Farming and/or foraging? New environmental data to the life and economic transformation of Late Neolithic tell communities (Tisza Culture) in SE Hungary

The turn of the 6th and 5th millennia BC witnessed probably the largest economic and cultural transformation of SE Europe giving rise to a new techno-complex occupying the alluvial plains of the Tisza River and its tributaries in the southern parts of the Carpathian Basin. Representatives of the Tisza Culture were engaged in intensive farming complemented with foraging creating a complex system of hierarchical multi-layered settlements (tells). The favorable endowments of the sites with a large variety of multiple ecotones ideal for multifocal subsistence, as well as the introduction of new farming techniques ensured the establishment of long-term sedentary lifeways. However, according to the archeology, a major shift in subsistence happened toward the end of the Late Neolithic marking the terminal part of the evolution of the culture. Traditional crop cultivation was increasingly complemented with hunting, animal husbandry gaining importance. Other second-line resources like fish and shellfish followed the same pattern. Finally, tells were disintegrated and a new cultural group of the Copper Age emerged. The exact background of these transformations is still unknown. In order to see whether or not potential transformations in the local riparian environment had some role in shaping human behavior, a multiproxy paleoecological analysis was implemented on mollusk material of one of the largest tell sites of SE Hungary. Freshwater mollusks collected by humans in themselves characterize the quality of the water body from which they derive. They are also an excellent marker of socioeconomic response to environmental stress. According to our findings the emergence of new settlement phases and the intensified foraging could have been correlated with alteration of stream properties yielding successively higher floods. This was initially beneficial creating lush pasturelands for large bodied prey infiltrating the area during the referred period like aurochs, red-deer. But ultimately it might have reduced areas suitable for agriculture and living most likely leading to social disruption besides other cultural, social processes.     

Reflections of “Europe” and continental thinking? The language of inclusion in the Instrumenta Pacis Westphalicae (1648)

ABSTRACT

The Peace Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. While scholarship is still divided between sceptics and supporters regarding the actual impact of the Westphalian Peace on the international order in Europe, let alone the concept of continental community, this article seeks to tackle the issue from an original perspective. A close study of the language and rhetoric employed in the two Latin Instrumenta Pacis Westphalicae reveals the underlying ideas which can be seen in the discourse of Europe and continental identity.     

The origin of the so-called plan of St Gall

In his second provisional report on investigations into the plan of St Gall, the author argues that this famous monastic blue print was drawn up by Theodore of Tarsus, archbishop of Canterbury (668-90), with the cathedral monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, in mind. The author's first provisional report was published in the journal Baumeister in 1977 (Noll 1977: 74-5); this second report has been translated by John Vaughan from the German edition, published by the author in Munich in 1981, with some revision by the author. The plan has already been the subject of a full-scale illustrated paper in this journal by Waiter Horn (1975:219-57).     

From Coal to Wind

In March 1987, the Brundtland Report –Our Common Future – was published by the UN’s World Commission on Environment and Development. The recommendations of the report contributed worldwide to raising awareness of climate change. In particular, the energy sector became the object of anxiety, as production and the use of energy were pinpointed as some of the ‘crooks’ emitting most greenhouse gasses. Shortly after the publication of the report, the Danish government revised its energy planning and opened up for a radical change of the energy sector.

This article delves into this crucial change and, in doing so, suggests a historical answer to the question of why Denmark became one of the leading nations in transforming the energy sector from a power supply based on fossil fuels to a power generation system using a high percentage of renewables.