Local diversity in settlement,demography and subsistence across the southern Indian Neolithic-Iron Age transition: site growth and abandonment at Sanganakallu-Kupgal

The Southern Indian Neolithic-Iron Age transition demonstrates considerable regional variability in settlement location, density, and size. While researchers have shown that the region around the Tungabhadra and Krishna River basins displays significant subsistence and demographic continuity, and intensification, from the Neolithic into the Iron Age ca. 1200 cal. BC, archaeological and chronometric records in the Sanganakallu region point to hilltop village expansion during the Late Neolithic and ‘Megalithic’ transition period (ca. 1400–1200 cal. BC) prior to apparent abandonment ca. 1200 cal. BC, with little evidence for the introduction of iron technology into the region. We suggest that the difference in these settlement histories is a result of differential access to stable water resources during a period of weakening and fluctuating monsoon across a generally arid landscape. Here, we describe well-dated, integrated chronological, archaeobotanical, archaeozoological and archaeological survey datasets from the Sanganakallu-Kupgal site complex that together demonstrate an intensification of settlement, subsistence and craft production on local hilltops prior to almost complete abandonment ca. 1200 cal. BC. Although the southern Deccan region as a whole may have witnessed demographic increase, as well as subsistence and cultural continuity, at this time, this broader pattern of continuity and resilience is punctuated by local examples of abandonment and mobility driven by an increasing practical and political concern with water.     

Stakeholder Involvement in the Design of U.S. Voluntary Environmental Programs: Does Sponsorship Matter?

Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) promise to provide firms and facilities additional flexibility in managing their environmental affairs while increasing internal efficiencies and improving their public image. Although stakeholder input is thought to improve program development, little is known about the extent that stakeholders are involved in the VEP design process. Based on a survey of 61 program managers, this research distinguishes between the intensity and diversity of stakeholder involvement and uses these two concepts to assess VEP development relative to government, industry, and third-party sponsorship. Even in the absence of a mandate, all three sponsors include a variety of stakeholders in program design. Although there is evidence that collaborative relationships are developing between sponsors and a range of stakeholder groups, variations in the intensity of involvement among sponsors suggest that some stakeholders may have disproportionate levels of influence in the design of VEPs.     

Families of Choice? George Ives,Queer Lives and the Family in Early Twentieth‐Century Britain

This article argues that the stark post-Second World War understanding in which 'straight is to gay' came to be seen as 'family is to non family' has tended to obscure the historical complexity of family life and the ways in which queer men have interacted with and created their families in the past, and used the language of family to conceptualise emotional bonds 'beyond blood'. Using the well-heeled early campaigner for homosexual law reform, George Ives (1867–1950), as a case study, I show how different rhetorics, ideas and experiences of family allowed for the assertion of gender and sexual identity, gave a framework for campaigning work and provided a means of conceptualising intimacy and companionship. Though family was the cause of considerable angst for Ives, it was, I suggest, something he valued not in spite of his homosexuality but at least partly because of it. It was fundamental to the ways in which he understood and articulated who he was, and how he related to others.     

Shell Middens, Ships and Seeds: Exploring Coastal Subsistence, Maritime Trade and the Dispersal of Domesticates in and Around the Ancient Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula occupies a critical position at the intersect of several major Old World landmasses. Inland aridity and a major coastal perimeter have long made maritime activities critical to Arabia’s cultural trajectory. A wealth of recent studies, not previously synthesised, suggest not only that the peninsular littoral offered a rich resource base for thousands of years of human occupation in the region, but also that Arabia witnessed some of the world’s earliest seafaring and maritime exchange activities, and played a role in Bronze Age maritime trade that has often been underestimated. Maritime activities were closely linked to developments in agriculture, which not only fuelled trade and exchange, but were also impacted on by the dispersal of domesticates along early maritime corridors. While regional specialisation has to some degree prevented consideration of the maritime prehistory of the peninsula as a whole, it is clear that there are interesting parallels, as well as important differences, between cultural trajectories in different parts of the peninsula.     

Sourcing ceramics with portable XRF spectrometers? A comparison with INAA using Mimbres pottery from the American Southwest

Seventy-five intact Mimbres and Jornada pottery sherds from the American Southwest were analyzed by portable XRF and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Examination of the data demonstrates that INAA and portable XRF results for elements common to both analyses can be used to construct similar compositional groups. When individual compositional groups are compared to one another, it is apparent that unambiguous separation of compositional groups is challenging by portable XRF given (1) the limited number of key discriminating elements that can be measured relative to INAA, and (2) the relative analytical precision and accuracy of portable XRF for measurements of intact heterogeneous ceramics. We conclude that sourcing intact ceramics by portable XRF is challenging and that bulk analytical measurements, such as INAA, remain a better approach for sourcing archaeological pottery.     

Reconstructing site organization in the eastern Aleutian Islands,Alaska using multi-element chemical analysis of soils

This study presents the results of multi-element analysis of weak-acid extractions of 953 soil samples collected by coring on and around pre-historic village sites on two islands, Sanak and Amaknak, in the eastern Aleutians. Concentrations of aluminum (Al), barium (Ba), calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), phosphorus (P), strontium (Sr), titanium (Ti), and zinc (Zn) were determined using an inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). Resultant elemental signatures allow the identification of site features and organization in the absence of large-scale excavation. All the archeological sites showed similar and distinct chemical signatures regardless of the several thousand year date range of the sites or the length of time a site was occupied. However, intensity of occupation does appear to affect concentrations of elements. Site features such as houses, house berms, house floors and middens had distinct anthropogenic signatures and could be distinguished from one another. This approach may be used to identify sites that do not have distinct surface features and to target areas for excavation.     

Stiffening Abe: William Pitt Fessenden and the Role of the Broker Politician in the Civil War Congress

The difficult but by no means dysfunctional relationship between President Abraham Lincoln and Congress remains an understudied aspect of Civil War history. Indeed, it is impossible to arrive at a comprehensive or convincing explanation for Union victory until that relationship is limned more precisely. This article contends that U.S. Senator William Pitt Fessenden (1806–69) played a critical mediating role in the wartime Congress. He did so firstly in his capacities as chair of the Senate finance committee and close associate of U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase and secondly as a public supporter of executive war powers. Although the influential Maine Republican had serious doubts about the effectiveness of the Lincoln administration, his determination to quash the southern rebellion and considerable powers of self‐restraint enabled him to act as an important and constructive broker between the White House and the fractious Republicans on Capitol Hill.     

‘Our lives,our fortunes,and our sacred honors’: The Kansas Civil War and the revolutionary tradition

New England settlers used the history of the American Revolution in their struggle against the proslavery party in Kansas territory. As the settlement of Kansas became increasingly politicized over slavery, New England settlers drew on the history of their Puritan and Patriot ancestors to legitimize their actions. Although the New Englanders were a minority of the Kansas population, they nonetheless claimed a privileged understanding of the meaning of liberty in the United States. The free‐state political movement used these claims as an effective propaganda tool. The New England settlers, and the free‐state movement, claimed to be acting on the principles of the Revolution. At times, free‐staters argued that their struggle surpassed the Revolution in significance. Eventually, later Kansans concluded that the Kansas Civil War had been, not a revolution itself, but the prelude to a national Civil War of revolutionary significance in its spread of human liberty.