Stimulated Variation and Cascades: Two Processes in the Evolution of Complex Technological Systems

Michael Schiffer’s theoretical and methodological contributions to archaeology are substantial. For the last two decades, Schiffer has become increasingly interested in the history of electrical technology, including portable radios, electric automobiles, eighteenth-century electrostatic technology, and, most recently, nineteenth-century electric light and power systems. Schiffer has long held a behavioral view, which focuses analytical attention on interactions between humans and material things, including complex technological systems (CTSs). For Schiffer, two key aspects of the evolution of CTSs are stimulated variation, defined as an increase in invention resulting from changing selective conditions, and cascading, defined as sequential spurts of invention that occur through the recognition of emergent performance problems in a CTS. To attain maximum usefulness, these concepts should be placed in a modern evolutionary framework that correctly identifies, and does not oversell, the role played by cultural selection. Research on individual and social learning provides the critical link between Schiffer’s stimulated variation and cascade models and the diffusion of CTSs.     

Mollusk shells from burials of tuzovskiye bugry-1 As indicators of ethno-cultural processes In southern siberia and western central asia In the 3rd millennium bc

This article focuses on adornments made of mollusk shells from graves of the Tuzovskiye Bugry-1 burial ground in the Altai Territory. The collection includes bivalve shells: Corbicula ferghanensis Kurs. et Star. currently inhabiting the Amu Darya and Syr Darya basins; Corbicula tibetensis Prash. inhabiting the mountain regions of Central Asia, Eastern Kazakhstan, and the Amu Darya and Syr Darya basins; fossil Corbicula similar to Corbicula fl uminalis Mull; swan mussel of the genus Colletopterum inhabiting the Ob basin; and one specimen of Cardiidae sp. of the marine, probably, paleospecies. The most interesting are ancient marine tooth shells related to the genus Dentalium (class Scaphopoda, family Dentaliidae). In the Altai Territory, there are no such deposits that could have contained such shells. These shells were possibly brought by people from other regions. The closest occurrences of Dentaliidae are known in the Aral Sea region. The presence of beads of a truncated cone shape made of Dentalium shells as well as pendants made of Corbicula valves suggest connections between the Altai population and people inhabiting Western Central Asia. These connections might have existed in the form of direct contacts with bearers of the Ust-Narym and Botai cultures or else might have been the result of migration of people from Western Central Asia and Eastern Kazakhstan to the Altai.     

The morality of transnationalism: children of Ukrainian labor migrants write about migration,homeland and abroad

Ukraine has experienced a wave of labor migration after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A large number of Ukrainian children have been directly affected as they grow up in transnational households with one or both parents working abroad. In this article, I aim to describe how Ukrainian children and youth conceptualize migration, homeland and abroad in a context of societal, economic and political change. The analysis is mainly based on a qualitative reading of 143 texts written by Ukrainian children. I argue that Ukrainian children and youth place homeland and abroad on a moral map of belonging, and that migration is conceptualized within such a framework as a morally ambiguous movement.     

Mountain recreation in the East Grampians

Extracts from the results of a year‐long study of mountain recreation in the East Grampians are briefly summarised. Visitor profiles and activity patterns are sketched, and attitudes explored. High levels of satisfaction and enjoyment were reported, but the numbers of persons present gave rise to a sense of loss of wildness on the part of a substantial minority of mountain users.     

In Memoriam: Philip Mainwaring Johnston,F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A.

Abstract

It is increasingly recognised that religion was the mainspring of pre-Reformation domestic ritual in royal as well as episcopal and archiepiscopal households. This article sets out to examine the architectural consequences of this. It argues that from the mid-15th century a small group of high-status residential buildings was planned around the need for lavish liturgical display, particularly the introduction of a cloister. The patrons of such buildings were churchmen of the highest rank such as Henry Beaufort and Thomas Wolsey who, it is argued, had special requirements for their principal residences. These requirements subsequently went on to influence the plans of early Tudor royal palaces, culminating in the reconstruction of Whitehall Palace by Henry VIII in the 1540s.