Non-destructive Provenancing of Ground-Edged Mafic Artifacts: A Holocene Case Study from the Sydney Basin,Australia

Ground-edged artifacts were an important part of the Australian Aboriginal toolkit. They had practical day-to-day uses, but some had symbolic and social values that led to their movement across great distances. Australian provenance studies document long-distance Aboriginal exchange systems extending over hundreds of kilometers. The size and complexity of exchange systems and social networks were contingent upon resources and the productivity of a region's environment. Along the fertile, well-watered lands east of the Great Dividing Range, movement of objects may have been geographically more circumscribed than in drier areas to the west. One hundred and twenty-one mafic, ground-edged artifacts from the New South Wales (NSW) Central Coast and 368 geological specimens from potential sources were non-destructively analyzed by portable X-Ray fluorescence spectrometry. Results indicate the existence of a well-used basalt source within the region at Peats Ridge-Popran Creek as well as multiple local and non-local sources up to 430?km from Mangrove Mountain on the NSW Central Coast.     

Production risk,inter-annual food storage by households and population-level consequences in seasonal prehistoric agrarian societies

Abstract

Using complementary behavioural and population ecological models, we explore the role of production risk, normal surplus and inter-annual food storage in the adaptations of societies dependent on seasonal agriculture. We find that (a) household-level, risk-sensitive adaption to unpredictable environmental variation in annual agricultural yields is a sufficient explanation for the origins of normal agrarian surplus and, consequently, of household-level incentives for inter-annual food storage; and, (b) at the population level, density-dependent Malthusian processes tightly constrain the circumstances under which this same mechanism can be effective in smoothing inter-annual fluctuations in household food availability. Greater environmental variation and higher levels of fixed set-asides such as seed requirements or transfer obligations to political authorities lead to more severe, periodic famines; however, outside of famine events, these same factors improve average population welfare by suppressing population density to levels at which Malthusian constraints have lessened impact. The combination of behavioural and population ecological modelling methods has broad and complementary potential for illustrating the dynamic properties of complex, coupled human–natural systems.     

Empire and the state: a critical theoretical assessment

In recent years there has been increasing use of the term ‘empire’ to describe US primacy in world affairs. This should not be viewed merely as an indictment of US power: there are genuine insights to be gained from the study of imperial formations in contemporary politics. Yet there remains confusion and disagreement over the true meaning of ‘empire’. Progressive schools of thought in the academic discipline of international relations can facilitate a fresh understanding of ‘empire’—one that is suited to the complexities of the contemporary global scene.     

Rock Art and Ritual: An Archaeological Analysis of Rock Art in Arid Central Australia

Rock art researchers throughout the world have explicitly or implicitly invoked ritual as an activity associated with the production of rock art but the articulation between the structure and composition of rock art assemblages and ritual behaviour remains poorly understood. Anthropologist, Roy Rappaport (1999) argued that all ritual, whatever the content or focus, has a universal structure. We review this proposition in the context of ritual studies and propose a method aimed at assessing the potential for identifying ritual structure in rock art assemblages. We discuss an archaeological analysis undertaken on the rock art assemblages in arid Central Australia, which aimed at distinguishing such a ritual structure among engraved assemblages, likely to have a Pleistocene origin, as well as more recent painted, stencilled and drawn assemblages. This analysis, despite its limitations, provides the foundation for developing a model, which will enhance the understanding of the relationship between the production of rock art and ritual.     

Delmephialmas and Sircorcor: Gasparo Balbi, Dalmâ, Julfâr and a problem of transliteration

Gasparo Balbi, the state jeweller of the Venetian Republic, visited the eastern Arabian coast in c. 1580 and recorded many of the places in the modern United Arab Emirates for the first time, giving them the names by which we know them today, albeit in sixteenth-century Italian transliteration. While some places are readily recognizable, Balbi's terms Delmephialmas and Sircorcor present problems. It is suggested that Delmephialmas is the island of Dalmâ off the coast of Abu Dhabi but with an additional phrase as a suffix, giving a meaning approximating to Dalmâ, fî-hâ mâ' , i.e. 'Dalmâ, there is water there'. The absence of any reference to so major a port as Julfâr in modern Ra's al-Khaima by Balbi is remarkable. It is suggested that Balbi's term Sircorcor is an eliding of al-Sirr as a synonym for Julfâr combined in error with Khawr al-Khuwayr to the north of Julfâr.     

