THE USE OF TRACE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF ENTRAPPED SLAG INCLUSIONS TO ESTABLISH ORE – BAR IRON LINKS: EXAMPLES FROM TWO GALLO‐ROMAN IRON‐MAKING SITES IN FRANCE (LES MARTYS,MONTAGNE NOIRE,AND LES FERRYS,LOIRET)*

Knowledge of the iron trade in ancient times rests on determining the source of the objects recovered during archaeological excavations. Unfortunately, attributing the origin is not always possible using archaeological tools alone. Trace element data of the ore and the archaeological material (reduction and reheating slags, entrapped slag inclusions from the bloom, bar iron and iron blades) from two Gallo‐Roman iron‐making centres, Les Martys (Montagne Noire) and Les Ferrys (Loiret), were determined using ICP–AES/MS and LA–ICP–MS. The results highlight a continuity of composition that makes it possible to establish a link between the initial ore and the semi‐finished iron products.     

The rediscovery of ‘the national’ in the 1990s – contexts,new cultural forms and practices in reunified Germany

This article examines how and in which societal and political contexts nationhood is expressed and symbolised in reunified Germany. This ‘rediscovery’ of nationhood since the 1990s mixes new and old motifs of the cultural repertoire of ‘the national’ for different purposes. Three main contexts triggered a rediscovery of ‘the national’ after 1989: reunification, immigration and the retrenchment of the social state. I argue, by analysing ethnographic material and political discourses, that these contexts, on the one hand, rearticulate old forms of ethnic and cultural nationalism and, on the other hand, create new images and symbols of an open civic society and immigration country. There are ‘playful’ forms, such as campaigns of nation branding, that symbolically include the ‘productive’ and ‘useful’ immigrant into the national project. Moreover, such campaigns serve to legitimatise the downsizing of the national state that – according to a neoliberal attitude – relies on a new community spirit of entrepreneurial, ‘activated’ citizens who ‘help themselves’. Thus, focusing on these pluralised renationalisation processes makes evident how polyvalent ‘the national’ still is. It can be employed by those who attempt to ‘reunite’ the East and West Germans, by businesses to sell their goods and ideas and by almost any political orientation, be it right‐wing or left‐wing.     

In the Long ‘Run’: Kanak Stockmen,the Cattle Frontier and Colonial Power Relations in New Caledonia, 1870–1988

ABSTRACT For more than a century, from the 1870s to the 1980s, stockmen were important intermediaries and figures of power and influence in the construction, maintenance and renewal of the colonial order in New Caledonia. Social relations between Kanak and settlers working in the cattle ‘runs’ permitted a unique form of mobility spanning the frontier. The relations developed between chiefs and cattle farmers are central to the processes by which certain administrative chieftaincies emerged in the late‐nineteenth century, and by which Kanak entered the ‘political’ sphere in the second half of the twentieth century. With reference to the locality of Koné, this article traces the political alliances fashioned between Kanak stockmen and their employers in the context of colonisation, rebellion, evangelisation, post‐war political emancipation, local development and, finally, the struggle between supporters and opponents of independence in the 1980s.     

‘The land and its people’: reflections on artistic identification in an age of nations and nationalism

From the late eighteenth century onwards, increasing numbers of visual artists came to identify with their nations and with the homeland and its people. This development was strongly influenced by growing national cultural support and regulation of the arts by academies, art schools, museums and art markets in Western Europe. On a subjective level, the Rousseauan movement of a ‘return to Nature’, Herder's espousal of vernacular cultural self‐expression and, above all, the widespread Romantic cult of authenticity, were potent influences on the inner self‐identification of visual artists after 1800, and were manifested in the novel importance accorded to landscape and rural genre painting in Western Europe. Here I consider the role of national sentiment, the ‘return to Nature’ and the cult of authenticity, first in landscape paintings by Paul Sandby, J. M. W. Turner and John Constable in early nineteenth‐century Britain, and then in the rural genre paintings of Jean‐Francois Millet and Jules Breton in nineteenth‐century France and Josef Israels, Anton Mauve and Vincent Van Gogh in the later nineteenth‐century Netherlands. Their work reveals how nineteenth‐century visual artists became inwardly identified with the ‘land and its people’, and how they in turn contributed, especially through prints and engravings, to the dissemination of national imagery and a cultural nationalism.     

