Skill Matters

Skill is a challenging topic for archeologists because it requires balancing the biases of cultural relativity with the commonsense understanding that some humans are more able than others. Using the content and results model of technology, this paper identifies skill as a variable of technological knowledge with recognizable material results. Late Paleolithic Japanese blade and microblade assemblages suggest that skill differentials exist on the cognitive, operational, and motor levels. These examples, together with ethnoarcheological consideration of modern potters suggest material reflections of technical skill. These include regularity in performance and product, skilled tools, and obvious signs of practice.     

Systems Of Urban Places

A method of “structural chains” is proposed for the analysis of regional urban systems. Each chain is made up of a sequence of numerical elements representing the average population of places at various levels of urban development, from small mining or forestry settlements to large polyfunctional cities of regional or national rank. The absence of a particular category in a region is marked in the chain by a zero. The structural chains of local urban systems can be grouped into tables reflecting the structure of a regional urban system and its local variations. The key characteristics of urban systems reflected by these chains are: the number of elements or levels of development; the number of zeros and their position in the chain, reflecting the degree of development of the urban hierarchy; and the height of the regional tables (number of horizontal rows), representing the number of local urban structures. The method is tested and illustrated by the urban systems of the Dnieper-Donets and Black Sea regions of the Ukraine, the Upper Volga region, and the urban system of the Tatar ASSR.     

Theming Cities, Taming Places: Insights from Singapore

This paper explores the 'thematic development' of Singapore's Little Historic District and the socio-spatial effects of this thematic enhancement scheme. Specifically, I argue that when landscapes are 'themed', which is often the case in urban tourism planning, places will be 'tamed' as a result. This argument is substantiated by the case of Singapore's Little India which was designated a historic district in 1989. I contend that as Little India is redeveloped as an Indian theme district with a mix of modern and traditional activities, it is tamed in three ways. The taming process is exemplified by: (1) a decline in traditional Indian-owned retail outlets and activities; (2) Little India's conversion into a retail attraction rather a place of residence; and (3) a dimming of its rich Indian cultural identity. The taming of activities , community and identity , I shall show, has also generated vociferous reactions from the grass-roots which can be described as anything but tame. Indeed, as gross-roots agencies (comprising merchants and residents) resist the government's development approach, there has been a fundamental rethinking of what Little India means to its people and a re-evaluation of their communal ties to the place. As a result, a reassertion of Indian identity and community occurs even as Little India is being themed and tamed.     

Trading Places: Competitive Cities in the Global Economy

This paper reports the findings of an ESRC funded study of innovation in five European cities. It is argued that the contemporary emphasis on local production clusters as the basis of economic growth provides only a limited explanation, in certain types of cities, of what drives growth. The argument developed here is that export base theory should be revisited as a more likely explanation of virtuous circles of growth. The evidence presented suggests that such circles are composed of innovation and trade in the context of the types of externalities found in core metropolitan international gateway cities.     

Youthful geographies: from Cool Places to hyper-dynamic Asia

ABSTRACT

Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures published in 1998 effectively launched young people's geographies and provided interesting examples of the ‘cultural’ and ‘feminist turns’ through its engagement with cultural studies. It placed young people as central and showcased young arts students through their printmaking self-portraits. This article looks back to 1998 and forward beyond 2018 to explore the concept of ‘youthful geographies’. It reflects on the starting points for this edited collection and explores the ways in which scholarship focusing on young people worked to establish the space to pursue a challenge to the youthful ‘present absence’ in Geography. It poses the question: ‘Where are young people in the sub-disciplines of Geography’? and acknowledges the value and innovation that youthful scholars bring to geographies of young people. In the final section I reflect on a decade of the nascent growth of scholarship located in, and focused on, Asian youthful geographies.     

Drowned Memories: The Submerged Places of the Winnemem Wintu

This article is a brief overview of an instance where landscape inundation has disconnected culture from place. The Winnemem Wintu, a Native American tribe in Northern California, had most of their ancestral landscape along the McCloud River submerged by the construction of Shasta Dam just after World War II. The tribe’s remaining traditional cultural properties are under continual threat of loss and/or destruction, leaving the tribe’s ability to practice traditional ceremonies crippled by legal battles and fights against the continual assertion of United States hegemonic power over tribal cultural identity. As part of archaeological research on these submerged places, the tribe’s spiritual leader, Caleen Sisk-Franco, and Tribal Headman, Mark Franco, spoke with the author about these threats and how their culture must adapt to meet them.     

意大利访古

<正>意大利是个多姿多彩、令人神往的国家。看欧洲地图,意大利的版图形状像一只女人的高筒高跟皮靴伸向地中海。人们对这个国度的兴趣会因各自的偏爱而不同:热衷体育的人欣赏意大利的足球——他们曾三次夺得大力神杯。国家队的21号皮尔洛是钢铁大亨的儿子,他踢球的工资全部捐给非洲难民基金会。这个国家,尤其到了大的赛季,各种色彩都不足以渲染人们的热情。艺术爱好者则推崇意大利的绘画、雕塑和建筑艺术,认为意大利的歌剧名扬四