Platform,Podium, and Public Life: Rhetorical Resilience in the Career of Elocutionist Edna Sutherland

This article extends recent scholarship on women’s rhetorical education and practices, which has focused primarily on the experiences of American women, by analyzing the career of Canadian elocutionist Edna Sutherland (1869–1956). Despite the tendency in Canada’s postsecondary institutions to marginalize public speaking instruction as a merely “practical” concern, Sutherland pursued a 35-year academic career, teaching voice culture and becoming Dean of Women successively at the University of Manitoba and Manitoba College. The article examines her negotiation of local circumstances to achieve this success as an instance of rhetorical resilience. Ultimately, Sutherland’s performative abilities complemented her private and college teaching, while the cultural authority she gained as a result supported her contributions to public life, many focused on opportunities for women. The article considers as well how American and British influences on her advocacy for speech training may reflect broader national trends.     

Dealing with Sustainability Trade-Offs of the Compact City in Peri-Urban Planning Across European City Regions

The compact city has become a leading concept in the planning of peri-urban areas. The compact city concept is often advocated as “sustainable” because of claims that include lower emissions and conservation of the countryside. The literature shows, however, that there are certain trade-offs in striving for compaction, especially between environmental and social aspects of sustainability. In this article, we describe expressions of the compact city concept in the planning practice of several European urban sample regions, as well as policies and developments that contradict the compact city. We look at examples of positive and negative impacts of the compact city that were observed in the sample regions. Further, we discuss attempts by planners to deal with sustainability trade-offs. Being aware that developments in the peri-urban areas are closely connected to those in the inner city, we compare the sample regions in order to learn how the compact city concept has been used in planning peri-urban areas across different contexts in Europe: in Western, Central and Mediterranean Europe, and with growing, stable or declining populations. We conclude with recommendations with respect to balance in applying the compact city concept.     

Lulik: Taboo,Animism, or Transgressive Sacred? An Exploration of Identity,Morality, and Power in Timor‐Leste

This article explores the continued significance of lulik for people living in the central highlands of Timor‐Leste today, lulik being a term frequently translated as ‘sacred’. In contrast to the straightforward definition of lulik as the sacred property of religious places or objects set apart from everyday life, it shows that lulik is understood as a potency that animates the environment and that is concentrated in specific sites in the landscape, in ancestral objects and houses. As a vital energy that sustains life, yet that is connected to prohibitions, danger, and restrictions, lulik shares an affinity with similar phenomena found in Melanesia, Polynesia, and Southeast Asia (such as mana, tapu, or semangat). Engaging with recently reinvigorated approaches to animism and Durkheim's notion of the sacred, this article examines how lulik that emerges when distinctions between human and non‐human entities are collapsed. The analysis of how Funar residents maintain a distance from this transgressive force leads to an exploration of how lulik is connected to the constitution of the self, and how lulik is mobilized as a source of power and morality.     

Potential vegetation markers – analytical pyrolysis of modern plant species representative of Neolithic SE Spain

A selection of plant species that may have been relevant for the Neolithic in the SW Mediterranean have been characterised with pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry (pyrolysis–GC/MS) in search for molecular vegetation markers. Roots and aerial parts were analysed separately for the following species: Anthyllis cytisoides, Asphodelus cerasiferus, Brachypodium retusum, Cistus albidus, Cistus clusii, Dorycnium pentaphyllum, Ephedra fragilis, Juniperus oxycedrus, Juniperus phoenicea, Olea europaea, Phillyrea angustifolia, Pinus halepensis, Pistacia lentiscus, Quercus coccifera, Rhamnus lycioides, Rosmarinus officinalis, Smilax aspera and Stipa tenacissima; furthermore domesticated plants were analysed, including wheat (Triticum aestivum, Triticum dicoccum, Triticum monococcum, Triticum timopheevi and Triticum turgidum), barley (Hordeum vulgare and H. vulgare Hulled) and legumes (Lathyrus cicera, Lathyrus sativus, Lens culinaris, Pisum sativa, Vicia ervilia, Vicia faba and Vicia sativa). This resulted in 290 potential markers. In addition, the organic matter of surface soils under different vegetation cover has been analysed to test the presence of the potential markers in the soil. Forty-six of the potential markers were detected in the soil organic matter, of which part have not been reported before. The results may be useful for interpretation of the organic matter composition of soils and plant remains, which can be valuable in archaeology.     

