Dating the A Cemetery at Kish: A Reconsideration

Abstract

The site of ancient Kish consists of a series of mounds about eight miles east of Babylon in the flood plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. On several of the eastern mounds extensive remains of the Sumerian (Early Dynastic = ED) period in the early 3rd millenium B.C. were excavated in the 1920s. Among these remains was a cemetery in which were found many examples of a distinctive kind of pottery, the so-called “goddess-handled jars,” which have come to be associated with the last phase of the period and thus to serve as a criterion for dating sites where these occur.

It will be argued here that such jars were actually manufactured over a longer span of time within the Early Dynastic period and that they are therefore a less precise instrument for dating than has been believed. In my view their absence from some sites is to be explained not by chronology but by regional differences. If this argument is correct, then the dating of a number of Early Dynastic sites will have to be re-examined with greater attention to regional considerations that have often been overlooked in the past.     

Plant Cultivation on the Northwest Coast: A Reconsideration

Conventional wisdom suggests that the peoples of the Northwest Coast did not cultivate plants prior to European contact. Considerable evidence suggests the contrary, however, particularly the well-documented practice of estuarine root gardening among the Kwakwaka'wakw and other indigenous peoples of the region. These gardens were maintained through transplanting, weeding, selective harvesting, soil modifications, and the production of mounds or low terrace-like structures within individually demarcated root plots. The scholarly oversight of these practices can be attributed to a number of biases rooted in the colonial and academic agendas of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In turn, scholarly legitimation of the region's “nonagricultural” label has served to undermine indigenous land claims on estuarine sites into the present day.     

The Chronology of the Russian Hunting Stations on Svalbard: A Reconsideration

Abstract

There is no agreement on the exact starting point of Russian sea mammal hunting on the Svalbard archipelago, although the question has been discussed for decades among Russian and Norwegian historians and archaeologists. After more than 25 years of archaeological research, the Russian archaeologist Vadim F. Starkov argues that Russian hunting in the Svalbard archipelago was initiated around 1550 (if not earlier), i.e. well in advance of Willem Barentsz’ discovery of Svalbard in 1596. Starkov's chronology is first and foremost based on dendrochronological datings of remnants from Russian hunting stations. This author is critical of Starkov's interpretations, and argues that almost all of his dendro-datings can in one way or another be connected with re-used material such as ship planks or local driftwood. That means there is no direct correspondence between these datings and the period when the hunting stations were in use.     

Research NotePork-Barrelling in Australian Politics: A Reconsideration of Leigh

This research note replicates Leigh's (2008) analysis of pork-barrelling in Australian politics and tests the validity of his findings using geographic techniques. Distributive politics is integral to nearly all theories of legislative politics because it is fundamental to the connection between legislators and constituents, and can be used to facilitate coalition-building. This note addresses an aspect of pork-barrelling that has been overlooked in most previous scholarship. It argues that distributive politics is, at its core, a geographic, constituency-centred process. It is therefore essential to reconsider the conventional models and take geography into account in both substantive and statistical terms. To that end, we replicate several of Leigh's results using a relatively new technique, Geographically Weighted Regression, and reveal substantial spatial heterogeneity in the coefficients. Our findings highlight the importance of political geography and have important implications for studies of legislative politics and elections.

本文重复了李（2008）对澳大利亚政治分肥拨款的分析,用地理学技术检测了其发现有效性。分配政治内在于几乎所有的立法政治理论,因为它是立法者与选民之间联系的基础,有利于联盟的构建。本文探讨了分肥拨款被以往学术研究所忽略的一个方面。作者认为,分配政治其核心是一个地理的、以选区为中心的过程。因此有必要重新检讨固有的模式,切实而且从统计的意义上采纳地理的视角。我们使用了一种相对新近的技术,即地理加权回归分析来重复李的几个成果,发现空间同质系数很高。我们的发现突出了政治地理的重要性,对于立法政治以及选举的研究有参考意义。     

