茶叶和鸦片在早期经济全球化中的作用——观察19世纪中国危机的一个视角

Alongside military conquest which characterized great part of globalization during the 19^th century, the globalization of markets no doubt was its main manifestation. Addictive consumption goods played a leading role during this process, as observed in the case of China, tea and the opium trade had the largest impact. Owing to the importance of Britain’s growing demand for tea and its concomitant tax revenue, Anglo-Chinese trade became the dominant trade that Britain had in the East. To make up the trade deficit with China, Britain took advantage of its Indian colony and did its best in expanding its opium trade. Within this triangular trade scheme, Britain was the master, India was the instrument, and China was the ultimate victim. Confronted by the irresistible trend of globalization, China was ill prepared when facing this challenge leading to a complete failure in both military and commercial warfare and later on to an overall crisis in the 19^th century.     

"随嫁田"与宋代富家妇女的经济地位

Prosperous families in the Song Dynasty maintained the custom that a daughter went to her husband’s household with a piece of land to ensure her economic position. During the Song Dynasty, the economic status of women from wealthy families was maintained at a high level. Neo-Confucian doctrines attempted to change the situation largely but they failed, even though during the Southern Song Dynasty Neo-Confucianism gradually rose to stand as the national ideology. Some people clamored for the Southern Song Dynasty regime to eliminate or to limit the custom of bridal dowry land in private, but the majority still favored the judicial practice in the protection of the wife’s right to her property.     

Mineralogical and geochemical characterization of high-medieval lead–silver smelting slags from Wiesloch near Heidelberg (Germany)—an approach to process reconstruction

Here, we present detailed electron microprobe analyses and age data of high-medieval lead–silver smelting slags. The mineral composition data provide a database of all silicate and oxide phases in the slag. Bulk chemistry as well as mineral composition is used to reconstruct liquidus, solidus, and viscosity of the slag melt. By calculating the mass balance of the smelting process, a mass ratio of the various compounds used in the smelting process is determined. Through this we were able to discriminate qualitatively between non-ferrous metal smelting slags and bloomery slags. We also report a new type and process of silver production in which argentiferous galmei (zinc carbonate) was used as a main silver ore together with galena. The results indicate a sophisticated high-medieval smelting technology, in which a slag with a low liquidus and a low viscosity was created.     

Comment on: Fruit and seed biomineralization and its effect on preservation by E. Messager et al.; in: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (2010) 2:25–34. DOI 10.1007/s12520-010-0024-1

This article provides a brief critique of a recent article on biomineralisation and preservation. It gives a summary of the difference between biomineralisation and mineral replacement, and addresses problems with the interpretation of FT-IR data. The lack of contextual information for the samples studied is another problem which is highlighted.     

Small preys and plant exploitation by late pleistocene hunter–gatherers. A case study from the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula

The aim of this paper is to explain the subsistence strategies of late hunter–gatherers from the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula on the basis of zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical records. The study is based on the Molí del Salt archaeological site which has yielded an Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sequence. Each of the disciplines shows us a various type of assemblage to approach the same problem. Archaeobotanical materials, including charcoal and seeds provide data on the strategies related to firewood gathering and vegetal food supply, which was a basic subsistence resource for these groups. The archaeobotanical assemblage is mainly formed by conifers, but other species related to edible plants are also important. Bone assemblage, mainly formed by Oryctolagus cuniculus, show how hunting and meat processing is highly related. The environmental constraints as well as mobility are discussed in order to achieve an ampler knowledge on human activities.     

Swiss Bell Beaker population dynamics: eastern or southern influences?

