County versus region? Migrational connections in the East Midlands, 1700–1830

Much literature on the industrial revolution has argued for the emergence of distinct, economically specialised regions during the eighteenth century. Large towns are thought to have played a vital part in drawing these industrial regions together, economically, socially and culturally. However, using the example of the East Midlands, this paper highlights the fact that neither industrialisation nor regional development was a uniform process. The East Midlands was significantly affected by industrialisation, but unlike ‘classic industrial regions’ such as the North-west or West Midlands, it did not experience a concomitant growth in regional integration and identity. Data on migration to Leicester, Nottingham and Derby in the period 1700–1830 are used to examine the nature and extent of social and economic linkages between these towns and their hinterlands and thus to explore the nature of urban-centred spatial integration in the East Midlands. It is argued that the apparent lack of region-wide integration can be explained, firstly, by the unusual dominance of the three county towns at the head of weak county urban networks, and secondly, by the persistence of a proto-industrial structure in the East Midlands' staple hosiery industry.     

A Minimum-Impact Method for Measuring Corrosion Rate of Steel-Hulled Shipwrecks in Seawater

Current research on USS Arizona is focused on a minimum-impact technique for calculating corrosion rate of the battleship's steel hull by analysing physical and chemical properties of marine encrustation covering the exposed hull. An equation is derived that allows concretion thickness, density, and total iron content to be used to calculate corrosion rate of steel hull plate.
© 2006 The Authors     

Resurrecting Ancient Christianities

Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It into the New Testament. By Bart Ehrman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), vi + 342 pp. $30.00 cloth.

Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. By Bart Ehrman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), xviii + 294 pp. $30.00 cloth.     

Shepherds and plants in the Alps: multi-proxy archaeobotanical analysis of neolithic dung from “La Grande Rivoire” (Isère,France)

The analysis of phytoliths, pollen, charcoal and other macroremains was carried out in the neolithic shelter of “La Grande Rivoire”, Vercors massif (French Alps). The results show the predominance of tree species, in the form of phytoliths, clustered pollen, stomata, small branches charcoal, needles, bark, buds… The practice of leaf fodder is already known in the alpine and circum-alpine area from archaeological and historical sources. The analyses of the neolithic dung levels of “La Grande Rivoire” illustrate the use of leafy and flowering tree branches as fodder. The results also suggest that some species were used for special purpose in relation with the tending of livestock (litter, dietary supplement, veterinary practices).     

Anachronisms or failures? Family strategies in the sixteenth century, as drawn from collective biographies of solicitors in Aix-en-Provence

This article highlights the patterns that can be observed in the matrimonial alliances of solicitors in sixteenth-century Aix-en-Provence and family strategies understood as a corpus of rational decisions bearing on the long term. Defined this way, family strategies applied to sixteenth-century solicitors are an anachronism. The new and unstable context in which the sixteenth-century solicitor found himself prevented families from having a clear view of the objectives to achieve and from devising a rational strategy. The article presents the model that most of the solicitors' alliances followed and suggests the obstacles that appeared before the main actor in family planning, the one who wielded paternal authority, in the creation of these alliances. The example of the Maria family shows women who decided, against the will of their family, whom they would marry. This article highlights the historian's reconstruction of typical family behavior and the limited possibilities that families had to plan over the long term.     

The Discourse of Maendeleo and the Politics of Women’s Participation on Mount Kilimanjaro

Studies of participatory development and empowerment often fail to place people’s actions and motivations within their wider cultural, social, political and economic context. Drawing on fieldwork which looked at village‐based women’s groups on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, this article deconstructs the dominant discourse of development on the mountain (maendeleo) to show how women’s participation in their local organizations is used as a strategy to boost their social status and financial gains. Local, national and global discourses on development, modernity and gender are reappropriated by Chagga men and women to produce a normative Chagga developmental subjectivity which women can demonstrate by participating in women’s groups. The over‐representation of better‐off and higher‐status women in these groups suggests that, in excluding the poorest women, participation in women’s groups is serving to legitimate, and perpetuate, existing inequalities within Chagga society.     

Memory Mapping: Affect,Place, and Testimony in El Lugar Más Pequeño (2011)

This article examines the Salvadoran documentary El Lugar Más Pequeño (The Tiniest Place, 2011) and argues that the film gives new insight into the complicated spaces and practices of memory post-transition and post-conflict through a process I call ‘memory mapping,’ which I define as the aesthetic process of representing the affective, polyvocal, layered relationship between past, present, and place as experienced by individuals and the communities in which they live. Engaging primarily with affect and memory theory, I contend that the film maps post-conflict memory in two specific ways: first, through testimony, and second, through an exploration of the relationship between memory and place. Ultimately, I argue that memory mapping sheds new light on how the aftermath of conflict – the physical, but also the emotional ruination caused by violence – is negotiated in the everyday of human life.     

Finding millet in the Roman world

Examining the evidence for millet in the Roman empire, during the period, circa 753 bc–610 ad, presents a number of challenges: a handful of scant mentions in the ancient surviving agrarian texts, only a few fortuitous preserved archaeological finds and limited archaeobotanical and isotopic evidence. Ancient agrarian texts note millet’s ecological preferences and multiple uses. Recent archaeobotanical and isotopic evidence has shown that millet was being used throughout the Roman period. The compiled data suggests that millet consumption was a more complex issue than the ancient sources alone would lead one to believe. Using the recent archaeobotanical study of Insula VI.I from the city of Pompeii, as a case study, the status and role of millet in the Roman world is examined and placed within its economic, cultural and social background across time and space in the Roman world.