Integrating isotopes and documentary evidence: dietary patterns in a late medieval and early modern mining community,Sweden

This study explores the relationship between dietary patterns and social structure in a pre-industrial mining community in Salberget, Sweden c. 1470 to 1600 A.D. using a combination of different research approaches and tools, including archaeology, osteology, bone chemistry and history. The correlation between demographic criteria (sex and age) and archaeological variables (burial type and burial location) shows that Salberget was a highly stratified community. Group diets were investigated through analyses of stable isotopes (carbon, δ ¹³C, and nitrogen, δ ¹⁵N) of bone collagen from a sub-sample of individuals buried at the site (n = 67), interpreted alongside data from human dental lesions and deficiencies, animal bone waste and information on eating habits extracted from the extensive historical documents regarding mining activities at Salberget. These integrated analyses provide a clear association between social status and diet and confirm that social status, and to a lesser extent sex, gender and age, likely governed food choice and opportunity in this diverse community.     

Experimental studies of personal ornaments from the Iron Gates Mesolithic

Personal ornaments, especially those made from the shells of marine mollusks and animal teeth, have been recovered from many Mesolithic sites across Europe. This paper reviews the evidence of personal ornaments from the Mesolithic of the Iron Gates, where such finds were identified in five sites on the Romanian bank: the cave and rock shelter sites of Climente II and Cuina Turcului, and three open-air sites—Icoana, Ostrovul Banului, and Schela Cladovei. The ornaments from these sites were made from the shells of several gastropod taxa and at least one species of dentaliid scaphopod, as well as the pharyngeal teeth of cyprinids, the teeth of several species of terrestrial mammal, fish vertebrae, and pieces of antler and bone. Particular attention is given to taxonomic identification and questions of taphonomy, provenance, selection, manufacture, and use. Experiments were conducted in which several types of ornament were replicated. Archeological and experimental pieces (at various stages of production) were examined under a microscope, to establish the durability of the beads and estimate the length of time over which they were worn. Our results show that shells of Lithoglyphus and Theodoxus sp. were simply perforated and fixed in composed adornments, as were shells of Tritia neritea in the early part of the time range. In the later Mesolithic, T. neritea shells were processed in a different way and fixed to clothing in the manner of appliqués. No technological modification of the cyprinid teeth was observed; these were sewn individually onto clothing by means of a thread coated with an adhesive substance. The other categories of personal ornament were used mainly as pendants. Experimental use-wear analysis suggests that many ornaments were used over long periods, with broken or missing pieces replaced when necessary.     

Continuity and change in fine-ware production in the eastern Maya lowlands during the Classic to Postclassic transition (<Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">ad</Emphasis> 800–1250)

This study presents the results of an investigation into fine-ware production in the eastern Maya lowlands during the Classic to Postclassic transition (ca. ad 800–1250), a period characterised by the collapse of the Maya dynastic tradition. A selection of fine-ware ceramics—Ahk’utu’ vases and Zakpah ceramics—from various sites across Belize was examined by thin-section petrography and SEM-EDS analyses. The resultant compositional and technological data reveal that fine-ware production exhibited varying degrees of continuity and change in potters’ choices of raw materials and manufacturing technologies. The most significant change occurred in craft organisation. Fine-ware production shifted from the co-existence of two ceramic traditions, which guided potters regarding the raw materials used and technical practices followed in making Ahk’utu’ vases during the earlier phase of transition (ca. ad 800–900/950), to the dominance of one broad tradition with greater liberty accorded producers in their execution of Zakpah fine-ware production during the later phase (ca. ad 950/1000–1200/1250). Such a shift is argued to have been stimulated by a change and increase in the demands for fine-ware ceramics during the later phase of the transition, corresponding to the emergence and proliferation of a new elite stratum in the Maya lowlands.     

