New data on the singularly rare ‘cockroachoids’ from Xiaheyan (Pennsylvanian; Ningxia,China)

Wei, D.D., Béthoux, O., Guo, Y.X., Schneider, J.W. & Ren D., 2013. New data on the singularly rare ‘cockroachoids’ from Xiaheyan (Pennsylvanian; Ningxia, China). Alcheringa 37, 547–557. ISSN 0311-5518.

Additional material of stem-Dictyoptera, or ‘cockroachoids’, is described from the Early Pennsylvanian Xiaheyan locality (Zhongwei City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China). New specimens belonging to Qilianiblatta namurensis Zhang et al., 2012 Zhang, Z., Schneider, J.W. & Hong, Y., 2012. The most ancient roach (Blattida): A new genus and species from the earliest Late Carboniferous (Namurian) of China, with discussion on the phylomorphogeny of early blattids. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 11, 27–40.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] are described, as are several specimens belonging to a new species (viz., Kinklidoblatta youhei sp. nov.). Three further specimens might represent additional species, to be better documented before they could be formally named. The occurrence of a ‘vannus’ in forewings of K. youhei sp. nov. is demonstrated, and discussed in the light of data on extant Dictyoptera. The low abundance and comparatively low diversity of the group in the locality is challenging, and might be a consequence of taphonomic bias.

Dandan Wei [weidandanok@126.com], Yinxia Guo [kuaile422@163.com] and Dong Ren [rendong@mail.cnu.edu.cn], College of Life Science, Capital Normal University, 105 Xisanhuanbeilu, Haidian District, Beijing 100048, PR China; Olivier Béthoux [obethoux@mnhn.fr], CR2P UMR 7207, MNHN, UPMC, CNRS, eight rue Buffon, CP38, F-75005, Paris, France; Jörg W. Schneider [joerg.schneider@geo.tu-freiberg.de], Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg, Institute of Geology, Department of Palaeontology, Bernhard-von-Cotta Str. 2, D-09596 Freiberg, Germany. Received 22.3.2013; revised 17.5.2013; accepted 23.5.2013.     

‘Unlawful Warfare is Uncivilised’: The International Debate on the Punishment of War Crimes, 1872–19181

The issue of the punishment of war crimes has had a long history of debate in the twentieth and even already in the twenty-first century. Not much, however, is known about the debate on the issue before and during the First World War. This article tries to explore the debate among Western European jurists and publicists on the issue in the period between 1872 and 1918, linking it to the idea of civilised behaviour in wartime, as many jurists and publicists of the time believed that civilised states would in general not violate the laws of war. If that was nevertheless the case these violations were considered to be the consequence of an uncivilised behaviour, which was the more problematic the more the power concerned had been considered a part of the international community of civilised states. Crimes committed by nations that had been considered fully civilised before 1914 were therefore highlighted in the debate, whereas crimes committed in so-called semi-civilised or uncivilised areas of the world were only taken up if specific political or propagandistic reasons made it seem appropriate.     

‘Our Boys With the Maple Leaf on Their Shoulders and Straps’: Masculinity,the Toronto Press,and the Outbreak of the South African War, 1899

Abstract

Coverage of the South African War by the Toronto daily press at its outbreak in late 1899 was implicitly gendered. Placed within the context of nineteenth-century connections between manhood and war, claims of ineffective soldiering, poor shooting ability, and indecisive political action were also implicit attacks on the manhood and character of Canadian politicians at home and the Boer enemy in South Africa. Representations of soldiers, enemies, and politicians in the press also expose connections between war and gender and allow historians to question how war is sold and characterized to the nation through ideas about masculinity.     

Leaving the War Popular Violence and Judicial Repression of ‘unpatriotic’ behaviour in Belgium (1918–1921)

After four years of occupation, Belgium emerged ruined at the end of the Great War. The King returned from Yser, leading the army and acclaimed by the population. In contrast, the government and the exiles came back discreetly and the absence of the dead was felt strongly. Part of the population felt itself to be the victim of the occupation and sought revenge: shop windows were broken and houses sacked, men were molested and women's heads shaven. Manufacturers who had closed their businesses sought the severe repression of those who had pursued their activities. Journalists who had stopped writing called for harsh treatment of the newspapers that submitted to German censorship. A fraction of the population stigmatised those who profited from the occupation and demanded justice. In 1918, Belgium was already confronted with problems that most European countries only discovered at the end of the Second World War. How does one move on from a war of occupation? How does one reconstruct a state weakened by occupation? How does one handle collective vengeance and respond to calls for justice? This article will study successively the wave of ‘popular’ violence accompanying the country's liberation in November and December 1918 and the state's answer through the judiciary repression of collaboration with the enemy conducted between 1919 and 1921, mainly by military and civil tribunals.     

