Visual arts and cultural contexts: History and prehistory

Leppert, Richard. Art and the Committed Eye: The Cultural Functions of Imagery. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1996. xvii + 348 pp. including notes, references, and index. $63.00 cloth, $24.00 paper.

Carr, Christopher and Jill E. Neitzel, eds. Style, Society, and Person: Archaeological and Ethnological Perspectives. New York: Plenum Press, 1995. xx + 477 pp. including index. $69.50 cloth.     

Ceramic Seriation, Sites Chronology, and Old Oyo Factor in Northcentral Yorubaland, Nigeria

This study is an attempt to provide a chronological seriation of pottery from Igbomina in northcentral Yorubaland. The ceramic sequence is developed using multivariate statistical analysis. From the K-means cluster analysis, ceramic collections that are roughly contemporaneous were grouped together; next the collections were seriated with multidimensional scaling to reveal whether they form a pattern that may be chronologically significant. Evaluation of the results of the pottery analysis from the Igbomina sites was based on the chronological division of Old Oyo pottery as well as on radiocarbon dating of associated material from excavated sites in the region. Pottery types from Old Oyo became known in Igbomina probably as early as the thirteenth century AD, and continued to occur in some areas until the late eighteenth century. The presence of Oyo pottery in Igbomina has important implications for the understanding of Oyo's relations with the northern Yoruba group and the frontier position of Igbomina during the Old Oyo Empire.Cette étude cherche à fournir une sériation chronologique de la céramique provenant de Igbomina situé dans la partie centrale du nord de Yorubaland. La séquene de céramique a été élaborée en utilisant une analyse statistique multidimensionnelle. Les collections de céramique plus ou moins contemporaines ont été groupées en se servant de la moyenne du facteur K de la classification ascendante hiérarchique, elles ont ensuite été ordonnées au moyen d'une analyse des proximités pour voir si elles formaient un schéma chronologique significatif. L'évaluation des résultats de l'analyse céramique des sites Iglomina est fondée sur les divisions chronologiques de la céramique Oyo ancienne ainsi que sur des dates radiocarbones obtenues sur du matériel en association provenant de sites fouillés dans la région. Les types de céramique de l'Oyo ancien sont probablement arrivés à Igbomina dès le 13ème siècle et ont continué à apparaître dans certains endroits jusqu'à la fin du 18ème siècle. La présence de la céramique Oyo à Igbomina comporte des implications importantes pour nos connaissances sur les relations des Oyo avec les groupes Yoruba du nord et sur la position de la frontière de Igbomina pendant l'empire Oyo ancien.     

Conflicts Over Trees and Waves on Siberut Island

ABSTRACT The paper describes some recent developments with respect to logging operations and the tourist industry on the island of Siberut (West Sumatra, Indonesia). It discusses these developments from the perspective of the notions of equitable access and benefit sharing and prior informed consent. These are often referred to as basic principles in dealing with external intervention within the territory of indigenous peoples. After the initial logging boom during the 1970s and 1980s about half of the island was declared a nature reserve in the early 1990s. All logging operations were terminated. Backpack tourism started to develop more or less simultaneously, stimulated by the lure of a Stone Age culture on a tropical paradise island. This contributed greatly to the efforts to safeguard the island's rich biodiversity. Recently, however, a new form of logging started on the island, with a university as concession holder. But also a new kind of tourism discovered Siberut: its waves are supposed to be of excellent quality and allow for first‐class surfing. As a result of regional autonomy and the process of democratisation in Indonesia, the local people are not willing to accept these new forms of resource use without at least sharing in their benefits. This paper is based on extensive periods of fieldwork on Siberut over the past twenty years.     

History and Globalization: Reflections on Temporality

Globalization emerged as the buzzword of the 1990s, and, at the dawn of a new millennium, it continues to transfix academics, the media and policy-makers alike. However, one of the key gaps in the research into the process(es) of globalization has concerned its historical identity: the story (and analysis) of its origins, its development and mutation over time, and the continuities and differences between past and present. In this article the author sketches a typology of claims made about the historical identity of globlization in the current literature, and points to some unexplored and fruitful avenues of enquiry. Following this, two recent books are reviewed which attempt, in different but complementary ways, to deepen our understanding of globalization in history. The article concludes with a call for further research on this and related topics.     

