Interpretive field geomorphology as cognitive,social, embodied and affective epistemic practice

This article examines the epistemic practices of interpretive field geomorphology—that is, the in-the-moment act of “seeing the landscape” geomorphologically. Drawing on the philosophical works of Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty, it aims to bring to light the complex, multi-dimensional, knowledge-producing process of field observation and interpretation. Methodologically the study is based on geomorphologists' accounts of their fieldwork, gathered through questionnaire and interviews. By paying attention to what geomorphologists say they are doing in the field, interpretive field geomorphology is articulated as a combined cognitive, social, embodied, and affective experience through which understanding is arrived at. The paper thus sheds light on one part of what Brierley et al. call “the dark art” of geomorphological interpretation, and draws out implications in terms of researcher positionality, researcher training, and offering an epistemic justification for field-based pedagogies.     

THE CHRONOLOGY OF GROUPS OF DIES FOR LARGE ISSUES OF ANCIENT COINS USING MAHALANOBIS DISTANCES*

Discriminant analyses of distances and angles obtained from 25 coins struck by P. Crepusius in 82 BC permitted the correct chronology for five groups of closely-related dies to be obtained by the method of Carter and Frurip. Twenty distances and 15 angles were measured on 10 x projections of the coins which represented five groups of dies separated in time from each other. The use of all or many variables gave poorer results than the use of five to ten variables having a high ‘figure of merit’, defined as the maximum range of mean values for a given variable in the five groups of dies divided by the mean standard deviation of the variable in the five groups. It is recommended that chronologies of ancient coins be determined from Mahalanobis distances by using only variables of relatively high figure of merit.     

THE BEGINNINGS OF ISLAMIC STONEPASTE TECHNOLOGY*

A multidisciplinary programme of research on Islamic pottery has been focused on questions of the dating, provenance and technology of Islamic pottery. One particular question has been the development of stonepaste, a material made primarily of crushed quartz with added frit-glass and clay. The combination of the different approaches of this study has revealed early foundations for the technology in ninth-century AD Iraq, apparently originating in the clay ceramic rather than the ‘Egyptian faience’ tradition. Subsequent and final practice developed in tenth- and eleventh-century AD Egypt. This technology becomes the primary body for all fine Islamic ceramics.     

Interpreting Spatial Economic Structure and Spatial Multipliers: Three Perspectives

The measurement and interpretation of spatial economic structure have presented many problems for analysts. The notion of a spatial multiplier has received even less formal attention; part of the motivation for this paper is the examination of the degree to which sectoral decomposition analysis might prove useful in illuminating the paths of interaction across space that are associated with changes in exogenous activity levels. In this paper, we present three perspectives that examine spatial structure in the context of an aggregated interregional social accounting matrix for Bangladesh. These perspectives examine structure at the micro-, meso-, and macrolevels and are interpreted with the assistance of several alternative methods, including structural path analysis, the field of influence, the superposition principle, multiregional feedback loop analysis, and the Matrioshka Principle; the results are interpreted analytically and cartographically. Some attention is also devoted to the formulation of a general approach to spatial multipliers. It is shown that the structure of flows and the structure of influence reveal patterns that, taken together, provide important insights into an understanding of structure and may prove to form the basis for the eventual formal presentation of the spatial multiplier.     

An eighth century hoard from Eastern Saudi Arabia

Editor's note. The article published here was completed on October 22, 1966. Although never published before, copies have long been on file in both the Dept. of Coins and Medals in the British Museum, and at the American Numismatic Society. The basic content of the hoard was reported on in Coin Hoards 1 (1975). In 1986, Robert W. Morris revised the text of his paper and sent me a copy. After the founding of Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy , I asked him whether he would like to publish the paper, a suggestion to which he responded enthusiastically. On August 25, 1990, just ten days after I sent him a letter about my plans for preparing his text for publication, Robert W. Morris died from complications of myeloma. An avid amateur numismatist for many years, Morris was interested in the pre-Islamic and Islamic coinage of northeastern Arabia (where he had lived and worked for Aramco) right up until his death. It is hoped that, while there may be certain details in the paper which professional numismatists might wish to correct, the body of material presented here will be of interest to a wide audience of scholars concerned with the late pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods in eastern Arabia.     

Policy Type, Bureaucracy, and Urban Policies: Integrating Models of Urban Service Distribution

This study advances a comprehensive model of urban service distribution based upon types of urban services, to which little concern has been paid in the study of service distribution. By introducing an integrating typology of urban services, it shows how the pattern of service distribution varies depending on service type. By doing so, this study demonstrates that polarized discussions about the primacy of different explanatory models are inadequate and artificial, and that seemingly contradictory models are not necessarily mutually exclusive when the effect of service type on the distribution of services is taken into consideration.