Morphological taphonomic transformations of fossil bones in continental environments,and repercussions on their chemical composition

The aim of this paper is to provide a summary of structural or surface modifications of vertebrate bone remains in continental palaeoenvironments that may have repercussions on their chemical composition. Both before and after burial, a different set of physical, chemical and biological agencies may produce modifications of the bone morphological structure and/or bone chemical composition. Several of these morphological modifications are diagnostic of particular agents, which otherwise may not be noticed or identified in a fossil association. In order to understand diagenesis, those events that occurred before final burial have to be considered, as they may strongly modify the bone morphological structure and influence post–burial changes.     

‘The Most Developed of the Underdeveloped Nations’. US Foreign Policy and Student Unrest in 1960s Spain

Throughout the 1960s, Spanish students staged a strong opposition against the dictatorship of General Franco. Also during this decade, the U.S. Foreign Service in Spain began to pay great attention to these students for two key reasons. On the one hand, student protests posed a threat to US defensive interests in a country with a high strategic value during the Cold War in southern Europe. However, on the other hand, campus agitation could lead to positive effects for the United States if students’ expectations of social change were channeled toward national development in a context of order and political stability. So, how could student activism and idealism be directed toward a controlled modernization of Spain? This article attempts to answer this question by studying American programs aimed at disseminating the principles of modernization theory in Spanish universities as an instrument to (1) influence students’ political and intellectual socialization and to immunize them against radical ideologies and (2) channel students’ aspirations towards constructive and responsible reform of their country's socioeconomic structures.     

Lacras urbanas: Juego,prostitución y mendicidad en el entremés barroco

Abstract

The image of a courtly and cosmopolitan Madrid that enjoyed an intense cultural life where millions were spent on luxurious festivals that attracted famous artists and travelers also contained a marginal space where poor people, the crippled, thieves, soldiers, gamblers, prostitutes, and black people lived and made a living. Where the long walks along the Prado at sunset lost their gallantry and became spaces of the night where ruffians challenged each other to duels and ended up, in most cases, in the overpopulated jails of the kingdom. Where the domestic space was transformed into house brothels and gambling dens, full of gamblers and onlookers. Where in the streets, one did not go only to shop but to beg for alms, to con and rob, or where the churches, a place of knowledge and shelter, became places for amorous and clandestine meetings, and where prostitutes, thieves, and murderers hid to escape the law. In this article, I will examine the social meaning of this underworld in seventeenth-century urban Madrid from the perspective of marginality. My interpretation of the urban centers explores baroque Madrid as a space of conflict. From this conflict, new ways of speaking, living, writing, and reinventing urban landscapes arise. Many of the short pieces written in that time articulate their plots through the relationships between marginal society and the established power structures and exhibit social changes in light of the economic processes associated with the development of Madrid as the imperial capital.