The Calderstones,Near Liverpool

Abstract

This article is a contribution to the revisionist literature on the monastic orders in late medieval England and their art and architecture. It discusses the visual and material cultures of the Cistercians in northern England in the period immediately before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, demonstrating the enduring popularity of the Order in the late Middle Ages and that patronage of art and architecture continued until the very moment of the Suppression. Evidence is also discussed showing that monks and nuns salvaged property from their houses in the hope that their monasteries would be restored.     

Cutmark systematics: Analyzing morphometrics and spatial patterning at Palangana

Cutmarks have played an important role in addressing whether our hominid ancestors were hunters or scavengers, describing ritual modification of human bone, defining the origin of metallurgy, and highlighting the diversity of prehistoric butchering behavior. The widespread occurrence of cutmarks on animal bones and their variability allows archaeologists to use this kind of evidence to address a broad range of questions. One goal in examining cutmark diversity is to identify diagnostic cutmarks of prehistoric butchering, processing, and consuming behaviors. Linking cutmarks to specific activities allows us to test fine-grained hypotheses concerning the nature of an archaeological site, and to do this a systematic method for addressing variability in both the appearance and anatomical position of cutmarks is essential. An analysis of caribou bones collected by Lewis Binford from the Palangana site in Alaska is used to build and test a diagnostic cutmark classification using their morphometric and spatial properties. This case study demonstrates that cutmarks can be used to simultaneously address large-scale anthropological questions and reveal intra-site behavioral variability in the archaeological record.     

Capital,Illegal Slaves,Indentured Labourers and the Creation of a Sugar Plantation Economy in Mauritius, 1810–60

Previous studies of British plantation colonies, including the island of Mauritius in the south-western Indian Ocean, have paid little attention to the economic dimensions of the transition from slave to free labour that occurred during the early nineteenth century. Reports by Mauritian colonial officials make it possible to reconstruct the transformation of the island's economy between 1810 and 1860 from one oriented towards trade and commerce to one dominated by the production of sugar for the British imperial market. This transformation occurred in the midst of a series of interconnected developments that included an illegal trade in slaves between 1811 and circa 1827, changes in imperial tariff policy in 1825, the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, the advent of the modern system of indentured labour in 1834 and the suspension of Indian emigration to the island between 1838 and 1842. The importance of domestically generated and controlled capital in shaping the Mauritian economy during this period highlights the need to examine the extent to which and the ways in which domestic capital framed the contours of social and economic life elsewhere in the nineteenth-century colonial plantation world.     

Globalization and the Rise of City-regions

A world-wide mosaic of large city-regions seems to be over-riding (though is not effacing entirely) an earlier core-periphery system of spatial organization. The economic dynamics of these city-regions are analysed with particular emphasis on the ways in which they tend to generate increasing-returns effects and competitive advantages for local producers. The managerial tasks that these city-regions face raise many new issues about local economic development policy and institution building in the interests of social order. These issues lead on to further questions about democracy and citizenship in the global mosaic of city-regions as well as in the new world system as a whole.     

Family caregiving for older adults: gendered roles and caregiver burden in emigrant households of Kerala,India

The Indian state of Kerala leads the demographic transition and characteristically showcases emigration of predominantly male adult children, leaving behind parents, spouses and children. When men emigrate, gendered contexts burden women, especially spouses and daughters-in-law, with caregiving duties including elder care. Employing the social exchange perspective and drawing on in-depth interviews of left-behind caregivers to older adults in emigrant households, we explore reciprocal motives, expectations and perceptions of burden. Findings resonate gendered expectations of care and social sanction that ensure women do much of the caregiving. Daughters-in-law sacrificed careers and endured separation from husbands to transition into caregiving roles, costs borne to effectuate their husband's filial role. Perceived non-reciprocity, unbalanced exchanges and unmet expectations increased perceptions of burden for caregivers. Temporary financial autonomy could hardly alleviate perceptions of burden among women caregivers who perceived emotional and functional support exchanges from husbands, older adults themselves or other family members as supportive.     

The Politics of the Pew: Faith,Liberty, and Authority in a Sydney Church in 1828

This article examines the political implications of the dispute between E. S. Hall and Archdeacon Scott over a pew in St James’ Church in the late 1820s. Beyond the legal questions it raised about the established status of the Church of England in New South Wales, Hall's public protest, conducted every Sunday during the largest regular social gathering in Sydney, was a self‐conscious performance of his wider critique of colonial authority. This episode reveals the symbolic importance of church spaces and the role of religious ideas about authority and freedom in colonial political debate.