THE ORIGINS OF PREGNANCY SUPERSTITIONS RELATING TO CONGENITAL MALFORMATIONS

PREGNANCY superstitions relating to abnormal foetal development are common in modern societies. The universality and intensity of such beliefs suggest that their origins might be found in less-modified cultural groups. This study, from Mornington Island, indicates that such beliefs are already highly evolved in Aboriginal peoples. Three types of beliefs are identified — maternal impression, spirit influence and totemic identification. Examples of each type are presented, as they relate to congenital malformation, and reasons advanced for their origin and cultural stability. A knowledge of the origins of such beliefs is of help to the counsellor of parents who have children with congenital malformations.     

REGIONAL ASPECTS OF DUST STORMS IN STEPPE REGIONS OF THE EAST EUROPEAN AND WEST SIBERIAN PLAINS

Two broad regions of the USSR most susceptible to dust storms, the southern East European Plain in the European USSR and the West Siberian Plain and adjacent areas of northern Kazakhstan, are contrasted according to a number of indicators of dust storm frequency and intensity. More specifically, the two regions, although roughly similar according to overall frequency of dust storms, were found to differ in terms of their interannual variability, years of peak activity, prevailing winds associated with dust storms, seasonal frequency, duration and erosive force of individual storms, and synoptic processes contributing to dust storm formation (translated by Jay K. Mitchell, PlanEcon, Inc., Washington, DC 20005).     

EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND THE TERRITORIAL‐ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLEX

Detractors of European integration and many of its protagonists invoke state territoriality where the social and the spatial come together in a “Territorial‐Administrative Complex”. Like the military‐industrial complex claiming once to procure security, protagonists claim to guarantee democratic legitimacy. At the same time, the interests of the territorial constituencies prevail over others. The underlying notion of space is absolute and of territory that of a container. Costs and benefits are calculated in terms pertaining to it. The underlying “meta‐geography” is one of boxes‐in‐boxes, but rather than viewing space as a container, based on academic literature in the matter, planners now pursue soft planning for soft spaces. In the face of the apparently incontestable claim of the Territorial‐Administrative Complex to a monopoly on the production of democratic legitimacy, the article points out, albeit rare examples of constitutional theorists challenge this monopoly. Voting in territorial constituencies, they claim, has never been properly argued for, making it an arbitrary institution.     

THE ORIGINS OF ROMANO-BRITISH SMALL TOWNS

Summary. Romano-British urban origins have all too frequently been seen in terms of simple monocausal explanations, emphasising the role of purely military factors at the expense of the importance now attached to pre-Roman settlement nucleation. This article seeks to explore the question of small town origins and early development in the light of this wider perspective. It attempts to demonstrate that the period after AD 43 saw two overlapping and competing systems, one focused on pre-existing sites, the other on the new communications network, each with their own requirements and each with varying regional application and importance. Incorporation within the prevailing new order is shown to be more vital to urban development than pre-Roman or fort origins in isolation.     

THE ORIGINS OF THE DALAI LAMA REINCARNATION SYSTEM

正Toward the beginning of the 1400s, the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism came into existence, and it was not long before a man by the name of Gedun Druppa, a disciple of the great Master Tsongkhapa during his later years, established the school's largest monastery in Tsang region (in today's Shigatse City of Tibet Autonomous Region):the Tashilhunpo Monastery. When he died, talk     

THE SUPPLY OF CAMPANIAN‐MADE SIGILLATA TO THE CITY OF POMPEII

Pompeii is an important temporal reference in the study of Roman ceramics, yet until now the origins of red slip tableware or sigillata found in the city have largely been classified by visual evaluations of the pottery. This investigation employs petrographic and elemental analyses to establish the provenance of sigillata found in two pre–ad 79 contexts of Pompeii. In contrast to previous studies, the results suggest that pottery workshops in the vicinity of Somma‐Vesuvius played a vital role in the supply of sigillata to the city.     

