ROCK PHYSICS AND THE NEOLITHIC AXE TRADE IN GREAT BRITAIN*

This paper is concerned with the products of a number of Neolithic quarries in highland Britain. It investigates the claim that the scale of axe distribution was partly the result of social factors which resulted in these artefacts gaining an added value in areas remote from their sources. One case study considers the sequence of production in Cumbria, in relation to the tensile strength of the rock quarried in different parts of the region. It shows that these considerations had only a limited influence over the choice of stone source and the scale on which it was worked. A second study compares the tensile strength of the main raw materials used for making non-flint axes with the extent to which these sources were actually exploited. Again there is only a limited relationship between the two, suggesting that social factors may indeed have been important.     

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: CANADIAN GEOGRAPHY IN A MULTILINGUAL WORLD: THE IMPLOSION OF RELEVANCE?

Global social, political, and economic change during the past quarter-century has been profound, particularly in major areas with languages different from those usually employed by Canadian geographers. Surveys by the author suggest that senior Canadian geography graduate students, however, are inadequately prepared to assimilate primary world sources of information, including the relevant research literatures (except those published in this country's two official languages), and that few geography departments any longer require competence in more than one language at any level of study. Nevertheless, geographers and their students could benefit in many ways from foreign language expertise. Suggestions are made whereby geography departments could reinforce their existing rigorous training programs with foreign linguistic and area competence.     

RARE EARTH ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION PATTERNS IN SHETLAND STEATITE - CONSEQUENCES FOR ARTIFACT PROVENANCING STUDIES

An attempt has been made to relate steatite artifacts to the source of rock from which they were manufactured, using the distribution patterns of rare earth elements. Radiochemical- and instrumental-neutron activation analyses of Shetland steatites suggest that the use of rare earth elements in artifact provenancing may be unreliable. Concentrations of rare earth elements in many Shetland steatites are too low to be measured reliably by a cost effective method. The relative importance of primary igneous and secondary metasomatic processes in controlling steatite rare earth element geochemistry is discussed and geological arguments against the existence of unique rare earth ‘fingerprints’ for steatite are presented.