The Non-Geographer: Overlooked but not forgotten

This paper is concerned with epistemological and attitudinal problems encountered in communicating geographical concepts to non-geographers. It reflects a Canadian context and offers a case study of a group of non-geographers whose special needs are often overlooked: the teachers of social studies. An inductive approach, using systematic geography only as required in order to understand a case study, is found to be effective in building bridges for those new to the subject. The choice of sequence should be from the empirical to the theoretical, in which fieldwork fulfils a point of entry for non-geographers.     

The forgotten slaves of Tromelin (Indian Ocean): new geoarchaeological data

Here we present geoarchaeological results from Tromelin, a small 1-km² atoll in the Indian Ocean, looking to elucidate human–environment interactions following the wrecking of the l'Utile in 1761. Abandoned by their French crew, around 60 Madagascans were enforced to form a micro-society on this remote island for a 15-year period. Little, however, is known about the cultural and environmental adaptations the population made during their stay. This study focuses on sediment archives from Site 5, where GRAN/INRAP archaeological work in 2008 brought to light three rooms attributed to the survivor's living quarters. Particular emphasis is placed on the impacts of cyclonic storm surges, natural hazards that presented serious environmental risks to the long-term survival of the slaves. The small size of Tromelin renders it a particularly discrete unit of analysis for such a study. We have identified four chronostratigraphic units at the site. (1) Unit 4 constitutes coarse white sand incorporating rounded gravels and reworked head and branch corals. No anthropogenic material is attested. We attribute this unit to a storm layer preceding the 1761 occupation of Tromelin. (2) Unit 3 yielded a multiplicity of archaeological material and corresponds to the 18th century cultural layer. The unit varies in thickness from 10 to 40 cm. (3) Unit 2 constitutes a 20 to 40 cm sand sheet across much of Site 5 that we attribute to a powerful cyclone event. It forms an unconformable contact above unit 3 and can be divided into two distinct sub-units, 2a and 2b. Sub-unit 2a is characterised by an inverse grading of the sediments, constituting coarse sands at the base grading into rounded biogenic gravels in the upper part. This sedimentology is typical of increasing flow velocity and is diagnostic of a storm setup flow. The transition to sub-unit 2b marks the onset of the waning flow, characterised by a sharp fall in relative flow velocities. These overwash deposits buried much of the archaeological remains and have been critical to the preservation of the vestiges through to present-day. (4) Unit 1 corresponds to a layer of infill incorporating blocks of coral and cultural objects dating from the 19th to 20th centuries.     

Memories of a time forgotten: the myth of the perennial nation

ABSTRACT. This article questions the persistent view of the Balkans as a place where ethnic and national identities were sustained over centuries of Ottoman and Habsburg rule. It concentrates on the Serbian historical narrative and challenges the picture of the Serbs as an ethnic community who gathered around their bards and priests to cherish memories of their ancient kingdom. Rather, it is argued that we can speak of two competing narratives, one ecclesiastical and the other vernacular, neither of which was even remotely national or historical, and that the Serbs, as we know them today, are not the product of centuries of cultural formation but were carved out of a Slavic mass as were the Croats, relatively recently.     

Two medieval plague treatises and their afterlife in early modern England

This study of an adaptation of the popular John of Burgundy plague treatise by Thomas Moulton, a Dominican friar, ca. 1475, and a translation of the so-called Canutus plague treatise by Thomas Paynell, printed 1534, shows how the medieval traditions they represent were carried forward, well into the sixteenth century, and also subjected to change in light of religious, moral, and medical concerns of early modern England. The former had a long life in print, ca. 1530-1580, whereas Paynell's translation exists in one printed version. Moulton's adaptation differs from its original and from the Canutus treatise in putting great emphasis on the idea that onsets of plague were acts of divine retribution for human sinfulness. In this respect, Moulton reshaped the tradition of the medieval plague treatise and anticipated the religious and social construction of plague that would take shape in the first half of the sixteenth century. Its long history in print indicates that Moulton's treatise expressed the spirit of that construction and probably influenced the construction as well. The contrasting histories of the two treatises attest not only to the dramatic change brought about by religious and social forces in the sixteenth century, but to a growing recognition of the value of the printing press for disseminating medical information-in forms that served social and ideological ends.     

从疫病防治看满族的民族精神

满族先民的生存环境极其恶劣,瘟疫、疾病是他们最经常、最普遍、最难以抵御的敌人。在防治疫病的过程中,满族先民积淀下来了自强不息、富于务实、勇于创新、仁爱德厚、有容乃大等民族精神。     

Prelude to the plague: public health and politics at America's Pacific gateway, 1899

San Francisco played a crucial in the formulation of American immigration policy vis-à-vis Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this period, it was often difficult to differentiate political struggles over the exclusion of Asians from other conflicts. This article examines one such arena: an acrimonious, well-documented argument in 1899 between Federal and various State and local authorities over the arrival of a Japanese passenger liner that may--or may not--have been carrying bubonic plague. Six months later, the plague unquestionably arrived, resulting in the well-known San Francisco plague epidemic of 1900 in which more that 110 people died. Reviewing the 1899 prelude, the public attitudes of the various health authorities, and the way the press reported health issues, collectively give some sense of that historical space where the regulation of public health, politics, and the immigration industry intersected and were fiercely contested.     

Population flight: A forgotten aspect of Greek warfare in the sixth and fifth centuries B. C.

In this article, the author formulates a hypothesis about the fundamental importance of population flights during periods of war during the fifth and sixth centuries B. C., based on a critical evaluation of the reasons for the quick rebirth of Greek cities during the period whose populations had been sold into slavery, exiled, or killed. According to this hypothesis, population flights were one of the most essential elements of Greek warfare. When a threatened city was at a disadvantage, evacuations of property, women, children, and older men were carried out before the attack of enemy troops, leaving behind only those who were absolutely essential to an effective defence of the city. This was done to protect the most vulnerable part of the population, as well as to improve the chances for military success by reducing the supply difficulties posed by a long siege. When the city was large, wealthy, and well prepared for its defence, village dwellers also took refuge within its walls. On the other hand, when it was believed that the siege would end in defeat, the entire population was evacuated, and would remain outside its home city until the threat disappeared (e.g. the Persian repression after the Ionian revolt, Datis’ expedition); property, women, children, and old men would all be removed to a safe place, whilst men capable of bearing arms would attempt to defy the enemy in the most favourable circumstances possible (e.g. the Persian wars). The most extreme solution was to abandon the city and to establish new settlements far away from the territory under threat.     

Rats cannot have been intermediate hosts for Yersinia pestis during medieval plague epidemics in Northern Europe

The commonly accepted understanding of modern human plague epidemics has been that plague is a disease of rodents that is transmitted to humans from black rats, with rat fleas as vectors. Historians have assumed that this transmission model is also valid for the Black Death and later medieval plague epidemics in Europe. Here we examine information on the geographical distribution and population density of the black rat (Rattus rattus) in Norway and other Nordic countries in medieval times. The study is based on older zoological literature and on bone samples from archaeological excavations. Only a few of the archaeological finds from medieval harbour towns in Norway contain rat bones. There are no finds of black rats from the many archaeological excavations in rural areas or from the inland town of Hamar. These results show that it is extremely unlikely that rats accounted for the spread of plague to rural areas in Norway. Archaeological evidence from other Nordic countries indicates that rats were uncommon there too, and were therefore unlikely to be responsible for the dissemination of human plague. We hypothesize that the mode of transmission during the historical plague epidemics was from human to human via an insect ectoparasite vector.