Les techniques dans l'espace public

In this article, we intend to study the cultural transformations fostered by the commercialisation of inventions, a major process in the growth of markets and consumption in the XVIII^th century. Inventors' commercial strategies were based on intense mediatisation, combining visual languages (public shows, experiments, exhibitions) and print resources: advertisements, posters, tracts, how-to leaflets and users' books. Technical information and useful knowledge played a major part in the building of markets for inventions. This demension has seldom been stressed neither by historians of consumption nor by historians of technology. Yet, this literature that aimed to emancipate consumers and to develop their participative talents as m means to convince them to buy, expressed the success of knowledge in action, of operative sciences, based on gestures and verbs, on purposive action and projects. Whereas technological science (technologie) in the Enlightenment developed in treatises and dictionaries, it was also stemming from useful literature and commercial ephemeras that allowed appropriations.     

Seasonality and season of birth of modern and late Neolithic sheep from south-eastern France using tooth enamel δO analysis

Stable oxygen isotopic analysis of tooth enamel was used to investigate seasonality and season of birth in sheep. Analyses were performed on the teeth of eight modern sheep bred at the Carmejane farm in south-eastern France and born in different periods of the year. This reference data set confirms that oxygen isotopic records in the second and third molars can be used to differentiate between sheep born in late winter and those born in early autumn. The results show that inter-individual variability in the timing of tooth formation is low for the second lower molar and more pronounced for the third lower molar in this population. The duration of the process of enamel mineralization has been estimated at approximately six months. The teeth of four sheep and two goats from the late Neolithic site of Collet-Redon in south-eastern France were analyzed using the same methodology. At this site, lambing occurred between the late winter and early spring. A slight difference appears in the seasonal sequence recorded in sheep and goat, although it cannot be determined, whether this is due to different timing of tooth development, or an actual shift in the birth period. From the distribution of slaughter ages and birth period, it is suggested that domestic caprines were killed throughout the year and that Collet-Redon was probably a permanent settlement.     

Performing the national territory: The geography of national‐day celebrations

The nation is a relatively abstract imagined community that is visualised through a variety of symbols as well as communicative and performative practices. In this paper, we explore how the national territory, one of the foundations of the nation‐state, is performed on national‐day celebrations and brings the nation into being. Drawing on ethnographic research on national days in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, we show how the state's internal administrative divisions and ethnic differences are at once made explicit but also subordinated to the nation. Moreover, we show how in such celebrations, potentially disruptive or competing affiliations such as ethnicity and regional loyalties are re‐imagined. Both the rotation of the central celebration and its replication all over the national territory carry the nation into the regions and integrate the regions into the nation‐state. The ‘co‐memoration’ turns participants and spectators from locals into national compatriots and thus not only performs nationality but also performs the relationship among nation, state and citizen, set within a particular territory.     

The hoset Project. An interdisciplinary study of a marginal settlement

On the western border of the Stj?rdal region in the province of Nord‐Tr?ndelag, Norway, at the Hoset farm in Lånke, the Department of History at the University of Trondheim, Norway, has been carrying out a detailed study of a single farm area, in cooperation with the Nordic Deserted Farms Project This study is particularly interesting since it was planned as an interdisciplinary approach, involving archaeological, pollen‐analytical, pedological and geological specialists, in addition to historians, all of which have contributed their own evidence on the cultural and natural environment and agricultural settlement history of the area from the Iron Age onward. In this way it was hoped that answers would be found to questions which have been neglected in the past by Norwegian historians, such as settlement continuity or discontinuity, farm structure, farming methods and settlement patterns in more remote areas. It was also hoped to gain more experience in the different scientific techniques, their potentialities and limitations (e.g. radiocarbon dating, pollen analysis, phospate analysis) and to foster a spirit of mutual co‐operations between the various departments within the university.     

Are new patterns of low‐income distribution emerging in Canadian metropolitan areas?

Recent studies on urban poverty in Canadian cities suggest a growing spatial concentration of poor populations within metropolitan regions. This article assesses trends in the intra‐urban distribution of the poor population from 1986 to 2006 in eight of Canada's largest cities. We consider five well‐known dimensions of segregation, as identified by Massey and Denton (1988) , in order to examine changes in the spatial distribution of poor populations within metropolitan areas: evenness, exposure, concentration, clustering, and centralization. These indices were calculated for low‐income populations at the census tract level using data from five Canadian censuses. Although each metropolitan area has distinctive characteristics, we were able to identify some general trends. The results suggest that, in 2006 compared to 1986, low‐income populations lived in more spatially concentrated areas, which were, at the same time, socioeconomically more homogeneous and more dispersed throughout the metropolitan area. In addition, we observed that over the last twenty years areas of poverty have been located, for the most part, in neighbourhoods adjacent to downtown cores. Nevertheless, we found that poverty has mostly increased in suburban areas located outside inner‐city neighbourhoods. Growing socioeconomic homogeneity and dispersion of low income areas in metropolitan areas reveal new spatial patterns of urban poverty distribution. These findings should be cause for concern as social isolation in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods could affect the life chances and opportunities for the residents of those areas.     

Impact of charring on cereal grain characteristics: linking prehistoric manuring practice to δN signatures in archaeobotanical material

Systematic use of animal manure has been demonstrated to be detectable in the plant δ¹⁵N value but evidence of manure affecting isotopic composition is mainly based on studies of fresh plant material. These findings can potentially be applied to archaeobotanical assemblages and thus provide information about prehistoric manuring practice. Prehistoric grains are generally found in a charred state of which the exact charring conditions are unknown but most likely often multifarious. In this study we examined the influence of grain weight and a range of charring conditions with regards duration, temperature, oxygen availability, and manuring. The charring was applied to emmer, spelt and naked barley with assessment of weight loss, N concentration and δ¹⁵N. There were only small and non-systematic variations in δ¹⁵N in relation to grain weight class. We also found that charring did not distort δ¹⁵N in either a systematic or substantial way and conclude that manuring most likely will be detectable in archaeobotanical charred grains. As certain within-grain variability in δ¹⁵N existed, especially in the intensively manured grains, the resolution of this kind of information should be carefully considered. However, despite attempts to deliberately tamper and distort the grain δ¹⁵N signature, the changes observed in this study were too small to be of any consequences for the archaeobotanical applicability of the method. Thus the isotope method offers unique evidence about prehistoric manuring practice.