Human impacts on ancient shellfish: a 10,000 year record from San Miguel Island,California

We use measurements of more than 11,000 marine shells from 41 archaeological components to construct a 10,000 year record of human impacts on ancient mussel and abalone stocks on San Miguel Island, California. General reductions in the mean size of mussel and abalone shells gathered through time are attributed to growing human population and predation pressure. Based on comparison with historically documented changes in shellfish communities caused by the local extinction of sea otters in the 19th century, changes in mean shell size and the abundance of other shellfish species may have been facilitated by Native American predation on sea otters as early as 7500 years ago. Despite having measurable impacts on local ecosystems, Native Americans on San Miguel harvested huge quantities of shellfish throughout the Holocene. Such long-term harvests appear to have been sustained by an early emphasis on fishing at lower trophic levels, by periodically shifting village locations, and by intensifying the use of finfish and sea mammals through time. This pattern of “fishing up the food web” contrasts with many modern fisheries, suggesting that the study of ancient fisheries can help us better manage our own endangered coastal ecosystems.     

The Changing Face of Neolithic and Bronze Age Ireland: A Big Data Approach to the Settlement and Burial Records

This paper synthesizes and discusses the spatial and temporal patterns of archaeological sites in Ireland, spanning the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age transition (4300–1900 cal BC), in order to explore the timing and implications of the main changes that occurred in the archaeological record of that period. Large amounts of new data are sourced from unpublished developer-led excavations and combined with national archives, published excavations and online databases. Bayesian radiocarbon models and context- and sample-sensitive summed radiocarbon probabilities are used to examine the dataset. The study captures the scale and timing of the initial expansion of Early Neolithic settlement and the ensuing attenuation of all such activity—an apparent boom-and-bust cycle. The Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods are characterised by a resurgence and diversification of activity. Contextualisation and spatial analysis of radiocarbon data reveals finer-scale patterning than is usually possible with summed-probability approaches: the boom-and-bust models of prehistoric populations may, in fact, be a misinterpretation of more subtle demographic changes occurring at the same time as cultural change and attendant differences in the archaeological record.     

Book reviews

Australian politics

Sir John Cramer, Pioneers, Politics and People: A Political Memoir (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990) pp.viii + 231. $39.95 (hbk.) ISBN 0–04–442104–4.

Adam Graycar and Adam Jamrozik, How Australians Live: Social Policy in Theory and Practice (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1989, reprinted 1990) pp.xii + 314.

Ronald T. Libby, Hawke's Law: The Politics of Mining and Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia (Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1989) pp.xxvii + 175. $25.00 (pbk.) ISBN 0–85564–301–3.

George Palmer and Stephanie Short, Health Care & Public Policy: An Australian Analysis (Macmillan) $29.95(pbk.) $59.95(hbk.).

Tom Sheridan, Division of Labour: Industrial Relations in the Chifley Years 1945–1949 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989) pp.404. $45 00.

Gwyneth Singleton, The Accord and the Australian Labour Movement (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1990) pp.viii + 222. $24.95 (pbk.) ISBN 0–522–84421–9.

Hugh Stretton, Political Essays (Georgian House: Melbourne, 1987).

James Walter (ed.), Australian Studies. A Survey (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989) pp.vi + 326. $24.95 ISBN 0–19–554773‐X.

Patrick Weller, Malcolm Fraser: A Study of Prime Ministerial Power in Australia (Penguin Books, 1989) pp.xvii + 440. $26.99 ISBN 0–14–012974‐X.

Anna Yeatman, Bureaucrats, Technocrats, Femocrats: Essays on the Contemporary Australian State (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1990) pp. xiii + 197. $14.95 (pbk.) ISBN 0–04.442103–6.

Comparative and international politics

Raja Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan (New York: Verso Press, revised edition 1989) (Translated from the Urdu by Khalid Hasan, with and introduction by Fred Halliday) pp.xvii + 306. $34.95 ISBN 0–86091–979‐X.

George Bailey, The Making of Andrei Sakharov (Allan Lane, Harmondsworth, 1989) pp.453. $55.00 ISBN 0–7139–9033–3.

Patrick Cockburn, Getting Russia Wrong: The End of Kremlinology (London: Verso, 1989) pp.vii + 228. $24.95 ISBN 0–86091–977–3.

Bernard Eccleston, State and Society in Post‐War Japan (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989) pp.xvi + 286. $32.95 ISBN 0–7456–0166–9.

