Manuring and stable nitrogen isotope ratios in cereals and pulses: towards a new archaeobotanical approach to the inference of land use and dietary practices

This paper explores the impact of animal manure application on the δ¹⁵N values of a broad range of crops (cereals and pulses), under a range of manuring levels/regimes and at a series of locations extending from northwest Europe to the eastern Mediterranean. We included both agricultural field experiments and areas where ‘traditional’ farming is practised. Our aim is to ground-truth interpretation of δ¹⁵N values in archaeobotanical crop remains as evidence of past growing conditions and husbandry practices. The results confirm the potentially radical impact of manuring on δ¹⁵N values in cereals, depending on manuring level, but indicate only a slight effect on pulses, which can fix atmospheric nitrogen. The expected geographical trend towards greater δ¹⁵N with increasing climatic aridity is not apparent, probably because the growing conditions for crops are ‘buffered’ through crop management. Each of these observations has fundamental implications for archaeobotanical interpretation of δ¹⁵N values as evidence of land use practices and (together with analysis of bone collagen/tooth enamel in potential consumers) palaeodiet.     

Can South–South Cooperation Compete? The Development Bank of Latin America and the Islamic Development Bank

Southern‐led multilateral development banks (MDBs) play a key role in harnessing global capital to finance the sectors most important to borrowers, especially infrastructure. Two prominent Southern MDBs, the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), have become crucial drivers of regional infrastructure growth. This article explores whether their performance has lived up to their goals of establishing borrower control over bank governance without sacrificing financial dynamism. Using power‐weighted voting indices for member representation on bank boards, the authors determine that these banks offer borrowers much more representation on their boards than do their Northern‐based counterparts, the Inter‐American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The article also analyses bank operations to determine whether their governance structure impacts their internal performance, as reflected on balance sheets, and external performance — gaining relevance in development finance and particularly in infrastructure lending, including the burgeoning sector of sustainable (climate‐resilient) infrastructure. The authors find that the CAF and IsDB have become major players in development finance, including in sustainable infrastructure. However, important issues remain in relation to their continued internal capacity development, especially with regard to the environmental and social safeguards necessary to oversee lending.     

Could woodworking have influenced variation in the form of Acheulean handaxes?

The relationship between tool form and function is fundamental to hominin behaviour and evolution. Acheulean handaxes are known for their general consistency across more than a million years and three continents, albeit with some variation in size and shape. However, the influence of this variation on cutting has only rarely been studied, mostly in either butchery or generalized cutting tasks. Yet evidence indicates that handaxes were used for woodworking by at least 1.5 mya. Here, we experimentally tested whether woodworking could have exerted selective pressures on handaxe form. Additionally, these data were compared with a previous experiment that tested flakes during woodworking. For handaxes, no significant relationships were detected in woodworking efficiency. Accordingly, woodworking likely did not exert strong selective pressures on handaxe variability. However, the effectiveness shown by handaxes further demonstrates the functional flexibility of this technology, which is likely a factor contributing to their use over broad temporal, geographical and ecological spans. When comparing handaxes with flakes, only the smallest flakes were found to be significantly less efficient than handaxes. Therefore, the functional demands of woodworking were likely influencing hominin technological decisions about flake morphology, or the selection of flakes for woodworking, more than they were handaxe morphology.     

Reflections of the “Roving Britishers”: British Travel Writing on Canada 1900–1915

This article analyzes a selection of travel accounts by nine British authors who journeyed across Canada between 1900 and 1914. The monographs, all published in London, purported to present authentic and up-to-date observations of Canada, the eldest Dominion in the Imperial “family,” to British and Canadian audiences. Additional goals of their narratives, and less clearly acknowledged, were to convince English Canadians of the value of strengthening a British–Canadian identity and remaining within the British Empire. To that end, the narratives explore strikingly similar themes, including anxieties surrounding immigration and the United States threat to Canada, while reinforcing notions of Empire as an indissoluble family. The article illustrates how travel narratives reflect psychological as well as physical journeys and are thus valuable windows on complex cultural encounters among the British and Canadians in this period.     

Roller derby's publicness: toward greater recognition of diverse genders and sexualities in the Bible Belt

While scholars have considered the various meanings of roller derby for participants and discussed how roller derby critiques and stabilizes gender and sexuality normativity, their investigation into how a larger public is impacted by roller derby's public performances has received less attention. Here, we begin to address this oversight. Employing both participant and spectator data, we examine facets of publicness in the discursive and material spatial practices associated with roller derby in the US Bible Belt, specifically Oklahoma. While some scholars doubt that there is much social impact from roller derby, we suggest that the specific spatial qualities in roller derby's public performances, in both the sporting and playful senses, contribute to a change in cultural norms – that of greater recognition of diverse genders and sexualities in this region. Such validation increases the social stability of individuals who do not neatly reside within heteronormativity.