An integrated approach to reconstruct the role of the heat treatment within the reduction sequence of chert artefacts: The case of the early Neolithic site of Lugo di Grezzana (north-eastern Italy)

The lithic assemblage from the well-known site of Lugo di Grezzana (Italy) attributable to the Fiorano group (5,300–4,900 BC cal) is analysed to shed new insights on the early Neolithic lithic technology in North-Eastern Italy. Techno-typological data are discussed allowing detailed reconstruction of the reduction sequence, thanks also to several refittings. A complex laminar production with several technical objectives has been identified. Whereas clues for the heat treatment of lithic materials have been identified, we verified it by a combined experimental approach. In the first place, we used density measurements, which already proved to be useful for prescreening analysis, to detect potentially heated artefacts. Afterward, we performed Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy tests to assess the actual (de)hydration condition of the siliceous materials. Reflectance spectra have been acquired, analysing any item and avoiding any constraint related to both morphology and thickness of the sample. The archaeometric results, combined with the reduction sequence reconstruction, provide new indications on the technical capabilities and knowledge of the human groups that inhabited the region during the early Neolithic.     

Archaeological Quantification of Pottery: The Rims Count Adjusted using the Modulus of Rupture (MR)

Archaeological quantification is a recurrent issue in research about pottery, its typologies and its distribution. We accept the validity of other methods of quantification—sherd count, minimum number of individuals (MNI) or sherd weight—but the methodology that we have proposed for quantification of assemblages of archaeological contexts is the rims count, which has to be transformed into coefficients of reference through a correction using the modulus of rupture (MR). Such correctors are obtained through measuring the percentage of preserved rim of a significant number of sherds of each type and establishing the average of that percentage. This quantification method is easily applicable to all pottery types and it is also statistically reliable. Besides, it can be used in any study in which the gross number of rims is published. Finally, in the case of ceramic transport containers, a second correction can be applied by multiplying the corrected coefficient (number of rims × MR) by its average capacity (AC), another corrector that will allow us to gather statistics according to the litres of transported product. We believe that the rims count (the easiest part to classify) is a fast, relatively easy and very reliable method that needs to be corrected using the MR.     

The Disappearing State and the Quasi‐Event of Immigration Control

Immigration enforcement by sheriffs and police can be characterized as a proliferation of quasi‐events which never quite rise to the status of an event. This poses distinct challenges for feminist‐inspired scholarship on the state which seeks to document, ethnographically, how the state goes about its business on the ground. In this article we draw on our fieldwork experience in North Carolina and Georgia on sheriffs’ and police departments’ use of traffic enforcement and policing roadblocks to scrutinize drivers for their legal status, and ask how our ethnographic approach to the problem of state power inevitably stumbles in relation to the ordinariness of these practices. We conclude that feminist scholarship committed to an ethnography of the state could do much more to think through the potentially aporetic quality of that which is our common object of research—the state in practice.     

Re-imagining the kitchen as a site of memory

Extending the focus of previous geographical research on public spaces of remembering, this paper demonstrates the ways in which memory work also takes place in private domestic spaces. The paper draws on a combination of life history and ethnographic research undertaken in Northern England, examining kitchens as a specific lieu de mémoire, showing how they serve as places where valued items are displayed and material artefacts are curated as part of the construction and reproduction of personal memories and familial identities. Using ethnographic and visual evidence from two case study households, the paper demonstrates the role of material artefacts in curating the past and materialising memory. Additionally, life history interviews with older women reveal narratives of everyday cooking practices which seemingly contradict popular discourses of the past, questioning conventional ideas about the distorted nature of nostalgia. In combination, our data represent complex narratives in which the past can be seen as infusing the present, and where present-day concerns are revealed as actively shaping public discourses which favour a return to an idealised past, which may have little bearing on people’s actual lived experience.     

