Variability in Eritrea and the Archaeology of the Northern Horn During the First Millennium BC: Subsistence,Ritual, and Gold Production

Around the margins of Asmara, Eritrea, hundreds of sites dating to the early and mid-first millennium BC have been documented. They range from single family dwellings to small and large hamlets, small and large villages, and small towns. We call these Ancient Ona sites, using the Tigrinya term for ruin. Our findings testify to significant subsistence, ritual, and economic variation within a region of 12 by 17 km: (1) different subsistence strategies in the well-watered, open basin to the west of Asmara (emmer wheat, barley; cattle) compared to the uplands north and east of Asmara (lentil, teff; goats/sheep); (2) ritual events, marked by stone bulls' heads and a huge ash deposit at Sembel Kushet, that brought people together in rites of passage and intensification during Meskel-like ceremonies, including ritual exchange; and (3) the exploitation of gold north of Asmara among heterarchically organized communities that exchanged specialized products within this region.     

Land Use Planning Tools and Institutional Change in Germany: Recent Developments in Local and Regional Planning

This paper seeks to understand how recent social, economic and institutional developments have affected the land use planning tools and instruments that German planners have at their disposal. Although traditional planning practice was focused on the equitable distribution of services and infrastructure and managing growth within a highly structured plan approval process, planning tools at both the local and regional level have become increasingly concerned with enhancing local or regional competitiveness, primarily through the inclusion of a greater number of actors in formulating land use decisions. I argue, however, that despite these changes, the overall institutional framework, which revolves around legal and procedural concerns such as the plan approval process or the granting of building permission, has generally remained unaffected, and a significant gap exists, particularly at the regional level, between the strategic goals of regional governance and actual land use planning tools.     

The Epipaleolithic (Iberomaurusian) from Grotte des Contrebandiers,Morocco

First identified 100 years ago, the Iberomaurusian is an Epipaleolithic industry that was described from a number of sites across western North Africa. One of these is Grotte des Contrebandiers (Smugglers’ Cave) in Morocco, where Abbé Jean Roche recovered Iberomaurusian materials in excavations in the late 1950s. Although the lithics were published in the early 1960s, subsequent changes in methods and in assessing the interpretive potential of lithic assemblages necessitated a restudy of these collections from Contrebandiers. This study led to a better understanding of the lithic types present and of the use of particular stone raw materials. Iberomaurusians emphasized lithic strategies that maximized use of fine-grained stone to the extent that pièces esquillées should be, among others, a defining criterion for this lithic industry.     

Vegetation,land, and wood use at the sites of Bat and Al‐Khashbah in Oman (fourth–third millennium BC)

About 4200 charcoal fragments have been identified from the fourth‐ to third‐millennium BC archaeological sites of Bat and Al‐Khashbah in order to gain an understanding of plant resources available at the sites. Acacia sp., Ziziphus sp., and Tamarix sp. were the main taxa identified at both sites and indicate a similar vegetation composition as today. Phoenix sp. (date palm) charcoal also has been found at both sites. Whereas the cultivation of date palm for the 2700–2300 BC layers from Bat was likely, given other circumstantial evidence (i.e. local cereal cultivation and floodwater irrigation), it is unclear whether date palm was cultivated at Al‐Khashbah. Especially for the older periods (3300–2700 BC) it is possible that nomadic pastoralists were exploiting and/or managing wild date palms. The find of Avicennia marina at Al‐Khashbah indicates long‐distance contacts with the coast.     

VEHICLE ACCESS AND EXPOSURE TO NEIGHBORHOOD POVERTY: EVIDENCE FROM THE MOVING TO OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM

The geographic determinants of social and economic opportunity have received much scholarly attention. A missing link in this body of research is an emphasis on the range of factors influencing low‐income households’ exposure to neighborhood poverty over time. This paper examines the dynamics of exposure to neighborhood poverty for Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program participants. Our paper is unique in its emphasis on the role of vehicle access as it shapes exposure to neighborhood poverty. We find that vehicle access is an important factor shaping residential spells and transitions to low‐poverty neighborhoods over time. We also find that the combined influence of a geographically‐targeted residential mobility requirement and vehicle access substantially elevates a household's likelihood of accessing and staying in a low‐poverty neighborhood. These findings suggest that residential mobility programs and similar efforts to spatially deconcentrate poverty should pay particular attention to the transportation needs of low‐income households.     

Honduran boys confronting adversity: urban multi-locality and kin mobilization

This article describes ethnographic research involving street children and child labor in urban Honduras. It is set in a context of deteriorating social, political, and economic conditions that has created an increase in child labor. However, the research findings have delineated that a growing number of children are choosing to work and live on the street to escape extreme poverty and hunger in their familial households. Despite the multi-local spaces they inhabit, they have been able to create unique non-kin relations while often maintaining family based linkages. This study, undertaken in two centers for boys in Tegucigalpa and Comayagua, Honduras analyzes the contextual dynamics and decision-making processes of Honduran youth regarding work and living arrangements in urban spaces.     

Cock-ups and slap-downs: A quantitative analysis of conspiracy rhetoric in the British Parliament 1916–20151

In view of the negative connotations associated with conspiracy theories, what have been the effects of the term's entry into popular vocabulary in the second half of the twentieth century? Has the ascendancy of the term “conspiracy theory” been correlated with a reluctance to allege conspiracy? In this article, the authors use Hansard, the record of British parliamentary debates, as a source of empirical data in demonstrating a significant and steady reduction in the number of conspiracy claims advanced in parliament; a pattern consistent with the broader marginalization of conspiracy rhetoric. This trend was reinforced by a trope that established itself in the 1980s and juxtaposed “conspiracies” with “cock-ups.” The British expression “cock-up” denotes a blunder or act of incompetence. In the second part of this article, the authors argue that the preference for “cock-up theories” over “conspiracy theories” reflects how a policy geared towards privatization and deregulation tended to characterize government action in terms of incompetence, and not of malfeasance.     

Scripture beyond Common Sense: Sentimental Bible Study and the Evangelical Practice of “the Bible Reading”

This article examines the Bible study method known as the Bible Reading, which became popular among a segment of conservative evangelicals in the late nineteenth century. Scholars have closely identified it with the Common Sense approach to Scripture and have attributed its popularity to a conservative response to attacks on this approach. This article argues, however, that the Bible Reading is best understood as a devotional exercise that should be examined independently of these controversies. Exploring the devotional aspects of the Bible Reading nuances the standard portrayal of evangelicals in this period as being reactionary in their use of Scripture. In particular, it sheds light on the use of sentimental Bible study in the revivals of the late 1850s as well as the transatlantic holiness movement in the decades that followed. Ultimately, it argues that the exercise's popularity was due not simply to changes in the Bible's cultural status, but to changing conceptions of the Christian life.