Ancient Microbial DNA in Dental Calculus: A New method for Studying Rapid Human Migration Events

Ancient human migrations provide the critical genetic background to historical and contemporary human demographic patterns. However, our ability to infer past human migration events, especially those that occurred over rapid timescales, is often limited. A key example is the peopling of Polynesia, where the timing is relatively well defined, but the exact routes taken during the final stages and the source populations are not. Here, we discuss the technical limitations of current methods for inferring rapid human migration events, using the final stages of Polynesian migration as an example. We also introduce a promising new proxy method to infer human migrations—patterns of bacterial evolution within ancient dental calculus (calcified plaque). While we focus on Polynesia, this method should be applicable to other past migrations, enhancing our understanding of human prehistory and revealing the crucial events that shaped it.     

Method and Memory in the Midwestern "Lincoln Inquiry": Oral Testimony and Abraham Lincoln Studies, 1865 1938

This article narrates the role of oral testimony in the fieldof Abraham Lincoln studies from 1865 through the 1930s. Collectedin the form of letters, affidavits, and face-to-face interviews,this mounting body of "eyewitness evidence" dominated the discoursefor two generations and reflective, public practice culminatedin the organization of a "Lincoln Inquiry" in the Midwest duringthe 1920s and 1930s. For a time, practitioners successfullydefended themselves against increasing positivist assaults onthe credibility of oral testimony. Their interests and effortsresonate with later oral history practice and theory about method,authorship, performance, and memory, and their story highlightsthe contingency inherent in the development of oral historicalpractice in America.     

The Politics of Party Leader Survival and Succession: Australia in Comparative Perspective

The processes of replacement of party leaders are well-published events in media outlets across the world's democracies, but are scarcely analysed by political scientists. In this article we examine the extent to which incumbent party leaders are able to control their own fate in the face of various types of challenges that herald a possible end to their rule. It discusses three related research questions derived from this main objective: (1) what makes incumbents quit? (2) How do incumbents respond to various types of triggers heralding a possible end to their rule? (3) To what extent does incumbent behaviour prior to and following succession affect the fortunes of their successors and their party? We draw on a four-country–eight-party data set of leadership successions between 1945 and 2005, and on findings of in-depth studies of Australian cases to show that not only do Australian leaders get challenged and replaced more frequently than do other leaders, but they are also forced to combat more internal rivalry than their counterparts elsewhere.     

Innovation projects and local production networks: A case study of Hertfordshire

This paper evaluates some of the key arguments underlying what is called here the local production network paradigm (LPNP). These are presented as three interlinked hypotheses that turn on the idea that firms competing in world markets need to accommodate continuous change by fostering product or process innovation. The definition of innovation used in this study is “the commercially successful exploitation of new technologies, ideas or methods through the introduction of new products or processes, or through the improvement of existing ones” (EC DG XIII, 1996, p. 54).

One conventionally described organizational response to this requirement to accommodate continuous innovation is to dis‐integrate firms and set up local production networks. Local production networks are defined in this study as “collaborative linkages between local firms and local factors of production”. Such networks are said to rely on local resources of various kinds to enable them to innovate on a continuous and incremental basis. As a result of such dependencies on local factors, and their interconnectedness with each other, the local production network (LPN) firms then become ‘embedded’ in their localities. Such networked economies have been variously described as new industrial districts, areas of flexible specialization, and innovative milieux.

The evidence presented to test these hypotheses is based on a case study of innovative, award‐winning firms in Hertfordshire. The findings show that although these firms do compete successfully in fast‐moving international markets, they do not rely much on local production networks, as defined here, to enable them to do so. The findings call into question the general applicability of the LPNP. Questions are raised particularly with respect to innovation in the important minority of highly innovative core metropolitan regions.

Innovation is argued to be an interactive process that is both driven by a steady supply of technological advances and stimulated by different types of consumer demand. In the case of the firms interviewed in Hertfordshire, most of their innovative projects were developed by the firms working individually, and in isolation, from other local businesses using high quality, knowledge, information, human resources and venture capital. At the same time, these firms were also pulled by demands from military, health and company consumers. Only in the case of the minority of innovations that were purchased in the first instance by private final consumers were local production networks of some significance.     

Domesticated Landscapes: The Subsistence Ecology of Plant and Animal Domestication

Harvesting different species as foods or raw materials calls for differing skills depending on the species being harvested and the circumstances under which they are being taken. In some situations and for some species, the tactics used are mainly behavioral—that is, people adjust, or adapt, their own actions to fit the behavior and circumstances of the species they are taking. Under other circumstances and for other species, the skills and tactics used may call for greater environmental preparation or manipulation. Therefore, instead of trying to distinguish people today and in the past as either foragers or farmers, it makes sense to define human subsistence behavior as an interactive matrix of species and harvesting tactics, that is, as a provisions spreadsheet.