Manuring and stable nitrogen isotope ratios in cereals and pulses: towards a new archaeobotanical approach to the inference of land use and dietary practices

This paper explores the impact of animal manure application on the δ¹⁵N values of a broad range of crops (cereals and pulses), under a range of manuring levels/regimes and at a series of locations extending from northwest Europe to the eastern Mediterranean. We included both agricultural field experiments and areas where ‘traditional’ farming is practised. Our aim is to ground-truth interpretation of δ¹⁵N values in archaeobotanical crop remains as evidence of past growing conditions and husbandry practices. The results confirm the potentially radical impact of manuring on δ¹⁵N values in cereals, depending on manuring level, but indicate only a slight effect on pulses, which can fix atmospheric nitrogen. The expected geographical trend towards greater δ¹⁵N with increasing climatic aridity is not apparent, probably because the growing conditions for crops are ‘buffered’ through crop management. Each of these observations has fundamental implications for archaeobotanical interpretation of δ¹⁵N values as evidence of land use practices and (together with analysis of bone collagen/tooth enamel in potential consumers) palaeodiet.     

Who Counts? Dilemmas of Justice in a Postwestphalian World

Abstract: Who counts as a subject of justice? Not so long ago, it was widely assumed that those “who counted” were simply the citizens of a bounded territorial state. Today, however, as activists target injustices that cut across borders, that “Westphalian” view is contested and the “who” of justice is an object of hot dispute. This new situation calls for a new kind of justice theorizing, whose contours I sketch in this essay. Arguing, first, for a reflexive mode of theorizing, I introduce the concept of “misframing”, which can subject the Westphalian “who” to critical scrutiny. Arguing, second, for the necessity of a substantive normative principle to evaluate competing “who’s”, I introduce the “all‐subjected principle” as superior to three better known alternatives: namely, membership, humanism, and the all‐affected principle.     

Cartographic ideals and geopolitical realities: international maps of the world from the 1890s to the present

This paper charts the attempts to construct an international map of the world using a standard projection and common conventions and symbols. The first part of the paper discusses the original incarnation of this idea, the International (1:1 Million) Map of the World (IMW), initially proposed by the German geographer Albrecht Penck in the early 1890s. The IMW was designed to challenge the idea that cartography was an inherently national science undertaken by, and for, specific nation states. Despite endless negotiations, delays and compromises, two world wars and the withdrawal of American support, the IMW project continued through the early and middle decades of the twentieth century, initially at the British Ordnance Survey and subsequently at the United Nations, only to fizzle out in the 1970s. The second part of the paper examines the Global Mapping Project (GMP), the latest manifestation of the same idea. Global Map, the first version of which was released in 2000, is an attempt to construct a single world map for the digital age. Like the IMW before it, Global Map is designed to facilitate a common, trans-national understanding of global problems. However, the technical, institutional and application challenges facing the GMP are different from those that confronted the IMW. Whereas the primary purpose of the IMW was never consistently defined, Global Map has a clearer environmental and educational objective. But if Global Map is to become an effective tool for sustainable environmental management and development, its advocates will need to learn the lessons of the IMW's failure and secure renewed international commitment to the value of international mapping.     

Labour Migration,Capitalist Accumulation,and Feudal Reproduction: A Historical Analysis from the Eastern Gangetic Plains

This paper engages with the long‐running debate on the transition from farm‐based livelihoods to capitalism in the context of labour migration. Tracing the historic evolution of modes of production in the peripheral Mithilanchal region of the Eastern Gangetic Plains, it notes how the economic processes which are today driving the peasantry into the labour force through migration are not directly connected to the process of capitalist accumulation in the diverse locales where labour is employed, as is somtimes implied in the research on classic situations of “accumulation by dispossession”. The entry of the peasantry into the surplus labour pool is instead linked firstly, with a complex convergence of internal changes within a non‐capitalist feudal mode of production on an economic, cultural and political level, and secondly, with the stresses brought about in the wake of expanding capitalist markets. The paper notes however that migrant labour still generates substantial profits for capitalism with a sharing of surplus between the latter, and landlord‐money lenders. It argues that the relationship between modes of production in this context, is neither functional nor coincidental, and is linked instead with larger – at times opportunistic – class alliances which have evolved to fit the current political‐economic conjuncture.     

The politics of being Norman in the reign of Richard the Fearless,Duke of Normandy (r. 942–996)

In 966, by the end of the reign of its third duke, Richard I, Normandy had overcome the crises that had beset it in the middle of the century. Much of this success came from the coherence of its ruling group, which expressed itself partly in terms of ‘Norman’ identity. This article uses Dudo's history of the dukes and Richard's charters to argue that ‘Norman’ as a political identity was a deliberate creation of the court of Richard I in the 960s, following the perceived failure of his and his father's policies of assimilation into Frankish culture.     

Organic geochemical analysis of archaeological medicine pots from Northern Ghana. The multi-functionality of pottery

Sherds from pots found layered under a granite boulder in the Tong Hills of the Upper East Region of Northern Ghana seem, based on their deposition context to have been used for the preparation of medicines. Organic geochemical and isotopic analyses of these sherds and a modern day analogue reveal an n-alkanoic acid composition that is consistent with their being used in the preparation of plant derived substances. Isotopic analyses of the modern medicine pot indicate a contribution of n-alkanoic acids derived from plants that use C₄ carbon fixation, most likely maize, sorghum and/or millet suggesting that this pot was used for cooking C₄ based plant substances, perhaps, based on current analogy, staple porridge type food. The modern medicine pot could thus have had a prior use. The absence of C₄ plant residues in the archaeological sherds suggests that either staple foodstuffs differed radically to today, or, more likely, were not prepared in vessels that were to be used for medicinal purposes.     

Eocene palynology of the Mulga Rocks deposits,southern Gunbarrel Basin,Western Australia

Mack, C.L. & Milne, L.A., 19.2.2015. Eocene palynology of the Mulga Rocks deposits, southern Gunbarrel Basin, Western Australia. Alcheringa 39, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518

Late Eocene palynomorph assemblages have been recovered from carbonaceous sediments within a tenement centred on the Mulga Rocks uranium deposits, currently under exploration by Energy and Minerals Australia. The Mulga Rocks deposits occur in a palaeovalley incised into rocks of the Cretaceous southern Gunbarrel Basin, and the underlying Neoproterozoic to Late Devonian southern Officer Basin, Western Australia. The palynomorph assemblages recovered from the Mulga Rocks deposits most closely resemble the Middle Nothofagidites asperus Zone equivalent of the Murray Basin. Many of the species recovered, and the abundance and diversity at which they are present, are considerably different from most of the southeastern Australian palynoassemblages of similar age. Common in the assemblages are species belonging to Nothofagus, Casuarinaceae, Myrtaceae and Picrodendraceae. Proteaceous species are diverse, with Banksia affiliates being prominent. Of most significance are assemblages dominated by Myrtaceidites species, which also contain affiliates of Petrophile and Xylomelum that occur in modern heathland, woodland and dry sclerophyll forests. The prominence of these taxa, and their co-occurrence, suggests that sclerophylly, at present linked closely with xeromorphy and now ubiquitous in the vegetation of Western Australia, was present in the late Eocene of southern Australia and suggests that at that time this trait may have been more prevalent than previously interpreted.

Charlotte Mack [charlotte.mack@postgrad.curtin.edu.au] and Lynne Milne [l.milne@curtin.edu.au], Department of Applied Geology, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA 6845, Australia. Received 4.7.2014; revised 11.2.2015; accepted 19.2.2015.