Hunter-Gatherer Mobility Strategies in the High Andes of Northern Chile during the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Transition (ca. 11,500–9500 CAL B.P.)

The high Andes of western South America feature extreme ecological conditions that impose important physiological constraints on humans including high-elevation hypoxia and cold stress. This leads to questions regarding how these environments were colonized by the first waves of humans that reached them during the late Pleistocene. Based on previous research, and aided by human behavioral ecology principles, we assess hunter-gatherer behavioral strategies in the Andean highlands during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. Specifically, we formulate three mobility strategies and their archaeological expectations and test these using technological and subsistence evidence from the six earliest well-dated highland sites in northern Chile. Our results suggest that all of the studied sites were temporarily occupied for hunting, processing animals, and toolkit maintenance. The sites also exhibit shared technological features within a curatorial strategy albeit with different occupation intensities. From this evidence, we infer that the initial occupations of the highlands were logistical and probably facilitated by increased local resource availability during a period of environmental amelioration.     

Superstitionis Malleus: John Toland,Cicero, and the War on Priestcraft in Early Enlightenment England

Summary

This paper explores the role of the Ciceronian tradition in the radical religious discourse of John Toland (1670–1722). Toland produced numerous works seeking to challenge the authority of the clergy, condemning their ‘priestcraft’ as a significant threat to the integrity of the Commonwealth. Throughout these anticlerical writings, Toland repeatedly invoked Cicero as an enemy to superstition and as a religious sceptic, particularly citing the theological dialogues De Natura Deorum and De Divinatione. This paper argues that Toland adapted the Ciceronian tradition so that it could function as an active influence on the construction of his radical discourse. First, it shows that Toland championed a particular interpretation of Cicero's works which legitimised his use of Cicero in this rational context. Then, it shows the practical manifestations of this interpretation, examining the ramifications for how Toland formed three important facets of his campaign against priestcraft: his identification of priestcraft as a superstition; his argument for a rational religion in which priestcraft could play no role; and his portrayal of anticlericalism as a service to the Commonwealth.     

Pastoralism and Pottery Use: An Ethnoarchaeological Study in Samburu,Kenya

In Samburu, Kenya, ethnoarchaeological research reveals a deep and perhaps unexpected integration of pottery use into a mobile lifestyle centered on the herding of livestock. This paper examines the importance of pottery to Samburu survival, particularly for the preparation of bone soups, wild plants, and other foods during times of drought and food insecurity. These data raise new questions about how pottery and other household material culture may have influenced the origins and development of African pastoralism.     

Southwest Scottish Crannogs: using in situ studies to assess preservation in wetland archaeological contexts

This paper presents the results of in situ monitoring of waterlogged burial contexts in southwest Scotland. The sites investigated are Iron Age crannogs (lake dwellings) which have a proven waterlogged archaeological component, and which are being assessed as part of a national program of study by the Scottish Wetland Archaeology Programme (SWAP) team. A monthly monitoring program commenced in July of 2004. To date, monitoring of water levels, pH, and redox potential, has been undertaken for a period of 17 months in order to encompass any seasonal variability at the sites studied. The results have proven robust in that an ‘ideal’ site for in situ preservation has been identified from the five sites investigated, and the monitoring has highlighted external variables and seasonal impacts that have the potential to influence the long-term in situ preservation at the remaining sites studied. In general, these results have expanded upon our knowledge of the potential for the preservation of existing archaeological remains within such contexts. This study represents the first stage of monitoring aimed at developing a holistic understanding of in situ conditions at the crannog sites studied in southwest Scotland.     

On the Rank-Size Distribution for Human Settlements

An explanation for the rank-size distribution for human settlements based on simple stochastic models of settlement formation and growth is presented. Not only does the analysis of the model explain the rank-size phenomenon in the upper tail, it also predicts a reverse rank-size phenomenon in the lower tail. Furthermore it yields a parametric form (the double Pareto-lognormal distribution) for the complete distribution of settlement sizes. Settlement-size data for four regions (two in Spain and two in the U.S.) are used as examples. For these regions the lower tail rank-size property is seen to hold and the double Pareto-lognormal distribution shown to provide an excellent fit, lending support to the model and to the explanation for the rank-size law.     

Policy Change: An Advocacy Coalition Framework Perspective

One purpose of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is to explain policy change. Previous holistic reviews of the ACF by Weible, Sabatier, and McQueen (2009) and Pierce, Peterson, Jones, Garrard, and Vu (2017) of the framework have not explicitly analyzed all the concepts and their interactions in a systematic manner. To address this gap and inform scholars and practitioners about past findings, strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for future research, this article analyzes how the ACF's theory of policy change is applied to 148 policy processes among 67 journal articles from 2007 to 2014. Similar to Weible et al. (2009), this research finds the frequent use of multiple primary pathways to policy change, infrequent use of many of the ACF's concepts, a plurality of applications in the environment and energy domain, comparison of subsystems, and a need for greater clarity and transparency among applications. Unlike Weible et al. (2009), this article explores associations between primary pathways and policy domains, the frequency of associations between primary pathways and secondary components, policy change and stasis, and identifies threats to internal validity of key ACF concepts.