On the Subject of Historical Geography (Landscape and Ethnos,III)

The author develops a methodology of historical geography revolving around the relationship between an ethnos, or ethnic community, and the “encompassing landscape.” He finds that under the conditions of the nomadic stockherding peoples of the steppe, where this relationship is most clearly expressed, the nomads become an inseparable part of the landscape, together with plant and animal life.     

Khazaria and the Caspian (Landscape and Ethnos,Part I)

The author combines the techniques of historical geography, archeology, and paleogeography to investigate the distribution of the Khazars, a people settled in the Volga delta from the sixth to tenth centuries. Data on Caspian Sea level changes, obtained in part from study of the Derbent wall, are correlated with known political events in the history of the Khazars. A history of settlement of the Volga delta is reconstructed.     

The Nature Of Ethnic Wholeness (Landscape and Ethnos,XII)

The character of an ethnic whole is analyzed in terms of systems theory. An ethnos is viewed as a closed system in which the initial burst of energy (innate drive) is gradually spent while entropy steadily increases. The system must constantly remove the accumulated entropy by exchanging energy and entropy with the environment. What produces the wholeness of an ethnic system is not the grouping of similar individuals, but the existence of a particular set of relationships between these individuals, giving rise to what may be termed an “ethnic field”. In light of the systems and field concepts, the author argues against defining an ethnic community as a mere social organism distinguished by common language, culture, daily life and mental outlook. Such an approach, in his view, limits the question of ethnic wholeness to the principle of external likeness, without delving into the internal linkages that hold an ethnos together.     

Ethnology And Historical Geography (Landscape and Ethnos,XIII)

The theory that ethnogenesis is triggered by bursts of innate ethnic drive or energy, following an incubation period, is examined further. An examination of the historical record suggests that several superethnoses may arise simultaneously in various parts of the world. The regions covered by such superethnoses may be broken up by natural barriers ruling out any exchange of population or cultural influences, and yet the regions involved in such energetic surges tend to be monolithic. The spatial contiguity of bursts of ethnic energy at particular periods in history is illustrated by a number of examples ranging from Europe to the Far East, but what precisely triggers these energetic displays still requires the formulation of a hypothesis.     

Khazaria and the Terek (Landscape and Ethnos,II.)

The author analyzes a functional relationship between the historical fate of the Khazar people of the Caspian steppe and changes in the landscape produced by an alternation of wet and dry cycles and changes of the Caspian Sea level. A previous article of this series appeared in Soviet Geography, June 1964.     

The Internal Regularity Of Ethnogenesis (Landscape and Ethnos,XIV)

The author, a Leningrad University ethnologist, completes a series of 14 articles on the relationship between landscape and ethnic communities, and on the forces that account for the rise and decline of ethnic groups through history. After having discussed in the first few articles the relationship between shifts in storm tracks and the fortunes of the steppe peoples of Central Asia, Gumilev developed a theory that attributes the rise, development and decline of an ethnos to the initial burst and gradual waning of an innate ethnic energy or drive. Ethnoses may be grouped into superethnic systems that are identifiable with major culture areas through time and through space (Hellenistic culture, Moslem world, European civilization, Eurasian nomad culture). The author attempts to relate the different phases in the evolution of an ethnos to changing relationships between the group and the individual, as expressed in a series of imperatives, but further analysis of what generates innate ethnic drive is left to other disciplines.     

Two Traditions Of Ancient Tibetan Cartography (Landscape and Ethnos,VIII)

An historical geographer and a Tibetan philologist combine their talents in an effort to interpret and date two ancient Tibetan maps, one in the Iranian-Tibetan tradition and the other in the Indian-Tibetan tradition. The Iranian-Tibetan map, though drawn in an unusual stylized fashion, is found to reflect a level of precision and areal coverage superior to Greco-Roman maps. The Indian-Tibetan map, though more concerned with cosmological matters of the Buddhist tradition, also reflects, in the authors' opinion, an unusual range of knowledge whose precise origins remain obscure.     

Ethnogenesis from the Geographical Point of View (Landscape and Ethnos,IX)

The author deals with the question whether the biological evolution of the species Homo sapiens is continuing under conditions of established civilizations. He replies in the affirmative, but qualifies his answer. The evolution of modern man affects behavioral patterns rather than anatomical or physiologic traits, and is reflected in a greater capacity for adaptation and an expansion of the area of settlement rather than in the improvement of a particular phenotype. The evolution is analyzed best in terms of the ethnos, or ethnic group. Two states of the ethnos are distinguished: a persistent (static) state, in which the ethnos may be said to stagnate, each generation copies the behavioral patterns of the previous generation, and the life patterns are adapted to the landscape; a historical (dynamic) state, in which the new generation breaks new paths, the landscape is adapted to the needs of the economy, and the ethnos strives to expand its area of settlement.     

