The First Millennium <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">bc</Emphasis> in the Highlands of Northern Ethiopia and South–Central Eritrea: A Reassessment of Cultural and Political Development

An overview is offered of the development of research—both archaeological and epigraphic—on the inhabitants of the northern Horn during the first millennium bc. Initially, reconstructions of this period placed considerable emphasis on links with southern Arabia and tended to group those into a single cultural category that was designated ‘Pre-Aksumite’. It is now argued that long-distance contacts were much less pervasive, being largely restricted to the élite, and that other aspects of life—including much material culture and subsistence economy—displayed strong local continuity from earlier times. Similarly, it is argued that interpretation of the epigraphic evidence as indicating a single ‘Pre-Aksumite’ state called D'MT is unjustified.     

Getting “Out of Africa”: Sea Crossings,Land Crossings and Culture in the Hominin Migrations

Palaeoanthropologists and archaeologists have advanced a wide range of explanatory narratives for the various movements of Homo erectus/Homo ergaster, and the first modern Homo sapiens, “Out of Africa”—or even back again. The application of Occam's razor—a parsimonious approach to causes—gives a more cautious approach. There is nothing in the available evidence that would require the ability for a human water crossing from Africa before the later Pleistocene, whether across the Strait of Gibraltar, the Sicilian Channel or the southern Red Sea (Bab el-Mandab). A parsimonious narrative is consistent with movements across the Sinai peninsula. The continuous arid zone from northern Africa to western Asia allowed both occupation and transit during wet phases of the Pleistocene; there is no requirement for a “sponge” model of absorption followed by expulsion of human groups. The Nile Valley as a possible transit route from East Africa has a geological chronology that could fit well much current evidence for the timing of human migration. The limited spatial and temporal opportunities for movements “Out of Africa,” or back again, also puts particular difficulties in the way of the gene flow required for the multiregional hypothesis of the development of modern Homo sapiens.     

The territorial dynamics of innovation: a Europe United States comparative analysis

The United States and European Union differ significantly interms of their innovative capacity: the former have been ableto gain and maintain world leadership in innovation and technologywhile the latter continues to lag. Notwithstanding the magnitudeof this innovation gap and the political emphasis placed uponit on both sides of the Atlantic, very little systematic comparativeanalysis has been carried out on its causes. The empirical literaturehas emphasized the structural differences between the two continentsin the quantity and quality of the major ‘inputs’to innovation: R&D investments and human capital. The verydifferent spatial organization of innovative activities in theEU and the US—as suggested by a variety of contributionsin the field of economic geography—could also influenceinnovative output. This article analyses and compares a wideset of territorial processes that influence innovation in Europeand the United States. The higher mobility of capital, populationand knowledge in the US not only promotes the agglomerationof research activity in specific areas of the country but alsoenables a variety of territorial mechanisms to fully exploitlocal innovative activities and (informational) synergies. Inthe European Union, in contrast, imperfect market integrationand institutional and cultural barriers across the continentprevent innovative agents from maximizing the benefits fromexternal economies and localized interactions, but compensatoryforms of geographical process may be emerging in concert withfurther European integration.     

Late Classic Maya Pottery Production: Review and Synthesis

Studies of the organization of Maya pottery production have been pursued via numerous methods but without theoretical models. I review available data on production of Late Classic southern lowland Maya polychrome pottery in light of my calendrically based may model of geopolitical organization. I conclude that: (1) production arrangements vary by “kind” of pottery; (2) “craft specialization” and “workshops” are inappropriate concepts; (3) study of polychrome production necessitates multiple approaches, including analysis of decorative content; (4) better “bridging arguments” and “middle-range theory” are needed; (5) figural polychromes were “inalienable” wealth goods; and (6) they were painted in palaces of primary and secondary centers—may and k'atun seats in the model—in realm-specific signature styles.     

