The history of the United States cent revealed through copper isotope fractionation

Copper isotope fractionation in United States cents traces changes in the source of copper and identifies historical events. Application of copper isotopes as a geochemical tracer requires consistent isotopic signatures of the ores and refined metals. Overlapping isotopic signatures of crushed ores, chalcocite and refined metal extracted from Morenci, Arizona indicate modern mining processes that produce distinguishable single ore deposit geochemical signatures. The coincidence of copper isotope ratios in metals and ore deposits also exists within the United States cents analyzed here. Specifically, historical records confirm two different sources for copper in cents from 1800 through 1867. The copper isotope composition of the 1828, 1830, 1836, 1838 and 1843 cents coincides with the Cornwall ores of England, and cents post 1850 (1859, 1862) correspond with the Michigan ores of the United States. Three of the thirty-six post 1867 cents measured possess fractionated copper isotope ratios and indicate the change in source of copper for the United States cent.     

“Words fail us”: Beckett,Leacock, and Johnson

ABSTRACT

This article will look at political treatments of language in Samuel Beckett’s early novel Watt and place the novel’s linguistic scepticism in conversation with three authors, the lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the language theorist Felix Mauthner, and the English-born, Canadian parodist Stephen Leacock. The paper will argue that Beckett, like Leacock, engages in Mauthnerian critiques of language, destabilising Johnsonian formulae for language standardisation. But while Leacock fails to develop the political implications of his critique of language, Beckett’s understanding of language standardisation is implicitly political, informed by Johnson’s conception of speech as the predicate of national identity, a standard for inclusion which Watt gleefully antagonises. Challenging nationalist calls for controls on language, Watt interrogates the ways that campaigns for linguistic unity will engender exclusionary attitudes towards the nonconforming and bar access to that speech and identity which falls outside of normative frameworks.     

Two Corn Belt Farms

Case studies of two farms in eastern Iowa illustrate changes in the Corn Belt since World War II. The Hoffman farm was a classic example of a traditional operation that used a three-year rotation of corn, oats and leguminous hay on 160 acres of land. These crops were used to fatten feeder cattle from western range areas and hogs that were farrowed on the farm. This farm operation did not take advantage of opportunities to expand, and it has been sold because it is too small for a successful modern family farm. The Mather farm has been operated by members ol the same family lor five generations. Anders Mather was a superb cattleman who raised crops to fatten range cattle and hogs, but his grandson, Kenneth, has eliminated the livestock operation and concentrates on producing corn and soybeans for sale as cash crops. He has enlarged the farm to more than a thousand acres by buying and renting land. It is an excellent example of a contemporary Corn Belt family farm.     

The Social,Spatial, and Bioarchaeological Histories of Ancient Oman project: the mortuary landscape of Dhank

The Social, Spatial, and Bioarchaeological Histories of Ancient Oman (SoBO) project has conducted three seasons of survey and excavation in north‐western Oman. Focusing on third‐millennium BC archaeological features, this project is unique because of the combination of geospatial survey and bioarchaeological excavation of mortuary monuments in and around the town of Dhank. Here we report our initial findings, define our survey area and techniques and discuss excavated funerary structures and associated radiocarbon dates from both charcoal and human skeletal remains. This report presents preliminary results that introduce this new project on the prehistoric mortuary landscapes of Oman and highlight the techniques the SoBO team employs to examine Bronze Age communities in this rural location.     

Instantiating Vision at the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary

This article examines the how the educational ideals of Mary Lyon, founder of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, were instantiated in the built environment of the seminary she founded in the early nineteenth century. It is an exploration of how Lyon's vision of place contributed to the creation and transformation of gendered lives for middle‐ and lower‐class women from rural New England. While working within the restraints of a male‐dominated social and economic climate, Lyon both conforms to and resists the accepted gender roles that expected women to be subservient and obedient. Intent on changing the nature of women's educational and professional lives, Lyon refashioned notions of what it meant to be dependent yet dedicated to developing a life of the mind. Specific attention is given to how the built environment of the seminary served to further inculcate Lyon's belief in order, routine, and familial harmony all in the service of educating young women in preparation for both domestic and professional lives.     

