Escape into the City: Everyday Practices of Commoning and the Production of Urban Space in Dublin

In Dublin there are many needs and desires which are not met, or excluded, by the pattern of high rent, the commodification of social/cultural life, and the regulation of public space. Against this dynamic, Dublin has seen a number of experiments in urban commoning: people collectively finding ways of opening up space in order to do what they want. This might be as simple as wanting a space to work, to make food or to show films. Rather than trying to change this situation by appealing to existing institutions, these new urban commons are characterized by particular groups of people devising practical ways of escaping the forms of “enclosure” which limit what can happen in the city. This article takes a “militant research” approach to explore the potentials and limitations of these experiments in urban production and organization.     

The matter of displacement: a queer urban ecology of New York City's High Line

This paper critically queers gentrification through an ecological analysis of the redevelopment of New York City's High Line. Taking the abandoned-queer-ecology-turned-homonormative park as a novel form of gay and green gentrification, I argue that the ‘success’ of the project must be critiqued in relational ecological terms. Intervening into the literature of gentrification, I begin to account for the material and symbolic aspects of ecological gentrification with the help of innovations in plant geography and queer ecology. To ground my analysis, I look to the process of ‘succession’, focusing, in particular, on one of the most established and successful plants growing on the abandoned High Line, Ailanthus altissima or the Tree of Heaven. Drawing on empirical insights, this account of the High Line's redevelopment tracks relations between queers and plants. Through layers of sexuality, ecology, and geography, the matter of displacement becomes central to a consideration of ethico-political possibilities for a queer ecological critique of urban space. In conclusion, I argue for an ethics and politics of responsibility to and for abandoned spaces that calls us to pay closer attention to the queer, the ecological, and their ongoing entanglement.     

What causes failure (overheating) during lithic heat treatment?

Heat treatment of lithic raw material, i.e. the intentional alteration of silica rocks for improving their knapping quality, is a process that may require great care and precisely controlled conditions in order to avoid failure due to overheating. The physical causes of overheating remain poorly understood leading to problems in the interpretation of heat-treated artefacts and/or fire-related taphonomic alteration of different types of silica rocks. This driving force of overheating is investigated by a set of experimental heat treatment sequences with different ramp rates and different volumes of flint with a well-defined mineralogical composition, porosity and water content. The results of this experiment show the main cause of heat-induced fracturing to be the vapour pressure in fluid inclusions within the rocks. Heterogeneous thermal expansion could be discarded. The interdependence between volume and heating rate is also shown. These results have implications for the study of archaeological heat-treated rocks, the understanding of taphonomic heat-induced fracturing of silica rocks and experimental flint knapping.     

U.S. Latina/o Muslims Since 1920: From “Moors” to “Latino Muslims”

This article provides a historical overview of the development of the U.S. Latina/o Muslim community. U.S. Latina/os have been converting to Islam since the 1920s. Early converts were primarily found in African‐American‐majority Islamic communities, though there were some others who entered Islam through ties to Muslim immigrants. In both cases, the U.S.'s racist social system had brought the two communities together. In New York City during the 1970s, however, a group of around a dozen Latina/o Muslims felt that neither the African‐American‐majority nor the immigrant‐majority communities sufficiently addressed Latina/os' particular culture, languages, social situations, and contributions to Islamic history. To correct this, they created the first known U.S. Latina/o Muslim organisation, the Alianza Islamica, a group which fostered a “Latino Muslim” identity. Since that time, due to the growing numbers of U.S. Latina/o Muslims, as well as a tendency to foster ties with Latina/o Muslims in countries outside of the U.S., U.S. Latina/o Muslims are more and more adopting the “Latino Muslim” identity, which is now being promoted by several organisations and prominent leaders.     

