Petrographic analysis and INAA geochemistry of prehistoric ceramics from Robinson Pueblo, New Mexico

The examination of thin sections is a successful method for discovering provenance groupings of archaeological ceramics if non-clay inclusions in pottery paste can be identified with petrographically distinctive geologic sources. When this is not the case, geochemical analysis must be employed to search for more subtle evidence of such groupings. This situation is likely to arise in studies, such as the present one, where the objective is to discern local or subregional patterns of pottery manufacture and exchange. Ninety potsherds from site LA46326 in New Mexico were subjected to both INAA and petrographic analysis. The results of this conjoint approach are assessed in relation to geochemical theory and are analysed graphically and statistically.     

Public School Search Policies and the "Politics of Sin"

In recent years, high school students have been subjected to greater levels of drug searching and surveillance on school grounds. The effect of such searching is potentially wide-ranging, because public schools "play an important role in socializing students according to the norms and mores of society" ( Vergari, 2000 ). Using the "morality politics" framework, this study reports and analyzes the presence of random, suspicionless drug searches in the Nebraska public schools. Whereas most studies of morality policy have focused on the state as the unit of analysis, we consider the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of principals in regards to drug policies in schools. Our findings, based on a survey of 181 high school principals, reflect several features of morality policy. There has been a significant rise in the number of random drug searches, despite the principals' observation that these measures neither lessen drug use nor catch perpetrators. The most important predictors of drug policy are pressure from local sources, perception of the problem within the community (but not the schools), and the racial composition of schools. Principals articulate limited concern for student rights, and students largely accept searches without resistance. In the discussion, we consider these findings in light of recent court rulings and introduce the potential ramifications of waging the drug war in our nation's classrooms and hallways.     

Between Utopia and Tradition: William Morris’s A Dream of John Ball

ABSTRACT

William Morris, author of the famous nineteenth-century utopian novel News from Nowhere, thought it both possible and desirable to develop a utopian vision that could be affirmed by many individuals. However, Morris also recognised that achieving such utopian unity was not easy. There is, at least potentially, something personal about utopian visions; they are shaped by idiosyncratic desires that cannot be shared. Through a reading of Morris’s A Dream of John Ball, I argue that Morris offers a temporal solution to the problem of utopian unity. The central characters in the text, medieval priest John Ball and a nineteenth-century socialist agitator, come to recognise their shared adherence to the same image of a new society. This is achieved through the mediation of tradition: Ball and the agitator overcome their differences by committing themselves to disappointed hopes elaborated in past struggles that have been handed down to the present. Morris’s articulation of utopia and tradition—the sense that visions of the future can be made shareable through reference to the past—offers the possibility of a transtemporal solidarity of utopians and the bringing together of the dreams of a plurality of individuals.     

The greatest deception: fiction,falsity and manifestation in Spinoza’s Metaphysical Thoughts

ABSTRACT

“The first meaning of true and false”, writes Spinoza in a neglected passage of the Metaphysical Thoughts, “seems to have had its origin in stories”. Ideas are true when they “show” us things as they are; they are false when they do not, when they are fictional. In this essay, I argue that what appears at first sight to be a simple assertion of a correspondence theory of truth in fact opens onto broad historical transformations in the nature of meaning that reshaped the very atmosphere of truth: the emergence of a new kind of fictionality, transformations in the sense of logical interpretation, and ultimately transformations in the structures and sources of the natural light, that “clarity” which constitutes for Spinoza, as for Descartes, an indispensable criterion for certainty.     

Trephination as a possible treatment for scurvy in a middle bronze age (ca. 2200 BC) skeleton

Although trephination of sub-adults in antiquity is rare, scurvy both infantile and adult, is even more rare in the archaeological record. Pathological changes appearing in the maxilla, mandible and orbits of a child of 8–9 years of age are highly suggestive of infantile scurvy. Advanced forms of this metabolic disturbance lead to severe subperiosteal haemorrhaging, at times turning the skin of the face and skull black. This condition may have led to the trephination along the sagittal suture as a form of blood letting in hopes of draining the subperiosteal haemorrhage in the cranium. Although cause and effect are often confusing in antiquity, the surgical intervention presented here led to the ultimate death of the child.     

Refit and Oxygen Isotope Analysis of Freshwater Mussel Shells from the Tillar Farms Site (3DR30), Southeast Arkansas

ABSTRACT

We investigate the link between the consumption of foodstuffs, excavation of a large pit, and disposal of waste at the Tillar Farms site (3DR30), southeast Arkansas, using refit and oxygen isotope analyses of well-preserved freshwater mussel shells from Feature 1. Only 0.13% of 7,408 valves analyzed were unidentifiable to species.The refit analysis produced 460 refits across 23 species and strongly indicates that the shell midden represents a single episode of shellfish gathering, consumption, and discard. Oxygen isotope analysis of five randomly selected shells are used as a test of the refit results. δ¹⁸O values from the five archaeological shells are compared to modern control samples of live-collected specimens from Bayou Bartholomew in winter of 2011. Refit analysis suggests the accumulation of mussel shells occurred quickly, likely as a result of one collection, consumption, and discard event. δ¹⁸O values suggest this activity took place during a single winter season.