Re-erecting Houses in Shropshire in the Late Seventeenth Century

Literary evidence for moved houses in seventeenth-century Shropshire as chronicled by Richard Gough in his ‘History of Myddle’ is checked by site surveys, and the results are analysed. Examination of the relevant buildings points to the need for re-assessment of the theory that such structures were flimsy and had earth-fast posts. Comparisons are included, one of which concerns the re-cycling of a ‘ffat-oxe-house’ for which a building contract survives.     

Some Remarks on a Casket at Goodrich Court

Excavations just inside the main West gate of the town, a plantation of probably the later twelfth century, confirm that parts of the town that were intensively occupied in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were abandoned as the settlement shrank and diminished in status from the later fifteenth century onwards. The earliest buildings, founded on earth-fast posts appear to have been replaced by ones of sill-beam construction during possibly the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. One structure was converted into an ironworking smithy in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, to which a corn-drying kiln was attached. Charred remains of cultivated plants are dominated by oats, most of which probably represents crop processing activity.     

清末關於“無夫姦”的思想論爭

清末修律中關於"無夫姦"的思想論爭頗爲激烈,引起朝廷、督撫、資政院以及報刊傳媒的廣泛關注。論辯雙方甚至人身攻擊,並各引外援,組織政黨,可謂清末思想變遷史上的難得案例。不過既存研究往往囿於傳統"禮法之爭"的論述框架,過於强調西方法理和中國禮教競爭的一面,忽視中與西、新與舊等因素其實可以並存於同人同事。論辯雙方在很大程度上分享着共同的思想資源。時人積極參與討論,其旨趣也往往不在法律本身,而是關注時政和國家的未來。其中的收回法權問題始終制約着論辯雙方的思路,禮教的地位因爲可能影響到國權而受到質疑,對於五四時期的思想道德革命不無引發之功。     

DYNAMIC RESPONSE OF SKEW HIGHWAY BRIDGES

A simplified bridge model suitable for use in a parametric study of short-span skew highway bridges and bridges with stiffness eccentricity is presented. The proposed model is simple, yet it captures all essential features that affect the dynamic response of these bridges. Using this simplified model, formulas for computing earthquake response of the bridges are developed and parameters that significantly influence the dynamic response of the bridges are identified. The study indicates that the response of a given skew bridge depends not only on its deck aspect ratio, the stiffness eccentricity ratio, the skew angles, its natural frequencies, but also on the frequency ratio. In particular, the rotational to translational frequency ratio has a pronounced influence on the dynamic response of the bridge. It is found that skew bridges with high rotational to translational frequency ratios often exhibit less dependence on such parameters as deck aspect ratios, stiffness eccentricity ratios and skew angles.     

Weak Ties and Expertise: Crossing Technological Boundaries

In this article, we question how new technological traits can penetrate cohesive social groups and spread. Based on ethnographic narratives and following studies in sociology, the hypothesis is that not only weak ties are important for linking otherwise unconnected groups and introducing new techniques but also that expertise is required. In order to test this hypothesis, we carried out a set of field experiments in northern India where the kiln has been adopted recently. Our goal was to measure the degree of expertise of the potters distributed between early and late adopters of the kiln. Our results are discussed in the light of oral interviews. Our conclusions suggest that expertise is a necessary, albeit not sufficient, condition for weak ties to act as bridges and thereby for new techniques to spread. As an example, they explain how turntables could have been adopted by potters from the northern Levant during the third millennium BC.     

The Upper Paleolithic of Northern Asia: Achievements,problems, and perspectives. II. Central and Eastern Siberia

Earlier scholars believed that the Upper Paleolithic of Central and Eastern Siberia appeared very late. However, modern research has shown that not only was there a local Middle Paleolithic, but also there was a very early series of sites in Central Siberia which show both Middle and early Upper Paleolithic traits. These are called the Makarovo horizon and may be 70,000–50,000 years old; features derived from this horizon can be dated to about 30,000 B.P. and can be seen in the early D'uktai culture. The true early Upper Paleolithic is relatively homogeneous in Central and Eastern Siberia and includes artwork. The local Upper Paleolithic reached its florescence in the culture of Mal'ta and Bur'et', which developed out of local antecedents and which is here reinterpreted in light of recent research (including the artwork, structures, and burials). The final stages of the Upper Paleolithic show considerable variability, perhaps including some exotic traits.     

The earliest cylinder seal in the Arabian Peninsula

A cylinder seal of Late Uruk (late fourth millennium BC) type from Abu Dhabi is presented and analysed. Comparisons with excavated finds from elsewhere in the Near East are discussed. An inventory of cylinder seals from sites in the UAE and the Sultanate of Oman shows that cylinder seal use, while not unknown in the region, was never very great. The ways in which the seal may have arrived at its eventual place of discovery are described and the significance of the seal is assessed.     

