Does a turbulent history lead to turbulent life expectancy trends? Evidence from the Baltic States

After the time of the Great Duchy of Lithuania and that of their inclusion to Russian Empire, the three Baltic countries got their first independence after WWI, but WWII forced them to enter the Soviet Union for almost five decades before getting their second independence and resuming with market economy, to finally join the European Union. Such strong historical changes caused major impacts (either positive or negative) on the implementation of the health transition in the region, quite interesting to document, but they also produced dramatic changes in the quality and the accuracy of information required to compute mortality indicators. The aim of this article is to briefly summarize existing knowledge on mortality in the Baltic region for the past two centuries, but focusing more precisely on the consequences of getting in and then getting out of the Soviet system in terms of health and survival.     

新郑唐户新石器时代遗址调查

新郑唐户新石器时代遗址的仰韶文化内涵丰富,依据采集的大量陶器的器物特征,可分为早、中、晚三期,这对于解决遗址性质、区分区域类型、排列文化谱系以及今后这一带新石器时代的考古发掘与研究,都具有重要的参考价值.众多文献记载,新郑是传说中的黄帝故里,该遗址的南部传为"黄帝口",其仰韶文化遗存又十分丰富,这可能与传说时代黄帝氏族的重要中心聚落有关.     

Language,history and the nation: an historical approach to evaluating language and cultural claims

ABSTRACT. In contrast to the abstract commitment to individual rights found in liberal critics of Bill 101 and the equally ahistorical approach of multicultural theorists like Bhikhu Parekh, this paper proposes that the particular historical circumstances surrounding the current minority status of different groups is crucial in evaluating the legitimacy of one cultural group to promote its cultural needs over another group within existing states. When the culture of a group residing within a particular state is secure in a neighbouring jurisdiction, the issue at stake is not necessarily the survival of a unique culture but the cultural needs of particular individuals. It does not follow that they have no legitimate claims against the state. However, in examining the language policies in Quebec and the newly independent Baltic states, it is argued that they are different in kind to the rights due to long‐standing communities struggling for linguistic survival.     

Lipid residue analyses of Early Neolithic funnel-beaker pottery from Skogsmossen,eastern Central Sweden,and the earliest evidence of dairying in Sweden

This study address the question of the use and function of Early Neolithic (4000–3000 cal. BC) funnel-beaker pots from Mälardalen in eastern Central Sweden. The material studied is pottery from a wetland offering at the site Skogsmossen in the province of Västmanland. While deposited under ritual circumstances in a fen, the pots were likely used in a domestic domain on the settlement adjacent to the offering fen, prior to final deposition. The lipid analysis indicate a varied vessel use, there are traces of aquatic resources, plants, terrestrial animals and milk. The identification of milk residue is the oldest so far from Sweden.     

Non-destructive fabric analysis of prehistoric pottery using high-resolution X-ray microtomography: a pilot study on the late Mesolithic to Neolithic site Hamburg-Boberg

The characterisation of prehistoric pottery fragments presents a quite complex task. In provenance studies, petrographic and chemical analyses of the ceramic materials are employed to investigate potential production areas in respect to the geolocial background. Moreover, also the production technology of the firing process, as well as the forming techniques used by the prehistoric potters are of great interest. Their investigation is most often accompanied by a destructive preparation of the samples. In this paper, we want to present high-resolution X-ray microtomography (μ-CT), a non-destructive and non-invasive method, as a supplementary research tool in the study of prehistoric pottery.     

The Pastoral Neolithic of East Africa

In East Africa, as in many other regions, the initial shift from hunting and gathering to food production was a secondary process involving the introduction of species domesticated elsewhere. Specifically, the East African Neolithic, or Pastoral Neolithic, centered on herding livestock, some of which may have been domesticated in the Sahara and all of which were almost certainly imported from areas to the north. The development of the Pastoral Neolithic was lengthy and complex, having begun before 4000 B.P. and lasted until about 1300 B.P. Although detailed information on this segment of African prehistory is not abundant, data so far available reveal a succession of cultural transformations within the Pastoral Neolithic, such that it can be divided into early, evolved, and late stages, each exhibiting distinctive combinations of ceramic wares, lithic industries, and subsistence regimes. The transformations seem to have been fostered by both environmental change and population movements.     