Biostratigraphic Evidence Relating to the Age‐Old Question of Hannibal's Invasion of Italy,I: History and Geological Reconstruction

Controversy over the alpine route that Hannibal of Carthage followed from the Rhône Basin into Italia has raged amongst classicists and ancient historians for over two millennia. The motivation for identifying the route taken by the Punic Army through the Alps lies in its potential for identifying sites of historical archaeological significance and for the resolution of one of history ' s most enduring quandaries. Here, we present stratigraphic, geochemical and microbiological evidence recovered from an alluvial floodplain mire located below the Col de la Traversette (~3000 m asl—above sea level) on the French/Italian border that potentially identifies the invasion route as the one originally proposed by Sir Gavin de Beer (de Beer 1974 ). The dated layer is termed the MAD bed (mass animal deposition) based on disrupted bedding, greatly increased organic carbon and key/specialized biological components/compounds, the latter reported in Part II of this paper. We propose that the highly abnormal churned up (bioturbated) bed was contaminated by the passage of Hannibal ' s animals, possibly thousands, feeding and watering at the site, during the early stage of Hannibal ' s invasion of Italia (218 bc ).     

The West's moral and political crisis

The West is in the grip of a moral panic with unforeseeable political consequences. After four decades of neoliberalism, cracks are beginning to appear in the form of nationalist challenges from the right and a youthful insurrection from the left, both frequently described as ‘populist’ by establishment figures. The Faustian compact made with finance capital by the traditional parties of the centre‐left in the 1990s now leaves them on the verge of extinction. The underlying conditions for this disarray are a massive demographic shift at the global level which will see Asians and Africans with over four‐fifths of the world's population in 2100. This editorial briefly reviews the Cold War and the transformations that have occurred since. A world revolution after 1945 was overthrown by a counter‐revolution in 1979–1980 which is itself under threat now. The American Empire is sustained by mercantilism, militarism, the world currency, intellectual property and the Internet economy. Free markets are just an ideological fig leaf for this. The editorial concludes with a review of recent political events in the US, France and Britain: Trump's presidency, Macron's improbable rise and Corbyn's surge in May's snap election. In Britain's case, the terrorist attacks, hung parliament and Grenfell Tower fire constitute a perfect storm that could sink the British political right.     

Paleodietary implications from stable carbon isotope analysis of experimental cooking residues

The regional timing of maize introduction in eastern North America is a long-standing topic of archaeological interest. Most recently, Morton and Schwarcz [2004. Paleodietary implications from stable isotopic analysis of residues on prehistoric Ontario ceramics. Journal of Archaeological Science 31, 503–517] investigated the timing of maize introduction in Ontario through isotope analysis of charred cooking residues adhering to the interior of prehistoric ceramic containers. They interpret their results to suggest maize was incorporated into diets after A.D. 600. We assess their approach and conclusions with stable carbon isotope assays on three sets of experimental cooking residues, evaluating the variable combustion of carbon fractions, contributions of fats and carbohydrates, and the contribution of total carbon. We also undertake multiple resource modeling of two part food mixes with green maize and maize flour. Our results suggest that systematic under representation of maize can result depending on residue composition and that some prior knowledge of C3 plant and animal contents is necessary to interpret stable carbon isotope values on cooking residues. We question the independent use of stable carbon isotope analysis of charred cooking residues as a viable technique for extracting paleodietary information.     

Monongahela subsistence-settlement change: The late prehistoric period in the lower Upper Ohio River valley

The Late Prehistoric period in the lower Upper Ohio River basin of southwestern Pennsylvania and adjacent portions of Maryland, Ohio, and West Virginia is dominated by a material-culture assemblage named Monongahela. Monongahela has been associated with subsistence-settlement systems that included a large number of upland villages that were often far removed from large river valleys. The existence of these villages has been explained as resulting from intra- and interregional warfare. While these upland villages may have obtained as a result of warfare, it is argued that they served as important links in regional divided risk strategies in response to local environmental and social risks.