Oldest Australian vespertilionid (Microchiroptera) from the early Miocene of Riversleigh,Queensland

An upper molar of a small bat, here described from an early Miocene freshwater lime-stone deposit at Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland, is the oldest record in Australia of the microchiropteran family Vespertilionidae. The new taxon is referred to the cosmopolitan genus Leuconoe, but it does not appear to be closely related to the two extant Australian species of this genus.     

The canopic jars of Rameses II: real use revealed by molecular study of organic residues

Four blue-glazed faience jars, on exhibition in the Louvre Museum, are referred to as the canopic jars of Rameses II. Their recent typological re-examination rendered this original assignment questionable. In order to clearly determine their use, a study of two successive organic residues from the canopic jars, using molecular biomarkers analysed by GC-MS and LC-MS and absolute dating by ¹⁴C, was initiated. The results revealed that these two materials were not contemporary to the reign of Rameses II. The first one, scraped from the interior face of one jar, was identified as an unguent made of coniferous oil and animal fat and dated from the Third Intermediate Period. The second one, originally stored with glued linen inside one jar, is likely an embalming substance, made of pure vegetable resin (Pistacia) and dated from the Ptolemaic Period. These results clarify a controversy which has been lasting over a century. The famous blue-glazed faience jars are not the canopic jars of Rameses II but are confirmed as situlae which were reused at least two times: first to store unguents during the Intermediate Period and later to store embalming packages of an unknown person during the Ptolemaic period.     

Recent Debates on the Fate of the German Population in Upper Silesia 1945-1950

This article presents an analysis of the Polish-German scholarlyand public debate of the last decades dedicated to the fateof the German population in Upper Silesia after the ending ofthe Second World War. In the introduction, three determiningfactors of the current discussion are mentioned: first, thepublic debate on this topic, which evolved especially afterthe turning point of the democratization in Poland in 1989,and which created a certain social climate for these scholarlydebates; secondly, the history of the Polish-German conflictin Upper Silesia, which conditioned the post-war situation inthe region; and thirdly, the main historiographical paradigmsto the subject before 1989 in both countries, whose fixationand whose deficits weighed heavily upon the research directionchosen in this period. From among these three aspects—the camps built for theGerman population, their resettlement, and the politics of nationalitytowards former German citizens, who were then recognized asowners of Polish nationality and who could remain in their homes—thearticle concentrates on the first one. The last few years sawthe most fundamental revision concerning the camps for the Germanpopulation, and our knowledge is here relatively complete. Itis worth underlining that most advances here have been achievedby Polish historians from various disciplinary directions.     

Views and Commentaries: Composed Versus Simple Pasts: About Archaeologists and Their Partners

Partnership is an equitable exchange of knowledge. In fact, the very nature and indisputability of imported and taught knowledge—the scientific one and here archaeological—question the nature of the traditional and ordinary knowledge of peoples concerned. These two kinds of knowledge differ in the nature of the facts recognized by each of them: scientific facts or tacit common knowledge facts built differently, and in the number and strength of the external allies they succeed in mobilizing. Even if they remain translatable one into the other at a certain cost, they are engaged in a race. The result seems lethal for traditional knowledge unless powerful nonscientific allies, opposed to this leveling standardization, get involved with researchers aware of the stake for the South but also for the North, committed for some centuries to a rationalization supported by science, its technics, and the socioeconomic powers able to fund them.Le partenariat est un échange équitable de savoirs. En réalité, la nature et l'indiscutabilité du savoir importé et inculqué—le savoir scientifique et ici archéologique—met en cause la nature du savoir ordinaire et traditionnel des peuples concernés. Ces deux formes de savoirs diffèrent par la nature des faits reconnus par chacun d'eux: faits scientifiques ou faits du savoir observationnel ordinaire, construits différemment, et par le nombre et la force des alliés extérieurs qu'ils réussissent à se donner. S'ils sont traduisibles l'un dans l'autre à un certaincoût, une course est néanmoins engagée entre eux. L'issue en semble fatale aux savoirs traditionnels à moins que des alliés puissants non-scientifiques, opposés à ce nivellement uniformisateur, s'engagent à leurs côtés avec l'appui des chercheurs conscients d'un enjeu qui concerne certes le Sud, mais aussi le Nord engagé depuis quelques siècles dans une rationalisation appuyée sur la science, ses techniques et les puissances socio-économiques capables de les financer.