Jeux D’échelles. Une Histoire Internationale

The book Jeux d’échelles. La microanalyse à l’expérience, which appeard in 1996 under the direction of Jacques Revel, was translated in Italy in 2006 by the Viella editions under the title Giochi di scala. La microstoria alla prova dell’esperienza. This occasion seemed propicious for a historiographic and epistemological return to the microhistorical experience between France and Italy. It had to do with cross reperencing the reflections of a french historian and those of an italian philosopher to seek to place in evidence, from a distance, the theoretical presuppositions of microhistory, and to measure the displacements undergone.     

THE ANCIENT MINE OF SERVETTE (SAINT‐MARCEL,VAL D’AOSTA,WESTERN ITALIAN ALPS): A MINERALOGICAL,METALLURGICAL AND CHARCOAL ANALYSIS OF FURNACE SLAGS*

The Cu–Fe mining district of Servette is located in the valley of Saint‐Marcel (Val d’Aosta) at about 1800 m a.s.l. in the western Italian Alps. A large furnace slag deposit occurs near the Servette mine. Slags are mainly constituted by silicate and oxide in a glassy matrix, with disseminated sulphides and iron–copper alloys, and they record temperatures of 1380–1100°C. Radiocarbon dating of slag charcoals has shown that metallurgy in this site took place around ad 890–980. The charcoal analysis has shown that coniferous wood was mainly utilized, and intensive exploitation over the centuries led to a change in the composition of the local woods.     

Présentation

Sans résumé Président du Comité d'organisation du colloquePensée et science, ancien professeur invité de l'EPF, Lausanne.     

Le territoire englouti de Mologa

The fate of the people of Mologa, a provincial village in central Russia, was forever marked by two consequences stemming directly from a single major event when the Rybinsk dam went into service in 1941. Not only did the waters of the lake it created cover their homes, but ene entire population was displaced as well. From then on, the inhabitants' new-found mobility was assimilated to the attachment to their territory, which on a symbolic level constituted their collective identity. In this sense, their forced displacement was incorporated into a culture of mobility: based on the spatial overlaying of individual and collective identities, it expressed its true dynamic nature in the principle of a potential return. The case of the community of Mologa is in many ways emblematic of the Soviet redistribution of populations; the bond between identities (personal, familial, or collective) and a territory seems to have been constructed in such a way that the displacement, rather than putting this bond into jeopardy, established or activated it. It did this by stimulating a living relationship within the spatial dimension. This dialectical movement between distance and return contributed to the formation and the preservation of a communal identity taking the form of mobility.     

Functional specialization across space: a case study of the Canadian Electricity Industry, 1971–2001

This article examines the location of functions within the electricity sector in Canada from 1971 to 2001, using a centre‐periphery model. Power generation, distribution and retailing are generally carried out by multiestablishment crown corporations. Location patterns of different functions—management, scientific, production, etc.—are analyzed via the use of occupational groups. The spatial distribution of functions is found to be generally consistent with centre‐periphery relationships, with evidence of a growing functional specialization between large metropolitan and nonmetropolitan locations. However, differences emerge depending on power generation sources: fossil fuels, hydro, nuclear, solar or biomass. The choice of a power generation source has consequences for local economies.     

NEW APPROACHES ON THE ARCHAIC TRADE IN THE NORTH‐EASTERN IBERIAN PENINSULA: EXPLOITATION AND CIRCULATION OF LEAD AND SILVER

A wide‐ranging study based on compositional and isotopic analyses of minerals and manufactured objects from the north‐eastern Iberian Peninsula and their respective archaeological and cultural contexts demonstrates significant lead mineral exploitation in the El Priorat area (Tarragona province) linked to Phoenician trade (seventh–sixth centuries BC). This exploitation continued, despite losing intensity, until the Romanization of the territory. Our project also aims to determine the nature and origin of the lead and silver supply in the northern Iberian territory surrounding the Phocaean enclave of Emporion, especially with regard to the demands of the colonial mint. The behaviour pattern of the circulation of lead, silver and copper in Catalonia in the period studied indicates a plurality of contemporary supply sources, although, at least from the fifth century BC onward, minerals and metals from the south‐eastern Iberian Peninsula take on considerable importance.