Heterochronism in the Moisture Supply of Eurasia in the Middle Ages (Landscape Ethnos,V)

The author relates climatic fluctuations in inner Asia to the political fate of the nomadic inhabitants from the 1st century A. D. to the 18th century. He thus establishes an absolute chronology of climatic changes related to latitudinal shifts in storm tracks. Previous articles in this series appeared in Soviet Geography, June 1964, February 1966, and December 1966.     

The Man-Nature Relationship According to the Data of Historical Geography and Ethnology (Landscape and Ethnos,X)

The establishment of a new ethnos, or ethnic community, is attributed to a burst of energy or an innate drive that enables members of the community to break with past traditions and behavioral patterns and to begin building a new set of values distinguishing the new ethnic group from others. The ethnos is viewed as both a social and a biological phenomenon, with the social aspect represented by the group's relations with other groups and institutions and the biological by the behavior of the ethnos as a biological population. The innate drive exhibited by ethnic groups in the early stage of ethnogenesis is viewed as a biological feature. In general this drive is fostered by the practice of endogamy, but there are situations in which an ethnically mixed community, resulting from exogamy, also generates the energy required to initiate the process of ethnogenesis. Although the existence of the ethnic drive can be demonstrated by reference to history and historical geography, an explanation of this form of energy must be left to genetics and anthropology.     

On the So-Called Anthropogenic Landscapes

A Leningrad physical geographer, who is an advocate of the natural landscape school in Soviet geography, offers a critique of the school of anthropogenic landscape science favored by F. N. Mil'kov of Voronezh University and others. Landscapes, in the critic's view, are natural formations produced by physical cause-and-effect relationships among their natural components, and no basis is found for the development of a theory of anthropogenic landscapes that reflect the impact of human activity and minimize the role of natural elements. The author questions whether man is in fact capable of creating landscape in the literal sense and whether this can be accomplished by merely modifying a single natural landscape component. Further investigation is urged to establish the real role of engineering structures and agricultural activities in the landscape and their place within the system of natural linkages within the landscape. This line of investigation should then lead to study of the structure of landscapes that have been modified by man and to an understanding of a sequence of landscape succession, including man-induced and reconstructed variants.     

论“雪域牧耕文明板块”在中国疆域底定过程中的地位

青藏高原特有的高山地带适宜游牧、河谷地带有利农耕的自然条件,带来了该地域定居农业与游牧社会二元分割的态势。因二者势均力敌、彼此难以统合对方,造成该地域在前近代除了吐蕃王朝暂短统一外,大部分时间处于分裂割据状态。此既是藏传佛教趁势崛起之缘由,亦为元、清两朝政治力量始终对该地域起着决定性影响的深层机理。同时,由于藏传佛教通过宗教的力量将雪域高原的文明一体性延续下来,妙用文化的力量参与并深刻地影响着古代中国疆域构建历程,使得该地域在中国疆域底定过程中起着不可替代的作用。     

Index for Volume VII (1960)

Abstract

Martine Debaisieux, ed. Le Labryinthe de Versailles: Parcours critiques de Molière à La Fontaine. A la Mémoire d'Alvin Eustis. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998. 215 pp.

Albert W. Halsall. Victor Hugo and the Romantic Drama. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. xxvii + 251 pp. $60.00.

K. M. Sibbald, ed. Guill én at McGill: Essays for a Centenary Celebration (Ottawa Hispanic Studies 19). Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1996.

Maria Teresa de Feitas and Claude Leroy, eds. Brésil L'Utopialand de Blaise Cendrars. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1998. 392 pp.

Adrianna M. Paliyenko. Mis-reading the Creative Impulse: The Poetic Subject in Rimbaud and Claudel, Restaged. Southern Illinois University Press, 1997. xvi + 205 pp.

Danièle de Ruyter-Tognotti and M. van Strien Chardonneau, eds. Le roman francophone actuel en Algérie et aux Antilles. (Cahiers de recherches des instituts néerlandais de langue et de littérature françaises 34). Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998. 161 pp. $26.00.

Patricia E. Grieve. Floire and Blancheflor and the European Romance. (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. xiii + 240 pp.

Donald E. Schurlknight. Spanish Romanticism in Context. Of Subversion, Contradiction and Politics: Espronceda, Larra, Rivas, Zorrilla. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1998. 178 pp.

Joyce Tolliver. Cigar Smoke and Violet Water: Gendered Discourse in Emilia Pardo Bazán. Lewisburg, Penn., and London: Bucknell University Press and Associated University Press, 1998. 219 pp.

