清代泉州晋江沿海商人的乡族特征

Along with the promotion of Taiwan’s economic status in the mid-Qing Dynasty and the expansion of trade with the mainland, the merchants of Jinjiang County of Quanzhou Prefecture in the Qing Dynasty developed a business model focused on the growing cross-strait trade and coastal shipping in Southeast China. The success of these coastal traders in business was closely related to their full use of family and lineage. However, the links of family and lineage, at the same time, were problematical for these businessmen when exploiting economic opportunities. These complex family and lineage ties could either promote or obstruct the development of commercial capital depending on specific situations. Thus, the traditional argument that the family and lineage system hindered socio-economic development should be re-examined.     

Ancient plant use and palaeoenvironmental analysis at the Gumugou Cemetery,Xinjiang, China: implication from desiccated plant remains

The Gumugou Cemetery is located in the Lop Nor region of the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, northwest China. Radiocarbon dating found the site to be 3800 years BP. Due to the exceptionally arid conditions, most of the plant remains are well-preserved. Morphological and anatomical studies suggest that the plant remains consist of: Triticum cf. aestivum, Phragmites australis, Populus euphratica, Ephedra sp., as well as Typha sp. These ancient plants imply that the indigenous people lived in oases surrounded by extensive desert. Caryopses of T. cf. aestivum might have been used as funeral objects of the mummies as well as a subsidiary food source of the inhabitants, while the wild plants were used in other aspects of daily life.     

The Role of the Student Researcher: Notes from Hadrian’s Wall

Fieldwork carried out for a Masters dissertation examined, through interviews, how well a consultation on the future management of the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site had been carried out. Unexpected access was granted during a tense and uncertain period for those involved in managing the Site, at least partly because as a student, the author was not affiliated with any of the organisations concerned. This paper will examine the roles and relationships that the student may find him/herself in, in such a situation, and the possible benefits and dangers these bring. It will also look at the student’s privilege of a sustained period to focus on a single topic, often denied to academics. In the case of an MA, this produces relatively quick results and the possibility of contributing to urgent current issues, if students can be persuaded to publish.     

Cave Art in Context: Methods for the Analysis of the Spatial Organization of Cave Sites

Investigations of prehistoric cave art have long neglected the surrounding context: space, archaeological objects, and imprints. As a result, an integrative structural approach that analyzes cave art as part of an anthropomorphized landscape has not been available. This article draws on urban planning and the physiology of the human eye to provide an innovative archaeospatial analysis of cave sites. A set of relevant features from the caves of Bédeilhac, Fontanet, and Le Portel was selected and defined (light zone, chamber type, path network, mode of movement, and available space). An analysis of the prehistoric remains in the caves allows the reconstruction of different concentrations of human activities (cave art, archaeological objects, and imprints). The projection of these concentrations onto the structured map of the caves results in four types of locations: drawing location, supply location, drawing location with substantial activities, and drawing location with consumption activities. This approach opens new avenues for the archaeological perception of caves and their inhabitants: Upper Paleolithic humans were very familiar with caves and probably followed a master plan during their stay in the dark.     

Philosophie de la machine

Sans résumé Ses recherches portent sur les liens entre métaphysique et technique à la Renaissance et, de manière plus récente, sur la philosophie de la machine. Il travaille acutellement à une anthropologie philosophique du recours aux automatismes. Il a notamment publi’e ?Mathématiques, création et humanisme chez Nicolas de Cues ? (Revue d’histoire des sciences, t. 59, n^o 2, 2006); ? L’homme à l’image de Dieu, Ma?tre Eckart, Nicolas de Cues, Descartes ? (dans L’Image, Paris, Vrin, 2007).