The earliest cylinder seal in the Arabian Peninsula

A cylinder seal of Late Uruk (late fourth millennium BC) type from Abu Dhabi is presented and analysed. Comparisons with excavated finds from elsewhere in the Near East are discussed. An inventory of cylinder seals from sites in the UAE and the Sultanate of Oman shows that cylinder seal use, while not unknown in the region, was never very great. The ways in which the seal may have arrived at its eventual place of discovery are described and the significance of the seal is assessed.     

Tell el-‘Ajjul palaces I and II: Context and function

ABSTRACT

Traditional views on Middle Bronze Age (MBA) palatial function have been challenged by recent work at Tel Kabri, where the excavators have argued against the common identification of southern Levantine palaces as redistributive centres staffed with literate administrators. These innovative ideas surrounding palace function were first developed by Flinders Petrie during excavations at Tell el-‘Ajjul in 1931–32. Here he uncovered a series of elaborately constructed elite residences that he identified as ‘palaces’. However, when reconsidering Petrie's finds, the results from Ajjul are largely supportive of the Kabri observations. A lack of evidence for key functional attributes of palaces—large-scale storage, administrative paraphernalia and redistributive function - is comparable to that reported at Kabri. A short consideration of similar MBA ‘palaces’ elsewhere in the southern Levant is supportive of the aforementioned trend, and therefore calls into question the traditionally held views on the function of these elaborate architectural complexes. Either the function generally attributed to these structures is incorrect, or administration and rulership in MBA Canaan leaves no unambiguous residues in the archaeological record.     

The Red Cross and the Establishment of Maternal and Infant Welfare in the 1930s Gold Coast

In 1932 the Gold Coast Branch of the British Red Cross Society was inaugurated in Accra. Its central, stated purpose was to maintain and expand health and welfare services for women and children. This article examines closely the work of the Red Cross as it set up and ran clinics, fundraising campaigns and building programmes in the Gold Coast. It asks how a humanitarian organisation became so integrated into services for mothers and infants in the course of the 1930s. In so doing, it contributes to a burgeoning area of historiography that looks at humanitarianism as a key component of Empire. During the 1930s, as the British Empire became subject to oversight by new international networks that the League of Nations sat at the heart of. In this context, the colonial government was under pressure to provide welfare for African subjects, particularly mothers and babies. This article argues that state, mission and eventually humanitarian organisation – the Red Cross – were interdependent in providing these services. The Red Cross became politicised as it shored up the colonial state’s health infrastructure, intervening as a solution to dilemmas over who was responsible for maternal and infant health.     

#WeAreBeneficiaries: Contesting Poverty Stigma Through Social Media

Showcasing stories of welfare beneficiaries in their own words, a recent Aotearoa (New Zealand)-based campaign called “We Are Beneficiaries” used social media to create a space of contestation to the widespread stigmatisation of poverty. While existing literature strongly emphasises the role played by traditional media in constructing and reinforcing stigma, and has more recently begun to explore resistance and contestation, relatively few accounts address efforts, like the We Are Beneficiaries campaign, that seek to destigmatise poverty stigma via social media. Accordingly, this paper argues that social media can serve as a counterpublic space for the destigmatisation of poverty. By discussing how the We Are Beneficiaries campaign refuted stigmatising narratives, critiqued institutions and sought to build solidarity among and with welfare beneficiaries, the paper draws attention to the potential of social media in the development of counterdiscourses as well as new political identities and claims-making.     

A Woman's Place in the Crab Processing Industry of Eastern Carolina

Traditionally, most of the pickers used in the crab processing industry of rural Eastern Carolina have been women from the local area, both black and white, while the managerial staff has comprised white women related through kinship to the white, male crab house owners. In recent years, however, this recruitment strategy has changed. Following the lead of the regional poultry industry, the crab houses are now bringing in Mexican workers under the H2-B visa program. Unlike many of the Mexican migrant workers coming into the USA, the crab labor force is made up of women, about half of whom are married with children. This article provides a case study of the ensuing dual labor structure within the crab processing industry. Utilizing in-depth interviews with the employers and employees of the Luther Lewis and Son crab house, the authors ask: What are the contours of inclusiveness and exclusiveness within and without the crab house?     

Foreclosure Risk and Community Health: Does Social Capital Have a Protective Effect?

This study draws upon the social determinants of health framework to model and test the extent to which a community’s social capital is health protective in the face of a substantial economic shock, namely the recent foreclosure crisis. U.S. county–level data are used to analyze potential moderating effects of social capital on health given a community’s foreclosure risk. We rely upon established social capital measures for U.S counties and merge them with county level foreclosure risk scores constructed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). While theorists suggest that social capital’s effect on health and other outcomes may be durable over time there have been few empirical tests of this. We interact established social capital indicators measured at two points in time with foreclosure risk to predict overall self-reported health. Our results provide strong support suggesting that high levels of social capital are health protective. Communities with high levels of social capital that are facing high foreclosure risks report significantly better aggregate health outcomes than comparable communities facing the same level of foreclosure risk, but lower levels of social capital.     

Changes in starch grain morphologies from cooking

One of the three main plant microfossils, starch grains are increasingly used as markers of diet, plant domestication, tool use and site organization, because their morphology and features provide a means to identify the plant that produced them. However, starch grains are susceptible to damage when they are exposed to heat in the presence of water, as in cooking. We documented the changes that occur in the starch grains of 10 domesticated plant species due to exposure to different cooking methods, in order to better understand how cooking alters the appearance of the grains, and if these cooking methods might be identifiable in the archaeological record. Our results show that some cooking methods produce unique, identifiable damage on some types of plant starches, but generally each plant species reacts uniquely to cooking. In order to record the changes for each plant species, we have created a database, available at (http://www.osresearch.net/∼hollyf/starchdb/index.cgi), to which registered users can add their own images of cooked starch grains.     

A historiography of an ahistoricity: on the beothuk indians

The Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland have long been perceived as a cultural anachronism in the native history of northeastern North America. They appeared to represent cultural holdovers from some earlier age that had been preserved in a primitive state due to isolation on a cold North Atlantic isle. To many, their history seemed shallow, timeless even. Those that supported this position did so by drawing on four lines of evidence. They interpreted Beothuk material culture and other cultural “traits” as indicative of an archaic state; they cited the Beothuk's place of residence‐a northern island‐as evidence of isolation from other peoples and the march of time; they cited linguistic differences as further evidence of isolation; and finally, the fact that the Beothuk became extinct seemed to offer proof that these people had indeed belonged to another age, incapable of making the leap from prehistory to the modern era. This article explores this evidence and attempts to understand the “logic” or rationale by which scholars come to view the Beothuk and their history as timeless.