Raw material availability,flaking quality,and hunter–gatherer technological decision making in northern Tierra del Fuego Island (southern South America)

The technological organization and lithic raw material procurement of Holocene hunter–gatherers have been topics of considerable interest in northern Tierra del Fuego Island. Ongoing archaeological investigations indicate that most of the rocks employed by native human populations came from secondary deposits of fluvio-glacial and marine origin. However, a primary geological source for two distinctive lithologies has been recently discovered near the Chorrillo Miraflores Valley (Tierra del Fuego, Chile). These raw materials became the focus of further research since one of them (a silicified tuff) has been identified in several archaeological sites of Tierra del Fuego. Some of these sites are located more than a hundred kilometers away from the source. A regional survey of potential lithic sources along with petrographic and geochemical analyses confirmed that the silicified tuff is only available at Chorrillo Miraflores. Here we present the technological analysis of artifacts manufactured on Miraflores silicified tuff that were recovered from the Argentine portion of northern Tierra del Fuego composed of Espíritu Santo and San Sebastian Capes. The role of utilitarian currencies in the prehistoric use of this lithology is assessed through the application of the Metcalfe and Barlow (1992) field processing model. The results show that this raw material may not have been exclusively selected for its flaking quality, although an alternative functional efficiency hypothesis is also introduced. Finally, its spatially restricted availability as well as unique macroscopic aspect suggests its selection and use may have been mainly influenced by social factors.     

Mapping the Middle East from Within: (Counter‐)Cartographies of an Imperialist Construction

Abstract: The “Middle East” is a readily accepted geographical category throughout much of the world. However, within this ambiguous geographic entity, both the term and the idea of the “Middle East” are often rejected as western‐imperialist constructs. Through a critical examination of an extensive sample of maps produced within several Arab states of the “Middle East”, I found that the regional designation “Middle East” is nearly nonexistent, while the Arab Homeland is unequivocally a more common regional category. However, the “Middle East” did occasionally appear in a few maps. This paper provides an explanatory examination of the normative cartographic discourses in this region, and more focused analysis of the atypical maps of the “Middle East”. My analyses render unique insights into how the “Middle East” is both contested and re‐created from within a western‐imperialist defined region.     

(Troubling) spaces of mountains and men: New Zealand's Mount Cook and Hermitage Lodge

In this paper we trace one pervasive expression of hegemonic New Zealand national identity that developed around the sport of mountaineering from the 1880s, culminating in Sir Edmund Hillary's historic first climb of Mount Everest in 1953. The image of the masculine mountaineering hero, developed on and around New Zealand's highest peak, Mount Cook, is, however, inherently unstable, and we focus on two sites of potential disruption. First, we examine the experiences of white mountaineering women on Mount Cook. These women both embraced the masculinist identity of hero and destabilized it. Women's mountaineering points to the active and complex construction (rather than simple reproduction) of imperialisms, nationalisms and masculinities. Second, we examine the role played by the Hermitage Lodge situated at the base of Mount Cook. Narratives about mountaineering too often ignore the huts, lodges, the places of staying behind. The roles performed by women (and some men) who never had the opportunity and/or the desire to climb but instead 'kept the home fires burning' and supported the efforts of others can be examined as a way of productively challenging the entrenchment of national identity around the masculine mountaineering hero.     

The Taphonomy of Resource Intensification: Zooarchaeological Implications of Resource Scarcity Among Bofi and Aka Forest Foragers

Zooarchaeological analyses often rely on bone fragmentation, cut marks, and other taphonomic indicators to bolster interpretations of resource intensification that are based on observed changes in prey types and frequencies. While these taphonomic indicators are assumed to be good proxy measures of processing effort, this assumption is based on inadequate actualistic data and analysts often conflate one or more taphonomic indicators as manifestations of the same process. In this paper, we present zooarchaeological data from two villages occupied by Central African forest foragers with very different foraging efficiencies. These data provide the first case where known disparities in diet breadth and foraging efficiency are matched with prey assemblages and taphonomic attributes. Observational and quantitative data show differences between the villages in diet breadth and access to high-ranked prey, but specific taphonomic indicators such as cut mark distribution and intensity do not match predictions generated from models of resource intensification. We propose that linking different taphonomic processes to resource scarcity and intensification can provide powerful adjunctive information. However, because different processing outcomes may be associated with different kinds of resource intensification in response to different kinds of scarcity, we need to strengthen the validity of purported taphonomic indicators with more rigorous independent studies.     

Settlement Patterns, Source–Sink Dynamics, and Artiodactyl Hunting in the Prehistoric U.S. Southwest

Numerous studies in the US Southwest suggest that prehistoric artiodactyl populations in areas of dense human settlement experienced population reductions which substantially reduced their availability to human hunters. Although most assemblages from villages in this region are dominated by lagomorphs, some settlements maintained greater access to artiodactyls. Factors influencing this variability include both local settlement history and settlement location relative to productive source areas for large game. In our study areas, source–sink dynamics likely contributed to the long-term resilience of hunted artiodactyl populations and allowed villagers continued access to animals moving in from source areas despite relatively rapid game depletion in heavily hunted areas immediately around villages.     

