Variation in collagen stable nitrogen values in black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus) in relation to small-scale differences in climate,soil, and topography

Longstanding observations about the relationship between increasing aridity and ¹⁵N enrichment in mammalian collagen values have led to an interest in their use as a paleoclimatic marker. Here we report on variability in collagen nitrogen values from five modern and two archaeological samples of black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus) from the eastern Great Basin of the United States (N = 178 individuals). Nitrogen δ¹⁵N values were highly variable within all samples. Modern samples showed significant differences despite similarities in average annual precipitation and temperature. Archaeological samples were indistinguishable from each other or from modern samples taken from the same area despite independent evidence for differences in precipitation for the two prehistoric periods considered. Differences between modern samples were most strongly associated with soil characteristics. We discuss these results in light of their relationship with topography and vegetation and highlight their implications for archaeological applications of stable nitrogen analyses in several contexts.     

Hematite sources and archaeological ochres from Hohokam and O’odham sites in central Arizona: an experiment in type identification and characterization

The use of ochre is a defining characteristic of populations living in the Sonoran Desert of the American Southwest. Red pigments and paints were used for craft production, bodily adornment, rock art, and in mortuary contexts. Hematite and other iron-oxides are common components of this pigment that frequently appear in the archaeological record in a variety of forms and in various stages of production. Beyond this, very little is known about these materials. This paper describes the collection of potential geological sources of ochre in the Phoenix Basin and presents a methodology for the identification of processed paints. Geological sources samples are characterized using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and compared to raw materials recovered archaeologically from the Gila River Indian Community reservation. This preliminary study indicates that iron-oxide sources can be distinguished from each other and that artifacts can be matched to these sources, revealing local procurement along the Gila River by Hohokam and O’odham artisans and continuity in use of one source from the prehistoric period to the present.     

HISTORY AND KAIRÓS

The recent wave of interest in the “theological‐political” has focused scholarly attention on the constellation of ideas associated with “messianic time.” The term kairós belongs to this constellation, and Giacomo Marramao's brief but ambitious text of the same name both proposes and performs a “kairological” reconfiguration of the close relationship between philosophy and time. Marramao's argument for the productive potential of “cosmic disorientation” and contingency will merit the attention of historians interested in Benjamin's blend of messianism and historical materialism, and of anyone who is intrigued by the prospect of a messianism without apocalypticism.     

DO LOCATION‐BASED TAX INCENTIVES ATTRACT NEW BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS?*

ABSTRACT This paper examines how offering tax incentives in a local area affects the entry of new business establishments. We use the federal Empowerment Zone (EZ) program as a natural experiment to test this relationship. Using instrumental variables estimation, we find that the EZ wage tax credit is responsible for attracting about 2.2 new establishments per 1,000 existing establishments, or a total of 20 new establishments in EZ areas. New establishment growth is strongest in the retail (about 40 new establishments) and service (about five new establishments) sectors, and offset by declines or slower growth in other industries.     

Logging,Violence and Pleasure: Neoliberalism,Civil Society and Corporate Governance in West New Britain

ABSTRACT The postcolonial world of Melanesia is made up of diverse experiments, which combine modern and customary technologies of power into new hybrid assemblages. In the 1990s, there occurred a proliferation of landowner companies in rural New Britain. This happened in a context of neoliberalism where the state divested itself of many functions and services by allocating these to a supposedly more efficient private sector. In the Kaliai area, this new economic partnership between state and capital gave rise to more militarised forms of policing, which sought to protect logging by a large Malaysian company from growing local unrest. Supplementing these coercive state actions were private strategies, which used sorcery to intimidate opponents to logging as well as rivals within the landowner company. Opponents were bought off and alliances created through using customary exchange relations as well as through modern gifts of money, western goods and commoditised pleasures.     

An Analysis of Arrow and String Bag Craft Variability in the Upper Sepik and Central New Guinea

ABSTRACT This paper describes an analysis of relationships between language, geography and material culture in the upper Sepik region of New Guinea. We used Mantel tests and principal coordinate analysis to assess and compare the associations between arrow and string bag crafts and language and geographical distance. The Mantel tests resulted in a significant association between each class’ craft variability and both geographical distance and language, however, after statistical control was applied to either of the independent variables only a significant association with geographical distance remained. We argue that these results indicate craft techniques were readily disseminated and that craft distributions are unlikely to reflect any deeper historical relationships between groups. The spatial autocorrelation of arrow crafts was particularly great. A comparison of the principal coordinate analysis plots indicates a greater degree of diffusion and synthesis had taken place between lowland and highland arrow craft traditions. We conclude that the more intensive learning regimes needed to master string bag craft techniques, as well as a greater degree of interdependence between string bag components, had ensured more abrupt differences between bag types resulting in a more moderate degree of spatial autocorrelation.     

Stability of IRSL signals from sedimentary K-feldspar samples

Recent work has identified IR stimulated luminescence signals at elevated temperature from both potassium- and sodium-rich feldspars that have much lower anomalous fading rates than the conventional signal measured using IR stimulation at 50°C. This paper examines the stability of these signals for potassium-rich sedimentary feldspars. We show that the natural post-IR IRSL (pIRIR) signal from a 3.6 Ma old sample is in apparent saturation on a laboratory generated dose response curve, i.e. it does not show detectable fading in nature although a low fading rate is observed on laboratory time scales. We show that the pIRIR signal has a greater thermal stability than the IRSL signal and that the trend in increasing thermal stability is mirrored by a decreasing fading rate. We also investigate the effect of preheat temperature and IR stimulation power on the decay shape and conclude that the data can be explained in terms of either a single- or multiple-trap model. We present evidence that may suggest that at least part of pIRIR signal is derived from a high temperature trap (∼550°C thermoluminescence (TL) peak), although again the data can also be explained in terms of a single-trap model. Finally, we present dose response curves and characteristic curvature constants (D₀) values for various IRSL signals and conclude that the more stable signals saturate more quickly than the less stable signals and that the initial and final signals saturate at approximately the same level.     

ERNST CASSIRER,MARTIN HEIDEGGER,AND THE LEGACY OF DAVOS

In 1929 Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger participated in a momentous debate in Davos, Switzerland, which is widely held to have marked an important division in twentieth‐century European thought. Peter E. Gordon's recent book, Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos, centers on this debate between these two philosophical adversaries. In his book Gordon examines the background of the debate, the issues that distinguished the respective positions of Cassirer and Heidegger, and the legacy of the debate for later decades. Throughout the work, Gordon concisely portrays the source of disagreement between the two adversaries in terms of a difference between Cassirer's philosophy of spontaneity and Heidegger's philosophy of receptivity, or of “thrownness” (Geworfenheit), into a situation that finite human beings can never hope to master. Although it recognizes that this work provides an important contribution to our understanding of the Davos debate and to twentieth‐century European thought, this review essay subjects Gordon's manner of interpreting the distinction between Cassirer and Heidegger to critical scrutiny. Its purpose is to examine the possibility that important aspects of the debate, which do not conform to the grid imposed by Gordon's interpretation, might have been set aside in the context of his analysis.