PRE-COLUMBIAN METALLURGY: TECHNOLOGY,MANUFACTURE, AND MICROPROBE ANALYSES OF COPPER BELLS FROM THE GREATER SOUTHWEST*

Twenty-four cast copper crotals (commonly called bells), one 'spilled bell’, one tinkler bell and a number of minerals from locations throughout the Greater Southwest were analysed for their elemental composition by a PIXE nuclear microprobe at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, USA. Sixteen bells contained minor and trace amounts of silver, antimony, arsenic, lead, and in some cases tin, strontium, and selenium. Nine bells contained little or no detectable amounts of these elements. This suggests that several workshops throughout the Greater Southwest and Mexico might have manufactured these bells.     

FINITE FAULT MODELLING OF NEAR-FIELD ROCK MOTIONS IN THE NEW MADRID SEISMIC ZONE

Due to lack of strong motion records, point-source and finite-fault models have been used to simulate far-field motions at Memphis and St. Louis Cities from earthquake events in the New Madrid Seismic Zone. However, near-field rock motions and their associated uncertainties have never been studied within this zone. The objectives of this study are to develop a simple procedure to account for the uncertainty effect of earthquake source parameters, to analyze the sensitivity of near-field rock motions to input source parameters, and finally, to generate rock motions at two sites located within 11 km from the southwestern segment (strike-fault) and a third site bove the Reelfoot Rift (reverse fault) using a well-validated finite-fault simulation program; FINSIM. An equal-weight logic tree was developed to ensure that the assumed uncertainties are within physical, geological, and seismological constraints. For each site, 100 acceleration time histories with various combinations of parameter uncertainties were respectively simulated for an earthquake of M _w 7.0, 7.5, and 8.0 from each of the two faults. Their average spectral accelerations were in good agreement with those derived from the attenuation relation-ships representative to the Central and Eastern United States. Numerical simulations indicated that spectral accelerations are sensitive to the slip velocity, depth to top of fault, fault strike, slip distribution, and hypocentre location along the strike.     

Religion and nationalism: four approaches*

ABSTRACT. Building on recent literature, this article discusses four ways of studying the relationship between religion and nationalism. The first is to treat religion and nationalism, along with ethnicity and race, as analogous phenomena. The second is to specify ways in which religion helps explain things about nationalism – its origin, its power or its distinctive character in particular cases. The third is to treat religion as part of nationalism, and to specify modes of interpenetration and intertwining. The fourth is to posit a distinctively religious form of nationalism. The article concludes by reconsidering the much‐criticised understanding of nationalism as a distinctively secular phenomenon.     

Big boats and bigger skimmers: determining Britain's role in the Long War

While much of the focus in the Trident replacement debate in the UK is on Britain's long-term role as a nuclear power, a second decision is imminent, concerning the acquisition of two large aircraft carriers. In combination, these two projects will do much to determine the UK defence posture for several decades to come and are therefore best analysed together. The decisions are particularly significant when viewed in relation to the post 9/II US defence posture, especially in what is now being termed the 'long war'. The new aircraft carriers will make it possible for the UK military to work closely with the United States in future expeditionary warfare, with all the potential political controversies that might result.     

International Relations after the Cold War

This article, based on Adam Roberts's valedictory lecture as Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, reconsiders the causes and consequences of the end of the Cold War. It argues that a key to understanding these developments is acceptance of pluralism—of theories, of political systems, of cultures, of methods of analysis, and of academic disciplines. Pluralism in at least some of these senses is a recognized strength of International Relations studies in the UK. The long tradition of acceptance of a plural international system, and a plural approach to understanding it, includes figures as varied as John Stuart Mill, Maxim Litvinoff, Alastair Buchan and Hedley Bull. The end of the Cold War was the result of a plural mix of factors: both force and diplomacy; both pressure and détente; both belief and disbelief in the reformability of communism; both civil resistance in some countries and guerrilla resistance in others; both elite action and street politics; both nuclear deterrence and the ideas of some of its critics; both threat and reassurance; both nationalism in the disparate parts of the Soviet empire and supranationalism in the European Community. Paradoxically, the specialists in politics and International Relations who came closest to foreseeing the end of the Cold War were those who made few if any claims to a ‘scientific’ approach, and whose idea of forecasting was based, at the very most, on Mill's modest concept of ‘a certain order of possible progress’. Since the end of the Cold War, simplistic interpretations of how it ended have contributed to narrow understandings of international order. The spirit of imposed universalism having fed from Moscow, has flourished as never before in its other favourite haunt, Washington DC. There is a need to recognize the plurality of perspectives that endure in the post‐Cold War world.     

