New evidence for the establishment and management of the European fallow deer (Dama dama dama) in Roman Britain

The semi-domestic status of the European fallow deer (Dama dama dama) renders its ancient biogeography a reflection of human activity with the potential to provide important insights into the movement, trade patterns and ideology of past societies. Given this potential, fallow deer have received surprisingly little attention from scientists within the fields of archaeology, biology and zoology. Here we present new AMS radiocarbon dates, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data and genetic evidence (the first ancient DNA sequences for the species) resulting from the analysis of a set of remains recovered from the Roman settlement at Monkton on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, UK. By viewing our results against the very limited available comparative data, this paper provides new information for the establishment and management of fallow deer in Britain. We argue that much more could be achieved with even a slight increase in sample sizes and a plea is made for greater research into this culturally significant species.     

Family migration decision-making,step-migration and separation: children's experiences in European migrant worker families

Intra-European family migration has extended the realm in which families live and work in Europe. This paper joins a limited number of recent attempts to analyse family migration using a children-in-families approach [Bushin, N. 2009. Researching Family Migration Decision-Making: A Children-in-Families Approach.” Population, Space and Place, 15: 429–443]. In contrast to existing studies on this theme, our focus is on children's migration decision-making, experiences of step-migration and experiences of separation from parents during processes of intra-European family migration. Little is known about children's views and experiences of step-migration and separation from their parent(s) during family migration. Such experiences have implications for the spatial and temporal construction of family and childhood in Europe, where transnational mobility is increasing. This paper discusses children's experiences of separation in two research contexts, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, to illustrate common features of the phenomena. The paper analyses family relationships relevant to migration decisions and explains their effects on children's agency, as well as on family integrity itself.     

Measuring Museum Visitor Preferences Towards Opportunities for Developing Social Capital: An Application of a Choice Experiment to the Discovery Museum

This study investigates preferences of visitors to the Discovery Museum (in North East England) with respect to opportunities to develop social capital. The extent to which museums generate social capital is largely unknown, but museums have potential opportunities to develop this type of capital. This study uses a stated preference choice experiment (CE) technique to estimate museum visitor preferences towards social capital opportunities. The findings indicate that visitors have a preference for visiting a museum with another individual(s); and that the provision of participatory activities, extended opening hours and locally related displays would generate more social capital among visitors and in society.     

Technology and textiles globalization

Post 9/11 discourse has important origins in Cold War technopolitical hierarchies that equated "nuclear" with colonizing nations and "non-nuclear" with colonized peoples. This paper gives examples of such equations in order to illuminate the place of nuclearity in current global technopolitics.     

Music,antiquity and self-fashioning in the Accademia dei Lincei

The members of the Accademia dei Lincei are known chiefly for their achievements in early modern science, most notably supporting and funding Galileo’s projects. Their investigations of the natural world using both microscope and telescope were ground breaking, but potentially heretical. This article investigates aspects of their interest in the music of antiquity and its place in early modern Rome and Naples, presenting Fabio Colonna’s book La Sambuca lincea as a case study. The timing of the Lincean musical activities is juxtaposed with other significant events such as the injunctions against Galileo, throwing into relief some curious coincidences. The antique on the one hand evoked classical authority and was afforded due reverence, but could on the other, also provide the means of fashioning an outward identity different from internal intent. It will be suggested that elements of this antiquarian heritage are reflected in the patronage and cultural politics of the Accademia dei Lincei, whose participation in musica erudita, as evidenced in the work of Colonna, may have been part of a tacit display of corporate self-fashioning.     

Investigating experimental knapping damage on an antler hammer: a pilot-study using high-resolution imaging and analytical techniques

Organic (bone, antler, wood) knapping tools were undoubtedly a component of early human tool kits since the Lower Palaeolithic. Previous studies have identified pitting and the occasional presence of embedded flint flakes as important features for recognizing archaeological bone and antler percussors. However, no systematic protocol of analysis has been suggested for the study of this rare archaeological material. Here we present qualitative and quantitative results of a preliminary analysis of an experimental knapping hammer, using a novel combination of microscopy (focus variation optical microscope and scanning electron microscope), micro-CT scanning and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. These imaging and analytical techniques are used to characterize use-damage from the manufacture of handaxes. This paper highlights the strengths and weakness of each technique. Use-wear on the working area included attritional bone loss, micro-striations and compaction of the outer layer of the antler matrix from repeated hitting of the beam against the sharp edge of the handaxe during knapping. Embedded flint flakes were also identified in the pits and grooves. This combination of high-resolution imaging techniques is applicable to fragile archaeological specimens, including those encrusted by sediment or encased in matrix.     

A late Holocene pollen record from Lake Almalou in NW Iran: evidence for changing land-use in relation to some historical events during the last 3700 years

A pollen diagram was prepared from Lake Almalou, a volcanic crater wetland located on the eastern flanks of the Sahand Volcanic Complex in NW Iran. The core provides a 3700-year record of human activity and environmental change in an upland region. We attempt to relate vegetation changes to both climatic change and historical events. Variations of anthropogenic pollen indicators suggest several phases of intensified human activities. Two strongly expressed agricultural phases are dated at about 2450–2220 cal BP (Achaemenid Empire) and 230–30 cal BP (collapse of Safavid Dynasty to the modern period). Historical rather than climatic events appear to be the main controlling factors for upland land-use dynamics. Fruticulture has been practiced in the region at least since the Iron Age, reaching its maximum importance 1500–1250 cal BP during the reign of Sassanid Empire; it declined by the time of Islamic conquest of Iran (651 AD). The Little Ice Age is tangibly recorded by higher lake water levels most probably due to both lower summer temperatures and higher annual precipitations. Low values of cereal-type and cultivated tree pollen during this period may indicate a change in the lifestyle from the cultivation of fields and orchards to a more nomadic life dominated by summer pasture. The modern period (1850 AD onwards) is characterized by expansion of agricultural activities to upland areas and intensified pastoralism.     

‘A house for dead people’: memory and spatial transformation in Red Location,South Africa

One of several new South African post-apartheid memory projects, the Red Location Museum in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth opened in 2006, in a century-old informal settlement with strong histories of resistance. The museum was intended to acknowledge the area’s contribution to the liberation struggle, and contribute to dismantling apartheid urban geographies by producing a tourist and cultural economy. However, the project was highly contested from its inception by residents who felt that the priority for the neighbourhood should be housing and service delivery. Major housing-related protests erupted on the museum’s doorstep between 2003 and 2005, and in late 2013 the new cultural precinct was closed down indefinitely. This paper examines the politics and controversies surrounding the Red Location developments between 1997 and 2013, using this case study to consider the ways in which the protests around the museum are rooted in historical and political histories made visible through residents’ radical claiming of ownership of the museum building. The Red Location example offers a useful consideration of the complexities of applying notions of ‘participation’ and ‘community ownership’ in practice in fraught situations where major change is needed, and makes a case for the thorough historicisation of contemporary conflicts over development and spatial change.     

Fortifications and Enclosures in European Prehistory: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

This article reviews recent research into the archaeological interpretation and investigation of fortifications and enclosures during the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Europe. Recent methodological, technological, and cultural developments have expanded our understanding of the temporal, spatial, and formal variability of these features on the landscape. Interpretations of this variability also have varied with different theoretical trends in the discipline. We advocate a cross-cultural approach that focuses on the occurrence of enclosures and fortifications over the long term at the continental scale. Such a macroscalar approach complements interpretive frameworks at the regional and microregional scales. The geographic and temporal distribution of these features indicates that social institutions associated with principles of segmentation and substitutability became formalized and tethered to the landscape during the Neolithic.