Hunter-gatherer adaptations and assemblage structure

There is a growing tendency to conceive of hunter-gatherer adaptations as points on a yardstick, with foragers at one end and collectors on the other. Such a view limits our perspective and may trap anthropologists into seeing these categories as steps in an evolutionary progression. It is more productive to think of human adaptation as an N-dimensional space, with individual cases occurring at the intersections of the various dimensions. When this viewpoint is taken, it becomes clear that a search for a single dimension in archaeological data that can be used to characterize all prehistoric adaptations is unlikely to be fruitful. This paper explores the multidimensionality of hunter-gatherer adaptive behavior and reviews those archaeological manifestations that are empirically or logically linked with various dimensions of three components of adaptation: mobility, predation, and technology. Those manifestations with the greatest potential for characterizing prehistoric hunter-gatherer adaptive strategies are identified as measures of mobility type, frequency, stability, scheduling, demography, and range; predation mode, breadth, and scheduling; and the time budgeting and storage dimensions of technology. A subset of these measures is evaluated by comparing assemblages from the late prehistoric Columbia Plateau with expectations derived from ethnographies written on the same local area.     

The Information—Gradient Method in Geographical Regionalization

In terms of information theory, homogeneous regions are viewed as areas in which an observer is likely to gain little new information in terms of a selected parameter or set of parameters as he moves about the region. The values of the parameter would be significantly different in an adjoining region. Adjoining points with significantly different parametric values would lie in different regions. The boundary between regions would be drawn in places where the observer would gain a maximum of new information within a unit distance. A mathematical procedure is developed to measure the gain of information along a set of profile lines drawn through a study area. A maximum information increment within a given interval is interpreted as marking a regional boundary. A minimum gain is interpreted as designating the regional core. The technique is illustrated with particular reference to the delimitation of landscape regions. Landscape boundaries identified by the information—gradient technique are found to come close to boundaries delimited by conventional means on the basis of photo interpretation.     

Acculturation and ethnic survival?

?The so‐called ?Norwegianization? of the Sami population in parts of North‐Norway has been described in rather broad terms as a process towards a more or less complete assimilation of the minority group. However, the study of this process affronts some methodological problems. Being a process of recodification of basic identities, we ideally need data on how members of the different ethnic categories perceived each other and what impact these mutual codifications had on their organization of social interaction at different points in time. No records of the past contain this sort of information. However, through the study of population censuses we may compare the registration of ?nationality? over time, and when we trace individuals in these registrations, we also find that changes of category occur rather frequently. The category of ?mixed? descent tends to increase, and this may be due to changes in registrations and/ or growth in the rate of inter‐ethnic marriages. After this methodological illustration, the article discusses mechanisms of ethnic differentiation in seemingly ?Norwegianized? communities of today, namely dialect variations (conversational codes) as a means to sustain ethnic categorization on a regional level and presents an example of local level incorporation which may be seen as an extension of ethnic dichotomization in this type of community.?     

Power and the material arrangements of a river basin management plan: the case of the Archipelago Sea

The drive towards collaborative governance has raised critical questions about the hidden forms of power practised in consensual planning processes. In the field of water governance, the issue has been analysed in terms that treat power as an intrinsic property of actors or planning settings. Alternatively power is located in the discursive means mobilized by the human participants. Drawing from actor-network theory, this paper calls attention to the material arrangements constitutive for the practicing of power in target-driven, consensus-seeking planning. It sets focus on the obligatory passage points and factual closures through which a planning task links, for example, to ecosystems, policy principles and trajectories of governance. In the meantime, some other entities and issues may lose their planning-steering potentiality. As shown by the analysis of a river-basin planning process, the arrangements that end up steering consensus-seeking cannot be treated as merely discursive outputs operating upon a passive non-human reality. Materialities and living processes contribute to the outcome. However, the link is not deterministic. With different means of arrangement, the planning reality can – and, in the studied case, could have – end up different.     

Wars as Dividing Lines? Rethinking the Significance of the Sino-Japanese War in Twentieth Century China

Historical periodization frequently takes wars as turning points—as ruptures that signify the end or beginning of an era. At the same time, front lines have often been taken as boundaries that contain the activities of one side or the other. Thus, discontinuity and disjuncture rather than continuity and fluidity have often been the points of emphasis among historians who have taken war events as turning points, or who have seen lines of combat as impermeable. A new focus on the Sino-Japanese War period has begun to reveal ways in which that moment served not as an interruption but as a part of longer term processes of change and development that characterized China’s mid-twentieth century. It also permits us to gain a deeper understanding of the fluidity of human movement and socio-economic interaction that frequently crossed both political and military boundaries and to think about similarities, linkages, and differences between various Chinese spaces. The aim of this paper is to consider ways in which the new generation of scholarship on the Sino-Japanese War period offers new ways of thinking about continuity, change, similarity and difference across both temporal and physical boundaries that have served as the parameters for much of the earlier scholarship on the period. To this end, the paper examines recent literature on the Sino-Japanese War period, as well as literature that crosses that period, to examine ways in which this historiography has challenged conventional periodizations and political and geographical delineations.     

