A Life in Maps: Leo Bagrow,Imago Mundi,and the History of Cartography in the Early Twentieth Century

ABSTRACT:

This essay provides a critical commentary on the life of Leo Bagrow (1881–1957), the founding editor of Imago Mundi, drawing on previously unused correspondence from the journal’s archive, recently catalogued by the British Library in London. Bagrow’s experiences in the three European cities in which he lived and worked (St Petersburg, Berlin and Stockholm) are examined afresh and new insights are provided about the complex intellectual and sometimes political objectives and motivations of Bagrow and his fellow map dealers, map collectors and map historians. Particular attention is paid to the productive but often strained relationships between Bagrow and the expanding global network of map historians with whom he collaborated while establishing and editing Imago Mundi between 1935 and his death. This network was divided into four distinct and to some extent rival constituencies (university academics, map librarians, map collectors and map dealers). The essay examines how Imago Mundi, under Bagrow’s often confrontational editorship, emerged as the central co-ordinating forum through which these constituencies communicated with each other and within which the foundations for the modern discipline of map history were established.     

Continent-wide or region-specific? A geometric morphometrics-based assessment of variation in Clovis point shape

Researchers have debated the existence of regional variation in Clovis points for over 60 years. Here, we report an attempt to resolve this argument using a large sample of Clovis points from dated assemblages and a suite of shape analysis methods known as geometric morphometrics. The study tested the two main hypotheses that have been put forward in the debate: the continent-wide adaptation hypothesis, which holds that Clovis points do not vary regionally, and the regional environmental adaptation hypothesis, which holds that there is regional variation as a consequence of Clovis groups adjusting their food-getting toolkits to local conditions. We used discriminant function analysis and a multivariate extension of the t test to assess whether differences in shape exist at two scales. The first set of analyses compared points from the most obvious environmental regions in North America, the East and the West. The second set of analyses investigated differences among points from subregions within the East and West. The analyses revealed significant differences between points from the East and the West and among points from some subregions. Follow-up analyses demonstrated that these differences are not the result of the most common confounding factors, raw material quality and resharpening. As such, the analyses support the regional environmental adaptation hypothesis rather than the continent-wide adaptation hypothesis. We conclude from this that Clovis people modified their points to suit the characteristics of local prey and/or the habitats in which they hunted.     

The con man as model organism: the methodological roots of Erving Goffman's dramaturgical self

This article offers a historical analysis of the relationship between the practice of participant-observation among American sociologists and Erving Goffman's dramaturgical model of the self. He was a social scientist who privileged ethnography in the field over the laboratory experiment, the survey questionnaire, or the mental test. His goal was a natural history of communication among humans. Rather than rely upon standardizing technologies for measurement, Goffman tried to obtain accurate recordings of human behavior through secretive observations. During the 1950s, he conducted three major studies as a participant-observer, disguised from those studied through insincere performances. As originally presented, his dramaturgical theory did not draw upon the theater as the governing metaphor, but rather the confidence game. It is suggested that Goffman's writings exemplify what Gerd Gigerenzer calls the tools-to-theories heuristic. Goffman's depiction of the confidence man's behavior closely mirrored how he and his fellow sociologists described the practice of participant-observation. Both were represented as embedded and attentive yet coolly detached observers skilled at playing different roles as the situation necessitated. The similarities between his own professional behavior and the activities of the confidence man may have suggested to Goffman the latter as a model for human nature.     

CENTRAL CITIES AND SUBURBS: ECONOMIC RIVALS OR ALLIES?*

ABSTRACT Theoretical models of urban development come to contradictory conclusions regarding the nature of central city–suburb interdependence. Unfortunately, empirical research into this relationship has been hampered by the lack of identifying information due to the endogeneity of factors affecting both central city and suburban growth. This paper resolves the identification problem by constructing an index that measures price shocks to export industries located in either center cities or their suburbs. The results indicate that positive export industry price shocks to one area have a positive spillover effect on the other. Interestingly, the cross‐elasticity of suburban employment with respect to center city employment (1.18) significantly exceeds the cross‐elasticity of central city employment with respect to suburban employment (0.24).     

Obsidian source characterization in the Cordillera Real and eastern piedmont of the north Ecuadorian Andes

Recent research in the Quijos and Cosanga valleys of the eastern piedmont of Ecuador’s Cordillera Real has revealed and substantiated previous knowledge of obsidian sources that are unrelated to obsidian flow systems in the Sierra de Guamaní, Ecuador. Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) were carried out on 47 obsidian source samples collected from several contexts in and adjacent to the study area. From samples within the study area three distinct obsidians were characterized: Cosanga A, Cosanga B, and Bermejo. These obsidians originate from a number of obsidian-bearing rhyolitic domes recently identified in the hills west of the Río Cosanga. Extensive survey of these dome localities has identified obsidian cobbles large enough for formal and informal tool manufacture. Beyond the study area, samples were collected and analyzed from the El Tablón source in the Sierra de Guamaní, providing much needed data on this poorly understood source. In addition, a sample from the newly identified Conda Dome source, near the Cotopaxi volcano, was characterized with XRF. All samples were then compared to 57 pre-existing samples from the Mullumica–Callejones, Yanaurco–Quiscatola and Carboncillo sources in the Ecuadoran Cordillera Real, as well as to artifacts from the Sumaco area in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Results of the elemental characterization indicate that the Cosanga Valley, El Tablón and Conda Dome obsidians are chemically distinct. Further, visual characteristics of Cosanga Valley obsidian types are useful in source attribution for the large artifact samples from the region. Finally, obsidian collected from the El Tablón flow suggests that this source may have produced obsidian suitable for tool manufacture.     

Empirical Urban Theory for Archaeologists

I review several bodies of empirical urban theory relevant to the archaeological analysis of ancient cities. Empirical theory is a type of “middle-range theory” (following Robert Merton): sets of concepts and methods that are less abstract, and have greater empirical content, than high-level social theory. The categories of theory reviewed here include environment-behavior theory, architectural communication theory, space syntax, urban morphology, reception theory, generative planning theory, normative theory, and city size theory. Most of these approaches originated in the fields of architecture, planning, and geography, and they directly link the urban-built environment to the actions of people within cities.     

‘The Happy Accident’: Merleau-Ponty and Kant on the Judgment of God

Kant's ideas about, questions, and challenges to the Western tradition of philosophy reverberate into the third century of the reception of his texts. The writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the twentieth-century French existential and hermeneutic phenomenologist, are interlaced with engagements with Kant's ideas. Often these incidents are marked by Merleau-Ponty's critique, yet there is a noticeable recurrence of his efforts to contend with Kant's philosophy. In Merleau-Ponty's course notes, Nature (2002), he wrestles with Kant's version of nature in the Critique of Judgment (1790), specifically citing “the happy accident” between sensibility and the understanding. This opens upon realms of metaphysical thought that remain deeply contentious within Kantian scholarship. An interrogation of this “happy accident” leads to insights about Merleau-Ponty's conceptualization of an existentialized metaphysics the implications of which shed light on theology and the judgment of God.