Conversion by the Numbers: Benefits and Pitfalls of Quantitative Modelling in the Study of Early Christian Growth

Proponents and critics of numerically modelling early Christian growth have missed many complexities of this approach. This study re‐examines quantitative modelling by conducting “thought experiments,” built from initial assumptions to population projections. First, an “apostolic mission” model assumes that Christianity grew via persuasive leaders; it projects a cubic growth curve. Second, a “values reproduction” model ties higher reproduction and conversion to certain Christian values; it projects an exponential curve. Next, a “social reaction” model links growth to interconfessional interactions; it projects a logistic curve. Such formal models reveal numerical parameters of conversion and the impact of various assumptions. Together, they illustrate the variability of early Christian population projections. They also showcase limitations of traditional quantitative modelling, which tends to oversimplify social conditions, to mischaracterise ancient religion, and to inspire teleological reasoning. Newer “network” models can overcome only some of these limitations. Used carefully, however, quantitative methods supplement familiar socio‐cultural approaches.     

The Environmental Approach to Prehistoric Studies: Concepts and Theories

This article examines the main approaches to prehistoric environmental studies. The history of theories and concepts used in contemporary prehistory, archaeology, cultural and social anthropology, ecology, sociology, psychology, and demography is discussed. The author concludes with a plea for the concept of “living space” as a way to address certain problems in interdisciplinary studies of prehistoric societies.     

Settlements and the Development of “Statelets” in Sonora,Mexico

Abstract

The late prehistoric and protohistoric population of eastern Sonora, Mexico, has been described on the basis of reports by early Spanish explorers, as being organized into modified chiefdoms called “statelets.” The development of these small, regionally discrete political units has been seen as the result of Casas Grandes influence. Archaeological data on late prehistoric settlement patterns gathered during an intensive survey of the Valley of Sonora and presented here verify that statelets did exist. Data on earlier settlements and settlement-pattern changes, however, are interpreted as meaning that statelets developed without external influence. A growing population and increasing local exchange are proffered as the underlying causes for statelet development. Contact and trade with neighboring groups did exist, but probably were consequences rather than causes of changes evident in the settlement patterns.     

“Participation”, White Privilege and Environmental Justice: Understanding Environmentalism Among Hispanics in Toronto

Abstract: The environmental justice movement has highlighted not only the unequal distribution of environmental hazards across lines of race and class, but also the white, middle‐class nature of some environmentalisms, and broader patterns of marginalization underlying people's opportunities to participate or not. There is a significant body of work discussing Hispanic environmental justice activism in the US, but not in Canada. This paper draws on interviews with representatives of organizations working on environmental initiatives within the Hispanic population of Toronto, Canada to explore definitions of and approaches to environmentalism(s) and community engagement. Four interrelated “mechanisms of exclusion” are identified in this case study—economic marginalization; (in)accessibility of typical avenues of participation; narrow definitions of “environmentalism” among environmental organizations; and the perceived whiteness of the environmental movement. Taken together, these mechanisms were perceived as limiting factors to environmental activism in Toronto's Hispanic population. We conclude that the unique context of Toronto's Hispanic community, including contested definitions of “community” itself, presents both challenges and opportunities for a more inclusive environmentalism, and argue for the value of “recognition” and “environmental racialization” frameworks in understanding environmental injustice in Canada.     

Abstracts

As visibly extractive industries reliant on the material and semiotic commodification of nature, forestry and mining have come to be popularly viewed as “environmental pariahs.” Yet forestry and mining continue to be successfully profitable enterprises despite a significant increase in environmental awareness and activism in the latter half of the twentieth century. To understand the relative stability and growth of these sectors in the face of overt contradictions arising from their use of the environment, this article revisits the work of regulation theorists who asked similar questions about the persistence and maintenance of capitalism in general. Two case studies are presented—forestry in British Columbia and gold mining in California and Nevada—which demonstrate how the political economy of forestry and mining is subject to contradictions arising out of the technological and organizational mechanisms through which nature is appropriated during production. Analysis of the case studies shows that the regulation of these contradictions is increasingly achieved through the deployment and cooptation of sustainability narratives. The case studies therefore juxtapose the recent proliferation of sustainability narratives within the forestry and mining sectors with the sectors’ persistent challenge to concepts of sustainable development>     

