The Early Quakers,the Peace Testimony and Masculinity in England, 1660–1720

As Karen Harvey and Alexandra Shepard have asserted, most research into the history of masculinity has concentrated on dominant groups, while more work is needed on the range of codes of behaviour available to other men. Arguably, no aspect of seventeenth‐century Quaker behaviour ran more contrary to dominant norms than the insistence on pacifism and rejection of violence. This article considers Friends’ pacifism and its relation to masculinity, including its implications for local society, showing how it related to Quaker rejections of domestic violence and to the violent masculinity of the alehouse. However, non‐violent forms of control were used to uphold patriarchal norms and to control women and those whose behaviour was considered to be inappropriate. Developing the insights of the social scientist Kenneth Boulding and philosopher Steve Smith, this article explores how Quaker practices of exclusion and ostracism can be seen as highly effective forms of coercion, even if they did not involve physical force, and in doing so highlight how seventeenth‐ and twentieth‐century interpretations of pacifism differ. Quaker identity and discipline were maintained in strikingly effective ways which often mirrored patriarchal norms, and indeed Friends’ self‐perception is shown to have been highly controlled in order to maintain a collective reputation for sobriety, honesty and restraint.     

Standing Posts and Special Substances: Gathering and Ritual Deposition at Feltus (22Je500), Jefferson County,Mississippi

Because it immediately precedes the Mississippi period, Coles Creek (A.D. 700–1200) culture is often viewed through the lens of Mississippian social organization. In particular, early platform mound-and-plaza complexes have long been understood as elite compounds due to their physical similarities with later sites. However, evidence regarding the construction and use of the monumental landscape at the Feltus site (22JE500) in Jefferson County, MS, suggests that platform mound construction was but one aspect of a broader ritual sequence aimed at gathering the dispersed Coles Creek community. In addition to mound building, this sequence included the setting and removal of freestanding posts, ritual feasting, and burial of the dead and focused on explicit deposition of meaningful objects and substances. Archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic analyses of the objects and substances included in the ritual deposits at Feltus suggest that they helped forge relationships between an extended kin network, including non-human fictive kin and non-living human kin. In this context, we find a metaphor of gathering to be useful in understanding the archaeological remains of a ritual sequence focused on bringing together social, cosmological, and temporal domains. This provides a distinctly different take on the meaning and use of platform mounds based on a review of Native beliefs and practices that looks beyond the traditionally relied upon sources.     

Science in Dispute: Debating the Authority of Knowledge in an Environmental Contestation

This paper is an examination of science, as it is understood and contested between conservationists and developers in an application to construct a salt mine in Western Australia. If the salt mine were to go ahead, it would have become the largest salt mine in the world, adjacent to a World Heritage Area. Thus, the application triggered significant local interest in the potential environmental impacts on surrounding ecological systems. As the only means for the public to have an impact on decision‐making is through the environmental approvals process, much of the debate revolved around the validity and legitimacy of knowledge gained through ecological science. This paper focuses on the ways in which the conservationists and developers moulded and shaped scientific knowledge to fit their opposing beliefs, values, and aims. However, rather than focus on the overtly political manipulation of science, I examine why particular interpretations of science are considered legitimate by some participants in the dispute, while others are not. In particular, I ask, what does it take for particular scientific ‘facts' to be considered legitimate? To do so, I examine how the conservationists and developers came to conceptualise and frame science within the dispute. I argue that for members of either group to consider any scientific knowledge legitimate, it is first judged on its ability to resonate with their own worldviews, experiences, and aim.     

The Uncertain Origins of Mesoamerican Turkey Domestication

The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is the only domesticated vertebrate to originate from North America. Accurate reconstructions of the timing, location, and process of its domestication are thus critical for understanding the domestication process in the ancient Americas. A substantial amount of recent research has been devoted to understanding turkey domestication in the American Southwest, but comparatively little research has been conducted on the subject in Mesoamerica, despite the fact that all modern domestic turkeys descend from birds originally domesticated in Mexico during pre-colonial times. To address this disparity, we have conducted a review of the available literature on early turkeys in the archaeological record of Mesoamerica. We evaluate the evidence in terms of its accuracy and use this evaluation as a stepping off point for suggesting potential avenues of future research. Although the lack of available data from Mesoamerica currently precludes detailed cross-cultural comparisons, we briefly compare the origins and intensification of turkey rearing in Mesoamerica with the American Southwest to generate more dialogue among researchers independently studying the topic in these two distinct but interconnected cultural regions.     

Who goes to Russia? Understanding gendered migration patterns

Because of its relatively recent emergence as an international migrant destination, the Russian Federation provides an interesting context to examine when and how migrant flows “masculinize” or “feminize.” While recent migration to Russia appears to be male-dominated, the sex composition of registered migrant flows has varied substantially throughout the post-Soviet period, and there is significant variation in the sex composition of flows from different origin countries. I use multiple origin- and destination-based data-sets to identify gender differences in both the number and characteristics of migrants to Russia from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Vietnam. These data show that labor migration from Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and probably Georgia is male-dominated, with women coming as tied migrants, while men and women are equally likely to be labor migrants coming from Ukraine and Vietnam. In addition, high levels of human capital are an important motivating factor for women’s migration in the former Soviet Union. These findings highlight the importance of considering both origin and destination factors to understand the gender dynamics of migrant flows.     

Modeling Breastfeeding and Weaning Practices (BWP) on the Coast of Northern Chile's Atacama Desert During the Formative Period

Stable isotope analysis of bone collagen is frequently employed as a means of studying the breastfeeding and weaning practices (BWP) of archaeological populations. Such studies are strengthened greatly through the application of statistical models that permit precise and model-bound estimates of weaning age, duration, trophic enrichment, and the isotopic characterization of supplementary foods. Here we present the result of a stable isotope (δ¹⁵N) and Bayesian computational modeling study of bone collagen from human subadults from two coastal cemetery sites located near the mouth of the River Loa in the Atacama Desert. Recent bioarchaeological and paleodemographic research on remains from these marine hunter-gatherer sites, which are contemporary with the Formative Period (1500 BC–AD 400), has found evidence for notably elevated rates of female fertility. Ultimately, we argue that the modeled BWP parameters, which indicate the early introduction of supplementary foods, support an argument of high fertility as gleaned from the bioarchaeological evidence, and that these results provide novel insights into the child-rearing practices of the coastal populations of the Atacama. Indeed, these populations would have seemed to have developed a set of BWP that carefully balanced the biological and economic production/reproduction of the community.     

Provenance of Weeden Island “sacred” and “prestige” vessels: implications for specialized ritual craft production

ABSTRACT

Weeden Island mortuary ceremonialism united distinct cultures across the Late Woodland social landscape. The Weeden Island pottery series is central to recognizing regional ceremonial parity, with prestige (elite) and sacred (cult) wares showing strong similarities among distant sites. Finely made vessels and their ostensibly shamanistic themes led archaeologists to consider the liturgical and political roles of ritual specialists, whose tasks might have included vessel manufacture in centralized locations. This research evaluates the prospect of craft specialization and centralized production of sacred and prestige wares through comparisons of the provenance of vessels from three Florida localities: Palmetto Mound (8LV2), the mounds at Melton (8AL5, 8AL7), and McKeithen (8CO17). Results of Neutron Activation Analysis and petrographic analysis show that the majority of the sampled vessels were made far from the mounds in which they were deposited, from a variety of locations but especially within the area between Kolomoki and the Tallahassee Hills. We argue that production was not centralized but may have been specialized to the extent that an integrated ritual network was necessary to coordinate rules of manufacture and use that were evidently observed by all participants.