Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic adaptations in Cantabrian Spain and Pyrenean France

The period of deglaciation from ca. 13,000 to ca. 9000 B.P. along the northern edge of the Cantabrian Cordillera and Pyrenees was characterized by marked climatic and environmental oscillations, culminating in the establishment of interglacial conditions. While along the Cantabrian coast, late Upper Paleolithic groups had long been developing diversified systems of adaptation, fully exploiting the wide range of food resources of that narrow but ecologically varied region (notably red deer and marine mollusks), Magdalenian hunters along the southern edge of the Aquitaine basin were becoming increasingly specialized in the hunting of one medium-size game species, reindeer. Thus, while the artifact industries and artistic traditions of the two adjacent regions along the forty-third parallel developed along similar lines in the Magdalenian and Azilian, and despite a common montane specialization in ibex hunting, the changes that came with the end of the Last Glacial affected the human groups of the two regions very differently, as reflected in the early Mesolithic records of Vasco-Cantabria and Gascony, respectively.     

UNEMPLOYMENT AND MENTAL HEALTH IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN SERVICE POLICY*

The psychiatric impact of involuntary job loss is evaluated in this paper in light of the attitude among some policy makers that contemporary unemployment is associated with minimal personal costs. Research bearing directly and indirectly on the mental health consequences of job loss is reviewed. Preliminary findings from an ongoing study of family and personal impacts of job loss in which this writer is engaged are also presented. The collective evidence of at least selective psychiatric effects of unemployment is then examined for its implications for human service policy especially in relation to the primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of mental illness.     

The Ambiguities of Christian Sexual Discourse in Post‐War Britain: The British Council of Churches and Its Early Moral Welfare Work

This article extends and develops recent historical discussion on the relationship between British Christianity, sexuality, and modernity, proposing some ways forward for future scholarship. Recent accounts have concentrated on liberal Anglican positions on issues of sexuality, but here the focus is on the British Council of Churches, its early moral welfare work, and interdenominational efforts to reconsider Christian sex teaching in the immediate post‐war years. While examining broader trends towards positive statements about sex and attempts to assemble self‐regulating sexual citizens in Christian moral welfare thinking, the article suggests that, far from a narrative of relatively untroubled and gradual acceptance of progressive Christian views on sex, this was a halting and uncertain process. The article reflects closely on the complexities of post‐war Christian attempts to work with new ideas about sexuality and to formulate their own version of them, the difficulties and ambiguities involved in developing a cogent position in a debate where Christian opinion was so fiercely divided, as well as the complicated nature of institutional decision‐making. As a case study, the British Council of Churches reflects earlier, problematic attempts to alter Christian sex teaching, as well as the unfolding of later difficulties for the British churches.     

Gazelle bone marrow yields and Epipalaeolithic carcass exploitation strategies in the southern Levant

We measure the bone marrow yields of mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella) carcasses to reconstruct gazelle exploitation strategies during the Epipalaeolithic periods in the southern Levant. We present experimentally derived data on the bone marrow content of seven fresh gazelle carcasses, determine the range of marrow yields among individuals of different sexes and seasons of death, and compare the new data to gazelle skeletal element abundances from five Epipalaeolithic assemblages from Israel. We found extensive variation in marrow fat content among individual gazelles. Animals with the highest marrow yields were killed in the spring while animals killed in the early autumn had lower fat contents. Nevertheless, our results suggest that gazelle marrow provided a reliable, albeit small fat resource for prehistoric foragers in all seasons. Strong relationships between bone fragmentation and marrow content demonstrate that Epipalaeolithic people preferentially processed bones with high marrow yields.     

Measuring Spatial Dispersion: An Experimental Test on the M-Index

Despite representing a very accurate method for assessing spatial distribution, Marcon and Puech's M has been insufficiently exploited so far, most likely because its computation relies on pairing every point of interest (i.e., firms, plants) with every other point within the area under analysis. Such a figure rapidly grows to unmanageable levels when said area is larger than a neighborhood or when every industry is taken into account. Consequently, practical applications of M have been exclusively experimental and circumscribed to very limited areas or to a handful of industries. This seems much regrettable since M provides many advantages compared to conventional measures of spatial distribution and also to alternative distance measures. In this article, we assess the reliability of using small administrative units instead of exact postal addresses for the localization of plants, in order to reduce M's computational burden. Working with a dataset that provides the location, the specific industry and the number of employees for every single plant/establishment in Italy for both manufacturing and services, we can also draw a preliminary but certainly interesting picture of Sardinia's economic geography and its development through the Great Recession toughest years between 2007 and 2012.     

Infant taphonomy

In almost all living creatures, in Primates as well as in seventeenth–eighteenth century human populations, a high infant mortality is the rule; therefore, the scarcity of children's bones in cemeteries is suspicious from a demographic point of view. Though possible in some cases, sociological causes appear less important than the peculiar behaviour of infants' bones in the tomb. This paper examines the physico-chemical properties of infants' bones and their consequences for the preservation of archaeological samples; it proposes a new way of approaching distributions at death in the past. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd