John Shary,Charles Pease,and contested irrigation landscapes in early-twentieth-century South Texas

The paper contributes to notions of ‘hybrid’ historical geographies of irrigation by focusing on contested visions for irrigation in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Adding to geographical work using biography, notions of performance, and racialized landscapes, the paper analyzes debates between John Shary and Charles Pease. Shary and Pease were protagonists, respectively, of pumping water from the Rio Grande and a gravity scheme reliant on action by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The pumping system survived; the gravity system was never constructed. However, the debate between Shary and Pease illustrates tensions within the Anglo elite. The analysis focuses on three early-twentieth-century moments. The first is a 1918 crisis in Shary’s irrigation company, followed by a 1927 debate between Shary and Pease over the flaws of the pumping system and benefits of gravity irrigation. Finally, the paper focuses on Shary and Pease’s constructions of racialized landscapes that subordinated Hispanics as voters to be utilized for Shary’s accumulation strategy, or as ‘non-water users’ that should be excluded from water politics. The paper argues that Shary and Pease projected similarly exclusionary social visions onto the irrigated landscape in spite of their differences on irrigation systems.     

Biostratigraphical and palaeogeographical implications of Early Cambrian hyoliths from the North China Platform

Pan, B., Skovsted, C.B., Sun, H.J. & Li, G.X., 18 June 2019. Biostratigraphical and palaeogeographical implications of Early Cambrian hyoliths from the North China Platform. Alcheringa 43, 351–380. ISSN 0311-5518.

A succession of diverse hyolith assemblages comprising 10 genera and 14 species are reported from the lower Cambrian Shangwan and Sanjianfang sections of the Xinji Formation, and Xiaomeiyao section of the Houjiashan Formation, which crop out along the southern margin of the North China Platform. Most of the specimens are represented by both conchs and opercula. The identified orthothecids include Conotheca australiensis, Cupitheca holocyclata, C. costellata, Neogloborilus applanatus, N. spinatus, Tegminites hymenodes, Triplicatella disdoma, T. xinjia sp. nov. and Paratriplicatella shangwanensis gen. et sp. nov. The hyolithids comprise Protomicrocornus triplicensis gen. et sp. nov., Microcornus eximius, M. petilus, Parkula bounites and Parakorilithes mammillatus. Some anomalous taxa possess characteristics of both Hyolithida and Orthothecida, such as C. australiensis, Neogloborilus and P. triplicensis. Protomicrocornus may constitute a sister group of other hyolithids. The teeth of Parkula bounites and clavicles of Parakorilithes mammillatus are documented for the first time. The hyolith assemblages from North China are probably coeval, and can be correlated with the Cambrian upper Stage 3–lower Stage 4. Many taxa are also globally distributed and have significant potential for biostratigraphical correlations. In accordance, the hyoliths from North China reveal closest compositional similarities to faunas from eastern Gondwana, and especially South Australia. However, some taxa are shared with Laurentian assemblages suggesting cosmopolitanism, and possibly planktonic larval dispersal.

Bing Pan* [bpan@nigpas.ac.cn], State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology and Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, PR China; Christian B. Skovsted [christian.skovsted@nrm.se], Department of Palaeobiology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden; Haijing Sun [hjsun1987@163.com], State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology and Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, PR China; Guoxiang Li [gxli@nigpas.ac.cn], State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology and Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, PR China. *Also affiliated with: University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China and Department of Palaeobiology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden.     

‘Politicals’, Tribes and Musahibans: The Indian Political Service and Anglo-Afghan Relations 1929–39

This article examines the way in which the tribal areas of the North-West Frontier came to constitute a recurrent point of contention and dispute in Anglo-Afghan relations during the period under examination. It argues that while much attention has been paid to the way in which the activities of autonomous tribes of the frontier impacted upon British interests, much of the existing historiography has tended to focus upon the physical confrontation between tribe and state and has hitherto ignored perhaps the most complex aspect of the ‘tribal problem’ during this period; its impact upon the Government of India's diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. The article proposes that the period 1929–39 constituted a particularly challenging context for British policy-makers wrestling with the requirement to formulate a cost-effective tribal policy that would suit the interests of British India without undermining the newly emerged, pro-British but inherently weak Musahiban regime. It argues that while the Government of India avoided any fatal breach in relations with the Afghan leadership, the process of frontier policy-making illustrated some fundamental weaknesses in perspective on the part of that government department most closely associated with the formulation of such policy: the Indian Political Service.     