Charting a Course between Realpolitik and Ideology: A Foreign Policy to Sustain the Democratic Community

Abstract

Scalia, Antonin; ed. Amy Gutmann. A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 159 pp., $19.95, ISBN 0-691-02630-0 Publication Date: 1997

UNITED STATES. Politics and Public Policy, White, John Kenneth. Still Seeing Red: How the Cold War Shapes the New American Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview. 386 pp., $29.95, ISBN 0-8133-1888-2 Publication Date: September 1997

Singh, Robert. The Farrakhan Phenomenon: Race, Reaction, and the Paranoid Style in American Politics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 340 pp., $60.00 cloth, $17.95 paper ISBN 0-87840-657-3 cloth ISBN 0-87840-658-1 paper Publication Date: September 1997

Fried, Amy. Muffled Echoes: Oliver North and the Politics of Public Opinion. New York: Columbia University Press. 308 pp., $49.50 cloth, $19.50 paper ISBN 0-231-10820-6 cloth ISBN 0-231-10821-4 paper Publication Date: September 1997

Stone, Alan. How America Got On-Line: Politics, Markets, and the Revolution in Telecommunications. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. 241 pp., $62.95, $23.95 paper ISBN 1-56324-576-0 cloth ISBN 1-56324-577-9 paper Publication Date: July 1997

Worsham, Jeffrey. Other People's Money: Policy Change, Congress, and Bank Regulation. Boulder, CO: Westview. 164 pp., $55.00 cloth, $21.50 paper ISBN 0-8133-9953-X cloth ISBN 0-8133-9952-1 paper Publication Date: September 1997

Rubin, Barry R. A Citizen's Guide to Politics in America: How the System Works and How to Work the System. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. 288 pp., $34.95 cloth, $19.95 paper ISBN 0-7656-0028-5 cloth ISBN 0-7656-0029-3 paper Publication Date: March 1997

Gordon, Ann D., and Bettye Collier-Thomas, eds. African American Women and the Vote, 1837–1965. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. 217 pp., $45.00 cloth, $15.95 paper ISBN 1-55849-058-2 cloth ISBN 1-55849-059-0 paper Publication Date: 1997

Lublin, David. The Paradox of Representation: Racial Gerrymandering and Minority Interests in Congress. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 174 pp., $29.95, ISBN 0-691-02669-6 Publication Date: July 1997

Evans, Gary R. Red Ink: The Budget, Deficit, and Debt of the U.S. Government. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. 297 pp., ISBN 0-12-244079-X cloth ISBN 0-12-244080-3 paper Publication Date: 1997

Croucher, Sheila L. Imagining Miami: Ethnic Politics in a Postmodern World. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia. 235 pp., $45.00 cloth, $15.00 paper ISBN 0-8139-1704-2 cloth ISBN 0-8139-1705-0 paper Publication Date: April 1997

Bridges, Amy. Morning Glories: Municipal Reform in the Southwest. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 244 pp., $35.00, ISBN 0-691-02780-3 Publication Date: June 1997

Katzmann, Robert A. Courts and Congress. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. 163 pp., $38.95 cloth, $16.95 paper ISBN 0-8157-4866-3 cloth ISBN 0-8157-4865-5 paper Publication Date: April 1997

Johnson, Herbert A. The Chief Justiceship of John Marshall, 1801-1835. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. 317 pp., $39.95, ISBN 1-57003-121-5 Publication Date: March 1997

Sarnoff, Susan Kiss. Paying for Crime: The Policies and Possibilities of Crime Victim Reimbursement. Westport, CT: Praeger. 115 pp., $49.95, ISBN 0-275-95709-8 Publication Date: 1996

Goldwin, Robert A. From Parchment to Power: How James Madison Used the Bill of Rights to Save the Constitution. Washington, DC: AEI Press. 213 pp., $24.95, ISBN 0-8447-4012-8 Publication Date: May 1997

O'Cleireacain, Carol. The Orphaned Capital: Adopting the Right Revenues for the District of Columbia. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. 214 pp., $16.95 paper ISBN 0-8157-6425-1 paper Publication Date: April 1997

UNITED STATES. Foreign Policy and National Security, McDougall, Walter A. Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 286 pp., $26.00, ISBN 0-395-83085-0 Publication Date: April 1997