The earliest cylinder seal in the Arabian Peninsula

A cylinder seal of Late Uruk (late fourth millennium BC) type from Abu Dhabi is presented and analysed. Comparisons with excavated finds from elsewhere in the Near East are discussed. An inventory of cylinder seals from sites in the UAE and the Sultanate of Oman shows that cylinder seal use, while not unknown in the region, was never very great. The ways in which the seal may have arrived at its eventual place of discovery are described and the significance of the seal is assessed.     

县城在乡村城市化中的优势分析

依据县城在我国乡村城市化过程中快速发展的现实,分析了县城在乡村城市化过程中拥有的而一般小城镇所不具备的非经济方面的优势条件。这些优势条件主要体现在社会文化、地域条件、区域与设施条件等方面。最后提出在乡村城市化的过程中要重点建设县城,并配合各项改革,进行制度创新,因势利导,充分发挥县城优势等各项对策建议。     

Loglinear Residual Tests of Moran's I Autocorrelation and their Applications to Kentucky Breast Cancer Data

This article bridges the permutation test of Moran's I to the residuals of a loglinear model under the asymptotic normality assumption. It provides the versions of Moran's I based on Pearson residuals ( I _PR) and deviance residuals ( I _DR) so that they can be used to test for spatial clustering while at the same time account for potential covariates and heterogeneous population sizes. Our simulations showed that both I _PR and I _DR are effective to account for heterogeneous population sizes. The tests based on I _PR and I _DR are applied to a set of log-rate models for early-stage and late-stage breast cancer with socioeconomic and access-to-care data in Kentucky. The results showed that socioeconomic and access-to-care variables can sufficiently explain spatial clustering of early-stage breast carcinomas, but these factors cannot explain that for the late stage. For this reason, we used local spatial association terms and located four late-stage breast cancer clusters that could not be explained. The results also confirmed our expectation that a high screening level would be associated with a high incidence rate of early-stage disease, which in turn would reduce late-stage incidence rates.     

Points in Time: The Mesolithic–Neolithic Transition and the Chronology of Late Rod Microliths in Britain

This paper presents the results of the Bayesian statistical modelling of radiocarbon dates associated with diagnostic late Mesolithic rod microliths from England and Wales. These date estimates are compared with results for the earliest evidence for Neolithic material culture and practices in Britain (Whittle et al. 2011; Griffiths 2011; 2014; forthcoming). The chronology of some rod microlith sites indicates a potential overlap between the earliest Neolithic and latest Mesolithic material culture and practices, in the first three centuries of the fourth millennium cal BC across England and Wales. The locations of late Mesolithic sites suggest regional processes of ‘neolithization’ may have occurred. In the region where we have the best chronological evidence for late Mesolithic sites – in Yorkshire – the location of the very latest Mesolithic sites suggests these lifeways may have persisted in landscapes which had been foci of hunter‐gatherer activity for hundreds of years, and which might have been understood as ‘ancestral’ or ‘persistent’ places.     

The Baimoral Bridge of I. K. Brunel

Abstract

A considerable number of I. K. Bruner's railway bridges are still operational, varying in size from the great Royal Albert Bridge over the Tamar to a host of small masonry bridges for accommodation roads over or under his broad-gauge main lines and subsidiary routes like the Taff Vale Railway. There were, however, few bridges built by him apart from his railway works, and it could have been safely assumed that all such bridges which survive would have been clearly recognized as having been built by him. Yet this has not been so with one particular road bridge, for which Bruners responsibility has been either doubted or ignored, even though it survives in excellent working order. The bridge in question is that over the River Dee at Balmoral.     

Sources and Pseudo‐sources on the foundation of the Valamo Monastery

The article discusses the understanding of the road as a collective duty and institutionalized public space in late medieval Finland and the Swedish realm, as presented in the legislation of King Magnus Erikssons' law (landslag) of the late 1340s. After an introduction on the nature of past scholarship on the history of roads in Europe and Finland, the theoretical framework on the production and social implications of space on historical roads is discussed. The spatial understanding of the road in late medieval Finland is then studied in the context of medieval normative legislation, of which the main interest here is on King Magnus Eriksson's law, which was the major medieval law code valid in Finland. In the code, issues concerning roads and their maintenance are distributed to various sections of the law, but the main body of the legislation is set in Bygningabalken and Edsöresbalken. The analysis shows that, in the bygningabalken, the road and facilities attached to it such as bridges were rather exclusively discussed in the context of common duty, where the word common seems to be inherently understood as something obliged and insisted by the crown. In the edsöresbalken instead, the spatial dimensions of the road were brought forward in the context of the sworn peace of the realm, where the judicial space produced by the traveller was considered as a product of the road and the actual motives of travelling of the individual using it. The analysis of the respective chapters and decrees of the code shows that, from the point of normative legislation, the road was not only a recognizable space of its own but also constituted a judicial condition capable of producing distinctive social implications for those involved in the maintenance and use of roads in medieval Finland.     

