The Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland (ca. 800 B.C. to A.D. 100): An overview

Those communities that lived in Britain and Ireland ca. 800 B.C. to A.D. 100 represent particularly well-researched examples of the complex agrarian, nonurban, societies with high population densities that characterize the Pre-Roman Iron Age across temperate Europe. This paper provides a critical introduction to the extensive recent literature on the Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland. Evidence from the large number of salvage excavations and surveys, the application of a wide range of analytical techniques, and important changes in interpretative frameworks are transforming understandings of this period. After reviewing these developments, a chronological account of the period is outlined which attempts to integrate these new results. This suggests that current interpretations of social processes across Iron Age Europe in terms of state formation, urbanization, and core-periphery relations with Mediterranean civilization need revision.     

The un‐reconstructed republic

Al Grassby, The Australian Republic (Leichhardt, NSW: Pluto Press, 1993) pp.315 $24.95 ISBN 0 04013 894 0.

Alan Atkinson, The Muddle‐Headed Republic (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1993) pp.145 $16.95 ISBN 0 19553 638 X.

George Winterton (ed.), We, the People: Australian Republican Government (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1994) pp.209 $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 640 9.

David Headon, James Warden and Bill Gammage (eds), Crown or Country: The Traditions of Australian Republicanism (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1994) pp.197 $24.95 ISBN 1 86373 599 2.

Geoffrey de Q. Walker, Suri Ratnapala and Wolfgang Kasper, Restoring the True Republic (St Leonards, NSW: The Centre for Independent Studies, 1993) pp.74 $n.p. ISSN 0726 3635.     

Company Growth,Acquisitions and Access to Complementary Assets in Israel's Data Security Sector

This article analyses aspects of high-tech cluster emergence in Israel during the 1990s with focuses on the data security software industry and on strategies of very successful companies dominating such an industry. Most of the industry is concentrated in Tel Aviv and close-by Hertzliya and to a lesser extent Haifa and Jerusalem. It starts by characterizing the industry as a whole and the universe of 19 companies comprising it. It then proceeds with an in-depth analysis of the growth trajectories of very successful companies, some of which are listed in NASDAQ or have been acquired by large multinational corporations. A fast 'IPO' and a 'fast M&A' track have been identified and characterized. The analysis suggests that while globalization could be beneficial to skill intensive peripheral economies like Israel, a significant economic impact may require an appropriate balance between start-up activity and downstream production and marketing activities.     

State Implementation of Federal Environmental Policy: Explaining Leveraging in the Clean Water State Revolving Fund

The Clean Water State Revolving fund (CWSRF) program provides states with significant discretion to design, implement, and administer the program to meet their water quality needs. An important aspect of the program is the decision whether to leverage existing funds to generate additional capital for loans. This article seeks to explain the leveraging decision process, using three models as explanators. We conceive leveraging as a two-stage process—(1) the decision to leverage and (2) the decision of how much to leverage. By employing regression techniques, we find that the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) stated reasons for leveraging—environmental needs and demand for loans—are not significant in the decision to leverage, although needs are significant at the second stage. Likewise, there is limited support for Lester's (1994 ) "capacity/commitment" model of environmental implementation. A third model employing a larger range of independent variables is the best predictor of both the decision to leverage and the amount of leveraging. Furthermore, the factors important at each stage of the decision process differ substantially, reinforcing our conception of a two-stage decision process.     

'Cheese Makers Are Always Women': Gendered representations of farm life in the agricultural press

Drawing upon the 'Farmlife' pages of Farmers' Weekly, the most significant farming publication in the UK, this article assesses the ways in which gender identities in farming are represented in text and images. Lead articles from 1976 and 1996 issues of 'Farmlife' are taken as the research focus to determine how representations have altered in line with restructuring of the agricultural industry. Reference is made to Connell's notions of hegemonic masculinity and emphasised femininity to inform the analysis about the ways in which these gender identities are (re)produced through the British farming media. A simple typology is derived from the articles, which assists in revealing a remarkable degree of consistency in the portrayal of gender identities over time. Case studies reveal that hegemonic masculinity and emphasised femininity are perpetuated through the farming media, but in increasingly subtle and fragmented ways. The limitations of Connell's conceptualisation are revealed, particularly in its ability to accommodate multiple constructions of femininity. Suggestions are made for research that investigates the consumers of these media products.     

Engaging with place: artists,site-specificity and the Hebden Bridge Sculpture Trail

This paper traces the creative processes employed by artists participating in the 2004 Hebden Bridge Sculpture Trail and examines relationships between place, art and site-specificity. The Trail is a popular, temporary annual local arts event that invites international artists, students and community art groups to create and exhibit site-sensitive sculpture within Hardcastle Crags in Yorkshire, England. We consider some of the multiple ways in which artists mediate relationships between ‘site’ and artwork. We connect geographical concepts of place that highlight location, locale and sense of place, with mobile understandings of site as porous and flowing. The paper positions geographical research of art, opening out art and site in a non-urban environment through comparative discussion of concepts of ‘place’ and three ‘paradigms’ in site-specific art (phenomenological, social/institutional and discursive, Kwon 2002 Kwon, M. 2002. One Place After Another: Site-specific Art and Locational Identity, Cambridge MA: MIT Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Three elements of site-specificity – histories, natures, interactions – are then explored through fourteen artists' creative practices and our documentation of the installation of their artwork in the Trail. We highlight the juxtaposition of ‘sites’ within the Trail, the over-lapping of ‘paradigms’ within individual artworks, and transitory aspects of ‘site’ to suggest that ‘time’ holds great significance in understanding site-specificity, place and art outdoors.     

Tertiary Nothofagus macrofossils from Cethana,Tasmania

Two new Tertiary species of Nothofagus from the Early Eocene-Oligocene deposit at Cethana represent the first reports of fossil species which are not closely related to the extant Australian species N. moorei and N. cunninghamii. N. cethanica sp. nov. is most closely related to the extant New Zealand species N. fusca and N. truncata and gives further evidence of the relatively slow evolution within this genus. The other specimen is indistinguishable from extant adult N. gunnii leaves, and has been assigned to that species. This fossil shows that the deciduous habit was probably already present in N. gunnii by the Oligocene, and this may have helped N. gunnii to survive the Late Tertiary/Quaternary glaciations. Juvenile N. gunnii foliage gives some insight into the possible origins of this species, which may have been from the same ancestral stock as N. fusca, N. truncata, and N. cethanica.