A juvenile human frontal bone from the French Upper Palaeolithic site of Lacave: significance and problems of interpretation

In 1902, a portion of a juvenile human frontal bone was excavated by Armand Viré from the cave of Lacave in the Dordogne valley of southwestern France. The specimen is clearly from an Upper Palaeolithic context, although problems in interpreting the stratigraphy and postdepositional history in the cave render it essentially impossible to determine whether it is from a Magdalenian or Solutrean context. The morphology of the specimen is modern, as would be expected considering its relatively late Upper Palaeolithic context. Examination of aspects of brow ridge and frontal sinus development, as well as metopic suture obliteration, allows estimation of a developmental age of approximately 7–8 years for the specimen. Sex is indeterminate, and there is no pathology present. Apart from serving as an example of the problems of interpreting fragmentary skeletal remains from early 20th century excavations, the Lacave frontal represents one of the relatively few subadult cranial specimens known from the European Upper Palaeolithic. As such it is a valuable addition to the fossil record of early modern humans from Europe. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Limits of Misperception: ReexaminingIranian-U.S. Relations

Book reviewed in this article:
James Goode, The United States and Iran: In the Shadow of Musaddiq     

The Aboriginal Adjustment Movement in Colonial Victoria

Whilst much has been written about Aboriginal religious syncretism in Australia, particularly about what has become known as the “Adjustment Movement” that occurred in Arnhem Land in the 1950s (see McIntosh 2004), there were several remarkable examples of spiritual adjustment by Aboriginal people a century earlier on the Victorian goldfields that hitherto have not been explored by historians. Building on Magowan's (2003) discussion of the connection between Christianity and the ancestral law of Aboriginal culture in northern Australia, this article will examine how Christian influences in colonial Victoria competed with, and conversely moulded, southern Kulin ancestral understanding. Several Kulin ceremonies — including the Myndee ceremony and the “Veinie Sacred Sunday Dance” — will be examined. These ceremonies were described by colonial officials (Joseph Panton, a Gold Commissioner, and William Thomas, the Aboriginal Guardian of Aborigines in Victoria) in the midst of a second wave of invasion and rupture for Victorian Aboriginal people — the first being the sheep herders in the 1830s, and the second being the gold rush which commenced in 1851. Serving as exemplars of what might be called the Victorian Aboriginal Adjustment Movement, these ceremonies demonstrate the extent to which Aboriginal people on the goldfields of Victoria engaged in a culturally congruent mode of Christianity.