The Mega-Site of Valencina de la Concepción (Seville,Spain): Debating Settlement Form,Monumentality and Aggregation in Southern Iberian Copper Age Societies

Study of the Iberian Copper Age has experienced a remarkable upheaval in the last two decades. The discovery in central and southwestern Iberia of a significant number of ditched enclosures, a site type almost unknown in this region until the mid 1990s, has opened up new lines of research. Particularly interesting is the existence of some exceptionally large sites. Largest of all is Valencina de la Concepción (Seville, Spain), covering an area of 450 ha and featuring several outstanding megalithic monuments, thousands of pits and material assemblages revealing middle and long distance contacts. In this paper we discuss the implications of the Valencina mega-site for the study of settlement variability, monumentality and population aggregation as key phenomena in the rise in social complexity in Copper Age Iberia.     

Topoiesis: Procesos de espacialización en la literatura (crítica y metodología)

ABSTRACT

Space in literary texts has been widely studied but poorly systematized. There is no valid method of analysis that gives space a critical meaning. For instance, critics have eluded the fact that time and space cannot be considered separately. On the other hand, they have used concepts or methods from disciplines aside literature such as anthropology, biology, psychology, or geography that do not help clarify the meaning or signification of a literary text. We begin this article by giving a review of the main theoretical and critical positions regarding space in literature from the second half of the twentieth century. We do this in order to evaluate the main results those studies have attained. Later on, we propose a methodology that may clarify the significance of space in a literary text. The concept topoiesis (as far as we know, it has not been used in the humanities) represents for us a key word. It helps us to distinguish one main process where space can turn from a signification practice to the production of meaning in a literary text.     

Topoiesis de la recepción literaria

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a particular notion about “topoiesis,” focusing on the text reception point of view. Initially, it establishes a theoretical framework using useful concepts from hermeneutics and post-structuralism, to later discuss the real existence of a dialogue or a “fusion of horizons” in which a “sense of space” of a text would be blended in the meeting point between textuality and the reader. Finally, through this space we propose a categorization of the different types of “topoiesis” of literary reception, establishing correspondences with the concept of “enunciative instances” in the text space, detailed in another article.     

Topoiesis de las instancias enunciativas

ABSTRACT

The literary text is a communicative situation that involves a sender, a message, and a receiver. Literary theorists and critics have extensively studied the different instances of enunciation, making it clear that the author of a literary text is not the enunciator of it. This article intends to show that each one of them belongs to a distinctive level: those of the communicative situation and the enunciative situation. This article intends to show the space-time axis related to the situations mentioned above. This would allow the researcher to find the mechanisms of power that lie behind the authorization or discredit of a speech. By doing so, we intend to extend the analysis of the literary work, including the context of creation of the literary text. We would like to focus our attention on three aspects related to the enunciator: topoiesis of the communicative situation, topoiesis of the enunciative frame, and topoiesis of the writing individual.     

Regional Aspects of Collaborative Invention Across National Innovation Systems

Abstract

This article analyzes the association between intraregional collaboration and levels of invention in nine developed countries. Patent data of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regions of nine inventive countries are used to determine if a significant positive correlation exists between reliance on own region partners and overall invention. Strong intraregional collaboration is also related to the knowledge bases of technologies and to the tendency for inventors to team up in the first place. Results show strong evidence that inventors in highly inventive regions co-patent more with own region partners and that they have a greater tendency to collaborate in the first place. Support for the hypothesis that information and computer technologies favour own region collaboration and that more biotechnology invention encourages external alliances is mixed. However, there is far less evidence that more biotechnology invention encourages more external alliances. Variation in the results between countries is interpreted as evidence that national innovation systems have distinctive internal locational attributes. The findings refute the assertion that strengthening aspatial network proximities has eclipsed the pivotal role of intraregional linkages in technological advance.     

Hornell,Hasslöf and Boatbuilding Sequences

Hornell's publications on ‘native watercraft’ form a unique ‘library’ dealing with boatbuilding and boat use. His quest for the origins of water transport, on the other hand, was unsuccessful. In a clarification of the issues involved, Hasslöf criticized Hornell's use of the term ‘carvel’ and proposed ‘shell‐first’ and ‘skeleton‐first’ as best able to characterize boatbuilding traditions. Those terms subsequently gave way to ‘plank‐first’ and ‘frame‐first’. Certain north‐west European vessels, each built in both those sequences, were identified by Hasslöf as a link between ‘plank‐first’ and ‘frame‐first’. Such a transition would have been facilitated by the use of ‘framing‐first’, a building sequence used in north‐west Europe and in the eastern Mediterranean from the early 1st millennia AD.