Magdalenian Children: Projectile Points,Portable Art and Playthings

Children, no doubt, were a significant component of Upper Palaeolithic societies. Despite this fact, however, serious identification and consideration of material culture which may have belonged to children – at least at one time during their use‐life – have not been undertaken. This situation extends to the best represented and most intensively studied of the European Palaeolithic techno‐complexes, the Magdalenian (c.21,000–14,000 cal BP), and consequently, we know very little about the children of this enigmatic people. As play, including object play, is a ‘true cultural universal’, we can be certain that Magdalenian children integrated objects into their games, with these playthings later incorporated into the archaeological record. Through examining ethnographic accounts of recent hunter‐gatherer children and reconsidering archaeological assemblages in light of these data, this paper suggests that Magdalenian playthings probably included full‐sized adult weapon tips and – more significantly – pieces of what archaeologists term ‘art mobilier’.     

How Well is Aid Allocated? Descriptive Measures of Aid Allocation: A Survey of Methodology and Results

Although many factors affect which countries actually receive aid, a case can be made for evaluating donor allocative performance with respect to the average income of recipients. A number of indicators are commonly used for such an assessment. Based on criteria developed in this paper, two such indicators — Suits' index and McGillivray's adjusted performance index — are shown to be the most suitable. These indicators are used to compare the performance of bilateral donors: Denmark is found to have the most progressive aid allocation, and the USA the least progressive. The indicators are also used to assess trends in allocative performance for four donors: France, Japan, the UK and USA. There appears to have been a general worsening of allocative performance in the early 1980s, with some improvement in the later part of the decade.     

On the origins of gunspalls

Historical Archaeology - Gunflints are of particular interest to historical archaeologists. One process of manufacture involved the wedge-shaped gunspall, which has been attributed to a Dutch...     

‘The final decision is with the patient’: reproductive modernity and preferences for non-hormonal and non-biomedical contraceptives among postpartum middle class women in Yogyakarta,Indonesia

In Indonesia fertility has plateaued for more than a decade. Over the same period Indonesian women have increasingly accessed contraception via the private sector. Our qualitative inquiry into the contraceptive preferences of middle class women in urban Yogyakarta revealed limited interest in and intent to use biomedical and hormonal contraceptive methods. Women’s justifications for their contraceptive choices were complex and manifold: most had concerns about safety and the side effects associated with hormonal and biomedical contraceptives; others were ideologically opposed to fertility control. We conclude that contraceptive choices were an embodiment of women’s reproductive modernity, which in turn underpinned their reproductive agency. We also problematise the extent to which women’s contraceptive choices were comprehensively informed. Women’s reproductive modernity was shaped by their socioeconomic status; access to modern communication technologies; understandings of their right to health and contraceptive choice; pious yet pragmatic religious identities; and negotiations within their marital relationships.     

Royal authority versus corporate sovereignty: the Levant Company and the ambiguities of early Stuart statecraft

The ambassadorship of Thomas Bendish (1646–1660) to the Ottoman Porte was a period of turmoil that saw the arrest and imprisonment of his predecessor, Sackville Crowe, and the arrest and subsequent beheading of a usurper, Henry Hyde. This crisis in Turkey coincided with the domestic crisis of the English Civil War, which plunged the English state into chaos. This article uses the Bendish/Crowe/Hyde affair to analyse the relationship between state and trading company in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the early modern economic and state-building system of mercantilism was made. The article will show that mercantilism was, in the words of Phil Stern, an “awkward alliance” where merchant and state required one another while remaining suspicious of the other’s motives and authority.     

Is domestic work a worst form of child labour? The findings of a six-country study of the psychosocial effects of child domestic work

In this paper, we report on a study of the psychosocial effects of child domestic work (CDW) in six countries and the relevance of our findings to international legislation. Our results suggest that CDW is highly heterogeneous. While some young child domestic workers work long hours, suffer physical punishment and are at risk of psychosocial harm, others are able to attend school and benefit from good relationships with their employers and networks of support. Child domestic workers in India and Togo were most at risk of psychosocial harm. We conclude that classification of this employment as hazardous would not be appropriate and could be counterproductive and instead propose that legislation focuses on protective factors such as a social and community support.