Meteor radar observation at Kyoto in two C.T.O.P. periods (July 20–August 7, 1978, and March 13–29, 1979)

Meteor radar data taken in 1978–1979 at Kyoto station (35°N, 136°E) are processed statistically by Groves' algorithm (1959). Analysis is done especially for data in two C.T.O.P. campaigns carried out in summer and in spring to study a seasonal variation of tides. The reliability of the algorithm is clarified by a simulation with a realistic model. Vertical wavelengths of the diurnal tide and the semidiurnal tide are estimated from height profiles. The diurnal tide becomes evanescent in summer, and the semidiurnal tide appears to be the S_2,2 mode in summer and the S_2,4 mode in spring. This suggestion regarding the semidiurnal tidal modes agrees with the latitudinal variation deduced from many other meteor radar data. Tidal wave energy in the meteor region is estimated. A sudden enhancement of energy is observed in both the diurnal and the semidiurnal tides. There is a clear correlation between an energy decrease of the diurnal tide and an energy increase of the semidiurnal tide.     

Towards a definition of naval elites: reconsidering social change in Britain,France and Spain,c.1670–1810

Abstract

This work proposes the term ‘naval elites’ in order to provide a new interpretation of social change in the eighteenth century from a comparative perspective. Naval elites, a social group formed by a part of the naval officer corps and midshipmen, are here defined as a historical instrument, the particular and intriguing features of which may be useful in the revision of some perspectives on social change. In particular, the authors analyse shifting power relationships through the reconsideration of naval patronage and bureaucracy, revisit the process of naval professionalization and the transformation of the concept of merit, and suggest that naval elites embodied new notions of social distinction and exclusiveness.     

A kingdom without a capital? Itineration and spaces of royal power in Castile,c.1252–1350

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Castilian kings were constantly in motion, travelling through their kingdom, an activity which has traditionally been linked with the absence of a single capital in Castile. This paper re-examines the role played by royal itineration in this period and the reasons which inhibited the consolidation of an undisputed capital in the kingdom. In doing so, the changing importance and functions of the main cities of the realm, Toledo, Seville, Burgos and Valladolid – the spaces of royal power – will also be discussed. The main factor which precluded the rise of a single capital was the kingdom's specific territorial configuration, not bureaucratic under-development. The Reconquista led to the creation of a ‘composite kingdom’, in which kingship was exercised differently in some regions compared to others.     

Comments on Jan Harding (2005): Rethinking the Great Divide: Long‐term Structural History and the Temporality of the Event. Norwegian Archaeological Review 38, 88–101.

After agreement with Magister Knut Odner, his article was chosen as a subject for review and discussion in the first number of Norwegian Archaeological Review. Offprints of the article were sent to 12 Scandinavian specialists who have worked on problems in Stone Age chronology similar to those discussed by Odner here, and they were invited to participate in the review. We received a positive answer from 5 archaeologists, Egil Bakka, C. J. Becker, Irmelin Martens, Kristen M?llenhus, and Povl Simonsen, and their reviews are published after Odncr's short abstract of his article. Odner's reply follows at the end.     

Life in a “Cathedral of Consumption’: Corporate and Personal Material Culture Recovered from a Cellar at the Robert Sayle Department Store in Cambridge, England, ca. 1913–21

An early twentieth-century assemblage dating to ca. 1913–21 associated with staff that worked for and lived in the associated hostel of the Robert Sayle department store in Cambridge, England, contained a mixture of material that was supplied by the business for communal activities and personal items. The contrast between these two types of material allows the relationship between the business and its staff to be explored. The assemblage is also considered in terms of the class, gender and age composition of the hostel population and the concept of resistance.