Africa's earliest bananas?

The recent discovery of banana phytoliths dating to the first millennium BC in Cameroon has ignited debate about the timing of the introduction of this important food crop to Africa. This paper presents new phytolith evidence obtained from one of three sediment cores from a swamp at Munsa, Uganda, that appears to indicate the presence of bananas (Musa) at this site during the fourth millennium BC. This discovery is evaluated in the light of existing knowledge of phytolith taphonomy, the history of Musa, ancient Indian Ocean trade and African prehistory.     

Blood-brothers: a ritual of friendship and the construction of the imagined barbarian in the middle ages

This article analyses the history of blood-covenants in the middle ages. Appearing in various historiographical and literary texts from antiquity onwards, these covenants have hitherto mostly been interpreted by modern authors as a typical feature of pre-modern or even ‘primitive’ societies. A closer inquiry into the context of the existing source-material reveals, however, that this motif can be characterised as a part of discriminatory narrative strategies which aim at the exclusion of foreign and non-Christian cultures. The analysis of the medieval texts, which were mainly produced from the twelfth century onwards, clearly shows a tendency to attribute this ritual of blood-brotherhood either to representatives of the so-called ‘Saracens’ or allegedly heterodox cultures, like the Byzantines or the Irish, which populated the margins of the Latin west. Not only does this topical use of the motif invalidate part of the texts' factual source value, but it also proved misleading for the interpretation of pre-modern societies by modern historians. While an older tradition of classical political history mainly tended to note the ritual as a cultural curiosity, more recent studies of ritual structures are in danger of misrepresenting the cultures they focus on.     

A new Palaeolithic discovery: tar-hafted stone tools in a European Mid-Pleistocene bone-bearing bed

Two stone flakes partly covered in birch-bark-tar and a third without tar on it were discovered in fluvial gravel and clay in central Italy, in association with the bones of a young adult female Elephas (Palaeoloxondon) antiquus and several micromammals. The probable chronology of the stone flakes is compatible with the late Middle Pleistocene suggested by the site's small mammals and geological context. The fauna indicates a cool stadial episode before isotope stage 6. That age means the flakes are the oldest ever found hafted with tar and indicate a greater capacity for late Middle Pleistocene hominins to utilize raw materials available during cold phases.     

"The orang lives almost next door" the correspondence between John Fulton (New Haven) and Willem Verhaart (Java)

Between 1937 and 1959 John Fulton (1899-1960), Sterling Professor of Physiology at Yale University (New Haven) and Willem Verhaart (1889-1983), neuropsychiatrist at Batavia Medical School (Java, Dutch East Indies) corresponded on neuroanatomical topics. Verhaart had easy access to primate brains in Batavia and stayed at Fulton's lab as a Rockefeller fellow (1938-1939), learning techniques of surgery and histology of the primate brain in order to apply it in his own lab. The correspondence relates of their undertakings in research, the preparations for Verhaart's stay in New Haven, the failure of subsequent research plans because of World War II, the camp experiences in Asia by Verhaart, the period of restoration after the war, helped by Fulton, and the political changes (independence) in Indonesia that finally lead to Verhaart's return to the Netherlands in 1950, where he became professor of histology and Director of the Neurological Institute at Leiden University. The correspondence shows how neuroscientists from different parts of the world cooperated. Moreover it is an example of the gradual change from a German (like his teacher Winkler) to an Anglo-American orientation in medical science that started in the beginning of the nineteenth century.     

Landscapes, Houses, Bodies, Things: “Place” and the Archaeology of Inuit Imaginaries

Although the dichotomization of space and place has spawned a lively archaeological discussion, it threatens to devolve into a troublesome binary like sex/gender. Local place-making and universalizing spatial science are not so neatly segregated. Rather than dividing and bounding the notion of an investment of locations with meaning, it can be extended to describe the intricate topologies of bodies and things, as well as landscapes. Places emerge as sites of the hybrid articulation of representations, practices, and things, as spatialized imaginaries. The notion of imaginaries and the rethinking of place are illustrated with Inuit archaeological and ethnographic examples.     

Ambivalent patriotism: Jacob Aall and Dano‐Norwegian identity before 1814

Abstract. Like many Norwegian elite, Jacob Aall (1773–1844) lived between two national identities – Norwegian and Danish. On the one hand, he was a subject of the Danish crown, educated in Denmark in the refinements of European knowledge and high culture; on the other he was a loyal provincial son of Norway, engaged in building the political and economic autonomy of his homeland. This article examines the two sides of national identity in Jacob Aall's life and work by focusing on the evolution in his understanding of the concept of the Norwegian nation. It argues that the patriotism central to Aall's understanding of modernity and the coming‐to‐age of Norway contains two disparate, but equally necessary sides. The one is characterised by an abiding sentiment of national romantic cultural belonging, the other is a learned commitment to the Enlightenment utilitarian principles that gave force to the Norwegian national movement.     

A cooperative spatial future for RheinRuhr

As is the case with other metropolitan regions, there are claims that the emerging functional urban region of RheinRuhr needs to develop a cooperative spatial future. This article explores the underlying difficulties in seeking to move forward in regional cooperation and strategic regional development for RheinRuhr. At present, no clear shift can be observed from traditional land use planning and local development approaches towards more strategic planning for the whole urban region. There are still many obstacles to be overcome. Nevertheless, strides have been taken in the direction of improved cooperation. A dense and functionally overlapping (sub)‐regional associationalism seems to be one step towards future city‐regional governance and possibly government. An evaluation is reported of two new innovative modes of structural and regional policies, namely the Regional Conferences and the IBA Emscher Park Planning Company; their impacts on regional policy‐making structures are reviewed. A discussion on more recent approaches to regional cooperation follows. It is argued that, in the long term, as a multi‐regionalized space, RheinRuhr requires some kind of coordinator and moderator and new practices of regional planning and management. The future development of a RheinRuhr metropolitan region requires further steps to be taken towards strategic planning by the Land government as well as a deepening of the level of institutionalization. Some ideas are put forward on how the elaboration of a spatial Leitbild for RheinRuhr could be initiated and supported.