Identification of dermestid pupal chambers on Southern Levant human bones: inference for reconstruction of Middle Bronze Age mortuary practices

Unique bone damage identified on Middle Bronze Age human skeletal material from the Southern Levant provided important information about the processes of modification and the possible funerary practices resulting in such damage. By comparing archaeological remains with recent skeletal material and by using computed tomography (CT) scans and 3D imaging techniques, the damage is interpreted as pupal chambers created by dermestid beetles. Using skeletal remains from two Middle Bronze Age sites, Jericho Tomb E1 and Munhata Tomb 641, we then discuss how the bores and tunnels left by dermestid beetles on human bones might constitute an interpretative key to the funerary practices of Middle Bronze Age collective burials.     

A Feminist Examination of Community Kitchens in Peru and Bolivia

Community kitchens in the Andean countries of Peru and Bolivia are complex spaces with the potential to empower and subjugate women. This article is based on 15 years experience working on issues of gender and development in the Andes and includes information from participant observation and discussions with development workers. It concludes that the neo-liberal agenda benefits from community kitchens because it allows the state to abdicate its responsibility to the poor.     

Building Peace with Conflict Diamonds? Merging Security and Development in Sierra Leone

This article examines the merging of security and development agendas in primary commodity sectors, focusing on the case of peace‐building reforms in Sierra Leone's diamond sector. Reformers frequently assume that reforming the diamond sector through industrializing alluvial diamond mining will reduce threats to security and development, thereby contributing to peace building. Our findings, however, suggest that the industrialization of alluvial diamond mining that has taken place in Sierra Leone has not reduced threats to security and development, as it has entailed human rights abuses and impoverishment of local communities without consolidating state fiscal revenues and trust in local authorities. This suggests alternative strategies for resource‐related peace‐building initiatives, which we consider at the end of the article: the decriminalization of informal economic activities; the prioritization of local livelihoods and development needs over central government fiscal priorities and foreign direct investment; and better integration between local economies and industrial resource exploitation.     

Evidence for inter-island transport of heirlooms: luminescence dating and petrographic analysis of ceramic inhaling bowls from Carriacou,West Indies

Ceramic snuffing tubes and inhaling bowls used for ingesting hallucinogenic substances are known from several islands in the West Indies, but their chronological distribution is often vague. A partial inhaling bowl found at the site of Grand Bay on Carriacou in deposits dating between ca. A.D. 1000–1200, along with two other unprovenienced specimens from the local museum, were dated using luminescence (TL and OSL) to determine their antiquity. Surprisingly, the dates had a weighted average of 400 ± 189 B.C., making them several hundred years older than all ¹⁴C assays from the island; however, they do overlap in age with similar artifacts found on Puerto Rico and Vieques Island over 750 km away. Additional luminescence dating of two stylistically distinct Suazan ceramic sherds excavated from stratified deposits at Grand Bay fall within the expected ceramic and radiocarbon chronology. These data, coupled with petrographic analysis of the specimens, suggests that they were not made using local materials. Instead, they appear to have been transported to the island, possibly hundreds of years later, as heirlooms. This may be the first evidence for inter-island transport of drug paraphernalia in the Caribbean.     

Copper Working Technologies, Contexts of Use, and Social Complexity in the Eastern Woodlands of Native North America

The creative ways in which native North American peoples of the Eastern Woodlands utilized copper throughout prehistory present provocative contrasts to models of Old World metallurgical development. Archaeological approaches that incorporate laboratory methods into investigations of indigenous metalworking practice have brought new insights and raised new questions about the development and use of techniques, sources of materials, and the social dynamics of copper consumption. This paper integrates the results of these studies into a discussion of copper use in Old Copper, Hopewellian, and Mississippian traditions that focuses on illuminating the complex relations among levels of technological sophistication in the manipulation of the material itself, the often elaborate and meaning-laden contexts in which artifacts were used, and the relative social complexity of the cultures that supported copper procurement, transformation, and use. It is suggested that ‘technological style’ approaches will assist archaeologists in efforts to flesh out culture-specific aspects of its consumption.     

Spatial Analysis of Employment and Population Density: The Case of the Agglomeration of Dijon 1999

The aim of this paper is to analyze the intraurban spatial distributions of population and employment in the agglomeration of Dijon (regional capital of Burgundy, France). We study whether this agglomeration has followed the general tendency of job decentralization observed in most urban areas or whether it is still characterized by a monocentric pattern. To that purpose, we use a sample of 136 observations at the communal and at the IRIS (infraurban statistical area) levels with 1999 census data and the employment database SIRENE (INSEE). First, we study the spatial pattern of total employment and employment density using exploratory spatial data analysis. Apart from the CBD, few IRIS are found to be statistically significant, a result contrasting with those found using standard methods of subcenter identification with employment cut‐offs. Next, in order to examine the spatial distribution of residential population density, we estimate and compare different specifications: exponential negative, spline‐exponential, and multicentric density functions. Moreover, spatial autocorrelation, spatial heterogeneity, and outliers are controlled for by using the appropriate maximum likelihood, generalized method of moments, and Bayesian spatial econometric techniques. Our results highlight again the monocentric character of the agglomeration of Dijon.     

Regional planning of R&D and science–technology interactions in Andalucia: a bibliometric analysis of patent documents

Andalucia is a southern European LFR (less‐favoured region) with a high degree of self‐government that has allowed it to design its own R&D policies that complement those implemented throughout Spain and the European Union (EU). Recently the Regional Government passed the Third Andalucian Research Plan 2000–2003, an R&D planning instrument that, as has become customary in previous Plans, attributes considerable budgetary weight to the scientific aspects of the science–technology–industry system (Andalucia allocates more of its own resources to promoting research than any other region in Spain). This paper provides deeper insight into the role played by science in driving the technological development of Andalucia, one of the LFRs of the EU. The aim was to answer five fundamental questions: How is basic science utilized by industry in Andalucia? Which sectors are the most dynamic in the employment of scientific know‐how? Which scientific fields are most in demand by industry? Which types of institution utilize scientific knowledge most profusely? What delay is there in incorporating science into technology? The methodology that has been applied for investigating the links between science and technology is based on scientific citations in patent documents (NPC). The results in this article provide relevant information about the interconnection of scientific and technological systems and thus constitute a good point of reference for the development of future R&D plans.