Current research on smoking pipe residues

This paper presents research into the identification of tobacco residues in ancient smoking pipes. Two techniques have been used so far: gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS), and Raman microscopy. GC/MS has been used successful in the past by the author to identify ancient tobacco residues, and the results of this round of analysis support prior research. Raman microscopy, which has the advantage of working on dry samples without solvents, was not successful. It appears that combustion products overwhelm any useful signal that would identify the substance smoked. We are pursuing the use of Raman in non-combusted samples.     

Eurasian Steppe Chariots and Social Complexity During the Bronze Age

This paper aims to examine some societal principles that underlie the development of horse-drawn chariots in Inner Eurasia during the Middle and Late Bronze Age (cal. 2050–1750 BC). Analysis is based on an evaluation and re-examination of the archaeological evidence for horse-drawn chariots, and the social constructs they entail. Chariots were developed in the zone of the Northern Eurasian steppes before c. 2000 BC in the context of complex but stateless societies. Because chariots depend on a set of developed skills, valuable resources, and complicated technologies, which involve several outstanding improvements to previously known solutions, they require specific conditions for their development and maintenance in social life. Most fundamentally, they require a group of people with an interest in this complex technology: a class of military elites characterized by aggrandizing behavior. The competition between collectives of military elites for resources, power and prestige brought into life the earliest chariot complex in the world.     

Measuring structural social capital in a cluster policy network: insights from the Basque Country

Cluster Associations (CAs) attempt to promote competitiveness through inter-firm collaboration, and are generally seen as drivers of social capital formation in the region. We map in this paper, by using Social Network Analysis, the cluster policy network of the Basque Country in 2013, which may be considered a proxy of the structural dimension of social capital in the region. Besides, we identify the central agents of this network and attempt to explain the reasons for their centrality and the roles that they play. We take the affiliation of an organization to at least two CAs as a first indicator of the overall pattern of connections within the cluster policy network. Later on, we filter it with data about the Boards of Directors of CAs, and the Basque Contact Points created to concur with the Seventh Framework Programme for Research launched by the European Commission. We contend that those organizations that are present in these three networks form a ‘small world’ that numerous studies have shown to be favourable for creative output, where they might play a dual role of gatekeepers of knowledge and innovation within and between clusters and drivers of bridging social capital formation in the Basque Country.     

Hispanic and Bantu Inheritance,Trauma, Dispersal and Return: Some Contributions to a Sense of National Identity in Equatorial Guinea

Abstract. Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish-speaking state in sub-Saharan Africa. Since independence in 1968 it has been ruled by the tyrant, Macías Nguema and then from 1979 by his nephew, Obiang Nguema. Over time, the fixed inherited colonial borders may have allowed for the emergence of a sense of national identity, constructed like a collage from different materials. The article explores how the ruling elite has summoned a number of discourses to help with the forging of the nation. The Hispanic link is claimed as an important component and an attempt has also been made to unite the various ethnic groups through a myth of common Bantu origins. The despotic rule of Macías may, surprisingly, have contributed to an emergent Equatoguinean identity by forcing people en masse to behave as they would not normally do, by the consequent shared memories of terror, and through the effects of forced population movements and the creation of a large diaspora.     

Tiny transmitters of nationalist and colonial ideology: the postage stamps of Portugal and its Empire*

Abstract. Postage stamps may be seen as tiny transmitters of the dominant ideologies of the state destined for the imagined community of the nation. The issuing of stamps, starting in the nineteenth century, and the postal reforms that accompanied this, greatly contributed to the ‘communicative efficiency’ of national communities and made a significant contribution to nation‐building. The imagery of stamps promotes the dominant discourses of a particular nationalism, recalls historical triumphs and myths and defines the national territory in maps or landscapes. Issuing authorities also print stamps for sale to a large, epistemic community of philatelists and this has been of particular importance to many colonial authorities and impoverished post‐colonial states. This article addresses these themes by focusing on the stamps of Portugal and its Empire. The representation of images of women on the stamps of the Portuguese monarchy, the Republic, the Estado Novo and the modern Portuguese Republic, as well as in the former Empire, all confirm the patriarchal construction of Portuguese nationalism as well as a focus on the ‘great discoveries’.     

Provenance of Early Bronze Age metal artefacts in Western Switzerland using elemental and lead isotopic compositions and their possible relation with copper minerals of the nearby Valais

Ten Early Bronze Age (BzA1, 2200–2000 BC) copper artefacts from the central Valais region from Switzerland were studied for their elemental composition and lead isotope ratios. In order to answer the archaeological question of a local copper supply, a database for copper minerals across the Valais (Switzerland) has been established. This database contains 69 data on lead isotope ratios as well as additional information on the minerals and geochemical associations for copper minerals from 38 locations in the Valais. Comparisons of the artefacts were also made with data pertaining to minerals from various deposits from Europe and Anatolia taken from the literature. The provenance of the materials is very diverse. Some of the data are compatible with the data from the copper mineral deposits of the Valais region. Moreover, three copper lunulae were identified as possibly Tuscan, which suggests contacts between Italy and the Valais region. This pattern also establishes a multiplicity of provenances for the metal and cultural influences in the Alpine environment of the Rhone Valley of Switzerland at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age.