The Natural-Historic basis for the Development and Specialization of Agriculture in the Socialist Countries (Outside the USSR)

The authors urge a zonal specialization of agriculture within the countries of the Socialist camp, particularly the CEMA grouping. Bulgaria, which supplies tobacco, grapes, early vegetables, and fruits to other countries, in cited as an example. Geographers are urged to work out such a specialization scheme based on a complex of factors, including the physical-geographic base, manpower resources, the present state of agriculture, and the traditional working habits of the population.     

Death in the sun: the bioarchaeology of an early post-medieval hospital in Gibraltar

SUMMARY: In 2014, during construction work at the ex-Civil Hospital in Gibraltar, excavations led by the Gibraltar Museum revealed a major, previously unknown burial ground containing more than 200 skeletons. We present the historical, archaeological and radiometric dating evidence from the site alongside the results of initial osteological analyses. The data indicate that the burials pertain to an earlier 16th-century Spanish hospice, and therefore stand to offer new insights into the functioning of this early modern hospital and the health and movements of people at a time of incipient globalization.     

MAN-INDUCED CHANGES IN OVERALL RUNOFF IN THE ARAL SEA BASIN

The article examines the prospects of using runoff characteristics and changes in runoff composition as a basis for predicting environmental modification. The technique is employed to assess changes in the circulation of matter that are taking place in the drainage basin of the Aral Sea as a result of the intensification of irrigation. Overall runoff, including its liquid, solid (suspended sediment) and chemical phases, is analyzed in connection with a shift in the deposition of material from the Aral Sea to the irrigated plains.     

A SUMMARY OF THE GLASGOW CONFERENCE ON SOVIET ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES AND PRACTICES

A meeting of the Advisory Panel on a major research project entitled “Soviet Environmental Policies and Practices: Most Critical Investment Priorities” was convened in Glasgow, Scotland on March 12 and 13, 1988. More than a dozen specialists from Britain, West Germany, and the United States participated. The meeting was hosted by the Institute of Soviet and East European Studies of Glasgow University. The results are summarized below.     

Problems of Providing Siberia with Manpower

Continuing net out-migration from Siberia produces a manpower supply problem that must be resolved if the regions's economic development is to be pursued. A high rate of labor turnover tends to raise the costs of industrial development and to lower the skill levels of workers as skilled labor leaving Siberian cities for other parts of the USSR is replaced by untrained manpower from the Siberian countryside. Wage differentials in effect in Siberia have been effective in attracting manpower from the Western regions for short periods of time, but have not stimulated permanent settlement. In the view of the authors, new arrivals can be induced to settle down in Siberia only if the adverse impact of the Siberian environment can be compensated by a level of housing and services that is superior to those available elsewhere in the Soviet Union. The significant element is housing, which should receive particular attention in future investment programs. Northern development within Siberia poses the additional problem of physical acclimatization.     

The Man-Nature Relationship According to the Data of Historical Geography and Ethnology (Landscape and Ethnos,X)

The establishment of a new ethnos, or ethnic community, is attributed to a burst of energy or an innate drive that enables members of the community to break with past traditions and behavioral patterns and to begin building a new set of values distinguishing the new ethnic group from others. The ethnos is viewed as both a social and a biological phenomenon, with the social aspect represented by the group's relations with other groups and institutions and the biological by the behavior of the ethnos as a biological population. The innate drive exhibited by ethnic groups in the early stage of ethnogenesis is viewed as a biological feature. In general this drive is fostered by the practice of endogamy, but there are situations in which an ethnically mixed community, resulting from exogamy, also generates the energy required to initiate the process of ethnogenesis. Although the existence of the ethnic drive can be demonstrated by reference to history and historical geography, an explanation of this form of energy must be left to genetics and anthropology.     

Regional Peculiarities in the Formation of Industrial Nodes in the Middle Ob' Region

Limiting environmental conditions in the construction of industrial nodes in the new oil district of the Middle Ob' are the rigorous climate, extensive swamp cover and absence of ground transportation. These adverse factors are compensated to some extent by the shallow depth of oil deposits, favorable geology and the availability of groundwater that can be injected to maintain oil-reservoir pressures. The basic problems in the development of the oil district are the shortage of housing, services and local foodproducts and consumer goods as well as the high cost of construction of transport routes. Greater investment in services is urged to help reduce the high turnover of labor as migrants are reluctant to settle permanently in the region.     

Investigating the likelihood of a reservoir offset in the radiocarbon record for ancient Egypt

Some radiocarbon dates for ancient Egypt have been significantly offset from the established historical chronology (see Bonani et al., 2001). In this paper, short-lived plant species collected in Egypt between 1700 and 1900 AD were used to investigate the possibility that the radiocarbon record had been influenced by reservoir effects. AMS radiocarbon measurements were made on 66 known-age samples, resulting in an average offset from expected values of 19 years. The implications of this minor discrepancy on the likelihood of a reservoir process are discussed, and the agreement of the data with recent models of radiocarbon seasonality is also considered.