Religion and society in central Africa and East Asia

MacGaffey, Wyatt. Religion and Society in Central Africa: The BaKongo of Lower Zaire. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986. xi + 295 pp. including photographs, references, index, and glossary. $45.00 cloth; $16.95 paper.

DeVos, George A., and Takao Sofue, eds. Religion and Family in East Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. ix + 267 pp. including chapter references and index. No price.     

The Upper Paleolithic of northern Asia: Achievements,problems, and perspectives. I. Western Siberia

The beginning of the Upper Paleolithic in Western Siberia is now dated to almost 35,000 B.P. The earliest sites reveal a well-developed blade technology and very sophisticated mobiliary art. The evidence suggests that the early Upper Paleolithic developed within Siberia out of the local Mousterian and that there is no need to regard it as an intrusive phenomenon out of the west, as has been traditionally done. The florescence of the Western Siberian Upper Paleolithic began at about the glacial maximum and two major cultural groups can be identified. However, they share many features in common and seem not to have existed in isolation from each other; instead, it is possible to trace numerous complex and interwoven connections between them. Together, they form a Western Siberian Upper Paleolithic technocomplex, which was essentially local but fully as sophisticated and as technologically advanced as was that of Europe.     

古代中亚的胡腾舞考释

本文运用文献和墓葬壁画的资料,在以往学者研究的基础上,反复穷搜和比较、分析,界定了"胡腾舞"不同于"胡旋舞",考释了胡腾舞的形态和竞技特征,由此使学界对胡腾舞有个更全面真实的了解。     

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.     

Toward an ecological model for chalcolithic cultures of central and western India

The culture area is a construct of behavioral uniformities which occur within an area of environmental uniformities. It is assumed that cultural and natural areas are generally coterminous because the culture represents an adjustment to the particular environment. (Steward 1955:35)     

The Upper Paleolithic of Northern Asia: Achievements,problems, and perspectives. III. Northeastern Siberia and the Russian Far East

Research into the Upper Paleolithic of northeastern Asia began in the 1940s. Recent work has led to the discovery of numbers of sites, some of them more than 30,000 years old, which are assigned to the D'uktai culture. The material recovered from these sites indicates relationships between the D'uktai culture and other cultures in Europe, Japan, Korea, China, and North America. For the most part, however, these similarities do not result from a spread of cultural traits from Europe into Asia. Instead, most of them reflect local development of the Upper Paleolithic, within both Asia and Europe, out of local Middle Paleolithic industries, which were themselves originally similar in technology and typology.     

Women's Public Lives: Navigating the East India Company,Parliament and Courts in Early Modern England

This article traces the strategies that women deployed, and the resources upon which they drew, in order to challenge the East India Company (EIC) and ultimately lay claim to property that they believed was rightfully theirs. It focuses on three women, Elizabeth Dale, Rebecka Duteil and Mary Goodal, who navigated the EIC, parliament and the courts in seventeenth-century London to try to secure their inheritance from husbands and siblings. It offers a fresh perspective on early modern women's public lives by focusing on a wide array of agentic strategies that women employed in their encounters with various institutions. Using a range of sources, including company records, petitions, court depositions and wills, it argues that exploring women's interactions with the EIC, especially in their role as adversaries, enriches understandings of women's agency in early modern England. This article suggests that such a lens can further nuance how we understand the inherent tensions of early modern women's public lives: as inflected by global as well as local contexts and shaped by conflict as well as collaboration.     

The phylogenetic significance of the Middle Pleistocene Narmada hominin cranium from central India

A parsimony analysis of the Narmada cranium from central India and a number of other demes and species of Homo concludes that the Narmada hominin shares a closer relationship with the European Steinheim specimen, than with Asian H. erectus or H. pekinensis. This suggests that the population represented by the Narmada cranium is likely to have had its origins in Europe rather than in Asia. Overall the available evidence supports an ‘Out of Africa’ scenario, as the early Asian hominins belong to a distinct clade which has no extant descendants and thus appear to represent an evolutionary ‘dead end’. The later African and European hominins are defined by a clade including early H. sapiens from Africa. The main difference between these two distinct clades is that the H. erectus lineage is defined by increasing degrees of neuro‐orbital disjunction associated with increased anterior cranial base extension, while the lineage leading to early H. sapiens is characterized by the opposite condition of reduced neuro‐orbital disjunction associated with increased anterior cranial base flexion. While there is also evidence of differential patterns of head and neck musculature between these two clades, they are of secondary importance. Preliminary dating of bovid remains found in association with the hominin cranium by the gamma spectrometric U‐series dating technique suggests a tentative minimum age of not less than 236,000 years. This is in agreement with evidence from biostratigraphical studies of the Boulder Conglomerate, which place these deposits in the Middle Pleistocene. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Australia and middle power approaches to Asia Pacific regionalism

This article presents a liberal-institutionalist conceptual framework drawn from Middle Power theory to analyse Australian foreign policy approaches towards Asia Pacific regionalism. Building on precedents set by the former Keating administration, the Labor government of Rudd/Gillard (2007–13) undertook high-profile efforts not only to engage, but to champion, the regionalism process in the Asia Pacific. This enterprise became fused with a self-proclaimed identity as a ‘creative middle power’. Through an analysis of regional community building, regional security architecture and regional order, the article identifies the strong linkages between the theory and practice of ‘middle power’ diplomacy, and the concept of ‘regionalism’ itself, in Australian foreign policy. The article thus contributes to the theoretical literature by exposing the important intersections between the two concepts and concludes that despite Rudd’s prolific attempts to harness Australia’s middle power credentials, Canberra was not able to significantly affect the process of Asia Pacific regionalism unilaterally.