The Archaeology of Occupation and the V-sign Campaign in the Occupied British Channel Islands

This paper charts the course of the V-for-victory campaign in the occupied British Channel Islands, set within its European context, from 1940–45, examining the manifestations of the V-sign in a material form, and how this changed with time. It highlights the use of the V as both an open and a hidden symbol of resistance, and the role it played both in “fighting” the German forces behind their backs and in boosting morale among the local population, even after the appropriation of the symbol by the occupiers.     

Human occupation of South Eastern Altai highlands (Russia) in the context of environmental changes

Multidisciplinary investigations including geomorphological and geoarchaeological approaches, litho-stratigraphic and pedogenetic analysis accompanied by radiocarbon dating show the contrasting human environmental changes within the highlands of the Russian Altai since the late Paleolithic. Radiocarbon ages of fossil soils formed at 1,475–1,730 m a.s.l. indicate draining of the ice-dammed lake in the Kurai basin before the beginning of the Holocene and disintegration of the Chuya lake into several shallow but quite spacious reservoirs by 8,223?±?181 cal. BP. Using archaeological sites as spatio-temporal markers allows reconstructions to be specified based on geological data. Archaeological site distribution in the Chuya valley between the Chuya and Kurai basins indicates that all cataclysmic flood events related to the Holocene hydrological changes occurred before the Scythian epoch. Due to the redeposition of most Paleolithic finds in the region, they should be carefully examined before they are utilized for any reconstructions. Using fossil and contemporary soils as an independent informative climatic proxy archive supports the conception of generally more humid and warmer climate conditions in the first half of the Holocene within the SE Altai and a more arid and cold climate in the second one. The repeated climate deteriorations that caused glacier expansion and the progressive aridity intensification in the region along with the sociopolitical reasons are the major factors that controlled the habitat of nomadic communities and cultures shifting within the SE Altai in the second half of the Holocene. Anthropogenic impact together with the progressive aridization led to the deforestation of the eastern part of the Chuya depression.     

A Statistical Examination of Flake Edge Angles Produced During Experimental Lineal Levallois Reductions and Consideration of Their Functional Implications

Recent studies have indicated that Levallois-style core reduction offered potential practical benefits to hominin populations. However, none of these studies have yet considered one of the most important functional attributes of flake tools, which is edge angle. To address this shortcoming, we statistically examined flakes produced experimentally during “classic” or “lineal” Levallois core production and reduction. The primary aim of our analyses was to statistically test the null hypothesis of “no difference” between the edge angles of “Levallois” products and the flakes involved in their production. We employ existing edge angle analytical techniques and develop new comparative methodologies to assess flake blank standardization through the case of Levallois core reduction. Having determined the statistical properties of our experimental Levallois reductions, we thereafter evaluated to what extent edge angles produced may, or may not, have been useful to prehistoric hominins. Our analyses demonstrated that the experimentally produced Levallois edge angles were indeed statistically different from the flakes involved in their production. These differences were evident both in terms of relatively higher (i.e., more obtuse) edge angles than debitage flakes and in being significantly less variable around their higher mean edge angles compared to debitage flakes. However, based on current knowledge of how flake edge angle properties relate to issues of functionality, such differences would not have been detrimental to their functionality. Indeed, the edge angle properties they possess would have provided distinct benefits to hominins engaged in their manufacture. Most notably, Levallois-style core organization and reduction would have provided hominins with a reliable means of consistently producing flakes (i.e., “Levallois flakes”) possessing average flake angles that are beneficial in terms of providing a viable cutting edge yet not being so acute as to be friable upon application. Hence, edge angle properties join an array of other features that provide logical motive for why hominins may have organized core production and reduction around Levallois-style patterns at various times and places during the Mid-Late Pleistocene.     

Coercion and Warfare in the Rise of State Societies in Southern Zambezia

Researchers have raised a wide range of variables to account for the emergence and governance of complex polities. Warfare and investment in military power, along with an expansionist ideology, are often raised as catalysts for the emergence of state societies and hierarchical forms of leadership. In southern Africa’s Zambezian region, complex polities arose during the Later Iron Age, presently dated to the early second millennium CE. Wealth accumulation in the form of arable land for grazing cattle, as well as the development of a highly regulated elite ideology coupled with favorable climatic conditions, factored into this trajectory of sociopolitical development. This paper explores the role coercion may have played in cultural changes associated with increased political complexity in Zambezia. Coercive and persuasive leadership is often challenging to recognize archaeologically. Do we have sufficient visible datasets to support coercive power and conflict as a dominant factor for cultural change in this region? Was conflict a significant driver of change in the prehistoric Shashi-Limpopo Basin? How does the evidence stand up to scrutiny when evaluated against known archaeological signatures for warfare?     

