Preliminary U-series and Thermoluminescence dating of excavated deposits in Liang Bua sub-chamber,Flores, Indonesia

We report the results of a test excavation of deposits in a limestone cave sub-chamber located beneath the main chamber of Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia; the discovery site of the small hominin species, Homo floresiensis. Well-preserved remains of extinct Pleistocene fauna and stone artefacts have previously been identified on the surface of a sediment cone within the sub-chamber. Our excavation of the deposits, at the base of the sediment cone in the sub-chamber (to 130 cm depth) yielded only a few fragmentary bones of extant fauna. Uranium/Thorium (U-series or U/Th) dating of soda straw stalactites excavated from 20 to 130 cm in depth demonstrates that the excavated sediments were deposited during the Holocene. Red Thermoluminescence (TL) dating of the sediments at the base of the excavation (130 cm depth) indicates these sediments were last exposed to sunlight at 84 ± 15 ka (thousand years), similar to red TL ages of cave sediments from the main chamber. Together, these results indicate that the surface faunal remains, which are morphologically analogous to Pleistocene finds from the main chamber excavations, were transported to the sub-chamber relatively recently from the main chamber of Liang Bua and probably originated from conglomerate deposits at the rear of the cave and from deposits around the front entrance. There is no evidence for hominin occupation of the sub-chamber, instead it seems to have acted as a sink for cultural materials and fossil remains transported from the surface via sinkholes. Despite the small number of finds from the test excavation, it is possible that more extensive excavations may yield additional transported cultural and faunal evidence at greater depths.     

From “Spitsbergen” to “Svalbard”. Norwegianization in Norway and in the “Norwegian Sea”, 1820–1925

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to enhance our understanding of the Norwegian acquisition of Spitsbergen/Svalbard by using the concept of Norwegianization as a tool for analyzing the political and diplomatic background for the Spitsbergen treaty of 1920, and comparing the Norwegianization polar politics with the Norwegianization concept used to analyze the internal colonization in the Sami districts of northern Norway during the same period. The paper concludes that the politics of Norwegianization on the main islands in the North Ocean – renamed the Norwegian Sea by Norwegian oceanographers in the 1870s – was an offensive policy of expansionism, motivated by historical and geographical considerations and alleged rights to re-establish the Medieval Norse empire.     

Pies and essays: women writing through the British 1984–1985 coal miners' strike

During the 1984–1985 British miners' strike and in its immediate aftermath, women activists produced a series of publications involving creative writing, which sought to communicate the strike from their own perspective. The production and sale of publications were a practical activity in support of the strike and in defence of community. We argue that insofar as writing was also a means whereby the women who worked to make sense of themselves in an emergent situation for which there was no precedent, an analysis of such writing offers opportunities for a broader understanding of the strike. Writing enabled the women to affirm their class-based political loyalties while expressing the complexities and contradictions of gender relationships and roles. Writing as a reflexive act contributed to a clarification of those aspects of female lives which they valued, facilitated an expression of their emotional response to their experience of activism and enabled them to articulate a moral-political position within which they worked with ambiguity and contradiction. This article suggests that cultural texts of this type in themselves can only be properly understood in the context of structural and historical relations of power and that the context and conditions of production of writing are particularly pertinent to this process.     

Dividing Homer (continued): Innovation vs. Tradition in Homer - an Overlooked Piece of Evidence

In Homeric studies, the evidence of metrics has often been overlooked. The authors argue that the hexameter must be a recent development, closely bound up with the transition from an Aeolic to a Ionic phase in the development of the epic diction. The Ionic phase must have been very short, and the rise of the Iliad is probably also to be situated at the very moment of change in meter and dialect.     

