Swidden agriculture,village longevity,and social relations in Formative central Tlaxcala: Towards an understanding of macroregional structure

Understanding social change within early village societies requires analysis at multiple scales. In this paper, we focus on macroregional structure in the Formative era of Central Mexico, based on excavations at village sites in Tlaxcala. A macroregional scale is particularly important for contextualizing developments in the study region. Rapid political evolution after 900 BC built on a legacy of organizational innovations in settled communities to the south. The earliest farmers in central Tlaxcala practiced a system of swidden agriculture developed at lower-lying elevations. Practiced on the erodible slopes of central Tlaxcala, that system led to the widespread degradation of farmland. Consequences at the village scale involved chronic instability of settlement and recurring localized stress on faunal resources.     

Imperialism in Conservative Defence and Foreign Policy: Leo Amery and the Chamberlains, 1903–39

This article explores the place of imperialism in aspects of Conservative defence and foreign policy between 1903 and 1939, through a comparative study of Leo Amery and the three Chamberlains (Joseph, Austen and Neville), all of whom were nominally imperialists. The article draws conclusions in two general areas. First, it argues that there has not been enough attention to the diversity of imperialist approaches to policy. Exploring the army reform controversy of 1903 suggests a fault line between some imperialists over whether imperial unity could be developed from intra-colonial or extra-colonial sources. Second, the paper contends that the functions of imperialism in Conservative policy have not been fully understood, with previous work focusing largely on social and economic policy. The article points to the existence of an ‘imperial foreign policy’ strategy within the Conservative party in the 1920s and 1930s. The historiography of imperialism within the Conservative party should therefore recognise the diversity of imperialist approaches to policy and consider the application of imperial thinking to discussions on foreign policy.     

A Link Between the 1780s Blast Furnaces at Coalbrookdale and Staveley: The Note of Mr Chas. Hornblower

In what appears to be the divulging of trade secrets to a potential rival, a Coalbrookdale Company employee provided the lessors of the Staveley furnace in Derbyshire with an account of blast furnace practice. A hurried draft by Charles Hornblower lists in considerable detail the raw materials and their proportions for charging the furnace, transport and labour costs, and advice about building the furnace hearth. Further analysis of the note provides contemporary information about the preparation of the raw materials, their composition and quality of iron produced.     

Little house in the jungle: The causes of variation in house size among modern Kekchi Maya

Interpreting variation in the size and quality of houses is a difficult task for the archaeologist. Are larger houses a sign of a larger household, of a higher-status household, or of a household which has lived at the site longer than others? This paper uses ethnographic data on the Kekchi Maya to test these alternative explanations. The discussion reveals a complex relationship between social positions, wealth, and house size. It is suggested that houses serve different symbolic functions in settlements with different kinds of economies.     

How incipient colonies create territory: the textual surveys of New Spain, 1520s–1620s

The study of colonial surveying and cartography has become key to understanding the history of European colonialism because of the recognition that land surveys and maps not only represent territory but form part of the process through which territory comes into being. While many studies have therefore focused on the history of instrumental surveying and cartography in New Spain, roughly equivalent to present-day Mexico, between the seventeenth and twentieth century, the textual surveys of the sixteenth century that helped to bring the initial colonial territory into being have gone largely unstudied. Content analysis of textual land surveys included in sixteenth-century viceregal land grants for sheep and cattle ranches demonstrates variation in references to distance, direction, and borders that begins to reveal a process of negotiation among local actors and centralized state power that was contingent on environmental, economic, and demographic differences between highland and lowland landscapes.