Probable human hair found in a fossil hyaena coprolite from Gladysvale cave,South Africa

Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9000-year-old South American mummy. Here we report fossil hairs of probable human origin that exceed that age by about 200,000 years. The hairs have been discovered in a brown hyaena (Parahyaena brunnea) coprolite from Gladysvale cave in South Africa. The coprolite is part of a hyaena latrine preserved in calcified cave sediment dated between 195,000 and 257,000 years ago. This find supports the hypothesis that hyaenas accumulated some of the early hominin remains found in cave sites, and provides a new source of information on Pleistocene mammals in the Sterkfontein Valley.     

Reviews: Australian

Graham Maddox, Australian Democracy in Theory and Practice, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1985, pp.463, $19.95 (paper).

Bill Brugger and Dean Jaensch, Australian Politics: Theory and Practice, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp. 258 + 258. $29.95 (cloth), $15.95 (paper)

David Dunstan, Governing the Metropolis, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1984, pp. 362. $24.50 (cloth)

Stuart Harris and Geoff Taylor (eds), Resource Development and the Future of Australian Society, Canberra, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, 1982, pp.305. $14.95 (paper)

W. Ross Johnston, The Call of the Land: A History of Queensland to the Present Day, Milton, Jacaran‐da Press, 1982, pp. 229. $19.75 (cloth)

D. J. Killen, Killen: Inside Australian Politics, Brisbane, Methuen Haynes, 1985, pp. 355 $25.00 (cloth)

Murray Frazer, Jeffrey Dunstan and Philip Creed (eds), Perspectives on Organisational Change: Lessons from Education, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1985, pp. 451. $29.95 (paper)

W. J. Byrt, The Framework of Consensus: Government, Business & Trade Unions, Sydney, Law Book Company, 1985, pp. 220. $17.50 (paper)

Janis Wilton and Richard Bosworth, Old Worlds and New Australia, Ringwood, Penguin, 1984, pp. 215. $8.95 (paper)

Tim Rowse, Arguing the arts: the funding of arts in Australia, Ringwood, Penguin, 1985, pp. 143. $7.95 (paper)

Russell Mathews, Fiscal equalisation in education, Canberra, Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations, Australian National University, 1983, pp. 180. $12.00 (paper)

Constance Larmour, Labor Judge: The Life and Times of Judge Alfred William Foster, Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1985, pp. 286. $14.95 (paper), $29.95 (cloth)

Don Rawson and Chris Fisher (eds), Changing Industrial Law, Sydney, Croom Helm, 1984, pp.xxii + 235. $24.95 (cloth)

Douglas W. Smith and Donald W. Rawson, Trade Union Law In Australia: The Legal Status of Australian Trade Unions, Second Edition, Sydney, Butterworths, 1985, pp.xvii + 204. $37.50 (cloth)

Peter Groenewegen, Public Finance in Australia, Second Edition, Sydney, Prentice‐Hall, 1984, pp.363. $24.95 (paper)

Des Ball, J. Langtry and J. Stevenson, Defend the North, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp.104. $9.95 (paper)

H. O. Browning, 1975 Crisis, an historical view, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger, 1985, pp. 340. $14.95 (paper)

David Solomon, The People's Palace: Parliament in Modern Australia, Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1986, pp. 194. $9.50 (paper) Joan Rydon, A Federal Legislature: The Australian Commonwealth Parliament 1901–1980, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp.290. $35.00 (cloth)

Patrick O'Brien, The Liberals: Factions, Feuds and Fancies, Ringwood, Penguin, 1985, pp.238. $24.95 (cloth), $9.95 (paper)

Glen St J. Barclay. Friends in High Places: Australian‐American Diplomatic Relations since 1945, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp.245. $25.00 (cloth)

Jonathan Boston, Incomes Policy in New Zealand, Wellington, Victoria University Press for the Institute of Policy Studies, 1984, pp.ix + 344. NZ $19.50 (paper)

David McGee, Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand, Wellington, Government Printer, 1985, pp.579.

