Archaeological applications of testate amoebae analyses: a case study from Derryville,Co. Tipperary,Ireland

The value of testate amoebae in the reconstruction of changes in surface wetness from ombrotrophic mires is well known, but the potential value of such records in specifically archaeological investigations has not yet been investigated. This note describes the analysis of testate amoebae for a sediment sequence from the multi-period wetland archaeological site of Derryville, Co. Tipperary, Ireland. The reconstructed watertable is presented and plotted against the range of dates from excavated archaeological features in the wetland area. The data demonstrate a clear association between periods of low watertable and increased anthropogenic activity as reflected by site construction. The value of testate amoebae in future integrated archaeological investigations of wetland systems is discussed.     

Drinking like a man: the paradox of excessive drinking for seventeenth-century dutch youths

In the early modern period, drinking alcohol was an integral part of Dutch social and cultural life. Toast were made to the health of unborn babies, for job nominations, and at funerals. Young people started to consume alcohol at an early age. However, within this culture they had to learn how to drink in moderation. Excessive drinking was not only a cardinal sin, it was also a paradox in the realm of gender. For males, the act of getting drunk and losing control was a flaw on their masculinity. They in fact became like women who were believed to be incapable of controlling their mind and body. On the other hand, the ability to drink great quantities of alcohol symbolized an age-old form of masculinity. Imbibing in "wine, women, and song" were liminal rites in becoming men and how young men demarcated themselves from being boys.     

SEAGULLS! ON MARTIN HÄGGLUND'S THIS LIFE: SECULAR FAITH AND SPIRITUAL FREEDOM

In this review essay, I examine Martin Hägglund's This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom, a book that argues on behalf of democratic socialism on the basis of an atheistic confrontation with the fact of our mortality. Hägglund's book includes readings of Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Karl Marx, and Martin Luther King Jr. and is best assessed as a literary and philosophical, rather than historical, study of the relation between mortality and social action. Simply put, Hägglund believes that, from the standpoint of an atheistic confrontation with our mortality, our time itself should be our ultimate measure of value. He furthermore believes that democratic socialism is the political and economic form that most naturally follows from this, allowing us to honor, defend, and enhance one another's mortal time and freedom to make choices—and that, by comparison with atheism, religion offers only the false coin of otherworldly salvation. Although sympathizing with Hägglund's existential and political orientations, I criticize his account of religion, which I find to be historically weak. But I also criticize his approach to the problem of valuation, or the issue of how we make choices in relation to our limited time. Whereas Hägglund believes that mortal creatures like ourselves must make choices in a spirit of commitment—the “secular faith” of his subtitle—I observe that, despite our mortality, we humans make our choices in a variety of psychological states, and that asking us to occupy only one such state—one of zealous resolve—actually undermines our “spiritual freedom,” another one of Hägglund's key terms.     

Matchlocks, Flintlocks, and Saltpetre: The Chronological Implications for the Use of Matchlock Muskets among Ottoman-Period Bedouin in the Southern Levant

This paper examines the chronological implications for the prolonged use of matchlock muskets by the Bedouin during the Ottoman Period (1453–1918). Although the technology behind the matchlock ignition system is from the fifteenth century, this weapon was used by many Bedouin until the beginning of the twentieth century. As a result, the presence of gun parts from matchlock muskets poses a potential problem for identifying Bedouin occupations from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the southern Levant and in northern Arabia. This issue is heightened by the paucity of diagnostic artifacts found at archaeological sites associated with the Bedouin during the Ottoman Period.     

TO THE PLANETARIUM—THERE IS STILL TIME!

This review essay examines James McFarland's Constellation: Friedrich Nietzsche and Walter Benjamin in the Now‐Time of History, which stages a comparative reading of the two thinkers’ works and argues that they shared a resistance to the conventions of nineteenth‐century historicism as well as a desire to attend not to causation as a force in history but rather to the importance of each individual “present.” Benjamin's term “dialectics at a standstill” is a formulation only a reader of Nietzsche could have produced, as McFarland ably demonstrates. This review essay also delves into Benjamin's own use of the “constellation” motif, identifying complexities McFarland leaves out of his account. Influenced by Nietzsche's own uses of astronomical and astrological motifs, Benjamin employed the image of the constellation as a symbol not only for temporality (say, of the time it takes for starlight to reach our planet). He also used it to examine our transforming relationship with the cosmos and with nature most broadly, and, in the famous “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” he used it as a figure for the proper relationship historians should establish between their own period and the past; this is what yields an understanding of the present moment as the Jetztzeit, the “time of the now” enjoying its own dignity beyond any causal relationship with the future it may have. However, and as this review essay suggests, Benjamin's uses of the constellation image, and of images of stars, telescopes, and planetariums more generally, were highly ambivalent. They can serve as indices of his shifting views of modernity and of his desire that modern experience, seemingly condemned to alienation, might be redeemed.     

A Dynamic Spatial Weight Matrix and Localized Space–Time Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average for Network Modeling

Various statistical model specifications for describing spatiotemporal processes have been proposed over the years, including the space–time autoregressive integrated moving average (STARIMA) and its various extensions. These model specifications assume that the correlation in data can be adequately described by parameters that are globally fixed spatially and/or temporally. They are inadequate for cases in which the correlations among data are dynamic and heterogeneous, such as network data. The aim of this article is to describe autocorrelation in network data with a dynamic spatial weight matrix and a localized STARIMA model that captures the autocorrelation locally (heterogeneity) and dynamically (nonstationarity). The specification is tested with traffic data collected for central London. The result shows that the performance of estimation and prediction is improved compared with standard STARIMA models that are widely used for space–time modeling. En los últimos años, se han propuesto diversas especificaciones de modelado estadístico para describir procesos espacio‐temporales. Esto incluye el modelo espacio‐temporal autorregresivo integrado de media móvil (STARIMA) y sus varios derivados. Estas especificaciones de modelo asumen que la correlación de los datos puede ser adecuadamente descrita por parámetros que se fijan a nivel global en el espacio y/o tiempo. Dichos parámetros son inadecuados para los casos en los que las correlaciones entre los datos son dinámicas y heterogéneas, como en el contexto de los datos de la red. El objetivo de este artículo es describir la autocorrelación en los datos de red con una matriz de ponderación espacial dinámica y un modelo STARIMA localizado (LSTARIMA) que captura la autocorrelación local (heterogeneidad) de forma dinámica (no estacionariedad). La especificación del modelo es evaluada con datos de tráfico recolectados en el centro de Londres. Los resultados demuestran que los rendimientos de estimación y predicción mejoran con el método propuesto en comparación con los modelos STARIMA estándar que son ampliamente utilizados para el modelado de espacio‐temporal. 通过设定多种统计模型来描述地理时空过程已提出多年,包括时空自回归移动平均(STARIMA)及其变形。此类模型通过假设数据相关性可由在时间域或者空间域上全局不变的参数加以充分描述。因此,上述模型不适用于具有动态或异质相关性的数据,如网络数据。本文试图采用一个动态空间权重矩阵与局部时空自回归移动平均(LSTARIMA)模型来描述数据的自相关程度,以此捕捉局域自相关(异质性)和动态自相关(非平稳性)。以伦敦市中心的交通数据作为模型的实证案例的测试结果显示,相对于广泛应用于时空过程分析的标准STARIMA模型,本文的模型在参数估计和预测性能上均有提升。