The Role of Eastern Siberia in Solving Some of the Economic Problems of the Pacific Basin

The abundance of resources in the Soviet Far East and Eastern Siberia, combined with the known scarcity of fuel and energy supplies and certain raw materials in the countries of the Pacific basin, suggests that the resources of the eastern regions of the Soviet Union, could, if properly developed, find a wide market in countries bordering on the Pacific Ocean.     

The Basic Tendencies of Development of the Industrial Complex of the Volga Region

A review of the principal problems of economic development of the Volga region, with special emphasis on the oil, gas, chemical, and power-generating industries.     

Basic Principles of Economic Evaluation of Agricultural Lands

The land-evaluation indicator, in points, should be based on the ratio of gross output to costs on specific soils, or the economic fertility of soils. The derivation of the indicator is illustrated with particular reference to collective farms in Vinnitsa Oblast in the Ukraine.     

The Development of new Areas and Economic Complexes in the West Siberian Plain

An economic-geographic model of the development of the new resource areas of the West Siberian plain envisages a hierachy of support bases providing equipment, food, and manpower for the areas. Effective economic development requires that much of the investment in the first phase of development be channeled into auxiliary activities and service facilities to provide the infrastructure of the new oil and gas complexes. Only in the second stage should most of the investment be directed into facilities for basic oil and gas production.     

A Territorial Model of Productive Forces

The author formulates conditions required for a territorial model of productive forces that is constructed out of regional units rather than the sectoral units of the national economy. The regional units themselves are delimited in the process of optimization of the regional structure of the national economy. The over-all model is constructed out of a system of four preliminary models. They are: a territorial model of a single-product industry, a model of transport flows, a model of a regional unit and a model of the division of labor among regional units. The author examines interactions between the models and the criteria of optimality of each of the four models as well as other formally stated assumptions.     

PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL NONFARM PLACES IN THE USSR

According to the 1970 census, the Soviet Union had 37,800 rural nonfarm places with a combined population of 6.1 million, or 5.8 percent of the rural population. The census data are believed to understate the number and population of nonfarm places because they assigned rural places to the nonfarm category purely on the basis of their generic designation. Many multifunctional nonfarm places and rural places that serve as administrative centers and have little relation to agriculture were not categorized as nonfarm in the census. Although many of the smaller nonfarm places are likely to be eliminated over time, others will continue to perform clearly defined functions in industry, construction, transportation, and services. The situation is illustrated with particular reference to Novosibirsk Oblast.     

Carnivores and their prey in the Wezmeh Cave (Kermanshah,Iran): a Late Pleistocene refuge in the Zagros

Wezmeh Cave is located on the northeastern edge of the Islamabad plain, a high intermontane valley in the western‐central Zagros. In 1999 a disturbed but large faunal assemblage was recovered from this site. The abundant and extremely diverse faunal spectra present at Wezmeh Cave has highlighted the importance of this assemblage. Carnivore remains constitute the bulk of the assemblage; red fox (Vulpes vulpes) has the highest number of identified specimens followed by spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), brown bear (Ursus arctos), wolf (Canis lupus), felids (lion, leopard, lynx/caracal and wildcat), mustelids (badger, polecat, marten) and viverrids (mongoose). Artiodactyls (bovid, cervid, suid), equids, rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sp.) and small animals (Cape hare, porcupine, tortoise, snake, birds) are also present. According to U‐series dating, the site was occupied from around 70 ka BP through to sub‐recent periods by carnivores. Amongst this rich assemblage, a human fossil tooth was also found and dated by non‐invasive spectrometry gamma dating to 20–25 ka BP. A preliminary zooarchaeological and taphonomic study shows that Wezmeh Cave was used by multiple carnivore species, a unique phenomenon in the Zagros Mountains in particular and southwest Asia in general. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The production technology of Iznik pottery—a reassessment*

Previous research has established that Iznik pottery differs from other Islamic stonepaste pottery in that its stonepaste bodies contain lead oxide as well as soda and lime, and that a significant proportion of the tin oxide in its glaze is present in solution rather than as tin oxide particles. In order to better understand these distinguishing features, the chemical compositions and microstructures of Iznik pottery and tile samples, together with those of lumps of glass found in association, were investigated using both scanning electron and optical microscopy. These data have been supplemented by the study of replicate lead–alkali glazes produced in the laboratory with a range of different compositions. The results demonstrate that separate soda–lime and high‐lead glasses were used in the production of Iznik stonepaste bodies, and that the total glass contents of the bodies were significantly higher than those quoted by Abū’l‐Qāsim, who was writing in about ad 1300. The very high purity of the lead–soda Iznik glazes indicated that the alkali flux used was either a purified plant ash or an as yet unidentified mineral source of soda. Replication experiments established that the high solubility of tin oxide in the glaze was due to the high purity of the glaze constituents. Furthermore, it is suggested that tin oxide was added to the glaze in order to give it a very slight opacity and thus obscure any blemishes in the underlying body.     

ARCHAEOMETRIC STUDY OF PROTOHISTORIC GRINDING TOOLS OF VOLCANIC ROCKS FOUND IN THE KARST (ITALY–SLOVENIA) AND ISTRIA (CROATIA)*

This paper presents the results of the archaeometric study of 30 grinding tools found in the Karst plateau (an area that spreads from the northeastern border of Italy to Slovenia) and in the Istria peninsula (Croatia). The petrographic and geochemical characteristics of the artefacts indicate that most of them would be made of trachytic volcanites extracted from the Euganean Hills, near Padua (Veneto). It is known that trachytic rocks from this area had been widely exploited in northern Italy during protohistoric times, but these data considerably enlarge the area of diffusion of saddle‐querns made of these rocks, extending it to Istria. Additionally, the likely provenance from Mount Etna of few other pieces of mugearites and hawaiites represents a new element, to be fully evaluated in the context of trans‐Adriatic exchange/trade connections. Analytical data and possible archaeological inferences are presented in detail in the text.