Godfrey Hodgson, All Things To All Men: The False Promise of the Modern American Presidency, Penguin, rev. ed. 1984. $7.95 (paper)

Richard H. Leach, Whatever happened to urban policy? A comparative study of urban policy in Australia. Canada and the United States, Canberra, Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations, 1985, pp.134. $10.25 (paper)

Walker Connor, The National Question in Marxist‐Leninist Theory and Strategy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984, pp. 614. $62.00 (cloth), $19.00 (paper)

Owen Greene, Ian Percival and Irene Ridge, Nuclear Winter, Cambridge & Oxford, Polity Press & Basil Blackwell, 1985, pp. 216. $9.95 (paper)

Derek McDougall, Harold D. Lasswell and the Study of International Relations, Lanham, Maryland, University Press of America, 1984, pp. 370. $14.00 (paper)

Immanuel Wallerstein The Politics of The World Economy, London, Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 191. $26.50 (paper)

Douglas E. Ashford, British Dogmatism and French Pragmatism: central‐local policymaking in the Welfare State, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1982, pp. 406. $75.00 (cloth)

Manning Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945–1982, London, Macmillan (Contemporary U.S. series), 1984, pp. 249. $14.95 (paper)

Christopher Ham and Michael Hill, The Policy Process in the Modern Capitalist State, Brighton, Sussex, Harvester Press, 1984, pp. 210. $14.99 (paper)

Steve Smith (ed.), International Relations: British and American Perspectives, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985, pp. xiv + 242. $49.95 (cloth)

Clive Archer, International Organizations, London, Allen & Unwin, 1983, pp. 192. $29.95 (cloth), $16.50 (paper)

Joan Edelman Spero, The Politics of International Economic Relations, Third Edition, London, Allen & Unwin, 1985, pp. 447. $18.95 (paper)

H.T. Stanbury and Thomas E. Kierans (eds), Papers on Privatization, Montreal, Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1985, pp.325. $8.00 Canadian

Arend Lijphart, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty‐One Countries, New Haven/London, Yale University Press, 1984, pp.229. US$6.95 (paper)

Michael Sandel (ed.), Liberalism and Its Critics, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1984, pp. 272. $45.00 (cloth), $17.95 (paper)

Vernon Bogdanor, What is Proportional Representation? Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1984, pp. 164. $39.95 (cloth), $9.95 (paper)

Enid Lakeman, Power to Elect: The Case for Proportional Representation, London, Heinemann, 1982, pp. 178. £6.95 (paper)

Graham Little, Political Ensembles: A Psychosocial Approach to Politics and Leadership, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 223. $25.00 (cloth)

Claus Offe, Contradictions of the Welfare State, edited by John Keane, London, Hutchinson, 1984, pp. 310. $18.95 (paper)

John Keane, Public Life and Late Capitalism: toward a socialist theory of democracy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 340. $66.50 (cloth)

Jill Julius Matthews, Good and Mad Women: The Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth Century Australia, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1984, pp.223. $9.95 (paper)

Marilyn Waring, Women, Power and Politics, Wellington, Unwin Paperbacks & Port Nicholson Press, 1985, pp.121. $9.95 (paper)

Jacqueline Goodnow and Carole Pateman (eds), for the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Women, Social Science and Public Policy, Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp. 162. $29.95 (cloth), $14.95 (paper)

Jane Lewis, Women in England 1870–1950, Brighton, Wheatsheaf Books, 1984, pp.240. $16.50 (paper)

Janet Siltanen and Michelle Stanworth. (eds), Women and the Public Sphere: A critique of sociology and politics, London, Hutchinson, 1984, pp.251. $19.95 (paper)

Susan Magarey, Unbridling The Tongues of Women: A Biography of Catherine Helen Spence, Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1985, pp. 239. $14.95 (paper)     

The Hawke government and education 1983–1985

Education was a major component of the platform and performance of the Whitlam governments. Under Fraser, projects were abandoned and overall growth ceased. The needs principle for aid to non‐government schools was undermined by the emphasis on unrestricted access to alternatives to the State system. Pressure grew for schooling to reflect and service the needs of the market place.

The 1983 election campaign scarcely mentioned education although special interests ensured that traditional commitments were secured. Once in power, the Hawke government tended to ignore these and maintained constraints on education spending.

Naive attempts in 1983 to implement the policy of reducing grants to wealthy private schools resulted, by 1984, in a bruised and shaken Hawke government having to placate the powerful private school/Catholic bishops lobby with a generously funded ‘historic settlement’ of the State Aid debate. The Participation and Equity Program was introduced to increase participation in post‐compulsory education, particularly by disadvantaged groups. Initially the depressed state of tertiary education was not addressed by the Hawke government which continued the neglect characteristic of the Fraser years. Hawke was returned to office in 1984 on a platform which had as little to say about education as it had in 1983.

The rhetoric and practice of the Hawke government has tended to reflect a view of education which is highly economic and instrumental in orientation. A crude nexus is seen to exist between educational spending and productive employment, a view which excludes any concern for the social benefits of education or a longer‐term perspective about the value of intellectual endeavour. Labor's traditional ideals and objectives of widening access to education and hence social and economic power are in danger of being ignored. If economic considerations alone continue to dominate policy, the legacy of the Hawke government may well be a set of educational policies which are destined, on balance, to increase rather than reduce inequalities in our society.