Historical limits: narrowing possibilities in ‘Ontario's most historic town’

Place branding in heritage tourism development is presented as a strategy that opens up new possibilities for attracting investors and visitors by distilling, capturing and shaping what is distinctive about a place. This representational fix is an efficient marketing device in the sense that it represents places through widely intelligible symbols. Branding is also a limiting activity that locks places in time and class relations. While place branding has always had this dual effect, we argue that it has particularly insidious and limiting consequences for local development under current conditions of roll‐out neoliberalism. Beginning in the 1960s, several prominent residents and outsiders initiated efforts to transform the Town of Cobalt, Ontario, into a mining heritage tourism destination. In 2001, the town entered and won a contest to be named Ontario's Most Historic Town. The following year it persuaded Parks Canada to designate it as a national historic site. These two events provided renewed external validation for the efforts to brand Cobalt as a heritage site and began a new cycle of mining heritage tourism development. However, instead of breaking the dependency relationships that characterize resource regions, the current round of place branding has acted to circumscribe the range of possible economic development options.     

Spaces of Resistance,Spaces of Respite: Franchise housekeepers keeping house in the workplace and at home

As a contribution to a growing geography of domestic labour, I offer this micro-scale study as a glimpse into the lives of franchise housekeepers. This study sheds light on the ways women cope with their labour both in the workplace and at home. Scrutiny of the women's ordinary actions and reactions to their labour demonstrate how they devise coping strategies through mundane, common, everyday acts and forge spaces of resistance and respite. I discuss these strategies and spaces by drawing on in-depth interviews with 14 women employed in housekeeping services franchises.     

MOLECULAR AND ISOTOPIC DEMONSTRATION OF THE PROCESSING OF AQUATIC PRODUCTS IN NORTHERN EUROPEAN PREHISTORIC POTTERY*

A number of charred surface residues, adhering to ceramic containers, were obtained from various coastal and inland sites in north‐west Europe dating from the sixth to the fourth millennium cal bc . In order to investigate the use of these vessels and in particular to identify any marine products, the residues were subjected to carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis. Variation in carbon isotope ratios between different samples indicated that some vessels may have been used to process marine products. This analysis was corroborated by specific identification of aquatic products following structural and isotopic characterization of lipids extracted from selected samples.     

A GROUP OF BYZANTINE BOWLS FROM SKOPELOS

Summary. Twenty glazed bowls of the late twelfth century A.D. from the Ashmolean Museum are published here. They probably come from a shipwreck off the island of Skopelos in the north-west Aegean and are of intrinsic interest in expanding the already known categories of Middle Byzantine Incised Wares.     

NON-DESTRUCTIVE SURFACE ANALYSIS OF ROMAN TERRA SIGILLATA: A POSSIBLE TOOL IN PROVENANCE STUDIES?

In the past, studies on the average chemical composition of a sherd vs its origin have successfully been carried out, but attempts failed to reach the same goal with spot analysis (electron microprobe) on the high gloss surface of terra sigillata. When chemical data on the average composition of the surface is used for provenance determinations, significant results are obtainable on the basis of non-destructive energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis (EDS-XFA). Terra sigillata from Arezzo, Lezoux, La Graufesenque and Lyon (± 20 B.C. to ± 150 A.D.) were analysed in order to determine the statistically distinctive chemical elements. It is clearly possible under favourable conditions to allocate archaeologically unknown sherds to specific pottery centres.     

ON SOME PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHINESE AND EUROPEAN RED WARES

When in the seventeenth and eighteenth century Chinese red ware from Yixing was imported into Europe, imitations of that ware, some of them delusively similar to the originals, were made in the Netherlands, Saxony, and England. With non-destructive energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis (ED-XFA) the Chinese and different European red wares can be easily separated by comparing the patterns of their calcium oxide, manganese oxide, and lead contents. They also have density characteristics of their own.     

THE COMPOSITION AND MANUFACTURE OF EARLY MEDIEVAL COLOURED WINDOW GLASS FROM SION (VALAIS,SWITZERLAND)—A ROMAN GLASS‐MAKING TRADITION OR INNOVATIVE CRAFTSMANSHIP?*

Archaeological excavations between 1984 and 2001 at the early Christian cemetery church in Sion, Sous‐le‐Scex (Rhône Valley, Switzerland), brought to light more than 400 pieces of coloured window glass dating from the fifth or sixth centuries ad . The aims of this paper are threefold: first, to characterize the shape, colour and chemical composition of the glass; secondly, to understand whether the production of the coloured window panes followed traditional Roman glazing techniques or was of a more innovative nature; and, thirdly, to provide some indications as to the overall design of these early ornamental glass windows. Forty samples of coloured glass have been analysed by wavelength‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence. The results of the chemical and the technological studies showed that most of the glass was produced using recycled glass, particularly as a colouring agent. Some of the glass was made of essentially unmodified glass of the Levantine I type. The results taken together seem to confirm that raw glass from this region was widely traded and used between the fourth and seventh centuries ad . The artisans at Sion were apparently still making use of the highly developed techniques of Roman glass production. The colour spectrum, manufacture and design of the windows, however, suggest that they represent early examples of ornamental coloured glass windows.