Task-Specific Sites and Paleoindian Landscape Use in the Shaw Creek Flats,Alaska

The Shaw Creek Flats and nearby middle Tanana river, in central Alaska, constitute one of the areas in the Americas with the densest known distribution of Late Glacial (about 14,500–11,700 cal. B.P.) archaeological sites. Local high rates of sediment deposition and low post-depositional disturbance allow for the interpretation of the function of archaeological occupations within larger economic and mobility strategies. Residential sites used over the long term seem to be located near critical but immovable resources such as clear water and vegetation. The spatial association of artifacts and faunal remains at other sites in the Flats suggest that they were specialized, short-lived locations dedicated to a single or few activities. For instance, the site of Swan Point Cultural Zone 4b is interpreted as a workshop related to the production of composite tools, particularly on mammoth ivory, and the site of Keystone Dune is interpreted as a camp related to wapiti (Cervus elaphus) hunting. These task-specific sites and others were probably used as part of a predominantly logistical mobility and economy strategy, which maximized efficiency in harvesting and processing resources that were distributed heterogeneously on the landscape.     

Social Reproduction,Ecological Dispossession and Dependency: Life Beside the Río Santiago in Mexico

This article uses an integrated social reproduction theory (SRT) framework to highlight the interrelation between all non-wage forms of survival, such as debt, community and the environment. The analysis demonstrates how Mexico's unregulated industrialization and social housing policies have created new forms of poverty and market dependency. The article relies on a comprehensive literature review and extensive fieldwork carried out in El Salto, one of Mexico's industrial peripheries, and shows how vulnerable populations become trapped, in this case on the banks of the Río Santiago, one of Mexico's most contaminated rivers. Parallel developments of industrial and housing policies contextualize the conditions unfolding throughout Mexico where populations are relocated to areas without adequate water and where drinking water is supplied by bottled water companies. This contribution highlights why an expanded SRT framework is valuable for understanding the relationship between ecological dispossession and the forced reliance on markets and debt.     

Book Reviews

BRIAN BOND. British Military Policy between the Two World Wars. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. Pp. XVI, 419. £16.00. Reviewed by Paul Kennedy

Washington Despatches, 1941–1945: Weekly Political Reports from the British Embassy, edited by H.G. Nicholas, with an introduction by Isaiah Berlin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; London: George Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981. Pp. XVIII, 700. $40.00 (US), £20.00. Reviewed by David Reynolds

MARK C. WHEELER. Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, 1940–1943. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. Pp. 342 (East European Monographs, No. LXIV). SI8.50 (US). Reviewed by John O. Iatrides

PATRICIA JALLAND. The Liberals and Ireland. The Ulster Question in British Politics to 1914. Hassocks, Sussex, 1980. Pp. 250. £20.00. Reviewed by John Kendle

BRIAN JENKINS. Britain and the War for the Union. Volume II. Montreal: McGill- Queen's University Press, 1980. Pp. IX, 480. $26.50 (US). Reviewed by Frank Lawrence Owsley, Jr.

GEOFFREY ELLIS. Napoleon's Continental Blockade: The Case of Alsace. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Pp. 355. $65.75. (CAN.) Reviewed by Richard Glover

R.D. THORPE. The Uncrowned Prime Ministers. London: Darkhorse Publishing, 1980. Pp. XV, 263. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by J.O. Stubbs

DAVID DILKS, ed. Retreat from Power: Studies in Britain's Foreign Policy of the Twentieth Century. Vol. I. 1906–1939. London: Macmillan, 1981. Pp. 213. £10. Reviewed by Trevor Burridge

DAVID DILKS, ed. Retreat from Power: Studies in Britain's Foreign Policy of the Twentieth Century. Vol. II. After 1939. London: Macmillan, 1981. Pp. 198. £10. Reviewed by Ray Jones

CLAIRE HIRSCHFIELD. The Diplomacy of Partition: Britain, trance and the Creation of Nigeria, 1890–1898. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979. Pp. 234, Fl. 90. Reviewed by A.S. Kanya-Forstner

PHILIP M. TAYLOR. The Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propaganda 1919–1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp.xv, 363. £25.00. Reviewed by Keith Robbins

NAVY RECORDS SOCIETY. The Keyes Papers, Vol. III, 1939–1945, ed. Paul Halpern. London: Allen and Unwin, 1981. Pp. 398. $;37.50 (Can.). Reviewed by Donald M. Schurman

JOHN TURNER. Lloyd George's Secretariat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Pp.vm, 254 £15. Reviewed by Patricia Jalland

JAMES NEIDPATH. The Singapore Naval Base and the Defence of Britain's Eastern Empire, 1919–1941. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Pp.XVII, 296. £22.50. Reviewed by C.C. Ong

ELEANOR M. GATES. End of the Affair: The Collapse of the Anglo-French Alliance, 1939–40. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981. Pp. XVIII, 630. $28.50 (US). Reviewed by P.M.H. Bell

F.H. HINSLEY ET AL. British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations. Vol. I, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Pp. 616. $29.95 (US); Vol. H, ibid., 1981. Pp. 690. $39.50 (US). Reviewed by D.C. Watt

E. MARY SMALLWOOD. The Jews under Roman Rule: A Study in Political Relations. From Pompey to Diocletian. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981. Pp. XIV, 595. 96 guilders. Reviewed by Jacob Neusner     

Taxonomy and historical inertia: Clidastes (Squamata: Mosasauridae) as a case study of problematic paleobiological taxonomy

I review the taxonomic history of two problematic mosasaur species, Clidastes liodontus and Clidastes moorevillensis. The genus Clidastes is thought to represent an early radiation of a diverse clade known as the Mosasaurinae. However, most phylogenetic analyses recover the genus as paraphyletic with respect to more highly nested mosasaurines such as Mosasaurus, Prognathodon, and Globidens. The fragmentary holotype of Clidastes liodontus was never figured or fully described, and was destroyed in World War II. Over 20 years after destruction of the holotype, relatively complete specimens were referred to Clidastes liodontus based upon a single, variable character. Another taxon, originally designated Clidastes liodontus moorevillensis in a master’s thesis and then elevated to Clidastes moorevillensis in a separate dissertation, has never been formally described and lacks definitive diagnostic characters that differentiate it from the contemporary concept of Clidastes liodontus. Clidastes provides an excellent example of how historical inertia in taxonomic nomenclature can build over decades and skew our interpretations of the diversity, paleobiology, biogeography, and biostratigraphy of a taxon. Clidastes liodontus is a nomen dubium and Clidastes moorevillensis a nomen nudum. I recommend that both names be abandoned. Removal of those names frees us from a burdensome taxonomy and eliminates cognitive biases that hinder objective understanding and exploration of early-diverging mosasaurines, and is a necessary first step toward a taxonomic revision of the lineage(s) involved.     

Settling Accounts: Retribution,Emotion and Memory during the Fall of Mussolini

Abstract

The fall of Mussolini on 25 July 1943, and the concomitant collapse of the Fascist regime, have long been recognized as a pivotal moment in the Second World War and, indeed, contemporary Italian history. To date, however, these events have been viewed almost exclusively ‘from above’, in terms of elite politics, international diplomacy, and military strategy. Drawing on the analytical frameworks of Alltagsgeschichte (‘everyday history’), the present contribution examines the experiences, reactions and behaviors of ordinary Italians during the fall of Fascism. In particular, it explores incidents of retributive and symbolic violence, political denunciation, and popular demonstration, in order to understand how individuals and communities expressed emotions and memories, negotiated relationships, and sought to redress grievances and antipathies developed over more than twenty years of ‘totalitarian’ dictatorship.