Pre-hispanic goldwork technology. The Quimbaya Treasure,Colombia

One of the most important pre-Columbian gold assemblages made up of more than one hundred objects from two tombs in the Cauca river valley, Colombia, was studied to obtain archaeometric information. Although several attempts have been made to arrange gold production in time and space from the stylistic point of view, no firm conclusions were possible due to the lack of archaeological contexts. This paper presents first results of a new, fully instrumental approach, in which different analytical techniques, including OM, SEM-EDS, XRF, PIXE, RBS, AMS and X-ray imaging, were applied in order to determine a technological, metallurgical and chronological frame of the so-called Quimbaya Treasure.     

黄宗智“过密化”理论中的事实判定、逻辑分析与模式建构问题——以《长江三角洲小农家庭与乡村发展》为中心

黄宗智的“过密化”理论自其《长江三角洲小农家庭与乡村发展》于20世纪90年代初出版之后一直在国内外史学界影响广泛,它认为明清以来的人口增长导致了长江三角洲植棉等经济行业的单位工作日劳动报酬的递减。鉴于史学界至今未有人从该书内部详细分析这一理论的实际论证过程,本文以此为切入点,指出它存在：一,植棉经济发韧于明代等诸多事实判定疏误或不当之处;二,抽样数据的数量严重不足等统计数据问题;三,植棉等经济行业的单位工作日劳动报酬因其单位产出价格的巨幅变动而无法简单比较等逻辑分析方面的问题。据此,本文认为该书没能有效证明过密化理论符合明清时期长江三角洲的历史发展事实。     

Placing social interaction: An integrative approach to analyzing past built environments

A growing recognition of the vital role that built space plays in social reproduction has created a need for analytical methods and interpretive frameworks with which to investigate this relationship in archaeological datasets. I address this by developing an integrative approach that emphasizes the role of the built environment as the context for interactions through which social structures are created, transformed and reproduced. This approach uses access analysis to examine how buildings structure patterns of movement and encounter that allow social actors to engage in or avoid particular forms of interaction. With its focus on the topological properties of built space, however, access analysis does not take adequate account of a building’s symbolic aspects, especially architectural characteristics and furnishings that social actors mobilize in the creation of meaningful contexts for interaction. I therefore integrate access analysis with an examination of how built environments encode meanings and nonverbally communicate them to inhabitants and visitors, potentially influencing their actions and interactions. The integrative approach allows determination of probable contexts for various types of social interactions during which social identities could be displayed, negotiated and reified. I conclude by demonstrating the potential of this approach with an analysis of the monumental Ashlar Building from the Late Bronze Age (c. 1650–1100 BC) site of Enkomi, Cyprus.     

The Social Role of Technology in Coastal Alaska

Novel technologies linked to women and men through identity-demarcated tasks and knowledge sets can potentially have differential and even long-term effects on each group. This study follows the trajectory of two significant imports into the coastal western Alaskan system, the firearm and the metal cook pot. These imports had different implications for coastal Yup’ik women and men, young and old. Over time the gun became an integral piece of a man’s tool kit and one that had the potential to boost production and thus a man’s access to status-building. However, these same tools had the potential to undermine the apprenticeship system of male authority. Likewise, the metal cook pot replaced the productive oversight and skill set of elder women’s ceramic production but created paths of independence for younger Yup’ik women. These changes in technology destabilized relative balances of gender and age based status, security, and authority and fashioned new gender and age based social and economic opportunities and limitations.     

Reaping bare fields: a response to Stemp et al

In 2010 we have described in JAS a novel method for quantifying sickle gloss. Independently, Goodale et al. (2010) published another method for quantifying gloss based on a different method. Recently, the methods of both teams have been criticized by Stemp et al. We argue below that the critique is lacking and that the method we devised, laser He–Ne measurement, is a way to quantify sickle blade gloss that enables an objective estimate of the intensity of sickles use. The system is not expensive and is time efficient.     

Are rocks still water‐wet in the presence of dense CO2 or H2S?

