Psychic blindness or visual agnosia: early descriptions of a nervous disorder

This article briefly reports on three early contributions to the understanding of visual agnosia as a syndrome sui generis. The authors of the respective papers worked in different fields such as physiology, ophthalmology, and neurology, and, although they were not in direct contact with each other, their results converged upon a consistent view of a nervous disorder that they called psychic blindness.     

Markovian Models of Movement Within Urban Spatial Structures

Much work has assumed that movement within urban spatial structures is an “adaptive” process. Nonetheless, mathematical models have not yet been specified and tested which formulate both how different individuals “adapt” over time in destination or route selection, and how predictions about aggregate movement can be derived from postulates about different persons. Two adaptive first-order Markov models for heterogeneous individuals are suggested by the literature. When formulated and tested, however, these models are inadequate to describe travel within urban spatial structures. This implies that the use of Markovian processes to model movement may be overrated. More confidence may be placed in other formulations such as linear learning models of route and destination choice.     

Relief Maps and Models in the Archives of The Palestine Exploration Fund in London

Abstract

The primary objective of the article is to present the relief maps and models of Palestine, Jerusalem and some historical monuments, which are kept in the PEF Archives in London. We will describe each of these objects, try to identify its date, maker, and circumstances of its making. We will present them according to the site represented in them, but suggest also classifying them as (a) artifacts brought as souvenirs from Jerusalem; (b) models and relief maps created by the Fund and its members as a product of their scientific endeavours; and (c) models and relief maps created by scholars who were not directly connected with the PEF.     

Feeling at home in public: diasporic Moroccan women negotiating leisure in Morocco and the Netherlands

Muslim women are often cited as subject to restriction in their mobility through public space, especially in European contexts, in comparison with non-Muslim community members. Yet any woman might face restriction in her access to leisure outside the home through geographies of risk and fear, as well as geographies of care and responsibility. In this article, we describe the ways in which Moroccan Muslim women resident in Europe negotiate access to leisure outside the home, in both Europe and Morocco, demonstrating that they practice mobilities framed by safety, risk and responsibility combined with individual volition to be participants in public spaces. Using examples from interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, we discuss a notion of ‘viscosity’ as safe public space that acts as an extension of the home, where women feel comfortable enacting their daily lives and engaging in leisure practices. By comparing data from the Netherlands and Morocco, we highlight the role of Muslim-dominant and Christian-dominant public spheres in these negotiations of leisure. The ways women inhabit such spaces reflect individual concerns about personal safety, as well as maintaining respectful relations with family and being protected from unknown dangers, in ways that reflect not only religious beliefs but also geographies of risk related to other factors. Inhabiting such spaces implicates how they become part of the community at large, as visibly present participants, by negotiating many factors beyond religious beliefs as part of their access to public leisure spaces.     

Determination of the noun in Biblical Hebrew

The two comprehensive reference grammars for Biblical Hebrew, Gesenius/Kautzsch and Joüon/Muraoka, in addition to the more or less generally accepted categories of use of the definite article, make use of a category which they describe as not having to do with definiteness in the sense that we know it. In this category they group the instances of use of the article that do not seem to fit into the generally accepted categories, instances where the Hebrew definite article, in German and English respectively, is said to be expressed by an indefinite article. In the present article, I analyse the 67 examples given to substantiate the existence of the proposed category. I argue that this category probably does not exist and I contend that most of the examples, when carefully analysed, are examples of regular article usage. When the nouns in question are perceived as nondetermined and translated as such, it is because we are not sufficiently familiar with ancient Hebrew language and culture and hence do not possess the contextual information the articles refer to.     