Roman Roads in the East of England

The West Wansdyke is a major earthwork in the former County of Avon, now Bath and North-East Somerset, which is thought to date to either the late Roman or early post-Roman periods. A series of cross-sections excavated across the earthwork showed, firstly, that it originally existed in some areas where there are no longer any visible remains, but, secondly, that there are still some unexplained gaps. The research suggests that the monument was of a very consistent and uniform design and dimensions, a feature which implies strategic planning and co-ordinated management during construction. Evidence from two particular sites, Blackrock Lane and Compton Green, indicated that significant stretches of the dyke bank originally had a timber revetment, but that, where it was easily available, stone was used, as at Binces Lane, Stantonbury. Little artefactual dating evidence was recovered during the work, although the presence of Romano-British and earlier pottery, and prehistoric flints from bank construction deposits does not preclude the established, post-Roman, context, but can also allow a late Roman date. Construction techniques indicate work in a Roman military tradition, possibly re-using an earlier structure.     

RETHINKING the OPPIDA

Summary: The appearance of large sites known as oppida, and generally qualified as urban or proto-urban, is a central feature of all accounts of late Iron Age Europe. But the category of oppidum groups together sites that are very diverse in morphology, scale and function, and excludes other sites that share many of the same features, but lack fortifications and/or are located outside the supposed heartland of the oppida civilisation. Few oppida seem to be at the centre of differentiated settlement networks of the kind usually associated with urbanism, and few display a higher level of intra-site zoning than do rural farms or hamlets. A reassessment of late La Tène settlement, focusing on its technological and cultural unity, contributes to an analysis of late prehistoric Europe which stresses the contrasts between the social trajectories of temperate European and Mediterranean societies.     

Comparison between the Seismic Performance of Integral and Jointed Concrete Bridges

This article presents a probabilistic fragility analysis for two groups of integral and jointed concrete bridges, with varying length and column height. The results show that the integral bridges perform consistently better from a seismic perspective than the jointed bridges. Comparisons are also drawn between the seismic fragility of different geometric configurations. The results show that for integral bridges, the seismic vulnerability increases with an increase in bridge length and decreases with an increase in column height. For the jointed bridge, it was found that geometric variation in column height and bridge length does not significantly affect its seismic vulnerability.     

浙南木拱廊桥结构与起源探析

浙江南部山区庆元、景宁、泰顺、青田以及闽北寿宁等地遗存有较多数量历史悠久、结构独特、造型别致、地域特征明显的木拱廊桥。本详细阐述了浙南木拱廊桥的发展历史,对木拱廊桥的建筑结构、营建方式等进行了初步研究,重点探讨了浙南木拱廊桥与汴水虹桥在结构上的异同,认为浙南木拱廊桥有着独立的发展体系。     

Archaeometric Clearinghouse

Abstract

The “Clearinghouse” continues to evolve in ways designed to enhance its original and continuing purpose: to build bridges between archaeology and archaeometry. An earlier instalment contained a state-of-the-art report on “Direct Detection in Radiocarbon Dating” by E. B. Banning and L. A. Pavlish (JFA 5 [1978] 480–483). This is the first time the column carries an account of original research. Such reports are ordinarily found in the main sections of the Journal, but the paper below presents a methodologically novel approach that promises to further the use of archaeometric analysis of large assemblies of archaeological finds.

One of the limits of sophisticated (read expensive and time-consuming) methods of physical or chemical analysis is that they cannot be routinely applied to tens of thousands of objects, and that a mere handful of analyses out of such large bodies of artifacts may not be representative of the whole. The approach used by Ms. Minzoni-Deroche bridges this gap and should encourage field archaeologists and archaeometrists to join forces in tackling large assemblies of finds that have not seemed to be attractive targets before.     

Hunting behavior and Neanderthal adaptability in the Late Pleistocene site of Pech-de-l'Azé I

The late Mousterian of Acheulian tradition (MTA) site of Pech-de-l'Azé 1 shows a very particular stratigraphic sequence characterized by numerous elements not usually found in Mousterian contexts such as avifauna exploitation and the use of hundreds of mineral pigments. Recent zooarchaeological and skeletochronological analyses provide new insights into the evolution of subsistence behaviors and settlement patterns of the Neanderthals that inhabited the shelter. Due to changes in hunting season, Neanderthals adapted their hunting strategies, exploiting various red deer populations which presented very different behavior. The evolution in the seasonal occupation of the shelter may have been the results of major modifications of its (series of roof collapsed) which induced a shrank in inhabitable space., which forced the Mousterians to adjust the way they used the cavity to its characteristics in order to optimize its exploitation. The conclusions underline the excellent adaptability of the Neanderthals to their physical environment.