Proclaiming place: Towards a geography of place name pronunciation

This paper provides a critical review of recent geographical scholarship on place naming and contends that aural aspects of naming have yet to be fully worked into the research agenda. To begin to address this gap in the literature, we consider pronunciation to be an important element of the cultural politics of place naming within post-colonial societies. In asserting links between speaking and naming we are contributing to recent scholarship in cultural geography that has moved beyond the visual to consider a wider sensory spectrum in the constitution of place. Our case material is drawn from Aotearoa/New Zealand where conservative reactions to sympathetic pronunciations of Maori names by media personalities are a frequent occurrence. By way of example, we interpret selected examples of unsolicited comment gleaned from newspapers during the period 1994-1999. We conclude that identity is at least in part narrated through place-referenced linguistic tactics such as pronunciation. Cet article se veut un inventaire critique des récents travaux académiques sur la toponymie et soutient que la question des aspects 'auditifs' du nom mérite davantage l'attention des chercheurs. Afin de remédier à ce manque dans la littérature existante, nous suggérons que la problématique de la prononciation constitue un élément important des débats culturels entourant l'attribution de noms de lieux, surtout chez les sociétés postcoloniales. En insistant sur les liens entre le fait de parler et celui de nommer, notre discussion s'inscrit dans les travaux récents en géographie culturelle allant au-delà du visuel afin de concevoir une gamme sensorielle beaucoup plus large en ce qui a trait à la conception du lieu. Nos données sont tirées de la Aotearoa/Nouvelle-Zélande où les réactions conservatrices sont fréquentes lorsque des noms d'origine Maori sont utilisés par des personnalités médiatiques. A titre d'exemple, nous interprétons des commentaires receuillis dans les journaux entre 1994-1999. Nous concluons que l'identité est en partie rattachée à des références toponymiques et linguistiques tactiques telles que la prononciation. Este papel da un análisis crítico de reciente erudición geográfica sobre el nombramiento de lugares y afirma que el aspecto auditivo del nombramiento todavía no forma uno de los asuntos de investigación. Para empezar a cerrar esta brecha en la literatura, consideramos que la pronunciación constituye un elemento importante en la política cultural del nombramiento de lugares dentro de las sociedades pos-coloniales. Al acertar vínculos entre el hablar y el nombrar contribuimos a erudición reciente en la geografía cultural que se ha ido más alláde lo visual para considerar un espectro sensorio más amplio en la constitución de lugar. La materia de nuestro estudio viene de Aotearoa/Nueva Zelanda donde son frecuentes las reacciones conservadores a pronunciaciones comprensivas de los nombres Maorí por personajes de los medios de comunicación. Como ejemplo, interpretamos ejemplos de comentarios no solicitados, recogidos de periódicos de los años 1994 a 1999. Concluimos que, por lo menos en parte, la identidad es narrada por tácticas lingüísticas que se refieren a un lugar, tal como pronunciación.     

Viewing animal bodies: truths,practical aesthetics and ethical considerability in UK livestock breeding

This paper focuses on the production of aesthetic ‘truths’ in UK livestock breeding, drawing on detailed qualitative research with breeders and breed societies. It extends emerging interest in the aesthetic in human geographical research, examining how aesthetic judgements about non-human animals depend, in part, on the agency of the animal and their inter-subjective relations with humans in specific places. Aesthetic evaluation further produces implicit judgements about animals' ethical considerability, at the same time obscuring the effects of such judgements on their framing and treatment. Aesthetic evaluation is thus related to sets of material and ethical interests. The paper develops a more-than-human reading of Foucault's biopower, which explores how truths about visual evaluations of animals become established. Two empirical perspectives explore, first, a ‘relational practical aesthetic’ for evaluating beef cattle and sheep, exploring the implications of the aesthetic framing of specific animals and, second, the tensions involved in looking at animals when different aesthetic truths conflict and when traditions of aesthetic evaluation encounter genetic modes of evaluation. The paper concludes by discussing the ethical implications of ongoing transformations of evaluative modes in livestock breeding, suggesting that shifts away from inter-subjective modes of aesthetic evaluation further diminish the ethical status of animals.