The origins of sedentism and farming communities in the Levant

Particular geographic features of the Mediterranean Levant underlie the subsistence patterns and social structures reconstructed from the archaeological remains of Epi-Paleolithic groups. The Kebaran, Geometric Kebaran, and Mushabian complexes are defined by technotypological features that reflect the distributions of social units. Radiocarbon dating and paleoclimatic data permit us to trace particular groups who, facing environmental fluctuations, made crucial changes in subsistence strategies, which, in the southern Levant, led to sedentism in base camps on the ecotone of the Mediterranean woodland-parkland and the Irano-Turanian steppe. The establishment of Early Natufian sedentary communities led to a regional change in settlement pattern. The relatively cold and dry climate of the eleventh millennium B.P. forced Negev groups into a special arid adpatation. The early Holocene onset of wetter and warmer conditions favored the earliest Neolithic (PPNA) development of village life based on the cultivation of barley and legumes, gathering of wild seeds and fruits and continued hunting.     

Transitional Justice and Political Economies of Survival in Post‐conflict Northern Uganda

This article explores the interplay between transitional justice and ‘everyday’ political economies of survival in post‐conflict Acholiland, northern Uganda. It advances two main arguments. First, that transitional justice — as part and parcel of conventional liberal peacebuilding packages — promotes a repertoire of normatively driven policies that have little bearing on lived realities of social accountability in post‐conflict settings. Second, that in transcending the epistemological and ontological boundaries of transitional justice and using concepts developed in the critical peacebuilding literature — the ‘everyday’ and ‘hybridity’ — a nuanced understanding of this dissonance emerges. Based on extensive fieldwork in Acholiland in the period 2012–14, using a range of qualitative research methods, the author examines the means through which people negotiate social and moral order in the context of post‐conflict life and analyses the tensions between these forms of ‘everyday’ activity and current transitional justice policy and programming in the region.     

COMPUTATIONAL COMPARISONS OF SPATIAL PRICE EQUILIBRIUM METHODS*

ABSTRACT. In this paper we propose new algorithms for the solution of both general and standard spatial price equilibrium problems, and test their performance with existing algorithms on randomly generated problems. For the standard problem, we propose decomposition schemes based on the concept of “equilibration operator” and compare their performance with the Frank-Wolfe method. For the general problem, we present alternative variational inequality formulations defined over Cartesian products of sets and then exploit these formulations to construct Gauss-Seidel-type serial decomposition methods. We then compare their performance with the projection method. Our computational tests suggest that the new schemes are substantially more efficient than earlier ones.     

Different approaches to date bricks from historical buildings

The application of Thermally (TL) and Optically (OSL) Stimulated Luminescence on bricks used as building material has allowed solving an chronological issue in the field of historical building dating. The possibility to use one or more methodologies of dating is closely related to the luminescent and granulometric characteristics of the sample. Using some brick samples collected in the church of Sain Seurin in Bordeaux (France), this paper discusses the implications and the possibility to use different approaches and techniques for dating. With this aim luminescence measurements were performed on both polymineral fine grain and quartz inclusion phases extracted from each brick. For Equivalent Dose (ED) and consequently age determination, TL on mixed fine grain fraction (FG), OSL on quartz inclusions (QI) and on mixed fine grain (FG*) fraction, were used. The results obtained suggest the advantage of using OSL technique on fine grain fraction cleaned up by IR stimulation (FG*), but the use of quartz inclusion represents indeed a good alternative.     

General housing characteristics of Poland

Poland has a relatively higher proportion of households as compared to number of housing units available. The distortions in housing stock have increased in Poland since the 1960s and 1970s as deficits remained very high and the demand increased in Poland while other socialist nations of eastern Europe reduced their housing deficits. Housing is important irrespective of the economic system of the country, whether socialist or non‐socialist In a socialist economy, housing is heavily subsidized to meet the minimal requirements of all the people. Though the expressed policy of the socialist country is to minimize the differences between the rural and urban areas there are still basic socio‐economic differences in existence between the rural and urban housing stock. This study found that there were distinct differences between the different macro‐regions: the buildings varied in their age, condition, uses and composition. In Warsaw or Central Poland, roofs are constructed of tar boards and the buildings are used for subsidiary uses. In the eastern and southern regions of Poland, it was found that the majority of buildings are used as single‐family buildings. Many of the dwellings in the south are single family, with roofs constructed of tin plate and sheet metal. The walls of the buildings in this area were constructed of logs and boards. Endemic to the north‐western portion of Poland are roofs constructed of tile. Many of the characteristics found within the regions of Poland stem from the cultural influences.