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This article compares the solar eclipse records in Fan Ye’s Hou Hanshu “Benji” 本紀to those in the Dongguan Hanji (225 CE), Sima Biao’s Xu Hanshu “Wuxing zhi” 五行志, Yuan Hong’s Hou Hanji, as well as Espenak and Meeus’ Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses to comment upon the source, selection, reliability, and function of the eclipse records included in his imperial annals of the Eastern Han (25–220 CE). It finds that while Fan Ye stuck faithfully to the reliable observational record in the Xu Hanshu he at once replaced its interpretative apparatus of omenology with one of politico-ritual action for simple reasons of genre.     

Bodies in Motion: Narratives and Counter Narratives of Gendered Mobility in European Later Prehistory

Normative notions of sex and gender were prevalent in discussion of European prehistoric societies until the last quarter of the 20th century. The progressive work that challenged a binary approach, published particularly in the 1990s, created an anticipation for further nuanced interpretation. This paper argues that, in contrast to this expectation, there was a surprising return to narrating a past of binary sex and gender. Societal roles have continued to be imagined as formalised through structures based on biological sex, with men seen as active mobile agents, while women were passive and static homemakers. We argue that not only is this unhelpful, the archaeological evidence renders it incorrect. We highlight the inherent conflicts in the data to show that investigating sex and gender in the past is difficult with imperfect and complex archaeological evidence. It requires careful and deliberate consideration to avoid normative explanations. In conclusion, we propose that investigating mobility is a particularly effective topic for examining past gendered societal roles.