A long revolution: Writing the political history of Queensland regimes

Peter Coaldrake, Working the System: Government in Queensland. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1989, pp.l85.$12.95 (paper)

Phil Dickie, The Road to Fitzgerald: Revelations of Corruption Spanning Four Decades, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1988. pp.293. $9.95 (paper); second edition, The Road to Fitzgerald ana Beyond, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1989, pp.337. $12.95 (paper)

Evan Whitton, The Hillbilly Dictator: Australia's Police State, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Enterprises, Crows Nest, NSW, 1989, pp. 197. $16.99 (paper)

Ross Fitzgerald and Harold Thornton, Labor in Queensland: From the 1880s to 1988. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1989, pp.422. $34.95 (paper)

Peter Charlton, State of Mind: Why Queensland is Different, Methuen Haynes, North Ryde, second edition 1987, pp. 263. $12.95 (paper)     

Archaeometric analysis of ceramic production in Tiwanaku state (c.500–1000 ce): An exploratory study

The chemical and mineralogical characterization of seven ceramic fragments produced within Tiwanaku state (c.500–1000 ce ) is reported. The instrumental techniques used included X‐ray elemental and mineralogical chemical analysis, Raman spectroscopy, and scanning and light microscopy. The results indicate there are several clay types, although they show similarities, such as the use of a plant‐based temper. The red colour of the decoration is hematite, and manganese oxides such as jacobsite are present in the black. The white colour is a mixture of gypsum and clay, and the orange is a mixture of hematite and clay. The use of colours, the quality of the clays and the temperatures reached during pottery firing point to expertise in ceramic production and to complex decision‐making processes. The multi‐elemental archaeometric approach documented here could become an important tool to shed a light on ancient ceramic technology and the internal variance of Tiwanaku pottery.     

Identifying pre-Hispanic water storages in agricultural areas of south-central Andes through diatom evidence

In the Andes, there are several pre-Hispanic irrigation networks with structures destined for water storage. However, it has not been widely discussed in archaeological research. This is probably due to their being difficult to identify. The aim of this study is to explore the use of diatom assemblage analysis as a methodological tool suitable to help in the identification and characterization of these ancient hydraulic structures. We analyzed two archaeological structures interpreted as water reservoirs from north-western Argentina (EH1 in Antofagasta de la Sierra and U-88R1 in Yocavil) and compared them to current reservoirs. The diatom species composition and the changes in the dominant ecological groups in the studied structures highlight different periods of hydraulic behavior. EH1 contained and stored water, but there were periods of time in which there was a lack of use or abandonment of the structure. However, the U88-R1 structure does not have diatom evidence of containing standing water for a prolonged time but presence of wet soils. Thus, the structure could have been used for other water management strategies. The results show that diatom analysis is a methodological tool with a high potential to study ancestral hydrotechnologies.     

Orientalism Reconsidered: Peter Duignan,Lewis Gann,Edward Said,and the Rebirth of Imperialism

Book reviewed in this article: culture and Imperialism: Edward W. Said The Rebirth of the West: Culture, Politics and Society 7 945–1958: Peter Duignan and L. H. Gann     

THE BEGINNINGS OF ISLAMIC STONEPASTE TECHNOLOGY*

A multidisciplinary programme of research on Islamic pottery has been focused on questions of the dating, provenance and technology of Islamic pottery. One particular question has been the development of stonepaste, a material made primarily of crushed quartz with added frit-glass and clay. The combination of the different approaches of this study has revealed early foundations for the technology in ninth-century AD Iraq, apparently originating in the clay ceramic rather than the ‘Egyptian faience’ tradition. Subsequent and final practice developed in tenth- and eleventh-century AD Egypt. This technology becomes the primary body for all fine Islamic ceramics.     

Contextualizing Welfare's Work Disincentive: The Case of Female-headed Family Poverty

The conventional model of the relationship between welfare incentives and poverty rates holds that welfare payments produce an income-enhancement effect that removes families from poverty until some threshold. Beyond this point increased payments engender a work-disincentive effect resulting in increased rates of poverty. We challenge the model's assumption that poverty levels are a simple and spatially invariant response to welfare incentives, contending instead that local employment conditions may substantially alter the relation. Our reformulation of the conventional modeling approach is based on the expansion method. Specifically, we extend the model to include the effects of local labor-market conditions on the response of poverty levels to welfare incentives. In contesting the invariance assumption, the expansion method allows us to determine where and in what contexts welfare is “work discouraging.” The empirical analysis, which is undertaken at the county level, indicates that welfare payments vary in their influence on poverty rates across different employment contexts. A national map portraying this parameter instability demonstrates that female-family poverty rates are most responsive to welfare assistance in the rural South and least responsive in the metropolitan Northeast. Finally, we examine two sharply contrasting locales to illustrate how poverty is governed by specific employment and welfare characteristics.