Ceramic production,consumption and exchange in the Banda area,Ghana: Insights from compositional analyses

Ceramic production, exchange and consumption in the Banda area, west central Ghana has been affected by historical developments ranging from recent competition with alternative vessels (made of metal and plastic) to political economic upheavals that altered community relationships within and outside the region. In this study, we explore spatial and temporal patterning in pottery production, exchange and consumption using a combination of analytical techniques. Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of a large sample (491 specimens) of archaeological and ethnographic pottery, clay and temper samples from sites across the Banda area has led to the identification of seven compositional groups whose differential distribution implies shifts in resource selection through the last thousand years. Laser ablation-ICP-MS analysis was used to explore the effects of distinctive tempering agents (crushed slag) on the bulk chemical signature of a subset of Banda ceramics, while petrographic analysis provides insight into the preparation of ceramic fabrics. We integrate insights from these diverse physical studies to investigate the dynamics of pottery production, exchange and consumption over the course of the last millennium in the Banda area and explore potential linkages with broader political economic transformations.     

Genealogies of Practice in and of the Environment in Banda,Ghana

Despite recent emphases on both environmental archaeology and practice theory in archaeology, the two are rarely combined. In this paper, we illustrate a genealogies of environmental practice approach that seeks to understand how human actions grounded in familiar repertoires make sense of environmental and political economic change. Employing archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data, we first examine taxon-specific genealogies of practice and then compare them to one another as well as to broader climatic, political, and economic contexts of the last millennium in Banda, west central Ghana. In focusing on the interactivities between different kinds of data, we coax out the strategies used by Banda’s inhabitants to cope with fluctuating environmental and political conditions. We argue that during a several centuries long drought in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries ad, Banda villagers took advantage of a diverse set of economic activities to cope with turbulence, but by the late nineteenth century, these opportunities had dwindled, diminishing the villagers’ practical options.     

British library Harleian manuscript 433, 1. Register of grants for the reigns of Edward V and Richard III

The purpose of this section of the Journal of medieval history is to include a brief notice of new books in medieval history, and to list new editions and reprints, appearing during the months immediately preceding the date of publication of each issue. The Journal will not carry reviews; it asks publishers to send, instead of copies of new books, brief notices about them of not more than 150 worss in length. To meet the cost of this exercise, the Journal is obliged to charge a fee of $10 (£5) for a brief announcement (max. 150 words) and $5 (£2.50) for listing a reprint or new edition. Texts of such announcements and details of reprints, together with remittance, should be sent to the Publisher, from whom futher details of the scheme may be had.     

(Re)constructing borders through the governance of tourism and trade in Ladakh,India

This paper analyses how everyday life, the state and nationhood are regulated and organised in a conflict-affected borderland space through economic activities. It focuses on two elements that are often overlooked when scholars discuss spatial governmentality: tourism and trade. Both are commonly declared to be elements of peace, peacebuilding and cosmopolitism. However, the spatial governance of tourism and trade can also profoundly shape how national belonging and the limits of territory are perceived and experienced by borderland populations and visitors. These dynamics can be acute in conflict-affected border zones, where state sovereignty may be under existential or territorial threat. This paper exposes such dynamics in the Indian conflict borderland area of Ladakh, a part of Jammu and Kashmir State until October 2019. Building on scholarship that has analysed cultural and social dynamics of “bordering” in the region, this paper argues that it is possible to read (socio-)economic boundary-making in Ladakh through the state's influence in the organisation and experience of trade and tourism for Ladakhis and visitors. The paper highlights how their spatial organisation, in part, underwrites difference and separation, and aids in framing the contested territory as ‘Indian’.     

An account of cultural heritage and nature conservation in Mustang,Nepal

Abstract

This article was presented as a paper to ‘World Cultural Heritage: a global challenge’, an International Symposium at Hildesheim, Germany in February 1997. The paper outlines the problems of attempting to develop a combined heritage and tourism strategy for the small, remote, Himalayan kingdom of Mustang. The development of tourism brings both opportunities and threats to local people and their identity.     

Lead ingots from a shipwreck Off Poompuhar, Tamil Nadu, East Coast of India: evidence for overseas trade and their significance

Various types of lead ingots have been reported from a number of shipwrecks from different parts of the world. In 1991 exploration of a wreck off Poompuhar, Tamil Nadu, East Coast of India, at a depth of 19 m yielded a gun, rudder gudgeon, gunpowder boxes and a variety of lead ingots. The most significant ingots are those marked W: Blackett and D with a crown symbol on the obverse and 1791, 1792 and some merchant marks on the reverse. These are similar to Blackett lead ingots found in England, the Netherlands and Sumatra. Pb-isotopic analysis has revealed their source as the North Pennine lead mines of England. Further, the lead used was of high purity -93%. Records show that Blackett was a well-known lead-exporting company in England since 1694. The wreck off Poompuhar may be a Toni type cargo ship carrying traded lead ingots of different manufacturers.     

Clay Pipes and Smoking Paraphernalia from the Kitten Shipwreck,an Early Nineteenth-Century Black Sea Merchantman

Between 2000 and 2003, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in collaboration with the Bulgarian Centre for Underwater Archaeology excavated the remains of an Ottoman period shipwreck in the southern bay of the town of Kitten, Bulgaria, dating to the reign of Sultan Selim III (1789–1807). This article discusses the smoking pipes and paraphernalia found on the wreck. The studied material offers a refinement to the dating of Ottoman pipes and proposes a reading of Ottoman pipe stamps from the Balkans that were hitherto considered undecipherable.     

