Glacial Stratigraphy of the Upper Mersey Valley,Tasmania

The upper Mersey Valley was glaciated on three occasions during the Pleistocene. The youngest, Rowallan Claciation, probably commenced after 28000 years B.P. The maximum ice limit was attained before 13500 years B.P., and retreat occurred before 10000years B.P. Deposits associated with Rowallan Glaciation are weakly weathered chemically. They overlie moderately weathered deposits that were formed during the Arm Glaciation, which is inferred from relative dating data to have occurred before the Last Interglacial Stage. North of the deposits and ice limits of the Arm Glaciation extremely weathered tills and rhythmites occur. They were formed by ice of the Croesus Glaciation which is inferred to be of Early Pleistocene age or older.     

Tin Mining and Sediment Supply to the Ringarooma River,Tasmania, 1875–1979

Tin mining, based largely on alluvial tin deposited along the line of the ancestral Ringarooma, began in 1875 and reached a peak in the period 1905-9. Output declined thereafter and, following a brief recovery during the Second World War, had virtually ceased by 1981. Neither the methods, location nor level of production remained constant during the mining era. The widespread use of hydraulic sluicing and the proximity of many mines to the main river were major factors contributing to the high rate of sediment supply, with the Briseis mine at Derby being the dominant source. Based on data from published and unpublished papers, and mine records, the variable nature of that supply was estimated using a procedure which takes account of the effects of storage and changing practices. Many input points supplied material but the overall pattern is one in which downstream reaches made later starts and reached later peaks, suggesting that they will continue to experience the effects of an increased sediment load for some time.     

The logic of the herd: A computer simulation of archaeological herd structure

The advent of new techniques of dental ageing has permitted inferences about the age-structures of ancient animal populations on the basis of faunal remains. Unfortunately, inference from archaeological populations of faunal elements to the age-structure of ancient herds is fraught with both sampling problems and logical difficulties. The relationship between a living herd—a dynamic system characterized by growth—and a static archaeological population is more complex than that assumed by current models based on kill-off patterns and survivorship curves. Using a computer simulation, these logical relationships are explored, and the effects of herd growth on the composition of live and death populations are evaluated. By employing the simulation within a deductive framework, constrained by ethnographically derived criteria for reproduction, mortality, and economic viability in the Near East, it is possible to determine whether certain archaeological kill-off patterns could represent viable herding systems. Examples were found to vary widely in terms of both demographic plausibility and economic viability. Some implications for the possible course of ova-caprine domestication in the Near East are discussed.     

Elimination of Source A and B Errors in p-Median Location Problems

The p-median problem is a powerful tool in analyzing facility location options when the goal of the location scheme is to minimize the average distance that demand must traverse to reach its nearest facility. It may be used to determine the number of facilities to site, as well as the actual facility locations. Demand data are frequently aggregated in p-median location problems to reduce the computational complexity of the problem. Demand data aggregation, however, results in the loss of locational information. This loss may lead to suboptimal facility location configurations (optimality errors) and inaccurate measures of the resulting travel distances (cost errors). Hillsman and Rhoda (1978) have identified three error components: Source A, B, and C errors, which may result from demand data aggregation. In this article, a method to measure weighted travel distances in p-median problems which eliminates Source A and B errors is proposed. Test problem results indicate that the proposed measurement scheme yields solutions with lower optimality and cost errors than does the traditional distance measurement scheme.     

Migration,Human Resource Transfers,and Development Contexts: A Logit Analysis of Venezuelan Data

This paper is concerned with the reciprocal relationship between migration and development in Third World settings. Using individual-level data for Venezuela, migration behavior is related to a person's age, educational attainment, gender, and characteristics of his/her place(s) of residence as an out-migrant, in-migrant, or stayer. Place characteristics are in terms of four groups based on employment patterns: the core, regional centers, resource frontiers, and traditional rural areas. Four questions are of concern. First, does development influence migration? All analyses indicate this is so. Second, does migration influence development? Findings are ambiguous in that places experiencing improvement in their mix of human capital lagged in the net number of persons obtained through migration whereas a gain in numbers was accompanied by deterioriation in human capital profiles. Third, was incipient polarization reversal occurring in Venezuela in the late 1960s, early 1970s? This paper departs from the usual approach by addressing this question in terms of human capital attributes instead of population aggregates. On this basis, polarization reversal is in evidence, particularly in regional centers. Finally, this study answers in the affirmative that places with different development characteristics generate migration streams differing in type, magnitude, explanation, and impact.     

Female Personifications and Masculine Forms: Gender,Armour and Allegory in the Habsburg–Valois Conflicts of Sixteenth-Century Europe

This article examines the visual and material culture of sixteenth-century elite ceremonial armours and the paradoxes inherent in using images of women to decorate them between 1525 and 1550. It argues that foreign invading forces and their allies exploited or inverted traditional gender binaries associated with the classical and humanist iconography of the Italian Renaissance, particularly its female allegorical forms, to visually signify power relationships between combatants during the Italian Wars. Rather than simply embodying masculinity, elaborate ceremonial armours with images of women are revealing of both ideals of masculinity and femininity during times of war. These portrayals were part of wider conversations about gender and power, about the strength and weaknesses of women, and, ultimately, women's inferior status to men, which were utilised in allegorical forms to make claims to authority on these elite forms of male dress.