Climate change and Zhou relocations in early Chinese history

In Chinese history, the development of the Zhou tribes and the dynasties that succeeded them between 3550 and 2200 BP in the middle reaches of the Yellow River is known as the period of ‘Five Relocations’. Most of these relocations appear to have been forced by the pressure of nomadic invasions and occupations from the northern steppe. Historians simply attributed these relocations to political and military causes. However, palaeoclimatic studies show that the Zhou tribes and their successor dynasties developed at the demise of the Holocene Climatic Optimum when regional climate became highly variable and unstable. An integrated analysis of environmental change over the Loess Plateau and the Mongolian steppe facilitates a credible understanding of the linkage between climatic events and these relocations. It indicates that the relocations caused an expansion or contraction of the settled regions over the drought-prone semi-arid lands. During climatic amelioration, dry farming societies pushed upward to the Loess Plateau where increased precipitation and soil moisture allowed cereals to be cultivated. When hit by droughts and the associated disasters, both the dry farming societies and the nomadic tribes had to move southward to find an environment suitable for their food production. Migration and relocation were, therefore, basic strategies to secure the resources necessary to sustain an agricultural economy. The settled frontier was pulled back as dry farming societies from the upland plateau retreated to the lowland riverbanks of the Guanzhong Basin. Even though there were political and military intentions, climatic events played an essential role in the relocations of the Zhou tribes and the successive dynasties.     

A history of the African people

Abstract

Colonialism entailed numerous changes in Swazi socio-economic configurations, including a growing recourse to waged employment. Yet little is known about the dynamics that drove indigenous Swazi women to work for wages. This article argues that colonial policy, by adversely impacting areas of production involving Swazi people, drove women to seek wage employment. Moreover, this was not a smooth process, but a contested issue. Swazi men, chiefs, the monarchy and colonial administrators all attempted to frustrate female participation in wage employment. In spite of such barriers, as oral interviews with mid-twentieth century working women show, women continued to take up wage employment, and eventually secured the implicit support of colonial administrators in the service of the colonial economy.     

South African University history: a historiographical overview

University history has traditionally been the domain of the commemorative publication which presented institutions in a very favourable light, full of the boasts of growth and achievement. In considering university histories, it is useful to examine this traditional approach as well as more recent scholarly developments in the study of the history of institutions of higher learning internationally. In South Africa, most universities have some form of published history, although these vary greatly in scope, depth and critical approach. This article briefly considers volumes produced on South African universities and their past in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Trends and approaches evident in this wide variety of publications are highlighted. Questions such as the choice of moments of origin and commemoration, the effect of Apartheid on the retelling of the past and the use of either an autobiographical or a collaborative approach are considered. The comparative lack of histories of former ‘non-white’ universities is also explored, while the predominance of interest in matters of institutional identity in the post-Apartheid context is highlighted.     

Teaching revolutionary archaeology: African experiments in history making and heritage management

Este ensayo se enfoca en la experiencia de estudiantes africanos intentando estudiar y lograr administrar herencia en Tanzania y eritrea. El autor ilustra la necesidad de métodos prácticos que enfatizan hacer decisiones independientes y el crecimiento de la auto-confianza personal en los contextos del desarrollo rápido y disturbios políticos. Estas perspectivas de ense?anza ofrecen una respuesta positiva de los estudiantes que ven oportunidades para realizar la arqueología de su propia herencia desde su propio punto de vista.

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Résumé Ce papier se concentre sur l'expérience d'étudiants africains qui ont étudié et tenté de mettre en oeuvre la gestion du patrimoine en Tanzanie et en Erythrée. L'auteur illustre la nécessité d'avoir des approches pratiques qui favorisent la prise de décisions indépendante et l'augmentation de la confiance personnelle, dans le cadre professionnel, dans des contextes de développements rapides et de changements politiques brusques. Cette perspective pédagogique induit une réponse positive des étudiants qui voient des opportunités de faire l'archéologie de leur propre patrimoine selon leurs propres points de vue.

     

The MSA sequence of Diepkloof and the history of southern African Late Pleistocene populations

This paper presents the first multidisciplinary synthesis of the Middle Stone Age sequence of Diepkloof Rock Shelter (South Africa). We explore the main cultural changes that characterized southern African hunter–gatherer societies from OIS 5 to the beginning of OIS 3. We discuss the tempo of these changes, test the current interpretative hypotheses and explore an empirical model to explain the early appearance of symbolic marking within the Pleistocene hunter–gather societies of southern Africa.     

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.