Seismic uplift of the harbour of ancient Aigeira, Central Greece

The Mavra Litharia cove, between Akrata and Derveni, in the North Peloponnesian coast (Central Greece), has been identified as the site of the harbour of the Hellenistic Aigeira, one of the very few natural harbours along the uplifting, fault-controlled North Peloponnesian coast.
Geomorphological, marine biological and archaeological data as well as radiocarbon dating of marine fossils testify to a 2m relative land uplift since Hellenistic times (around 2000 years bp), part of which (1 m at least) was probably seismic, dated to the Byzantine period (AD 900–1200). This palaeoseismic event, as well as others deduced from archaeological data, are not included in the historical seismology records, but had probably dramatic impacts on the economic and cultural history of ancient Aigeira.
The amplitude of uplift at Mavra Litharia is of the same order of magnitude as submersion dominating the Aegean and, with the exception of the arc, the higher Holocene uplift rate recorded in this area and the surrounding regions. This result is consistent with the Quaternary uplift history of North Peloponnesus.     

Mining (Dis)amenity: The Political Ecology of Mining Opposition in the Kaz (Ida) Mountain Region of Western Turkey

Opposition to mining activities is an increasingly global phenomenon. A key feature of political ecology literature examining this opposition is its focus on the power of multinational corporations to gain access to resources on lands principally claimed by indigenous peoples and peasants in ‘Third World’ countries. These struggles often play out within the context of tensions between neoliberal natural resource policies and interventions by non‐governmental and civil society actors. Meanwhile, political ecology scholars of natural resource conflicts in ‘First World’ countries are documenting conflicts over environmental management that emerge from complex commodification processes and competing forms of capital investment, such as those associated with amenity migration, that privilege different characteristics of landscapes. These perspectives are rarely combined into a single framework, despite the recognition that common dimensions may intermingle in regional contexts around the world. Using the case of conflict over gold mining in the Kaz (Ida) Mountains of western Turkey, this article explores the intersection of state neoliberalism with competing forms of rural capital, which produce a regional mining conflict. Our case highlights the value of ‘locating the First and Third Worlds within’ when it comes to studies of social processes that shape environmental conflicts.     

Urban foraging and the relational ecologies of belonging

Through a discussion of urban foraging in Seattle, Washington, USA, we examine how people's plant and mushroom harvesting practices in cities are linked to relationships with species, spaces, and ecologies. Bringing a relational approach to political ecology, we discuss the ways that these particular nature–society relationships are formed, legitimated, and mobilized in discursive and material ways in urban ecosystems. Engaging closely with and as foragers, we develop an ethnographically grounded ‘relational ecologies of belonging’ framework to conceptualize and examine three constituent themes: cultural belonging and identity, belonging and place, and belonging and more-than-human agency. Through this case study, we show the complex ways that urban foraging is underpinned by interconnected and multiple notions of identity, place, mobility, and agency for both humans and more-than-human interlocutors. The focus on relational ecologies of belonging illuminates important challenges for environmental management and public space planning in socioecologically diverse areas. Ultimately, these challenges reflect negotiated visions about how we organize ourselves and live together in cosmopolitan spaces such as cities.     

BETRAYAL: THE CASE OF THE NEW GUINEA BARUYA

This article is situated within the discussion started in 1962 by John Barnes, whose observations on the fluidity of social organization in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea raised the question, what binds together a certain number of individuals belonging to distinct kinship groups? Is it defense of a common territory? Is it participation in initiation rituals which institute a general order between genders and between generations? Or is it, as in the Big-men societies, participation in cycles of ceremonial exchanges which involve all the local groups of a same region? These questions have been discussed by various authors: De Lepervanche (1967–8), A. Strathern (1968, 1970), and Feil (1981, 1984) to mention just a few. The fabric of Baruya society is generated by two principles: direct exchange of women and an elaborate system of male and female initiations. The Baruya share the same culture and the same language with their neighbours and enemies, but they distinguish and define themselves by claiming a common territory conquered at the expense of local groups and by the fact that their women circulate primarily between kinship groups residing on this territory. However, from time to time these two principles are transgressed by individuals or segments of lineages who betray their kinship or tribal solidarities, generating situations which reshape the internal composition of the Baruya tribe and its relationships with its neighbours. I intend by analysing the mechanisms of these betrayals to throw some light on this key-moment in the dynamics of New Guinea Highlands societies.     

L’histoire des mathématiques de l’Antiquité

Historical research, during the last half-century, has improved our knowledge of the mathematics of Antiquity. Texts from Egypt and Mesopotamia have been better understood and their elucidation has left behind the crude alternative between empricism and rationalism. The landscape offered by Greek science grew richer and became more varied: it is no longer possible to reduce it to the sole geometrical theory. The main problems which were raised by its history have been deeply discussed. Things being so, more general questions arise, from an epistemological or philosophical point of view. Does the search into some far past of a single «birth» of mathematics make any sense? What link, if any, is there between the form of mathematics in such and such a civilization and its social structure? Can cultural anthropology help to elucidate the variety and unity of mathematics among various peoples? From what time and under what conditions is it possible for a single united historical progress of mathematics to begin?