Fra samisk ≪overhøyhet≫ til norsk i Tromsen len på 14/1500‐tallet

Det er ei kjent sak at samene i Nord‐Norge i ny ere tid har vært diskriminert og utsatt for assimilering, språklig og kulturelt. Det har også vært vanlig å tilbakeføre denne tilstand til meget eldre tider, som vikingtid og middelalder.

I denne artikkel forsøker forfatteren på basis av lokalt kildemateriale fra ca. 1600 å vise at sjøsamene i Nord‐Troms i sein‐middelalderen kanskje stod i ei meget friere stilling i forhold til sine norske naboer, enn vi vanligvis har tenkt oss.     

The Urban Quandary and the ‘Mega-Site’ from the Çatalhöyük Perspective

This paper considers the phenomenon of urbanism and the ‘mega-site’ from the perspective of the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia. At 13 hectares, with 18 levels of Neolithic occupation spanning 1100 years, and peaking at around 8000 inhabitants, Çatalhöyük is considered to be an important source of evidence regarding the transition from settled villages to urban agglomeration. While parallels can be identified between spatio-temporally separated sites, we argue that traditional models of urbanism disregard divergent long-term trajectories. Thus, a comparative look at different types of sites has the potential to provide new insights into broader questions concerning highly populated permanent settlements in the prehistoric period and contemporary concepts of urbanism, providing a useful alternative to diffusionist or grand narratives. Here, we consider social and ritual practice, settlement layout and space, and social organization as they relate to the urban qualities of this prehistoric town and within the Middle Eastern Neolithic context.     

On the stability of the ozone layer at Tromsø

Long-term measurements of the thickness of the ozone layer in Tromsø since 1935 show that the annual mean value can vary by as much as 18%. However, no decreasing trend of the ozone content and no correlation with the increasing amount of chlorine and halogen compounds of the atmosphere are found in the Scandinavian sector of the Arctic.     

The antiquity of the nation? Critical reflections from the ancient Near East

Debates over the antiquity/modernity of the nation have often made use of evidence from the ancient Near East. In doing so, these debates employ the distant past principally as a ‘mirror’ of the present, using contrast or similitude to argue for a particular understanding of nations and nationalism since the eighteenth century. In this manner, both ‘Modernist’ and ‘Perennialist’ approaches incorporate pre‐modern contexts into the categories and priorities of modernity. This article critically reviews several influential studies on nations and nationalism in light of ancient Near Eastern evidence in order to highlight the narrowing of possibilities that this practice involves. I argue that the cost of this narrowing is not so much a misunderstood past as a mystified present.     

The ‘Other’ on the Other Side of the Ditch? The Conception of New Zealand's Disassociation from Australia

A growing body of work has explored the shared qualities of Australian/New Zealand history and trans-Tasman association. Without denying these links, this article considers New Zealand's simultaneous history of disassociation from Australia and investigates the contours and cultural content of disassociation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.     

Lower Ordovician trilobites from the Septembersø formation,North-East Greenland

McCobb, L.M.E., Boyce, W.D., Knight, I. & Stouge, S., 2014. Lower Ordovician trilobites from the Septembersø formation, North-East Greenland. Alcheringa 38, 575–598. ISSN 0311-5518.

The informally named Septembersø formation is a 76 m thick succession of microbial and peritidal shelf carbonates deposited on the North-East Greenland shelf of Laurentia. The formation, assigned to the lower part of the Cape Weber Formation in all previous studies, lies disconformably upon the Skullrockian Antiklinalbugt Formation (revised) and conformably below the Tulean to Blackhillsian Cape Weber Formation (revised) in the Fimbulfjeld Group. With the exception of Randaynia, the modest trilobite fauna recovered from the Septembersø formation consists exclusively of bathyurids, and all represent new species. Both Chapmanopyge knudseni sp. nov. and Punka adamsi sp. nov. are represented by sufficient material to merit specific names. The remaining taxa, belonging to Bolbocephalus, Peltabellia, Randaynia and Chapmanopyge are left in open nomenclature. The trilobite genera present suggest that the Septembersø formation is referable to the Tulean Stage of the Ibexian Series, latest Tremadocian/earliest Floian in Global Standard terms.

Lucy M. E. McCobb [lucy.mccobb@museumwales.ac.uk], Department of Natural Sciences, National Museum of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF10 3NP, UK; W. Douglas Boyce [dougboyce@gov.nl.ca] and Ian Knight [ianknight@gov.nl.ca], Geological Survey, Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Natural Resources, PO Box 8700, St. John’s, NL, Canada A1B 4J6; Svend Stouge [svends@snm.ku.dk], Natural History Museum of Denmark (Geological Museum), Øster Voldgade 5–7, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark.     