Audley, John J. Green Politics and Global Trade: NAFTA and the Future of Environmental Politics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 212 pp., $55.00 cloth, $21.95 paper ISBN 0-87840-650-6 cloth ISBN 0-87840-651-4 paper Publication Date: October 1997

Hanhimäki, Jussi M. Containing Coexistence: America, Russia, and the “Finnish Solution,” 1945-1956. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. 279 pp., $39.00, ISBN 0-87338-558-6 Publication Date: May 1997

CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA, Gibson, Edward L. Class and Conservative Parties: Argentina in Comparative Perspective. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 274 pp., $48.50, ISBN 0-8018-5172-6 Publication Date: June 1996

Griffith, Ivelaw Lloyd. Drugs and Security in the Caribbean: Sovereignty under Siege. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. 295 pp., $35.00 cloth, $16.95 paper ISBN 0-271-01718-X cloth ISBN 0-271-01719-8 paper Publication Date: September 1997

Solingen, Etel. Industrial Policy, Technology, and International Bargaining: Designing Nuclear Industries in Argentina and Brazil. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 311 pp., $47.50, ISBN 0-8047-2601-9 Publication Date: 1996

Mainwaring, Scott, and Arturo Valenzuela, eds. Politics, Society, and Democracy: Latin America. Boulder, CO: Westview. 266 pp., $65.00, ISBN 0-8133-8548-2 Publication Date: Spring 1998

Haber, Stephen, ed. How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800-1914. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 315 pp., $55.00 cloth, $18.95 paper ISBN 0-8047-2737-6 cloth ISBN 0-8047-2738-4 paper Publication Date: February 1997

EUROPE AND COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES, Piening, Christopher. Global Europe: The European Union in World Affairs. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. 252 pp., $49.95 cloth, $19.95 paper ISBN 1-55587-694-3 cloth ISBN 1-55587-700-1 paper Publication Date: May 1997

Dörfer, Ingemar. The Nordic Nations in the New Western Security Regime. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. 103 pp., $32.50 cloth, $15.95 paper ISBN 0-943875-83-8 cloth ISBN 0-943875-82-X paper Publication Date: July 1997

Kurthen, Hermann, Werner Bergmann, and Rainer Erbs, eds. Antisemitism and Xenophobia in Germany after Unification. New York: Oxford University Press. 318 pp., $65.00 cloth, $29.95 paper ISBN 0-19-510485-4 cloth ISBN 0-19-511010-2 paper Publication Date: May 1997

MacQueen, Norrie. The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa: Metropolitan Revolution and the Dissolution of Empire. Essex, UK: Longman. 266 pp., ISBN 0-583-25994-0 cloth ISBN 0-582-25993-2 paper Publication Date: 1997

Dawisha, Karen, ed. The International Dimension of Post-Communist Transitions in Russia and the New States of Eurasia. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. 462 pp., $72.95 cloth, $29.95 paper ISBN 1-56324-370-9 cloth ISBN 1-56324-371-7 paper Publication Date: April 1997

Staar, Richard F. The New Military in Russia: Ten Myths that Shape the Image. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. 240 pp., $41.95 cloth, $16.95 paper ISBN 1-55750-798-8 cloth ISBN 1-55750-740-6 paper Publication Date: 1996

AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST, Bratton, Michael, and Nicolas van de Walle. Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press. 307 pp., $59.95 cloth, $19.95 paper ISBN 0-521-55429-2 cloth IBSN 0-521-55612-0 paper Publication Date: 1997

Deng, Francis M., et al. Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. 265 pp., ISBN 0-8157-1828-4 cloth ISBN 0-8157-1827-6 paper Publication Date: 1996

Diamond, Larry, Anthony Kirk-Greene, and Oyeleye Oyediran, eds. Transition without End: Nigerian Politics and Civil Society under Babangida. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. 515 pp., $55.00, ISBN 1-55587-591-2 Publication Date: August 1997

Garfinkle, Adam. Politics and Society in Modern Israel: Myths and Realities. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. 322 pp., $62.95 cloth, $24.95 paper ISBN 0-7656-0005-6 cloth ISBN 0-7656-0006-4 paper Publication Date: February 1997

