Lithic use-wear analysis of the Early Gravettian of Vale Boi (Cape St. Vicente,southern Portugal): insights into human technology and settlement in southwestern Iberia

During the Upper Paleolithic, lithic variability is one of the most important keys to recognize hunter-gatherer behavior, technology, ecology, and social dynamics. The origin and expansion of Gravettian populations in Eurasia has been seen as one of the most critical episodes in human evolution, argued to be the first clear evidence of the so-called polymorphism among modern human populations. In the case of southern Iberian Peninsula, recent data have shown a new regional and diachronic organization for the Gravettian occupation in this region. Therefore, the interpretation of such variability is one of the most important questions, and functional analysis is a fundamental proxy to recognize human technological, settlement and ecological adaptations as major factors for this polymorphism. This study focused on lithic use-wear analysis of the Early Gravettian of Vale Boi (southern Portugal), in order to understand lithic technological organization and variability within and between occupations at the site. Results show similar patterns between assemblages, showing that different materials were worked at the site, although showing reduced time of work, low variability and percentage of pieces used. Unlike other Gravettian contexts in southern Iberia, the Early Gravettian from Vale Boi is characterized by some variability of backed points, marked by the predominance of bipointed double-backed bladelets. Functional analysis of the Early Gravettian lithic industries of Vale Boi provide a new insight to interpret human technology and settlement strategy during the onset of Upper Paleolithic industries in western Eurasia.     

Book reviews

Australian politics

Frank Brennan, Land Rights Queensland Style. The Struggle for Aboriginal Self‐Management (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1992) pp.182. $29.95 ISBN 0 7022 2407 3.

Frank Brennan, Sharing the Country: The Case for an Agreement Between Black and White Australians (Melbourne: Penguin, 1991) pp.176. $18.95 ISBN 0 14 013867 6.

Libby Connors, Lynette Finch, Kay Saunders and Helen Taylor, Australia's Frontline: Remembering the 1939–45 War (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1992) pp.244. $16.95 ISBN 7022 2446 4.

Peter Edwards with Gregory Pemberton, Crises and Commitments: The Politics and Diplomacy of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948–1965 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1992) pp.515. $45.00 ISBN 1 86373184 9.

Dean Jaensch, The Politics of Australia (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1992) pp.446. $34.95 ISBN 0 7329 0396 3.

J.E. King (ed.), Readings in Australian Labour Economics (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1992) pp.363. $29.95 9 ISBN 0 7329 1261 X.

Patrick O'Brien and Martyn Webb (eds), The Executive State: WA Inc. and the Constitution (Perth: Constitutional Press, 1991) pp.389. $19.95 ISBN 0 646 04875 9.

David Pollard, Social Need and Social Policy (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1992) pp.112. $24.95 0 86806 452 1.

David Trigger, Whitefella Commin’: Aboriginal Responses to Colonialism in Northern Australia (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992) pp.250. $45.00 ISBN 0 521 40181 X.

J.C. Altman (ed.), A National Survey of Indigenous Australians: Options and Implications. Research Monograph No. 3. (Canberra: Centre For Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, 1992) pp.170. $4.80 ISBN 0 7315 1395 9.

Compartive and International Politics

Peter H. Argersinger, Structure, Process, and Party: Essays in American Political History (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharp, 1992) pp.219. $US29.95 ISBN 0 87332 798 5.

Jane H. Bayes (ed.), Women and Public Administration: International Perspectives (Binghamton: Harrington Park Press, 1991) pp.139. $US14.95. ISBN 1 56023 014 2.

Jonathan Boston, John Martin, June Pallot, Pat Walsh (eds), Reshaping the State: New Zealand's Bureaucratic Revolution (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1991) pp.408. $48.00. ISBN 0 19 558222 5.

Naomi Chazan, Robert Mortimer, John Ravenhill and Donald Rothchild, Polities and Society in Contemporary Africa (second edition) (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992) pp.483. $19.95 ISBN 155587 283 2.