London Stone: Stone of Brutus or Fetish Stone—Making the Myth

The remnant of once-famous “London Stone” stands almost unnoticed today in Cannon Street, in the City of London. Speculation about its origin began as early as the sixteenth century. This paper considers in particular the identification of the Stone as London's talisman (a view embodied in an invented “ancient saying” that linked it to the city's legendary Trojan foundation), or as a prehistoric “fetish stone” set up when London was first settled. The mythologising of London Stone continues, and at the turn of the twenty-first century it is regarded by some as an essential element in London's indefinable “sacred geometry.”     

From Darkness into Light: Race,Population, and Environmental Advocacy

Environmentalists and environmental organizations in the USA have long identified population growth as a key threat to environmental sustainability at local and global scales. The neo‐Malthusian logics they invoke embed racialized images and categories in defining population “problems”, yet increasingly social justice language is invoked in population debates as a “solution” in the context of international development. This article explores the historical and contemporary characterizations of race as a central component of population–environment advocacy. It focuses on locations of race narratives in both the conceptualizations of population growth as an environmental problem, and family planning as a global solution. Through a critical analysis of the “population justice” framework, I argue that new discursive approaches attempt to reposition population work as socially just, while eliding critical analyses of race.     

Identifying Female in the Halaf: Prehistoric Agency and Modern Interpretations

This article considers ways that representations of anthropomorphic imagery in the form of figurines from prehistoric village communities have been interpreted and provides a new framework for analyzing figurines. It has been long suggested that prehistoric figurines should be interpreted as representations of female gendered qualities related to ritual, fertility, and motherhood combined into a concept called “mother goddess.” The impetus for the adoption of this interpretation and evidential association with prehistoric figurine assemblages and bound to binary gender is briefly critiqued. The methodology for studying figurine assemblages presented here utilizes typological, archaeological, and comparative analysis and is cognizant of inherent ambiguities in the object biographies of the full assemblage. This study applies this methodology to a corpus of figurines excavated from sixth millennium settlements associated with the Halaf material culture. This approach is then operationalized with case studies of figurines excavated from Domuztepe (Turkey) and Chagar Bazar (Syria) as examples of engagement with those who conceived, made, used, and discarded them. The Halaf figurine corpus is shown as nuanced, displaying sexual difference and humanness on a spectrum from overt to ambiguous. Considered as a whole, the Halaf corpus is shown to have had mundane and mutable use lives related to embodied identities entangled with culture and community, unconnected to gender binaries, ritual, fertility, or motherhood.     

Corporate gift or political sacrifice? State-sponsored CSR and electricity provision in Guinean extractive enclaves

Going beyond a static conceptualization of the mining enclave, recent research increasingly scrutinizes the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) schemes as a means of territorial entanglement. Several authors refer to the notion of the “corporate gift” to describe these control and coping strategies as well as the resulting power relations between companies and the population around the production facilities. In this article, we focus on electricity provision as an example for such a “gift”. Extensive field research in the Guinean mining areas of Siguiri, Kamsar, and Mambia showed that in all of these areas, the mining companies not only acted as “givers” of electricity, but also handed over the bill for this electricity provision to the state. Confronted with this curious fact of state-sponsored CSR, this article questions the foundations of the arguments around the notion of the corporate gift and comes to the conclusion that these three electrification projects were, at the same time, acts of “political sacrifice”. This concept points beyond the obvious conclusion that mining companies try to maximize their legitimization efforts in an increasingly competitive environment and underlines the role of the state in “company-community” relations and the maintenance of extractive enclaves.     

