Avoiding Disaster: Diversification and Risk Management among East African Herders

This article addresses processes of livelihood diversification among pastoralists in the rangelands of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. The objectives of the article are threefold: (1) to suggest a theoretical framework for addressing income diversification among pastoralists with reference to current literature and databases; (2) to present a case study on pastoral income diversification based on preliminary field research in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia; and (3) to summarize current understandings of pastoral diversification while pointing to additional empirical research needs. By showing how comparative analyses in the region have been constrained by theoretical and data deficiencies, the article explores ways in which income diversification differs by what are termed conditional, opportunity, and local response variables. Climate, distance to market towns, gender, wealth, and education are attributes covered by these variables and discussed in the article. The conceptualization and case study provide useful bases for conducting comparative research on pastoral diversification in East Africa specifically, and in sub‐Saharan Africa generally.     

The Future In The Far East

Nationalism and Communism in East Asia, by W. Macmahon Ball (Melbourne University Press, 1952. 25s.).     

The First Herders at the Cape of Good Hope

It is generally accepted that the earliest livestock and pottery were brought to the southern tip of Africa by Khoi-speaking herders from northern Botswana around 2000 years ago. The archaeological remains of that age, however, show no sign of such a migration. Rather, some evidence points to the arrival of the Khoi in the southwestern Cape toward the end of the first millennium AD. The earliest livestock and pottery, it is argued, probably reached the Cape of Good Hope some 2000 years ago by a process of diffusion. The implications of this model for the current debates on the transition from hunting to herding in southern Africa are discussed.     

Ancient DNA for the Archaeologist: The Future of African Research

Ancient DNA analyses are increasingly popular in archaeology. With the exception of Egypt, the African continent has been grossly understudied using these techniques. We review the state of ancient DNA research on Africa, ancient DNA analysis techniques, and common pitfalls in these studies. We provide recommendations for archaeologists interested in collecting and interpreting ancient DNA data.     

东亚经济一体化现状与趋势分析

本文以1985-2005年的经济数据和相关理论模型分析为基础,较为系统地探讨了东亚经济一体化的进展和未来趋势,并着重从东亚区域内贸易发展与贸易结构、资本流动、区域经济的货币金融相关度、区域一体化的福利效应和推进一体化的制度安排等方面进行了定量分析和政策探讨。     

Warriors and blacksmiths: Mediating ethnicity in East African spears

Ethnoarchaeology offers some ability to transform contemporary forms of social constitution into a method for interpreting prehistoric social patterns and for understanding the coevolution of symbolic and utilitarian technologies. In north-central Kenya, one social caste of Lokop pastoralist actors (warriors) interacts with another (blacksmiths) to build a technology for socially constituting gender and social age. Three aspects of this process can help to direct analogous archaeological research in prehistoric contexts. First, this case reiterates that symbols for and symbolic acts of gender and social age continually help actors to constitute or negotiate their places within varied social fields. It is clear, however, that the connection between social prestige—essentially the goal of Lokop personal adornment—and real economic or political power is not necessarily direct. For Lokop herders, foreign traits of spear morphology are the stylistic raw material for constituting internally defined social fields. Ethmic distinctions are more pasively constituted, almost as an epiphenomenon. Second, the constituative significance of material symbols may be grasped without appealing to or understanding the cultural meaning of forms (in an emic sense) from only the archaeological evidence. In fact, prehistorians should not concern themselves with attempts to reconstruct the meaning of cultural phenomena. Rather, archaeological inquiry should attempt to infer the meaningfulness of formal traits within a specific social context, based on significant material patterns in the archaeological record. Third, the items of meaning themselves are constituted with their own material means of production, and these systems may be interpreted through economic models more familiar to archaeology. The Lokop case encompasses producers and users both as specialists. Blacksmiths rely on their marginal positions in herding society to make them the brokers of morphological traits. Warriors, also accustomed to marginal status, effectively collaborate with blacksmiths to set up their own future place as elders. For archaeological applications in prehistory, the exchange and processing of raw materials should reconstitute economic hierarchy in a very clear manner.     