Children and Urban Regional Planning: Participation in the Public Consultation Process through Story Writing

Blue Mountains City is a unique urban area of 75 000 people, located along a narrow mountain ridge and within a world heritage national park, between 60 and 120 kilometres west of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Blue Mountains City Council is currently developing a regional city strategy to guide development over the next 25 years. All sections of a very diverse community have been consulted in the public participation process, including children aged between six and 12 years. This paper deals with the analysis of 269 entries for a children's story-writing competition organised by the council. The children had to imagine that they were adults in 2025 and write a story about what their home and city would be like at that time. The paper discusses the complex problems of consulting with children on strategic regional planning matters, and the results from analysis of these competition entries in the light of those problems. The most important issues for the children as a whole were the impact of traffic, the impact of urban development on residential neighbourhoods, places for children to play, protection of the natural environment, for which the city is famous, and the ability to keep domestic pets. One of the most significant impressions emerging from the analysis is that children were far from optimistic about the future. Thirty-five per cent of entries had a negative tone, whereas only 24% were positive. The remaining 41% were written in a matter-of-fact narrative style that indicated neither enthusiasm nor disappointment with the future of the city. The children were more or less evenly divided on whether the future would be strongly based on advances in technology, much the same as now, or based on simpler technology than at present. The technique of story writing, despite some methodological difficulties in this particular case, was a useful tool for consultation with children of this age group.     

THE PETROGRAPHY AND CHEMISTRY OF THIN‐WALLED WARE FROM AN HELLENISTIC– ROMAN SITE AT SEGESTA (SICILY)*

Samples of Roman thin‐walled ware from Segesta (northwestern Sicily), dating back to the early Imperial period, were studied by optical microscopy (OM) and Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA). Up to now, this class of Roman fine tableware has only occasionally been evaluated archaeometrically. Nevertheless, numerous production centres are believed to have been simultaneously active in the western Mediterranean area. Petrographic and chemical data seem to be in agreement with the archaeological hypothesis of local manufacture in Segesta for most of the analysed samples, through a comparison with kiln wasters and local raw materials. The effectiveness of thin‐section petrography for determining the provenance of such a tiny tempered class of pottery and the integrated use of two different grouping procedures (petrography and chemistry) were also tested.     

New books

En Afrique avec le Missionaire Coillard. Par Alfred Bertrand. Genève : Ch. Eggiman et Cie., Éditeurs.

A Geography of the British Empire, By Lionel W. Lyde, M.A., F.R.S.G.S. London : Adam and Charles Black, 1900. Price 1s.

Among the Man‐Eaters. By John Gaggin. (The Overseas Library.) London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1900. Price 1s. 6d

A Brief History of Eastern Asia. By L. C. Hannah, M.A. London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1900. Price 7s. Gd.

The Boer States, Land and People. By A. H. Keane, late Vice‐President, Anthropological Institute. With a Map. London : Methuen and Co., 1900. Pp. xx + 307. Price 6s.

Two Years in Palestine and Syria. By Margaret Thomas. Sixteen Illustrations in colour. London : John C. Nimmo, 1900. Price 12s. Gd. net.

Das Deutsche Land, in seinen charakterischen Zilgen und seinen Beziehungen zu Geschichte und Leben der Menschen. By Professor Dr. J. Kutzen. Fourth edition, completely revised by Dr. Victor Steinecke. Breslau : Ferdinand Hirt. 1900. Pp. 587. Indices. 116 maps and illustrations: also 9 in colours. Price, 10 marks.

Instructions for the Prevention of Malarial Fever, for the use of Residents in Malarious Places. University Press of Liverpool. 1900. Second edition. Pp. 14.

Report of the Malarial Expedition of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Medical Parisitology. By Drs. Ross, Annette, and Austen. With supplementary reports. The University Press of Liverpool. 1900. Pp. 47. Addenda, 5 plates and 4 maps. Eight illustrations in text. Price, 10s. 6d.     

Review and Discussion of V. A. Anuchin'S Book on Theory of Geography

Following are a review and a discussion of V. A. nuchin's controversial book Teoreticheskiye problemy geografii (Theoretical Problems of Geography), Moscow: Geographical Publishing House, 1960, 264 pp. The table of contents of this book was translated in Soviet Geography, March 1961, p. 88.     

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.