Urban political ecology in late prehistory: New evidence from El Purgatorio,Peru

One of archaeology's greatest strengths is its reliance on interdisciplinary collaboration and the utilization of multiple lines of evidence to inform archaeological interpretation. For example, through an examination of faunal and floral remains, production and storage facilities, and the isotopic analysis of human skeletal remains one can develop a model for urban political ecology in ancient cultures. In this case study, the political ecology of the Casma capital city, El Purgatorio, Peru, is investigated in order to inform our interpretations and conclusions regarding Casma political, economic and social organization. The results indicate that Casma political ecology was firmly based in coastal resources and oriented towards supporting state-sponsored feasting and ritual activities, suggestive of a largely elite-controlled redistributive economy. In contrast to previous models characterizing this time period as one of factionalism and environmental stress, the data suggest that coastal cultural adaptations produced an era of widespread political and economic stability.     

Punctuated Equilibrium and Bureaucratic Autonomy in American City Governments

Several recent applications of Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) have yielded compelling findings linking institutional design and change distributions, yet, much more work needs to be done to understand institutional arrangements that make punctuated processes more or less likely. In responding to the recent call for more research on unraveling particular mechanisms through which bureaucracy moderates the odds of policy punctuations, this research explores the potential of bureaucratic expertise and professionalism in fostering rational decision making, and thus the stability in change dynamics. One important feature of urban government receives close attention: the position by professionalized, trained bureaucrats in municipalities (city manager and chief administrative officer) and the effects of their discretion on altering municipal budgetary change distributions. Analysis of a novel dataset of fiscal policy changes, charter and census information of city governments in the State of Michigan, 2005–11, suggests city governments, on average, produce change patterns that conform to the expectations of PET; more importantly, it reveals that heightened levels of managerial discretion can have a significant implication for helping cities experience less abrupt, punctuated budget changes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for PET, policy change dynamics, and the design of city-governing institutions.     

Eugenics as Indian removal: sociohistorical processes and the de(con)struction of American Indians in the southeast

Although research on the history of the eugenics movement in the United States is legion, its impact on state policies that identified and defined American Indians has yet to be fully addressed. The exhibit, Our Lives: Comtemporary Life and Identities (ongoing until September 21, 2014) at the National Museum of the American Indian provides a provocative vehicle for examining how eugenics-informed public policy during the first quarter of the twentieth century served to "remove" from official records Native peoples throughout the Southeast. One century after Indian Removal of the antebellum era, Native peoples in the American Southeast provide an important but often overlooked example of how racial policies, this time rooted in eugenics, effected a documentary erasure of Native peoples and communities.     

Silent Voices,Hidden Lives: Archaeology,Class and Gender in the CMS Missions,Bay of Islands,New Zealand, 1814–1845

This paper explores the themes and tensions of class and propriety at one of New Zealand’s early European settlements, a Church Missionary Society mission in the Bay of Islands. Archaeological investigations at the site of the Te Puna mission house revealed a cellar containing, among other articles, items connected with domesticity and feminine concerns, demonstrating the presence of women and their daily activities. The interweaving of the archaeological and historical record sheds light upon the replication of class and culture through themes such as the “cult of domesticity” at this remote location, a decade prior to British colonization.     

Respondent Understanding of the 1999 Referendum Question on a Reform of the New Zealand Justice System

A referendum question at the 1999 New Zealand general election resulted in a 92% 'Yes' vote in favour of reform of the New Zealand justice system. However, even supporters of the referendum conceded the question was poorly designed and open to different interpretations. To examine these interpretations, we deconstructed the referendum question into five constituent questions and tested these on a sample of potential voters. Support for the constituent questions ranged from 70% to 95%, and subsequent probing revealed that respondents' understanding and interpretation of the key concepts varied considerably. These findings emphasise that survey professionals need to be involved in designing referendum questions and that proposed questions need cognitive pre-testing to ensure they convey their intended meaning and can be understood by voters. A poorly designed question reduces the credibility of the referendum process and threatens the outcome of specific policy initiatives.