The distribution of the Mesozoic ostracod genus Procytherura Whatley: palaeogeographical implications with special reference to Argentina

A review is undertaken of the nine species of Procytherura known to occur in Argentina and a new species, Procytherura serangodes sp. nov. is described. The global distribution of the genus indicates that it was more or less equally diverse and widely distributed in both hemispheres during most of the Lower and Middle Jurassic, but that in the Upper Jurassic and in the Lower Cretaceous, it became progressively restricted to the Southern Hemisphere. The widespread distribution of several Jurassic species of Procytherura, which occur in both Great Britain and Northwest Europe and in Argentina, is shown to be related to the availability of important migration routes, including the Tethys and the Hispanic Corridor. In the Lower Cretaceous, the very widespread distribution of Procytherura in the Southern Hemisphere, is used to support the existence of important routes along the eastern and western seaboards of Africa, the latter associated with the opening of the South Atlantic.     

Migration and Viking Dublin: paleomobility and paleodiet through isotopic analyses

During the early medieval period in Ireland, Dublin was established as the largest Viking settlement on the island in the ninth century AD. A previous biodistance study has suggested that the population of the town consisted of a polyethnic amalgam of immigrant and indigenous. In this study, we use biogeochemistry to investigate paleomobility and paleodiet in archeological human remains from the ninth to eleventh century levels at the sites at Fishamble Street II (National Museum of Ireland excavation number E172), Fishamble Street III (E190) and John’s Lane (E173), as well as twelfth-century remains from Wood Quay (E132). Through radiogenic strontium isotope, stable oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen isotope, and elemental concentration analyses, we investigate the origins of the individuals who lived and died in early and late Viking Dublin. Mean archaeological human enamel and bone isotope values from Dublin are ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr = 0.70975 ± 0.00139 (2σ, n = 22), δ¹³C_{carbonate(V-PDB)} = −14.8‰ ± 0.8‰ (1σ, n = 12), and δ¹⁸O_{carbonate(V-PDB)} = −7.2‰ ± 1.0‰ (1σ, n = 12). Archaeological human bone samples exhibit mean δ¹³C_{collagen(V-PDB)} = −20.8‰ ± 0.5‰ (1σ, n = 12) and mean δ¹⁵N_{collagen(AIR)} = +10.0‰ ± 1.7‰ (1σ, n = 12). Comparing these data with archaeological faunal data from Dublin and published data from northern Europe, we argue that there are no clear immigrants from other parts of the North Atlantic, although there is one clear outlier in both origins and diet. Overall, the relative homogeneity in both paleomobility and paleodiet may support models of acculturation in Viking Dublin, rather than a high number of first-generation immigrants or continued migration from Scandinavia.     

Memorialisation and remembrance: on strategic forgetting and the metamorphosis of psychiatric asylums into sites for tertiary educational provision

This paper builds on earlier investigations of psychiatric asylum closure by focusing on their not infrequent successor role as educational facilities. We ask two questions: what conditions underpin a transition to educational re-use, and how is former asylum use remembered and memorialised in the successor context? Through recounting and interpreting the histories of acquisition and adaptation at two sites (Carrington, Auckland and Lakeshore, Toronto), we build a narrative that suggests a variable response to the shadows cast by stigma and the vilification of asylum. We distinguish between memorialisation (material reminders on site) and remembrance (narratives of past use). Former asylum sites, we contend, are attractive for educational users for their campus-like settings, range of buildings and (now) suburban locations. For city residents and planners replacing one institutional use with another keeps the site green, brings employment, and retains semi-public access. Memorialisation is often strategically low-key and remembrance more personal and individual. The net result is a relict landscape that speaks to the transcendence of stigma despite the relatively recent demise of the asylum.     

