Millet and sauce: The uses and functions of querns among the Minyanka (Mali)

The central role of grinding activities in the dietary practices of traditional agricultural populations can be approached from an ethnoarchaeological point of view. The comparison of ethnographic references raises the question whether the function and the socioeconomic context in which grinding slabs are used allow to assess issues related to conclusions drawn from archaeological contexts. Our discussion is based on the analysis of the manufacturing of grinding slabs, their use cycles and their social status in several Minyanka villages (Mali), providing useful references when examining the way in which archaeologists explain and interpret technological, functional and spatial observations. The typological and technical evolution and variability of querns results from a combination of several factors determined by the available raw materials, the skill of shaping techniques, the organisation of manufacturing and the transference of the function of grinding tools. But these factors alone cannot explain the encountered range of variation. Our study thus emphasises the very role of cultural aspects within these temporal and regional developments, and the impossibility of dissociating the use of a quern from its socio-economic context.     

Funeral practices and foodstuff behaviour: What does eat meat mean? Stable isotope analysis of Middle Neolithic populations in the Languedoc region (France)

The aim of this study is to reconstruct the dietary patterns and economic behaviours of Neolithic populations in the Northwestern Mediterranean using isotopic and archaeological data. Burials come from four sites located in Languedoc–Roussillon region in French Mediterranean area. These sites are dated from the Middle Neolithic period (ca. 4500–3500 BC). They represent the Chasséen culture, characterized by regional features, such as economy management, resulting from territorial control. For this investigation, a stable isotopes (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) method has been used on 50 human bone collagens and 28 associated animal bones. This method provides direct dietary information on the protein consumed including the relative amounts of marine vs. terrestrial and animal vs. plant proteins in diets. Isotopic results are mainly compared to archaeological data to understand economic distinctions and potential social status variations between different groups using specific funeral practices, i.e. lithic chamber graves vs. domestic/funeral pits. Results show that individuals buried in lithic chamber graves and those buried in pits did not have the same dietary pattern. This result suggests a possible differentiation between two socio-economic groups, i.e. consumers of resources from herding and from farming. No aquatic food appeared to be routinely consumed by these individuals despite a relative close proximity to sea and freshwater sources. Moreover, these outcomes lead us to hypothesize that: (1) funeral practices could be linked to specific economies and/or (2) to different social status and that (3) burial type and foodstuff could be an expression of religious worship. Further research could include data from other areas, such as Spanish Catalonia where there are funeral structures similar to Languedoc lithic chamber graves.     

Disaster Financialization: Earthquakes,Cashflows and Shifting Household Economies in Nepal

The political economy literature on post-disaster reconstruction tends to contrast ‘disaster capitalism’ narratives denouncing the predatory character of neoliberal rebuilding, and ‘building back better’ policies supporting market-driven reconstruction. This article seeks to provide a more nuanced account, developing the concept of ‘disaster financialization’ through a case study of household-level changes experienced through processes of post-earthquake reconstruction in Nepal. The concept of disaster financialization describes not only the integration of disaster-affected households into the cash-based logic of reconstruction instituted by donors and government authorities, but also the financialization of their lives, social relations and subjectivities. It is a transitive process involving a shift into financialized mechanisms of disaster prevention, adaptation and recovery. Analysing contrasting experiences across three earthquake-affected districts in Nepal, this study proposes disaster financialization as an integrative term through which to understand the simultaneous acceleration of monetization, the leveraging of cash incentives by donors and government to ‘build back better’, and the flurry of financial transactions associated with reconstruction processes. While some aspects of disaster financialization have had negative social impacts, such as debt-related anxieties and a breakdown of voluntary labour exchanges hurting the most vulnerable, the process has taken on variegated forms, with equally variegated effects, reflecting household characteristics and interactions with financial institutions.     