‘Let’s find out’: the historian laureate and participatory heritage discovery

ABSTRACT

Developing modes of engagement in the construction of public heritage knowledge emphasize participatory media and active collaboration with citizens. The City of Edmonton created the first historian laureate position in Canada in 2010, and related programs are still rare. This article considers the interaction of narrative content with social and technological contexts of production, viewing the role of the historian laureate as amateur historian and professional storyteller. The historian laureate operates primarily in accessible contexts of leisure, mediated in part through digital technologies, and can respond relatively directly to community interests as a heritage coordinator rather than expert. Rather than representing oppositional or disruptive power to official heritage discourses, the project enables the production of ‘small heritages’ through a series of story episodes. These stories focus on events, people, places and artifacts that typically fall outside the meta-narratives and monuments of a city’s heritage landscape. The historian laureate, embodying or articulating local experience in ways amenable to leisure activity, demonstrates capacities to produce largely indeterminate, diverse and porous ideas of place and histories as part of a bottom-up social generation of knowledge.     

Book reviews

CHINA

DORE J. LEVY. Ideal and Actual in “The Story of the Stone”. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 213 pp. US$49.00/£33.95, hardcover; US$19.00/£13.50, paper.

GREGOR BENTON (ed and trans). Chen Duxiu's Last Articles and Letters, 1937–1942. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1998. 163 pp. Foreword by Wang Fanxi, editor's introduction, appendices, glossary, index. £40.00, hardcover.

EILEEN CHANG. The Rice‐Sprout Song. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 182 pp. Foreword by David Der‐wei Wang. US$15.95, paper.

EILEEN CHANG. The Rouge of the North. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 185 pp. Foreword by David Der‐wei Wang. US$15.95, paper.

MCLAREN, ANNE E. Chinese Popular Culture and Ming Chantefables. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998. viii, 340 pp. US$103.75, hardcover.

EDWARD S. STEINFELD. Forging Reform in China: the Fate of State‐Owned Industry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 300 pp. Tables, figures, preface, notes, bibliography, index. A$80.00, hardcover; £12.95, paper.

PETER CONN. Pearl S. Buck: a Cultural Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 467 pp. A$28.95, paper.

FLEMMING CHRISTIANSEN and ZHANG JUNZUO (eds). Village INC. Chinese Rural Society in the 1990s. Surrey: Curzon, 1998. 277 pp. Illustrations, introduction, notes, bibliography, index. £35.00, hardcover.

HAROLD M. TANNER. Strike Hard! Anti‐Crime Campaigns and Chinese Criminal Justice 1979–1989. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program, 1999. 253 pp. US$28.00, hardcover; US$17.00, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

LONNY E. CARLILE and MARK C. TILTON (eds). Is Japan Really Changing Its Ways?: regulatory Reform and the Japanese Economy. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1998. 232 pp. US$39.95, hardcover.

PETER KATZENSTEIN and TAKASHI SHIRAISHI (eds). Network Power: Japan and Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. 399 pp. US$62.50, hardcover; US$23.95, paper.

BERNARD FAURE. The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. 338 pp. US$18.95, paper.

SOUTH, WEST & CENTERAL ASIA

VIJAY MISHRA. Devotional Poetics and the Indian Sublime. New York: State University of New York Press, 1998. 268 pp. US$21.95, paper.

OLIVER MENDELSOHN and MARIKA VICZIANY. The Untouchables: subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 289 pp. Glossary, preface, bibliography, index. A$36.95, paper.

DONALD S. LOPEZ, Jr. Prisoners of Shangri‐La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998. 238 pp. Notes, index. US$25.00, hardcover.

MELVYN C. GOLDSTEIN and MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN (eds), with a foreword by Orville Schell. Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet, Religious Revival and Cultural Identity.

Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1998. x, 207 pp. 37 b/w photographs, notes, bibliography, index. US$40.00, hardcover; US$15.95, paper; £30.00, hardcover; £11.95, paper.

PETER RICHARDUS (ed), with an historical foreword by Alex McKay. Tibetan Lives: three Himalayan Autobiographies. Surrey: Curzon, 1998. xxviii, 223 pp. 2 maps, frontispiece, 33 b/w plates, select bibliography, index. £40.00, hardcover.

RAMAKRISHNA PULIGANDLA. Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy. Delhi: D. K. Print‐world, 1997 (revised edition), xix, 362 pp. Preface to second edition, preface to first edition, bibliography, glossary, index. Rs. 450, hardcover.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

PAUL HUTCHCROFT. Booty Capitalism: the Politics of Banking in the Philippines. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998. 278 pp. US$39.95, hardcover.

PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER. Tales from Djakarta: caricatures of Circumstances and their Human Beings. Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1999. 145 pp. Foreword, introduction, glossary. US$15.00, paper.

GENERAL ASIA

YAYORI MATSUI. Women in the New Asia: from Pain to Power. Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 1999. x, 194 pp. Index. A$29.95, paper.     

Associations between coastal proximity and children’s mental health in Australia

Limited research has explored associations between blue spaces and mental health, specifically in children. This study assessed links between coastal proximity and depression and anxiety among children in Australia and tested whether duration of residency at current address moderated associations. It also explored associations between within-individual changes in coastal proximity and changes in depression and anxiety. Data were from 2400 children aged 11–12 years in Wave 5 (2012) and aged 14–15 years in Wave 6 (2014) of the national Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Outcomes were children’s self-reported symptoms of depression and anxiety. Exposure was coastal proximity (<2, 2–<5, 5–<10, 10–<20, 20–<50, and ≥50 km). Linear models were fitted to examine cross-sectional associations and fixed effects models for within-individual associations. After adjustment for potential confounders, findings suggested that those living close to the coast (<2 km) had lower levels of depression than those living the furthest from the coast (≥50 km) during childhood (Wave 5) but not adolescence (Wave 6). No associations were observed with anxiety. There was weak evidence to suggest residency duration moderated associations. No associations were observed for within-individual changes. Further research is needed to understand whether and what characteristics of coastal environments may benefit children’s mental health.