The Spirit and the Gifts: Dako,Benjamin Morrell and Cargo in the Vitiaz Trading area,New Guinea

In 1830 an American trader, Benjamin Morrell, abducted Dako, the son of a prominent leader from Uneapa Island in the Bismarck Sea, took him to New York and, four years later, returned him to Uneapa. Dako's encounter with America and his return provides insight into the region half a century before colonization, and in particular into local mytho‐practical knowledge at that time. This enables us to discern subsequent transformations. Myths concerning an origin spirit and guardian of the dead, Pango, which then dominated Uneapa cosmology have since ‘disappeared’. This, we argue, is not because Pango has been superseded or suppressed, but because the parallel ‘white’ world over which the mytho‐practical Pango presided has become ever more manifest as Uneapa has been drawn into a colonial, post‐colonial and globalised world. Today, Pango refers predominantly to white people. Islander's experience of American ‘Pango’ was a shocking event at the time, but we show how trading with Pango established transformatory possibilities for reciprocal trading relations with the dead which remain the concern of today's Cult movement on the island.     

Context,Continuity, Correspondence,and Continental Connections: New Approaches to the Ironwork Hoards of Roman Britain

For over forty years the study of Roman ironwork hoards in Britain has been defined by a single study by Manning (1972). This article summarizes the wealth of advances made since that publication regarding the distribution, context, and contents of these hoards, highlighting how these alter our understanding of them as a continuation of Iron Age practices. Furthermore, by looking at British hoards at a European level for the first time, we see that British and Continental hoards are closely related. Using Correspondence Analysis to produce new groupings based on content, which crosscut those proposed by Manning (1972) based on distribution, the article provides the first analysis of the entire contents of these hoards. Finally, a discussion of hoard contents is used to examine the potential significance of the artefacts deposited.     

Europe's confused transmutation: the realignment of moral cartography in Juan de la Cosa's Mappa Mundi (1500)

Following the voyages of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci in the last decade of the fifteenth century, the New World of the Americas entered the cartographic and moral consciousness of Europe. In the 1500 mappa mundi of Juan de la Cosa, navigator and map-maker, we see Europe as a hybrid moral entity, a transitional blend of the medieval and the modern at the crossroads between two mappings of Europe. This paper argues that the Juan De la Cosa map represents a blurred transition between map-making traditions and a mixed moral rhetoric of European identity. The De la Cosa map operates across two sets of imagined axes: held horizontally, the map is set to a Ptolemaic grid with Europe straddling the Prime Meridian, and yet when held vertically it presents a medieval moral continuum in which the Americas occupy an ascendant position, a verdant new Jerusalem in contrast to the Babylon of the Old World. Europe is both drawn to the centre of a new world order, and also pushed to the moral margins in an echo of the medieval mappa mundi still imperfectly resolved.     

Experimental and Analytical Study of Seismic Soil-Pile-Structure Interaction in Layered Soil Half-Space

The dynamic interaction of pile foundations, embedded in a horizontally stratified soil profile, with superstructures under low to moderate earthquake excitation can be handled in different ways. In this article, the soil-pile-superstructure dynamic interaction problem has been investigated using the coupled finite element-boundary element method. Comparison with shaking table experiments of a small scale model pile shows a good correlation with the proposed method in terms of the kinematic response of pile foundations and the structural response. A parametric study of the proposed model has yielded important results essentially concerning the amplification factors of the pile foundation and the superstructure.     

The politics of the chancel screen: Samuel Moore,Slaidburn, and the parochial dynamics of Laudianism

The 1630s was a decade of dramatic and often controversial change within the Church of England, as innovatory standards of ceremonial conformity and for the maintenance and appearance of church buildings were imposed upon the Church. This article will examine the imposition of so-called Laudian policies in the Yorkshire parish of Slaidburn. Despite a growing interest in Laudianism amongst historians in recent decades, little work has attempted to explore the dynamics of Laudianism in one parish. The unusual variety of sources which survive relating to Slaidburn during this period provides a rare opportunity to explore the circumstances in which Laudian enforcement was enacted. Central to these responses was the rector, Samuel Moore, a somewhat isolated figure within the parish. This article will suggest that beyond the high polemics which buttressed Laudianism, practical considerations may have prompted a willing clerical constituency for Laudian ideas of ministry and of proper worship.