The Return of the Primacy of Foreign Policy

The debate on the ‘primacy of foreign policy’, whichraged throughout the 1960s and 1970s, has long since peteredout. The introductory chapter to this collection of new studiesin the primacy of foreign policy in German history begins bysummarizing its main tenets, and tries to sketch the historiographicalbackground in broad outline. It notes that the primacy of foreignpolicy was neither completely unchallenged before about 1960,nor totally eclipsed by 1980. More importantly, this chapterdraws attention to the remarkable renaissance which the primacyof foreign policy has enjoyed, objectively if not always subjectively,over the past decade. The result has been to put the state,and especially the struggle between states, back at the centreof historical attention. Finally, the chapter stresses the thematic,geographical, methodological and chronological diversity ofthe four path breaking case studies which make up this specialissue. These range from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentiethcenturies, and they illuminate the primacy of foreign policyfrom the perspective of Vienna as well as Berlin, from the civil-militaryas well as the individual state perspective. The result, itis hoped, is an enhanced sense of the importance of the primacyof foreign policy in German history based on original research.     

Osteological and paleodietary investigation of burials from Cova de la Pastora,Alicante, Spain

We present results of osteological and isotopic analyses of human remains from Cova de la Pastora (Alcoi, Alicante, Spain) and discuss the implications in light of a new sequence of radiocarbon dates indicating that the cave was used as a burial site in the Late Neolithic (ca. 3800–3000 cal BC), Chalcolithic (ca. 3000–2500 cal BC), Bell Beaker Transition (Horizonte Campaniforme Transicional - HCT; ca. 2500–2200 cal BC) and the Bronze Age (ca. 2200–1500 cal BC). Similarities in stable isotopic values of C and N indicate little variation in subsistence between men and women, and a similar nutritional base from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age. This pattern of stability is augmented by evidence of trauma and disease found on numerous skulls in the collection. Since no clear associations of specific grave goods with certain individuals based on sex or age could be determined, the only suggestion of social inequality lies in the burial practice itself, where certain individuals were interred in caves while others were not.