To die for country, land or faith in Castilian medieval thought

This is an analysis of the concept of patria in the Castilian sources of the period between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries. These texts show that, contrary to the opinion of Nieto Soria, patria did not have the same connotations as in other regions of the late medieval west. Until the fifteenth century at least, ‘country' and ‘land' were seen as largely synonymous in Hispanic thought. ‘To die for the land and for the faith' seems to have been the essential ideological justification for those fighting the Muslim enemy.     

Mapping the New Deal: local disparities in the performance of Welfare-to-Work

In recent years, following the lead of the US, several OECD countries have introduced 'workfare' policies that link receipt of unemployment and related social benefits to compulsory participation on state-administered work and training schemes. The UK's New Deal (Welfare-to-Work) for Young People is one of the largest and most developed of these workfare programmes. Official evaluations of the UK's New Deal for Young People claim that it has been a national success, but overlook local variations in its results. This paper uses the Government's own performance measures, data on local unemployment flows, numbers of New Deal participants recycled through the scheme as second starts, and interviews with both local policy managers and participants, to demonstrate that these local variations have been substantial. These different indicators suggest that the programme has been noticeably less effective in many inner urban and depressed industrial labour markets. In such areas the 'recycling and churning' of participants through the programme are more significant, and suggest that local labour market structures play a significant role in shaping policy outcomes. The paper argues that recent additions to the New Deal to improve job search and matching fail to address this local variation, and that a longer-term approach is required that seeks to improve not only the employability of individuals, but also the local employment opportunities open to them. One key implication is clear: that local labour market conditions can exert a significant influence on the outcomes of national workfare type policies, not only in terms of geographical variations in the problem to be solved, but also in shaping and constraining the local nature of policy outcomes.     

The last 200,000 years (or thereabouts) in Eastern Africa: Recent archaeological research

Research in Eastern Africa is hampered by a variety of logistical constraints common in underdeveloped and politically fragmented regions. The later Middle and early Upper Pleistocene are attracting attention in the debate over the origins of anatomically modern humans. There has also been considerable field research and discussion of the development of specialized pastoralism. Archaeology, history and several other disciplines have combined to study the development of social complexity in the Great Lakes region and along the Swahili coast, the Aksumite civilization and African agricultural systems. Finally, the rise of a cadre of indigenous archaeologists is fostering debate over what constitutes explanation and over the relevance of the discipline within Africa.     

Large game, agricultural land, and settlement pattern change in the eastern Mimbres area, southwest New Mexico

The 12th-century depopulation of large villages in the Mimbres region of the US Southwest has been attributed to a number of causes, including resource stress. This study combines archaeological evidence and models of environmental conditions in the eastern Mimbres area of southwest New Mexico to assess the magnitude and timing of food stress from a combination of a period of reduced precipitation and the effects of prolonged hunting and farming activities on the landscape. Results indicate that large game in the area was quite sensitive to hunting pressure, and was locally depleted long before settlement reorganization occurred. Access to arable land was somewhat reduced around the time of settlement reorganization, but productive land remained locally plentiful. Although the settlement reorganization did not improve access to large game or arable land, farmers’ perceptions of below-average conditions for agriculture relative to their expectations and past experience would have contributed to decisions to move.     

Translocated Testudinidae: the earliest archaeological evidence for land tortoise in Britain

Abstract

This paper calls attention to the discovery of what is believed to be the earliest archaeological evidence for land tortoise in Britain. The specimen derived from a late 19th-century context at Stafford Castle and was associated with bones of cats and dogs, which may have been kept as pets by the castle's caretakers. The date accords with the historically attested rise in tortoise importation and with changes in attitudes towards pet animals.     

从英国农业现代化的历程看中国入世后农村土地问题的走向

中国是一个农业大国,但农业却是中国的弱质产业。入世,犹如一把双刃剑,在给中国带来机遇的同时,也带来了严重的挑战。本从中英农业转型的比较入手,认为土地产权的完善是中国经济全球化以后农业面临的一项迫切任务,并提出了一些政策性建议。