The first record of a Maastrichtian ammonite from the Perth Basin,Western Australia,and its biostratigraphical significance

The first known ammonite from the Maastrichtian of the Perth Basin, a single, incomplete specimen of Grossouvrites gemmatus (Huppé, 1854), is described from core material from the Lancelin No. 1 borehole. Foraminiferal and nannoplankton evidence date the ammonite as middle Maastrichtian; its age is also assessed on the basis of dinoflagellate assemblages from this section, but these give a less precise dating. The position of the ammonite with respect to a mid-Maastrichtian disconformity, which probably extended along much of the Western Australian margin is discussed.     

Administration and archives

Robert Hyslop, Australian Naval Administration 1900–1939, The Hawthorn Press, Melbourne, 1973, pp. 254, $6.95.     

The Archaeology of Copán, Honduras

Copán, a major Classic Maya center in western Honduras, has been the focus of archaeological investigation for over a century. An intense period of research since 1975, involving projects and scholars from many institutions, has resulted in a comprehensive understanding of the origin, maturation, and decline of this major Maya polity.     

From ethnic outbidding to ethnic conflict: the institutional bases for Sri Lanka's separatist war1

Abstract. Beginning in the mid‐1950s Sri Lanka's politicians from the majority Sinhalese community resorted to ethnic outbidding as a means to attain power and in doing so systematically marginalised the country's minority Tamils. This article consequently argues that institutional decay, which was produced by the dialectic between majority rule and ethnic outbidding, was what led to Tamil mobilisation and an ethnic conflict that has killed nearly 70,000 people over the past twenty years. It also analyses the influence informal societal pressures exerted on formal state institutions and how this contributed to institutional decay. Evaluating the relations that ensued between social organisations and the Sri Lankan state shows how institutions can prescribe actions and fashion motives even as it will make clear how the island's varied institutions generated a deadly political dynamic that eventually unleashed the ongoing civil war.     

Domesticating the Frontier: Gender,Empire and Adventure Landscapes in British Cinema, 1945–59

Before 1945, films of the empire genre, produced in Hollywood as well as Britain, celebrated the masculinity of the British adventure hero, and promoted an imperial world view. This article explores the significance of the incorporation of white women into empire films in the late 1940s and 1950s, focusing on three films from different moments in the period. What are the range of meanings assigned to white femininity in these films, and their significance to the politics of race and gender? How is the white woman represented in relation to colonised women and men? In addressing these questions the article considers shifts in the gendering of the empire genre as part of an attempt to address a range of anxieties – about the transition from empire to Commonwealth, the rise of American power, and the collapse of boundaries between colonisers and colonised.