‘In This Profession We Eat Dust’: Informal and Formal Solidarity among Women Urban Transportation Workers in Nepal

This article considers the working lives of women who drive electric rickshaws, known as tempos, in Kathmandu, Nepal. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the author examines drivers’ precarious working conditions and the strategies they use in an effort to secure better conditions and job security. This case study illuminates the particulars of women tempo drivers’ day-to-day experiences and also speaks to larger debates in feminist political economy surrounding women's entrance into the paid labour force, especially in South Asia. Women drivers provide a compelling example of how socio-economically disadvantaged women in industrializing and urbanizing cities of the global South find ways to create and protect spaces of dignified work and worker solidarity despite myriad challenges. Evidence from the research suggests that both informal and more formalized coping and resistance strategies are important mechanisms through which women seek to change the terms of their labour.     

Characterization of lime mortar additivated with crystallization modifiers

Additivating mortars with crystallization modifiers is a novel approach to mitigate salt crystallization damage in historic masonry. Once verified the effectiveness of crystallization modifiers in bulk solution, the next step consists in verifying whether: (i) modifiers are still effective when mixed in mortar and going through the carbonation process and (ii) modifiers alter any mortar properties which might limit their application. This research addresses these issues for sodium ferrocyanide and borax, modifiers for sodium chloride, and sodium sulfate, respectively. Several experimental techniques have been applied to elucidate these questions. The results show that the selected modifiers are still able to alter the salt crystallization after going through the carbonation process of the mortar. Besides, no major effects of the modifiers on the fresh and hardened mortar properties were observed. It can therefore be concluded that there are no restraints for the future use of these crystallization modifiers in restoration mortars.     

Early Cretaceous polar biotas of Victoria,southeastern Australia—an overview of research to date

Poropat, S.F., Martin, S.K., Tosolini, A.-M.P., Wagstaff, B.E, Bean, L.B., Kear, B.P., Vickers-Rich, P. &; Rich, T.H., May 2018. Early Cretaceous polar biotas of Victoria, southeastern Australia—an overview of research to date. Alcheringa 42, 158–230. ISSN 0311-5518.

Although Cretaceous fossils (coal excluded) from Victoria, Australia, were first reported in the 1850s, it was not until the 1950s that detailed studies of these fossils were undertaken. Numerous fossil localities have been identified in Victoria since the 1960s, including the Koonwarra Fossil Bed (Strzelecki Group) near Leongatha, the Dinosaur Cove and Eric the Red West sites (Otway Group) at Cape Otway, and the Flat Rocks site (Strzelecki Group) near Cape Paterson. Systematic exploration over the past five decades has resulted in the collection of thousands of fossils representing various plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. Some of the best-preserved and most diverse Hauterivian–Barremian floral assemblages in Australia derive from outcrops of the lower Strzelecki Group in the Gippsland Basin. The slightly younger Koonwarra Fossil Bed (Aptian) is a Konservat-Lagerstätte that also preserves abundant plants, including one of the oldest known flowers. In addition, insects, crustaceans (including the only syncaridans known from Australia between the Triassic and the present), arachnids (including Australia’s only known opilione), the stratigraphically youngest xiphosurans from Australia, bryozoans, unionoid molluscs and a rich assemblage of actinopterygian fish are known from the Koonwarra Fossil Bed. The oldest known—and only Mesozoic—fossil feathers from the Australian continent constitute the only evidence for tetrapods at Koonwarra. By contrast, the Barremian–Aptian-aged deposits at the Flat Rocks site, and the Aptian–Albian-aged strata at the Dinosaur Cove and Eric the Red West sites, are all dominated by tetrapod fossils, with actinopterygians and dipnoans relatively rare. Small ornithopod (=basal neornithischian) dinosaurs are numerically common, known from four partial skeletons and a multitude of isolated bones. Aquatic meiolaniform turtles constitute another prominent faunal element, represented by numerous isolated bones and articulated carapaces and plastrons. More than 50 specimens—mostly lower jaws—evince a high diversity of mammals, including monotremes, a multituberculate and several enigmatic ausktribosphenids. Relatively minor components of these fossil assemblages are diverse theropods (including birds), rare ankylosaurs and ceratopsians, pterosaurs, non-marine plesiosaurs and a lepidosaur. In the older strata of the upper Strzelecki Group, temnospondyl amphibians—the youngest known worldwide—are a conspicuous component of the fauna, whereas crocodylomorphs appear to be present only in up-sequence deposits of the Otway Group. Invertebrates are uncommon, although decapod crustaceans and unionoid bivalves have been described. Collectively, the Early Cretaceous biota of Victoria provides insights into a unique Mesozoic high-latitude palaeoenvironment and elucidates both palaeoclimatic and palaeobiogeographic changes throughout more than 25 million years of geological time.

Stephen F. Poropat*? [sporopat@swin.edu.au; stephenfporopat@gmail.com], Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, John St, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia; Sarah K. Martin*? [sarah.martin@dmirs.wa.gov.au; martin.sarahk@gmail.com] Geological Survey of Western Australia, 100 Plain St, East Perth, Western Australia 6004, Australia; Anne-Marie P. Tosolini [a.tosolini@unimelb.edu.au] and Barbara E. Wagstaff [wagstaff@unimelb.edu.au] School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia; Lynne B. Bean [lynne.bean@anu.edu.au] Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Acton, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2001, Australia; Benjamin P. Kear [benjamin.kear@em.uu.se] Museum of Evolution, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 16, Uppsala SE-752 36, Sweden; Patricia Vickers-Rich§ [prich@swin.edu.au; pat.rich@monash.edu] Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, John St, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia; Thomas H. Rich [trich@museum.vic.gov.au] Museum Victoria, PO Box 666, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia. *These authors contributed equally to this work. ?Also affiliated with: Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, Lot 1 Dinosaur Drive, PO Box 408, Winton, Queensland 4735, Australia. ?Also affiliated with: Earth and Planetary Sciences, Western Australian Museum, Welshpool, Western Australia 6101, Australia. §Also affiliated with: School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia.     

Expressing Ideology Without a Voice, or Obfuscation and the Enlightenment

The consumer culture produced by the Industrial Revolution obfuscates diversity in the archaeological record. Mass-manufactured goods might be read as mass-manufactured culture. It is important for historical archaeologists to attempt to decode the complexities of consumption. Using a feminist approach, I examine one archaeologically visible way in which muted groups simultaneously embrace and resist the tenets of a dominant ideology. I compare ceramic assemblages from four nineteenth/twentieth-century sites in Annapolis, Maryland, two mid-nineteenth-century assemblages from New York City, and some additional selected examples from North America.     

Accumulations research: Problems and prospects for estimating site occupation span

Accumulations research examines the dynamic relationship among artifact discard, duration of occupation, and population size. The history of accumulations research is reviewed, emphasizing studies that use accumulation rates to measure site occupation span. Ethnoarchaeological and experimental research demonstrates that cooking pots are an ideal artifact type for accumulations research. Data from the Duckfoot site in southwestern Colorado are used to develop an annual accumulation rate of cooking pot sherds for households. This rate is used, along with population estimates and estimates of the total cooking pot sherd accumulation, to determine the occupation span of five sites located in the nearby Dolores River valley.