The Bell Beaker complex is defined, above all, by a ceramic style widespread across Europe during the 3rd millennium BC. Its particularly large geographic distribution has provoked different interpretations: a unique population invading Europe, the long-distance exchange of prestige goods, and the absence of a real Bell Beaker population with only the diffusion of its cultural components. For Switzerland, the Bell Beaker period would have developed following influences varying in significance from both the Mediterranean region and Central Europe. Bioanthropology makes it possible to test the first of these hypotheses, which proposes the diffusion of a culture by population displacement. Here, the choice was made to analyze dental nonmetrics. Our previous research on dental nonmetrics supports the idea, for Switzerland, of a certain harmony in Middle Neolithic populations, and the mobility or a moderate population contribution beginning in the Final Neolithic and continuing more intensely during the Bell Beaker period. The aim here is to identify the provenance of the population contribution at the end of the western Swiss Neolithic, and more specifically during the Bell Beaker period. To do so, we have compared the dental morphology of Swiss pre-Bell Beaker, Bell Beaker, and post-Bell Beaker populations with that of contemporaneous populations found not only in the eastern sphere (Czech Republic and Hungary), but also in the southern sphere (southern France and northern Spain). We are now able to demonstrate that the axis for external population influences at the end of the western Swiss Neolithic is clearly southern.     

The emergence of rice agriculture in Korea: archaeobotanical perspectives

This paper reviews archaeobotanical records on the beginning and spread of rice agriculture in the Korean peninsula. Argument for the earliest evidence of domesticated rice at the Sorori site, 15,000 years ago, is invalid. The evidence for rice cultivation in the Neolithic (Chulmun) is still insufficient although rice remains have been reported from a few late Neolithic sites in central-western Korea which dated to about 3000 BC. The existence of rice agriculture in the Bronze Age (Early and Middle Mumun: c.1300 ∼ 300 BC), on the other hand, is demonstrated by the high percentage and/or frequency of rice remains among crops recovered from various sites, as well as through the numerous findings of paddy fields. Rice appears to have been introduced from the Liaodong region, China, while so called 'southern diffusion route' that the beginning of rice cultivation was first stimulated by influences from Southeast Asia or South China is no more valid. Charred rice remains recovered from the Bronze Age dwellings consist of dehusked clean grains and weedy seeds are very rare among samples containing rice grains, which could be related with the harvesting and processing methods of rice. Measurements of charred rice grains also will be reported in this paper. Agricultural villages disappear from the archaeological records from the third century BC, which corresponds to the beginning of the Early Iron Age (Late Mumun), and reappear from the late first century with the emergence of urban societies.     

Consilience of genetics and archaeobotany in the entangled history of rice

Major leaps forward in understanding rice both in genetics and archaeology have taken place in the past decade or so—with the publication of full draft genomes for indica and japonica rice, on the one hand, and with the spread of systematic flotation and increased recovery of archaeological spikelet bases and other rice remains on early sites in China, India and Southeast Asia. This paper will sketch a framework that coherently integrates the evidence from these burgeoning fields. This framework implies a reticulate framework in the phylogeny of early cultivated rice, with multiple starts of cultivation (two is perhaps not enough) but with the key consolidations of adaptations that must have been spread through hybridisation and therefore long-distance cultural contacts. Archaeobotanical evidence allows us to document the gradual evolutionary process of domestication through rice spikelet bases and grain size change. Separate trends in grain size change can be identified in India and China. The earliest centre of rice domestication was in the Yangtze basin of China, but a largely separate trajectory into rice cultivation can be traced in the Ganges plains of India. Intriguingly, contact-induced hybridisation is indicated for the early development of indica in northern India, ca. 2000 BC. An updated synthesis of the interwoven patterns of the spread of various rice varieties throughout Asia and to Madagascar can be suggested in which rice reached most of its historical range of important cultivation by the Iron Age.     

Distribution and origin of organic matter in the Baltic Sea sediments dated with <Superscript>210</Superscript>Pb and <Superscript>137</Superscript>Cs

Organic carbon deposited in marine sediments is an important part of the global carbon cycle. The knowledge concerning the role of shelf seas (including the Baltic Sea) in the carbon cycle has increased substantially, however organic carbon accumulation rates in the Baltic sediments still require clarification.