À propos du colloque « The Machine as Model and Metaphor » Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte Berlin,novembre 2006

Sans résumé ? Lève la peau, dissèque: ici commencent les machines. Puis, tu te perds dans une substance inexplicable, étrangère à tout ce que tu sais et qui est pourtant l’essentielle. ? Paul Valéry, Tel quel, Cahier B 1910 Ses recherches portent sur l’épistémologie, l’histoire des sciences et l’histoire de la philosophie à l’age classique (xvi ^e-xvii ^e siècles). Elle a notamment dirigé avec Walter Roy Laird, Mechanics and Natural Philosophy before the Scientific Revolution (Dortrecht/Boston/Londres, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2007), puis, en collaboration avec Massimo Bucciantini et Michele Camerota, Mechanics and Cosmology in the Medieval and Early Modern Period (Florence, Olschki, 2007).     

敦煌伞盖的材料和形制研究

伞又称盖,或称伞盖,在佛教中常用于佛、菩萨等头顶,以示尊崇.结合敦煌文书和出土实物可知,以丝、麻等面料缝制的伞盖是唐代敦煌寺院伞盖中的大宗,多为方形或圆形,大小不一.根据伞盖的使用方式可将其分为悬挂型和支撑型两种类型.伞面为单层或夹层,伞缘的下端有时会垂有织物制作的"裙".除此以外,"者舌"、"柱子"和"带"也是敦煌伞盖常有的构件.     

A Dynamic Systems Framework for Studying Technological Change: Application to the Emergence of the Potter's Wheel in the Southern Levant

The dynamic systems framework may be considered an alternative to traditional approaches that study technological change. The benefits of this framework are simultaneously methodological and metaphorical. Methodologically, the framework provides a coherent analytic process for studying empirical data to explain the complexity of technological change. Metaphorically, the framework appeals to local-scale interactive mechanisms to account for the origins of change. Applicability of the dynamic systems framework for studying technological change is illustrated with an archaeological case study: the emergence of the potter's wheel in southern Levant during the 4th millennium BC.     

Early Neolithic obsidians in Sardinia (Western Mediterranean): the Su Carroppu case

All the obsidians from the undisturbed Early Neolithic (Cardial ware phase I) layer of the Su Carroppu rock-shelter (Sardinia island) were studied. Their elemental composition and that of obsidians from the Monte Arci (Sardinia) volcanic complex was determined by ion beam analysis (PIXE). A comparison between the composition of Su Carroppu artefacts, analysed non-destructively, and that of Western Mediterranean analysed in the same conditions shows that the archaeological material belongs to the SA, SB2 and SC Monte Arci-types, to the exclusion of the SB1 type. The typological/technological study of this industry allowed us to reconstruct two chaînes opératoires, for the production of blades (using predominantly SC obsidians) and of flakes (based exclusively on SA and SB2 obsidians), respectively, but on the whole, assemblage blade/bladelet production was performed somewhat preferably with SA and SB2 types. Thus, in the earliest EN culture known on the island, ancient man had, for the making of its obsidian toolkit, a highly adaptive behaviour applied to the reduction of different useful obsidian sources.     

公共交通可达性分析方法进展

公共交通可达性拥有空间属性、时间属性、社会属性和经济属性,它是一种衡量区位价值的综合性指标,不仅可以反映城市空间特征,同时对城市中生活的人的社会经济属性和生活习惯,具有一定的解释力。为了不断适应新形势下的交通发展要求,减少环境负担,早日实现低碳绿色发展,创新公交都市规划与分析方法迫在眉睫。本文对基于个人的、基于效用的、基于基础设施的和基于位置的可达性研究进行了回顾,并归纳了七种公共交通可达性的分析方法,分别为：基于缓冲区的公共交通站点可达性、基于供需模型的公共交通面状可达性、基于网络分析法的公共交通网络可达性、基于成本栅格法的公共交通可达性、基于成本栅格与网络分析的集成法的公共交通可达性、基于高性能图形数据库的公共交通高精度可达性、基于开放地图 API 的公共交通高精度可达性。 以期为我国未来公共交通可达性的分析方法提供指引和借鉴。