Vernacular names for African millets and other minor cereals and their significance for agricultural history

Apart from the well-known cereals such as sorghum and millet, Africa has a number of small millets, notably fonio, iburu, ?ef and Paspalum scrobiculatum which are poorly represented in the archaeobotanical record. The fragmented distribution of fonio suggests that it was formerly more widely cultivated. The paper uses the patterns discerned in vernacular names to explore their history. Fonio is the most widely distributed and its vernacular names fall into two significant subgroups, in the Mande/Atlantic area of West Africa and in Central Nigeria. Iburu names are only recorded for Nigeria, although there is another region of cultivation in the Atakora mountains in Benin. Names for ?ef are extremely similar throughout the Ethiopian region, suggesting that the crop has been dispersed by a dominant culture, probably the Ethiosemitic speakers, perhaps as part of the diffusion of seed/plough agriculture. The paper calls for further more detailed research on these important and neglected species.     

敦煌遗书四个残卷的定名

一百年前,震惊世界的藏经洞打开了,在世人面前展现了一个无尽的宝藏,从此世界上产生了一门新的学科--敦煌学.然敦煌遗书大多为残卷,其中有不少甚至是碎片,因而比定残卷之名成为敦煌学者的首要任务.     

《宋史》人名补校

中华书局点校本《宋史》,摒除了以往各种版本《宋史》中的大量讹误,是迄今为止最具权威性的《宋史》版本.但金无足赤,现行中华书局点校本《宋史》中仍有失校或校勘失当的情况.笔者因长期与《宋史》打交道,发现现行点校本《宋史》中有一些人名失校或校勘失当,以下试一析之,以求就正于专家.     

企鹅滩的绅士

<正>什么?南非有企鹅?这又跟我们想象的不一样。这些企鹅体型较小,不到成人的膝盖高,毛色鲜明,颈部一圈黑色,就像穿了燕尾服一样,眼周一圈粉红,显得格外纯真可爱,被人们称为企鹅滩的"绅士"。离开好望角,前往漂砾湾的企鹅滩。和其他地点不一样的是,企鹅滩禁止游客带自拍杆进入景区。这一规矩的由来是这样的:前几年有一个不守规矩的游客用手机自拍杆偷了一枚     

Studies of African states and the state of African studies

Sandra T. Barnes, Patrons and Power: Creating a Political Community in Metropolitan Lagos, Manchester University Press for the International African Institute, 1986, pp.261. $128.00 (cloth).

Patrick Chabal (ed.), Political Domination in Africa: Reflections on the Limits of Power, Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp.211. $33.50 (paper).

Preston King, An African Winter, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1986, pp.249. $9.95 (paper).

John Sender and Sheila Smith, The Development of Capitalism in Africa, London, Methuen, 1986, pp.177. $27.95 (paper).

Robert Williams, Political Corruption in Africa, Aldershot, Gower, 1987, pp.145. £18.50 (cloth).     

非洲农业起源和传播的路线与过程

本文根据非洲大陆不同的地理环境划分出五个区域,分别介绍各区与农业起源相关的考古发现等证据。这五个区域包括:尼罗河流域、撒哈拉沙漠及其以北地区、撒哈拉沙漠以南的热带稀树大草原区、热带雨林边缘地区、埃塞尔比亚和南非高原区。通过相关证据的时间早晚以及作物种类差异分析,梳理出非洲农业起源和传播的路线与过程,进而认为非洲的农业起源是受外来影响所致,但在撒哈拉沙漠以南主要为技术影响,而非直接的作物品种输入方式。     

Amorite names and old testament onomastics 1

Abstract

Amorite personal names, particularly those attested in texts from the Old Babylonian period, provide most valuable evidence for research in dia‐chronic aspects of Old Testament onomastics. The paper presents a general introduction to research on these names and to their grammatical structure. It further discusses possible Amorite parallels to the divine name Yahweh and lists a large number of names and name elements paralleled in the Hebrew Bible. Most prominent among the Hebrew cognates are names appearing in narratives with reference to the so‐called proto‐history and the Patriarchal period.     

The New Scramble for the African Countryside

There is in Africa, as in other parts of the third world, a desire for environmental management that simultaneously incorporates and benefits all stakeholders, including private businesses and villagers. While these partnerships continue to displace the failed state‐centric management of the African landscape, research to document their local‐level impact is still formative and developing. This article is an attempt to examine the new environmental management partnerships emerging in southern Africa's countryside. It argues that these new interventions not only fail to deliver benefits to villagers: more importantly, they curtail the long‐established rights to land and other natural resources of indigenous communities. While villagers may engage in a battle to recover these rights, it is a struggle in which the odds are stacked against them, and which the private sector and its partners are set to win.     

The principles of demonstration and tekmeriodic proofs in the late-antique commentary tradition

I argue that Aristotle’s late-antique commentators read into his theory of demonstration the notion of tekmeriodic proofs in attempt to integrate into the theory of demonstration the assumption that the principles of demonstration should be evident. In so doing, I trace the late antique commentators’ view to Alexander of Aphrodisias’ discussion of the principles of demonstration, showing how his assumption that the principles of demonstration should be evident underlies their notions of tekmeriodic proofs.