Early modern ideas about artistic geography related to the Baltic Region

The paper analyses the gradual changes in assistance offered to widows and widowers between 1900 and 1964. It highlights the conflicts between the principle of the family as provider of welfare and the principle of self-help embodied in poor relief, in varying municipal pensions during the inter-war period and in the right to economic assistance legitimised through the Mothers' and Widows' Pension Act in 1964. The development is seen as part of the construction of a welfare society, built on the perception of men as wage-earners and providers, women as wives and mothers. These perceptions of masculinity and femininity resulted in gender-differentiated needs in the case of widowhood, and in gender-differentiated means of covering such needs. Civil status had no importance for men's role as wage-earners, while it was decisive for the economic situation of women. Focusing on the problem of economic support, the paper discusses solutions at the individual private level, at the municipal level and at the national level. The different weighting of widows as mothers or as providers is taken into consideration, and so are consequences of demographic changes in the widowed population.     

A Microfacies Toolkit for Revealing Linkages Between Cultural Discontinuities and Exceptional Geogenic Events: the Tell Da’de Case Study (NE Syria)

High-resolution multi-archive studies have been promoted to reveal abrupt discontinuities that would express rapid social reactions (days to decades) to sudden exceptional geogenic phenomena (climatic, volcanic, tectonic, geomorphic, or cosmic). We expose here how we have adopted this approach for examining the causal linkages between a series of cultural discontinuities encountered through the cultural deposits of Da’de (Syria) and cosmic airbursts. Cosmic events, known to be rare, erratic, and unpredictable, are traced by exceptional debris that formed from aerosols when violently compressed during entry through the earth atmosphere of hypervelocity cosmic collider. They consist of singular organo-mineral materials in the form of volatile-rich hydrocarbon fuel with resistant metal-rich carbonaceous composites and colorful polymers. The archaeological sequence comprises Da’de phases 0 to III that represent a nearly continuous accumulation for 1,000 years during the Pre-pottery Neolithic period (ca. 9,900–8,900 years bp) and two short-term occupation phases during the pre-Halaf (Da’de IV) and early Bronze Age periods (Da’de V). Study of the exceptional debris in virgin soils and occupation deposits at Da’de has allowed to distinguish an intact debris assemblage that pulverized at the ground following an airburst (type 1 natural singular signal) with the ones that have been processed by humans (type 2 anthropic singular signal). Type 1 singular organo-mineral materials were found intact at the contact of the virgin soil with the earliest Pre-pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) occupation layers (Da’de phase 0, area [SB]), at the top part of the virgin soil with the PPNA occupation layers (Da’de phase Ia, area [B]) and just under the lower slabs of the EB III/IV burials (Da’de phase V, area [SB]). This has allowed to establish a strict contemporaneity between cosmic airbursts and remarkable historical events: initial settlement at phase 0, establishment of the magnificent communal building at phase 1, EBIII/IV cemetery after a long period of abandonment. Evidence for the collection of the singular materials (type 2) and meticulous processing of the related hydrocarbon fuel in occupation floors, earthen construction, coloring materials, and objects have been traced from the initial settlement (phase 0) through the successive cultural periods. This correlation has revealed a long-lasting transmission of the value of memorial natural resources which were only available from time to time in the surroundings. The close timing between changes in the use of the singular organo-mineral materials (preparation techniques, types of by-products) and cultural phases has enabled us to identify social discontinuities which correlate to distinctive geogenic events and search of the related exceptional resources. Based on the long-term record from Da’de, cosmic airbursts are suggested to be considered as a new class of dual-discontinuous signal of historical dimension, which have led to sudden (days to months) geogenic shifts in the availability of singular fuel resources and, simultaneously, to rapid cultural responses in their exploitation and use, depending on reactivity of local landscapes to the induced changes at short time scales (decades).