The Placing of Early Bronze Age Metalwork Deposits: New Evidence from Scotland

This paper considers the earliest metalwork hoards in Scotland, most of which have been found at conspicuous points in the landscape. The treatment of individual objects suggests that they had been carefully selected before they were deposited. Fieldwork, combined with computer reconstruction, shows that half the collections with adequate provenances come from places with direct views of the rising and setting sun at the solstices. The main emphasis seems to have been on midwinter.     

Phosphatic mineralization of seeds from archaeological sites

Recent investigations of botanical material from archaeological sites have provided seeds and plant remains exhibiting a crystalline or semi-crystalline appearance. X-ray diffraction and partial chemical analysis have revealed that the particular plant materials had been replaced by calcium phosphate. Using systematic sampling and retrieval techniques a significant body of data has been accumulated. Most mineralized botanical evidence has been recovered from faecal deposits, in particular cess pits and garderobes, and has provided an important source of information about aspects of diet of past populations.     

The Cultural Contexts of International Capital Expansion: British Ranchers in Wyoming, 1879–1889

In the late-nineteenth century, open-range cattle ranching in the American West became popular among the British upper classes both as an investment and as a vocation. However, after a severe winter in 1886–1887, many of these enterprises failed and foreign investment in the American range cattle industry waned. This paper examines the experiences of British ranchers in Wyoming and in particular the career of Moreton Frewen (1857–1924) in order to explore the dialectical relationship between culturally constructed nature, shaped by discourses of class and gender, and material nature, itself transformed by capitalist production. Although from an élite family, Frewen lacked the financial resources necessary to sustain the kind of life to which he felt he was entitled. The great profits and excellent big-game hunting supposedly available to ranchers attracted him to the Powder River region of Wyoming, where he began a ranch that failed in the crisis of 1886–1887. British images of a bountiful American nature spurred investment, but also led to ranching practices that were ultimately harmful to the ranges upon which cattle depended. A detailed study of the élite British ranchers provides insight into the specific cultural, historical, environmental, and local contexts within which global capital expansion takes place.     

Spaces of the street: Socio-spatial mobility and exclusion of youth in Recife

The ‘street’ and ‘youth’ have long been issues of social concern and the subject of research both in Brazil and elsewhere. The perception and experiences of youth in relation to the street, however, and the corresponding gender and class relations which permeate these, remain an under-researched topic. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in low- and middle-income neighbourhoods in Recife, this paper shows how the street consists of different spaces and how the youth experience corresponding layers of socio-spatial exclusions and inclusions which vary over time.     

Stones from Bavaria: Iranian Lithography in its Global Contexts

This essay traces the circulation of the industrial commodities of lithographic presses and stones and compares the uses to which these commodities were put in Iran with other regions at the same time. Using Persian travelogues as sources on scientific exchange, the essay compares Iran's access to lithography with its spread through Europe, Russia and South and Southeast Asia. Using lithography as a gauge of Iran's integration into an industrializing global economy, it compares state-led Iranian attempts to access lithographic commodities with attempts by other regional powers to develop local sources for these ‘stones from Bavaria’. After tracing the role of Christian Evangelicalism in the technology's dissemination, the essay finally contextualizes Iranian uses of lithography in global developments in illustrated and newspaper printing.

Since the art of Lithography has risen to considerable celebrity, attempts have been made to discover the same species of stone…

– Aloys Senefelder, 1819

     

Reform Transplanted: Parsi Agents of Change amongst Zoroastrians in Nineteenth-Century Iran

In the mid-nineteenth century, Parsis reestablished ties with Zoroastrians in Iran that had languished due to decades-long internal unrest in Iran. In 1854 reformists in India established the Society for the Amelioration of Conditions in Iran and sent a representative to Iran—Maneckji Hataria. Hataria was charged with eliminating the onerous non-Muslim tax owed by the Zoroastrians (the jaziyeh). Hataria also organized the Iranian Zoroastrian community, and funded a variety of community projects. He also brought Parsi reformist ideas to Iran, and attempted to reshape Iranian religious practice and belief along Parsi lines. This article explores the effects of Parsi reformist ideas on Iran, and Hataria's own writings concerning Zoroastrianism and its relationship to Iranian national identity.