Transitions in Palaeoecology and Technology: Hunter-Gatherers and Early Herders in the Gobi Desert

The desert and arid steppes of Mongolia and northern China were geographically central to the spread of pastoralism and the rise of pastoralist states, but research on the organizational strategies of pre-pastoralist hunter-gatherers and the spread of herding has been extremely limited. Until recently, catalogues of sites collected by Westerners in the 1920s and 1930s comprised the body of English-language publications on Gobi Desert prehistory. This article introduces a wealth of new site-specific and interpretive data, drawing on English-language sources as well as Russian- and Mongolian-language publications to create a synthesis for the prehistory of the Gobi Desert from the end of the Last Glacial Maximum to the adoption of herding. Special emphasis is placed on the relationship between a major shift in desert ecosystems, comparable to the ‘greening of the Sahara’, the establishment of an oasis-based broad-spectrum foraging strategy, and progressive desertification and deforestation after 2000 BC. We conclude that an oasis-based adaptation was contemporaneous with the expansion of forests and wetlands and persisted throughout the early stages of herding. A major decline in these economies occurs after 1000 BC, in conjunction with continuing trends towards heightened aridity and major societal changes across Northeast Asia. The persistent co-existence of Bronze Age burials and microblade-based habitation sites around oases, as well as similarities in material culture, suggest that these groups overlapped geographically or were the same entity.     

The University of the Future

Abstract

The economic and social pressures on universities will require a more flexible approach to education to be evolved if the system is to survive. An increasingly multicultural and multiethnic mix of students and the growing number of older students demand the ability to tailor programmes to the individuals concerned. Use of fibre optic and other high speed communications technology will be crucial in this endeavour, allowing courses to be pooled between institutions, while multimedia facilities and virtual reality offer students unrivalled opportunities to expand their educational experience. The future must also rest on increased collaboration with industry and in closer integration of universities into their local communities.     

The Future of the State

After reviewing the historically specific characteristics of the modern nation state, this essay discusses both supranational and infranational forces which now work to undermine some of the powers and functions of even the oldest and most firmly established states. Two popular visions of alternative arrangements, associated with free-market ultra-liberalism and the philosophy of ‘small is beautiful’, are rejected, since neither the market nor the decentralization or breakup of existing states can provide adequate solutions to their problems. As trends in economic development increase the likelihood that wealth will be generated by a smaller proportion of total populations, the redistributive function of the public sector is likely to become more important than ever.     

Middle and Later Stone Age lithic technology and land use in East African savannas

This paper examines changes in the use of sites and lithic raw materials during the later Middle Stone Age (MSA) and early Later Stone Age (LSA) in East Africa. It proposes two models of hunter-gatherer land use and technological organization in East African savannas and examines changes in the procurement and use of raw materials in MSA and LSA lithic assemblage sequences from Lukenya Hill, Kenya, and Nasera Rockshelter, Tanzania. Changes in procurement strategies across the transition are related to technological change, mechanical properties of raw materials, and changes in site use and in mobility.

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Résumé Cet article examine les effets de l'existence locale de matières premières lithiques en Afrique orientale au cours du paléolithique moyenne et au début du paléolithique supérieure. Il propose deux modèles d'utilisation de la terre et d'organisation technologique par les populations des savannes d'Afrique orientale vivant de la chasse et de la cueillette, et examine les changements sur le plan de l'approvisionnement en matières premières et de leur utilisation dans les séries de collections lithiques du paléolithique moyenne et du paléolithique supérieure provenant de Lukenya Hill au Kénya et de Nasera Rockshelter en Tanzanie. Les modifications des stratégies d'approvisionnement au cours de la transition correspondent au changement de technologie, aux caractéristiques mécaniques des matières premières et aux changements dans l'utilisation des sites et la mobilité.

     

变动中的东亚地缘政治与美国东亚政策的演变

近年来,伴随着中国的快速发展和东亚地缘政治格局的变化,美国加快了向东亚转移战略力量的步伐,这一动向值得中国关注。本文通过对近代以来东亚地缘政治格局的变化进行分析,系统梳理了美国东亚政策的来龙去脉及其主线,并对美国东亚政策的未来走向进行了预研。     

中东中世纪城市社会结构分析

城市社会结构对城市发展影响巨大.本文从中东中世纪城市社会结构角度,探索中东城市繁荣一时却无法率先跨入资本主义之原因.指出:阶级分化不明显,没有形成完全意义上的市民,使城市无法孕育出封建社会的对抗因素,无力率先冲破封建制度的牢笼走向资本主义;行会缺乏严格的等级制度,没有阶级斗争,使其存在时间长;城市经济结构不协调,缺乏商业资本转向生产的条件,阻碍现代工业的兴起与发展;商人放弃远洋贸易,无法像欧洲城市那样形成资本主义萌芽时期必不可少的巨大的海外市场;大量非生产人口集中在城市,形成巨大的消费群体,不利于资本的原始积累;城市不能有效涵容农业人口,使社会结构缺乏良性发展,工业缺乏发展的后备军.这些因素交互作用使中东伊斯兰城市失去了率先走向资本主义的历史机遇.