Walking the Land: Aboriginal Trails,Cultural Landscapes,and Archaeological Studies for Impact Assessment

Aboriginal people have occupied northern Alberta since the end of the last ice age. For most of that time they travelled across the land by foot, producing complex networks of trails, many of which may have great antiquity. Aboriginal people also modified the landscape extensively by the use of controlled burning. Lastly, they are immersed in and “read” the land as places with multiple cultural meanings, which in turn helped shape their cultures and identities. Together, these elements indicate the existence of a series of overlapping cultural landscapes for which the cross-country trails and waterways provide the grid. This article addresses the importance of traditional trails for identifying the cultural landscapes of northeastern Alberta and points to the rapid disappearance today of knowledge about such trails. It considers how archaeological investigations done in Alberta for Impact Assessment purposes fail to consider either trails or cultural landscapes in their surveys or to consult with Aboriginal people. As a result, government Review Panels making recommendations for whether or not an industrial project should be approved are basing their findings on incomplete information about Aboriginal land uses and meanings.     

Looking for Feminism

This paper explores the linkages between metropolitan intellectual politics and the process of knowledge production within third‐world/anti‐imperial locations – defined geographically or otherwise – about previously understudied subjects from or in the third world. Specifically, the paper focuses on the growing body of research on Muslim women in colonial India to foreground ways in which a certain notion of feminism, as a metanarrative of emergence and progress towards an apparently known end, informs and shapes this literature. In terms of its broader implications, the paper is an attempt to think through some of the problems of writing histories of difference, and especially feminist histories, in any context.     

基于网络信息嵌入性的旅游目的地形象传导研究

以福建武夷山景区和九鲤湖景区为例,从发射性形象和接受性形象两个方面来探讨旅游目的地形象的传导模式。发射性形象通过对景区管理者的访谈资料得出结论,接受性形象通过驴妈妈网站上游客对景区的点评资料分析得出,指出网络点评资料具有丰富化与差异化、分散化与整体性、参与性与传导性特征。对比两个景区的发射性形象和接受性形象的差异并分析不吻合的原因后,文章构建了网络信息嵌入前的目的地形象单向传导模式和网络信息嵌入后的双向传导模式,同时验证了信息嵌入后的双向传导模式有更大的优势,即双向性、循环性和反馈性特征,有助于提高发射性形象和接受性形象的吻合度。     

Redundancy as an Index of Change in Point Pattern Analysis

Point pattern analysis based on concepts from information theory can go beyond existing techniques. Direct measurement of spatial form is achieved when Thiessen polygons are constructed around the points; in this scheme, each point's proportion of total area may be treated like a probability. Three information-theoretic indices are available for analysis of a distribution of such probabilities. Entropy is density dependent. Redundancy, defined as the difference between observed and maximum entropy, seems to avoid this problem when the number of individuals in a pattern exceeds twenty. Comparisons of prior and posterior redundancy provide an indication of change in overall pattern form. An information gain expectation reflects changes for each individual in a pattern. Here, point-area redundancy parameters are determined for Poisson-generated patterns, using a gamma distribution of polygon areas and a computer-generated set. An application to an urban crime problem illustrates the use of these parameters in the analysis of pattern change.     

我国出境游客旅行前的信息搜索行为意向研究：基于TAM、TPB与DTPB模型

本文使用TAM、TPB与DTPB模型对我国出境游客旅行前的信息搜索行为意向进行分析发现,态度是影响我国出境游客旅行前信息搜索行为意向的首要因素,其次则是知觉有用性、感知行为控制和主观规范。同时,研究也发现,虽然上述3个模型对行为意向均具有较强的解释力,但从模型解释的变异量、拟合度及简约性来看,TPB模型最为恰适,且修正后的TPB模型解释了行为意向75％的变异。     

Above and Beyond: Zomia and the Ethnographic Challenge of/for Regional History

James Scott’s notion of Zomia proposes a new look at historical and social dynamics in a vast area of the Asian hinterlands, in terms of deliberate state‐avoidance that came to an end through the nation state’s superior techniques of control. Zomia is a concept metaphor that defines the social reality it purportedly only describes. My examination points to a pervasive problem with the historicization of highland regions in Europe as much as in Asia. Juxtaposing Scott’s case with two other definitions of Zomia, I call attention to the way concept metaphors define social landscapes and historical dynamics. Drawing on the work of several Europeanists, I suggest a model of rural–urban relations that does not privilege either a community or the state as the principle of society and history, which may overcome the separate disciplinary biases of anthropology, history and political science.     