Scenic tourism on the northeastern borderland: Lake Memphremagog's steamboat excursions and resort hotels, 1850–1900

Lacking the salt-water beaches, accessible mineral springs, and rugged mountains that attracted the first tourists to the northeastern United States, the Vermont–Quebec borderland did boast a number of clear and picturesque bodies of water, the largest of which was Lake Memphremagog. Once this lake became accessible by rail, American and Canadian promotional literature and graphic illustrations emphasized the romantic nature of its paddle-wheel excursions, scenic landscape, and resort hotels. This type of tourism was depicted as essentially a passive, civilizing experience in which participants affirmed their aesthetic sensibility and social status by admiring the view of lake and mountains from boat decks and hotel verandahs. But the exclusive nature of this romantic sensibility was undermined to some extent by the fact that local newspapers and railway companies encouraged groups of people from the surrounding communities to join the sight seeing tours. Local entrepreneurs were also quick to take advantage of the market for scenery and, in contrast to other tourist zones, there was no apparent conflict with the industrial development that was taking place at both ends of the lake.     

‘The development of higher urban life’ and the geographic imagination: beauty, art, and moral environmentalism in Toronto, 1900–1920

The existence of school art leagues in Toronto, which sought to use beauty and art in the public schools as a means of sensitizing children to aesthetics, can be explained through their ideational affiliation with the city beautification impulse. In Toronto, a chief proponent of city beautification and the link between city beauty and school art was the painter, city planner, and art educator, George Agnew Reid, who regarded city beauty as more than an exercise in urban cosmetics; city beautification relied on extant beliefs in the morality of beauty and its putative efficacy as a shaper of human behaviour in the city, especially the ennoblement of the working and immigrant classes. The resulting ‘moral environmentalism’ of beautification changes the way we should think about early city planning, ultimately revealing the geographical imaginations of those contributing to the moral environmentalist milieu.     

Adjustment and Integration: The Scottish Representation in the British House of Commons, 1707–14*

The small minority of Scots who entered the house of commons in 1707 were slow to make their mark. Besides lack of numbers, they suffered several significant disadvantages. The Westminster scene was strange, and the style and tone of debate more vigorous and informal. Moreover, the aristocracy had dominated the unicameral Scottish parliament, and commoners found it difficult to emancipate themselves from noble tutelage. Most importantly, Scottish politics did not yet reflect the two‐party system dominant in England. Thus in the first sessions the Scots were unable to make headway in the essential business of parliament, legislation. Scotland suffered in comparison with the English provinces, and even the Irish, who were able to muster a more effective lobby. Soon, however, a new generation of debaters appeared, able to use their wit to discomfit English antagonists, and a new class of ‘men of business’ who grasped the rules of the legislative game. The fortuitous deaths of leading magnates and the polarisation of sectarian antagonisms in Scotland permitted the coalescence of the Scottish representation into two broad factions allied with the English parties. It was with English tory support that bills were passed to benefit the sectional concerns of Scottish episcopalians, accompanied by other measures of a more general nature. The combined attempt by Scottish peers and MPs in 1713 to secure the repeal of the union does not point to a lasting breakdown in Anglo‐Scottish relations, since it was also a manifestation of political opportunism by English whigs and discontented tories, and their Scottish allies. But the dawn of a party system in Scotland was dispelled by the death of Queen Anne and the ensuing jacobite rebellion. The complicity of tories in the Fifteen resulted in the destruction of the party in Scotland, and the construction of a whig hegemony.     

