Taphonomy of ungulate ribs and the consumption of meat and bone by 1.2-million-year-old hominins at Olduvai Gorge,Tanzania

The phenomenon of equifinality complicates behavioral interpretations of faunal assemblages from contexts in which Pleistocene hominins are suspected bone accumulators. Stone tool butchery marks on ungulate fossils are diagnostic of hominin activities, but debate continues over the higher-order implications of butchered bones for the foraging capabilities of hominins. Additionally, tooth marks imparted on bones by hominins overlap in morphology and dimensions with those created by some non-hominin carnivores, further confounding our view of early hominins as meat-eating hunters, scavengers or both. We report on the manual/oral peeling of cortical layers of ungulate ribs as taphonomically diagnostic of hominoid/hominin meat- and bone-eating behavior that indicates access to large herbivore carcasses by hominins at the site of BK, Olduvai. Supporting these inferences, we show that certain types of rib peeling damage are very rare or completely unknown in faunas created by modern carnivores and African porcupines, but common in faunas modified by the butchery and/or consumption activities of modern humans and chimpanzees, during which these hominoids often grasp ribs with their hands, and then used their teeth to peel strips of cortex from raggedly chewed ends of the ribs. Carnivores consume ungulate ribcage tissues soon after kills, so diagnostic traces of hominin butchery/consumption on ribs (i.e., peeling and butchery marks) indicate early access to ungulate carcasses by BK hominins. Tooth marks associated with the peeling and butchery marks are probably hominin-derived, and may indicate that it was not uncommon for our ancestors to use their teeth to strip meat from and to consume portions of ribs. Recognition of rib peeling as a diagnostic signature of hominoid/hominin behavior may also aid the search for pre-archaeological traces of hominin meat-eating.     

Le Grand Abri aux Puces,a Mousterian site from the Last Interglacial: paleogeography,paleoenvironment, and new excavation results

Le Grand Abri aux Puces (GAP), located on the right bank of the Ouvèze River of southern France, has been known to contain well-preserved stone tools and faunal remains, but our work in 2008 was the first professional, controlled excavation at the site and has exposed at least 1 archaeological layer with a very rich and diverse faunal assemblage (23 macrofaunal species, as many for the microfauna, 27 land snail species), abundant charcoals (fragments are large and preserve small twigs with their pith and bark still intact), and stone tools with immaculate surface preservation (retaining their original freshness and preserving microscopic use wear). The information issuing from paleontology, micropaleontology, malacology, and anthracology all place the principle GAP human occupation unambiguously in a temperate climatic phase. Different biometric and biochronological characters of the fauna converge to place the layers found thus far from before the last glacial, and most likely in MIS 5e (127–117 kya). The lithic elements, mainly composed of tools of superior quality, demonstrating particular technical investment, and made from widely distributed raw material sources, lead us to hypothesize brief passages of hunting groups in the cave focused around an anticipated activity. This hypothesis will be refined and tested during further excavations.     

The Darkest Corner: documenting institutional abuse and its consequences at the Abbey Theatre

Documentary theatre, as a theatrical genre, has not maintained a continuous presence in Irish theatre. The Darkest Corner series, produced in 2010 by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Ireland's National Theatre is, therefore, one of the first examples of Irish theatre using the genre to address political and social issues. Presenting three plays, Gerard Mannix Flynn's James X, Richard Johnson's The Evidence I Shall Give and Mary Raftery's No Escape, the series examines the widespread abuse of children in state institutions. Before analysing the documentary play commissioned by the Abbey, Raftery's No Escape, this article will begin with an exploration of documentary theatre in Ireland. It will then examine the material used for the play, the Ryan Report, published following the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, something of great political and social interest to contemporary Ireland and, finally, the play itself.     

Captain Canuck,audience response,and the project of Canadian nationalism

This paper addresses the role of comic books in interpellating national identities, locating the process of national identity formation in the interplay between popular culture producers and their audiences as described by Althusser (1977 Althusser, L. 1977. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, London: New Left Books.  [Google Scholar]) and McGee (1975 McGee, M. 1975. In search of ‘the people’: a rhetorical alternative. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 61: 235–249. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The empirical section of this paper focuses on Captain Canuck, a Canadian-produced comic book originating in the 1970s and sporadically published through the present day. The authors engaged in a qualitative content analysis of the Captain Canuck comic books, searching for themes and markers of Canadian-ness and looking for audience identifications with those themes and markers in the ‘letter to the editor’ columns published within the comic books themselves. The study finds that through the many incarnations of Captain Canuck various versions of Canadian identity have been projected, with varying degrees of support by the readership. The role of the USA in Canadian identity formation looms large, especially in the positioning of Canadian quality and multiculturalism against the tacitly American lack thereof. Another finding of this research is that there has been a fundamental change in the way Canadian identity is structured as a new, commercially driven Canadiana culture industry has arisen since the 1970s.