Coloured Prints of the 16th Century: Non‐Destructive Analyses on Coloured Engravings from Albrecht DÜrer and Contemporary Artists

Qualitative investigations of pigments and dyes using micro X‐ray fluorescence spectrometry (micro‐XRF) and visible spectrophotometry (VIS) are suitable non‐destructive methods for the characterization of different colorants in art objects. In this study, several rare coloured engravings from the work of Albrecht Dürer—and, in addition, from the work of Cornelis Cort, Servatius Raeven and Johannes Sadeler—were investigated. The analyses result in specific palettes of colours that were used by different artists or in different workshops for the coloration of engraved images. Starting from these different palettes, it is possible to distinguish coeval colorations that were added in the 16th century from those that were carried out at a later date (e.g., the 19th century).     

New Aspects of the Magdalenian in Central Europe

G. Bosinski and G. Fischer. Die Menschendarstellungen von Gönnersdorf der Ausgrabung von 1968. Gönnersdorf, Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: 1974. 131 pp.

B. Bosinski and J. Hahn. Der Magdalénienfundplatz Andernach (Martinsberg). Rheinische Ausgrabungen, Vol. 11, pp. 81–257. 1972.

R. Feustel, ed. Die Kniegrotte. Eine Magdalénien‐Station in Thüringen. Veröffentlichungen des Museums für Ur‐und Frühgeschichte. Thüringens, Vol. 5. Weimar. 1974. 213 pp. 74 DM.

H. Hanitzsch. Groitzsch bei Eilenburg. Schlag‐ und Siedlungsplätze der späten Altsteinzeit. Veröffentlichungen des Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte Dresden. Vol. 12. Berlin: 1972. 123 pp. 40 DM.

P. F. Mauser. Die jungpaläolithische Höhlenstation Petersfels im Hegau (Germarkung Bittelbrunn, Ldkrs. Konstanz). Badische Fundberichte, Sonderheft 13, Freiburg: 1970. 127 pp.

F. Poplin. Les grands vertébrés de Gönnersdorf, fouilles 1968. Gönnersdorf, Vol. 2. Wiesbaden: 1976. 212 pp.

D. A. Sturdee. “Some Reindeer Economies in Prehistoric Europe.” In: E. S. Higgs, ed. Palaeoeconomy, pp. 55–95. Cambridge: 1975.     

The Potential Impact of Disability Studies on Political Science (as well as vice-versa)

The conjunction of two seemingly disparate fields of research such as disability studies and political science creates the potential of yielding results that are either familiar or unexpected. On the one hand, it is probable that the merger of these subjects might contribute insights that could expand the scope of investigations about disability and add one more important element to policy analysis. On the other hand, it is also possible that the reciprocal impact of these areas of research could expose significant anomalies in the dominant paradigms of either or both fields that might have a lasting effect. The first portion of this paper examines the impact of political science on disability studies; the second part assesses the potential effect of disability studies on political science; and the final segment explores the prospects for a new paradigm in political science that would permit an increased analysis of social movements and political identity, theories of social change, the phenomenon of paternalism, and the implications of differences in physical appearance.     

Spinning through the History of Technology: A Methodological Note

This paper uses the mechanisation of spinning as a case study to explain the approaches and methods employed by historians of technology, who have for too long left the Industrial Revolution to scholars in other sub-disciplines. As a result of this neglect, scholarship on the topic has seen the innovations in textile production of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as the product of exceptional individuals or, more vaguely, as necessity causing invention. Instead, historians of technology study the complex causal relationship between social and technological change, including economic and trade incentives as well as contingency in the adoption of new methods and machines. This paper explains current approaches in the history of technology, including internalist and externalist analysis, technological determinism and social construction, systems theory and actor-network theory, and explains them in the concrete terms of the case.