Assyrian Attitude Towards Captive Enemies: A 2700‐year‐old Paleo‐forensic Study

The Assyrians, who ruled at the height of their power between Egypt and the Persian Gulf (745–630 BC), are known from historical records to have been cruel and unrelenting towards their enemies. However, osteological evidence for this behavior is scarce. We herein present a case of an adult male skeleton, dated to the Iron Age IIB period (second half of the 8th century BC), who manifests traumatic injuries to the skull, left forearm, vertebrae, and ribs. Using modern forensic methods, the injuries were studied, and the consequences that led to these injuries reconstructed. Three possible scenarios are presented: (i) wounds inflicted during a chaotic battle; (ii) wounds caused by the chasing and capturing of a victim; and (iii) a commonly practiced violent attitude of Assyrian soldiers towards a captive combatant. Combining all the evidence at hand, the latter scenario appears more likely. This skeleton may therefore be one of the sole tangible physical evidence for the veracity of the Assyrians’ post‐battle behavior, as depicted in ancient texts and reliefs. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE URBAN–RURAL GAP IN UNIVERSITY ATTENDANCE: DETERMINANTS OF UNIVERSITY PARTICIPATION AMONG CANADIAN YOUTH

Based on existing work, there are clear differences in the incidence of degree holders across the urban–rural hierarchy in favor of large urban areas. In large part, this gradient can be traced to the higher probability of obtaining a degree among residents of larger urban centers. Utilizing data from the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS), this paper explores factors that may account for university participation among Canadian youth. It asks whether this difference is due to local access to universities, family characteristics (e.g., parental income, education, and immigrant status), and local labor market characteristics that may increase the incentive for urban youth to attend university.     

SPID: A New Database for Inferring Public Policy Innovativeness and Diffusion Networks

Despite its rich tradition, there are key limitations to researchers' ability to make generalizable inferences about state policy innovation and diffusion. This paper introduces new data and methods to move from empirical analyses of single policies to the analysis of comprehensive populations of policies and rigorously inferred diffusion networks. We have gathered policy adoption data appropriate for estimating policy innovativeness and tracing diffusion ties in a targeted manner (e.g., by policy domain, time period, or policy type) and extended the development of methods necessary to accurately and efficiently infer those ties. Our state policy innovation and diffusion (SPID) database includes 728 different policies coded by topic area. We provide an overview of this new dataset and illustrate two key uses: (i) static and dynamic innovativeness measures and (ii) latent diffusion networks that capture common pathways of diffusion between states across policies. The scope of the data allows us to compare patterns in both across policy topic areas. We conclude that these new resources will enable researchers to empirically investigate classes of questions that were difficult or impossible to study previously, but whose roots go back to the origins of the political science policy innovation and diffusion literature.     

Formation of beach‐ridge plains: an appreciation of the contribution by Jack L. Davies

A robust debate among coastal geomorphologists as to the processes by which beach‐ridge plains around Australia have formed was initiated by a former President of the Institute of Australian Geographers. This review gives special consideration to the work of Jack L. Davies, whose academic contributions to coastal geomorphology in Australia have not always been appropriately acknowledged when explaining how similar plains have evolved elsewhere in the world. Davies recognised that relatively steep storm waves caused erosion (cut) on beaches, whereas less steep long‐period swell waves returned sand (fill). He considered the beach berm to be the nucleus on which a beach ridge formed, which could subsequently develop into a foredune, in contrast to cobble ridges that were deposited during storms. Offshore conditions regulate supply of sand to the shoreline, partly through effects on wave refraction, with higher rates of supply where the nearshore is shallow. It was apparent to Davies that the elevation of successive ridges might, but not necessarily, provide evidence of past changes of sea level, despite adornment by variable amounts of windblown dune sand. Morphodynamic understanding of long‐term coastal evolution, based on radiocarbon dating chronologies, has demonstrated that Australian coastal plains formed over the past ~6,000 years when sea level has been close to its present level, in contrast to several documented locations in the northern hemisphere where the sea has been rising for the past few millennia. Particularly insightful were observations by Davies that ridge formation could be influenced by a range of factors including changes in sea level, storminess, or sediment supply. These factors acting singly or in combination seem likely to change in the future. Understanding such responses remains a high priority and can be addressed by new technologies, such as light detection and ranging, optically stimulated luminescence dating, ground‐penetrating radar, and computer simulation.     

Denial strategy in Australian strategic thought

Although denial has been at the centre of Australian strategic thought for decades, it has frequently been used as a broad catch-all term. This article shows, however, that there are two distinct denial traditions in Australian strategic thought: anti-access denial and area denial. Despite the different denial strategies having significantly different implications for defence budgets, procurement and force structure, official strategic guidance and defence scholars themselves have rarely specified which variant they are referring to. This article first maps the conceptual genealogy of anti-access denial and area denial within Australian strategic thought, before showing why acknowledging the specific type of denial is critical for policy and operational considerations. In addition to the two traditional approaches to denial, this article introduces a third approach—‘dissuasion by denial’—which, notwithstanding its growing influence in deterrence research and high relevance to twenty-first-century Asia-Pacific security dynamics, has yet to be introduced into Australian denial debates. The article finally addresses the conditions under which each denial strategy would be the most appropriate for Australia.     

Suffolk Place,Southwark, London: a Tudor palace and its terracotta architectural decoration

Suffolk Place (c. 1518–22), Southwark, was the London residence of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. This majestic palace is visible in the foreground of Wyngaerde’s London panorama (c. 1544), from which it can be inferred that it possessed a double courtyard plan. The southern and eastern ranges of the outer courtyard of Suffolk Place were apparently adorned with architectural terracottas at both entablature and parapet level. As the palace was demolished in 1557–58, the finds of ex-situ terracottas are a key source of information concerning the decorative scheme of this vanished palace. Petrological study and other research indicates that the terracottas were locally manufactured, implying the existence of a London-area workshop.