牡丹江流域新石器文化序列与编年

牡丹江流域的新石器时代遗存,自早至晚可区分为振兴文化、亚布力文化、莺歌岭下层文化和石灰场下层文化等四种不同的考古学文化.它们的年代跨度大约在公元前5500年至公元前2000年之间,代表了本地区新石器时代的四个不同发展阶段.这四种新石器文化遗存的辨识及其年代关系的判定,标志着牡丹江流域新石器时代考古学文化编年序列的初步建...     

"Trouble in the East": The New Entrants and Challenges to the European Ideal

Two political geographers examine significant ways in which northern-tier states of the EU-10 entrants in 2004 have challenged conceptions of European integration. The paper first focuses on the institution of exclusionary citizenship regimes, particularly in Latvia and Estonia, that created a new caste of "non-citizens" within the EU's boundaries. It then turns to the strained Polish-EU relations involving inter alia the war in Iraq, pro-Americanism, and alleged violation of human rights through the purported existence of CIA detention and interrogation facilities. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F02, O15, O18, 2 figures, 1 table, 72 references.     

The role of waterways in the spread of the Neolithic

The causes and implications of the regional variations in the spread of the incipient agriculture in Europe remain poorly understood. We use population dynamics models to study the dispersal of the Neolithic in Europe from a localised area in the Near East, solving the two-dimensional reaction-diffusion equation on a spherical surface. We focus on the role of major river paths and coastlines in the advance of farming, to model the rapid advances of the Linear Pottery (LBK) and the Impressed Ware traditions along the Danube–Rhine corridor and the Mediterranean coastline, respectively. We argue that the random walk of individuals, which results in diffusion of the population, can be anisotropic in those areas and hence lead to an effective advection. The standard reaction-diffusion equation is thus supplemented with an advection term, confined to the proximity of major rivers and coastlines. The model allows for the spatial variation in both the human mobility (diffusivity) and the carrying capacity, reflecting the local altitude and latitude. This approach can easily be generalised to include other environmental factors, such as the bioproductivity of landscapes. Our model successfully accounts for the regional variations in the spread of the Neolithic, consistent with the radiocarbon data, and reproduces a time delay in the spread of farming to the Eastern Europe, Britain and Scandinavia.     

新石器时代黄河流域文化格局的变迁与筒形罐系统的文化趋势

筒形罐系统是新石器时代北中国地区重要的文化系统。新石器时代中期,筒形罐系统一度占据着太行山东麓的广袤区域,使得筒形罐系统的领地从东北地区拓展至冀南豫北地区,并且形成了具有明显过渡类型色彩的磁山文化。此后,随着东方釜鼎系统和西方仰韶系统交替占据黄河流域的主流地位,迫使筒形罐系统的南部前沿从冀南豫北地区向北退缩至燕山—西辽河一带,筒形罐系统此后的空间拓展方向也转向了东北腹地。在此背景下,燕山南北成为筒形罐系统与中原文化频繁接触、融合的新地带,先后产生了赵宝沟文化和红山文化等强势文化支系。可见,黄河流域的文化格局不仅改变了筒形罐系统的空间拓展方向,而且直接加剧了筒形罐系统内部各支系间的分化。     

上宅新石器文化遗址环境考古

上宅遗址所在的平谷盆地是中国环境考古策源地。上宅遗址的发现与发掘,一定程度上填补了北方草原文化与中原文化间的空白。以无彩陶,陶器不具绳纹和鸟首形镂空器等特殊器物为特征,构成一支具鲜明特点的沟河流域新石器时代中期早段文化,称之为上宅文化。上宅遗址依山傍水,聚居于河旁黄土台地,形成于全新世气候最适宜期。与邻区同期文化形成环境类似,其聚落形成环境具代表性。     