Cal Clark and Steve Chan (eds), The Evolving Pacific Basin in the Global Political Economy: Domestic & International Linkages (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992) pp.226. $n.p. ISBN 1 55587 271 9.

Jacques Delors (trans Brian Pearce), Our Europe: The Community and National Development (London, New York: Verso, 1992) pp.166. $59.95 ISBN 0 86091 380 5.

David Denver and Gordon Hands (eds), Issues and Controversies in British Electoral Behaviour (London: Harvester Wheatsheef, 1992) pp.390 $n.p. ISBN 0 7450 0976 X.

Jean Bethke Elshtain (ed.), Just War Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) pp.336. $39.95. ISBN 0 631 17278 5.

Mark Franklin, Tom Mackie, Henry Valen et al, Electoral Change: Responses to Evolving Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) pp.475. $140.00 ISBN 0 521 37460 X.

Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict 1990–1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order (London: Faber and Faber, 1993) pp.504. $45.00 ISBN 0 571 16457 9.

Rebecca Grant and Kathleen Newland (eds), Gender and International Relations (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991) pp.176. $29.95. ISBN 0 335 09740 5.

Janette Habel (trans by Jon Barnes), Cuba: The Revolution in Peril (London: Verso, 1991) pp.241. $59.95. ISBN 0 86091 308 2.

Anthony Heath, Roger Jowell, John Curtice, Geoff Evans, Julia Field, and Sharon Witherspoon, Understanding Political Change: The British Voter 1964–1987 (Oxford and Sydney: Pergamon Press, 1991) pp.334. £11.95 ISBN 0 08 037256 2.

Martin Holland (ed.), Electoral Behaviour in New Zealand (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1992) pp.202. $35.00 ISBN 0 19 558261 6.

Eamonn Hughes, Culture and Politics in Northern Ireland: 1960–1990 (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991) pp.182. $32.95 ISBN 0 335 09712 X.

John Kingdom, No Such Thing as Society? Individualism and Community, (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992) pp.134. $34.95 ISBN ISBN 0 335 09726 X.

Jan‐Erik Lane, David McKay, and Kenneth Newton (eds), Political Data Handbook OECD Countries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) pp.257. $75.00 ISBN 0 19 827718 0.

Arend Lijphart (ed.), Parliamentary Versus Presidential Government (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992) pp.257 $22.95 ISBN 0 19 878043 5.

David Marsh and R.A.W. Rhodes (eds), Implementing Thatcherite Policies: Audit of an Era (Buckingham, England: Open University Press, 1992) pp.212 $45.00. ISBN 0 335 15682 7.

Anthony G. McGrew and Paul G. Lewis et al, Global Politics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992) pp.337. $39.45 ISBN 0 7456 0756 X.

Miroslav Nincic, Democracy and Foreign Policy: The Fallacy of Political Realism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992) pp.200. $US43.50 ISBN 0231076681.

B. Guy Peters, The Politics of Taxation: A Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991) pp.338. $39.95 ISBN 1 55786 211 7.

Matthew Spriggs and Donald Denoon (eds) The Bougainville Crisis. 1991 Update. Political and Social Change Monograph No. 16 (Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University and Crawford House, Bathurst, 1992) pp.228. $n.p. ISBN 1 863 33013 5.

Ruy Teixeira, The Disappearing American Voter (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1992) pp.256. $31.95 ISBN 0 8157 8302 7.

Loukas Tsoukalis, The New European Economy: The Politics and Economics of Integration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) pp.333. $59.95. ISBN 0 19 828750 X.

Mark Turner, Papua New Guinea: The Challenge of Independence (Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin Books, 1990) pp.200. $16.95 ISBN 0 14 012390 3.

Jack Vowles and Peter Aimer, Voters’ Vengeance — The 1990 Election in New Zealand and the Fate of the Fourth Labour Government (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1993) pp.264. $32.50 ISBN 1 86940 078 X.

