Historical ecology coming of age

Historical ecology is a research program that in earnest has emerged within anthropology since the turn of the millennium. This essay offers a short outline of historical ecology and, on the basis of a review of four volumes published over the last decade, discusses several key issues in the historical ecological analyses of socio-environmental relations. It is argued that historical ecology (1) emerged as a concept in different, but related, discursive contexts, (2) coalesced in North American anthropology and anthropological archaeology, and (3) subsequently cross-fertilized and diversified in new academic milieus successfully addressing previously unconsidered research questions in novel ways.     

The age of the Drake Passage

The distribution of benthic foraminifera in Miocene deposits of the continental margin of southeastern South America is compared with that in the Recent. The comparison indicates that Miocene zoogeographic boundaries were located in higher latitudes than at present, suggesting that the climate at that time was warmer than now. In the Pliocene, temperatures were lower than at present. This signifies that a considerable decrease in water temperature took place in the latest Miocene or at the Miocene/Pliocene boundary in the southwestern Atlantic. The main reason for this drop in temperature was the opening of the Drake Passage and the establishment of the Circumpolar Antarctic Current and a branch — the Malvin Current. The opening resulted from strong orogenic movements, in the latest Miocene, which created the main part of the Andes. Prior to the opening of the passage, the anticyclonic (counterclockwise) gyre of surface currents in the South Atlantic was much larger and warm Brazilian waters reached higher latitudes. The Austral Strait, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, may have existed from the Cretaceous in the southern part of South America, but its location and character did not permit the establishment of the true Circumpolar Antarctic Current. The Austral Strait was closed simultaneously with the opening of the Drake Passage.     

Coming of age in applied archaeology

Thomas F. King, Patricia Parker Hickman, and Gary Berg. Anthropology in Historic Preservation. New York: Academic Press, 1977. xi +344 pp. $15.00.

Michael B. Schiffer and George J. Gumerman, eds. Conservation Archaeology. New York: Academic Press, 1977. xxi + 495 pp. $19.50.     

Enlightenment in the second nuclear age

The debate on nuclear proliferation has become increasingly polarized. While there is widespread agreement on the perilous state of the traditional non‐proliferation regime, the analyses of the causes differ widely. The liberal arms control community has sought to salvage the eroding non‐proliferation regime both by overplaying its importance (nuclear enlightenment') as well as by blaming the policies of the nuclear weapons states, notably the United States. However, this view rests on several assumptions that have been increasingly revealed as myths: the myth of a universal non‐proliferation norm generated largely by the Non‐proliferation Treaty; the myth of a direct relationship between nuclear reductions and proliferation; and the myth of US policy being a cause of, rather than a reaction to, the non‐proliferation crisis. Clinging to these myths is counterproductive, as it seeks to perpetuate old policies at the expense of new approaches. However, new approaches to non‐proliferation are bound to gain in importance, even if they run counter to established arms control dogmas.     

Metamorphosis of root dentine and age

Transparency in the location of the tooth root apex is a normal phenomenon in human ageing and provides important information for determining a person's age. The illumination of root dentine may prove useful when trying to obtain an approximate estimation of a person's age, particularly when no other data can be obtained. Regression analysis could provide a reasonably reliable means of determining an approximate age of human remains and could be used in archaeological investigations. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A re-assessment of bronze age wool

Measurements of twelve new samples of Danish Bronze Age wool showed them to be hairy medium fleeces. Supporting evidence was obtained that a high proportion of fine fibres in a yarn results from the plucking of wool during the moult before the hairy fibres have been released from the skin. The fine fibres were closer in diameter to the underwool of the wild ancestor than to those of the Soay sheep (supposedly a Bronze Age survivor), indicating a more primitive fleece. The samples described include the first white Bronze Age wool. Those with natural pigmentation in every fibre could be black or brown, while those with pigmented and white fibres are thought to be a mixture of brown and white (by analogy with the Soay) rather than grey, which is unknown in the Soay.     

International Relations in a post-hegemonic age

In his valedictory lecture, concluding twenty-five years teaching at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Fred Halliday examines three aspects of the changing reality and intellectual context of International Relations. Placing a broad interpretation on the concept of the 'post-hegemonic' he looks at the changing nature of American power, the growing diversity of, and challenges to, the discipline of International Relations, and the mixed record of different conceptions of internationalism. This lecture is a reassertion of the necessity and vitality of academic reflection on International Relations, a challenge to much conventional thinking on issues of globalization, and a reassertion of the need for, and complexity of, a commitment to global values.     

Geoarchaeology at Gi,a middle stone age and later stone age site in the Northwest Kalahari

Gi with sealed middle stone age and later stone age occurrences is located in the Dobe Valley along the Botswana-Namibia border. The phases of middle stone age settlement were linked to a semiarid streamway during the early Upper Pleistocene. A major humid interval followed, when a large lake was ponded in the Dobe Valley. Later stone age settlement appeared after this lake disappeared and was replaced by a mosaic of pans (ephemeral lakes). Subsequently, another period of humid environment favoured another valley-wide lake during the late Upper Pleistocene. Later stone age settlement resumed when this second lake deteriorated into the modern pan terrains of the Dobe Valley. In total, the Gi beds record multiple environmental changes both more humid and more arid than present during the Upper Pleistocene and Holocene, as well as a variable array of adaptive opportunities for prehistoric settlement.