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC, Zheng, Sniping. Party vs. State in Post-1949 China: The Institutional Dilemma. New York: Cambridge University Press. 294 pp., $59.95 cloth, $19.95 paper ISBN 0-521-58205-9 cloth ISBN 0-521-58819-7 paper Publication Date: August 1997

Garver, John W. Face Off: China, the United States, and Taiwan's Democratization. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 193 pp., $18.95 paper ISBN 0-295-97617-9 paper Publication Date: August 1997

Godement, François; trans. Elisabeth J. Parcell. The New Asian Renaissance: From Colonialism to the Post-Cold War. New York: Routledge. 313 pp., $79.95 cloth, $19.95 paper ISBN 0-415-11856-5 cloth ISBN 0-415-11857-3 paper Publication Date: October 1997

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, LAW, AND ORGANIZATION, Clague, Christopher, ed. Institutions and Economic Development: Growth and Governance in Less-Developed and Post-Socialist Countries. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 390 pp., $48.50 cloth, $18.95 paper ISBN 0-8018-5492-X cloth ISBN 0-8018-5493-8 paper Publication Date: June 1997

Ojo, Bamidele A. Human Rights and the New World Order: Universality, Acceptability, and Human Diversity. Commack, NY: Nova Science. 237 pp., $59.00, ISBN 1-56072-438-2 Publication Date: 1997

Sisk, Timothy D. Power Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflicts. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press. 143 pp., $7.95 paper ISBN 1-878379-56-9 paper Publication Date: 1996

Zartman, I. William, and J. Lewis Rasmussen, eds. Peacemaking in International Conflict: Methods and Techniques. Washington. DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press. 412 pp., $35.00 cloth, $19.95 paper ISBN 1-878379-61-5 cloth ISBN 1-878379-60-7 paper Publication Date: 1997

Hoogvelt, Ankie. Globalization and the Postcolonial World: The New Political Economy of Development. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 291 pp., $45.00 cloth, $17.95 paper ISBN 0-8018-5644-2 cloth ISBN 0-8018-5645-0 paper Publication Date: August 1997

Crocker, Chester A., and Fen Osler Hampson, eds., with Pamela Aall. Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press. 642 pp., ISBN 1-878379-59-3 cloth ISBN 1-878379-58-5 paper Publication Date: 1996

COMPARATIVE POLITICS, Farazmand, Ali, ed. Public Enterprise Management: International Case Studies. Westport, CT: Greenwood. 303 pp., $69.00, ISBN 0-313-28025-8 Publication Date: October 1996

Tatalovich, Raymond. The Politics of Abortion in the United States and Canada: A Comparative Study. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharp. 265 pp., $55.00 cloth, $21.95 paper ISBN 1-56324-417-9 cloth ISBN 1-56324-418-7 paper Publication Date: November 1996

THEORY AND METHODOLOGY, Manin, Bernard. The Principles of Representative Government. New York: Cambridge University Press. 243 pp., $54.95 cloth, $16.95 paper ISBN 0-521-45258-9 cloth ISBN 0-521-45891-9 paper Publication Date: April 1997

Schneider, Anne Larason, and Helen Ingram. Policy Design for Democracy. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. 242 pp., $35.00 cloth, $15.95 paper ISBN 0-7006-0843-5 cloth ISBN 0-7006-0844-3 paper Publication Date: September 1997

Newman, Saul. Ethnoregional Conflict in Democracies: Mostly Ballots, Rarely Bullets. Westport, CT: Greenwood. 279 pp., $59.95, ISBN 0-313-30039-9 Publication Date: 1996

Haas, Ernst B. Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: The Rise and Decline of Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 362 pp., $39.95, ISBN 0-8014-3108-5 Publication Date: June 1997

Weimer, David L., ed. The Political Economy of Property Rights: Institutional Change and Credibility in the Reform of Centrally Planned Economies. New York: Cambridge University Press. 363 pp., $64.95, ISBN 0-521-58101-X Publication Date: July 1997