RADIOCARBON DATING OF MESOLITHIC OPEN‐AIR SITES IN THE COVERSAND AREA OF THE NORTH‐WEST EUROPEAN PLAIN: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

This paper discusses the problems with sampling materials and sampled contexts in the framework of radiocarbon dating of Mesolithic sites situated in generally dry, acid and bioturbated coversand deposits within north‐western Europe. The case studies presented all relate to the coversand regions of northern Belgium and the Netherlands, two areas for which very large sets of radiocarbon dates performed on different organic components are currently available. The study points out that charred hazelnut shells from surface hearths and charcoal from hearth pits guarantee the most secure dating results, while the dating of calcined bones and food crusts from Final Mesolithic pottery so far remains problematic.     

生活满怀铺张 巴黎黛安娜&Joe的家做客

在黛安娜的家,我们终于明白:无论价格昂贵或者廉价,一切物品的存在价值只是为了增加生活乐趣。做物欲的主人而并非为物所累,才是一种幸福。     

THE ORIGINS OF RACISM: A CRITIQUE OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

This essay has two objectives. First, it seeks to engage critically with contemporary scholarship on the origins of racism through the lens of an older debate centered around the history of ideas. Specifically, it argues that Quentin Skinner's influential critique of the history of ideas can help identify the pitfalls of our current fascination with the origins of racism—most particularly when such origins are traced back to antiquity and the European pre- and early modern periods. In pursuing its second objective, the essay turns from histories cataloguing ancient, medieval, and early modern racisms to objections leveled, in these same literatures, against scholarship defending the modernity of race. The defense of a premodern origin to race is, I argue, not just a historical argument but a contemporary politics embedded in a narrative of continuity that insists on the relevance of the medieval past to the racial configurations of our current moment. Rather than demonstrating continuity and sameness, this essay seeks to draw attention to alternative modes of historicizing that are more attentive to the alterity of the past.     

STEPS TO THE STEPPE: OR, HOW THE NORTH PONTIC REGION WAS COLONISED

Summary.   The occupation of the steppe region north of the Black Sea by farming or herding groups in the fifth and fourth millennia BC has been a controversial question. At the core of the problem is the changing relationship between Cucuteni-Tripole farming groups in the forest-steppe zone and their neighbours in the true steppe zone. Three phases of this relationship are discussed, in the Early Copper Age, Late Copper Age and Early Bronze Age (c.5000–3000 BC), during which different forms of exchange and acculturation took place, each with its own social and economic characteristics. The role of environmental change, and the significance of burial monuments in the process of cultural convergence, are evaluated. The process is discussed both in terms of general models of social transformation, and by comparison with other areas of Europe where similar processes of interaction were taking place.     

欧美国家露营旅游发展及其对中国的启示

露营是符合休闲时代旅游者心理需求的一种旅游,更是当今时代的一种时尚趋势。国内露营旅游及露营地的发展也逐渐受到政府、企业、学者以及旅游者的关注。本文对欧美露营旅游的相关研究进行了梳理,系统的阐述了欧美露营地发展及研究现状。总结了欧美露营旅游在露营地规划建设、经营管理方面的特色,发现其露营旅游产品呈现出集观光与休闲、个性与新颖、探险与刺激等功能相结合的趋势,服务活动也逐渐趋于多样化。在此基础之上对中国露营旅游发展进行思考,期待为中国露营地的规划建设以及经营管理提供参考。     

谈四川光绪元宝银币中的“缶宝”与“尒宝——兼录洋匠所述成都造币厂机器安装之经过

在国内有关四川开铸银币的中文论述里,通常是只说：光绪年间铸有“四川省造光绪元宝”两种,一种正面光绪元宝的宝字从“衙”,人称“缶宝”．乃最初之试制样币。另一种光绪元宝的宝字作简写“尒”,俗称“尒宝”,为后来之虽产行用品,有多种版式。