Milky Quartz Bipolar Reduction and Lithic Miniaturization: Experimental Results and Archaeological Implications

We present experimental data examining the energetics and identification of axial bipolar reduction in contexts of lithic miniaturization on milky quartz. These experiments answer two specific questions. First, does bipolar reduction provide any benefits over freehand reduction? Second, can axial bipolar reduction be distinguished from freehand reduction? Our data show that bipolar reduction requires significantly less time to reduce a percentage unit of core mass and to produce a millimeter of cutting edge on milky quartz than freehand reduction. Milky quartz bipolar reduction surpasses even the cutting edge production efficiency of obsidian pressure blades. We outline a series of quantitative criteria for identifying bipolar cores and flakes. Our results show that bipolar cores and flakes can be distinguished from those produced using freehand reduction by quantifying platform crushing, distal flake rebound scars, bulb shearing, as well as axial, bipolar, and splintered flake terminations. Our results challenge the widely held perceptions about the wastefulness of bipolar reduction and provide clear guidelines for identifying this reduction strategy in archaeological milky quartz assemblages.     

Garumele Revisited: Retracing Vanished Fired-Brick Elite Constructions and New Data on Settlement Foundation

Some of the most notable and largely endangered archaeological remains from the Lake Chad area consist of the ruins of fired-brick elite constructions connected to the Kanem-Borno Empire (ca. eighth–nineteenth century AD). In the course of the last 200 years, several of the elite structures known west of the lake were destroyed as a consequence of war, later having their fired-bricks looted for constructions elsewhere. One of the largest and most thoroughly plundered of those structures once stood within the walled settlement of Garumele, SW Niger Republic. In the scope of an experimental field study at that location and with a view to future work at related sites, we demonstrate that it is still possible to retrace the ground plans of Kanem-Borno fired-brick structures, even if these have been already completely pillaged. In addition, we present new chronological evidence suggesting that Garumele—as a walled urban settlement—was founded sometime between the mid-fifteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, but most probably between the late sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries AD.     

The Old and the New: Qualifying City Systems in the World with Classical Models and New Data

Zipf's rank‐size rule, lognormal distribution, and Gibrat's urban growth models are considered as summarizing fundamental properties of systems of cities. In this article, they are used as statistical benchmarks for comparing the shapes of urban hierarchies and evolutionary trends of seven systems of cities in the world including BRICS, Europe, and United States. In order to provide conclusions that avoid the pitfalls of too small samples or uncontrolled urban definitions, these models are tested on some 20,000 urban units whose geographically significant delineations were harmonized in each country over 50 years between 1960 and 2010. As a result, if the models appear not always statistically valid, their usefulness is confirmed since the observed deviations from empirical data remain limited and can often be interpreted from the geohistorical context of urbanism proper to each world region. Moreover, the article provides new free software which authorizes the reproducibility of our experiments with our data bases as well as with complementary data.     

“Inhabitants of rustic parts of the world”: John Locke’s collection of drawings and the Dutch Empire in ethnographic types

This article analyses a collection of 26 watercolour drawings which portray ethnographic types from the Americas, Asia, and Africa. These drawings, presently kept at the British Library, were made for John Locke by his servant Sylvester Brounower during Locke’s exile in the Netherlands in the 1680s.     

Morgawr: an experimental Bronze Age‐type sewn‐plank craft based on the Ferriby boats

This paper reports on the construction of a full‐scale Bronze Age‐type sewn‐plank boat based on the Ferriby boats. The boat, which was named Morgawr, was constructed in the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth, England, during 2012 and the first months of 2013, as part of a larger exhibition in the museum. This paper provides the background and context of the project, describes the process of building the craft, and reflects in particular on differences between Morgawr and the ‘hypothetical reconstruction of a complete sewn‐plank boat’ published in 1990 by Ted Wright and John Coates which formed the basis for this project.     

Processes of Formation and Alteration of Archaeological Fire Structures: Complexity Viewed in the Light of Experimental Approaches

The aim of this article is to present an experimental approach for studying the formation and transformation processes of archaeological fire structures. We present a synthetic review of our experimental project, which was developed in many different natural archaeological contexts. We report the results and problems associated with experimental fires lit on different kinds of soils and in different environments, followed by the observation of natural and anthropic transformations. Finally, we analyse the nature and significance of these results for the archaeological interpretation process, while describing some general trends and showing the complexity of the approach.     

Setting the agenda for evidence-based research on ending mass atrocities

The question of how mass atrocities end has been dominated by a normative approach regarding how they ought to end. Arguing that an evidence-based approach to terminate mass atrocities might offer profound insights into theories of mass atrocities as well as policies designed to prevent or end their occurrence, this article outlines the key questions and approaches needed for an evidence-based study of atrocity endings. It draws on theories of genocide, political violence and civil war termination, and presents initial insights from case studies, including the killing of civilians in colonial German Southwest Africa, the Soviet Union, the Nigerian civil war, the Guatemalan civil war, the Nuba Mountains of Sudan and Bosnia-Herzegovina.     

Children's daily travel to school in Johannesburg-Soweto,South Africa: geography and school choice in the Birth to Twenty cohort study

This paper has two aims: to explore approaches to the measurement of children's daily travel to school in a context of limited geospatial data availability and to provide data regarding school choice and distance travelled to school in Soweto-Johannesburg, South Africa. The paper makes use of data from the Birth to Twenty cohort study (n?=?1428) to explore three different approaches to estimating school choice and travel to school. First, straight-line distance between home and school is calculated. Second, census geography is used to determine whether a child's home and school fall in the same area. Third, distance data are used to determine whether a child attends the nearest school. Each of these approaches highlights a different aspect of mobility, and all provide valuable data. Overall, primary-school-aged children in Soweto-Johannesburg are shown to be travelling substantial distances to school on a daily basis. Over a third travel more than 3 km one way to school, 60% attend schools outside of the suburb in which they live, and only 18% attend their nearest school. These data provide evidence for high levels of school choice in Johannesburg-Soweto, and that families and children are making substantial investments in pursuit of high-quality educational opportunities. Additionally, these data suggest that two patterns of school choice are evident: one pattern involving travel of substantial distances and requiring a higher level of financial investment and a second pattern involving choice between more local schools, requiring less travel and a more limited financial investment.     

SKILL POLARIZATION IN LOCAL LABOR MARKETS UNDER SHARE‐ALTERING TECHNICAL CHANGE

This paper considers the “share‐altering” technical change hypothesis in a spatial general equilibrium model where individuals have different levels of skills. Building on a simple Cobb‐Douglas production function, our model shows that the implementation of skill‐biased technologies requires a sufficient proportion of highly educated individuals. Moreover, when technical progress disproportionately replaces middle‐skill jobs, the local distribution of skills will exhibit “fat‐tails,” where the proportion of both highly skilled and low‐skilled workers increases. These and several other predictions of the model are consistent with recent existing evidence, and avoid some major criticism against the “canonical” CES framework.