Strontium isotope analysis of Neolithic and Copper Age populations on the Great Hungarian Plain

The strontium isotope ratio (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) is used in archaeological studies to identify major events of population movement in prehistory such as migration, conquest, and inter-marriage. This study shows that the strontium isotope method can be expanded to identify more subtle shifts in prehistoric human mobility. ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr isotope ratios were analyzed in dental enamel from human and faunal specimens from the Late Neolithic and Copper Age on the Great Hungarian Plain. The archaeological record indicates that several aspects of life changed during the transition from the Late Neolithic to the Copper Age (ca. 4500 BC) in Hungary; evidence for increased interaction over a wide geographical area, less resource pooling and the use of secondary products has been used to support the idea that local populations became more mobile, perhaps due to the adoption of an agro-pastoral economy. Results from this study identify a change in the range of strontium isotope values from the Late Neolithic to the Copper Age from a very narrow range of values to a much broader range of values, which suggests that changes in how land and resources were utilized on the Great Hungarian Plain affected incorporation of strontium into the skeletal system. This study indicates that the strontium isotope ratio is a valuable tool for identifying more subtle changes in prehistoric behavior such as a shift to a more pastoral economy.     

Fact or speculation? How a feminist perspective can help students understand what archaeologists know and why they think they know it

Si somos serios respecto la importancia de la educación pública y la comunicación, entonces necesitamos considerar la pedagogía de la arqueología. Ense?ar a los universitarios sobre arqueología tendrá más éxito cuando los temas sobre método, teoría, y ética se se?alan como aspectos integrados y centrales de la práctica arqueóloga. Tomando ejemplos de mi experiencia en la ense?anza en varias instituciones académicas norteamericanas, yo se?alo como la investigación inspirada por el feminismo sirve como un método pedagógico práctico para ense?ar a los estudiantes las realidades del dise?o de investigación, el uso de múltiples líneas de evidencia, y verificaciń de las interpretaciones.

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Résumé Si nous voulons prendre au sérieux l'importance de l'éducation publique et de la communication, alors nous devons considérer la pédagogie dans l'archéologie. Enseigner l'archéologie aux étudiants sera plus fructueux quand les questions de méthode, de thérie et d'éthique seront mises en avant en tant qu'aspects intégrés et centraux de la pratique de l'archéologie. En illustrant mon discours d'exemples tirés de mon expérience d'enseignante dans différentes institutions académiques américaines, je montre comment la recherche marquée par le féminisme, peut servir d'approache, pédagogiquement utile, pour présenter aux étudiants les réalités des plans de recherche, l'utilisation de lignes d'évidences multiples et la vérification des interprétations.

     

Going Outside Together: Good Practice with Respect to the Inclusion of Disabled Children in Primary School Playgrounds

This paper reports some of the findings of research which has investigated the inclusion of disabled children in six primary school playgrounds in Yorkshire, in England. Initially the paper sets the policy context before moving on to discuss the importance of play for children, especially in a primary school setting and particularly for disabled children in such a setting. The inclusion of disabled children is discussed with respect to a series of social and organisational issues and the good practice identified relating to these issues. The social issues include the relationships the disabled children have with their peers and with the staff. The organisational issues relate to the individual routines, moving to a new school, the benefit of staff experience and training, encouraging activity in physical education lessons which can be translated in to the playground and the benefits of extra time outside for some disabled children. All these aspects can influence whether all the children can go outside together—an important underlying factor for the inclusion of disabled children in primary school playgrounds.     

Introduction: Women's Rights as Human Rights: Global Contestations over the Longue Durée

This short essay introduces the forum on ‛Women's Rights as Human Rights: Global Contestations over the Longue Durée’. It briefly outlines the state of the field, a new agenda for research in the area and the topics of the articles in the forum. The forum derives from a symposium on the same topic sponsored by Gender & History and held at the University of Sheffield in spring 2022.     

