A Bioarchaeological Investigation into the Human Remains Discovered in the Chloorkop Area,South Africa

In November 2008, human skeletal remains were discovered during construction works undertaken by Carlop Properties in the Chloorkop industrial area, Kempton Park, Gauteng. The Forensic Anthropology Unit of the University of Pretoria, Forensic Anthropology Research Centre (FARC) was notified, and rescue excavations of both the exposed and the undisturbed remains were undertaken. The skeletonised remains of at least 18 individuals were recovered and sent to the Department of Anatomy at the University of Pretoria for standard anthropological analysis. The identity and the time period of these human remains are unknown, and during social consultation, no relatives could be identified. Excavations revealed a formal burial pattern, which suggests a formal cemetery, probably associated with a historic institution. All individuals were buried in wooden coffins in an extended, supine position. The remains consist of both adult and juvenile remains. Some of the remains were found in a commingled state because of disturbance caused by construction work. The minimum number of individuals was determined by the visual pair matching of skeletal elements on the basis of similarities observed in bone morphology, age and sex, trauma and pathology and taphonomic alterations. Bioarchaeological techniques were used, and the following results were obtained. Of the 18 individuals, at least 15 were identified to be males, one possibly female and two juveniles. At least five of the adult male individuals presented with cut marks associated with standard autopsy procedures. No reference to the individuals' identity or to the context of the cemetery within the historical span of the Chloorkop area has been located. However, the burial pattern observed, as well as the demographic profile and pathology observed on the skeletal remains, suggests that these individuals could be linked to the Klipfontein Organic Products Factory (ca 1941s–1970s), which employed many migrant labourers, most to whom lived in compounds on the factory premises. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Heritage Noire: truth,history, and colonial anxiety in The Blair Witch Project

When watching the film The Blair Witch Project we seem to be witnessing through its clumsy, apparently uncrafted footage the unmediated documentation of 'reality' as it occurs. This article argues that the carefully crafted deceit of The Blair Witch Project may be understood as part of a subversive 'public history' project that uses modern history's own scientific motifs and methodologies against itself and challenges its basic tenets. If positive myths of the past are structured into what we tend to call heritage, i.e. shared narratives affirming a positive sense of self and region or nation, then this paper argues that The Blair Witch Project takes the same notion and subverts it, giving its chosen audience a dark and unsettling sense of its own history.     

The prefects and party‐state relations in Fascist Italy

Abstract

This is a study of the prefects, the arm of central government in the provinces, under the Fascist regime. Using the author's own survey of those appointed prefects after the decision to establish the ‘totalitarian’ state, it considers the phenomenon of the ‘Fascist prefects’ in relation to the progress of career officials, methods of recruitment and the prevailing bureaucratic culture, in order to assess the extent of the ‘Fascistization’ of the Interior Ministry. It then looks at how both career and ‘Fascist prefects’ actually operated on the ground and their relations with the Fascist Party in the provinces. The article concludes, on the evidence of continuing party‐state conflict throughout the 1930s, that there was a ‘totalitarian’ regime in the making.     

State Support for Higher Education: A Political Economy Approach

This research examines state support for higher education by first ascertaining the amount supplied and demanded of this service. The approach assumes that supply and demand occur simultaneously, and that each is affected by higher education spending policies among the states. We argue that enrollment is the most satisfactory proxy for both supply and demand. State policy is measured as expenditure effort. We estimate three time-series equations using two-stage least squares regression with data for the years 1986–95. In the final equation, supply/demand (enrollment) emerges as the strongest predictor of state spending effort. Commitment to higher education (effort) is also especially sensitive to variations in the number of employees (per student). Employee costs clearly are a major factor in fueling increases in state higher education spending effort. State per capita income exerts a negative effect on the final dependent variable. Poor states exert greater financial effort in support of their colleges and universities than do more affluent states.     

Literary and social criticism

John Docker, Australian Cultural Elites: Intellectual Traditions in Sydney and Melbourne, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1974, pp. xii + 182. $5.95, paper.     

