Local diversity in settlement,demography and subsistence across the southern Indian Neolithic-Iron Age transition: site growth and abandonment at Sanganakallu-Kupgal

The Southern Indian Neolithic-Iron Age transition demonstrates considerable regional variability in settlement location, density, and size. While researchers have shown that the region around the Tungabhadra and Krishna River basins displays significant subsistence and demographic continuity, and intensification, from the Neolithic into the Iron Age ca. 1200 cal. BC, archaeological and chronometric records in the Sanganakallu region point to hilltop village expansion during the Late Neolithic and ‘Megalithic’ transition period (ca. 1400–1200 cal. BC) prior to apparent abandonment ca. 1200 cal. BC, with little evidence for the introduction of iron technology into the region. We suggest that the difference in these settlement histories is a result of differential access to stable water resources during a period of weakening and fluctuating monsoon across a generally arid landscape. Here, we describe well-dated, integrated chronological, archaeobotanical, archaeozoological and archaeological survey datasets from the Sanganakallu-Kupgal site complex that together demonstrate an intensification of settlement, subsistence and craft production on local hilltops prior to almost complete abandonment ca. 1200 cal. BC. Although the southern Deccan region as a whole may have witnessed demographic increase, as well as subsistence and cultural continuity, at this time, this broader pattern of continuity and resilience is punctuated by local examples of abandonment and mobility driven by an increasing practical and political concern with water.     

A Fisk patent metallic burial case from Western Missouri: an interdisciplinary and comprehensive effort to reconstruct the history of an early settler of Lexington,Missouri

In 2006 a cast-iron coffin was discovered in an unmarked burial plot in Lexington, Missouri. A multifaceted investigation was conducted to provide historical documentation and possible identification of the individual. The coffin is an early Fisk Patent Metallic Burial Case. Osteological analyses indicate that the skeletal remains belong to a 20 to 30 year old white female who consistently ate an omnivorous diet with significant amounts of C4 plants or seafood. Rib morphology and her burial garments suggest she frequently wore restrictive clothing. No gross skeletal pathological lesions or trauma were observed except for a patch of reactive bone and an atypical pattern of bone remodeling on the visceral surface of the sixth rib. Subsequent bacterial DNA analysis of the ribs and sternum indicate the presence of tuberculosis infection. Although not conclusive, multiple lines of evidence are consistent with the skeletal remains representing Elizabeth (Triplett) Stewart who died in 1854 of pulmonary tuberculosis. This multidisciplinary research significantly contributes to the local history of Lexington, Missouri and provides a likely identification of the deceased individual for the Stewart Family.     

Re-Interpreting Modern Iran: Tribe and State in the Twentieth Century

For the nationalist elite of early Pahlavi Iran, the regime's military successes over tribal opposition, whether real or imagined, were welcomed and celebrated. These successes were interpreted as confirmation of their views of tribal power as hostile to modernity, archaic and outmoded, and of Riza Shah as the deliverer of Iran's national salvation. This conceptualization of the “tribal problem” had appeared in tandem with and as a product of modernist ideology in the late nineteenth century, acquired the backing of state power with the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty, and endured until the revolution of 1979. It communicated itself, in diluted form, to Western scholarship, which has been largely content to depict Riza Shah's tribal policies as regrettably brutal, but an unavoidable stage in Iran's progress and “modernization.”

Yet this version of tribe–state relations is clearly an ideological construct rather than an historical analysis. The account which follows begins a re-evaluation of tribal politics in modern Iran, focusing especially on the Riza Shah decades when these politics were a site of intense conflict and where the nationalist template was most starkly delineated, and concludes by tracing and re-examining the evolution of the tribe–state dynamic in the decades of land reform and revolution.     

Reclip:more Kleinr?umige Klimaszenarien für ?sterreich

Der letzte Bericht des Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007) erl?utert die weltweiten Auswirkungen des Klimawandels deutlich – allerdings aus globaler Sicht. Um zu kl?ren wie sich das regionale Klima in ?sterreich ver?ndern wird, wurde mit dem Projekt „reclip:more“ (Research for Climate Protection: Model Run Evaluation) eine erste kleinr?umige Datenbasis für Klimaschutz und Klimafolgenforschung für ?sterreich generiert. Klimaszenarien wurden mittels regionaler Klimamodelle (RCMs) für die Alpen als 10 × 10-Kilometer-Raster und mit anschlie?endem Downscaling für ?sterreich mit einer Zielaufl?sung 1 km entwickelt. Die RCMs wurden mit ERA-40 Reanalyse-Daten der Vergangenheit und Daten eines Zukunftsszenarios des globalen Klimamodells (GCM) ECHAM5 angetrieben, um retrospektive (1981 bis 1990) und künftige (2041 bis 2050) Klimadatens?tze für die Alpen zu berechnen und M?glichkeiten und Unsicherheiten der Modelle und Downscaling-Methoden für die Alpen zu evaluieren. Die nun vorliegenden Datens?tze und weitere, die im Folgeprojekt „reclip:century“ für alternative Treibhausgasszenarien bis 2100 berechnet werden, dienen dazu als Basis für Aussagen über ?kologische und sozio?konomische Entwicklungen im Hinblick auf den Klimawandel.     

Where East Meets West: The Formative in Mexico’s Central Highlands

Mexico’s Central Highlands form one of Mesoamerica’s fundamental cultural seams, a point of overlap between two traditions, one to the east and the other to the west. Although this area is usually included in the west, it can be more productively viewed as an interface, the physical space where people, goods, and ideas passed from one side to the other, and thus it holds many keys for our understanding of emerging social complexity in Mesoamerica. In reviewing the last two decades of Formative period (1500 BC–AD 100) research in this crucial territory, we focus on themes that reveal the variation and dynamism of interregional interaction, including the formation of regional traditions, exchange systems, and foreign “influence,” and others that help contextualize the events and processes of that time, like household studies and environmental degradation. We stress that this part of Mexico is undergoing relentless development so time is of the essence if we are to broaden our perspectives on social evolution in the Central Highlands. This issue cannot be resolved by rescue and salvage work because it requires long-term, interdisciplinary projects to unravel multifaceted problems.     

Evolution of small valley mire in central Poland as a result of hydroclimatic oscillations

This paper demonstrates the results of analyses of Cladocera, pollen, plant macrofossil, lithological and radiocarbon data recovered from a mire located in the Rawka River valley in central Poland. These studies permit to recognise the development of hydrology phases in Kopanicha mire and give insight into Holocene fluvial dynamics of the system; radiocarbon dating partly allowed da-ting of the patterns of Holocene valley floor development of the Rawka River. The Kopanicha mire was formed during the Atlantic period. At that time, an oxbow lake formed, becoming a mire during the Subboreal and possibly Subatlantic periods. The high sensitivity of the oxbow lakes, fens, fauna, and flora remains to climate variations - especially to changes in water level connected with the ag-gradation-erosion cycle of rivers - allows the reconstruction of the palaeoecological changes that oc-curred in the mire. The frequency and timing of hydroclimatic oscillations at Kopanicha show strong similarities to records from other sites in Poland. Changes in Cladocera frequency and plant assem-blages were mostly influenced by the Rawka River which controlled the hydrological regime of the mire. The main factors controlling the presence of Cladocera taxa were the water level and the pres-ence of favourable conditions in the mire (e.g. pH, vegetation). Most of the changes occurred in re-sponse to climate changes, but some of them were connected with local factors.