Power and Ethnicity History and Anthropology

This essay reflects on the relationship between anthropological and historical scholarship of ethnicity, picking up on themes explored by Andre Gingrich, by considering the epistemological and evidentiary limitations of social scientific and historical analysis and reconstruction. Beginning with the consideration of the pioneering transdisciplinary efforts of Robert Darnton and Clifford Geertz, it argues that many of the weaknesses ascribed to such efforts are actually part of the nature of social scientific investigation which, in the terms of Peter Winch, must take into account two sets of relationships: that of the relationship between the scientist and the phenomena that he or she observes and the symbolic system that he or she shares with other scientists, which can only be understood from the social context of common activity. How these two relationships challenge social scientific analysis of ethnicity are examined through a consideration of the difficulties of applying Anthony Smith's definition of an ethnie to either Fredrik Barth's classic essay on “Pathan Identity and its Maintenance” or Helmut Reimitz's study of Frankish identity. It concludes that neither anthropologists nor historians are simply describing societies as they are or as they were but rather attempt to describe societies as witnesses within them thought they should be, and we do this for our own society, not for those of the participants, past or present.     

The Validity of Hierarchical Information Integration Choice Experiments to Model Residential Preference and Choice

Integrated conjoint choice models have recently been introduced in the consumer choice literature as an approach to include a large number of influential attributes in a choice experiment and statistically test its assumed hierarchical structure. In the present article, the validity of integrated conjoint choice models is tested using housing choice as an example. The results of this study suggest that the parameters of housing utility functions derived from integrated conjoint choice models are not statistically different across experiments nor are they different from those derived from nonhierarchical conjoint models. This yields support for the validity of these models. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Exploitation of Plant Resources by Neanderthals in Amud Cave (Israel): The Evidence from Phytolith Studies

The depositional environments of Amud Cave indicate that phytolith assemblages retrieved from the cave's sediments are an integral part of the Middle Palaeolithic sequence. As such, they provide direct evidence for plant use. The Amud Neanderthals emphasized both wood and grass exploitation. Ligneous parts of trees and shrubs were used mainly for fuel. Herbaceous plants were used for bedding, possibly fuel, and for food. There is clear and repetitive evidence for the exploitation of mature grass panicles, inferred to have been collected for their seeds. These findings suggest that, as with the pattern recently discerned for faunal resources, a broad spectrum of plants has been exploited from at least the end of the Middle Palaeolithic. Phytolith analysis now provides a tool for testing models explaining subsistence and mobility patterns during the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic and for better understanding the role of vegetal resources in shaping these patterns.     

Testing Policy Theory with Statistical Models of Networks

This article presents a conceptual framework for clarifying the network hypotheses embedded in policy theories and how they relate to macrolevel political institutions and microlevel political behavior. We then describe the role of statistical models of networks for testing these hypotheses, including the problem of operationalizing theoretical concepts with the parameters of statistical models. Examples from existing theories of the policy process and empirical research are provided and potential extensions are discussed.     

Evaluating morphological variability in lithic assemblages using 3D models of stone artifacts

Technological and morphological variability in lithic artifacts is commonly used to identify taxonomic entities in Paleolithic research contexts. Assemblages are mainly studied using either linear distance measurements or qualitative assessments of morphologies. Here, we present a method to quantify morphological variability in lithic artifacts using 3D models of stone artifacts. Our study on the sequence of the Upper Paleolithic layers V–I from the site Yabroud II in western Syria, demonstrates that utilizing 3D models provides a new insight into the variability of lithic technologies. We use quantitative data on convexities, twist and scar patterns on cores and blades, attributes previously not readily quantifiable, to trace technological change through the archaeological sequence. We are able to identify differences and translate these findings into a grouping of the layers. While layers VI–II are characterized by technological continuity and were grouped together, layers V and I can be separated from this group and represent technologically different groups chronologically before and after. Our results demonstrate the potential of 3D models for studying morphological variability in lithic assemblages.     

