Interpreting abundance indices: some zooarchaeological implications of Martu foraging

Indices of taxonomic abundance are commonly used by zooarchaeologists to examine resource intensification, overexploitation and gender-divisions in foraging labor. The original formulation of abundance indices developed a clear interpretive framework by linking the measure with foraging models from behavioral ecology. However, using the same basic tenets of behavioral ecology, archaeologists disagree about how to interpret variability in abundance index values: some suggest that high proportions of large prey remains represent higher overall foraging efficiency, while others argue the opposite. To help solve this problem, we use quantitative observational data with Martu hunters in Australia’s Western Desert to examine how foraging decisions and outcomes best predict variation in the abundance index values that result. We show that variation in the proportional remains of large to small game is best predicted by hunting bout success with larger prey and the time spent foraging for smaller prey. A declining abundance index results from decreasing hunting success with larger prey, increasing time invested in hunting smaller prey, or both; any of which result in a lower overall return rate than if large prey were acquired reliably. We also demonstrate that where large prey acquisition is stochastic, high index values are correlated positively with men’s proportional caloric contribution of large unreliable game, while low index values are correlated with women’s proportional foraging time for small reliable game. We discuss these results with reference to evidence of resource intensification and gender-specific foraging.     

The Six Fevrier 1934 and the 'Survival' of the French Republic

The Paris riots of the six février 1934 are rememberedchiefly as the event that provided the initial spark and theeventual rationale for the anti-fascist Popular Front. However,most French historians have tended to downplay the importanceof the riots themselves, arguing that the Republic was not underserious threat, and that the Left at the time greatly exaggeratedthe danger. Indeed, the fact that the regime ‘survived’these events has often been cited as proof of its resilience,of France’s deep-rooted ‘democratic political culture’,and its inbuilt ‘immunity’ to fascism. This historiographicalreview argues that the standard interpretation of the six févrieris deeply flawed, especially in its tendency to deduce the intentionsof the actors from the outcome of the events. The six févrierconstituted a serious challenge to the regime, and created adangerously fluid situation in which a variety of ‘outcomes’became possible. It should be analysed not as a discrete andtemporally circumscribed event but as a key moment in an ongoingprocess of political radicalization on the French Right.     

Human and animal diet at Conchopata, Peru: stable isotope evidence for maize agriculture and animal management practices during the Middle Horizon

This paper reports δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values for human and animal skeletal remains from the Middle Horizon (AD 550–1000) site of Conchopata in the Peruvian highlands. The data indicate that maize was the dietary staple for both humans and the majority of animals at this urban site. Camelids at the site segregated into two groups according to δ¹³C values, reflecting two distinct animal management strategies. Human infants were found to have elevated δ¹⁵N values, reflecting the trophic level effect of breastfeeding. No sex based differences in diet were observed.     

Book reviews—comptes rendus

Seventeenth‐Century France—France du dix‐septième siècle

Thomas WORCESTER, Seventeenth‐Century Cultural Discourse: France and the Preaching of Bishop Camus, Mouten de Gruyter, Berlin & New York, 1997, ix + 306p., ISBN 3–11–015220–7 DM 228

John A. LYNN, Giant of the Grand Siècle. The French Army 1610–1715, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997, 651pp. £45 ISBN 0 521 57273 8.

Themes in Cultural History—Thèmes en histoire culturelle

Susan PLANN, A Silent Minority: Deaf Education in Spain, 1550–1835, University of California Press, Berkeley, California & London, 1997, xvi + 323 pp. £40.

Charles DIERICK and Pascal LEFEVRE eds., Forging a New Medium: The Comic Strip in the Nineteenth Century, VUB University Press, Brussels, 1998.

Larry WOLFF, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of Enlightenment, Stanford University Press, Stanford 1994. xii + 419 pp. Paperback, £15.95.

Social History—Histoire sociale

Ann‐Louise SHAPIRO, Breaking the Codes: Female Criminality in Fin‐de‐siècle Paris, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1996, pp. viii + 265, ISBN 0–8047–2 693–0.

Nancy GREEN, Du Sentier à la 7e avenue. La confection et les immigrés, Paris‐New York, 1880–1980, Paris, Le Seuil, collection “L'univers historique”, 1998.

Nancy GREEN, Ready‐To‐Wear and Ready‐To‐Work. A Century of Industry and immigrants in Paris and New York, Duke University Press, 1997.

Lewis J. EDINGER & Brigitte L. NACOS, From Bonn to Berlin. German politics in transition, Columbia University Press, New York, 1998, ISBN 023108413729 £13.50£39.50

Themes in European Politics—Aspects du politique européenne

Dimitrije DJORDJEVIC, Scars and Memory: Four Lives in One Lifetime, Boulder, East European Monographs, 1997, pp. 463, ISBN 0–88033–368–5, £34.

Grigor MCCLELLAND, Embers of War: Letters from a Quaker reliefworker in war‐torn Germany, IB Tauris 1997, pp. xxiii + 230, ISBN 1–86064–312–4, £25.

Michael BERKOWITZ Western Jewry and the Zionist project, 1914–1933, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0 521 47087 0 hardback £40

Paul W. DOERR, British foreign policy 1919–1939, Manchester, Manchester University Press 1998, ISBN hb: 0–7190–4671–8 pb:0–7190–4672–6. £45.00 (hb) £14.99 (pb).     

Practical and prestige technologies: The evolution of material systems

Design theory provides a useful means for analyzing both practical and prestige technologies, although the goals and constraints of each are very different. The aggrandizer model of prestige technology postulates that prestige items were essential elements in aggrandizer strategies and that prestige items emerged only under conditions of sustainable food surpluses and included the most important innovations of the last 30,000 years such as metal working, pottery, sophisticated art, and domesticated plants and animals. The aggrandizer model also accounts for the transformation of some prestige technologies into practical technologies.     

Housing Price Gradients: The Intersection of Space and Built Form

A hedonic housing price model, implemented for the Dallas region, reveals a housing market structured around multiple nodes, some of which give rise to positive and others to negative externalities. The utility/disutility derived from relative location is capitalized into the size and quality of the housing stock and the nature of neighborhood amenities. The result is a convergence of space and built form.