A Regional Approach to Ancient Urban Studies in Greece Through Multi-Settlement Geophysical Survey

The systematic exploration of large archaeological sites in the Mediterranean has evolved considerably since the “big dig” excavations. Pedestrian field surveying and remote sensing applications, including satellite and airborne image analysis, are now practical and relatively cost-efficient methods of characterizing large and diachronically diverse landscapes on regional scales. However, the use of geophysical techniques as a means for exploring manifold archaeological contexts is still in its infancy. In this paper, we highlight the advantages of archaeological geophysics to conduct regional surveys in the Mediterranean. Through a multi-site geophysical fieldwork campaign to investigate the patterns and dynamics of ancient cities in Greece, we show how geophysics offer new opportunities for characterizing the spatial attributes and regional dynamics of urban landscapes, and, in doing so, we make an argument for its wider adoption on regional survey projects.     

A biomechanical study of activity patterns in a medieval human skeletal assemblage

Activity patterns in an assemblage of medieval skeletons from York, England, are investigated using analyses of biomechanical properties of the humeral diaphyses. Evidence is found for differences in activity patterns between males and females and between male layfolk and members of a male monastic community. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Development of Environmental Administration in Queensland and Western Australia: Why are they Different?

Western Australia and Queensland are often seen as the most developmentalist states in the Australian federation, largely because they remained less developed for longer and have seen much mineral and agricultural development in the latter part of the twentieth century. Developmentalism is usually seen as anathema to a commitment to environmental policy, which most states have taken on in response to environmentalism in the same period, yet these two developmentalist states exhibit markedly different trajectories in response to this environmentalist stimulus. This paper explores the reasons for these differences, finding a variety of causal factors including both socioeconomic influences (such as affluence and demographics), political structures, and personalities and the force of ideas. It suggests that we should be wary of monocausal explanations of such differences.     

Handedness and directional asymmetry in the long bones of the human upper limb

The long bones of the human upper limb usually show lateral asymmetries of length. This pattern can be attributed either to the mechanical consequences of handedness bias or to genetic or hormonal factors acting directly on longitudinal bone growth. Length data was obtained from the long bones of the upper limbs of a large skeletal assemblage from Wharram Percy, Yorkshire (England), predominantly deriving from the 11th-16th centuries A.D. The Wharram Percy adult skeletons had a population distribution of lateral asymmetries of length in the humerus and in the humerus-plus-radius (a proxy arm length index) which closely parallels the pattern of behavioural handedness found in modern populations. This pattern was developing in the skeletons from the infant and juvenile age ranges, but was absent in the neonates (of whom 12 out of 14 had longer left humeri). We argue that this supports the environmental hypothesis that the ontogeny of long bone length asymmetry is consequent to the earlier development of lateral bias in mechanical loading of the upper limbs.     

Correction in the Countryside: Convict Labour in Rural Germany 1871-1914

Over the course of the Empire demand for labour in the countrysideand penal reform together created the conditions for a greaterdeployment of prisoners, workhouse inmates and young offendersin agriculture. Farming on site, and especially leasing offenders,were the most cost-efficient ways of detaining men. Agriculturalwork was also regarded as key to their rehabilitation. It servedto equip inmates upon release for the sector of the economymost in need of workers. ‘Outside work’ away fromthe institution was also seen as an intermediate stage in theprisoner's sentence before release. Two developments in thecharitable sector complemented this correctional strategy: theemergence of a network of workers’ farming colonies whichacted as half-way houses for ex-prisoners after release, andex-offender employment programmes run by prisoner welfare societies,channelling ex-offenders towards agricultural employment. Despitethese efforts to reintegrate offenders, re-offending rates remainedhigh. Penal authorities either attributed this to the incorrigibilityof some inmates, or pushed for longer sentences. In some casespenal and medical authorities were inclined to re-interpretthe criminal behaviour of repeat offenders as behaviour symptomaticof mental illness, and some inmates were transferred to asylums.In the discourse surrounding the failure of reform the argumentthat the exclusionary and punitive nature of the prison andworkhouse régime actually worked against rehabilitationheld little sway, nor the argument that high re-offending ratescould be attributed to the vagrancy and begging laws which criminalizedsystemic poverty and homelessness. Absent here was any understandingthat the life offered following release, working as ancillaryworkers or hands on the estates, bore too striking a resemblanceto work in agriculture during detention. This in itself wasone major reason why many ex-offenders directed into agriculturalemployment after release refused to stay and work.     

Thucydides and 'Chalkidic' Torone (IV.110.1)

This article is a reply to the Thucydidean part of J.K. Papadopoulos in OJA 15 (1996) 151–81 and is concerned with the meaning of 'Chalkidic Torone' at Thucydides IV.110.1 (and of 'Chalkidic Olynthos' at IV.123). Various meanings, canvassed in previous scholarship, are considered. Sense (1) is geographical, 'Torone in Chalkidike' sense (2) is political, 'Torone the member of the Chalkidic State or League'. Both these are rejected in favour of some translation of 'Chalkidic' which implies either colonial descent from Euboian Chalkis (sense (3)) or ethnic affiliation to a local and non-Euboian 'Chalkidic genos' (sense (4)). It is argued, contrary to Papadopoulos, that Thucydides in the fifth century, and perhaps Ephorus in the fourth, did after all think in terms of sense (3), but that non-Euboian Chalkidians, if any, may have appropriated Euboian origins to themselves, partly for imperialistic reasons and partly to assert their hellenism, surrounded as they were by non-Greek neighbours. (Analogies are suggested for such 'propagandistic' behaviour.) That is, senses (3) and (4) can be reconciled.     

The excavation of hayonim terrace: an examination of terminal pleistocene climatic and adaptive changes

The investigation of the epipalaeolithic site of Hayonim Terrace contributes new evidence relative to our understanding of the series of adaptive changes which took place among populations of Palestine during the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene. The study defines a cultural continuity between the Geometric Kebaran A and Natufian archaeological complexes against a changing environmental background. A succession of environmental oscillations which occurred between c. 12,500 and 10,000 BP is identified and discussed in regard to changes in epipalaeolithic economic and adaptive patterns. An episode of climatic amelioration (c. 12,000-11,000 BP) apparently contributed to the expansion of cereals into the Mediterranean hill zone and the abandonment of palaeolithic hunting and gathering strategy by Natufian cereal collectors. Subsequent environmental deterioration associated with the onset of drier conditions (c. 11,000 BP) prompted Natufian populations to attempt to maintain their habitable territory artificially, through the cultivation of cereals.