Housing tenure and social classes in Kingston Ontario 1881–1901

Housing once again became the subject of political struggles and debates in many countries in the late nineteenth century. It is argued that these struggles may best be understood within the frame of reference of Marxist theory and, in particular, an interpretation of the significance of housing in terms of the production of wage labour as a class relation. From this perspective, attention is directed to the changing relationship between housing tenure and social class. Unfortunately, very little is known about this relationship over the period in question. We lack information on trends in home-ownership in particular and domestic property ownership in general. Furthermore, we lack information on the changing tenure characteristics of the urban populations of the time in relation to their developing class structure. This lack is especially apparent for Canada. On these questions we present evidence from Kingston, Ontario. We note a decline in homeownership which was experienced by all classes. In particular, however, we note a dramatic increase in absentee (as opposed to resident) landlordism. The origins and political effects of these trends may be understood in terms of the particular character of Kingston in the period. Unfortunately, however, it is impossible to define adequately this uniqueness in the absence of comparable research on other American and Canadian cities of the day. We conclude with a set of questions for future research.     

The Role of Logic and Aesthetics in Constructing Narrative Wholes in Historiography

The construction of narrative wholes in historiography involves more than logic, but aesthetics as well. It is imagination as well as logic which generates the more or less concretized images constituting the background onto which the historian, "playing" with basic information, imposes some content and portrays some event by means of a narrative. These concretized images incorporate an aesthetic sense of order. Historical narratives also employ general terms which "bind together" the various elements of basic information which, when linked together, form a historical narrative; these general concepts also invoke an aesthetic sense in virtue of which their identity is formed. In both these ways the aesthetic dimension is crucial in the formation of historical wholes.     

New immigrant settlement in a mid-sized city: a case study of housing barriers and coping strategies in Kelowna, British Columbia

The successful integration of immigrants into a new society is based on their attainment of several basic needs, including access to adequate, suitable and affordable housing. While this has long been a concern in Canadian cities, such as Vancouver, Toronto, and Montréal, it is also increasingly an issue in growing mid-sized cities such as Kelowna, in the interior of British Columbia. While Kelowna's real estate market is one of the most expensive in the country, there is little published data or literature on the housing experiences of immigrants in the city. This study examines the housing experiences and stresses of a small group of immigrants in Kelowna's rental housing market. This study uses data from five focus groups with 34 new immigrants and 20 interviews with key informants, conducted in Kelowna in summer 2008. The evidence indicates that for this group of immigrant newcomers, the housing search process in Kelowna's rental housing market met with significant barriers in locating affordable rental housing. Of these barriers, the most commonly cited were: (a) high housing costs; (b) lack of reliable housing information, including lack of access to organizations that provide housing help (government or not); and (c) prejudice by landlords based on the immigrants' ethnic and racial background.
This study points to the need for more comparative studies on the housing experiences of immigrants in mid-sized cities in Canada to better understand which groups of immigrants are more successful than others in finding affordable housing in these mid-sized cities, and why.     

Radiocarbon calibration curves,summed probability distributions,and early Paleoindian population trends in North America

Archaeologists increasingly examine summed probability distributions of radiocarbon dates to search for temporal trends in ancient human populations, including early North American population trends across the onset of the Younger Dryas climatic period (10,900 BC). We use both IntCal04 and IntCal09 to simulate and calibrate sequences of radiocarbon dates that represent evenly spaced calendar ages from 12,000 to 9000 BC and use IntCal09 to simulate two different demographic processes across this interval. The shapes of the calibrated summed probability distribution from our first set of simulations mirror many trends that have been interpreted in demographic terms and this shape shows clear links to the shape of the radiocarbon calibration curve. This is true for both IntCal04 and IntCal09, although these different curves produce different probability distributions. The shapes of the calibrated summed probability distribution from our second set of simulations differ somewhat but show virtually identical trends at points where the actual frequencies of calendar dates are very different. We conclude that changing frequencies of radiocarbon dates over time probably do contain demographic information, but that extracting this information is more difficult than archaeologists have acknowledged.     

