The boat found at Kingsteignton, Devon, in 1898

The remains of a 19th-century find of a medieval clinker-built vessel have been subject to modem examination and radiocarbon and dendrochronological dates obtained.     

Commuting Distances and Gender: A Spatial Urban Model

In any urban center the commuting distances are a function of the spatial structure of the center and of the characteristics of the commuters. In this paper theoretical relationships between commuting distances and distances of residences to city centers are derived for monocentric and polycentric cities. These relationships are then linked to the sociological determinants of commuting distances. An econometric model encompassing both spatial structure variables and social variables is constructed and estimated using data for sixteen urban centers. Gender differences are focused upon. The expansion method is used.     

The Witches' Flying and the Spanish Inquisitors,or How to Explain (Away) the Impossible [1]

The first part of this paper presents four old Spanish explanations of the witches' flying: (1) that (with the Devil's help) they actually did fly; (2) that the experience of flying was the result of narcotic stimulation; (3) that their flying was pure imagination—methodologically demonstrated in the investigations of the Spanish inquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frías; and (4) that they fly by means of the soul. The latter, although strongly rejected by the Church, remained the most popular opinion. The second part discusses the flying of the Sicilian donni di fori [“women from outside”] of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These were cunning women who served as mediators between the local community and the fairy world. On their nightly excursions “in spirit” they would enter the houses with the fairies, who bestowed their blessing on the homes. Or they would join the fairies in a sort of “white sabbath” where everything was reflective of beauty and delight. In the last part, the author describes his encounter with a contemporary Sicilian “night-goer” who claimed to be able to travel “in spirit.” In the concluding discussion, the author asserts that none of the rationalistic approaches used so far leads to a full understanding of the phenomenon. In his reconstruction of the Sicilian fairy cult, the author leaves open the possibility of out-of-the-body experiences and collective dreaming (rêve a deux) being potential explanations for the phenomenon.     

Anthropologist and “Native” in Early Twentieth Century New Guinea: Malinowski and Thurnwald

Malinowski, an anglicized Pole and Thurnwald, a German, were in their different ways pioneers of anthropological fieldwork. Both men kept diaries in which they candidly recorded their experiences, Thurnwald’s remaining unpublished. These diaries, unlike retrospective and sanitized accounts, reveal their attitudes and behaviours towards two main categories of “natives”: the “boys” they employed, and the “savages” who were the object of their research. Comparison of the diary contents show some striking contrasts, attributable to differences in their field situations and also their personality characteristics. In particular, Thurnwald maintained a far greater social distance than Malinowski. Yet both men displayed the then taken‐for‐granted sense of unquestioned European superiority, and retained elements of that stance to the end of their careers.     

Making a home in Mostar: heritage and the temporalities of belonging

This paper addresses the feeling of being at home in time and in place through fieldwork carried out in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2015–2016. Such feelings are needed after a war resulting in geographical displacement as occurred during the breakup of Yugoslavia. This paper argues for the need to see beyond only spatial factors for the ‘making of home’, and therefore considers temporal factors through the role of the heritage in forming narratives, which combine temporal and spatial relations. Alternative narratives to those of ethnic separation are taken into consideration, and it is argued that a sole focus on division may further enforce it rather than lead to its reduction. A sense of disassociation to the current city of Mostar and its narratives has led to the construction of narratives of home within a different time-period (pre-war Mostar). In turn, this may cause nostalgia, passivity, and an ‘othering’ of the newcomers to Mostar. However, there are also cases of employing such a narrative actively in order to envision an alternative future beyond ethnic separation. So far, the institutions working with the heritage of Mostar have not addressed these issues, thus possible ways forward are suggested.     

Microscopic age determination of human skeletons including an unknown but calculable variable

Histomorphometric semi-automatic image analysis of cross-sections of 101 femoral diaphyseal bone sections were performed to reconsider to what degree osteon remodelling in the outer cortex is affected by age. The data were analysed statistically using the generalized least squares method. The model estimation, which includes the covariance matrix of four single equation residuals, improves the accuracy of age determination. The standard deviation, however, of age prediction remains 12.58 years. An experimental split of the data was made in order to demonstrate that the use of subgroups gives a false impression of higher precision of age determination. The present study demonstrates that determination of age at death through microscopic bone morphometry is considerably less precise than generally stated in the literature.