Raw or Pre-Fired: Kiln Construction at Sawankhalok,North Central Thailand,as a Guide to Ceramic History

Sawankhalok, located in north central Thailand, was an early stoneware ceramic production site where the first kilns were dug cave-like into the natural ground, a method used in China for thousands of years. After a century or so, kilns at Sawankhalok began to be constructed of brick. It is suggested that if the bricks were pre-fired then an external influence may have been responsible. To the contrary, if raw unfired clay was used in the construction of the kilns the evolution was more likely a consequence of conceptual continuity.With the aid of chemical and mineralogical analyses it is shown that the kiln bricks were unfired at the time of kiln construction thereby suggesting that traditional conservatism, apparent in many aspects of the industry, caused processes to remain unaltered in the absence of a persuasive reason for change. These conclusions reflect on the degree of indigenous technology and artistic development associated with Sawankhalok ceramics as opposed to external influence.     

Book reviews

CHINA

PAUL A. COHEN. History in Three Keys: the Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. xviii, 428 pp. £27.95, paper.

DAVID S. G. GOODMAN (ed). China's Provinces in Reform. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. 278 pp. US$85.00, £50.00, hardcover; US$25.99, £15.99, paper.

HUANG JIANLI. The Politics of Depoliticization in Republican China: Guomindang Policy towards Student Political Activism, 1927–1949. Berne: Peter Lang AG, 1996. US$52.95, £34.00, hardcover.

PAUL R. KATZ. Demon Hordes and Burning Boats: the Cult of Marshal Wen in Late Imperial Chekiang. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. xviii, 261 pp. Index. US$19.95, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

EYAL BEN‐ARI. Body Projects in Japanese Childcare—culture, Organization and Emotions in a Preschool. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1997. 166 pp. £40.00, hardcover.

JENNIFER DUFFY and GARY ANSON, eds. Encounters with Japan: twenty Extraordinary Stories. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1994. 159 pp. A$14.95.

KEN'ICHI GOTO. ’Returning to Asia’: Japan‐Indonesia Relations, 1930s‐1940s. Tokyo: Ryukei Shyosha, 1997. xxvi, 496 pp. Index. ¥12,000, hardcover.

AMY VLADECK HEINRICH (ed). Currents in Japanese Culture: translations and Transformations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 493 pp. Preface, brief biographies of contributors, index. US$52.00, hardcover.

STEWART LONE. Japan's First Modern War: army and Society in the Conflict with China, 1894–95. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Houndmills and London: Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, in Association with King's College, London, 1994. xii, 222 pp. £40.00, hardcover.

COLIN McKENZIE and MICHAEL STUTCHBURY (eds). Japanese Financial Markets and the Role of the Yen. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992. 176 pp. Tables, abbreviations, glossary, preface, list of contributors, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. A$39.95 hardcover; A$24.95, paper.

SOUTH ASIA

KATE BRITTLEBANK. Tipu Sultan's Search for Legitimacy: Islam and Kingship in a Hindu Domain. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997. 184 pp. Illustrations, introduction, notes, bibliography, index. Rs. 450, hardcover.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

BENG‐HUAT CHUA. Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore. London: Routledge, 1997 (revised edition), xiv, 213 pp. Preface, preface to paperback edition, references, index. £45.00, hardcover; £14.99, paper.

STEVEN HEDER and JUDY LEDGERWOOD (eds). Propaganda, Politics and Violence in Cambodia: democratic Transition under United Nations Peace‐Keeping. New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. xx, 277 pp. US$71.95, hardcover; US$29.95, paper.

ROBERT LOWRY. The Armed Forces of Indonesia. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1997. xxiv, 282 pp. Tables, maps, graphs, index. A$29.95, paper.

GENERAL ASIA

CHRISTINE DOBBIN. Asian Entrepreneurial Minorities: conjoint Communities in the Making of the World Economy, 1570–1940. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996. 246 pp. Glossary, selected bibliography, index. £45.00, hardcover; £16.99, paper.