Domestic and wild ungulate dietary traits at Kouphovouno (Sparta,Greece): implications for livestock management and paleoenvironment in the Neolithic

The objective for this study is to explore interspecific variations in domestic and wild ungulate diets and management at the Neolithic site of Kouphovouno (Sparta, southern Greece). We tested four hypotheses related to environmental context and livestock management using, for the first time, a combination of mesowear and microwear analyses on a Neolithic site. We identified interspecific differences between ungulate taxa, especially between wild and domestic ungulates, however there is no significant difference between Ovis and Capra. There is no diachronic change in diet from the Middle Neolithic to the Late Neolithic. Changes in animal utilization are not reflected in their diet. Whatever the purpose of the husbandry, animals had access to the same food resources. The study of dental wear patterns gave some insights regarding the management practices for the domestic livestock as well as paleoenvironment through the study of wild ungulates.     

Geographic and Historical Observations on the Future of a Federal Russia

A paper assessing prospects for the future of federalism in Russia investigates geographic and other factors that historically have either promoted or inhibited the unity of the Russian state. Among the major factors complicating the process of forging a new federal relationship among Russia's central government, republics, and oblast-level units, the paper focuses on the question of the Russian state's legitimacy, the only partial character of democratization, limited experience with constitutional federalism, and contradictions between individual and ethnic rights. 2 tables, 19 references.     

Documentary Evidence and the Medieval Pottery Industry

EARLY in my study of the medieval pottery industry it became clear to me that, contrary to general belief, a reasonable body of documentary evidence bearing on the industry had survived, but that it would take some years to assemble and interpret. There is no corpus of documents from which to begin, for surviving evidence is not only scattered in a very wide variety of documents, but is also dispersed geographically in a number of local record repositories. It might seem sensible to delay publication until a larger proportion of this evidence has been studied, or at least to avoid analysis and generalization at this stage; but pottery and potters are of interest to archaeologists here and now, and there is nothing written on the industry save assemblages of unrelated facts, often strung together from widely different periods. An effort has, therefore, been made to assemble the material so far available into a coherent pattern. Since this is the first time that this has been done, the result will probably require drastic modification in a few years' time. If the interim report here presented stimulates others to prove it wrong, this paper will have achieved at least one of its purposes.¹     

Henry Pelham's Lost Grand Jury Map of Kerry (c.1800): A Newly Found Derivative

The ‘South Division of the County of Kerry’ (GSI FS 1.2.001) is a copy of the southern half of a lost late eighteenth / early nineteenth century map of County Kerry, in southwestern Ireland. Geological annotations on the map are traced to specific episodes (c.1820, 1838 and 1844) in the unofficial geological survey of Ireland conducted by Richard (later Sir Richard) Griffith between 1811 and 1855. The Griffith provenance of the map is part of the evidence used to identify the ‘South Division of the County of Kerry’ as a derivative of the now lost Grand Jury map of Kerry made by the American émigré artist and cartographer Henry Pelham.