John C. Wilcox. Women Poets of Spain, 1860–1990: Toward a Gynocentric Vision. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1997. xix + 366 pp.

Pedro Guerrero Ruiz and Veronica Dean-Thacker. Federico García Lorca: El color de la poesía. Murcia: Universidad de Murcia. Servicio de Publicaciones, 1998. 212 pp.

Gerardo Diego. Obras completas: Prosa. Tomos IV, V. (Memoria de un poeta, vol. 1, 2.) Edited by Francisco Javier Díez de Revenga. Madrid: Alfaguara, 1997. 816 pp., 802 pp.     

Anthropogenic saltpetre: dual (oxygen and nitrogen) isotopic constraints to the biogeochemical processes

Saltpetre constitutes one of the major ingredients of gunpowder, which was a driving force during the political changes in late medieval to early modern times in Japan. Two types of model saltpetre mineralization are studied. One represents efflorescent saltpetre formed as the byproduct of indigo dye manufacture, whereas the second is anthropogenic, derived from relict nitre‐beds. Here, oxygen and nitrogen isotopic analysis, as expressed by δ¹⁸O and δ¹⁵N notations, is applied. The calculated δ¹⁸O values for ambient water, responsible for the microbial‐mediated oxidation of ammonium into oxygen in nitrates, tended to have higher ranges than average local meteoric waters of the relevant regions. An overall trend could be seen, showing the apparent positive nitrogen isotopic fractionation during the microbial transformation from initial organic nitrogen into nitrate product. Dual isotopic analysis for industrial nitrates provides a useful tool for investigation of the provenance of historic gunpowder. Present anthropogenic saltpetre involves positive control over temperature–moisture regimes and oxygen fugacity during formation, the process being distinctive from those prevailed in British India and other European countries.     

Anthropogenic units fingerprinted by REE in archaeological stratigraphy: Mas d'Is (Spain) case

On occasions, archaeologists have to deal with serious difficulties to differentiate between processes that ultimately are responsible for the formation of stratigraphic units.Sometimes we face problems related with depositional units in multilayered deposits and other times, we ask for the character of some dark surface soils, very similar to natural paleosols and usually associated with archaeological findings. In both cases, the problems we must address concern the relative impact of human activities.The imbalance between anthropic and natural processes in the formation of archaeological deposits is crucial for a correct interpretation of the processes involved in the formation of archaeological sites, but also of their occupation-abandonment dynamics and the understanding of their spatial behaviors and relationship with the environment.In this paper we propose a new methodological approach for the identification of anthropogenic fingerprints in stratigraphic units through Rare Earth Elements (REE) soil analysis. The role of REE for the effective identification of sediment provenance due to their coherent behavior during weathering, erosion and fluvial transportation and their high resistance to chemical mobilization is well known in other areas of knowledge. We try to explore its potentiality in a challenging archaeological context. Our purpose was to identify human traces in stratigraphic units where archaeological materials are scarce or absent intertwined with others richer in archaeological remains by the determination of multiple elements and statistical studies. We believe that Rare Earth Elements (REE) soil analysis provides unique insights for a better characterization of natural and archaeological sediments but more importantly to recognize different stages of the gradient. We expect to discern between natural versus anthropic units and between primary versus secondary deposits (redeposition), using the case of the Neolithic site of Mas d'Is (Alicante, Spain) as an example. The application of the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) remarks differences in REE values, those analysis show differences between units of undoubtedly anthropogenic origin and control samples taken from natural sediments –including marls bedrock–, in their vicinity, but also we could notice finer nuances like the degree of human contributions to paleosols formation.     

瑞宝阁藏金铜佛像研究——（七）明代永宣宫廷风格造像（15世纪）

明朝政府（1368-1644年）十分重视与藏族的团结友谊,与西藏各地和各教派势力有着广泛联系。为此,在宫廷专役造像机构制作藏式佛像,当时称为“佛作”,隶属“御用监”,这里制作出的佛像通常作为重要的宗教礼品赏赐及馈赠给西藏上层宗教人士。     

On the Particularism of English Landscape Archaeology

The aim of this paper is to explore the question: why is the archaeology of English historic landscapes apparently so provincial? Inevitably the response must be that matters are more complex. In this paper, I examine the work of W. G. Hoskins, the “father of English landscape history,” and draw attention to: the complex way in which landscape is embedded in nationalism; the relations between locale, province, and nation; and the way wider tensions, in particular of colonialism are embedded within Hoskins's own discourse. In conclusion, I examine ways in which this problematic continues to structure enquiry into the English landscape today and to inhibit a genuinely international and comparative approach to historic landscapes.