Add shamans and stir? A critical review of the shamanism model of forager rock art production

The “shamanism” or “neurpsychological” model proposed by Lewis-Williams and colleagues has had a powerful impact on rock art research, and has significantly added to our knowledge of past foragers lifeways in southern Africa and elsewhere in the world. However, this model is primarily based on the view of shamanism as a universal and unvarying characteristic of foragers over space and time. This paper raises both theoretical and empirical problems with this view. The paper examines the relationship between the specific social roles and practices of shamanism and the overarching cosmological structures on which they are based in both southern Africa and Northern Eurasia. In both cases, the paper argues that many cosmological beliefs are highly persistent and durable, extending into prehistory, while the specific practices and roles of shamans are variable, changing to meet the immediate and local needs of their communities. This suggests that rock art is easier to relate to the overarching cosmological dispositions of the people that produced it and the paper closes by suggesting some theoretical and methodological alternatives recognizing this fact.     

The complexity of aspiration: the role of hope and habitus in shaping working-class young people’s aspirations to higher education

In this paper, I explore how working-class young people in Leicester hope and plan for their futures as they consider the possibility of attending university. I respond to Pimlott-Wilson’s [2011. “The Role of Familial Habitus in Shaping Children’s Views of Their Future Employment.” Children’s Geographies 9 (1): 111–118] call for further research to investigate how individual dispositions and habitus affect how young people hope and aspire towards the future. I do this in three ways. First, I empirically test Webb’s [2007. “Modes of Hoping.” History of the Human Sciences 20 (3): 65–83] hope theory to understand how aspirations are formed on an individual and societal level. In doing so, I critically question what is understood by the term ‘aspiration’. This allows me to question what it means for young people to ‘raise aspirations’ towards university. Second, I explore how a spatial analysis can contribute towards an understanding of how habitus, hope and aspirations interlock to shape young people’s futures. Third, I argue that hope can be regarded as a form of capital which in turn influences habitus.     

Playing with matches: An assessment of accuracy in linked historical data

This article evaluates linkage quality achieved by various record linkage techniques used in historical demography. The author creates benchmark, or truth, data by linking the 2005 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Social Security Administration's numeric identification system by social security number. By comparing simulated linkages to the benchmark data, she examines the value added (in terms of number and quality of links) from incorporating text-string comparators, adjusting age, and using a probabilistic matching algorithm. She finds that text-string comparators and probabilistic approaches are useful for increasing the linkage rate, but use of text-string comparators may decrease accuracy in some cases. Overall, probabilistic matching offers the best balance between linkage rates and accuracy.     

Vegetal politics: belonging,practices and places

Cultural geography has a long and proud tradition of research into human–plant relations. However, until recently, that tradition has been somewhat disconnected from conceptual advances in the social sciences, even those to which cultural geographers have made significant contributions. With a number of important exceptions, plant studies have been less explicitly part of more-than-human geographies than have animal studies. This special issue aims to redress this gap, recognising plants and their multiple engagements with and beyond humans. Plants are not only fundamental to human survival, they play a key role in many of the most important environmental political issues of the century, including biofuels, carbon economies and food security. In this introduction, we explore themes of belonging, practices and places, as discussed in the contributing papers. Together, the papers suggest new kinds of ‘vegetal politics’, documenting both collaborative and conflictual relations between humans, plants and others. They open up new spaces of political action and subjectivity, challenging political frames that are confined to humans. The papers also raise methodological questions and challenges for future research. This special issue grew out of sessions we organised at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in New York in 2012.     

Les revues françaises d’astronomie,un cas d’interactivité scientifique

Astronomical data issued from observatories find multiple uses on land, as well as on sea. Due to their structure and periodicity, scientific reviews are particularly adapted to peer review and sharing of data between astronomers as well as between astronomers and hobbyists. During the 19^th century regional observatories first gather together professionals interested in the practical applications of the observations and later, under the influence of personalities such as Camille Flammarion, they bring together a larger non-professional audience. Being the epicentre of scientific exchange, the reviews have in the 20^th century found their place on the websites of academic institutions as well as users forums.     

A Post-Roman Sequence at Carlisle Cathedral

Excavations in 1988 revealed a stratigraphic sequence extending from the later Roman period to the twelfth century. Of particular interest and importance is a collection of Viking-Age metalwork which, with other material, sheds light on settlement in Carlisle before the arrival of the Normans in 1092.