Bo Yang (trans. and ed. by Don J. Cohn and Jing Qing), The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992) pp.162. $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 116 4.

Theory and Methodology

Terrell Carver (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Marx (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp.357. $35.00 ISBN 0 521 36694 1.

William Galston, Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp.343. $35.00 ISBN 0 521 42250 7.

Peter Hay and Robin Eckersley (eds), Ecopolitical Theory: Essays From Australia, Occasional Paper 24 (Hobart: Centre for Evironmental Studies, University of Tasmania, 1992) pp.238. $24.00 ISBN 0 65901 508 4.

Ernest Mandel, Power and Money: A Marxist Theory of Bureaucracy (London: Verso, 1992) pp.252. $34.95 ISBN 0 86091 548 4.

Patrick Riley (ed.), Essays in Political Philosophy (Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press, 1992) pp.385. $n.p. ISBN 1 878822 08 X.

Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp.508. $59.50 ISBN 0 521 35092 1.

Stephen Sedley and Lawrence Kaplan (eds), foreword by Christopher Hill, A Spark in the Ashes: The Pamphlets of John Warr (London and New York: Verso, 1992) pp.116. ISBN 0 86091 599 9.

Judith A. Swanson, The Public and the Private in Aristotle's Political Philosophy (New York: Cornell University Press, 1992) pp.244. $US31.95 ISBN 0 8014 2319 8.     

Portugal dos Pequenitos as an urban laboratory for rehearsing national identity

Portugal dos Pequenitos (literally, ‘Portugal for the Little Ones’), a theme park built in Portugal as part of the Centenarian Commemorations of the Portuguese Nation of 1940, has been considered one of the most controversial pieces of Portuguese architecture in the 20th century. Designed between 1937 and 1962 by Architect Cassiano Branco, at the initiative of Bissaya Barreto, it features reproductions of uniquely typical Portuguese architecture built to a child's scale. It includes buildings from mainland Portugal, from the Azores and Madeira islands and from the colonial territories in Africa and Asia. The main aims of this paper are twofold: firstly, to frame Cassiano Branco's architecture in its specific context, in terms of historical contingencies and architectural controversies during the Estado Novo (New State) Portuguese dictatorship (1933–1974), and secondly, to assess the importance of Portugal dos Pequenitos as a laboratory for rehearsing an idyllic urban environment, applying hypothetical principles of national identity.     

Regional Polycentrism in a Mountainous Territory: The Case of Covilhã (Portugal) and Alpine Cities

The Portuguese mountain city of Covilhã possesses a singular industrial tradition. Today, many of the urban interventions undertaken result in an urban space and landscape disconnected from the mountains. Alpine mountain cities emerge as emblematic, given the representativeness the Alps assume within the context of European mountains. In the Alpine region, the polycentric system of cities condenses the characteristics associated with the topographical particularities and singular types of inter-municipal and cross-border relationships, where the economic changes and regional policies can be observed with greater clarity due to their specificity. In general terms, the quality of life, based on the landscape values, the identification of the citizens with their territory, and on the territorial planning at different scales, emerges as being linked to the construction of a brand identity based on sustainable urban development. It is in this sphere that the study of Alpine cases can inspire good practices to be applied in the Portuguese territory of the Beira Interior, namely in the medium-sized cities and in the synergies between them and the natural spaces. Thus Covilhã finds itself in an advantageous position to use its situation to construct a city brand in harmony with the mountain territory.     

