A practical and statistical approach to some flake measuring problems

In this article, the hypotheses put forward in ‘A Theoretical Approach’ in Volume 1 of this Journal are tested. An account is first given of the additional settlements and hoards which were treated in the computer. The combined material consists of 17 units. The material is then evaluated and handled in a number of experiments in which various methods of arriving at special tendencies in the material are considered. Finally the various methods selected are discussed and the results summarised.     

Researching and Writing in the Twilight of an Imagined Conquest: Anthropology in Northern Rhodesia 1930–1960

The rich corpus of material produced by the anthropologists of the Rhodes Livingstone Institute (RLI) has come to dominate our understanding of Zambian societies and Zambia's past. The RLI was primarily concerned with the socio‐cultural effects of migrant labour. The paper argues that the anthropologists of the RLI worked from within a paradigm that was dominated by the experience of colonial conquest in South Africa. RLI anthropologists transferred their understanding of colonial conquest in South Africa to the Northern Rhodesian situation, without ever truly analysing the manner in which colonial rule had come to be established in Northern Rhodesia. As such the RLI anthropologists operated within a flawed understanding of the past. The paper argues that a historical paradigm of colonial conquest that was applicable to the South African situation came to be unquestioningly applied by anthropologists to the Northern Rhodesian situation, and discusses what the consequences of this paradigm are for our understanding of Zambian history.     

Accurate sex identification of ancient human remains using DNA shotgun sequencing

Accurate identification of the biological sex of ancient remains is vital for critically testing hypotheses about social structure in prehistoric societies. However, morphological methods are imprecise for juvenile individuals and fragmentary remains, and molecular methods that rely on particular sex-specific marker loci such as the amelogenin gene suffer from allelic dropout and sensitivity to modern contamination. Analyzing shotgun sequencing data from 14 present-day humans of known biological sex and 16 ancient individuals from a time span of 100 to ∼70,000 years ago, we show that even relatively sparse shotgun sequencing (about 100,000 human sequences) can be used to reliably identify chromosomal sex simply by considering the ratio of sequences aligning to the X and Y chromosomes, and highlight two examples where the genetic assignments indicate morphological misassignment. Furthermore, we show that accurate sex identification of highly degraded remains can be performed in the presence of substantial amounts of present-day contamination by utilizing the signature of cytosine deamination, a characteristic feature of ancient DNA.     

Redescription of Parexus recurvus,an Early Devonian acanthodian from the Midland Valley of Scotland

Parexus Agassiz was one of the first Early Devonian ‘spiny sharks’ to be described. The genus is readily recognized by the large size and ornament of its anterior dorsal fin spine. Although two species were erected, reappraisal of all known specimens indicate they should be synonymized in the type species Parexus recurvus. Farnellia tuberculata Traquair, originally described as a vertebral column, is actually tooth rows of jaw dentition, and is also now considered to be a junior synonym of P. recurvus. Parexus has a perichondrally ossified scapulocoracoid of typical acanthodian shape, and diagnostic features of the family Climatiidae, but has distinctive scales comprising appositional growth zones that closely resemble those of the putative stem chondrichthyan Seretolepis elegans Karatajute-Talimaa.     

Archeology in Conflict and UNESCO: Legal Aspects

This article analyzes the obligations under the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two Protocols related to the protection of cultural property in occupied territory. It goes on to provide practical examples of the return of cultural property from Iraq to Kuwait following the entry of Iraqi military forces into Kuwait in August 1990 and the legal framework of the return of Iraqi cultural property under operative paragraph 7 of the United Nations Security Council resolution 1483, adopted on 22 May 2003.     

‘If I was Irish I'd be crying by now’: Irishness and exteriority,Doyle's Deportees and the Irish plays of Martin McDonagh

While variations on the relationship between Irishness and exteriority resound throughout Irish literature and Irish studies, the implications and applications of the version offered by Roddy Doyle's short story ‘Home to Harlem’ remain underdeveloped. This article explores the particular paradigm of Irishness derivable from Doyle's work, and is motivated by it to revisit and re-examine the Irish plays of Martin McDonagh and the question of audience relation to them. I argue that the constituents of the overly rehearsed ‘McDonagh enigma’ – his reliance on stereotypical representation and his highlighting of artifice – ensure a dynamic of recognition and exteriority in the Irish-identifying audience, which, in turn, enacts an extreme version of the process of Irishness extrapolable from Doyle.