ACADEMIA AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

In recent years a revolutionary shift has occurred in the federal goovernment—-higher education relationship. Why didn't higher education resist more vigorously federal encroachment in its autonomy? First, academia focused its attention on the wrong kind of threat. Second, federal involvement was useful for solving problems on campus and often was in keeping with objectives and values supported in academia institutions. Third, the rise of public institutions altered the receptivity of higher education to accepting federal funds and pursuing direct solutions to society's problems, i.e. to being “involved” at the expense of autonomy. Finally, higher education's traditional strategy of being aloof from partisan politics kept it from vigorously defending its interests. Alternatives for the future appear to be: 1) a reorganisation of higher education to make it a clear, systematic agent of national policy, or 2) a successful effort by higher education to convert itself into an effective national interest group.     

Book reviews

The Grand Strategy of Philip II by Geoffrey Parker. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998. Pp.xx + 446, illus. £25.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–300–07540–5.

Milton and the Imperial Vision edited by Balachandra Rajan and Elizabeth Sauer. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1999. Pp.vi + 376. £49.95 (hardback). ISBN 0–8207–0303–6.

If the Irish Ran the World: Montserrat, 1630–1730 by Donald Harman Akenson. Kingston and Montreal: McGill‐Queen's University Press, distributed in Britain by Liverpool University Press, 1997. Pp.x+273. £29.95 (hardback); £14.95 (paperback). ISBN 085323–952–5; 985323–962–2.

Pleasure and Guilt on the Grand Tour: Travel Writing and Imaginative Geography 1600–1830 by Chloe Chard. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999. Pp.ix + 278. £45.00 (hardback); £16.00 (paperback). ISBN 0–7190–4804–4; 0–7190–4805–2.

Sir Robert Chambers: Law, Literature and Empire in the Age of Johnson by Thomas M. Curley. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. Pp.xxii + 698, illus. £69.95 (hardback). ISBN 0–299–15150–6.

The Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume II: The Eighteenth Century edited by P.J. Marshall. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp.xxi + 639. £30.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–19–820563–5.

Pacific Empires: Essays in Honour of Glyndwr Williams edited by Alan Frost and Jane Samson. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1999. Pp.viii + 334, illus. £29.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–522–84791–9.

The Search for the North West Passage by Ann Savours. London: Chatham Publishing, 1999. Pp.x + 342, maps, illus. £25.00 (hardback). ISBN 1–86176–059–0.

Earl Bathurst and the British Empire 1762–1834 by Neville Thompson. Barnsley, Yorkshire: Leo Cooper, 1999. Pp.xii + 308. £25.00 (hardback), ISBN 0–85052–650–0.

Imperial Cities: Landscape, Display and Identity edited by Felix Driver and David Gilbert. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999. Pp.xvii + 283, illus. £45.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–7190–5413–3.

Work and Community among West African Migrant Workers since the Nineteenth Century by Diane Frost. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999. Pp.viii + 278. £32.00 (hardback); £15.95 (paperback). ISBN 085323–523–6; 0853222–533–3.

Carnival, Canboulay and Calypso: Traditions in the Making by John Cowley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp.xv + 293, illus. £37.50 (hardback); £12.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–521–48138–4; 0–521–65389–4.

Steel, Ships and Men: Cammell Laird, 1824–1993 by Kenneth Warren. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998. Pp.xiv + 313, maps and illus. £29.95 (hardback); £14.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–85323–912–6; 0–85323–992–3.

Embassies in the East: The Story of the British Embassies in Japan, China and Korea from 1859 to the Present by J.E. Hoare. Richmond: Curzon, 1999. Pp.xvi + 238, illus. £40.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–7007–0512–0.

The New Cambridge History of India, IV.2: Women in Modern India by Geraldine Forbes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996 and 1999. Pp.xix + 290. £35.00 (hardback); £13.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–521–26812–5; 0–521–65377–0

Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa, 1830–1914 by Bruce Vandervort. London: UCL Press, 1998. Pp.xviii + 274, maps. £45.00 (hardback); £13.95 (paperback). ISBN 1–85728–486–0; 1–85728–487–9.

