Jute cultivation in the Lower Amazon, 1940–1990: an ethnographic account from Santarém, Pará, Brazil

The Amazon region has long been a place of economic booms and busts. Much attention in the historical literature on Amazonia has focused on the largest and most famous regional economic boom, the Rubber Boom, a period of sustained economic prosperity for some from 1860 to 1920. Other ‘booms’ have occurred in the region as well and this paper describes and discusses one of those others. The paper demonstrates how an export economy in a global periphery (coffee in Brazil) affected economic development in a periphery of that same country and makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating how ethnographic research can contribute to an understanding of a historical period when the paper trail is weak.Jute, a fiber crop, dominated agricultural production along the Amazon River floodplain in the reach between Manaus and Santarém, Brazil, from the late 1930s until the early 1990s. The crop was introduced to the region by Japanese immigrants in order to supply the demand for jute sacking in the south of Brazil where such sacks were used to package commodities, especially coffee. Local smallholder cultivators grew and processed jute, production being mediated initially through Japanese middlemen, later by Brazilians. Poor fiber quality, several external shocks, including the removal of tariffs on imported jute, and especially changes in commodity packaging such as bulk handling and the use of synthetic sacks instead of jute sacks for the transport of coffee beans, the Amazonian jute market collapsed in the early 1990s. Despite its collapse, the legacy of the boom is still evident in the physical and social landscapes in the region.     

Unions et désunions monétaires en Europe du Gold Standard au Système Monétaire Européen

La naissance de la Banque centrale européenne a suscité une discussion soutenue à propos des critères de convergence, de l'objectif d'inflation et de la flexibilitédes taux de change de l'euro par rapport aux autres monnaies-clés (dollar, yen). Un détour par les arrangements et unions/désunions monétaires passés s'avère pertinent en termes d'information à propos des conditions essentielles pour l'établissement et la gestion des politiques monétaires, non seulement du point de vue économique mais également du point de vue politique. Les lec¸ons principales qu'apporte l'Histoire indiquent que: inflation et taux de change constituent deux 'ancres', parmi d'autres, choisies en fonction d'une orientation idéologique plus marquée qu'il n'apparâ L t au premier abord; qu'àla fois les créditeurs et les débiteurs nets doivent être responsabilisés pour organiser un système durable; que l'intégration du marchéa toujours précédél'union monétaire; enfin, qu'un lien solide entre pays apporte une meilleure protection contre les chocs extérieurs qu'un ensemble de réactions individuelles non coordonnées. Néanmoins, une question importante reste en suspens: est-il possible pour une union monétaire de supporter la présence de parasites monétaires dans sa périphérie, hôtes indésirables qui ne participent pas au partage des coûts engendrés par l'union monétaire, mais qui s'invitent au sein du système et en profitent àtravers des alignements tacites sur la politique appliquée àla monnaie unique?     

Big Game and Small Prey: Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic Economy from Valencia (Spain)

This study analyzes the faunal assemblages corresponding to the Middle and Upper Paleolithic and the Early Epipaleolithic for the central Spanish Mediterranean Region dated from between 135,000 and 9,000 B.P. To interpret these data, we employ a zooarchaeological and paleoeconomic perspective. Human large and small game hunting systems are analyzed through the identification of the origins of faunal assemblages, bone breackage patterns, and prey selection patterns. Our study shows that hunting systems changed significantly through time, which may be related to the characteristics of the Mediterranean ecosystem and, above all, to cultural changes.     

Entretien avec pierre hassner

Sans résumé CERI, 26 octobre 2001     

Use of robust methods to determine quadratic surfaces: application to heritage

3D surveys of archaeological elements and the construction of virtual models enable us to reconstruct historical sites. They provide useful data to select specific building processes.Photogrammetry and Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) are the most common techniques to obtain synthetically heritage models. These techniques provide massive data which can only be managed by replacing them by primitive shapes, thereby obtaining more simple models and the explicit geometry of the element. Statistical and robust methods are used for this substitution, thereby avoiding the common errors due to measuring. Of these methods, the most widely used are the least-median-of-squares (LMedS) and the RANSAC method.Another computation method consists in recursive processes based on evolutive-type algorithms to adjust the model to the data captured.This paper describes two surface computation methodologies to determine the modelling of a column shaft located in temple G of the archaeological park of Selinunte (Sicily).