‘Making Black More Beautiful’: Black Women and the Cosmetics Industry in the Post-Civil Rights Era

This article explores how the ‘Black is Beautiful’ movement transformed attitudes towards beauty standards within black communities and how the cosmetics industry tried to capitalise on these shifts in their marketing strategies. It charts how redefined beauty standards generated a proliferation of cosmetics companies and products exclusively for black women, and their success attracted widespread attention from across the industry. However, this article demonstrates that while the cosmetics industry removed certain racialised barriers to mainstream American beauty culture, the commodification of the language and imagery of “Black is Beautiful” in cosmetics advertising often reinforced gendered expectations as well as heightening tensions within black communities in regard to colourism and business ownership.     

Environmentality on the Canadian Prairies: Settler‐Farmer Subjectivities and Agri‐Environmental Objects

State and institutional actors have been shaping settler‐farmer subjectivities in order to transform the landscape and thus the history and geography of the Canadian Prairies. This paper expands the application of environmentality from its origins in colonial forestry to interrogate agriculture on prairie landscapes. The Canadian state used the technologies of environmentality to influence “common sense” attitudes and behaviours, which acted to deterritorialize Indigenous communities and then manipulated their subjectivities to guarantee settler‐farmer access to land. Later, institutions and states moulded settler‐farmer subjectivities of correct farming behaviour in an effort to convert soil, water, and seeds into economic resources. These environmental objects, in turn, acted upon settler‐farmer subjects by setting biophysical and genetic limits such as soil fertility, water quality and quantity, and plant hardiness and disease resistance. Resisting environmentality requires understanding processes of subjugation while also creating counter‐narratives of “good” farming behaviour and Indigenous‐settler relations.     

The Un-European Idea: Vichy and Eurafrica in the Historiography of Europeanism

Imperialist and collaborationist conceptions of Europeanisms have generally been excluded from mainstream historiography with reference to their alleged un-Europeanness. However, by discussing the ideas and writings of two French Europeanists—Louis Le Fur’s and René Viard’s—in the years 1940–41, I argue that it is precisely their Vichyite and imperialist conceptions of Europeanness that underpin their political ideas of a united Europe. Their works therefore call into question a prevailing historiographical narrative of Europeanism as a benign counterpoint to a dark European past. Since, as demonstrated in this article, French Europeanist visions have often been bound up with both collaborationist and imperialist interests, I argue for the need to develop a more inclusive and critical historiographical perspective on the history of Europeanism.     

Framing the past: situating the archaeological in photographs

Archaeology continually reproduces its own images. Speaking archaeology’s visual language is one way we prove membership in the discipline. Many aspects of this visual language have become so naturalized within archaeological representation as to be almost unquestionable: the cleaning of the site, the use of scale, and particular framings and perspectives. How, then, is the production of particular photographic images of archaeology related to the practice of archaeology? Does archaeology look a certain way (in photographs) or are archaeologists reproducing an archaeology according to the way it is thought it should look? Using examples of early photographs from Latin American archaeological expeditions, this article investigates not only photography as an applied technology for scientific recording, but also its power to situate archaeological knowledge. Drawing on recent reflective and critical developments in both the history of archaeology and visual anthropology, it uses five focal points – trace, objectivity and authenticity, sight/site, still lifes, and still lives – to argue that early-twentieth-century archaeological photographs of Latin America participated in the generation of an ‘authentic’ past rather than simply paid testament to it.     

Mastering the Arctic marine environment: organizational practices of Pomor hunting expeditions to Svalbard (Spitsbergen) in the eighteenth century

We consider the foundations of the widely recognized reputation of the Pomors as experts in dealing with the severe and unpredictable marine environment of the White and Barents Seas. Our research focuses on the history of Russian exploitation of Spitsbergen. Though these kinds of activities occupied only 1% of maritime shipping in the Russian North, the history of exploitation of this Arctic archipelago is contextualized within the history of the Russian North and the lives of its people. Thus, it provides an informative model for general understanding of the methods and structures Pomors used to control the marine environment. The paper is based on newly discovered documents that allowed us to analyse the social and property status of organizers and participants in Spitsbergen hunting. We also consider practices linked to trip organization and supply. We argue that an understanding of Spitsbergen hunting management reveals the general principals of Pomor mastery of the Arctic environment. Flexibility and decentralization of economic activities permitted peasants of the Russian North to demonstrate stable and positive economic results under severe conditions. This could easily have been perceived as a special ability to live in the Arctic.