Educational

EUROPE

Flight into Portugal. By R. Bodley. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. xi+224. London : Jarrolds Ltd., 1941. Price 16s.

Heart of Spain. By G. G. King. Illustrated. 10×7. Pp. 179. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1941. Price $3.00.

Snowdonia through the Lens. By W. A. Poucher. Illustrated. Fcap. fol. Pp. 124. London : Chapman &; Hall Ltd., 1941. Price 18s.

The Land of Britain. Edited by L. D. Stamp. London : Geographical Publications, 1941. Price 1s. 6d each.

At Slieve Gullion's Foot. By W. J. Murphy. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp.115. 1940. Price 3s. 6d.

On Our Hill. By Annette Barlee. Illustrated. Small 4to. Pp. 100. Price 3s. 6d. Dundalgan Press, Dundalk.

English Woodland. By John Rodgers. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. xii+132. London : Batsford, 1942. Price 10s. 6d.

The Nazi New Order in Poland. By Jon Evans. Demy 8vo. Pp.184. London : Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1941. Price 6s.

Russia in Flux. By Sir John Maynard. Demy 8vo. Pp. 301. London : Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1941. Price 7s. 6d.

AMERICA

Ports of Piscataqua. By W. S. Saltonstall. Illustrated. 11×7#fr1/2>. Pp. viii+244. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1941. Price 20s.

Cape Horn. By F. Riesenberg. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. 487. London : Robert Hale Ltd., 1941. Price 18s.

ASIA

Dawn Watch in China. By Joy Homer. Demy 8vo. Pp. 288. London : Collins Ltd., 1941. Price 12s. 6d.

Soviet Asia : Progress and Problems. By E. S. Bates. Map. Demy 8vo. Pp.191. London : Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1942. Price 8s. 6d.

GENERAL

After C.T. Studd. By N. Grubb. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp.185. London : R.T.S., 1941. Price 3s. 6d.

Economic Geography. By C. F. Jones. Illustrated. Crown fcap. Pp. xxii+626. New York : The Macmillan Company Ltd., 1941. Price $4.25.

Geography and World Power. By J. Fairgrieve. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. 376. London : Univ. of London Press, 1941. Price 7s. 6d.

The Earth and its Resources. By Finch, Trewartha, and Shearer. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. 634. New York and London: M'Graw‐Hill Book Co. Price 17s.

Wanderings with a Shotgun. By Sir Edward Durand. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. 184. London : Jarrolds Ltd., 1942. Price 16s.

British Mountaineers. By F. S. Smythe. Illustrated. 9×6#fr1/2>. Pp.48. London : Collins Ltd. Price 4s. 6d.     

Problems of General Economic Regionalization at the Present Stage

Professor Ryabchikov, Dean of the Geography Faculty of Moscow University, finds that Soviet teachers colleges are adequate to supply geography teachers to the middle schools, especially in view of a gradual reduction of the number of class hours devoted to geography in those schools. He sees the primary function of university geography as the training of specialized geographers for industry, agriculture and other segments of the national economy. Universities are therefore urged to reorganize their curricula from the present somewhat academic approach to a greater practical and applied content that would benefit graduates in their new jobs. The author calls on universities to strengthen their ties with industry by taking advantage of the Soviet system of contractual research for production organizations.     

The Natural-Historic basis for the Development and Specialization of Agriculture in the Socialist Countries (Outside the USSR)

The authors urge a zonal specialization of agriculture within the countries of the Socialist camp, particularly the CEMA grouping. Bulgaria, which supplies tobacco, grapes, early vegetables, and fruits to other countries, in cited as an example. Geographers are urged to work out such a specialization scheme based on a complex of factors, including the physical-geographic base, manpower resources, the present state of agriculture, and the traditional working habits of the population.     