Ethnicity, development and gender: Tsáchila indigenous women in Ecuador

In recent decades, indigenous populations have become the subjects and agents of development in national and international multicultural policy that acknowledges poverty among indigenous peoples and their historic marginalization from power over development. Although the impact of these legal and programmatic efforts is growing, one persistent axis of disadvantage, male–female difference, is rarely taken into account in ethno-development policy and practice. This article argues that assumptions that inform policy related to indigenous women fail to engage with indigenous women's development concerns. The institutional separation between gender and development policy (GAD) and multiculturalism means that provisions for gender in multicultural policies are inadequate, and ethnic rights in GAD policies are invisible. Drawing on post-colonial feminism, the paper examines ethnicity and gender as interlocking systems that structure indigenous women's development experiences. These arguments are illustrated in relation to the case of the Tsáchila ethno-cultural group in the South American country of Ecuador.     

Review of Archaeological Research in Angola

This article examines the historical processes that shaped the development of archaeological practice in Angola during the Portuguese colonial period and the aftermath of political independence. Using published works, unpublished reports, and photographic records, we examine the research themes, actors, scholars, and institutions that influenced archaeological research in the country. We also used documents and museum collections in Angola and Portugal to create a GIS database of Angola’s archaeological findings. This study highlights the events, personalities, and priorities that motivated earlier investigations, and the geographical distribution of prehistoric sites. We hope this study will be a resource for guiding future archaeological research in Angola.

     

Who brought in the rabbits? Taphonomical analysis of Mousterian and Solutrean leporid accumulations from Gruta do Caldeirão (Tomar,Portugal)

In the Iberian Peninsula, leporids, and specifically rabbits, play a key role in the understanding of hunter-gatherer economies. They appear to have been especially important in the Tardiglacial, when large numbers of small prey animals and of the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) in particular, are a ubiquitous feature of faunal assemblages from archaeological sites. Since a large number of non-human predators can also contribute to the formation of such assemblages, the ability to discriminate between bones accumulated by humans and by other kinds of predators is a key prerequisite to their interpretation. On the basis of systematic actualistic studies carried out on modern leporid remains produced by mammalian terrestrial carnivores, nocturnal and diurnal raptors, and humans, we identified diagnostic taphonomic indicators of the different predators. In this paper, the patterns observed on the modern material are applied to the taphonomical analysis of two archaeological samples of rabbit and hare remains from Mousterian and Solutrean layers of Gruta do Caldeirão, a cave site located in Central Portugal. Our results suggest that Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo) were mainly responsible for the Mousterian accumulations, whilst the Solutrean ones were most likely the result of human activity. These data support the notion that, in Iberia, significant reliance on rabbits does not become a feature of subsistence strategies until later Upper Palaeolithic times.     

The Emergence of Ornaments and Art: An Archaeological Perspective on the Origins of “Behavioral Modernity”

The earliest known personal ornaments come from the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa, c. 75,000 years ago, and are associated with anatomically modern humans. In Europe, such items are not recorded until after 45,000 radiocarbon years ago, in Neandertal-associated contexts that significantly predate the earliest evidence, archaeological or paleontological, for the immigration of modern humans; thus, they represent either independent invention or acquisition of the concept by long-distance diffusion, implying in both cases comparable levels of cognitive capability and performance. The emergence of figurative art postdates c. 32,000 radiocarbon years ago, several millennia after the time of Neandertal/modern human contact. These temporal patterns suggest that the emergence of “behavioral modernity” was triggered by demographic and social processes and is not a species-specific phenomenon; a corollary of these conclusions is that the corresponding genetic and cognitive basis must have been present in the genus Homo before the evolutionary split between the Neandertal and modern human lineages.     

The Odyssey Case: press,public opinion and future policy

The Odyssey Case refers to the dispute between Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. (OME) and the Kingdom of Spain in the US courts to determine the ownership of more than 500,000 coins, as well as other artefacts, that OME recovered from a wreck‐site it had code‐named Black Swan. However, the process was much more than a dispute over the coins. It reflected many of the components involved in the protection of underwater archaeological heritage, especially when economic and political interests are at stake. Written from the perspective of an archaeologist working for the regional authority responsible for developing archaeological policy, this paper tries to assess the case's impact on future policy development.