The Lead Ingots from the Wreck of the Zuiddorp (1712), Western Australia: a report on their provenance and manufacture

The Dutch United East India Company ship Zuiddorp vanished on its way to Batavia in 1712 – its last port of call was the Cape of Good Hope. After its wreck was found on the Western Australian coast, archaeological investigations resulted in the retrieval of 21 lead ingots. Recent study of this artefact assemblage, comprising both great pigs and pieces, suggests that they were of north English origin. Historical records indicate that the Dutch procured large quantities of lead from English sources and maritime trade links between English and Dutch ports were well established at the beginning of the 18th century. © 2012 The Authors     

From Aterian Notch to Aterian Tang: How to Make a Technological Invention

The Aterian lithic techno-complex that characterizes the late Middle Stone Age in North Africa is well known especially for its tanged or stemmed points. Recent techno-morphological and use-wear analyses have added new data to support the identification of the tang as the hafted portion of an artifact. They have also highlighted the presence of this attribute on tools other than projectile points, in contrast with the widespread idea that the tanged point is the Aterian fossile directeur. The design of this specific device, the tang, for hafting purposes is regarded as a great technical innovation that underlines a modern behavior. Our work provides new use-wear and experimental data, aiming at discussing the cognitive preconditions of this technical innovation that could have originated from a specific functional unit: the notch. Notches are quite abundant in the Aterian techno-complex. Our systematic study of this tool category from Aterian sites of the Jebel Gharbi allowed defining the notch per se as a techno-morpho-functional unit that was “applied” to different types of blanks, including “reused blanks,” which show a heavy patina on their surface. This functional unit has been used for various types of activities and can be found either alone on a blank or with multiple other units on the same blank, creating different tool morphologies. According to this interpretation, the tang could have been considered by Aterian populations as a new resulting variant of various possible combinations of notches, for defining and/or transforming the shape of a tool.     

怎样比较中俄经济改革

中国经济改革 2 0多年 ,俄罗斯改革十几年。现在应该停下来 ,回过头去瞧瞧两国走过的路 ,比比二者现在站在什么地方。坦诚地说 ,比较双方的经济改革成就 ,俄罗斯相去甚远。人们对中国改革可以有不同感受 ,但是有一点应当肯定 :中国的经济体制改革已经取得了推动经济发展的长足进步。 2 0 0 0年 ,中国的GDP相当于 1 989年的 2 93 %。相比之下 ,同一时期 ,俄罗斯只达到 5 7 3 %,捷克为 94 7%,乌克兰为 44 3 %,波兰为1 1 7 8%。谈到中国经济体制改革在过去 2 0多年的成就 ,我们必须承认 ,无论社会的实际经济表现还是经济发展模式的生存能力 ,…     

The role of the Irish boundary commission in the entrenchment of the Irish border: from tactical panacea to political liability

The abortive saga of the Irish Boundary Commission has largely been dismissed as a minor footnote that warrants little elaboration in the discussion of Ireland's partition. This is unsurprising considering that its final report was hastily suppressed so as to prevent the destabilisation of the nascent regimes in Northern Ireland and the then Irish Free State. However, the concept of the Commission derives from the intensifying controversies of Irish Home Rule and partition, and the consequent difficulties in establishing how and where a boundary was eventually drawn as well as to the status of the entities it would be dividing. The Commission was legally conceived in Article 12 of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty but confusion over its wording protracted a sequence of events that ensured that it was almost three years before it actually met. Article 12 was eventually interpreted in a restrictive manner, which exposed inherent flaws that were either ignored or naively underestimated when it was originally adapted from part of the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles. Furthermore, the complexities of evidence were inadequately scrutinised by a small and under-resourced panel that operated under considerable political pressure to delimit a precise line that satisfied subjective terms of reference. Nevertheless, the revoked Commission served as a crucial catalyst in defining the Irish Free State's relationship with the British State and in entrenching the territorial framework of Northern Ireland's six counties that exists to this day.     

Fitting into a New Place: Irish Immigrant Experiences in Shaping a Canadian Landscape

Escaping one heritage of British colonialism for another, Irish immigrants to Canada in the nineteenth and early twentieth century helped to shape the image of Canada and Canadian nationalism. In this paper, I compare the diversity of Irish immigrant experiences in Canadas urban and wilderness landscapes. The Irish immigrant experience in major urban centers is well documented. Community neighborhoods, Church activities and domestic and manual labor constitute just part of the stories of urban Irish Canadians in cities such as Toronto. The popular conception of the Irish as strictly city people is strengthened by the lack of discussion of the Irish immigrant role in taming (and ideologically shaping) the wilderness of Western Canada. It is argued that this has to do with the colonial image of the Irish from which British imperialist Canada sought to distinguish itself.     

The Marausa Wreck,Sicily: interim report on a boat built in the Western Imperial Roman tradition

In 1991, the wreck of a late 3rd–early 4th century AD Roman merchant vessel was discovered on the west coast of Sicily that had carried North African amphora, tubuli, and other ceramics. The hull was dismantled and raised in 2011, including a keel hook‐scarfed to stem and sternposts, 39 pegged mortise‐and‐tenon joined planks, 43 frames with an irregular pattern of floor‐timbers, half‐timbers, and futtocks fastened to the planking with treenails and copper nails, sister‐keelsons and evidence of two stringers, 36 ceiling strakes, and the base of a bilge pump. Many repairs are indicated. The fairly flat bottom and round bilges, mortise‐and‐tenons, sister‐keelsons and lack of a coherent framing pattern, place the boat in the Western Imperial tradition.     

How best to drain the alchemist's cauldron: A study of the problem of marine pollution in Australia

There exists a significant problem of marine pollution in the Commonwealth of Australia. The present paper attempts to explore three aspects of this problem: the scientific, legislative, and probative. With respect to the scientific, the kinds (eg hydrocarbons, toxic metals, and viruses and bacteria) and sources (eg ship‐source and dumping) of marine pollution are examined. With respect to the legislative, the Offshore Constitutional Settlement 1979, as well as relevant‐ Commonwealth and state (Victoria and New South Wales) legislation are studied. Finally with respect to the probative, three solutions including cooperative, bottom‐up and top‐down ones are proposed and, at least in the case of the first of these, evaluated. The paper finds that the problem of marine pollution is rooted more in the federal nature of the Australian constitution than in the concurrent (as distinguished from coordinate) nature of the powers of the Commonwealth and states under this same constitution.     

成都市应如何打好“三国蜀汉文化”这张牌

三国蜀汉化是成都市的一个重要旅游特色。这一特色在西部大开发中如何更好地发挥作用,作在中作了深入探讨,提出了一些卓有见地的看法。