An integrated assessment of archaeobotanical recovery methods in the Neotropical rainforest of northern Belize: flotation and dry screening

This report presents results of a study examining the ancient use of plants at four Late Classic (CE 600-900) Maya rural farmsteads in northwestern Belize. Our research specifically targeted residential middens for macrobotanical recovery. Samples yielded the remains of more than a dozen plant families, representing some genera that do not currently grow in the area. These plants were used in the Late Classic, countering the idea that ancient botanical remains do not survive in Neotropical archaeological contexts. We also evaluated two macrobotanical sample processing methods vis-à-vis one another: flotation and dry screening. Our results indicate that flotation recovered 58% more seeds than dry screening, while dry screening yielded almost twice as much charcoal and other wood as flotation. The divergent quantities in the types of material recovered suggest a comprehensive macrobotanical recovery program should include the use of both processing methods.     

Underwater Excavation at Ederline Crannog, Loch Awe, Argyll, Scotland

A trial excavation was carried out on the near-submerged crannog at Ederline Boathouse, Loch Awe, in July 2004. A trench measuring 3 × 5 m was opened on the northern side, in c .3 m of water. Around 1 m of organic deposits was encountered, along with structural timbers and animal bones. Despite a previous 4th century BC radiocarbon determination from a structural timber, a sherd of E ware from a sealed context gives an Early Historic date for the deposits excavated in 2004. The results from this first intrusive investigation of a Loch Awe crannog demonstrate that these sites are complex and long-lived.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

‘Women are a colonised sex’: Elizabeth Reid,Human Rights and International Women’s Year 1975

This article situates Australian Elizabeth Reid’s contribution to International Women’s Year (IWY) (1975) within ongoing historiographical discussions on development and human rights. The world’s first advisor on women’s affairs to a head of government, Reid used the burgeoning Women’s Liberation Movement’s critique of ‘sexism’ to challenge IWY’s goals of formal equality, a limited and undesirable outcomes that prevented women and men from instead becoming ‘more human’. These ideas were then used to challenge the dominance of economic development over individual and collective rights at the 1975 Mexico City conference, placing Reid as a participant in the 1970s human rights ‘breakthrough’.     

Measuring subsistence specialization: Comparing historic and prehistoric abalone middens on San Miguel Island,California

Red abalone middens, common on the Northern Channel Islands during the Middle Holocene, have often been interpreted as relatively specialized foraging camps. To test the degree of subsistence specialization of one such site, we compared faunal data from a 6400-year-old red abalone midden (CA-SMI-557) and an historic “Chinese” black abalone midden (CA-SMI-558) located along the same drainage on San Miguel Island. The historic assemblage, resulting from highly specialized abalone harvest, drying, and export activities, provides a baseline for evaluating the degree of subsistence specialization at the red abalone midden, where a wider range of economic and subsistence activities is represented. We illustrate how detailed comparative study of faunal remains, artifacts, site structure, and archival sources can help elucidate the economic function of both historic and prehistoric sites.     

Alternative Cartographies of Homelessness: Rendering visible British women's experiences of ‘visible’ homelessness

This article focuses on a group largely ignored by both geographers and feminist scholars of homelessness alike—the growing number of ‘visibly homeless’ women in Britain. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 19 ‘visibly homeless’ women, we delineate between four ‘alternative cartographies’ of homelessness, each articulating quite different gendered homeless identities. The article suggests that whilst it is important to recognise that women too suffer the exclusions of visible homelessness, it is also clear that the experience of visible homelessness differs for different women. Any attempt to respond to the (immediate) needs of such women necessitates a recognition rather than denial of these differences.     

The Borda Count and its real-world alternatives: Comparing scoring rules in Nauru and Slovenia

This article examines strategic elements of voter behaviour in parliamentary elections where the voting method is a scoring rule other than plurality: the Borda Count, which is used for the election of ethnic minorities in Slovenia, and the Dowdall rule, which is used in the Pacific island state of Nauru in multi-seat districts. After first examining the general properties of scoring rules, and generating theoretical differences between the two rules, we look at empirical evidence from Nauru and Slovenia. This casts a doubt on predictions based simply on a voting rule's mathematical properties and on the accuracy of assumptions of sincere rank ordering.

本文研究了议会选举投票者行为的策略因素。议会选举中的投票方法是一个有别于多数法的计分法则：斯洛文尼亚少数族群选举使用的波达计数法;太平洋岛屿国家瑙鲁多席位选区使用的斗多尔法则。作者首先分析了计分法则的一般属性,并对两种法则做了理论区分。然后研究了瑙鲁和斯洛文尼亚的实证资料。作者对仅仅基于投票规则数学属性的预测以及有关纯粹排行假设的精确性表示了质疑。