Evolutionary Foraging Models in Zooarchaeological Analysis: Recent Applications and Future Challenges

The last few decades have witnessed a rapid rise in the use of foraging models derived from behavioral ecology to explain and predict temporal and spatial differences in faunal assemblages. Although these models build on conventional ideas about utility firmly embedded in zooarchaeological analyses, when cast in an evolutionary framework these ideas produce some of the most sophisticated and elegant interpretations of archaeofaunas to date. In this article I review the methodological and practical strengths and weaknesses of current zooarchaeological applications of foraging models. Recent applications of foraging models to the zooarchaeological record reveal important variability in human-prey interactions across time and space. Case-specific applications generate theoretical and methodological advances that augment and are complementary to model building in allied fields. Recent applications also identify shortcomings in the underlying assumptions and rationale of some foraging models that mirror past and on-going discussions in anthropology and biology. I discuss how these shortcomings can fruitfully direct future applications and research in foraging economics.     

Mapping a Future: Archaeology,Feminism, and Scientific Practice

Drawing on work in science studies, I argue for the importance of fieldwork and research practices when considering the relative significance of feminism within archaeology. Fieldwork, often presented as the unifying hallmark of all of anthropology, has a different resonance in archaeology at the level of material practice and specific techniques. In order to understand the relationship between archaeology and feminism we need to investigate methods, methodology, and interpretations of the material record simultaneously. Examining one practice, that of map making, I suggest venues amenable to feminist insights.     

Uranium-series dating rock art in East Timor

At many sites throughout the world rock art paintings have been covered by naturally deposited calcite laminations, which we demonstrate can be individually dated by recently improved uranium-series methods. Here we report the application of multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to measure the ages for carbonate coatings that bracket red pigment at Lene Hara cave, East Timor, which could be evidence of human painting. These analyses establish the feasibility of dating milligram samples of finely layered calcite deposits associated with archaeological evidence of human occupation. In addition to confirming an age of less then 6300 years for the visible red paintings on the carbonate surface we also report a substantially older age of 24,000 to 29,300 years for a similar, older red pigment lamination providing possible evidence for an earlier painting episode.     

Mekeo Chiefs and Sorcerers: Metaphor,Ideology and Practice

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates two English expressions used by Michelle Stephen to translate the Mekeo terms lopia and ungaunga, traditionally rendered as “chief” (or “peace chief”) and “sorcerer” (Seligman 1910; Hau'ofa 1971, 1981; Mosko 1985). Stephen suggests that more “literal” translations are “man of kindness” and “man of sorrow”. I argue that the expressions proposed are only literal if we accept postulated etymologies based on Stephen's reading of the Desnoës Mekeo‐French Dictionary (1941) and a grammatical analysis Stephen puts forward as unproblematic. I use authentic texts from Desnoës and my own grammar of Mekeo to challenge Stephen's suggested translations, and suggest that the use of conventional labels for key cultural terms is preferable to searching for non‐existent “literal” meanings. More generally, I discuss the use of etymologies that are unverifiable, and often from a linguistic viewpoint unlikely, in ethnographies of the Mekeo and to some extent elsewhere. I outline linguistic processes whereby metaphors and other associative tropes rapidly become conventionalized, and lexical items become grammaticalized. I evaluate the role of metaphor and metonymy in the formation of concepts and belief systems, and sketch an interpretative framework capable of accounting for the different effects and uses of polysemy and homonymy.     

Twenty years of Tourism Geographies: a bibliometric overview

Abstract

Tourism Geographies is a prominently ranked journal that emerged from activities of the Tourism Commission of the International Geographical Union. It is indexed in the ‘Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management’ and ‘Geography, Planning and Development’ fields in the Scopus database and published its 20th volume in 2018. A bibliometric assessment of the articles and authors who have contributed to Tourism Geographies over its first two decades highlights major trends and dominant issues covered by the journal’s content. Key indicators include the most published and most cited authors and articles, the institutions and countries that those authors are affiliated with, other academic journals that are closely linked to the journal through citations, and the most used keywords in the journal. The Scopus database provides access to these basic bibliometric data, while the VOSviewer software enables graphical analyses and displays of co-citations, co-occurrences of keywords, and bibliographic couplings (shared references) across papers and authors. Overall, Tourism Geographies is closely linked to other leading journals indexed by Scopus in the ‘Tourism’ and ‘Geography’ fields and publishes papers from around the world. Research topics that have been most prominent in the journal include tourism development, tourist destinations, tourist attractions, heritage tourism, tourism perceptions, sustainable tourism, and travel behavior. Among the most viewed individual papers have been those addressing issues related to sustainability, poverty issues (related to tourism in poor areas, volunteering, sustainable tourism, and the environment), and community planning (sustainable tourism planning, tourist routes and movement, and new locations for tourism development).     

Courting white southerners: Theodore Roosevelt’s quest for the heart of the South

Most studies of President Theodore Roosevelt address his “southern strategy” to revive the Republican Party’s fortunes in a region where it was effectively shut out by 1900. This essay revisits Roosevelt’s approach to the South between 1901 and 1912 and argues that wooing white southerners away from the Democratic Party, more than any other approach, represented Roosevelt’s overriding strategy for the revitalization of the southern GOP.     

Australia’s submarine technology cooperation with Japan as burden-sharing with the USA in the Asia-Pacific

Australia, Japan and the USA are all facing dual pressures that require them to do more with less. Internationally, they deal with the challenge of managing China’s rapid rise. However, domestically, they must cut government spending and reduce government debt. With internal balancing effectively ruled out as a long-term solution, the three states are seeking ways to optimise external balancing, or cooperation with like-minded states. This article focuses on Australian motivations regarding the recent proposal for submarine cooperation with Japan, and places it in the context of longer trends that poise the USA, Australia and Japan for even greater trilateralism in the future. Australia’s proposal to buy submarines from Japan, should it go through, would cement Australia and Japan’s fledgling security relationship in steel and coin. For Australia, it would help it to overcome its undersea capability gap, and Japan could set a precedent to re-enter the global weapons market if all goes well. Furthermore, Australia can use defence-technology cooperation with Japan to signal to the USA the seriousness of its commitment to burden-share in pursuit of regional security and determination to politically support the USA’s ‘Pivot’ to the Asia-Pacific. However, domestic politics have begun to play an important role in Australia, with a ‘spill’ motion against Prime Minister Tony Abbott barely overcome by a backroom deal with the opposition to build the submarines domestically, and this is an important development to keep an eye on.