Grubb, Alan. The Politics of Pessimism: Albert de Broglie and Conservative Politics in the Early Third Republic. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press. 427 pp., $55.00, ISBN 0-87413-575-3 Publication Date: August 1996

Reinhardt, Mark. The Art of Being Free: Taking Liberties with Tocqueville, Marx, and Arendt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 234 pp., $39.95 cloth, $16.95 paper ISBN 0-8014-3137-9 cloth ISBN 0-8014-8424-3 paper Publication Date: May 1997

Löwith, Karl; trans. J. Harvey Lomax. Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 276 pp., $40.00, ISBN 0-520-06519-0 Publication Date: August 1997

Poster, Mark. Cultural History and Post modernity: Disciplinary Readings and Challenges. New York: Columbia University Press. 172 pp;, $47.50 cloth, $16.50 paper ISBN 0-231-10882-6 cloth ISBN 0-231-10883-4 paper Publication Date: September 1997

Clor, Harry M. Public Morality and Liberal Society: Essays on Decency, Law, and Pornography. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. 235 pp., $32.95 cloth, $16.00 paper ISBN 0-268-03813-9 cloth ISBN 0-268-03823-6 paper Publication Date: 1996

West, Thomas G. Vindicating the Founders: Race, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America. Lanham, MD: Rowman &; Littlefield. 200 pp., $22.95, ISBN 0-8476-8516-0 Publication Date: 1997

Friedman, Lawrence M., and George Fisher, eds. The Crime Conundrum: Essays on Criminal Justice. Boulder, CO: Westview. 210 pp., $55.00, ISBN 0-8133-9021-4 Publication Date: November 1997

Brinkley, Alan, Nelson W. Polsby, and Kathleen M. Sullivan. New Federalist Papers: Essays in Defense of the Constitution. New York: W. W. Norton. 179 pp., $23.00 cloth, $13.95 paper ISBN 0-393-04619-2 cloth ISBN 0-393-31737-4 paper Publication Date: 1997

Griffin, Stephen M., and Robert C. L. Moffat, eds. Radical Critiques of the Law. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. 340 pp., $45.00 cloth, $25.00 paper ISBN 0-7006-0845-1 cloth ISBN 0-7006-0846-X paper Publication Date: August 1997

GENERAL, Flink, Stanley E. Sentinel under Siege: The Triumphs and Troubles of America's Free Press. Boulder, CO: Westview. 325 pp., $28.00, ISBN 0-8133-3344-X Publication Date: October 1997

Drukman, Mason. Wayne Morse: A Political Biography. Portland, OR: Oregon Historical Society. 545 pp., $35.00, ISBN 0-87595-263-1 Publication Date: June 1997     

Reviews

Douglas Crimp, On the Museum's Ruins (with photographs by Louise Lawler), Cambridge, Mass. and London: The MIT Press, 1993. xx + 348 pp., 110 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–262–03209–0. £24.95.

Clarissa Campbell Orr (ed.), Women in the Victorian Art World, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995. xiv + 208 pp., 1 fig., 29 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7190–4123–6. £14.99.

Diana Ketcham, Le Désert de Retz, Cambridge, Mass. & London: The MIT Press, 1994. vii + 135 pp., 99 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–262–11186–1. £35.95.

Anthony & Patricia Wylson, Theme Parks, Leisure Centres, Zoos and Aquaria, London: Longman, 1994. 183 pp., 107 figs., 109 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–582–099285. £60.00.

David Lambert, Peter Goodchild, & Judith Roberts, Researching a Garden's History: A Guide to Documentary and Published Sources, Reigate: Landscape Design Trust, in association with Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies, University of York, 1995. 28 pp. 12 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–9518377–0–2. £6.00.

Mike Sixsmith (ed.), Touring Exhibitions: The Touring Exhibitions Group's Manual of Good Practice, Oxford: Butterworth‐Heinemann, 1995. xviii + 237 pp., ISBN 0–7506–2518‐x. £35.00.