Julius W. Friend, Seven Years in France, François Mitterrand and the Unintended Revolution, 1981–1988 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989) pp xiv + 249. $US34.95 (hbk.).

John Gaffney (ed.), The French Presidential Elections of 1988 (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1989) pp.241. £29.50 ISBN 1–85521–059–2.

Steven A. Hoffmann, foreword by Michael Brecher, India and the China Crisis (Berkeley/London: University of California Press, 1990) pp.324. $US39.95 ISBN 0–520–06537–9.

Thomas Mann (ed.), A Question of Balance: The President, The Congress and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1990). pp.ix + 265. $US29.95 (cloth) $US10.95 (pbk.) ISBN 0–8157–5453–1.

Rosalind Marsh, Images of Dictatorship: Portraits of Stalin in Literature (London: Routledge, 1989) pp.267. ISBN 0–415–03796–4.

Ross M. Martin, Trade Unionism: Purposes and Form (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) pp.xiii + 296. $70.00 (cloth) ISBN 0–19–827710–5.

Richard Mulgan, Maori, Pakeha and Democracy (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1989) pp.viii + 159. $38.00 ISBN 0–19–558204–7.

William David Pederson, The ‘Barberian’ Presidency (N.Y.: Theoretical and Empirical Reading, Peter Lang, 1989) pp.xii + 265. ISBN 0–8204–0693–7.

Gerald M. Pomper et al, The Election of 1988: reports and interpretations (New Jersey: Chatham House, 1989) pp.vi + 221.

Edited by John Ravenhill, No Longer an American Lake? (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989) pp.285. $17.95 (pbk.) ISBN 0–04–372042–0.

Colin White, Russia and America: The Roots of Economic Divergence. (London: Croom Helm, 1987) pp.268.

Political theory and methodology

David Boucher, The Social and Political Thought of R.G. Collingwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) pp.xi + 300. $75.00 (hbk.) ISBN 0–521–36384–5.

Gregory Claeys, Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990) pp.xiv + 257. $34.95(pbk.) ISBN 0–04–445090–7.

Steven M. DeLue, Political Obligation in a Liberal State (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989) $US39.50 (cloth) ISBN 0–7194–0092–1.

Eva Etzioni‐Halevy, Fragile Democracy: The Use and Abuse of Power in Western Societies (Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick and London, 1989) pp.xiii + 194. $US28.95 ISBN 0–88738–270–3.

David Held, Political Theory and the Modern State (Cambridge: Polity, 1989) pp.265. $29.95 (pbk.) ISBN 0–7456–0620–2.

Sue Curry Jansen, Censorship: The Knot that Binds Power and Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) pp.282. $70.00.

Philip K. Lawrence, Democracy and the Liberal State (Dartmouth: Aldershot, 1989) pp.213.

Ellen Meiksins Wood, Peasant‐Citizen and Slave: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy (London and New York: Verso, 1989), pp.210 + x, pbk, $29.95, ISBN 0–86091–911–0

Erik Olin Wright, Uwe Becker, Johanna Brenner, Michael Burawoy, Vai Burris, Gugliclmo Carchedi, Gordon Marshall, Peter Meiksins, David Rose, Arthur Stinchcombe and Philippe Van Parijs, The Debate on Classes (London and New York: Verso, 1989) pp.ix + 356. $34.95.     

ON THE VALUE OF FOREGONE OPEN SPACE IN SPRAWLING CITIES

Foregone benefits of the open space that is sacrificed through urban sprawl are hard to quantify. We obtain a simple benchmark measure by introducing a demand for trips beyond the urban boundary into the monocentric city model. The externality arises from the increase in travel costs that expansion of the city imposes on its prior inhabitants. An empirical application illustrates the moderate informational requirements. It indicates that open space externalities warrant rather mild restrictions on urban expansion.     

Roman marble from Lusitania: petrographic and geochemical characterisation

This paper reports the results of an archaeometric study of the marble from the Estremoz Anticline, Portugal. Thirty-four samples from eleven different locations were analysed petrographically. In addition, ten samples were selected for trace element and strontium isotopic analysis. The sampling was aimed at obtaining material from known ancient quarries and at establishing the overall petrographic and geochemical variation of the marble from the Estremoz Anticline. The main type of marble in Estremoz is a white(-veined), calcitic marble with an average maximum grain size between 0.81 and 3.50 mm. ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values of marble leachates range from 0.70850 to 0.70891 and are similar to the results for other Palaeozoic marbles of the Iberian Peninsula.