Duggleby Howe Revisited

Duggleby Howe alone exhibits the full range of burial practices that characterize the British Later Neolithic. It has therefore been central to their seriation. Yet a re-reading of Mortimer's text suggests that a prolonged sequence for the burials in the mound is unlikely. Since this includes cremations held to characterize the Final Neolithic, consideration must be given to the circumstances which might generate such a large mortuary population and lead to their quite different treatment.     

Drawing a line in the Taiwan Strait: 'Strategic ambiguity' and its discontents

The Bush administration's continuing emphasis on US military deterrence of the PRC on behalf of Taiwan threatens to undermine the posture of 'strategic ambiguity' that the United States has proclaimed since 1979. This article argues for the retention of 'strategic ambiguity' and traces the origins of revisionist sentiment towards this effective conflict avoidance mechanism to reactions within the US foreign policy community to the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis. Case studies of this crisis and its predecessors in 1954-55 and 1958 demonstrate that US military deterrence was not a decisive factor in their resolution. US and PRC initiatives and responses in the 1950s crises introduced the essential elements of 'strategic ambiguity' into the triangular relationship between themselves and Taiwan. In particular, they established a precedent for the United States and the PRC in circumscribing the issue of Taiwan so as to achieve a political accommodation.     

Why the Śailendras were not a Javanese dynasty

Archaeologists and art historians generally agree that most of the 8th- to 9th-century Buddhist temples in central Java were constructed by the rulers who claimed to belong to the ?ailendra dynasty. But the unsolved question preying on the minds of scholars for many decades now is the origins of this dynasty. Drawing on a variety of arguments this study contends that the present popularity of the ?ailendra dynasty's Javanese origin is ill-founded, and urges a resumption of research into its foreign origins, whether in India, Sri Lanka or mainland Southeast Asia.