‘Iustitiam non includo’: Carl Schmitt, Hugo Grotius and the Ius Publicum Europaeum

Through a discussion of Hugo Grotius’ conception of just war, this essay shows that within his critique of liberalism, Schmitt clashed with the very intellectual tradition he claimed to represent. Both historically and philosophically Schmitt's concept of the Ius Publicum Europaeum was a mirage. Indeed, his concept of the political was a rejection of the moral and civil philosophy that sees politics as the world of active citizens and commonwealths arguing with each other about fundamental questions of justice and equity.     

Resources and spatial analysis at actual Nenets campsites: Ethnoarchaeological implications

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss empirical evidence on the dynamics of occupation and site formation processes from contemporary mobile campsites in Northwest Siberia. The questions posed are derived generally from archaeological studies of Upper Paleolithic record in Europe. We document the active Nenets summer camps at lakes and the abandoned winter and spring camps in the open tundra and the forest tundra. Analysis of the floral and zoological resources shows that plant resources and fish are available predominantly in the summer while reindeer are abundant in these regions in fall and winter when they return from summer pastures further north. When natural resources are not available, groups supplement with food purchased at shops. Within these living camps, “structures évidentes” and “structures latentes” of classical French paleoethnology cannot be distinguished as clearly as at Upper Paleolithic sites: and architectural remains, ash from hearths, and other objects may be removed from the central areas towards the site peripheries. However the investigated camps preserve a discrete structure with interior living areas (including children’s playgrounds), exterior areas with evidence of reindeer carcass processing, woodworking, and other activities, peripheral toss zones, and dispersed activity remains in the surrounding landscape.     

Relation between radiocarbon,archaeological dating and sediment properties on the example of colluvial deposits (NE Poland)

This study focuses on the analysis of the structural and textural features of the colluvial (deluvial) deposits in the Suwałki Lake District (NE Poland) and their absolute age. The colluvium has a thickness of up to 150 cm. The dates of the peat under colluvium or lowermost fossil humus-rich horizons point to the ages from 5405±80 BP to 480 BP. Deposition of material at the footslope is a result of a denudation triggered by human action (surface water erosion and tillage erosion) and usually corresponds with the settlement stages. The ¹⁴C dating of deposited sediment sometimes indicated to older dates of colluvium then the archaeological evidence available for examined sites. Locally, the overlying fossil humic horizon was older then the lowermost one. The textural features of the colluvial deposits such as: the content of fine fraction, weak sorting and relationship between the mean grain-size (Mz) and the sorting index (σ₁) were used to recognize sediment redeposited from the upper part of the slope. Basing on the mineral composition and electrical conductivity of fossil humus horizon it is possible to say whether the soil was degraded or aggraded. These features of the humus-rich horizons occurring between colluvial sediments can be used to explain discrepancy between the radiocarbon dating and archaeological evidence.     

Beyond Metrics: Reappraising York’s Hungate “Slum”

Much of the excitement generated in Britain since 2007 by the York Archaeological Trust’s excavations of the city’s Hungate neighborhood, which Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree characterized as a “slum” in his pioneering poverty survey of 1901, derives from the unexpected volume and variety of material evidence uncovered about life in a poor community within a modern industrial city. Such material evidence and its often uncertain relationships to other historical data can enhance analysis by complicating understanding of the past, rather than echoing conventional wisdom. Findings from Hungate can thus contribute to nuanced understandings of urban social disadvantage not only at the neighborhood level in this one particular British city, but at the larger scales of analysis that encompass the growth of cities and interacting urban regions in Britain and around the world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These understandings have contemporary relevance for a world in which over half of humanity now lives in urban areas, as misconceptions about “slums” continue to undermine efforts to reduce urban inequality.     

Constraints on the precision of SAR in equivalent dose estimations close to saturation in quartz

Difficulties in evaluating accurate equivalent doses for Late Quaternary sediments from the south coasts of Greece arose in the course of SAR measurements. Large scatter among apparent equivalent doses perplexed the evaluation of accurate mean estimates in circumstances where very large doses were involved. Besides, dose recovery experiments revealed that when intersection of the natural signal occurs onto the saturating segment of the growth curve, a distinct relationship between D_e and growth curve shape occurs. At very low slope angles, SAR tends to overestimate the recovered dose. The mechanism which controls the spread in equivalent dose estimation is investigated.     

Construction of a quartz OSL standardised growth curve (SGC) for aeolian samples from the Horqin dunefield in northeastern China

It has been suggested that the standardised growth curve (SGC) method can be used to de-terminate D_e accurately and reduce the measurement time. However, different opinions regarding the applicability of the SGC method exist. In this paper, we report the construction of quartz OSL SGC for 35 aeolian samples from different parts of the Horqin dunefield in northeastern China, and then test their applicability for D_e determination. Our results suggest that: 1) up to a regeneration dose of 80 Gy, the SGC of the Horqin dunefield can be fitted using the exponential plus linear equation, with the r² value of 0.97, and all the regeneration dose points closely stick to the fitting line, implying that all samples share a very similar dose-response curve; 2) for samples with Des ranging from 1 to 50 Gy, the ratios of SAR D_e to SGC D_e fall within the range of 0.9–1.1, and the average ratio of SAR D_e to SGC D_e is 1.01±0.01, close to unity. Therefore, the construction of SGC is correct, and the SGC is an effective procedure for accurate D_e determination for samples from the study area.     

Geoarchaeological studies on Roman time harbour sediments in Cologne — comparison of different OSL dating techniques

Due to the construction of a new North-South subway in Cologne, Roman time harbour sediments were exposed and were sampled for luminescence dating. A very good independent age control was given by the precise knowledge of the chronology of Roman activity and by radiocarbon ages of charcoal samples. Hence, different methodological approaches within luminescence dating were applied for Holocene heterogeneously bleached fluvial samples and were compared to the known ages. For one sample, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating was applied to coarse-grained quartz using a single aliquot regenerative-dose (SAR) protocol. After D_e-measurements, different statistical approaches were tested (i.e. arithmetic mean, median, minimum age model, finite mixture model, leading edge method and the Fuchs and Lang approach). It is demonstrated that the Fuchs and Lang approach along with the leading edge method yielded the best matching OSL ages with respect to the known ages.