The various modes of acid gas storage in aquifers, namely structural, residual, and local capillary trapping, are effective only if the rock remains water‐wet. This paper reports an evaluation, by means of the captive‐bubble method, of the water‐wet character in presence of dense acid gases (CO₂, H₂S) of typical rock‐forming minerals such as mica, quartz, calcite, and of a carbonate‐rich rock sampled from the caprock of a CO₂ storage reservoir in the South‐West of France. The method, which is improved from that previously implemented with similar systems by Chiquet et al. (Geofluids 2007; 7 : 112), allows the advancing and receding contact angles, as well as the adhesion behavior of the acid gas on the mineral substrate, to be evaluated over a large range of temperatures (up to 140°C), pressures (up to 150 bar), and brine salinities (up to NaCl saturation) representative of various geological storage conditions. The water‐receding (or gas‐advancing) angle that controls structural and local capillary trapping is observed to be not significantly altered in the presence of dense CO₂ or H₂S. In contrast, some alteration of the water‐advancing (or gas‐receding) angle involved in residual trapping is observed, along with acid gas adhesion, particularly on mica. A spectacular wettability reversal is even observed with mica and liquid H₂S. These results complement other recent observations on similar systems and present analogies with the wetting behavior of crude oil/brine/mineral systems, which has been thoroughly studied over the past decades. An insight is given into the interfacial forces that govern wettability in acid gas‐bearing aquifers, and the consequences for acid gas geological storage are discussed along with open questions for future work.     

The Late Upper Palaeolithic Occupation of the Moroccan Northwest Maghreb During the Last Glacial Maximum

New work at Kehf el Hammar Cave provides the first well-dated palaeoenvironmental sequence for the Late Upper Palaeolithic in this region of the northwest Maghreb. The archaeological layers are dated via a combination of AMS radiocarbon and luminescence dating methods. The sequence contains charcoal-rich occupation layers with faunal, human and lithic finds. Local vegetational patterns are reconstructed on the basis of preliminary analysis of the charcoal evidence. Using standard calibration curves the AMS radiocarbon dates are compared with proxy evidence for climatic change from sea core records in the Alborán Sea. These appear to show that the Late Upper Palaeolithic occupation of the region coincides closely with Heinrich Event 1, a period marked by intense aridification and dating to ca. 16,700–17,250 calendar years ago.Les nouvelles recherches dans la grotte de Kehf el Hammar ont permis d’obtenir la première séquence paléoenevironnementale bien datée du Paléolithique supérieur tardif au Nord Ouest du Maghreb. En effet, les niveaux archéologiques ont été datés par le radiocarbone par accélérateur (AMS) et des méthodes radiométriques basées sur la luminescence. En revanche, les paléoenvironnements végétaux ont été partiellement reconstitués à base des premières analyses des charbons de bois. Les dates AMS calibrées ont été comparées aux données climatiques issues des carottes marines dans la mer Alborán. Ainsi, les occupations humaines du Paléolithique supérieur tardif dans la région ont sensiblement coïncidé avec l’événement climatique Heinrich 1. Celui-ci correspond à une période qui a été marquée par une aridification intense entre 16.700 et 17.250 ans (cal.).     

Settlement structures and cemetery at Wadi Shab-GAS1, Sultanate of Oman: Report on the 2002 and 2003 field seasons

Many chronological and cultural facets of Early and Middle Holocene Prehistoric Oman are still unclear. Archaeological excavations of settlements and cemeteries are adding new data to the reconstruction of a chronological and cultural framework. Wadi Shab-GAS1 is a Middle Holocene site found at the beginning of the 1980s and later destroyed by urbanisation. It is located in a rich environmental niche, on a cliff facing the sea and near a permanent freshwater source. Three years of fieldwork at this site brought to light structural remains, a cemetery and interesting material culture.     

Interpreting the Moon Landings: Project Apollo and the Historians

By focusing on the key book‐length studies of the Apollo program that landed American astronauts on the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s, this essay seeks to evaluate the historiography about Apollo in the first decade of the twenty‐first century, dividing the subject into five major areas. The first area is the foreign policy and public policy antecedents of Apollo and its immediate ramifications; some of these efforts have yielded significant studies. The second area involves the evolution of space hardware, in many instances these are overwhelmingly detailed studies of rockets and other space flight technologies. Third, there is a great fascination with the astronauts and their actual flights, and a rich tradition of memoir and narrative exists in this arena. The fourth area receiving attention from historians of Apollo and the lunar voyages emphasizes the history of science, in which much of the focus is on the scientists, scientific findings from the voyages of discovery, and the use of this evidence in developing larger theories about the origin and evolution of the solar system. Finally, and increasingly so in the last 20 years, the Apollo story has been recontextualized through social and cultural investigations of its meaning in modern America. Assessing the five major areas enumerated above, this essay also offers some possibly fruitful avenues of future research.     

Lorca's Late Poetry. Andrew A. Anderson

Abstract

Joseph Brami, Madeleine Cottenet-Hage, and Pierre Verdaguer, eds. Regards sur la France des années 1980. Le roman (Stanford French and Italian Studies, 80) Saratoga, Calif.: ANMA Libri, 1994. 260 pp.

Jean-Claude Carron, ed. François Rabelais: Critical Assessments. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. 227 pp. $38.50.