisation of the Iberian Peninsula

Rock art has been regarded as a second class archaeological data source. In this paper we use Levantine rock art as a case study, to show how this situation can be reversed. This rock art, found along the Mediterranean region of the Iberian Peninsula, has been considered to be typically Mesolithic due to its distinctive hunting scenes. A review of certain archaeological indicators provides new arguments about its chronology, its socio-cultural attribution, and its significance. We first deal with the chronological issue, presenting the evidence that led to the recent consideration of the Levantine style as Early Neolithic, in synchrony with two other rock art styles (Schematic and Macroschematic). We will further propose that rock art itself is a central and independent source of information to explore the historical context of the Neolithisation of Mediterranean Iberia. Its wide geographical distribution allows us to study different and complementary territories as a single entity. This contrasts with the limitations posed by the study of settlements, whose differences, at a regional scale, are usually interpreted in terms of cultural variability. If we consider rock art as a key aspect in the constitution of social landscapes, it must not be treated just as an ideological by-product of the Neolithisation, but as a key factor in understanding this historical process.     

Displaying marginalised and ‘hidden’ histories at the Imperial War Museum London: The Second World War gallery regeneration project

Using Imperial War Museums’ redeveloped Second World War Galleries as a case study, this provocation discusses the ways in which refocussing outmoded British narratives to a transnational viewpoint and using the interpretive framework of ‘total war’ can help us to deliver new, authoritative and multifaceted narratives where ‘hidden’ histories can be displayed, and scrutinised, in plain sight.     

The power of space: The biopolitics of custody and care at the Lloyd Hotel,Amsterdam

This paper examines the relationship between space and violence through a biopolitical enquiry of custody and care at Amsterdam's Lloyd Hotel. The Lloyd Hotel began as a corporate established transhipment hotel serving transatlantic voyages. It was subsequently transformed into an emergency refugee camp and an improvised prison and juvenile detention centre. An iconic building which had functioned in both specific and broader networks of violence, the building is today a sophisticated heritage accommodation. We trace and analyse the ways in which the spatial arrangements of the historic hotel have facilitated, often concurrently, conditions of custody and care, and protection and control in its key historical moments. We address questions regarding the putative ‘agency’ of specific spatial designs and architectures in ‘retaining’ the socio-spatial elements of violence perpetrated in the past. Specifically, we suggest that the original and adapted spatialities of the hotel were often the source of unintended violence, abuse and transgression, signalling the ‘power of space’ in terms of agency over the subjected ‘guests’. In analysing a single micro-site and its broader spatialities, we seek to contribute to a relational conceptualization of violence sensitive and attuned to the complex histories and geographical scales that have bound and still bind this unique Amsterdam place of hospitality and custody.     

Sacred space and the art of its representation in the ethnic culture of Northern Asia: artifacts of Sakhalin

The article discusses the sacredness of art which refl ects the natural, vital needs of the indigenous people of Sakhalin Island. The article examines material artifacts including the Rukutama staff made of deer antler found in the Uilta air burial in the Rukutama River area (Poronai Region, Sakhalin Province), pottery dated to the 8th–13th centuries AD discovered in the Poronai and Korsakov Regions, as well as “verbal artifacts” preserved in language and myth. Ethnological data, collected by the author over 20 years of expeditions conducted in the Sakhalin Province is compared with artifacts from the museums of the Sakhalin Province, St. Petersburg, Osaka, and Hokkaido. The Tungus-Manchu dictionaries are widely used as an auxiliary source. A detailed analysis of the main themes of the Uilta sacred world including a ritual relationship to the fi re, dog, bear, and Kori bird is provided. The perception of space transmitted through the visual arts reveals the multifaceted nature of the perception and relationship to space among the ethnic culture of the Uilta people of Sakhalin Island and other Tungus-Manchu communities of the mainland: the Nanai, Ulchi, Negidals, and Orochi. Numerous similarities in the worldview of the Uilta people and the Evenki suggest their common origin.