In Search of the Social: Steamboats, Square Wheels, Reindeer and Other Things

This paper examines the concept of the ‘social,’ particularly from an archaeological perspective, and explores how it relates to the ways in which we seek to understand the processes of technological innovation and change. It is demonstrated that the concept ‘social’ is far from well defined and that enquiry is bedevilled by artificial polarization between subject-centred approaches and object-centred particularism. Through the medium of early United States steamboat technology a different approach is forged through the melding of people and things with the idea of viewing artefacts as active social actors along with people. Ultimately, it is argued that maritime archaeologists should be more bullish in their approaches to material things—instead of adopting social theories ‘wholesale,’ we should insist that they include the things we study: boats, material objects, people, artefacts, landscapes and animals.     

明代地域商帮兴起的社会背景

In the mid-Ming Dynasty, the means of transportation were greatly improved; commodity production became more developed; silver was gradually monetized; commercial taxes became lighter; and social attitudes towards merchants changed. All these developments created a favorable environment for the formation of regional merchant groups. Meanwhile, social factors at the regional level—characteristics of local commodity production, favorable natural environment and production structures, as well as Ming government’s practice of border defense, border trade, foreign policy, local customs, and the interpretation of commercial activities of local people—all contributed to the emergence of merchant groups. Translated by Wu Yanhong from Tsinghua Daxue Xuebao 清华大学学报 (Journal of Tsinghua University), 2006, (5): 81–94     

A Balancing Act: Domestic Pressures and International Systemic Constraints in the Foreign Policies of the Great Powers, 1848-1851

During the revolutions of 1848 and their aftermath, the governmentsof France, Austria and Prussia, respectively, were exposed toextraordinary pressure from a variety of nationalist movementswith fundamentally different agendas. They had difficult choicesto make as to whether they let their foreign policies be determinedby domestic concerns or heed the rules of the internationalsystem—it was hardly possible to do both. As a resultthey performed a ‘balancing act’ on a tight rope:a wrong step could cause their fall, either because they wouldbe overthrown by their own people, or they would risk war withother Great Powers. Those not affected by a revolution in 1848,i.e. conservative Russia and progressive Britain, had to opteither for backing countries with political tendencies similarto their own, or for simply upholding the balance of power andinternational rules. The author concludes that the ‘primacyof foreign policy’—within this context more preciselythe primacy of the international system's rules and the balanceof power—helps to understand the actual foreign policiesof four of the five Great Powers during the European crisisof 1848–51. Austria's government, the one country tryingto overthrow the balance of power and change the nature of thesystem, was effectively checked. The rules of the post-1815international system were still an efficacious tool for discipliningstates.     

An International Scottish Historical Archaeology?

This paper serves as an introduction to the special edition of the International Journal of Historical Archaeology on the theme of Scottish historical archaeology in its international context. The introduction aims to provide a context for the individual papers in the collection by briefly outlining some of the main characteristics of Scottish historical archaeology—as it has developed in the past, as it is at present and as it might develop in the future. The paper also discusses the ambiguous relationship between Scottish historical archaeology and wider historical archaeology.     

Children’s Burial Grounds in Ireland (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Cilliní</Emphasis>) and Parental Emotions Toward Infant Death

Cilliní—or children’s burial grounds—were the designated resting places for unbaptized infants and other members of Irish society who were considered unsuitable by the Roman Catholic Church for burial in consecrated ground. The sites appear to have proliferated from the seventeenth century onwards in the wake of the Counter-Reformation. While a number of previous studies have attempted to relate their apparently marginal characteristics to the liminality of Limbo, evidence drawn from the archaeological record and oral history accounts suggests that it was only the Roman Catholic Church that considered cilliní, and those interred within, to be marginal. In contrast, the evidence suggests that the families of the dead regarded the cemeteries as important places of burial and treated them in a similar manner to consecrated burial grounds.     