Supra-Regional Networks in the Neolithic of Southwest Asia

When prehistoric archaeologists write accounts of the Epi-palaeolithic or Neolithic of southwest Asia, they resort to an archaic narrative style of culture-history that was formulated by Gordon Childe in the first half of the last century. These narratives frame their account of events within the format of a succession of archaeological cultures. In addition, the received form of the narrative is founded within a core-area of the Levant, the Mediterranean corridor zone; it is assumed that all the important social and economic innovations of the Epi-palaeolithic and early Neolithic occurred within that corridor, from where the cultures and their innovations spread through diffusionary processes to dominate wider parts of the region. The first part of this paper is a critique of the unwarranted assumption of the existence of archaeological cultures, and of the Levantine primacy hypothesis. The second part proposes an alternative to the notion of the archaeological culture. First, we review the evidence for wide-area cultural networking through the exchange of goods and materials and the sharing of cultural behaviours that characterises the Neolithic. We can view the Epi-palaeolithic and early Neolithic periods as a time when new cultural processes were being employed to build and maintain novel sedentary, permanently co-resident communities of unprecedented scale. At a higher level, we see communities engaged in the construction and maintenance of more and more extensive networks of communities, in a form similar to, but not identical with, the peer polity interaction sphere model first described by Colin Renfrew in a different context.

The Origins of the Neolithic Along the Atlantic Coast of Continental Europe: A Survey

The main aim of this work is to compare the processes of transition to the Neolithic along the Atlantic coasts of continental Europe. Archaeological data on the late Mesolithic and the early Neolithic in the best known regions (central and southern Portugal, Cantabrian Spain, Atlantic France, the shores of the North Sea, and southern Scandinavia) are discussed. The transition to the Neolithic in Atlantic Europe can be viewed as a relatively late phenomenon, with several interesting particularities. Among those, we point out the fundamentally indigenous character of the processes; the existence of a long availability phase, in which hunter-gatherer groups maintained contact with neighboring agriculturalists and probably were familiar with farming and animal husbandry without applying them in a systematic way; and the later development of megalithic monumental funerary architecture. Finally, the main hypotheses so far proposed to explain the change are contrasted with the available evidence: those that argue that the change derives from economic disequilibrium, and those that opt for the development of social inequality as the fundamental cause.     

The palaeogeography and Neolithic archaeology of Herm in the Channel Islands

Abstract

The small Channel Island of Herm combines several distinct habitats ranging from steep rocky coasts and a rolling upland plateau in the south to a dune-fringed sandy lowland in the north. Where upland and lowland meet, a line of megalithic tombs constitutes the island’s most striking archaeological feature. Four seasons of fieldwork (2008–2011) have sought to determine the environmental history of northern Herm since the last glacial period and to place the tombs within the broader context of Neolithic activity. A series of trenches and boreholes has revealed the changing morphology of the prehistoric land surface that lies buried beneath the extensive deposits of aeolian sand that cover this part of the island. Results indicate that much of the lowland plain was initially occupied by a shallow marine inlet that was cut off from the sea and progressively infilled starting in the 4th millennium b.c. Pollen and soil sequences reveal how the wooded early Holocene landscape around the edges of this inlet was steadily degraded by human impact and climate. Traces of settlement and cultivation (plowmarks) suggest the megalithic tombs were situated within an agricultural landscape. This finding has relevance for theories that have proposed that islands were favored places for burial by communities visiting from the neighboring mainland. Herm was a locus for settlement and farming as well as for burial during the Neolithic period.     

