Isotopic anthropology of rural German medieval diet: intra- and inter-population variability

This study investigates the diet of an eleventh century CE parish community located in northwestern Germany. We assessed the isotopic compositions of human (n = 24) and faunal (n = 17) bone collagen (δ ¹³C_col, δ ¹⁵N_col) and human structural carbonate (δ ¹³C_sc) using skeletal material recovered from the Dalheim cemetery. Traditional interpretation of the isotopic data indicates that Dalheim residents likely relied on a C₃ plant-based diet and consumed some terrestrial animal products without evidence of marine resource input in the diet. Bivariate and multivariate models used as an additional means to assess diet indicate minor consumption of C₄ plant foods in this community. The multivariate-isotope model identified regional similarities and differences in C₄ plant/marine food consumption and in dietary protein sources by comparing data from Dalheim with those of other medieval sites from the published literature. We did not observe sex differences in this population but differences in δ ¹⁵N_col suggest that juveniles consumed the lowest trophic level protein.     

Stylistic developments of ship figureheads of the United States East Coast

L'évolution du style des figures de proue sur la côte est des Etats—Unis CAROL OLSEN Le développement des figures de proue, de bateaux construits au 18e et 19e siècle en Amérique du Nord, est comparé avec d'autres formes de l'art populaire comme les décorations de certains meubles, les enseignes de magasins de tabac, etc.     

Racial rent differences in U.S. housing markets: Evidence from the housing voucher program

This paper exploits an unusually rich data set to estimate racial differences in the rents paid for identical housing in the same neighborhood in U.S. housing markets and to show how they vary with neighborhood racial composition. Results suggest that black households pay more for identical housing in identical neighborhoods than their white counterparts and that this rent gap increases with the fraction of the neighborhood white. In neighborhoods with the smallest fraction white, the premium is about 0.6%. In neighborhoods with the largest fraction white, it is about 2.4%. This pattern holds across different types of areas.     

Doing the handfailure: At the margins of global capitalism

What can an account of manual labour in an increasingly precarious environment tell us about how humans build meaningful lives? Using an ethnographic example from the working relations on a fishing boat based out of the fishing community Tombo in Sierra Leone, I argue that shared bodily work entails possibilities of individual economic gain while simultaneously laying the foundations for solidarity and care. We find a playful competition between working mates at the core of this seeming contradiction. This article explores how people make a living and make a life, not simply despite their continued marginalization in political and economic terms, but through it. In the physically demanding shared labour of hauling a fishing net and learning how to compete for the fish by doing the handfailure, crew members forge relations of care and solidarity that stimulate individual aspirations while asserting the right to life by the sea.     

The Paleolithic of Dzungaria (Xinjiang,Northwest China) Based on Materials from the Luotuoshi Site

The paper reports the results of an analysis of surface collections of artifacts made at the Luotuoshi site in Dzungaria, Xinjiang, northwest China. The site was discovered in 2004 by a joint Chinese-Russian-American archaeological expedition. A techno-typological analysis of the artifacts was carried out noting aeolian abrasion of the artifacts’ surfaces. This technocomplex is quite homogenous and is characterized by a combination of Levallois-like and subprismatic blade-based reduction techniques. Analogs of the Luotuoshi assemblage have been identified within the lithic industries of the Altai, the Orkhon-1 and Tolbor-4 sites in Mongolia, and at Shuidonggou in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in China, all of which have been attributed to the Early Upper Paleolithic. Luotuoshi is the first site associated with the blade-based Early Upper Paleolithic discovered in northwest China and its particular features make it possible to correlate this technocomplex with those from southern Siberia and northern Central Asia.     

The Two Europes

In pursuit of the question of European identity, this paper applies Ramón Menéndez Pidal's idea of the two Spains to the whole of Europe, setting up the contrast between traditional and modernist Europe. Though the most traditionalist societies have usually engaged in various forms of “updating,” and most modernists wish some connection with the past, the dividing line between the Two Europes was the Enlightenment and French Revolution. On the one side we have the “pious,” those who want to retain much of the past and walk in their fathers’ footsteps. Commonly these either are religious or tolerant of religion. On the other side we have those trying to create a new cultural space separated from some ancien régime. Often these are hostile to religion. Though probably Southern Europe is more traditionalist than Northern, the two Europes are found across Europe intermingled. The goal of this essay is to delineate the nature of each of the two Europes.