Prospective study of the Atlantic regions

The present study is part of the European Community's Europe 2000 programme, which aims to provide prospective reflection on the future of Community territories. Its contents are in no way binding upon the European Community.     

The meaning of politics and the mechanics of meaning

Anthony Milner, The Invention of Politics in Colonial Malaya: Contesting Nationalism and the Expansion of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) pp.328 $75.00 ISBN 0 52145665 6.     

Book reviews

The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain. By FERNANDO CERVANTES. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Pp. x, 182.

An Evil Lost to View? An Investigation of Post‐Evangelisation Andean Religion in Mid‐Colonial Peru. By KENNETH MILLS. Liverpool: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool, Monograph Series No. 18, 1994. Pp. 147.

The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720. By R. DOUGLAS COPE. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994. Pp. xiii, 220.

Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico: From the Aztecs to Independence. By ENRIQUE FLORESCANO. Trans, by Albert G. Bork and Kathryn R. Bork. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Pp. ix, 282.

Fuentes manuscritas para la historia de Iberoamérica. Guía de instrumentos de investigación. Por SYLVIA L. HILTON e IGNACIO GONZALEZ CASASNOVAS. Madrid: Fundación Mapfre América‐Instituto Histórico Tavera, 1995. Pp. 617.

The Town of San Felipe and Colonial Cacao Economies. By EUGENIO PINERO. Philadelphia: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 84, 1994. Pp. 189.

Imperial Panama: Commerce and Conflict in Isthmian America 1550–1800. By CHRISTOPHER WARD. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993. Pp. xii, 272.     

EARLY BRONZE AGE TIN PROCESSING AT KESTEL/GÖLTEPE,ANATOLIA

Chemical analysis of statistically significant numbers of samples including minerals, sediments, soil, host rock as well as powdered materials, crucible accretions and metal artefacts revealed information about the distribution of cassiterite at Kestel and the tin smelting processes that took place at Göltepe c. 2600 BC. Using the ancient technique of vanning for the isolation of tin ore (cassiterite), followed by assaying by blowpipe/charcoal block, as well as crucible smelting with a blowpipe, good tin metal suitable for alloying with copper to make bronze was obtained. There is every indication that tin was mined and smelted in the Early Bronze Age at the Kestel/Göltepe sites.     

Iron age occupation in the Méma region,Mali

The recent archaeological campaign (regional site survey and excavations at the mound complex of Akumbu) has demonstrated that the Méma, a dry Sahelian region with a scattered population, was intensively occupied during the Iron Age. This intense occupation, certainly associated with better environmental conditions, extends back to the Late Stone Age. During the regional survey more than 100 Iron Age sites and nearly 30 Late Stone Age sites were identified; their size, surface material and features, and location on geomorphological zones were recorded. A series of radiocarbon dates spanning the fourth to fourteenth centuries ad obtained from the excavations at the Iron Age mound complex of Akumbu and a preliminary analysis of the pottery from both the excavations and the survey permitted the determination of a broad chronology of occupation. Numerous slag heaps (associated with smelting furnace remains) found during the survey and imported goods uncovered during the excavations at Akumbu indicate that both iron production and long-distance trade played an important role in the Méma economy.

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Résumé Une campagne archéologique (reconnaissance et fouilles) exécutée en 1989–1990 a montré que le Méma, une région sahelienne de grande sécheresse à population actuellement éparse, était intensément peuplé pendant la période de l'Age du Fer. Cette intense occupation, certainement liée à de meilleures conditions climatiques, semble remonter à la période du néolithique. Au cours de la reconnaissance, conduite à l'échelle régionale, plus d'une centaine de sites datant de l'Age du Fer et environ une trentaine de sites néolithiques furent identifiés, enregistrés et décrits en termes de leurs dimensions, matériels et caractéristiques de surface, et environnement. Une série de datations au radiocarbone, obtenue lors de la fouille sur le complexe de buttes d'habitat de Akumbu, dans la partie ouest du Méma, indique une occupation s'étendant du quatrième siècle au quatorzième siècle de notre ère. La découverte d'imposants amas de scories, associés à des restes de hauts fourneaux, et objets exotiques trouvés lors des fouilles à Akumbu, attestent que la production de fer et le commerce à longue distance jouaient tous les deux un important rôle dans l'économie du Méma.

     

Fiscal Federalism and Social Well–Being in Australia

Australia’s federal system is characterised by both vertical and horizontal financial imbalance. This is overcome by Commonwealth-state transfer payments. The nature of such transfers has changed over time as attempts have been made to redefine fiscal federalism. Currently, the budgetary position of the states, notions of co-operative federalism, and pleas for micro-economic reform are altering the nature of government activity as more and more is left to market forces. Patterns of social well-being are changing and increased inter-regional differences are evident. The current system of transfer payments can cope with this but detailed monitoring of social well-being is needed as is debate over the meaning of equity in the Australian federal system.     

LEAD ISOTOPE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CYPRUS COPPER ORE DEPOSITS APPLIED TO PROVENANCE STUDIES OF COPPER OXHIDE INGOTS

Nearly 200 new lead isotope analyses of sulphidic and oxidized ores from 26 copper mines on Cyprus show that the mines from different geological regions group in five distinctive isotopic groups, each with a substructure, related to the geological history of the ore formation. Comparison of lead isotope compositions of Bronze Age artefacts with these data can in many cases reveal the actual mines from which the copper for particular artefacts was obtained. The particular case of the provenance of the copper for 78 Late Bronze Age copper ‘oxhide ingots’found in Cyprus, Crete, Greece, Sardinia, Turkey and Bulgaria is discussed. The data show that all oxhide ingots so far analysed, dating to the fourteenth century BC and later, were made of copper consistent isotopically with only one mining region in the geographical north of Cyprus, and especially the Apliki mine. The study provides further evidence which supports the validity of the conventional approach to the use of lead isotope analysis for provenancing metals; this evidence is antithetical to recent suggestions of a model for the production of copper oxhide ingots which involved widespread mixing of copper from a number of ore sources throughout the Mediterranean.     

Envisioning Future Landscapes in the Environmentally Sensitive Areas of Scotland

Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) designated under EC Structure Regulation 797/85 now cover 1.4 million ha of the Scottish countryside and are likely to make a substantial contribution to the regulation of landscape change. Visual changes to landscapes with (policy on) and without (policy off) the ESA programme in two Scottish ESA areas, Breadalbane and the Machair, are predicted through impact-assessment procedures and computer manipulation of photographic images. The methodological requirements for such predictions are outlined and substantial differences in landscape characteristics under policy on/off scenarios are revealed. Such approaches to landscape change are an essential foundation for the development of environmental cost-benefit analyses and will contribute to public consultation processes.