The One Hundred and Forty-Third Report of the Council

In March 1991 and February—March 1993 a series of military training earthworks in Crowthorne Wood, near Bracknell, Berkshire, was surveyed by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (R.C.H.M.E.) at the request of Berkshire County Council. The results of the survey and research into the earthworks' history have revealed a chronological depth reflecting the development in military earthworks from the Napoleonic Wars to the late nineteenth and twentieth century. The following account falls into two sections: the first describes remains which probably date from manoeuvres of 1792; and the second describes later trench systems. Each is preceded by an outline of the historical background to the remains.     

The provenancing of ochres from the Neolithic Temple Period in Malta

Ochres have played an important role in early human societies, and recent studies have shown that these pigments are important tools in establishing trade routes between countries as particular varieties of the material were sought for use by these ancient groups. This paper explores the provenancing of the ancient ochres used during the Neolithic Temple Period on the Maltese islands. Here ICP-AES was employed to establish geochemical trends and ‘signature’ elements present in ochre that had previously been thought to have been imported from mainland Europe. When coupled with statistical tests, data was used to link the archaeological pigments to a geological source. Results revealed a strong link between the Maltese archaeological pigments and local sources, which had never been studied prior to this project. These indicated that, contrary to popular belief, the Maltese archipelago was the most likely source for Neolithic ochre.     

“To Put into Complete Practice Those Hallowed Principles”: Edward Coles and the Crafting of Antislavery Nationalism in Early Nineteenth‐Century America

Edward Coles is famous for his decision to liberate his enslaved property and his political activities in Illinois during the 1820s. Few scholars, however, have recognized that this was merely the opening chapter in a life‐long struggle against slavery. His career in Illinois and his subsequent effort to promote emancipation in Virginia are arguably more significant because those struggles led him to construct an antislavery argument that united principle, prejudice, and the recognition of a shared antislavery past. Cast under the banner of antislavery nationalism, Coles’ approach to the problem of slavery was uniquely designed to appeal to Northerners and the Southerners alike.     

Crenostrea sp. cf. C. cannoni (Marwick, 1928) (Bivalvia: Ostreoidea) and associated fauna from east of Heard Island,Kerguelen Plateau: age and palaeoenvironmental value

Quilty, P.G., Clark, N. & Hibberd, T., 21.01.2015. Crenostrea sp. cf. C. cannoni (Marwick, 1928) (Bivalvia: Ostreacea) and associated fauna from east of Heard Island, Kerguelen Plateau: age and palaeoenvironmental value. Alcheringa 39, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518

A well-preserved single left valve of a large oyster embedded in coarse volcaniclastic sediment and identified as Crenostrea sp. cf. C. cannoni (Marwick, 1928) was dredged from east of Heard Island, central southern Indian Ocean. It is accompanied by a fragment of the pectinid bivalve Austrochlamys sp. indet. and foraminifera. Austrochlamys sp. indet. and other bivalve fragments were analysed for ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C, the results yielding an age of 17.5 Ma (later early Miocene) and a water temperature of ca 10°C. Foraminifera and sediment characteristics indicate that accumulation occurred in mid-continental shelf depths, at a location where nutrient supply was good.

Patrick G. Quilty [p.quilty@utas.edu.au], School of Earth Sciences (Private Bag 79) and Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS: Private Bag 129), University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia. Nicola Clark [nc118@leicester.ac.uk], Department of Geology, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK. Ty Hibberd [ty.hibberd@aad.gov.au], Australian Antarctic Division, Channel Highway, Kingston, Tasmania 7050, Australia.     

Urban Planning in Italy: The Future of Urban General Plan and Governance

This article aims to highlight and, whenever possible, demonstrate that the urban general plan is still the instrument of the utmost importance to trigger and steer urban transformations. Within the current Italian context, the article examines the characteristics, contradictions, weaknesses and opportunities of urban planning set of rules and practices and tries to propose concrete answers to questions and issues strictly connected that affect the municipality's urban planning: how to manage and govern a contemporary metropolis or city agglomeration, the concerns associated with overlapping jurisdictions and different rules for various hierarchical administrative levels, the costs of social and common services, the need to include in the urban plan the possible use of European Union Structural Funds, the real estate market affecting new development and urban regeneration programmes and investments. All these aspects should be included in a unifying and strong planning instrument, the urban plan, which could address and steer effectively the urban planning policies and their governance.     

The Unbearable Instability of Structural Funds' Distribution

In order to promote “cohesion, competitiveness and cooperation” across Europe, the EU has established a common regional policy to support underdeveloped territories. This EU regional policy required to set up a very complex mechanism to implement such a huge effort to coordinate many interventions across highly differentiated territories. However, those territories are provided with very different institutional settings, and then the mechanism to coordinate all of them becomes particularly complex. The aim of this paper is to discuss the EU multi-level governance for structural funds (SFs), revising the origin, rationale and evolution of this policy in order to identify the limits of the institutional mechanism for the implementation of this policy. These limits will show their effects on the unstable distribution of SFs across the EU regions on a long-term perspective. Results show that the intervention of the EU is neither constant nor stable across regions, independently from their development paths. This instability should provide further arguments on the discussion about the SF policy and governance in order to take into considerations also institutional limits of the EU.