Richard Harrison (ed.), Manual of Heritage Management, Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann and the Association of Independent Museums, 1994. xiii + 425 pp. ISBN 0–7506–0822–6. £65.00.

J. M. Fladmark (ed.), Sharing the Earth : Local Identity in Global Culture, London: Donhead, 1995. xviii + 381 pp., 70 b. & w. illus. ISBN 1–873394–19–5. £37.00.

Gary Edson and David Dean, The Handbook for Museums, London and New York: Routledge, 1994. xvi + 302 pp. ISBN 0–415–09952–8. £27.50.

Michael Wheeler (ed.), Ruskin and Environment: The Storm‐Cloud of the Nineteenth Century, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995. x + 202 pp., 7 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7190–4377–8. £40.00.

M. D. Anderson, History and Imagery in British Churches, London: John Murray, [1971], 1995. xxiv + 291 pp., 1 map, 18 figs., 93 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7195–5414–4. £15.99.

Chris Brooks & Andrew Saint (eds.), The Victorian Church. Architecture and Society, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995. xii + 228 pp., 82 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7190–4020–5. £16.99.

M. Christine Boyer, The City of Collective Memory: Its Historical Imagery and Architectural Entertainments, Cambridge, Mass., and London: The MIT Press, 1994. xii + 560 pp., 65 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–262–02371–7. £34.95.

John Glasson, Kerry Godfrey, Brian Goodey, Helen Absalom, & Jan Van der Borg, Towards Visitor Impact Management, Aldershot: Avebury, 1995. xii + 189 pp. ISBN 1–85972–054–4. £35.00.

Ann Bermingham & John Brewer (eds.), The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800. Image, Object, Text, London & New York: Routledge, 1995. xvi + 548 pp., 111 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–415–12135–5. £120.00.

B. W. Clapp An Environmental History of Britain since the Industrial Revolution, London and New York: Longman, 1994. 268 pp., 2 maps, 12 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–582–22626–0. £12.99.

Eilean Hooper‐Greenhill, Museum, Media, Message, London and New York: Routledge, 1995. xvi + 299 pp., 23 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–415–11672–4. £40.00.

A. Davey, B. Heath, D. Hodges, M. Ketchin & R. Milne, The Care and Conservation of Georgian Houses: A Maintenance Manual for Edinburgh New Town, Oxford: Butterworth, 4th ed., 1995. xxviii + 291 pp., 100 b. & w. illus. and 100 figs. ISBN 0–7506–1860–4. £40.00.

Philip Rahtz, English Heritage Book of Glastonbury, London: Batsford & English Heritage, 1993. 144 pp., 97 figs., ISBN 0–7134–6865–3. £14.99.     

The effect of fluvial environments on sediment bleaching and Holocene luminescence ages — A case study from the German Alpine Foreland

This study investigates the potential of luminescence to date deposits from different fluvial sedimentary environments; namely point bar deposits, sandy and silty channel fills and floodplain sediments. Samples were taken from Holocene (<5 ka) terraces of the Lech and Danube rivers, for which independent age constraint is available through ¹⁴C ages, archaeological data and historical maps. OSL-ages were obtained using small aliquots of coarse grain quartz for the majority of samples. Two further samples were dated by the IRSL-signals of polymineral fine grain extracts, as no sufficient number of coarse grains could be extracted from these sediments. In order to detect and ac-count for incomplete bleaching, we used the decision process suggested by Bailey and Arnold [Statistical modelling of single grain quartz De distributions and an assessment of procedures for estimating burial dose. Quaternary Science Reviews 25, 2475–2502, 2006]. Although their model was designed for single grains of quartz, our study shows that it is also applicable to multiple grains of quartz, pro-vided that a low number of luminescent grains is present on one aliquot. Luminescence ages of point bar deposits and a sandy channel fill correspond most closely to the independent age control. In the floodplain, sand-striped floodplain channel deposits were incompletely bleached to a moderate degree, yielding ages with acceptable overestimations, while fine-grained floodplain deposits were worst bleached. One crevasse splay deposit was so severely incompletely bleached that none of the age models was able to yield accurate ages.