Jute cultivation in the Lower Amazon, 1940–1990: an ethnographic account from Santarém, Pará, Brazil

The Amazon region has long been a place of economic booms and busts. Much attention in the historical literature on Amazonia has focused on the largest and most famous regional economic boom, the Rubber Boom, a period of sustained economic prosperity for some from 1860 to 1920. Other ‘booms’ have occurred in the region as well and this paper describes and discusses one of those others. The paper demonstrates how an export economy in a global periphery (coffee in Brazil) affected economic development in a periphery of that same country and makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating how ethnographic research can contribute to an understanding of a historical period when the paper trail is weak.Jute, a fiber crop, dominated agricultural production along the Amazon River floodplain in the reach between Manaus and Santarém, Brazil, from the late 1930s until the early 1990s. The crop was introduced to the region by Japanese immigrants in order to supply the demand for jute sacking in the south of Brazil where such sacks were used to package commodities, especially coffee. Local smallholder cultivators grew and processed jute, production being mediated initially through Japanese middlemen, later by Brazilians. Poor fiber quality, several external shocks, including the removal of tariffs on imported jute, and especially changes in commodity packaging such as bulk handling and the use of synthetic sacks instead of jute sacks for the transport of coffee beans, the Amazonian jute market collapsed in the early 1990s. Despite its collapse, the legacy of the boom is still evident in the physical and social landscapes in the region.     

An analysis of spatial patterns of toponyms in Guangdong,China

The unique geographical environment and the historical waves of immigration of the northern Han Chinese to the Lingnan region have contributed to the development of a complex and unique culture in Guangdong Province. Four ancient ethnic groups, the Zhuang, Cantonese, Hoklo and Hakka, have resided in this area for centuries. As an important part of local culture, toponyms often survive changes in history and can reveal the temporal differences between the past and present in landforms and the spatial differences in the distribution of different ethnic group populations. In this study, two goals were sought: (1) the adoption of spatial smoothing and interpolation methods to reveal the spatial patterns of the Zhuang, Cantonese, Hoklo and Hakka toponyms based on comparisons among the proportions of those who speak various languages and (2) the investigation of the differences among toponymic layers under regional environmental conditions and the influences of geographic factors using an independent samples t-test and a binary logistic regression.     

Seismic evidence for fluid migration pathways from an overpressured system in the South China Sea

Overpressured systems and intense, anomalously hot fluid expulsion in the Yinggehai Basin of the South China Sea offer an opportunity to understand the history of fluid flow and the process of hydrocarbon accumulation in overpressured environments. Fluid migration pathways from overpressured compartments in the basin are largely controlled by the distribution of faults and fractures. Episodic opening of these faults are related to the dynamics of an overpressured system and tectonic movements during basin evolution. At the crests of diapiric structures, fluid expulsion is seismically imaged as chimney‐ or plume‐like features, low to middle seismic amplitudes, and intermittently chaotic and blank reflecting seismic facies. These fluid pathways are controlled by vertical faults, which commonly penetrate overpressured and overlying normally pressured zones. Fluid expulsion is also observed near the main faults, such as the No. 1 Fault at the north‐eastern margin of the basin. Investigation by sidescan sonar on onshore and offshore Hainan Island indicates that there are more than 100 gas seepages adjacent to the No. 1 Fault. Migration pathways in the diapiric structures are controlled by three types of fault and fracture. Penetrative faults formed by dextral strike‐slip movement of the Red River faults commonly occur in the centre of the diapirs, and may have been a triggering factor for the diapirism, and controlled their distribution. Hydrofractures occur in certain mud‐rich layers and may have been generated by hydraulic fracturing. Radial normal faults occur at the top of diapirs and were formed by the intrusive process. These fluid migration pathways played an important role in regional hydrocarbon accumulation.     

扶风出土的唐善业佛及相关问题考述

唐代是中国佛教的鼎盛时期,随着佛教社会化和世俗化程度的进一步提高,自魏晋以降迅速发展起来的修寺造像之风到唐代日益兴盛,而善业佛作为佛教造像的一种特殊形式,在当时亦有了长足发展。本仅就陕西扶风出土的善业佛及其渊源、类型、用途等问题略作考述。     

Hierarchies of trade in Yiwu and Dushanbe: The case of an Uzbek merchant family from Tajikistan

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the trading trajectory of an Uzbek family of merchants from Tajikistan. This family runs businesses in both Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, and China’s famous international trading city: Yiwu. The analysis is centred on the accounts placed by Tajikistan’s Uzbek merchants about their historically sustained experience, often across several generations, in trading activities. These merchants’ claims of belonging to a ‘historical’ trading community rather than being ‘newcomers’ to long-distance commerce are articulated in relation to notions of ‘hierarchies of trade’ as they evolve in a twofold relational model linking Yiwu’s Changchun neighbourhood and Dushanbe. I suggest that the forms of conviviality enacted in Yiwu’s Changchun neighbourhood need to be understood in terms of the historical, multinational and transregional contacts that have occurred within the spaces of the former Soviet Union, as well as along the China-Russia and China-Central Asian borders. Equally, the hierarchies of trade of Uzbek merchants from Tajikistan in Yiwu’s Changchun neighbourhood cut-across markers of identity that juxtapose the roles of Tajik and Uzbek communities in Tajikistan’s contemporary politics and economics.