Possible obsidian sources for artifacts from Timor: narrowing the options using chemical data

Measurements made at the Australian National University using laser ablation ICPMS show that none of the 88 analyzed obsidian artifacts from East Timor match either the known Papua New Guinea or the five Island SE Asian source samples in our ANU collections. There is a coastal journey of more than 3000 km between the occurrence of obsidians from the Bismarck Archipelago volcanic province of Papua New Guinea and the Sunda-Banda Arc volcanic chain, yet obsidian artifacts from the two important PNG sources of Talasea and Lou Island are found at coastal Bukit Tengkorak in eastern Sabah at a similar distance along with material that has no known source. Timor lies south of the eastern section of the active volcanic Banda Arc island chain but it is within range of possible rhyolite sources from there. Although there is a continuous chain of around 60 active volcanoes stretching from west Sumatra to the Moluccas most are basaltic to andesitic with few areas likely to produce high silica dacite–rhyolite deposits. This does not exclude the possibility that the volcanic landscapes may contain obsidian, but without detailed survey and chemical analysis of sources from the Sunda-Banda Arc the attribution of the Timor obsidian artifacts remains to be demonstrated. Timor may seem to be an unlikely source for the presence of obsidians as it lacks reports of the silica-rich rhyolite volcanic centers necessary to produce this material. Despite the absence of detailed survey and analysis of Indonesian obsidian sources, especially from the volcanically active Banda Arc, this paper presents evidence that one of two obsidian sources is clearly from Timor while the other, with less certainty, is also from an unknown local source.     

Go East,Young Cadre: Experiments in Inter‐Provincial Training of Party and State Managers in China

This article situates China's local policy experimentation in the broader context of policy experiments in decentralized political systems, through a case study which represents a local state response to China's transition to a market economy. With growing regional and urban–rural inequalities evident after the initial reform period (1978–1994), local party leaders of inland provinces devised strategies for addressing these inequalities and encouraging public–private sector mobility among party officials. County and township‐level leaders pursued local policy experiments in which they selected and sent officials to find private‐sector work in China's booming coastal cities. Initiated in the 1990s and peaking in the 2000s, these policy experiments and inter‐provincial transfers demonstrate the discretion that local officials possess to conduct programmatic/policy experiments in a unitary political system and show how officials resort to extra‐institutional strategies in order to bridge perceived knowledge gaps. The ultimate demise of these programmes illuminates the challenges to extra‐institutional policy innovations in transitioning states.     

Moving peoples,changing diets: isotopic differences highlight migration and subsistence changes in the Upper Mun River Valley,Thailand

The dramatic growth of dietary isotope studies in archaeological literature attests to the significant potential this technique has for shedding light on past societies. Human diet reflects complex, inter-linked factors such as status, cultural preferences or environmental constraints on food production. In this study dietary isotope analysis is used to examine the human skeletal remains from Ban Non Wat, northeast Thailand. The study aims to use isotopic data to give insight into patterns of migration and subsistence strategy during prehistory. Ban Non Wat is the most comprehensively excavated site in the Upper Mun River Valley (UMRV), and understanding of prehistoric society in this area is crucial to answering questions of how social complexity arose in the region. Carbon isotope analysis has highlighted migrant individuals invisible to strontium isotope analysis and shown links between unusual burial practice and differences in diet. Results also indicate that diet changed substantially through time, with more reliance on rice in the Bronze Age, correlated with an increase in social differentiation. There is a move away from reliance on rice agriculture in the Iron Age, a time when oxygen isotopes show that environmental conditions were becoming drier, possibly resulting in rice agriculture becoming less viable.     

«Une mission glorieuse et profitable» réforme missionnaire et économie sucrière dans la province jésuite du Brésil au début du XVIIe siècle

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Jesuit province of Brazil is affected by tensions which reveal the complexity of its relation both with the colonial society and with the Roman center of the order. The paper is focused on an exceptional and original document about which nothing is clearly identified (author, date), theAdvertências para a província do Brasil. It allows a precise analysis of the missionary enterprise, as an economico-political experience (the Jesuits become one of the most important sugar producers of the country), and as a spiritual experience (through the salvation of the missionaries and the conversion of the Indians). This document is centered on thealdeia which is described as the main structure for the action of the Jesuits in Brazil. In that way, it reveals a global vision of the mission, geopolitical, economical and religious, which has systematically been overshadowed by the traditional historiography, whose approach of the missionary phenomenon was exclusively spiritual.     

Re-examining the chemical evaluation of diagenesis in human bone apatite

Isotopic analysis of human bone is becoming an increasingly important tool for the archaeologist in divining past life-ways. The isotopic ratios within bone are often assumed to be preserved as in life, but diagenetic change can alter the ratios, invalidating the results of isotopic analysis. Diagenesis can be evaluated in a number of ways, but most often spectroscopic techniques are utilised as the most efficient and easiest to understand methods for the archaeologist. Many isotopic studies do not report the possibility of diagenetic change, and if it is reported it has often been quantified using a single method of chemical analysis, FTIR spectroscopy. This study set out to test the value of FTIR analysis using human remains from the prehistoric site of Ban Non Wat, Northeast Thailand, and to compare the results with the non-destructive technique of FT-Raman spectroscopy. The study shows that FTIR spectroscopic analysis gives far less detail on the condition of bone than Raman spectroscopy, which does not merely indicate recrystallisation has occurred, but also shows clearly whether or not collagen is present, allows identification of ionic substitions which have occurred and identification of secondary minerals which have formed. Raman spectroscopy, combined with LA-ICP-MS analysis also revealed that soil composition and groundwater flow are the conditions which most affect diagenesis at Ban Non Wat.