Anglo-Saxon Economy and Ecology by a Downland Stream: A Waterlogged Sequence from the Anglo-Saxon Royal Settlement at Lyminge,Kent

Palaeoecological and geoarchaeological investigations which cover the Anglo-Saxon period are rare, particularly in chalk downland landscapes which are considered to have limited palaeoenvironmental potential. The present study explores a sequence which can be directly related to the occupation history of the major Anglo-Saxon settlement at Lyminge, Kent. This work demonstrated a sequence of palaeochannels and organic deposits associated with the latter part of an archaeological sequence which spans the 5th to the 11th centuries AD. A range of evidence for the environment and economic activity is presented which suggests landscape continuity, possibly stretching back as far as the Romano-British period. The sequence revealed worked wood and evidence for livestock management and cereal cultivation, some of which is contemporary with the final phases of occupation of a 7th century ‘great hall complex’ and its subsequent transformation into a royal monastery. Agricultural activity following the abandonment of the pre-monastic settlement area caused this stream margin to become gradually buried by ploughwash which displaced the channel over time and sealed the organic deposits. It is incredibly rare to find such organic preservation in direct association with an Anglo-Saxon downland rural settlement and this is the first time that such a sequence has been analysed in association with the latter phases of a known Anglo-Saxon royal and monastic centre.     

Modeling Mechanisms of Cultural Diversity and Ethnicity in Hunter–Gatherers

This paper aims to analyze the emergence of ethnicity and cultural differentiation in hunter–gatherer groups, using computer simulation methods. The existence of differences and similarities between populations has long been a major topic of investigation for archaeologists, who have traditionally used material culture as a means to identify different human groups. Today, this approach is perceived as being too simplistic. However, in the absence of satisfactory models, it often continues to be assumed as valid. In this paper, we present a preliminary model and its computer implementation to predict how hunter–gatherer societies interacted and built cultural identities as a consequence of the way they interacted. Our starting point for such analysis assumes the definition of ethnicity as the production and reproduction of group identity among members of a community, resulting from restricted cooperation flows. Results are compared with ongoing ethnoarchaeological research of Patagonian hunter–gatherers.     

ESTIMATION PROBLEMS IN MODELS WITH SPATIAL WEIGHTING MATRICES WHICH HAVE BLOCKS OF EQUAL ELEMENTS*

ABSTRACT Spatial models whose weighting matrices have blocks of equal elements might be considered if units are viewed as equally distant within certain neighborhoods, but unrelated between neighborhoods. We give exact small sample results for such models that contain a spatially lagged‐dependent variable. We consider cases in which the data relate to one or more panels, for example, villages, schools, etc. Our results are consistent with large sample results given in Kelejian and Prucha (2002) but indicate a variety of issues they did not consider.     

Views into the Fragments: An Approach from a Microhistorical Perspective

The approach I call the “singularization of history,” which I have been developing in recent years within the methodological structure of microhistory, is the main subject of this article. It has the precise aim of defining the ways in which scholars can use sources to enter into the past in as detailed and varied a way as possible without becoming trapped within the received channels of the grand narratives. I will make an attempt to demonstrate what the Icelandic School of Microhistory (ISM) is all about and its connection to the scribal culture in the country, as well as the importance of ego-documents for microhistorical analysis. The central element in the analysis of this paper will be the sources themselves—their creation, their context within the events they describe, the opportunities they present for analysis, and in what kind of academic context they have become a subject for enquiry.     

对清代八团彩云金龙纹吉服的再认识

在清代服饰研究及实物辨识过程中,人们一般根据《大清会典》和《皇朝礼器图式》等记载清代服饰典制的文献,把八团彩云金龙纹样认定为清代后妃吉服上的专用纹样,并进而以之作为区分清代皇帝和后妃服饰的重要标识。本文通过对故宫博物院收藏的大量清代服饰实物、清代宫廷绘画中的服饰图像以及清代文献中相关的记载等直接或间接的资料的考察和分析,认为这一认识存在片面性和不准确性。事实上,八团彩云金龙纹并非清代后妃服饰所专有的纹饰。清早期,皇帝也曾穿用过饰八团彩云金龙纹的吉服,这种男用八团彩云金龙纹吉服与女用八团彩云金龙纹吉服存在着明显相异的形制特征,并有其特有的始创、演变和消失的历史发展过程。     