The meaning of sedentism and mobility in an archaeological and historic context

Sedentism is a commonly used concept in settlement pattern analysis. In a recent review of this concept Rafferty (1985) found “sedentary” to be related to both settlement permanence and site size. Both space and time are fundamental aspects of sedentism. While maintaining permanence as a central factor, this paper discusses further aspects of sedentism primarily in relation to the use and meaning of space. A case study based on archaeological and historical materials on Sami and Norwegian settlements in arctic Norway is used as an illustration. In arctic Norway prehistoric maritime settlements have often been interpreted as being either transhumant or sedentary. The prehistoric case of sedentism is then viewed in relation to the historically known differences in settlement permanence in space and time for Norwegian and Sami populations in the same area of arctic Norway. It is proposed that models of sedentism should not only be based on ecological, economic, and adaptational considerations but should also include the importance of the meaning of place in the relationship between human populations and landscape.     

SOVEREIGNTY AND SOFTWARE

This article will critically appraise two approaches to cultural policy. The first focuses upon the need for a national cultural policy in order to establish a national “common culture” among its citizens, through measures to promote the arts and popular media sectors, and set limits to the flow of imported materials into the nation. This is what has been termed the “sovereignty” model, and has historically been the driver of cultural policy debates. The second approach, which is called the “software” approach, aims to create cultural infrastructure and other environmental factors to promote a creative economy, whether at local, regional, national or supra‐national levels. It questions the historical divides between “culture” and “industry”, and between “creativity” and “innovation”, and is focused upon the development of future ideas and creative concepts. It draws upon the very different conditions associated with the development of software to those of established arts and media sectors, and aims to extend the “software” model more widely into cultural and creative industries policy.     

Exploring Adaptive Variation among Hunter-gatherers with Binford’s Frames of Reference

The most significant change in hunter-gatherer studies has been the shift from expecting hunter-gatherers to have similar properties wherever they are found to recognizing that hunter-gatherer adaptations should vary along many different dimensions. Although archaeologists approach research with different goals, there is remarkable convergence in our knowledge about hunter-gatherers past and present. The ethnographic record of recent hunter-gatherers reveals enormous variation along several dimensions. The specific combinations of characteristics displayed among hunter-gatherers are not infinitely variable but cluster as distinctive “system states” (following Binford, Constructing frames of reference: an analytical method for archaeological theory building using ethnographic and environmental data sets, 2001) that pattern with both environmental and demographic variables at a global scale. Frames of reference based on these generalizations have implications for what archaeologists should expect for hunter-gatherers in different environmental settings, and also for how they should change over time if regional population density generally increases. Recognizing that patterns of variation at the regional scale are different from those at the global scale, I propose a hierarchical strategy for developing expectations for variation among prehistoric hunter-gatherers that can both situate the research locale with respect to global patterns of variation and acknowledge important dimensions of variation in habitat structure that are likely to condition regional variation in hunter-gatherer mobility, subsistence, and social organization.     

The prey as patch model: optimal handling of resources with diminishing returns

Foraging theory provides archaeology with a valuable set of tools for investigating the constraints that influenced procurement decisions of the past. The prey-choice model has been used extensively by archaeologists, but has significant limitations given the nature of archaeological data. This paper suggests that the seldom-used Marginal Value Theorem (MVT) is a valuable tool for examining the ecological constraints on foraging decisions and merits further archaeological application. Ethnoarchaeological and experimental cases are presented demonstrating how patch–gains curves can be generated from quantitative data on butchering return rates and handling times. Results indicate that such curves are diminishing return functions. This provides a basis for examining the linkage between processing intensity and resource fluctuation. This model allows archaeologists to address the relationship between attribute-states of faunal remains and predicted optimal post-acquisition decisions. The MVT is valuable to ethnoarchaeology because it identifies how mean foraging return rate influences the handling of acquired prey and makes quantified predictions of return rate based on processing intensity. The MVT can also be applied to archaeological studies of foraging behavior and processing intensity as it can be used to estimate the set of environmental constraints in which a given kill was made (e.g., “good” vs. “bad” times). This approach may also identify the degree to which certain currencies, such as fat, are optimized at the expense of others, such as total caloric intake.     