教廷财政的近代转型

学术界一般认为,天主教是一种保守而顽固的封建势力,阻碍了西方社会的近代转型。本通过对近代早期教廷财政制度的考察,认为从15世纪起,罗马教廷的经济生活方式发生了变化,从依赖其封建特权为生到运用现代金融手段度日。这一变化不仅改变了教廷传统的财政机制,也使教廷财政与近代金融市场融为一体,迫使教廷的经济生活纳入新的经济秩序与经济原则的运行中。教廷特权阶层已与商人、银行家等资产家族结成同盟。这证明近代早期的罗马教廷并不比当时欧洲的任何世俗政府更为保守,其制度变迁并不是反常的逆流。     

多尔衮所封王爵汉号颖亲王之推测

多尔衮所封王爵汉号颖亲王之推测@胡坚$南京大学历史系~~     

鸦片战争前的鸦片贸易再研究

鸦片战争前的鸦片贸易问题一向为中外研究所重视,但因各种原因,迄今为止,对当时对华鸦片贸易状况的所有统计和描述都在不同程度上存在着不够准确、不够完整之处。鸦片战争前发行于广州的英《广州纪事报》和《广州周报》保存了持续多年、即时公布的有关鸦片贸易的丰富资料,为重新统计1821-1839年期间各年度各种鸦片的贸易数量、价格和贸易额,从而比较完整、准确地显示这一时期的鸦片贸易状况提供了可能。综合前人的研究和新发现的资料,可知在鸦片战争前的18年中,平均每年有1万多箱鸦片输入和1000多万两白银被掠夺,这一数字虽不如以往有的研究所揭示的那么庞大,但已足以揭露鸦片贩子和其背后的利益集团的掠夺本性。     

The Myth of Authority and the Authority of Myth

The view of local governors in the Russian Empire as all-powerful is overly simplistic and cannot in itself explain the Russian Revolution of 1917.     

对法国“五月风暴”的再思考

196 8年 ,欣欣向荣的法国突然爆发了全面的危机 ,这对戴高乐的政治生命产生了重大影响 ,也引起他对造成这一事件原因的思考。他认为主要是教育中存在的问题和一些严重的社会问题 ,如住宅问题、通货膨胀、贫富差距等和心理原因造成的。本文作者从资本主义基本矛盾、国家利益与个人利益的矛盾及国际环境的影响三个方面阐述对这一问题的看法     

贵州辛亥革命的再认识

从贵州辛亥革命前贵州省情：“新政”之于贵州社会的影响,乡绅、绅商、立充派的作用的重新认识等方面切入,说明贵州辛亥革命的发生是社会共识的形成,几种主要社会势力合力作用的结果。     

Access and Property: A Question of Power and Authority

In this introduction we argue that access and property regarding natural resources are intimately bound up with the exercise of power and authority. The process of seeking authorizations for property claims also has the effect of granting authority to the authorizing politico‐legal institution. In consequence, struggles over natural resources in an institutionally pluralist context are processes of everyday state formation. Through the discussion of this theoretical proposition we point to legitimizing practices, territoriality and violence as offering particular insights into the recursively constituted relations between struggles over access and property regarding natural resources, contestations about power and authority, and state formation.     

Augustine on Justice: A Reconsideration of City of God,Book 19

I argue that Augustine’s message in City of God, Book 19, has been consistently misinterpreted and hence a vital part of his argument in City of God has been misunderstood. The received reading of Book 19, as found in the work of Mary Clark, Rowan Williams, John Milbank, Oliver O’Donovan and Robert Dodaro, is that in Book 19 Augustine rejected the possibility of finding social and political justice among pagans. I argue that Augustine reached no such conclusion in Book 19. On the contrary, I find that the only justice that Augustine denied to pagans in Book 19 was justice as righteousness, that is, the justice of worshipping and serving the true God. He found that pagans claimed justice as righteousness for themselves and on this basis claimed that Rome had been a republic. Augustine denied that pagans could ever possess justice as righteousness, and hence denied that pagan Rome had ever been a republic.