The Silences and Myths of a ‘Dirty War’: Coming to Terms with the Dutch–Indonesian Decolonisation War (1945–1949)1

This article sets out to explore the changing way in which the Dutch decolonisation war with Indonesia fought between 1945 and 1949 is remembered and memorialised in both countries. This is done with special attention to the issue of ‘war crimes’ committed on both sides in a context of asymmetrical warfare. The main argument is that the representation and commemoration of conflicts fought through unconventional warfare is problematic because of the lack of sites of memory, the incoherence of experiences and the problematic categorisation of victims and perpetrators. This inadequacy escapes notice as the content and public status of the remembrance, years later, are primarily determined by the current interests of the governments, not by the experiences of the military and civilians who were directly involved in the fighting.     

‘When the Bull Elephants Fight’: Kwame Nkrumah,Non-Alignment,and Pan-Africanism as an Interventionist Ideology in the Global Cold War (1957–66)

From independence onwards, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana pursued a position of positive neutrality and non-alignment. Historians claim that the Congo crisis and the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 led Nkrumah to question the viability of strict non-alignment. Newly declassified Ghanaian sources and an analysis of the components that make up the pan-African ideology, however, suggest that these events validated Nkrumah's pan-African worldview. Only a combination of continental unification and non-alignment was considered to be an effective strategy to avoid a repetition of the Congo debacle. Ghana's public diplomacy tactics switched from targeting political activists to convincing people through a vociferously anti-colonial propaganda campaign, a modification that cast doubt on the sincerity of Ghanaian neutrality at a moment when non-alignment actually began to affect Ghanaian diplomacy on all levels.     

Archaeometric analysis of the ‘greco scritto’ marble slabs from the Edificio dei Triclinii at Murecine (Pompeii,Italy)

This paper presents the results of the archaeometric analysis of the greco scritto marble slabs from the Edificio dei Triclinii, an inn or statio negotiatorum discovered at Murecine in Pompeii’s suburbs in 1999–2000. A total of 14 samples were collected and subjected to standard X-ray diffraction (XRD), optical microscopy (OM) on thin sections and stable isotope ratio analysis (SIRA) to assess the stone’s identity and provenance. The results of this study substantiate the hypothesis (already put forward and based on a macroscopic identification by Perna and Scognamiglio) that the stone originates from the Hasançavuşlar quarries near Ephesus in Asia Minor, and represent the first step towards a systematic contextual and geochemical study of Ephesian greco scritto in Roman contexts and its respective contribution to the Roman stone trade.     

Images of ‘Wild Africa’: nature tourism and the (re)creation of Hluhluwe game reserve, 1930–1945

This paper explores the relationship between new discursive constructions of South African nature and the material imperatives that influenced game reserve management in Zululand in the 1930s and 1940s. It also investigates the social consequences of these developments. The paper traces the emergence of marketable constructions of ‘wild nature’ linked to the development of tourism and their expression in the increasing exclusion of Africans from game reserves. At Hluhluwe, this process was tentative and its outcome far from inevitable. Yet while the question of an African presence in game reserves remained open in the early 1930s, in the longer term it was clear that black people could not be part of Zululand's new, purified ‘space of nature’ – or, more correctly, they would participate only as employees and not as residents or tourists. The management of the Hluhluwe game reserve as a tourist destination ultimately entailed the more systematic exercise of spatial controls over its landscape, contributing to the dispossession and exclusion of local Zulu people. The paper argues that enhanced social controls and a new brutal geography of forced removal are implicated in the (re)creation of Hluhluwe as a romantic space in which tourists could experience wild nature and an ‘unspoilt’ African landscape.     

‘Because their patron never dies’: ecclesiastical freedmen,socio-religious interaction,and group formation under the aegis of ‘church property’ in the early medieval west (sixth to eleventh centuries)

In the early medieval west, patronate, as adapted from Roman law, was a fundamental category in determining the legal status of freedmen. In many cases it entailed a basic set of obligations. In an increasing number of situations, however, the patron became an ecclesiastical institution, since slaves and freed persons were often given to churches and monasteries. As ecclesiastical institutions regarded their patronal rights over freed persons as part of inalienable church property, the patronal relationship became permanent and inheritable. In Eastern Francia (the Rhineland and beyond) this transformed ecclesiastical freedmen into religiously defined social groups with potentially distinct aims, religious tasks, and organizational structures, and a shared notion of freedom. From the Carolingian period onward, it even became attractive to enter voluntarily into this status. It is argued here that with its underlying network of socio-religious relations, patronate over ecclesiastical freedmen and censuales can be better understood when considered as an element of a ‘temple society’.     

