CONTRASTS MARRIAGE AND IDENTITY IN WESTERN FIJI

You see how people get married here, how much work it involves. The mats, the drums, the animals, it's murder! If it's a woman, that's all right, you just go and eat. But if you've got a young man, you have to start raising cattle. With you foreigners, it's easy. You have a small party and that's it. It's better that way, here it is just too much. You know how the Indians get married, Niko? The man goes to the woman's father and says, ‘Here's a thousand dollars. How about it?’ He says, ‘That's not much.’ Then the man offers fifteen hundred, he says ‘Ummm.’ Then when the man offers two thousand, he says, ‘All right.’ Different customs, say!     

The disparate histories of binocular vision and binaural hearing

Vision and hearing are dependent on disparities of spatial patterns received by two eyes and on time and intensity differences to two ears. However, the experiences of a single world have masked attention to these disparities. While eyes and ears are paired, there has not been parity in the attention directed to their functioning. Phenomena involving binocular vision were commented upon since antiquity whereas those about binaural hearing are much more recent. This history is compared with respect to the experimental manipulations of dichoptic and dichotic stimuli and the instruments used to stimulate the paired organs. Binocular color mixing led to studies of binaural hearing and direction and distance in visual localization were analyzed before those for auditory localization. Experimental investigations began in the nineteenth century with the invention of instruments like the stereoscope and pseudoscope, soon to be followed by their binaural equivalents, the stethophone and pseudophone.     

A Case of Identity: The Artefacts of the 1770 Kamay (Botany Bay) Encounter*

Collections of Indigenous artefacts made during the voyages of Captain James Cook have been extensively researched, but significant issues around the provenance and identification of artefacts remain complex and unresolved. This article considers the case of a shield in the British Museum, said for fifty years to have been appropriated by Cook at the time of first contacts with Gweagal in April 1770, and other artefacts associated with the same encounters.     

Birmingham Bog outdoor laboratory: potentials and possibilities for embedding field-based teaching within the undergraduate classroom

Providing cost-effective, hands-on field-based experiences to large cohorts of undergraduate students provides a core challenge for effective teaching and learning. This grand challenge is tackled through the construction of an exemplar outdoor learning environment within the Environmental Change Outdoor Laboratory (ECOLAB): Birmingham Bog (BB). Adjacent to the Geography building, the facility aims to produce a seamless, interconnected learning environment (in both space and time) that brings inaccessible fieldwork activities direct to the classroom at the time and frequency appropriate to the learning objectives. With the integration of this facility within a 3rd year undergraduate module, we explore through group interviews the ways in which BB adapted and influenced students’ engagement with lecture material, and the extent to which the approach can complement or replace current field based teaching activities. The group interviews identified how BB was considered an example of “effective learning” within the context of the wider degree programme. However, if confirmed, the value placed on residential field courses cannot be met by such campus experiences. Despite this, BB represents an increasingly fertile space for deeper stimulation and innovative ways of learning; diversifying pedagogical techniques and enabling students to re-engage with lecture content.     

Gladstone’s Land: the changing face of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile

SUMMARY: This paper presents the results of recent archaeological research into the building known as Gladstone’s Land on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. The aim of the research was to examine to what extent historical fabric had survived in light of extensive historical intervention. The building is a surviving example of Edinburgh’s Old Town urban architecture, which is characterized by tall structures with a shop front and densely occupied residential spaces. The paper presents evidence of the development of the building from the 16th century to its conservation in the 20th century. This development involved the replacement of formerly timber elements in stone and the creation of ornate painted interiors. The history of the building and the archaeological evidence embedded within it offer evidence of the life and changing architectural trends of Scotland’s capital. It also adds to our current understanding of heritage practice in the 20th century, raising issues of authenticity and the social construction of visitor-oriented heritage.