Doubts about How the Middle Horizon Collapsed (ca. A.D. 1000) and Other Insights from the Looted Cemeteries of the Lower Ica Valley,South Coast of Peru

This paper presents new information from funerary contexts in the lower Ica Valley, on the south coast of Peru, spanning two millennia from the end of the Early Horizon to the Late Intermediate Period. Although severely looted, these sites can still yield valuable information. We discuss their architecture and material culture in the context of radiocarbon dates. Among other findings, these cast new light on the poorly understood transition from the Middle Horizon to the Late Intermediate Period, for which a paucity of archaeological data from ca. a.d. 1000–1250 has long been taken as evidence of an environmentally- or socially-induced demographic collapse. Yet the data we present here suggest that the basins of the lower Ica Valley were likely occupied continuously over this period, and that the echoes of Wari influence here may have lasted longer than previously thought.     

Osteometry as a Source of Refined Demographic Information: Sex-Ratios of Reindeer, Hunting Strategies, and Herd Control in the Late Glacial site of Stellmoor, Northern Germany

In archaeozoological investigations of sexually-dimorphic species such as Rangifer, Cervus, andBison , osteometry has a great—but as yet unexploited—potential as a source of refined demographic information. For this purpose, however, two important points must be taken into account. Firstly, the age-classes represented by different skeletal elements differ and thus sex-ratios may vary according to the anatomical element studied. Secondly, the fragments to be analysed should be chosen carefully in order to ensure that he age-class which they represent is known. A failure to do so may hinder the correct determination of sex ratios. This paper attempts to show, by means of an example, that, when these factors are considered, important demographic information and interesting insights about topics such as hunting strategies can be gained. The analysis of the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) assemblage from Stellmoor, an open-air Late Glacial site in northern Germany, revealed that male and female individuals in the different cohorts were killed in the same proportions as they occur in a typical herd, thus pointing to a non-selective hunting strategy. The results also argue against the assertion that reindeer herds were controlled by people during this period.     

Shape matters: assessing regional variation of Bell Beaker projectile points in Central Europe using geometric morphometrics

Despite the large-scale expansion of Bell Beaker phenomenon, there is a tension between the normative Bell Beaker material culture categories and their local objectification in the form of real artefacts. Stone projectile points provide an opportunity to evaluate how much was the general category of such a point influenced by regional and local factors. The aim of this paper is to explore shape and size variation of Central European Bell Beaker projectile points from Moravia (Czech Republic) to elucidate factors responsible for this variation. The sample consists of 194 projectile points from 54 Central European Bell Beaker sites (2500–2300/2200 BC) distributed in Morava River catchment. The size and shape of projectile points were studied by landmark-based geometric morphometrics and expressed as shape groups, which have been assessed in terms of their spatial distribution, raw material, and reutilization. Although several shape categories of points were identified, there is a strong degree of uniformity in the research sample. The dominant shape category (75.4 % of points) was pervasive across geographic space and was not significantly affected either by raw material or reutilization. A lower degree of reutilization of points is interpreted as a consequence of a non-utilitarian role of projectile points, which represented a critical component of Bell Beaker mortuary practices.     

Mabo,freedom and the politics of difference

This paper attempts to demonstrate the applicability of certain themes from post‐structuralist theory to issues raised by the Mabo judgment and the subsequent debate over native title. It outlines some common features of a post‐structuralist conception of society, commenting particularly on conceptions of freedom and the shared concern with difference. It then shows how questions of difference and identity raised by Mabo may be described in post‐structuralist terms, and contrasts the treatment of difference by Derrida and Deleuze from a political point of view. Finally, the paper suggests ways in which Mabo may be seen as a significant event, and an exercise of freedom, in Deleuzian terms.     

"Sophisticated People Versus Rednecks": Economic Restructuring and Class Difference in America's West

In this paper, we argue for the importance of constructing a human geography of white class difference. More particularly, we present a theoretical framework for understanding the cultural politics of class and whiteness in the context of rural restructuring. We theorize these politics through an examination of the national discourse of redneck that has emerged in the US. We analyze the term "redneck" as one of several rhetorical categories that refer to rural white poor people. We argue that while various terms are employed in geographically specific ways and cannot be used interchangeably, they nonetheless function similarly in positioning the white rural poor. Our examination of redneck discourse exemplifies these processes and points up the need for a broader analysis of representational strategies that reinforce class difference among whites. Drawing upon three case studies of white rural poverty, we deconstruct these imagined rural spaces by situating discourses about white rural poor people in the context of geographically specific political economies of power and social relations in Kentucky, Florida, and Washington. These case studies, as well as the national discourse of redneck, represent rural poverty as a lifestyle choice and as an individualized cultural trait. Abstract rural spaces are construed as poor, underdeveloped, and wild; rural, white poor people are represented as lazy, dirty, obsolescent, conservative, or alternative. A focus upon the political economy of community resource relationships and the construction and reproduction of redneck discourses reveals how exploitative material processes are justified by naming others and blaming the persistence of rural poverty upon the poor themselves.