Complex Hunter–Gatherers in Evolution and History: A North American Perspective

A review of recent research on complex hunter–gatherers in North America suggests that age-old tensions between evolutionary and historical epistemologies continue to cultivate progress in anthropological understanding of sociocultural variation. Coupled with criticism of the evolutionary status of ethnographic foragers, archaeological documentation of variation among hunter–gatherer societies of the ancient past makes it difficult to generalize about causal relationships among environment, subsistence economy, and sociopolitical organization. Explanations for emergent complexity on the Pacific Coast that privilege environmental triggers for economic change have been challenged by new paleoenvironmental findings, while hypotheses suggesting that economic changes were preceded by, indeed caused by, transformations of existing structures of social inequality have gained empirical support. In its emergent data on mound construction apart from significant subsistence change, the southeastern United States gives pause to materialist explanations for complexity, turning the focus on symbolic and structural dimensions of practice that cannot be understood apart from particular histories of group interaction and tradition. Taken together, recent research on complex hunter–gatherers in North America has not only expanded the empirical record of sociocultural formations once deemed anomalous and/or derivative of European contact but also has contributed to the ongoing process of clarifying concepts of cultural complexity and how this process ultimately restructures anthropological theory.     

Narratives and counter-narratives of climate change: North Atlantic glaciology and meteorology,c.1930–1955

This paper seeks to uncover narratives of climate change shaped within two distinct but related research communities in glaciology and meteorology, both institutionally located at the Stockholm Högskola, later Stockholm University, and with widespread collaborative networks in the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom, and the United States. During the 1930s, Stockholm glaciology under Hans W:son Ahlmann provided an early theory of ‘polar warming’, based on solid field data from the North Atlantic and Arctic realm, but remained resistant to ideas of human climate forcing and thus lost a lot of its emerging policy influence. Stockholm meteorology under Carl-Gustaf Rossby followed a different trajectory. Based on geophysical theory and computer science experimentation funded by military sources on both sides of the Atlantic, the Rossby school established an early institutional acceptance of greenhouse explanations of climate change with strong links to policy. This account of divergent research agendas, differential extra-scientific conditions, and contradictory representations of the direction and causes of climate change should caution against viewing the history of climate science and policy as a cumulative affair based on ever more precise and better knowledge. The narratives presented here highlight, on the contrary, the importance of broad science politics as well as local and disciplinary methods, traditions, and institutional trajectories in shaping attitudes among scientists to climate change.     

Dualities in the transformation of the urban realm: Smyrna and Salonica 1840–1900

Starting from 1840s, the Ottoman State underwent a series of institutional changes which was reflected in the transformation of major cities like Smyrna and Salonica, two prominent ports of the Mediterranean. This paper aims to present a critical and comparative evaluation of the urban transformation in Smyrna and Salonica between 1840 and 1900. Through case studies, such as the regulation of roads and the re-organization of burnt-out neighbourhoods according to the new building codes, and the construction of large-scale infrastructure projects – railroads and quays – the dichotomous nature of urban transformation is revealed. Despite all the zealous efforts of local authorities and implementation of urban regulations, only certain sections in both cities were actually modernized, these being the new investment areas and the burnt-out zones. The Ottoman State and the European investors worked together for creating profitable investment zones, which dramatically changed the appearance of these cities in a short period of time. Except for these areas, the traditional urban fabric still prevailed in Smyrna and Salonica at the end of the nineteenth century.