The World's Oldest Stone Artefacts from Gona, Ethiopia: Their Implications for Understanding Stone Technology and Patterns of Human Evolution Between 2·6–1·5 Million Years Ago

The systematic archaeological and geological survey and excavations at Gona between 1992–1994 led to the discovery of well-flaked stone artefacts which are currently the oldest known from anywhere in the world. More than 3000 surface and excavated artefacts were recovered at 15 localities documented east and west of the Kada Gona river. Based on radioisotopic dating (⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar) and magnetostratigraphy, the artefacts are dated between 2·6–2·5 million years ago (Ma). EG10 and EG12 from East Gona are the most informative with the highest density, providing the best opportunity for characterizing the oldest assemblages and for understanding the stone working capability of the earliest tool makers. Slightly younger artefact occurrences dated to 2·4–2·3 Ma are known from Hadar and Omo in Ethiopia, and from Lokalalei in Kenya. Cut-marked bones dated to 2·5 Ma from Bouri in Ethiopia are now providing important clues on the function of these artefacts. In addition, Australopithecus garhi known from contemporary deposits at Bouri may be the best candidate responsible for the oldest artefacts. Surprisingly, the makers of the Gona artefacts had a sophisticated understanding of stone fracture mechanics and control similar to what is observed for Oldowan assemblages dated between 2·0–1·5 Ma. This observation was corroborated by the recent archaeological discoveries made at Lokalalei. Because of the similarities seen in the techniques of artefact manufacture during the Late Pliocene–Early Pleistocene, it is argued here that the stone assemblages dated between 2·6–1·5 Ma group into the Oldowan Industry. The similarity and simplicity of the artefacts from this time interval suggests a technological stasis in the Oldowan.     

Structures and Members: An Overview of The Cumann na nGaedheal Party Organisation, 1923–33

This article re‐examines Cumann na nGaedheal's approach to party organisation. Cumann na nGaedheal has been portrayed as a badly organised, ‘top‐down’ party that suffered electorally for its reluctance to match the structure and organisation of its main anti‐Treaty rival, Fianna Fáil. Moreover, the party has been caricatured as a conservative organisation with little affinity for the ideology of the Irish revolution. While recent studies have reappraised Cumann na nGaedheal's engagement with the revolutionary inheritance, while highlighting underappreciated aspects of the party's electoral innovations, its organisational structures require further scholarly attention. Closer scrutiny of Cumann na nGaedheal's organisational structures sheds further light on its fate as nationalist Ireland's first party of government and ultimately its demise as a distinct party in 1933.     

‘Attaque and Break Through a Phalanx of Corruption . . . the Court Party!’ The Scottish Representative Peers' Election and the Opposition, 1733–5: Three New Division Lists of the House of Lords of 1735*

In the early 1730s, Archibald Campbell, the earl of Ilay, gained a dominant position in Scotland, and Sir Robert Walpole, the prime minister, entrusted him with the distribution of patronage there. Ilay took full advantage of this power, and controlled the votes of the financially weak Scottish peers in the election of 16 representative peers. The excise crisis of 1733–4, however, changed the political scene in Scotland. Although they had been chosen as supporters of the court party, some of the Squadrone Volante members (the duke of Montrose and the marquess of Tweeddale) and two courtiers (the earls of Marchmont and Stair) raised a standard of revolt against Walpole and Ilay. The Scottish opposition co‐operated with the English country party (‘the Patriots’) and such Scottish tories as the duke of Hamilton. In the 1734 peers' election they launched a challenge to the ministry, but the opposition was crushed by a bankrolled election campaign organised by the court party. Although the English and Scottish opposition petitioned in the house of lords to criticize the ‘undue practices’ of Walpole and Ilay at the election, the ministry was backed up by English and Scottish courtiers and bishops, and overwhelmed the opposition. Three new division lists related to the aftermath of the Scottish election shed much light upon the party alignment of the upper House in the middle of the 1730s.