The role of shellfish in hunter–gatherer societies during the Early Upper Palaeolithic: A view from El Cuco rockshelter,northern Spain

The role of coastal resources in the subsistence strategies of Palaeolithic human populations has only recently become an important topic in Old World archaeology. Information on the exploitation of these resources, both as foodstuffs and symbolic elements, can be used to infer the emergence of modern human behaviour as well as to track the diversification and intensification of human diet over time. The excavations carried out at El Cuco rockshelter, located in northern Spain have provided evidence for the exploitation of marine resources during the Early Upper Palaeolithic. The accumulation of Patella shells at El Cuco provides the largest accumulation and the first clear evidence of collection and consumption of molluscs during the Aurignacian on the Atlantic Façade of Europe. A deposit of ornamental shells appeared in a very homogeneous context dated to the Gravettian, suggesting that the shells belonged to the same item. The analysis of this evidence has allowed us to conclude that marine resources were systematically used at least from the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic in the region. However, a comparison with the Mesolithic shows that intensive shellfish gathering did not occur until the end of the Upper Palaeolithic. Regarding the ornaments, it is interpreted that the identified shell beads were used as social or personal status markers.     

Immigrants in a segmented and often undeclared labour market

This article develops a systematic analysis of available data on foreign workers in the Italian economy. Their presence reflects the fragmented character of Italian labour markets and the particular importance in Italy of the ‘hidden economy’. These factors alone explain why Italy experiences simultaneously a shortage of labour and high labour costs, from which the demand for foreign labour has resulted. The study uses both official data and the findings of a number of secondary studies in the field to show how foreign workers participate in all the lower branches of employment and in some sectors have become the predominant group. However, the presence of foreign workers varies considerably by sector and by region, in turn reflecting certain structural features of the Italian economy. The study concludes by arguing that the presence of these foreign workers in the Italian labour market serves to perpetuate its flexibility, in some cases by complementing and in others by substituting for the indigenous labour force.     

New idols: Catholicism in the face of Fascist totalitarianism

Abstract

This article explores the attitudes of the Vatican and Catholic culture towards Fascism and Fascism's political religion during the pontificate of Pius XI, in the context of the Catholic church's rejection of modernity as a new epoch of paganism that took the form of political mysticism. It shows that despite the Concordat of 1929, the papacy reacted with growing alarm to the Fascist regime's ‘sacralization of politics’ that threatened to make Catholic religion a handmaid of the totalitarian state.     

The Effect of Public Infrastructure on the Private Productive Sector of Spanish Regions

In this paper we analyze the effect of infrastructure on the cost and productivity performance of the private productive sector of Spanish regions over the period 1980–1993. We use a dual approach based on cost functions that allows us to recover the usual parameters estimated with production functions. In addition, we obtain rates of return and cost elasticities of production factors at the regional level. Our framework explicitly considers that some factors are quasi-fixed and their volume can differ from their optimal endowment levels. Our results indicate that the public sector has contributed significantly to enhance productivity and reduce costs in the private sector of almost every Spanish region. Nevertheless, there is still scope for the government to continue its investment efforts, given that there remains an appreciable gap between observed and optimal public capital, and we find that in the long run, public capital promotes private investment.