The Best Game Ever: Pirates vs. Yankees, October 13, 1960

The Oral History Association's 2008 annual meeting was heldin Pittsburgh last October, as the World Series and the 2008U.S. Presidential Election approached. While the PittsburghPirates were not in the playoffs—and had not been since1992—Pennsylvania's other team, the Philadelphia Phillies,were. And with the Keystone State's status as a key "swing state"in the 2008 election, the presidential candidates and theirprospective running mates made stops in myriad cities and townsthere during the summer and fall. The intersection of politics and sports always will give riseto politicians trying     

A Duty to Forget? The 'Hitler Youth Generation' and the Transition from Nazism to Communism in Postwar East Germany, c. 1945-49

In Soviet-occupied East Germany during the mid- to late 1940s,a remarkable but scarcely remarked-upon transition took place.Hundreds of thousands of young Germans who had previously beenmembers of the Nazi youth organizations, the Hitler Youth (HJ)and the League of German Girls (BDM) flocked to join the Communist-ledFree German Youth (FDJ), a unisex ‘united youth organization’founded under Soviet auspices in March 1946. This paper examinesthe experiences of this ‘twice betrayed’ generation,whose members rapidly—though with varying degrees of enthusiasm—switchedallegiance from Nazism to Communism after the Second World Warand ultimately exchanged life in one authoritarian youth organizationfor life in another. Drawing on archival and interview material,it first seeks to outline Communist attitudes towards denazificationamong the young in the postwar period, before going on to examinefrom a grass-roots perspective the experiences, motivations,and attitudes of those who exchanged their HJ or BDM membershipbooks for those of the FDJ. Despite, or perhaps because of,East Germany's strongly-espoused and rigidly dogmatic ‘anti-fascism’,open discussion of the Nazi past was—for a variety ofreasons—taboo during the immediate postwar period, particularlyamong the young. This paper concludes by discussing the reasonsbehind this ‘pact of silence’ between the Communistsand the ‘Hitler Youth generation’—and howit impacted upon subsequent generations of young people ‘borninto socialism’.     

Inside/Outside, Upside Down: Including Archaeologists in Communities

As social scientists, archaeologists have specialized ideas about what “community” entails. But the concept resonates well beyond the scholarly realm. What did “community” mean to the people whose lives we study? What does it mean to the groups with which we engage in the present? The answers to these questions have implications for the legitimacy of archaeologists’ claims to engage in “community archaeology.” Here, the author uses period texts—newspapers—and focus group data to explore the contours of “community” as understood at two sites with active community archaeology programs.     

An inquiry into the causes for the multiple goals of the United States Antitrust Law from a historical perspective

It is not the case as Robert Bork claims that the U. S. antitrust law had only one goal—maximization of consumer welfare of efficiency—at the very beginning and should have been kept that way for its later development. Partly because of the fighting among different interest groups as well as spokesmen of different regions at the 51st Congress, the Sherman Antitrust Act came out as a legislation with multiple goals, which were also taking shape under the influence of the Republican idea of balance of power, the liberal belief in property rights, the freedom of contract of classic economics, and the price theory of neoclassic economics. In more than a hundred years after that, the U.S. antitrust law has shifted the center of its goals as a result of the change of regulatory regimes with different emphases such as market function, economic stabilization, social concern, and economic efficiency during different periods. From a historical perspective, it is beyond dispute that the U.S. antitrust law has had multiple goals instead of only one. __________ Translated from: Shixue Yuekan 史学月刊 (Journal of Historical Science), No.6, 2004     

'Dublin is Just a Sunningdale Away'? The SDLP and the Failure of Northern Ireland's Sunningdale Experiment

This article examines the part played by the Social Democraticand Labour Party (SDLP) in both the making and the breakdownof the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement. In particular, the articlelooks at the party's relations with the Irish government inthis period. Specifically, it considers the charge that theSDLP—by obliging the Irish government to support its approach—pushedunionist negotiators too far at Sunningdale, producing a settlementwhich was predetermined towards Irish reunification, and sowhich justified loyalist claims that ‘Dublin is just aSunningdale away’. The article draws on recently releasedarchival material to show how the SDLP was, to a significantdegree, able to dictate Dublin's policy on Northern Irelandin the early 1970s, suggesting that this led to a uniform andhighly ambitious agenda on the part of nationalist participantsat the Sunningdale conference. However, it also argues thatthis agenda was not realized, and that the deal made at Sunningdalewas not as favourable towards the SDLP as has sometimes beensuggested. Nonetheless, the article maintains that the dynamicrhetoric and perceived momentum of Irish nationalism—orchestratedlargely by the SDLP—served to distort that which was actuallyagreed, and in this helped to undermine unionist support forSunningdale.     