Reporting and Interpreting Legal Violence in Asia: The East India Company's Printed Accounts of Torture, 1603–24

This article examines how printed accounts of torture can reveal the ways the law was experienced, interpreted and reported by the East India Company (EIC) during the early decades of the seventeenth century. It will explore how the company came to impose its own interpretation of the law when interacting with local powers and people while simultaneously attempting to adapt to and operate within existing legal systems in early modern Asia. This careful balance—sustaining English law while accepting the restraints of a different legal system—was essential in a region where merchants and other travellers moved through areas criss-crossed with overlapping jurisdictions. Interactions with locals often turned violent, even when under the protection of local states, and the English used legal violence to sustain their position in Asia as much as they were threatened by its use by others. Concepts of how the law operated were far from simple and overlapping legal institutions, customs and ideas resulted in numerous moments of competition as different legal structures were imposed simultaneously. The company was forced to think carefully about these issues when law and violence came together during the most violent aspect of judicial enquiry—torture. To assess how the EIC thought about the law and how this influenced the development of their imperial policies this article will focus on how information regarding the law—in its most extreme application—was reported to an English and European audience through the careful presentation of information regarding events in Asia.

It will focus on two case studies where torture was experienced by English merchants—and where accounts were deemed important enough for reportage and printed distribution. The accounts considered here, reporting the experience of torture in Bantam in 1603 and in Amboyna in 1623, were carefully developed and distributed by the company and intended to effectively present its ideas regarding the law and jurisdiction in the developing world of global commerce and empire. In the first, we see the English factors at Bantam seeking to operate within the parameters of the local rulers but increasingly turning to their own understanding of the law in response to threats. The account of this episode reveals how the company justified the seizure of legal authority through the effective interpretation of both English ideas of proof and their own grasp of international law. The second account covers an opposing scenario, where Dutch merchants seized legal authority over the English in contravention—or so the company claimed—of the law of nature and failing to effectively follow the rules of law regarding proof. Across the two accounts we see how the company struggled to come to terms with the ways it interpreted the law. This is turn defined how it developed policies regarding its role overseas, and the reporting of these legal encounters in England changed the way that other parts of the world and the challenges of international trade were understood.     

Being Mesolithic in Life and Death

Fifty years ago, approaches to Mesolithic identity were limited to ideas of ‘Man the Hunter’ and ‘Woman the Gatherer’, while evidence of non-normative practice was ascribed to ‘shamans’ and to ‘ritual’, and that was that. As post-processual critiques have touched Mesolithic studies, however, this has changed. In the first decade of the 21st century a strong body of work on Mesolithic identity in life, as well as death, has enabled us to think beyond modern Western categories to interpret identity in the Mesolithic. These studies have addressed the nature of personhood and relational identities, the body, and the relationship between human and other-than-human persons. Our paper reviews these changing approaches, offering a series of case studies from a range of different sites that illustrate how identity is formed and transformed through engagements with landscapes, materials, and both living and dead persons. These are then developed to advocate an assemblage approach to identity in the Mesolithic.     

Introduction: gendered mobilities and transnational identities

In this short introduction to a themed section on gendered mobilities and transnational identities the articles are introduced and the three key conceptual themes which emerge from the collection are discussed. It is argued first, that gendered migration patterns reconfigure all the social relations within transnational family formations. Second, that chains of care need to be conceptualised in more complex ways recognising multiple forms and circulations of care. Finally, it is suggested that attention needs to be paid to the ways in which institutions intersect with migration and transnational family formations.     

Distorted Narratives: Morocco,Spain, and the Colonial Stratigraphy of Cultural Heritage

International cultural development projects entail a neoliberal agenda that frequently echoes colonial ideologies and discourses. Using the case study of Chaouen, a northern city in Morocco, I argue in this paper that former colonies and aid-receiving countries usually overlap, and serve the former metropolises to continue controlling the former colony’s human and economic resources. I discuss how the former colonial power, in this case Spain, regulates and promotes a particular heritage discourse that has conveniently been depoliticised. I further contend that in line with previous colonial narratives, Spain has silenced the painful history of struggle and resilience of the inhabitants of Chaouen.     

The 1989 Tasmanian election: The green independents consolidate

This paper provides an analysis of the election of 13 May 1989 which was a major watershed in Tasmanian politics. Independent members of parliament were elected in each of Tasmania's five electorates with the result that neither the Liberal Party nor the ALP could govern in their own right The period following the election was marked by continuing political drama punctuated by several key events. These events included the development of the Tasmanian Parliamentary Accord between the ALP and the Independents, continued pressure from supporters of the Liberal Party for a fresh election, and arrests in relation to an alleged attempt to bribe a newly‐elected ALP member to cross the floor and support the Liberal Party. The defeat of the Gray government in a vote of no‐confidence following the recall of parliament, and the resignation of Premier Gray, led to the commissioning of a minority ALP ministry, relying on the support of the Independents.