The Pottery of Khirbet En-Nahas: A Rejoinder

Abstract

Smith and Levy (2008) have published an assemblage of pottery from the copper production centre of Khirbet en-Nahas in Jordan. Based on their interpretation of the ¹⁴C dates from the site and contra the accumulated knowledge on the ceramic typology of the Levant they argue that this pottery dates to the Iron I and Iron IIA, and that there was no later activity at the site. We show that much of the Khirbet en-Nahas pottery dates to the Iron IIB–C. We argue that the charcoal samples sent for radiocarbon dating originated from the waste of industrial activity at the site in the Iron I and Iron IIA, while the pottery came from a post-production activity in the Iron IIB–C — an activity that included the construction of a fort on the surface of the site. We propose that the fort was built along the Assyrian Arabian trade route, at the foot of the ascent from the Arabah to the Assyrian headquarters of Buseirah.     

Pacific Islands Ichthyoarchaeology: Implications for the Development of Prehistoric Fishing Studies and Global Sustainability

The Pacific Islands—consisting of culturally diverse Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia—is the ideal region to investigate the development of prehistoric fishing studies, as nowhere else on Earth is there such environmental contrasts among island types and their marine environments. We review the ichthyoarchaeological literature for the Pacific and assess developments in recovery methods, reference collections, taxonomic identifications, quantification, taphonomy and site-formation processes, ethnoarchaeology, approaches to diet and subsistence reconstructions, sustainability, and the importance of applied zooarchaeology for fisheries management and conservation. Ichthyoarchaeologists are beginning to work more closely with resource managers, fisheries biologists, policy makers, and indigenous communities to produce holistic studies of conservation management, resource sustainability, and assessments of human impacts on marine ecosystems over centuries to millennial time scales.     

考古学与"全球变化研究"

国际组织为应对各种环境危机而组织的“过去全球变化计划” ,以 1万年和数千年以来的研究为重点。考古学在研究对象和年代学等方面的特点与优势 ,决定了其在此研究领域可以发挥独特的作用。     

Divergence,Sensitivity, and Nonequilibrium in Ecosystems

Contemporary theoretical debate in ecology and biogeography is often focused on equilibrium vs. nonequilibrium behavior in ecosystems and on the nature and source of ecosystem dynamics. It is suggested that these debates be recast in terms of the way ecosystems develop and respond to disturbances, rather than in terms of concepts often imported from mathematics, physics, and other fields. Using nonlinear dynamical systems theory, it is shown that key theoretical implications can be cast in terms of geoecologically significant phenomenologies such as divergent evolution, sensitivity to initial conditions and small disturbances, historical contingency, and path dependence. Examples show these phenomena are widely observed in ecosystems. Ecological and biogeographical theory can be problematized from within geography and ecology rather than fuzzy, abstract concepts such as equilibrium, self‐organization, “balance of nature,” or chaos. Complexity, sensitivity, variability, nonsteady states, and other concepts often associated with nonequilibrium or complexity‐theory frameworks have manifestations that are evident in observable ecological phenomena, in addition to theory and models.     

Hegel and Clausewitz: Convergence on Method,Divergence on Ethics

The Hegelian influence in Clausewitz has far more often been stated than it has ever been qualified, quantified, or verified. Perhaps the error was to try to ‘prove’ such a link, rather than focus on what such a convergence consists of and what it means, regardless of how it happened. Using both a historical and a linguistic argument, this essay delineates early writings that are devoid of any Hegelian similarities from those later in Clausewitz's life where a convergence of ideas becomes manifest. A counterpoise to Raymond Aron's overall dismissal of the link between the two authors, this article nonetheless reaches a limit as well: though they agreed in many ways in their methodology, the two fathers of the ‘dialectical war theory’ diverged quite dialectically on ethics. Hegel understands war as an inherently justified ‘right’ of the state, while Clausewitz sees it rather as the neutral ‘instrument’ of a moral agent, the state. The author traces this divergence to a missing link: a foundational aspect of Hegel's method regarding the nature of subjectivity and objectivity is absent from Clausewitz's work, and this appears to generate the impasse. The essay provides grey tones to arguments on either side of the debate about influences, or lack thereof, which have strayed too far into shades of black and white.