Microwear analysis of experimental flint tools: a test case

Recent attempts to infer the functions of prehistoric stone tools have centred on the study of microscopic traces of wear on the surfaces of these tools. One method of “microwear analysis” involving high magnification and an incident light microscope is tested in this paper. Modern flint tools made and used in ways thought relevant to prehistory were produced by a lithic technologist and after cleaning given to the microwear specialist who attempted to infer their use. A high degree of agreement between inferred and actual uses was achieved and this encouraging result has important implications for the study of microwear on prehistoric tools where no such independent check is available.     

ENERGY: GOVERNMENT POLICY OR MARKET RESULT?

From the Truman presidency through that of Carter, the United States worked fitfully toward the development of an energy policy. Now, consistent with the “free market — get government off the backs of the people” philosophy of the Reagan Administration, the 1981 National Energy Policy Plan proposes that “individual choices” and “reliance on market decisions” replace regulations and subsidies in the nation's strategy for energy. This paper starts from the assumption that the Spring, 1982 oil “glut” may turn out to be a rather temporary thing. If one therefore wants to pursue a policy strategy that will protect us in the case of sudden short-term supply disruptions and also work toward long-term energy supply diversification, how far will market reliance carry us? What is a range of policies and programs that might usefully supplement the market? What are the externalities for which compensatory actions may still be needed if one would like to employ the market strategy as a basic thrust? The scope of the paper includes contingency planning, synthetic fuel development, renewables (especially solar energy), conservation, equity issues, environmental externalities, and the conceptualization of policies differentiated as “energy,”“environmental,” or “economic.”     

The Recognition and Utilization of Silkworm Resources in the Hongshan Culture: Focusing on the Unearthed Jade Silkworms

Jade silkworms unearthed from the sites of the Hongshan culture reflect that the mulberry silkworms and tussah silkworms were recognized and utilized in the Liaoxi (west Liaohe River) valley from at least 5.5 to 5 thousand years ago. This not only makes the Yan-Liao region (extending from the Yanshan Mountains to the Liaohe River valley), where the west Liaohe River valley is located, become another prehistoric center of silkworm resource utilization besides the middle reaches of the Yellow River and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, but also traces the earliest time and the area of the utilization of tussah silkworms in China from Shandong Peninsula in the Han Dynasty to the west Liaohe River valley in the Hongshan period. Meanwhile, the quantitative superiority of jade tussah silkworms implies that wild silkworm resources were still the main source of silk for the Neolithic inhabitants. The understanding and expression means of“taking jade as silkworm” and“turning silkworm into dragon” in the Hongshan culture coincide with those in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and are a vivid portrayal of the Hongshan culture as a direct root of the Chinese civilization.     

Islands,extraction and violence: Mining and the politics of scale in Island Melanesia

Set against the backdrop of past, contemporary and possible future mining-related violence on islands in the western Pacific, this article explores how scholarship on the politics of scale, as well as strands of the burgeoning island studies literature, might sharpen our understanding of the political economic and violent effects of extractive resource enclaves in Island Melanesia. Drawing upon field research in Bougainville and Solomon Islands, I argue that just as Melanesian islands were produced as a scale of struggle in the context of the introduction of capitalist social relations under colonialism, so too have they emerged as a critical, albeit problematic, scale of struggle in contemporary contestations around extractive resource capitalism under the current round of globalisation and accumulation by dispossession. I suggest that this politics of scale lens enriches our understanding of how “islandness” can be an important variable in social and political economic processes. When the politics of scale is imbricated with the well-established idea of the island as the paradigmatic setting for territorialising projects, including the nation-state and sub-national jurisdictions, islandness emerges as a potentially powerful variable in the political economic struggles that attend extractive resource enclaves. I also highlight, in the cases considered here, how islands can become containers for internal socio-spatial contradictions that can be animated by extractive enclaves and can contribute to the island scale becoming violent and “ungovernable”. The article advances recent efforts to bring the island studies literature into closer conversation with political and economic geography.     

