Obsidian types from Holocene sites around Lake Turkana,and other localities in northern Kenya

Obsidian has been widely used by early Holocene hunter-gatherers and succeeding Pastoral Neolithic peoples in northern Kenya. Here we report the results of over 2000 electron microprobe analyses of artifactual and non-artifactual obsidian from the greater Lake Turkana region. Of the 15 compositional types of obsidian observed, a preponderant type is widespread across the region from the Barrier in the south to Ileret in the north and east as far as Kargi. This obsidian is the principal type at Lowasera and most Pastoral Neolithic sites, including the Jarigole Pillar site and Dongodien (GaJi4). The source of this obsidian is not known, but based on its distribution the source may be located on the Barrier or in the Suguta Valley immediately to the south of Lake Turkana. Although there are several possible sources of local obsidian identified for minor types, in stark contrast to the central part of the Kenyan Rift, major sources of obsidian available for artifact manufacture are not known in the Lake Turkana region. The lack of obsidian from demonstrable Ethiopian Rift and central Kenyan Rift sources, and the absence of obsidian with compositions found at the Turkana area sites in assemblages in the central part of the Kenyan Rift suggests that the earlier Pastoral Neolithic peoples around Lake Turkana interacted with each other, but perhaps not as strongly with people farther south along the Rift Valley, even as herding practices were expanding to the southward into central Kenya.     

Yawning?

Since antiquity yawning has attracted a moderate interest among philosophers, psychologists, physiologists, as well as educators, moralists and physicians. Organisms from birds to men and from the womb to the deathbed were found to be displaying it. While sometimes satisfying to the producer, its display is offensive to the lay observer. Hippocrates had it on his lists of useful 'natures.' Aristotle dropped a few words on the matter. Boerhaave elevated its function to the intellect of animals. Haller has commented on its relation to the acoustic system, blood-flow, and baby sleep. Darwin mentioned it in connection with emotional behavior. Some modern authors praised its beneficial effects on respiration and smell. In the 1960s, Ashley Montagu tried to correct the contemporary failure to explain the behavior by the fact of raised CO2 and arterial compression. It also interested some neurologists, especially in its association with the encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s, with 'spasmodic yawning,' with epilepsy, not to speak of hysteria. As to boredom or its stimulus, a 40-page dissertation survives from the court of Frederick the Great of the 18th century condemning idleness, a subject that also inspired Blaise Pascal and William James. But in the Hindu world, public yawning was a religious offense.     

Policy options for full employment: Which way forward for Australia

This paper seeks to review the long‐term policy choices Australia faces if full employment is to be restored. Using cross‐national data for the period 1972–88, it identifies the variety of routes taken to mass unemployment and full employment It then discusses the diverse policy strategies underlying routes to full employment and examines the possibility and desirability of their adoption in Australia.     

The use and abuse of paradigms in the history of political thought

A paradigm is a methodological device which historians of political thought borrow from the history of science. The initial part of this article examines the views of three distinguished historians of political thought—Sheldon Wolin, Alan Ryan and John Pocock—who have borrowed paradigms. Wolin and Ryan are shown to have confused paradigms with weltanschauungen in such a way as to make the former less useful as methodological devices. Pocock, on the other hand, has been successful in his use of paradigms, though he does not sufficiently recognise their methodological limits. He also raises a conceptual problem. The latter part of this article examines the recent history of science in an attempt to clarify the use of paradigms and their limits.