“The Gudeman of Ballangeich”: rambles in the afterlife of James V

This article concerns a corpus of legends in which James V of Scotland disguised himself as the “Gudeman of Ballangeich” in order to enjoy amorous adventures. The traditions may or may not be contemporary, and equally there is no certainty about whether they reflect actual behaviour (although kings in general, including the Stuart kings, have been known to disguise themselves for a variety of reasons, including pleasure). However, in later centuries, allusions to the “Gudeman of Ballangeich” were used by Scots to refer surreptitiously to a Scots king, by Jacobites to refer to a Stuart king, and members of The Beggar's Benison, an eighteenth‐century libertine club, used tales of James V to evoke memories of a better, pre‐Union, pre‐Calvinist Scotland of cultural creativity and sexual liberty. The legends of James V helped maintain the positive, popular image of this monarch as the “poor man's king” in the face of less kind judgements from contemporary elites and subsequent generations of historians.     

The Location of the Boundary Between the Tropical and Subtropical Landscapes in Eastern Asia (Based on material from a field study of yünnan)

The author, another opponent of large reservoirs in Western Siberia, analyzes the effect of such large inland water areas on the moisture and heat supply of the region. He predicts that the construction of a reservoir would result in a southward shift of the optimal moisture and heat conditions for agriculture and would have an adverse cooling effect on climate, especially In summer.     

The social production of ‘attractive authenticity’ at the World Heritage Site of Røros,Norway

This paper examines how authenticity and its use as a way of conceptualising the past participates in processes of heritage production, which are here defined as both the social construction of heritage sites and the uses of heritage sites as resources to achieve social goals. We argue that the social production of place and the social values generated by place are linked by a common approach based on the use of ‘place attraction’ as a unifying social concept. The World Heritage Site of Røros has as an attractive place become a resource for the production of cultural capital among various stakeholders, taking the form of a large body of ‘heritage knowledges’. However, a symbolic capital production of ‘attractive authenticity’ has today generated an idealised past and a purified iconic image of Røros as World Heritage. The discourse of ‘attractive authenticity’ reveals a conflict of interests where symbolic capital unfolds and makes power relations evident. This exposes a discussion about cultural heritage management practices at World Heritage Sites.     

The tyranny of gendered spaces – reflections from beyond the gender dichotomy

This article argues critically that the consequences of a binary system of gender norms is experienced as a kind of gender tyranny both for those who transgress gender in their daily lives, but also for those whose lives are lived within such constraints. Feminist geographers and urban theorists have argued that space is gendered and that gendering has profound consequences for women. This article extends this analysis and shows how rigid categorizations of gender fail to include the intersexed and transgendered populations, a small and highly marginalized segment of the wider population. This article uses autoethnographic methods to illustrate the ways that those who transgress gender norms experience a tyranny of gender that shapes nearly every aspect of their public and private lives. The nature of these consequences is explored using citations from the transgender and queer literature as well as the lived experience of this tyranny by the author in a continuum of public to private spaces, including: parking lots, public restrooms, shopping malls, the workplace and the home.     

The use of stereoscopic images taken from a microdrone for the documentation of heritage – An example from the Tuekta burial mounds in the Russian Altay

To analyse, interpret and manage our cultural heritage it is important to have an accurate and realistic representation of it. Documenting this heritage involves geographic techniques such as photogrammetry, for which a lot of rather expensive and extensive platforms are already in use. However, a microdrone, a recently developed unmanned aerial vehicle platform is a cheaper and easy to handle tool. To test the very limits of the microdrone and its accompanying data-acquisition and data-processing software, we collected data from a remote area in Tuekta, in the Russian Altay Mountains. This paper presents the challenges faced during the whole photogrammetric procedure from planning the flights to producing the final deliverables.     

The Pontic Greek spoken by Muslims in the villages of Beşköy in the province of present-day Trabzon

Abstract

This article consists of two parts. The first part provides general information on the language and its speakers: I describe the language, land, and livelihood of the Greek-speaking people of Be?köy in Trabzon province. In this respect it is indispensable to mention migration, which is one of the most serious threats the Greek-speaking community and their language faces today; statistical data show that Be?köy lost half of its population over the past fifty years. Despite these adverse conditions, the language has proved to be resilient enough to remain a preferred means of communication when Greek-speakers come together. In the last subsection, on language and identity, I present testimonies by native people which illustrate that positive attitudes towards both the Greek language and Turkish citizenship or Islamic identity are easily compatible.

The second part comprises a linguistic discussion of the language and aims at giving an overview of its main features. It describes its phonological system, and points out some of its most interesting morphological and syntactical characteristics. Special emphasis is laid on the differences from the Sarachos variety that has been studied by Peter Mackridge.