The Neolithic Macro-(R)evolution: Macroevolutionary Theory and the Study of Culture Change

The macroevolutionary approach in archaeology represents the most recent example in a long tradition of applying principles of biological evolution to the study of culture change. Archaeologists working within this paradigm see macroevolutionary theory as an effective response to the shortcomings of neo-Darwinian biological evolution for studying cultural evolution. Rather than operating at the level of individual traits, macroevolutionary archaeologists emphasize the role of hierarchical processes in culture change. While neo-Darwinian archaeologists disavow any element of human intent in culture change, to macroevolutionary archaeologists human agency is a key component of cultural evolution that allows cultures to respond to pressures more quickly and with greater degree of flexibility and directedness than found in biological evolution. Major culture change, when it happens, is likely to be rapid, even revolutionary, with periods of rapid change separated by periods of relative stasis of actively maintained stability. The emergence of Neolithic cultures has long been recognized as one of two periods of major revolutionary culture change in human prehistory. Here I examine the record for the Near East, tracing the empirical record for the origin of agriculture in this region, as well as other demographic, social, and ideological components of Neolithic emergence. While the empirical record from the Near East subscribes in a general way to basic principles of macroevolutionary theory, cultural evolution cannot be understood through appeal to principles of biological evolution alone, whether based in macroevolutionary theory or neo-Darwinianism. Instead, the key role of human agency in culture change distinguishes cultural evolution from biological evolution and requires a more pluralistic and less doctrinaire appeal to multiple models of change based in both the biological and social sciences.     

The provenancing of ochres from the Neolithic Temple Period in Malta

Ochres have played an important role in early human societies, and recent studies have shown that these pigments are important tools in establishing trade routes between countries as particular varieties of the material were sought for use by these ancient groups. This paper explores the provenancing of the ancient ochres used during the Neolithic Temple Period on the Maltese islands. Here ICP-AES was employed to establish geochemical trends and ‘signature’ elements present in ochre that had previously been thought to have been imported from mainland Europe. When coupled with statistical tests, data was used to link the archaeological pigments to a geological source. Results revealed a strong link between the Maltese archaeological pigments and local sources, which had never been studied prior to this project. These indicated that, contrary to popular belief, the Maltese archipelago was the most likely source for Neolithic ochre.     

Modelling the effect of Mesolithic populations on the slowdown of the Neolithic transition

The expansion of the Neolithic transition in Europe took place gradually from the Near East across the whole continent. At Northern Europe, observations show a slowdown in the speed of the Neolithic front in comparison to other regions of the continent. It has been suggested that the presence of high population densities of hunter-gatherers at the North could have been the main cause for this slowdown. This proposal has recently been described by a mathematical model that takes into account: (i) the resistance opposed by the Mesolithic populations to the advance of Neolithic populations in their territory, and (ii) a limitation on the population growth dynamics due to the competition for space and resources. But these two effects are not equally responsible for the slowdown of the spread. Indeed, here we show that the limitation on the population growth dynamics seems to have been the main cause of the delay of the expansion of farming in Northern Europe.     

Towards a typology of stone beads in the Neolithic Levant

Abstract

This study is an attempt to develop a comprehensive typology of the earliest stone bead assemblages in the southern Levant from Late Natufian and Neolithic sites. I propose this typology as a tool for studying stone beads almost a century after Horace Beck published his monumental bead typology. Beads are often neglected artifacts in archaeological excavations, but a bead typology can contribute to definitions of relative chronology and to a broader understanding of social and economic aspects of certain prehistoric societies.     

New insights on the first Neolithic societies in the Horn of Africa: The site of Wakrita,Djibouti

Abstract

The site of Wakrita is a small Neolithic establishment located on a wadi in the tectonic depression of Gobaad in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. The 2005 excavations yielded abundant ceramics that enabled us to define one Neolithic cultural facies of this region, which was also identified at the nearby site of Asa Koma. The faunal remains confirm the importance of fishing in Neolithic settlements close to Lake Abbé, but also the importance of bovine husbandry and, for the first time in this area, evidence for caprine herding practices. Radiocarbon dating places this occupation at the beginning of the 2nd millennium b.c., similar in range to Asa Koma. These two sites represent the oldest evidence of herding in the region, and they provide a better understanding of the development of Neolithic societies in this region.