Gender and daily mobility in a New Zealand city, 1920–1960

Although it is widely accepted that transport—like other social practices—is gendered, the concept of gender used in transport research is often one‐dimensional, with the focus on gendered variations in behaviour rather than on gendered meaning and identities. In this paper, I develop a more complex and multi‐stranded way of approaching the issue of gender and transport (or rather, daily mobility). A case study of a neighbourhood in the New Zealand city of Dunedin in the early decades of last century is presented to explore how the practices of daily mobility constituted gender. A three‐part concept of gender is developed as a basis for analysis: gender as a pattern of social relations, a cultural system of meaning and a component of personal identity. This is then used to analyse a collection of sixty oral histories. The period 1920–1960 is particularly interesting; in these decades extensive and widely used public transport systems (notably electric trams) shared urban streets with bicycles and pedestrians, and the emerging private modes of motorcycle and motor car. As new transport technologies were taken up, they offered the opportunity for new social practices to be formed around their use, for cultural meanings to be assigned to the technologies and for embodied individual subjectivities to be constructed. I argue that we can usefully interpret the shifting patterns of transport use through the lens of gender, and that we can come to understand the process by which gender is constructed by attention to everyday trip‐making and presence on the street.     

Feeling for the coast: the place of emotion in resistance to residential development

This paper considers the feelings that are evoked in, and by, coastal places. We are particularly interested in how emotional connections with the coastal environment can be a resource and motivation for place-protective action. We draw on stakeholder interviews undertaken in the northern New Zealand locality of Ngunguru in 2008–2009. This site was a ‘hot spot’ of community concern around a proposed major residential development. Our data reveal the depths of feelings for the character of the coastline, as well as the capacity of such feelings to generate mobilisation against change. These feelings encompassed general anxiety about coastal development in New Zealand and outrage at its motivations. Respondents also articulated a particular love for the Ngunguru coast, encompassing feelings of connection, sacredness and reverence. We conclude that concern for feelings is critical to understanding what is at stake in contests around coastal development. While these contests also entail the more readily quantified issues that tend to be highlighted in both planning and academic contexts, the nature of human affection for the coast means that emotions can play a formative role in shaping local understandings and motivating actions.     

A CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK FOR DESIGNING AND EVALUATING COMMUNITY‐BASED AFTER‐SCHOOL ART PROGRAMS

The objective of this paper is two‐fold. First, various perspectives that have been adopted in the discursive context of the benefits of engaging children and youths in artistic endeavors are examined. Second, in the hope of maximizing the quality of arts programs that enrich the lives of youth, a conceptual and methodological framework for the development of community‐based art programs for youth is presented. The aim is to provide a clear way to conceptualize and operationalize arts programs, and to delineate methods for the evaluation of their effectiveness.     

New Zealand parents' understandings of the intergenerational decline in children's independent outdoor play and active travel

Children's independent mobility and physical activity levels are declining in Western countries. In the past 20 years New Zealand children's active travel (walking and cycling) has dropped on average from 130 to 72 minutes per week, and those travelling by car to school have increased from 31% to 58%. This paper describes parents' understandings of why 9–11-year-old primary school children in suburban Auckland are less likely to walk to school and play unsupervised outdoors than they were as children. Data gathered in focus groups show understandings range from proximate neighbourhood explanations to downstream impacts of a neoliberal policy context.     

New pieces: the acquisition and distribution of volcanic glass sources in northeast China during the Holocene

Little is known about the diversity of volcanic glass sources used in prehistoric northeast China. Although preliminary research established the presence of a number of sources in archaeological sites from this area, the exact location of these sources was not known (Jia et al., 2010). A recent geoarchaeological survey of three source areas and new data derived from portable X-ray Fluorescence elemental analysis (pXRF) has revealed not only the location and use of two new geological sources in northeast China but also extended our understanding of the geologic context of volcanic glass from Tianchi/Paektusan Volcano, the major geological source of volcanic glass in northeast China. Furthermore, understanding the geological history of these new sources clarifies why they were only found in archaeological sites dated to the Holocene.