Procedural and Substantive Fairness in Risk Decisions: Comparative Risk Assessment Procedures1

The issue of fairness often is central within environmental policy debates. The recent proliferation of state and local comparative risk projects for informing the selection of environmental policy priorities offers an appropriate setting to explore the issue of procedural fairness in risk-based decisionmaking. This paper describes and evaluates the process by which one of the initial state comparative risk projects, Washington's “Environment 2010,” attempted to include a broader range of participants in identifying, assessing, and generating preferred management strategies for a wide range of environmental hazards. The Washington case study suggests that comparative risk projects can be fairer procedurally, but that significant barriers remain. Noting that greater procedural fairness does not necessarily produce greater substantive fairness, the paper concludes that more attention needs to be directed at the process by which comparative risk projects translate their consensus upon risk priorities into subsequent actions.     

Making Space for Energy: Wasteland Development,Enclosures, and Energy Dispossessions

This paper analyzes why and how wasteland development narratives persist through an evaluation of wasteland development policies in India from 1970 to present. Integrating critical scholarship on environmental narratives and enclosures, I find that narratives of wastelands as “empty” spaces available for “improvement” continue because they are metaphors for entrenched struggles between the government's shifting visions of “improvement” and communities whose land use practices contradict these logics. Since the 1970s, “improvement” has meant establishing different types of tree plantations on wastelands to ostensibly provide energy security. These projects have dispossessed land users by enclosing common property lands and by providing forms of energy incommensurate with local needs, a trend I term “energy dispossessions”. Factors enabling energy dispossessions include the government's increased attempts to establish public–private partnerships to carry out “improvement” and a “field of observation” constructed to obscure local livelihoods. Unveiling these logics will help to problematize and contest future iterations of wasteland development.     

A Statistical Examination of Flake Edge Angles Produced During Experimental Lineal Levallois Reductions and Consideration of Their Functional Implications

Recent studies have indicated that Levallois-style core reduction offered potential practical benefits to hominin populations. However, none of these studies have yet considered one of the most important functional attributes of flake tools, which is edge angle. To address this shortcoming, we statistically examined flakes produced experimentally during “classic” or “lineal” Levallois core production and reduction. The primary aim of our analyses was to statistically test the null hypothesis of “no difference” between the edge angles of “Levallois” products and the flakes involved in their production. We employ existing edge angle analytical techniques and develop new comparative methodologies to assess flake blank standardization through the case of Levallois core reduction. Having determined the statistical properties of our experimental Levallois reductions, we thereafter evaluated to what extent edge angles produced may, or may not, have been useful to prehistoric hominins. Our analyses demonstrated that the experimentally produced Levallois edge angles were indeed statistically different from the flakes involved in their production. These differences were evident both in terms of relatively higher (i.e., more obtuse) edge angles than debitage flakes and in being significantly less variable around their higher mean edge angles compared to debitage flakes. However, based on current knowledge of how flake edge angle properties relate to issues of functionality, such differences would not have been detrimental to their functionality. Indeed, the edge angle properties they possess would have provided distinct benefits to hominins engaged in their manufacture. Most notably, Levallois-style core organization and reduction would have provided hominins with a reliable means of consistently producing flakes (i.e., “Levallois flakes”) possessing average flake angles that are beneficial in terms of providing a viable cutting edge yet not being so acute as to be friable upon application. Hence, edge angle properties join an array of other features that provide logical motive for why hominins may have organized core production and reduction around Levallois-style patterns at various times and places during the Mid-Late Pleistocene.