Framing the High North: Public Discourses in Norway after 2000

Abstract

The article presents an overview of the main public debates in Norway that can be said to have framed and defined the High North since the turn of the Millennium. It is based on a qualitative study of over 3000 articles published in four Norwegian newspapers issued between 2000 and 2006. Our discussion is structured around three overarching, interconnected narratives that we think capture the essence of the Norwegian public discourses on the High North between 2000 and 2006. These are “Fragments from the 1990s”; “The great narrative of the High North”; and “Mixing cold water with hot blood”. The first half of the 2000s is characterised by an almost total absence of the High North as a discursive and politically coherent concept. From 2004, however, usage grew fivefold, alongside an extensive, dynamic discursive mobilisation. When the Russians decided in 2006 to shelve the Shtokman project and critical voices were heard condemning Norway's environmental performance in northwest Russia, public opinion swung back again. A feeling of cold reality replaced the sense of optimism towards the energy potential of the north, and an exercise in collective soul-searching commenced – similar to that of the early years of the decade. We believe the type of discursive change we document in this article constitutes policy trends in connection both with the High North and with other sectors where policy is subject to intense public debate and appraisal. We hope that discourse analysis has enabled us to investigate and share how Norwegian public discourses on the High North are socially produced, framed and maintained but at the same time are always in flux and open to “new” directions which should be possible – at least in theory – to trace by going back in time.     

Cross-Border Mobility,Unfamiliarity and Development Policy in Europe

In this special issue, we seek to explore experiences, performances and effects of both “unfamiliarity” and “familiarity” across a diversity of inner and outer borders of the European Union. In EU integration discourse, cross-border unfamiliarity is usually considered to obstruct international mobility and diminish opportunities for cross-border cohesion and communities to develop. European development policy, therefore, often focuses on creating mutual understanding in border regions, especially through diminishing the barrier effect of borders. One of the consequences is that more cross-border familiarity is created. However, too much familiarity may also have undermining implications for cross-border mobility, integration and community-building. This special issue, therefore, scrutinizes what “being” and “feeling” (un)familiar imply in cross-border contexts and what consequences both have for spatial practices in and representations of borderlanders in several Euroregions—as well as for European regional development policies aiming for cross-border mobility, integration and community-building.     

Henry Head in Ewald Hering's laboratory in Prague 1884-1886: an early study on the nervous control of breathing

Henry Head, the English neurologist, received the main parts of his academic education in Cambridge and in London. In addition, he spent two years in Prague where he worked in the physiology department of the German university under the guidance of Ewald Hering. He was interested in the nervous control of breathing and worked out a new method of recording the tension and the contractions of the diaphragm in anaesthetised animals. His results substantiated the experimental basis of the Hering-Breuer reflexes and included the discovery of a new reflex now named Head's paradoxical reflex. Head not only wrote an extensive paper about his scientific work, the recollections of his time in Prague also formed a considerable part of his autobiographical notes. These were written some forty years later and still expressed a deep affection for his teacher and mentor.     

Levallois Lithic Technology from the Kapthurin Formation,Kenya: Acheulian Origin and Middle Stone Age Diversity

The earliest fossils of Homo sapiens are reported from in Africa in association with both late Acheulian and Middle Stone Age (MSA) artifacts. The relation between the origin of our species during the later Middle Pleistocene in Africa and the major archaeological shift marked by the Acheulian-MSA transition is therefore a key issue in human evolution, but it has thus far suffered from a lack of detailed comparison. Here we initiate an exploration of differences and similarities among Middle Pleistocene lithic traditions through examination of Levallois flake production from a sequence of Acheulian and MSA sites from the Kapthurin Formation of Kenya dated to ∼200–500 ka. Results suggest that MSA Levallois technology developed from local Acheulian antecedents, and support a mosaic pattern of lithic technological change across the Acheulian-MSA transition.Les premiers restes fossiles d’Homo sapiens sont rapportés d’Afrique aussi bien à des avec des outillages de l’Acheuléen final que du Middle Stone Age (MSA). La relation entre l’origine de notre espèce au Pléistocène moyen final d’Afrique et le changement majeur marquée par la transition Acheuléen-MSA est par conséquent un moment clé de l’évolution humaine qui a manqué jusqu’ici d’analyses comparatives détaillées. Nous nous proposons ici de commencer à explorer les différences et les similarités qui peuvent se faire jour au Pléistocène moyen dans les traditions techniques à l’examen des productions à éclats Levallois, dans une séquence de sites acheuléens et MSA de la formation de Kapthurin (Kenya), datée de 200–500 ka. Les resultants obtenus suggèrent que la technologie Levallois MSA s’est développée sur ce substrat acheuléen et renforce cette perception que l’on peut avoir d’une mosa?que de changements technologiques jalonnant la transition Acheuléen-MSA.     

Leontief's “Environmental Repercussions and the Economic Structure…” Revisited: A General Equilibrium Formulation

A 1972 paper by Leontief on an input-output model with pollution removal activity as an explicit sector is reformulated as a computable general equilibrium model. The advantage of this reformulation is that substitution and rational behavior by producers and consumers can be modeled and prices are rendered endogenous. The two approaches are contrasted regarding the consequences of policy changes about taxation and technological improvements.