Mixed occupation during the Middle Palaeolithic: Case study of a small pit-cave-site of Les Pêcheurs (Ardèche,south-eastern France)

The Pêcheurs cave is a unique example of a Middle Palaeolithic site with three kinds of accumulations: (1) ibex that died in a natural trap, (2) carnivores that died within the cavity, and, (3) a series of short-term occupations by humans who left a few artifacts and a hearth area. Biological patterns of ibex remains (skeletal parts, age) show a homogeneous structure, related to natural death inside the cave. The Chassezac valley is narrow and sinuous, bordered by steep cliffs occupied by well-adapted hoofed-species (Caprinae). Moreover, Les Pêcheurs is a shallow cave, pit-like, and in its deepest part (Sector 4) provided both man and animals with shelter. The presence of a fire place (in the middle of the sequence of Sector 4) firmly indicates the presence of an in situ occupation by a small group of hominids. According to the stratigraphical patterns and the analysis of the lithic assemblages, artifacts do not seem to have been introduced into sediments. The lithic assemblages (technically homogeneous) indicate that small mobile human groups inhabited a cave that offered, by virtue of its morphology, a natural shelter against the cold winds blowing in the Chassezac valley and the plateaus of the south-eastern borders of the Massif Central Mountains. The exploitation of biotopes such as this rocky area constitutes a specific case of human subsistence behavior and settlement strategy. The deepest layer is characterized by a lithic assemblage mostly made of local raw material (quartz) implying a low investment in lithic production. Few flakes made from non-local flints attest to the mobility of the human occupants who moved across these areas and perhaps found in the valleys, short-term refuge.     

‘Mr Bourne's dilemma’. Consumer culture,property speculation and department store demise: the rise and fall of Bourne and Hollingsworth on London's Oxford Street

This paper explores the twentieth-century rise and fall of the traditional department store Bourne and Hollingsworth in London's Oxford Street as a means of re-examining the historical geographies of metropolitan consumption cultures. The research moves away from a preoccupation with urban retail's novelty and spectacle towards a consideration of the more conventional and conservative kinds of consumption that have been a vital part of the retail ecology of many major cities in the twentieth century. The paper analyses the intersections of different dimensions of the history of metropolitan consumption: with a culturalist focus on consumer identity and urban microgrographies; but also an examination of this as a family-owned, paternalistic business, and as a material space, both as a building designed and refurbished by its owners, management, architects and shopfitters, and as a particular site within the routes and flows of the West End. The final approach to Bourne and Hollingsworth as urban property, as a distinctive form of capital asset in the city, allows a new understanding of the vulnerability of this kind of retailing by the later twentieth century. The study shows that an emphasis on the significance of cultures of consumption provides at best a partial explanation for changes in the landscapes of consumption: it is argued that cities are the sites of complex intersections between cultural practices and other kinds of geography, in this case those of asset values and opportunities for property speculation.     

The Softwood Lumber Dispute and US Allegations of Improper NAFTA Panel Review

The dispute over Canadian exports of softwood lumber products to the United States (US) has lasted since 1982 and, so far, has gone through four episodes of litigation. In Lumber IV, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) determined that the US softwood lumber industry was threatened with material injury by reason of dumped and subsidized lumber from Canada. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a binational panel concluded, however, that there was no such evidence and directed the ITC to reverse its finding. In its resort to the Extraordinary Challenge Procedure, the US alleged that the injury panel had misapplied the US standard of review. In fact, allegations of improper NAFTA panel review were used by the US in order to justify its non-compliance with adverse binding decisions.     

A comparison of two norms in archaeological seriation

Two norms frequently used in archaeological seriation are compared. Although these norms are equivalent in some particular cases, this is not true in general both from a computational point of view and in the archaeological sense.