A new family of ‘libelluloid’ dragonflies from the Middle Jurassic of Daohugou,northeastern China (Odonata: Anisoptera: Cavilabiata)

Nel, A. & Huang, D.Y., 8.5.2015. A new family of ‘libelluloid’ dragonflies from the Middle Jurassic of Daohugou, northeastern China (Odonata: Anisoptera: Cavilabiata). Alcheringa 39, 525–529. ISSN 0311-5518

A new well-preserved Middle Jurassic fossil of Cavilabiata is described and attributed to a new family (Daohugoulibellulidae), genus and species (Daohugoulibellula lini), from the Daohugou beds of China. Together with examples of Juralibellulidae from the same outcrop, they represent the oldest records of the Cavilabiata. The potential closest relative of the new family could be the Late Jurassic Nannogomphidae, suggesting a significant diversity of Cavilabiata during the Middle Jurassic.

André Nel [anel@mnhn.fr], Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité, ISYEB—UMR 7205—CNRS, MNHN, UPMC, EPHE, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Sorbonne Universités, 57 rue Cuvier, CP 50, Entomologie, F-75005, Paris, France; Diying Huang [dyhuang@nigpas.ac.cn], State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, PR China.     

‘Leger est aprendre mes fort est arendre’: wool,debt, and the dispersal of Pipewell Abbey (1280-1330)

The culturally syncretic character of medieval Southern Italy and Sicily was never so apparent as under Norman rule in the twelfth century. From the fusion of artistic styles in the Capella Palatina in Palermo to the organization of King Roger II’s Regno, the influence of Byzantine, Arab, Christian, Norman, and Lombard traditions is evident. This paper argues, however, that underlying these more obvious manifestations of cultural intersection was an enduring sense of ethnic identity. This self-conscious expression of identity is revealed through the articulation of ancestry and lineage in the eleventh- and twelfth-century charters of the aristocracy in the Principality of Salerno. The distinctions between conquerors and conquered, long considered irrelevant after decades of intermarriage, were remarkably durable throughout this period. Both Normans and Lombards employed genealogical memory as a strategy to enhance their status in the Principality: the Normans aimed to legitimize their present rule; the Lombards wished to recall their past dominance in the region. This paper suggests that the evidence for ancestral memory reveals both differences in self-perception and contemporary attitudes towards political change among the various religious and ethnic groups in the medieval Mezzogiorno. While the intersection of cultures in the South is unmistakable, this paper modifies previous theories to recognize the resistance to cultural absorption by both the new settlers and the indigenous peoples.     

‘Making Change’ in the memorial landscape to the Dakota–US War of 1862: remembrance,healing and justice through affective participation in the Dakota Commemorative March (DCM)

The Dakota–US War of 1862 led to the removal and exile of Dakota people from their ancestral homeland. Integral to this process was the forced march of 1,700 women, children and elders from the Lower Sioux Agency to Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Despite the siting of numerous memorials related to the war and its aftermath, few mark the forced march and its legacies. Since 2002, however, the seven-day Dakota Commemorative March (DCM) has been held biennially to remember and honour Dakota ancestors on the original forced march. Following a brief overview of extant place-based memorials at sites along its path, we draw on documentary sources to explore the significance of the DCM as a distinctive Dakota intervention in the commemorative landscape. Through a process we call ‘affective participation’ – an intense bodily, emotive and transformative engagement in an event – participants on the DCM not only seek to remember but also strive towards healing and justice in the present and the future. Our hope is to expand the focus of current geographical work on discrete site-based memorials to consider the social- and cultural-geographical significance of alternative (particularly Native) forms and scales of commemoration.     

Reaping the rewards: the potential of well designed methodology,a comment on Vardi et al. (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1716–1724) and Goodale et al. (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1192–1201)

The recent articles by Vardi et al., “Tracing sickle blade levels of wear and discard patterns: a new sickle gloss quantification method” (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1716–1724), and Goodale et al., “Sickle blade life-history and the transition to agriculture: an early Neolithic case study from Southwest Asia” (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1192–1201), are two papers that seek to address interesting archaeological questions through the development of new approaches to measuring the duration of stone tool use. Here comment is made on the fashion in which research design and analytic procedures contribute to limit the capabilities of each of the techniques presented. Whilst the authors support the investigation of novel techniques, in order for the results of any use-wear analysis to be accepted as reliable the methods employed must be demonstrably sound.     

From A Paleolithic Art to Pleistocene Visual Cultures (Introduction to two Special Issues on ‘Advances in the Study of Pleistocene Imagery and Symbol Use’)

This paper serves as an introduction to two special issues on advances in the method and theory of Pleistocene imagery and symbol use. In order to contextualize the contributions that comprise these two issues, this paper defines the temporal and geographic scope of Pleistocene imagery, outlines the contexts in which the images are found, briefly reviews the history of interpretation of the images and discusses some of the current trends and future directions of the field.