East Polynesian Islands as Models of Cultural Divergence: The Case of Rapa Nui and Rapa Iti

The diverse island societies of East Polynesia are well-suited as models for comparative evolutionary analysis. Settled ca. 750 BP by a common ancestral population, colonists of the remote corners of the Pacific shared a pool of cultural traits that included commensal species, language, technology, and other cultural practices. Following colonization however, island populations diverged in language, subsistence practices, degree of territoriality, settlement patterns, investment and forms of monumental architecture, and social organization. Driven by historical circumstances and varied environmental conditions, this divergence presents evolutionary case studies of alternative paths of cultural change. One explanatory approach to this evolutionary divergence involves isolating the critical ecological parameters that likely constrained and shaped the diverse history of island populations. Here, we offer a comparative evolutionary analysis that explores the divergent histories of two marginal East Polynesian islands: Rapa Nui and Rapa Iti.     

Pearl fishing in the ancient world: 7500 BP

The oldest pearl in the world was found in the United Arab Emirates and dates from 7500 BP. Gemmologists and jewellers have popularised the idea that the oldest pearl in the world is the 5000‐year‐old Jomon pearl from Japan. Discoveries made on the shores of south‐eastern Arabia show this to be untrue, as the archaeological pearls that have been found are 2500 years older. In this region, pearls still hold an important place. Indeed, today they remain a central, identifying element. The discovery of archaeological pearls demonstrates an ancient fishing tradition that no longer exists today.     

Response from the author

This article is part of a review symposium of Sheila Cavanagh's book Queering bathrooms: gender, sexuality and the hygienic imagination, 2010, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 295 pp., £19.94 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-4426-10736     

Italian Jews from Emancipation to the Racial Laws,by Cristina M. Bettin

The recent argument that the notion of ‘transition’ should be set aside in attempting to explain the trajectory of Italian politics in the past two decades is to be welcomed, but does not go far enough in explaining why we, as Italianists, got our case wrong and how exactly we might get our case right today. The transitional ‘myth’ was born and maintained despite growing evidence of its inherently problematic nature, in both conceptual and empirical terms. The concept of ‘transition’ needs more serious conceptual treatment and empirical application, but even with this work it is unlikely to be concluded that Italy is in transition. Freeing Italy and Italianists from this conventional wisdom, while, at the same time, not abandoning the idea that something exceptional happened to Italian politics in the early 1990s will help enrich the debate on the nature of the political change that Italy has experienced in the past 17 years.     

History as it really wasn't: the myths of Italian historiography

According to a number of influential Italian contemporary historians, Italian political history since Unification has been distorted by politicized scholarship and the existence of a large number of untenable political myths. These views are presented in the volume Miti e storia dell'Italia unita (1999). In this roundtable, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Carl Ipsen and David Kertzer discuss this thesis with two of its leading proponents: Ernesto Galli della Loggia and Luciano Cafagna. Secondo alcuni studiosi dell'Italia contemporanea, la storiografia dell'Italia unita è stata travisata dalla tendenza a scrivere testi politicizzati e dall'esistenza di numerosi miti politici infondati. In questa tavola rotonda, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Carl Ipsen e David Kertzer discutono le tesi proposte nel volumi Miti e Storia dell'Italia Unite 1999 (Bologna, Il Mulino) con due suoi sostenitori: Ernesto Galli della Loggia e Luciano Cafagna.