Perfecting the nation: Enlightenment perspectives on the coincidence of linguistic and ‘national’ refinement

This article describes the correlation between language and nation in Enlightenment thought and its perceived value as a means to pursue investigations aimed at deciphering the ‘rules of social evolution’. In doing so, it further clarifies the manner in which ‘the nation’ was represented in contemporary texts, lending much-needed empirical support to recent overtures in this direction by scholars who have challenged the validity of temporally and spatially fixed ideal types. Dictionaries and other lexicographical works are used to illuminate the semantic traditions underlying the correlations cited above and the fitness more generally of ‘the nation’ for the anthropological pursuits of the period. The study is then extended to a survey of contemporary works of history, natural philosophy and other episteme, the texts under review supplying further testimony of a theoretical perspective in which nation, ‘manners’ and language were not only connected, but deemed to be in a relationship of coterminous perfectibility. This theoretical outlook explains, in conclusion, why endeavours aimed at linguistic refinement were explicitly identified as ‘national’ undertakings by Enlightenment-era reformers, providing, in turn, important historical context for one prominent stream of nineteenth-century nationalist discourse.     

Early Holocene palaeoseasonality inferred from the stable isotope composition of Unio shells from Çatalhöyük,Turkey

Seasonal δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O data are presented from 14 Unio sub-fossil shells unearthed at the archaeological site of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey, spanning the occupation period ca. 9150–8000 cal years BP. The shells likely lived in the small lakes/wetlands around the site before being gathered and taken to Çatalhöyük. Wet-dry seasonal cycles are clearly apparent in the δ¹⁸O_shell profiles with low winter values reflecting winter precipitation and high δ¹⁸O in the summer resulting from evaporation. The most striking trend in the δ¹⁸O data is the drop in maximum summer δ¹⁸O ca. 8300 years BP, which we infer as indicating lower summer evaporation and hence a reduction in seasonality. Previous palaeoclimate records from the area have suggested cooler and more arid conditions, with reduced precipitation, around this time. While the drop in summer δ¹⁸O values could be due to reduced summer temperatures reducing summer evaporation, but there was little change in winter δ¹⁸O, perhaps suggesting winter growth cessation or reduced influence of winter climate change on δ¹⁸O. This shift in seasonal climate could be linked to solar-forced climate change beginning ca. 8600 years BP, and enhanced by the regional expression of the 8·2k event. Changing water balance over the occupation period is likely an important contributory factor behind observed cultural changes at Çatalhöyük in the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic period. Our results might be considered to support the fission-fusion farming hypothesis as we provide additional evidence for wet winter/early spring conditions during the Early Holocene which likely caused flooding of the Çar?amba Fan. The changing water balance after ca. 8300 years BP (i.e. reduced seasonality and potentially reduced local summer evaporation) is also coincidental with the proposed end of this farming system due to multi-decadal drought.     

Fornicating with nuns in fifteenth-century Bologna

The article opens with the prosecution in 1432 of a spicer for abducting a nun. This is first of all presented as the story of a trial: the formation of the indictment, the defence tactics, the deposition of witnesses, and only then are the experience of the nun, and the gender relations in the event, examined. This leads to numerous contexts: legal (the development of the law on sexual relations with professed nuns); judicial (similar cases in late fourteenth-/fifteenth-century Bologna); monastic (the unstable history of convents); social (the place of the nunnery in the local sexual economy); and historiographic (Ruggiero's ‘culture of illicit sexuality’).     

A longitudinal study of tooth growth in a single individual based on long- and short-period incremental markings in dentine and enamel

Ground sections of teeth from a single individual revealed approximately 30 fluorescent lines in the dentine resulting from successive courses of tetracycline antibiotics given over a period of approximately 12 years. In addition, many teeth showed long-period incremental markings in the dentine. Short-period daily cross-striations in the enamel were used to calculate the periodicity of the long-period incremental lines in both enamel and dentine. The incremental markings in the dentine were then used to calibrate the time of administration of each of the courses of tetracycline antibiotics. Enlarged micrographs of the teeth, constructed using fluorescence microscopy, were used to measure the increase in height of different teeth throughout the growth period on each occasion the tetracycline antibiotics were given. The times of initial mineralization of the teeth and the duration of crown formation were also determined for each tooth section. Line plots of tooth height against age were computed and used to calculate the rate of increase in tooth height during crown and root formation for one example of each tooth type. Initial rates of increase in height during enamel apposition and coronal dentine formation were fast, between 10 μm and 14 μm per day. During the latter phase of crown formation and during early root formation, tooth height increased at a slower rate of between 4 μm and 6 μm per day. Rates of increase in tooth height then rose to between 13 μm and 26 μm per day during the second half of root formation before falling off to a rate of approximately 4 μm per day during root completion (as the root apex formed). The times of initial crown mineralization and the total crown formation times estimated in this individual were all within the range known for modern humans but there was comparatively early mineralization of the third permanent molar. These findings are discussed in the context of other studies on human dental development.