Actualité de la philosophie de Ferdinand Gonseth

Résumé  Les progrès les plus récents de la physique contemporaine, en particulier la convergence de la physique des particules et de la cosmologie en une authentique cosmogonie scientifique, avivent les enjeux philosophiques de l'entreprise scientifique, mais les rapports conflictuels entre physique et philosophie ne s'en trouvent pas apaisés; un fossé semble même en train de se creuser entre science et philosophie. L'œuvre du philosophe suisse Ferdinand Gonseth qui s'est attaché à élaborer une philosophie qui so it et qui puisse rester au ni veau de la connaissance scientifique peut fournir une aide particulièrement adéquate à ceux qui voudraient contribuer à combler ce fossé. GillesCohen-Tannoudji, né en 1938, est conseiller scientifique auprès du directeur des Sciences de la matière du Commissariat à l'énergie atomique. Il est retraité de cet organisme, dans lequel il a fait toute sa carrière comme physicien théoricien dans le domaine de la physique des particules. Actuellement, il prépare une thèse de philosophie, sous la direction de Dominique Lecourt, sur la philosophie de Ferdinand Gonseth.     

Du tourisme généalogique dans l'Irlande contemporaine

The aim of this article is to explore the causes of the recent and surprising expansion of heritage tourism in Ireland, working with contemporary anthropological data. It is a fact that numerous descendants of Irish migrants have been returning ‘home’ recently to discover the land where their forebears originally came from. Of particular interest here are specific types of return to the homeland, such as the gathering of clans. We would like to point out here that such collective, ritualized activities have a twofold nature: in addition to their role in the forging of identity, they provide a means for the governments of Ireland and Northern Ireland to develop touristic activities over the entire island, thus diversifying economic resources.     

Federigo Enriques,Gaston Bachelard et Ferdinand Gonseth

The development and complexity of the debate about the conceptual structure of science in the XX^th century gave birth to a new discipline, the history of epistemology, with the aim of giving a critical history of our «epistemological heritage» with suitable methodologies of a historical and theoretical nature. A critical history of the philosophy of science on more «Wenden», besides the neo-positivistic and post-neo-positivistic ones; in Italy and France, in the first period of the XX^th century, developed a tradition of epistemological research in a neo-rationalistic sense with specific theoretical characteristics, particularly for the relevance assigned to the historicity of science. The Italian-French epistemology favored the study of the relationship between mathematical and physical thought, such as can be characterized as a really autonomous physical-mathematical epistemology; this different historical and epistemological approach, first elaborate by Federigo Enriques and then by Gaston Bachelard, Albert Lautman and Ferdinand Gonseth, allowed us to understand in the 30's the «implicit philosophy» in the works of Kurt Gödel and Hermann Weyl.     

Four Millennia of Cultural History in Nigeria (<Emphasis Type="Italic">ca</Emphasis>. 2000 B.C.–A.D. 1900): Archaeological Perspectives

This essay is an analysis of archaeological contributions to the understanding of Nigeria's cultural history between ca. 2000 B.C. and A.D. 1900 focusing on the following themes: the origins of food production; development and transformations in metallurgical traditions; the beginnings of social complexity; and the character of state formation and urbanism. The transformations in everyday material life as a result of the entanglement with the Atlantic commerce and ethnoarchaeological approaches to understanding material culture and archaeological contexts also receive attention. The essay provides pathways to some of the turning points in Nigeria's cultural history, shows the convergence and divergence of cultural historical developments in different parts of the country, and identifies the critical gaps in archaeological research agenda.     

Recent Research in Puebla Prehistory

This review of recent research in the state of Puebla, Mexico, focuses on six issues: (1) reevaluations of the Tehuacan Valley Archaic; (2) rural household archaeology at Tetimpa; (3) the impact of Popocatépetls eruptions; (4) the city of Cholula; (5) the Nahua-Otomangue frontier; and (6) new perspectives on the Mixteca-Puebla art style. Not only do these topics illustrate the scope of archaeological work, but they can be linked to broader anthropological themes like the origins and spread of agriculture, relationships between rural populations and emergent cities, the environmental, social, and cultural impact of natural disasters, the operation of geographical frontiers and ethnic interfaces, the construction of cultural landscapes, and the connections between political organization and art style. Pueblas location along numerous environmental and cultural divides makes it an excellent laboratory for the study of human interaction across diverse kinds of frontiers.     

The Emergence of Social Complexity in the Chibchan World of Southern Central America and Northern Colombia,AD 300–600

The societies of southern Central America and northern South America, a region historically occupied by Chibchan-speaking peoples, have long been acknowledged as valuable sources of information on chiefdoms and other forms of prestate social organization. Most studies, however, have focused on chiefdoms that are known ethnographically or ethnohistorically with an emphasis on the sixteenth century and the immediate precontact period. This paper reviews archaeological evidence from an earlier period in an attempt to elucidate general patterns associated with the earliest appearance of social inequality. The centuries between AD 300 and 600 are characterized by the first widespread use of prestige goods manufactured from gold and jade, special cemeteries for the interment of elites, and a rich iconography. Detailed consideration of recent research relevant to the events of this period highlights some of the problems inherent in the archaeological identification of hierarchy, chiefdoms, leadership, and other features of prestate complex societies.