Logging,Women and Submarines: Some Changes in Kamula Men's Access to Transformative Power

In this paper I describe how, for the Kamula, the productive elicitation of both familiar and modern things often requires access to the transformative capacities of ‘bush spirits’. The Kamula narratives I deal with outline how elements of modernity (such as money, logging, guns) are relocated into the domain of these spirits. By the mediation of these spirits, sometimes disturbing, even dangerous, aspects of modernity are transformed and then productively transferred to Kamula men such that they can apparently more effectively negotiate the new forces that now structure their lives. Through these narrative and magical definitions of agency, Kamula men become complicit in a modernity that is increasingly both the source and negation of their power.     

Cultural policies in cities of the ‘global South’: a multi-scalar approach

ABSTRACT

Building on the literature on global cities and on the worlding of cities, the articles in this special issue chart how cities outside Europe and North America try to reinvent and rescale themselves using culture. They suggest that the fabric of urban cultural policy is embedded in multi-scalar power dynamics. First, the contributions in this special issue reveal the importance of circulating standards across borders in structuring narratives about urban history, heritage and identity, in conjunction with local actors’ interests. Second, the diffusion of hegemonic cultural policy models such as the “creative city” leads to logics of exclusion, gentrification, and has been met with resistance, which suggest that these models can be to the detriment of local residents, despite the progressive values they are often claim to promote. Third, this special issue points to the need to rethink the politics of cultural policy mobility and offers conceptual tools such as vernacularization to make sense of the ways in which urban elites navigate, negotiate and take advantage of circulating cultural policy models.     

To binarize or not to binarize: relational data and the construction of archaeological networks

Over the last several years, network methods and models from the social and physical sciences have gained considerable popularity in archaeology. Many of the most common network methods begin with the creation of binary networks where links among some set of actors are defined as either present or absent. In most archaeological cases, however, the presence or absence of a specific kind of relationship between actors is not straightforward as we must rely on material proxies for assessing connections. A common approach in recent studies has been to define some threshold for the presence of a tie by partitioning continuous relational data among sites (e.g., artifact frequency or similarity data). In this article, using an example from the U.S. Southwest, we present a sensitivity analysis focused on the potential effects of defining binary networks from continuous relational data. We show that many key network properties that are often afforded social interpretations are fundamentally influenced by the assumptions used to define connections. We suggest that, although network graphs provide powerful visualizations of network data, methods for creating and analyzing weighted (non-binarized) networks often provide a better characterization of specific network properties.     

Everyday articulations of prostitution: how some Filipina migrants in rural Japan describe sexual–economic relationships

This article draws attention to ‘everyday articulations of prostitution’: the diverse, performative ways that people reproduce and rework meanings of ‘prostitution’ as they mobilize the term in their day-to-day lives. The article offers an ethnographic illustration of this process by exploring why and to what ends a group of Filipina wives of rural Japanese men referred to the behavior of another Filipina woman in their community as ‘prostitution.’ It demonstrates that when mobilizing this term, these Filipina women were not categorizing sexual–economic relationships (like ‘prostitution’) in terms of payment systems, as other scholars have assumed. Rather, geographical and cultural factors, such as the stigma associated with these women's migration histories and their long-term residence as wives and mothers in the small rural communities where they had worked in bars, led Filipina women in Central Kiso to describe such relationships according to the sentiments motivating them, the ways one utilized gifts or money from a sexual partner, and whether or not one demonstrated appreciation of this financial support. The article maintains that attention to everyday articulations of prostitution such as these expands our understandings of the situated meanings people can invest in this term. It illustrates how culture and geography shape the ways discourses of prostitution are mobilized to stigmatize some intimate-economic behaviors and, thereby, legitimize others.