Problems of Providing Siberia with Manpower

Continuing net out-migration from Siberia produces a manpower supply problem that must be resolved if the regions's economic development is to be pursued. A high rate of labor turnover tends to raise the costs of industrial development and to lower the skill levels of workers as skilled labor leaving Siberian cities for other parts of the USSR is replaced by untrained manpower from the Siberian countryside. Wage differentials in effect in Siberia have been effective in attracting manpower from the Western regions for short periods of time, but have not stimulated permanent settlement. In the view of the authors, new arrivals can be induced to settle down in Siberia only if the adverse impact of the Siberian environment can be compensated by a level of housing and services that is superior to those available elsewhere in the Soviet Union. The significant element is housing, which should receive particular attention in future investment programs. Northern development within Siberia poses the additional problem of physical acclimatization.     

Regional Peculiarities in the Formation of Industrial Nodes in the Middle Ob' Region

Limiting environmental conditions in the construction of industrial nodes in the new oil district of the Middle Ob' are the rigorous climate, extensive swamp cover and absence of ground transportation. These adverse factors are compensated to some extent by the shallow depth of oil deposits, favorable geology and the availability of groundwater that can be injected to maintain oil-reservoir pressures. The basic problems in the development of the oil district are the shortage of housing, services and local foodproducts and consumer goods as well as the high cost of construction of transport routes. Greater investment in services is urged to help reduce the high turnover of labor as migrants are reluctant to settle permanently in the region.     

Reassessing the diet of Upper Palaeolithic humans from Gough's Cave and Sun Hole,Cheddar Gorge,Somerset, UK

Richards et al. (2000) reconstructed the diet of the human remains found in Gough's and Sun Hole Cave through isotope analysis. They concluded that these people consumed an entirely terrestrial-based diet. Their reconstruction was based upon comparison of the results from human bones with those from a very small number of associated animals. The diets of the Gough's and Sun Hole Cave human were different from the other six Upper Palaeolithic humans from the British Isles for which dietary information has been obtained through isotope analysis. The work of Richards et al. (2000) suggests that they were the only ones for whom marine or freshwater resources did not play a significant role in their diets. We test this through further analyses of faunal remains from Gough's Cave, Sun Hole and other contemporary sites (Kent's Cavern, Aveline's Hole, Kendrick's Cave). Despite the limited faunal sample, the original palaeodietary reconstruction is broadly consistent with our findings. The isotope values of the main protein sources consumed by the humans from both sites are consistent with those of red deer and bovines, and, for a single individual, with that of horse and red deer. Reindeer was postulated in the original reconstruction as a potential food source, but this seems very unlikely based on our isotope reconstruction and the archaeological remains.     

Sorting the butchered from the boiled

Is it possible to identify cooked, rather than burnt, bone? Mild heating (≤100 °C,1 h) – typical of cooking – does not lead to detectable changes in any biochemical parameter of bone yet measured. If it is only possible to detect charred bone, how is it possible to detect cooking in the archaeological record? In a previous paper (Koon et al., 2003, J. Arch. Sci.), we used a Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) based approach to investigate changes in the organization of the bone protein, collagen, as it is heated, using bone from heating experiments and short term burials. The work revealed that mineralized collagen, despite requiring aggressive treatment to gelatinise the protein (e.g. 90 °C, 240+ h), readily accumulates minor damage. We believe that the presence of mineral matrix stabilises the collagen enabling the damage to accumulate, but preventing it from causing immediate gelatinisation. Once the mineral is removed, the damage can be observed using appropriate visualization methods.     

Investigating the likelihood of a reservoir offset in the radiocarbon record for ancient Egypt

Some radiocarbon dates for ancient Egypt have been significantly offset from the established historical chronology (see Bonani et al., 2001). In this paper, short-lived plant species collected in Egypt between 1700 and 1900 AD were used to investigate the possibility that the radiocarbon record had been influenced by reservoir effects. AMS radiocarbon measurements were made on 66 known-age samples, resulting in an average offset from expected values of 19 years. The implications of this minor discrepancy on the likelihood of a reservoir process are discussed, and the agreement of the data with recent models of radiocarbon seasonality is also considered.