Hair today,gone tomorrow: Analysing potential mercury exposure in 19th-century New Zealand gold miners using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry

Toxic metal or element exposure has the potential to cause significant negative health effects in human populations. During the goldrushes of the colonial period, mercury amalgamation was one of the most common methods of extracting gold from alluvial deposits or crushed ore, and exposure to mercury was an occupational health hazard. In this study we examine mercury exposure in mining populations from New Zealand’s first major goldrush, which began in Central Otago in 1861. We explore mercury toxicity through laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometric analysis of archaeological hair and sediment samples associated with the Tuapeka goldfields. Our analysis highlights ubiquitous low-level mercury exposure on the goldfields, as well as one individual with such high mercury concentrations in their hair that we suspect direct mercury intake, perhaps medicinally, rather than from environmental contamination.     

Between the Vinča and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Linearbandkeramik</Emphasis> Worlds: The Diversity of Practices and Identities in the 54th–53rd Centuries cal BC in Southwest Hungary and Beyond

Perhaps nowhere in European prehistory does the idea of clearly-defined cultural boundaries remain more current than in the initial Neolithic, where the southeast–northwest trend of the spread of farming crosses what is perceived as a sharp divide between the Balkans and central Europe. This corresponds to a distinction between the Vin?a culture package, named for a classic site in Serbia, with its characteristic pottery assemblage and absence of longhouses, and the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), with equally diagnostic but different pottery, and its apparently culturally-diagnostic longhouses, extending in a more northerly belt through central Europe westward to the Dutch coast. In this paper we question the concept of such a clear division through a presentation of new data from the site of Szederkény-Kukorica-d?l?. A large settlement in southeast Transdanubia, Hungary, excavated in advance of road construction, Szederkény is notable for its combination of pottery styles, variously including Vin?a A, Ra?i?te and LBK, and longhouses of a kind otherwise familiar from the LBK world. Formal modelling of its date establishes that the site probably began in the later 54th century cal BC, lasting until the first decades of the 52nd century cal BC. Occupation, featuring longhouses, pits and graves, probably began at the same time in the eastern and western parts of the settlement, starting a decade or two later in the central part; the western part was probably the last to be abandoned. Vin?a pottery is predominantly associated with the eastern and central parts of the site, and Ra?i?te pottery with the west. Formal modelling of the early history of longhouses in the LBK world suggests their emergence in the Formative LBK of Transdanubia c. 5500 cal BC followed by rapid dispersal in the middle of the 54th century cal BC, associated with the ‘earliest’ (älteste) LBK. The adoption of longhouses at Szederkény thus appears to come a few generations after the start of this ‘diaspora’. Rather than explaining the mixture of things, practices and perhaps people at Szederkény with reference to problematic notions such as hybridity, we propose instead a more fluid and varied vocabulary, encompassing combination and amalgamation, relationships and performance in the flow of social life, and networks; this makes greater allowance for diversity and interleaving in a context of rapid change.     

Citizens of Nowhere: longing,belonging and exile among Irish Protestant writers in Britain,c.1830–1970

Since the 1970s, the literature on the history of the worldwide Irish diaspora has become increasingly sophisticated, with scholars employing a range of innovative techniques to capture aspects of the migratory experience. Many challenges remain, however, in charting the multifaceted experiences of the Irish in Britain. This article makes the case for a cultural study of Irish Protestants in Britain. It examines the contours of the Irish Protestant migratory mind-set, focusing on the writings of a number of creative émigrés, temporary and permanent, such as W.B. Yeats, Denis Ireland, Nesca Robb, and John Hewitt. Of particular relevance are articulations of longing, belonging and exile, which shaped the literary perspective of these writers, and complicated their relationships with Ireland and Britain. Attitudes regarding emigration within Protestant Ireland are also probed to tease out cross-channel ideals and fears.     

Exceptional Sovereignty? Guantánamo Bay and the Re‐Colonial Present

Abstract: The US government has presented Guantánamo Bay to the world through the lens of “exceptional sovereignty”. This argument holds that international law does not apply at Guantanamo because while America has “complete authority” over the base “ultimate sovereignty” rests with Cuba. Many accounts rightly critical of the abuses of power taking place at Guantanamo similarly understand it as something wholly abnormal—a literal “non‐place”. But in falling back on this argument both the American position and many of its critics have tended to “black box” what is taking place within the camp. In this paper I suggest that we ditch any sort of critique that says Guantanamo is somehow outside of the law and instead replace this line of argument with a critical history of the deployment of a particular sort of Executive power there. From this perspective, Guantanamo is better understood as a rather more normal part of the current imperial moment and connected up in various ways to American imaginations and materialisations of power. As a way of exploring some of these connections in greater detail, I examine the construction of Guantanamo as a particular sort of social space by drawing upon the accounts of those who have been there: former guards, detainees and their defence lawyers.     

Changing growing conditions for crops during the Near Eastern Bronze Age (3000–1200 BC): the stable carbon isotope evidence

The analysis of carbon isotope discrimination (Δ¹³C) in crop plant remains from seven Bronze Age sites in northern Mesopotamia and the Levant shows clear differences in water availability between the different geographic areas and throughout the different periods (3000–1200 BC). Amongst the different moisture variables modelled precipitation minus evaporation (P-E—using a macrophysical climate model (MCM)) results in very high correlation (0.74) with Δ¹³C values in barley, supporting the significance of climate parameters (effective moisture) in carbon fixation in this species. The comparison of Δ¹³C values of different crops in different periods confirms increased aridity during the Middle Bronze Age (2000–1600 BC), compared to the later Early Bronze Age (2700–2000 BC) particularly in the north-eastern Syrian territory with generally lower Δ¹³C values during the Middle Bronze Age, as has been documented in palaeoclimate proxies, and in agreement with the MCM. Standard deviation in Δ¹³C values from grains or seeds of one species originating from different samples of an individual site may be understood as variability in moisture conditions during the grain-filling period around the considered location. Large standard deviations occur preferably in sites with low mean annual precipitation (e.g. at Emar) and suggest that in these sites, at least some of the crops were irrigated.     

Heritage and separatism in Barcelona: the case of El Born Cultural Centre

This paper explores the ways in which heritage sites at the crux of neighbourhood renewal and redevelopment initiatives in Barcelona have been manipulated to advance Catalan separatist agendas. We focus specifically on El Born Cultural Centre which was officially opened in September 2013 amid heightened calls for Catalan independence from Spain. A former market site, the centre’s key attraction is its archaeology which has been re-imagined and presented to communicate the horrors of war inflicted on the citizens of Barcelona following the War of Succession in 1714. Narratives that emphasise the historical degradation of Catalan political or cultural identity and/or work to reaffirm the distinct and separate nature of Catalan nationalism resonated strongly with the political reawakening of Catalonians in the run up to the 2014 November referendum on independence. The referendum which was subsequently deemed illegal by the Spanish government, and subsequent regional elections were held in 2015. In considering the negotiation of El Born during this drive for independence, this paper suggests that an examination of heritage sites and the ways in which they engage with, or are received by multiple stakeholders, can offer insights into the complexity of separatist campaigns in ethno-nationalist societies.