Disease and Empire: The Health of European Troops in the Conquest of Africa by Philip D. Curtin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp.xiii + 256. £45.00 (hardback); £15.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–521–59169–4; 0–521–59835–4.

Frontiers of Medicine in the Anglo‐Egyptian Sudan 1899–1940 by Heather Bell. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Pp.xvi + 261, maps. £45.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–19–820749–2.

The South African War 1899–1902 by Bill Nasson. London: Arnold, 1999. Pp.xvi + 304, maps. £45.00 (hardback); £16.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–340–74154–6; 0–340–61427–7.

Managing the South African War, 1899–1902: Politicians v. Generals by Keith Terrance Surridge. Woodbridge: Boydell Press for the Royal Historical Society, 1998. Pp.ix + 205, maps. £30.00 (hardback). ISBN 086193–238–2.

Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape by K.S. Inglis, assisted by Jan Brazier. Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Press, 1998. Pp.xvi + 522, illus. $49.95 (hardback). ISBN 0–522–84572–8.

Indian Voices of the Great War: Soldiers’ Letters, 1914–18 selected and edited by David Omissi. Pp.xx + 382, illus., maps. £40.00 (hardback); £17.50 (paperback). ISBN 0–333–75144–2; 0–333–75145–0.

Mandates and Empire: The League of Nations and Africa, 1914–1931 by Michael D. Callahan. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1999. Pp.ix + 297, map. £55.00 (hardback). ISBN 1–902210–23–9.

Writing West Indian Histories by B.W. Higman. Basingstoke: Macmillan, Warwick University Caribbean Studies, 1999. Pp.xiv + 298. £14.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–333–73296–0.

Uganda's Katikoro in England by Ham Mukasa with notes and introduction by Simon Gikandi. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998. Pp.xvii + 211, maps. £40.00 (hardback), £13.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–7190–4898–2; 0–7190–5437–0.

Imperialism, Race and Resistance: Africa and Britain, 1919–1945 by Barbara Bush. London: Routledge, 1999. Pp.xviii + 394, illus. £17.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–415–15973–3.

Alan Lennox‐Boyd: A Biography by Philip Murphy. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1999. Pp.xi + 276, illus. £24.50 (hardback). ISBN 1–86064–406–6.

A History of Selangor (1766–1939) by J.M. Gullick. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1998. Pp.vi + 220. Paperback (no price given). ISBN 967–9948–10–2.

The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya by T. N. Harper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp.xviii + 417. £45.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–59040‐X.

Isle of Discord: Nationalism, Imperialism and the Making of the Cyprus Problem by Yiannis D. Stefanidis. London: Hurst, 1999. Pp.xi + 315. £40.00. ISBN 1–85065–415–8.

Free Trade, Free World: The Advent of GATT by Thomas W. Zeiler. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. Pp.xi + 288. $39.95 (hardback). ISBN 0–8078–2458–5.

Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1999. Pp.xxviii + 529. £21.95 (hardback). ISBN 0–520–21511–7.

Militarism in India: The Army and Civil Society in Consensus by Apurba Kundu. London: I. B. Tauris, 1998. Pp.viii + 230, maps, tables. £45.00 (hardback). ISBN 1–86064–318–3.

Freedom, Trauma, Continuities: Northern India and Independence edited by D.A. Low and Howard Brasted. New Delhi and London: Sage Publications, 1998. Pp.237. £35.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–7619–9225–1.

Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India by Gyan Prakash. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp.xiii + 304. $49.50/£31.00 (hardback), $17.95/£11.50 (paperback). ISBN 0–691–00452–8; 0–691–00453–6.

Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality by David Scott. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp.233. $49.50/£29.95 (hardback); $16.95/£10.50 (paperback). ISBN 0–691–00485–4; 0–691–00486–2.