Conversion by the Numbers: Benefits and Pitfalls of Quantitative Modelling in the Study of Early Christian Growth

Proponents and critics of numerically modelling early Christian growth have missed many complexities of this approach. This study re‐examines quantitative modelling by conducting “thought experiments,” built from initial assumptions to population projections. First, an “apostolic mission” model assumes that Christianity grew via persuasive leaders; it projects a cubic growth curve. Second, a “values reproduction” model ties higher reproduction and conversion to certain Christian values; it projects an exponential curve. Next, a “social reaction” model links growth to interconfessional interactions; it projects a logistic curve. Such formal models reveal numerical parameters of conversion and the impact of various assumptions. Together, they illustrate the variability of early Christian population projections. They also showcase limitations of traditional quantitative modelling, which tends to oversimplify social conditions, to mischaracterise ancient religion, and to inspire teleological reasoning. Newer “network” models can overcome only some of these limitations. Used carefully, however, quantitative methods supplement familiar socio‐cultural approaches.     

The art of declining politely: Obama's prudent presidency and the waning of American power

Predictions of ‘American decline’ have come and gone before, apparently in cycles, leading some to regard it as a cultural trope stemming from domestic insecurities rather than a serious prospect. There is reason to believe, however, that this time is different. Fundamental erosion of the United States’ decades‐long primacy may finally be at hand, and wise analysis should resist the temptations of contrarianism or denial. Critics of ‘declinism’ have offered important caveats with which we should qualify any overly simplistic or deterministic portrait of America's trajectory from hegemon to lesser status. This article gives such qualifications due weight while nevertheless seeking to steer our gaze back towards the core truth at the heart of the declinist thesis. That is: unless something very significant changes to jolt the course of events onto a different track, the relative power of the United States—measured in terms of its advantage over others in economic and military capacity—will be shrinking significantly over the decades to come. Happily, the nation's current president seems to have a disposition well fitted to leading the nation into the opening stages of an era of relative decline. President Obama has made headlines in recent months for his boldness in orchestrating the killing of Osama bin Laden. A fuller survey of his foreign policy, however, reveals that its most signal feature has been prudence and circumspection regarding American power and its exercise. Major divergence between the ends pursued and the capacities available for their pursuit is one of the cardinal sins giving rise to strategic failure. It is thus fortunate for the United States that it should have a president who, even if he may not be inclined to cast it in such words himself, seems disposed not to ‘rage against the dying of the light’ of American primacy, but to practice the admirable art of declining politely.     

SOUTHERN ASIA'S OLDEST INCENDIARY MISSILE?*

A small burnt ball was recovered in 1995 from the basal fills of a ditch surrounding the Bala Hisar, or High Fort, of Charsadda, Pakistan. Associated by Sir Mortimer Wheeler with the siege of the ancient site by Alexander the Great in 327 bce , the ditch forms part of the city's defensive circuit. Using geochemical and microscopic techniques (X‐ray diffraction, micro‐FTIR, SEM and GC–MS) the ball is identified as an artificial composite of mineral (mostly barite) and flammable resinous organic matter originating from conifers from the Podocarpaceae, Araucariaceae and Cupressaceae. The physical and chemical nature of the find suggests that the ball was ignited in a fire, although whether this was a deliberate or accidental occurrence is impossible to establish. The analytical data, combined with the archaeological context of the find, leads us to evaluate whether the find represents southern Asia's earliest incendiary missile.