Urbanity, Sociability, and Commercial Exchange in the Barbados Sugar Trade: A Comparative Colonial Archaeological Perspective on Bridgetown, Barbados in the Seventeenth Century

In one of the most notable studies on the political economy of the modern Atlantic world, Sidney W. Mintz (Mintz, Sweetness and power: the place of sugar in modern history. Penguin, London, 1985) explored the rise of sugar production in the Caribbean and emphasized Barbados’ role in shaping the trajectory of the sugar industry in the seventeenth century. Yet, while sugar was certainly the defining commodity of the Barbadian economy, not all of the island’s citizens were directly involved in the sugar production process. Residents of the island’s main urban center, Bridgetown, lived at the interface between producers of sugar on rural estates in Barbados and consumers of sugar in metropolitan Europe. They were the glue that held the emerging Atlantic sugar business together and their efforts to develop a functioning urban infrastructure in Barbados helped fuel the trade in this valuable commodity.     

Yangjiao or the ��Other��? Christianity and Chinese society in the second half of the nineteenth century

This article explores the relationship between Christianity and Chinese society in the second half of the nineteenth century by re-examining the primary sources of anti-Christian movements. The first part shows how Christian churches broke the dominance of the Qing government over local society. Conflicts between Christianity and Chinese religion were often transformed into political confrontations between churches and the Qing bureaucracy. The second part analyzes how Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism interpreted Christianity, with an emphasis on how to understand the perception of Christianity in Chinese society. Exploring broader societal perceptions of Christianity—and not just those expressed in the writings of the Confucian literati—allows for a more nuanced understanding of Chinese interpretations of Christianity. The third part studies the relationship between churches and Chinese religious sects. On the one hand, in the language of anti-Christian movements such as those of the Zaili and Cai sects, Christianity was the hateful “Other.” On the other hand, in the process of preaching Christianity, churches themselves experienced a period of transmutation: they recruited into the church not only non-religious civilians but also the followers of popular religions. For a long period, Christianity was called yangjiao, the “foreign religion,” making it the “Other.” Missionaries started to feel an urgency to reject their identity as the “Other” after the harrowing experience of the Boxer Movement.     

Hatching seeds before they’re counted

Like other analytic aspects of archaeology, archaeobotany has been growing progressively more quantitative in the past few decades. This may be a sign of the proliferation of increasingly mature and sophisticated methodologies for analyzing botanical data, but associated with the sophistication of quantitative methods is their inherent opacity: the value and applicability of anthropological conclusions drawn from quantitative archaeobotanical data are not only limited by the amount of information that can be extracted from data by sophisticated statistical tools, but also by our ability to draw reasonable anthropological—as opposed to merely statistical—conclusions. Even the words “classification” and “significance” have different meanings in statistics and in anthropology. In this paper, I propose the use of graphical analysis for archaeobotanical data in addition to, or instead of, typical statistical tools like significance tests, variable reduction, and clustering. Applied to data from charred seed assemblages from the ancient Near East, the visual representation of quantitative data has the advantage of handling semiquantitative data better and being interpretable without reliance on the paradigm of a formal statistical test.     

Beyond the Regnum Teutonicum

The essay evaluates the distinctiveness and importance of thework of Timothy Reuter, based on a major recent collection ofhis writings. It suggests that Reuter's roots in both the Germanand English scholarly traditions, combined with his unusuallybroad historical interests, enabled him to bring unique perspectivesto bear upon the development of European political institutions,mentalities, and modes of behaviour during a period—theninth to twelfth centuries—which is still often ascribedfundamental formative importance in European life. In particular,Reuter succeeded in transcending some of the structural limitationsof both the English and (post-war, West-) German historiographiesof the central medieval period.