Dismantling Dung: Delayed Use of Food Resources among Early Holocene Foragers of the Libyan Sahara

At Uan Afuda, and other Early Holocene sites of the Acacus mountains, in the Libyan Sahara, dung layers and plant accumulation are a major, but repeatedly neglected, feature of hunter-gatherer communities. To understand the formation and meaning of such features, a multidimensional analysis has been undertaken, combining micromorphological, palynological, botanical, archaeozoological, and archaeological data. The hypothesis here formulated is twofold: plant accumulations are evidence of anthropic activity aimed at the storage of fodder; and dung layers are related to a forced penning of a ruminant, very likely Barbary sheep (Ammotragus lervia). The exploration of these two features has hinted at the existence of a deep reciprocal relationship, which has been interpreted as the cultural control of wild Barbary sheep, leading to a delayed use of food resources. This behavior may be considered an opportunistic strategy adopted to minimize the effects of lean periods and implicates increasing cultural complexity within Late Acacus Saharan forager societies of the 9th millennium B.P.     

Introduction: cultural policies in Ibero-America at the beginning of the XXI century

ABSTRACT

This editorial introduction presents the aims and contents of a special issue devoted to cultural policies in Ibero-America. The issue provides a wide-ranging overview about the subject. In addition to papers focused on the development of cultural policy in specific countries, it also includes articles analyzing particular cultural policies in a transnational perspective, paying attention to their multiple programmatic transferences. It also includes articles centred on the development of cultural diplomacy and institutional networks within this area. In this way, it intends to highlight the commonalities among countries and the relations between them, so offering a new and deeper vision of the development of cultural policies in the Ibero American region. In this introduction we offer some theoretical keys for analyzing this development, in particular the notion of family of nations proposed by Castle (1993) and we evaluate its applicability to the case and beyond.     

Science in space vs space science: The European utilisation of spacelab∗

Abstract

Spacelab is the conventional name given to a manned laboratory to be carried onboard NASA's Space Shuttle, which was built in Europe under the aegis of the European Space Agency (ESA). This paper deals with the initiatives undertaken in Europe to establish a utilisation programme for Spacelab, in particular for its first flight, planned as a joint ESA/NASA demonstration mission. Two main factors will be discussed, which prevented ESA from establishing a sizeable Spacelab utilisation effort. Firstly, owing to the cost escalation of the Spacelab development programme and to NASA's charging policy for access to the Shuttle system, which did not foressee any preferential treatment to European users, most ESA member states were reluctant to commit funds in support of a long term experimental programme with the new space facility. Secondly, in a situation characterized by strict budgetary constraints, the established European space science community strongly opposed the inclusion of the new research fields opened up by Spacelab (e.g. life and material sciences in micro‐gravity condition) within the framework of ESA's scientific programme.     

The cultural paradiplomacy of Barcelona since the 1980s: understanding transformations in local cultural paradiplomacy

This article seeks to explain the conditions for the emergence and institutionalization of the cultural paradiplomacy of the city of Barcelona and its local effects. The recognition of the city as an active participant on the international stage is based on its evolution from an industrial to a service economy. Against this backdrop, Barcelona’s city council, in common with many other city authorities operating in the world’s metropolises during the 1980s, initiated its own cultural paradiplomacy as a strategy for attracting capital and promoting local development. This policy became established as part of a new multilevel system of governance. This article analyzes the causes of the institutionalization of this activity from an intergovernmental perspective. It concludes that in the context of economic globalization, the emergence of cities’ cultural paradiplomacy is strongly related to the restructuring of the State and its external administration and to the intensification of the ‘cultural branding’ of cities as a tool for global competition.     

Persistent deathplaces and mobile landmarks: The Holocene mortuary and isotopic record from Wadi Takarkori (SW Libya)

Recently, a new program of territorial study was launched in the area of Wadi Takarkori (Wadi Takarkori Project, hereafter WTP), located in south-western Libya at the border with Algeria in a strategic position between the Tassili and Acacus Mountains. The core of this program was the excavation of a rock shelter together with the systematic mapping and selected excavations of stone structures in the wadi area, mainly tumuli, a typical Saharan feature.     

Of mice and sparrows: Commensal faunas from the Iberian iron age in the duero valley (central spain)

This paper aims to emphasize the importance of imported commensal faunas in archaeological contexts by reporting on the earliest known house sparrows and house mice from the Iberian peninsula. The finds, which date to the Iron Age of a hinterland area of the peninsula, have been identified on the basis of osteomorphological and osteometrical criteria, which are specified in the text in order to demonstrate the reliability of the identification. The temporal and geographical coincidence of these remains in the two sites analysed with those of donkey and, secondarily, chicken remains and faunal remains of littoral origin, lends support to the hypothesis that these animals arrived with the earliest trans-Mediterranean colonizers to the southern shores of the Iberian peninsula and spread involuntarily thereafter as ‘side-products’ of the Phoenician commercial routes throughout the Iberian hinterland.     

党的三代领导核心关于西藏工作的重要论述与决策回顾

今年是西藏和平解放 50周年 ,本文围绕“和平、发展、稳定”这一贯穿党的西藏工作的永恒主题 ,着重论述了党的三代领导核心在不同的历史时期 ,根据不同的国际环境和国内情况 ,针对西藏工作所做出的一系列重要论述和重大决策 ,突出强调了从建国至今西藏工作在我国革命和社会主义现代化建设中的重要地位和作用 ,认为只有发展才是解决西藏一切问题的最终出路