Poromoi Tamu and the Case of the Drowning Village: History, Lost Places and the Stories We Tell

Archaeological excavations at an ancestral village site within rainforest in Papua New Guinea has revealed buried cultural evidence that can be explained in a number of ways. While interpretations based on Western archaeological methods suggest regional landscape dynamics informed by geomorphological processes, Indigenous Rumu oral traditions suggest an interpretation of the site’s stratigraphy based on the workings of spiritual forces. The role of story-telling and new information in site interpretation and understanding is explored in light of these different yet complementary accounts.     

Managing Long Distance and Localized Learning in the Emilia Romagna Life Science Cluster

The paper provides some empirical evidence of the effectiveness of the “open innovation” model in the life science cluster of Emilia Romagna (a region of Italy), comparing the network of R&D collaborative activities in public research organizations (PROs) and the network linked to R&D collaborative activities in private firms. By presenting the main results of a field research in the life science sector in Emilia Romagna, we are contributing to the recent debate focused on the crises of the old “closed innovation” model and the rise of the “open innovation” model. Our survey consists of both primary data deriving from face-to-face interviews with researchers and entrepreneurs, and secondary data extracted from the Internet, the PubMed database, and from the European Patent Office. Our work is based on the analysis of a representative sample of 30 research groups in PROs, 2173 scientific articles published by the interviewed scientists, and a representative sample of 78 private firms.     

Palynology of glacial sediments from the Guandacol Formation (Middle Carboniferous) in the Cerro Bola area,Paganzo Basin,Argentina

The palynoflora of surface samples of glacial deposits from the Guandacol Formation in the Cerro Bola area of the Argentinian Paganzo Basin is documented. The existence of glacial related diamictites in this area has been previously ignored. The fossiliferous levels are located in section B of the formation, which corresponds to the earlier stages of deglaciation. The assemblage contains abundant monosaccate pollen grains whose global incoming is not older than early Namurian (Middle Carboniferous). Many species of this palynoflora are present in equivalent stratigraphic sequences of Argentina and can be referred to Sub-biozone A of the Raistrickia densa-Convolutispora muriornata Biozone (Namurian-Stephanian). New species described here are Cyclogranisporites rinconadensis and Tricidarisporites gutii.     

Jazzing Sheiks at the 25 Cent Bram: Panama and Harlem as Caribbean Crossroads,circa 1910–1940

Both Harlem and Panama were, in the early twentieth century, crossroads of the Caribbean. This essays traces the musical echoes of that fact, arguing that British West Indians had a central but often unrecognized role in the exchanges driving Black cultural innovation in the interwar metropoles. Hundreds of thousands of British West Indians came to and through Panama at the start of the twentieth century, creating a Pan-Caribbean space where the rhythms of son, tango, mento, cumbia, and ragtime rang out. From there many would travel onward. The lives of Panama-born, New York-based performers like Vernon Andrade, Luis Russell, Teófilo Alfonso ‘Panama Al’ Brown, and Estelle Bernier show how British West Indians shaped by the Greater Caribbean’s borderlands crossed boundaries within New York as well. Multilingual and multicultural, they moved easily within Harlem’s ‘Latin Quarter’ of Puerto Ricans and other Spanish-speakers, helping to bring rhythms and styles from the Hispanic Caribbean to the Afro-American listening and dancing public. Stories of the working-class dance halls of 1920s Panama and of the Latin connections of British Caribbean performers in New York together point to tropical circuits of music and moves rarely recognized as part of the metropolitan Jazz Age.     

Experiencing nature and children’s conceptualizations of the natural world

This paper examines young children’s concepts of nature, paying attention to the role played by types of daily experiences with nature on 832 children’s constructions of the natural world. We observed the roles of three types of experiences, as determined by the children’s place of residence (urban, rural mountain range, and rural agricultural) in Spain. Participants wrote what they thought about when hearing the word ‘nature’. Content analysis revealed a conceptual structure formed with four underlying and interconnected themes: (1) natural and non-natural elements, (2) the human–nature relationship, (3) emotional experience of nature, and (4) actions in natural settings. The type of daily experiences with nature (i.e. urban, rural mountain range, and rural agricultural) accounted for variability in children’s concept of nature. These results reinforce the importance of considering the role played by personal and situational characteristics in shaping children’s constructions of the natural world.     

Finding the Past in the Landscape: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Sambaqui</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Kaizuka</Emphasis> Amid Appropriation and Construction of Identities (Brazil and Japan)

In a comparative analysis, it is possible to discuss how sambaqui and kaizuka appear as objects of scientific investigation and also as part of the social imaginary and the cultural landscape. Archaeology, in its trajectory as a scientific field, is influenced or even directed by the different moments of construction of a national identity and discourse. While in Brazil there is a clear cut between the past and the building of a nation, situating sambaqui in the realm of the other, in Japan, the continuum from a past beyond records encompasses and situate the kaizuka within the social imaginary as part of the national narrative.