Megafaunal extinction in the late Quaternary and the global overkill hypothesis

The global blitzkrieg hypothesis explains differential rates of megafaunal extinction between the world's landmasses in the late Quaternary based on a proposed leap in predation efficiency enjoyed by colonising societies. It is characterised by appealing simplicity. Selective over hunting, facilitated by naiveté to human predation, produced rapid mass extinctions of large animals wherever subsistence societies colonised new landmasses. Taken at face value the circumstantial case for blitzkrieg is compelling and despite a paucity of direct evidence it has gained considerable support. Our review of the model suggests that it overlooks much contradictory data and rests on simplistic interpretations of complex biogeographicat and anthropological phenomena. These interpretations and assumptions do not account for major differences between the biotas, ecologies and human cultures of the landmasses involved. The assertion that responses of remote island species to human predation provide realistic models for those of continental taxa is poorly founded, exaggerating the likely predation efficiency of humans colonising continents. An absence of terrestrial predators over evolutionarily significant periods, together with restricted ranges and small populations, renders island faunas uniquely vulnerable to invaders. The argument, that climate cannot explain these phenomena because previous Glacial Maxima did not cause comparable extinctions, presupposes that their local effects were at least as severe as those of the Last Glacial Maximum. This has yet to be demonstrated and at most it would indirectly support a role for anthropogenic influence, not overkill per se. Overlooked or underplayed are the influences of translocated and other invading species. Similarly, differences in the origins, technologies and traditions of colonising human societies are rarely considered. These factors strongly impact on the predation efficiency, density and range of human populations, critically affecting the outcomes of predator-prey modeling. When a fuller constellation of influences and constraints is considered it is reasonable to posit that rapid mass extinction through selective human predation may largely describe megafaunal extinctions on remote islands, but the argument is not convincing for continents. This is especially so regarding Australia. Because even the largest Australian species were prey to endemic carnivores, their responses to human predation would not have been comparable to those of oceanic island species. No kill-sites or specialized big-game hunting/butchering tools are known and, on the basis of ethnographic and archaeological data, it is probable that predation efficiency, population density and range of the first Australians were insufficient to effect rapid mass extinction. Chronologies of human arrival and the disappearance of megafauna remain poor, but the most recent estimates for human-megafaunal coexistence in Australia range from 10,000 to 43,000 years. Although human predation may have been a contributing factor in megafaunal extinctions, rapid overkill is unlikely to describe the actual mechanism in most instances. The role of human predation and its significance relative to competing factors, human and otherwise, varied considerably between landmasses, as did the speeds with which extinctions occurred. Blitzkrieg and other mono-factorial models are heuristically valuable devices, but a growing body of evidence suggests that extinction can rarely, if ever, be attributed to a single cause.     

Trepanations from Oman: A case of diffusion?

Trepanations have been described from various locations around the world leading to a suggestion that this is a cultural practice that has widely diffused from one or two centres ( 1 ). In the UAE the earliest trepanations date to the Neolithic, significantly earlier than trepanations in surrounding areas. The discovery of at least two crania in Oman, dating apparently to the early third millennium and resembling in technique and placement trepanations from north India may be evidence of the diffusion of a therapeutic practice from the Gulf to the subcontinent. However, the lack of any trepanation among the numerous contemporary skeletons from Bahrain suggests that any diffusion has distinct limits and that, as anthropological work from the South Pacific ( 2 ) indicates, practices like trepanation are often heavily embedded in broader, culturally located explanatory models.     

Explaining prehistoric variation in the abundance of large prey: A zooarchaeological analysis of deer and rabbit hunting along the Pecho Coast of Central California

Three main hypotheses are commonly employed to explain diachronic variation in the relative abundance of remains of large terrestrial herbivores: (1) large prey populations decline as a function of anthropogenic overexploitation; (2) large prey tends to increase as a result of increasing social payoffs; and (3) proportions of large terrestrial prey are dependent on stochastic fluctuations in climate. This paper tests predictions derived from these three hypotheses through a zooarchaeological analysis of eleven temporal components from three sites on central California’s Pecho Coast. Specifically, we examine the trade-offs between hunting rabbits (Sylvilagus spp.) and deer (Odocoileus hemionus) using models derived from human behavioral ecology. The results show that foragers exploited a robust population of deer throughout most of the Holocene, only doing otherwise during periods associated with climatic trends unfavorable to larger herbivores. The most recent component (Late Prehistoric/Contact era) shows modest evidence of localized resource depression and perhaps greater social benefits from hunting larger prey; we suggest that these final changes resulted from the introduction of bow and arrow technology. Overall, results suggest that along central California’s Pecho Coast, density independent factors described as climatically-mediated prey choice best predict changes in the relative abundance of large terrestrial herbivores through the Holocene.