An alternative approach to zoning in France: Typology,historical character and development control

The paper describes an approach to development control taken in France, bringing together the zoning system of planning and geographical and architectural studies of urban form. The approach addresses a number of issues, in particular the maintenance of the historical and regional character of towns, often eroded under systems of land‐use zoning. The principles and methods of the approach are set out and its application is illustrated by an example, illuminating both the approach and the context in which it was realized.     

KIMMERIDGE JET—A POTENTIAL NEW SOURCE FOR BRITISH JET

Archaeological artefacts identified as jet are often assumed to have originated from the principal British source, which is at Whitby in Yorkshire. Geological samples of jet have also been found within the Kimmeridge Blackstone in Dorset—a seam of oil shale which has been worked since prehistoric times to produce artefacts similar to those made from jet. This paper discusses the geology and geochemistry of jet samples from both Whitby and Kimmeridge, and shows that the geological samples can be discriminated by differences in their organic components, as elucidated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.     

STRIKING THE BALANCE: THE ROLES OF PETROGRAPHY AND GEOCHEMISTRY IN STONE AXE STUDIES IN IRELAND*

There has been a long but sporadic history of research on stone axes in Ireland, leading to the formation of the Irish Stone Axe Project (ISAP) in 1990. The purpose of this paper is to outline the research strategy of the project and to indicate the petrological techniques that are being applied in parallel with archaeological and archival studies to classify and identify potential sources for Irish stone axes. These include macroscopic studies, transmitted and reflected light microscopy on polished thin sections and X-ray fluorescence analyses. The results of the macroscopic examination of 15916 axes indicate that one rock type, porcellanite, was the dominant source, but that a wide range of other lithologies was also exploited. Several avenues for more detailed research are highlighted. A case study of gabbro axes demonstrates the value of this systematic approach to stone axe studies, and the results of this study suggest that some of these axes are petrographically consistent with British Group I, presumed to originate from sources in Cornwall, south-west England.     

An Apologia for Theoretical History

Karl Popper's critique of theoretical history remains formidable but contains serious flaws. Popper held erroneous views about the practice of the natural sciences and created overly severe strictures for theoretical statements in the social sciences. General theory and general theoretical statements play a legitimate role in the social sciences. Merton has promoted middle-range theories and models and Lakatos multiple ontologies. One can answer Popper's criticisms of either the impossibility or triviality of long-term historical laws by searching for stable constellations of local or middle-range laws rather than a universal law. Moreover, the successful use in the social sciences of various types of scales of measurement rather than an absolute scale shows that quantitative analysis is possible in history. Investigators need to find the boundaries, the frameworks of feasibility, in which historical trends and laws operate. Popper's maximalism plays into the irrationalist trends that he himself deplored. If historical investigators and theoreticians set appropriate goals for theoretical history, they can practice their discipline responsibly and find meanings, if not a single meaning, in history.     

George III: a revised view of the royal malady

George III of England's episodic psychotic illness is described. The data has previously been used to substantiate the diagnosis of an unlikely hereditary metabolic disease, porphyria. A scientific perspective, aimed at removing psychiatric diagnosis from dependence on subjective evaluations, is corrected by the diagnosis of a mood disorder. His unipolar mania of late onset is a syndrome, the sine qua non of bipolar disorder, in this instance complicated by the toxicity of quinine, antimony, and purgatives.