THE EFFECTS OF METROPOLITAN JOB GROWTH ON THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF FAMILY INCOME*

ABSTRACT. This article examines how a metropolitan area's job growth affects its income distribution, using CPS data from 1979 to 1988. Metropolitan growth increases the poorest quintile's income by a greater percentage than for the average family. Metropolitan growth also increases the value of property owned by the richest quintiles. Economic development programs to increase local growth will have a net progressive effect if the cost per job created is low, and these costs are financed by personal taxes. But programs with a high cost per job, or financed by cutting welfare, will reduce the net income of the poorest quintile.     

A multidisciplinary approach to reconstructing Late Glacial and Early Holocene landscapes

Understanding palaeotopographical variability forms the basis for understanding prehistoric societies. Alluvial and lacustrine environments, in particular, are key areas with both a high archaeological and palaeoecological potential. However, the often deep stratification of these sites, the high water table and the complex sedimentological variations can hamper a detailed reconstruction of the spatial relationship between prehistoric settlement and their environment. Combining different remote and proximal sensing techniques and coring data, can offer detailed insight into such landscapes. More specifically, the integration of mobile geophysical methods allows the collection of unprecedented continuous information on large-scale palaeolandscape variability. In this study we present a combined approach in order to map and model prehistoric landscapes and river systems in and around a Late Glacial palaeolake in north-western Belgium. Based on filtered and unfiltered digital elevation models, a survey area of 60 ha was selected, in which detailed mobile multi-receiver electromagnetic induction survey was conducted. The results allowed for the delineation of palaeochannels in the area and enabled modelling the depth of these features in the survey area, providing insight into their flow characteristics. ¹⁴C sampling enabled the dating of the evolving river system to the transition between the Late Glacial and the Early Holocene. Through additional coring, this river system could be traced further through the palaeolake area. Based on these results a detailed reconstruction was made of the palaeotopography that harboured the Final Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic occupation of the study site.     

Insights into Past Ritual Practice at Yikpabongo, Northern Region, Ghana

Varied interpretations have been provided for the figurine mound sites located in Koma Land and in the Mogduri District, Northern Region, Ghana, including that they represent burial mounds or shrines. In particular, the producers or affiliates of the mounds are unknown, as the traditions of the present inhabitants of the archaeological region dissociate themselves from the mounds. Current excavations of the mounds have provided considerable contextual information, leading the excavation team to hypothesise that the mounds are best understood within a shrine context and that the figurines, possibly representing ancestors or other beings, were used in ceremonies aimed at communicating with the supernatural world for healing or other purposes. This article presents the current understanding of these mound sites with particular reference to the 2010 and 2011 excavation seasons and the ethnography of existing groups in the area. Possible future avenues of enquiry are also discussed.     

Plainware ceramics from Sāmoa: Insights into ceramic chronology,cultural transmission,and selection among colonizing populations

The first people in Sāmoa produced a varied ceramic archaeological record including a single deposit with decorated Lapita ceramics on the island of ‘Upolu in the west of the archipelago and a nearly contemporaneous plainware deposit over 250 km to the east on Ofu Island. Post-Lapita ceramic change across Sāmoa is similar with almost no decoration, local ceramic production, limited vessel form diversity, and changing frequencies of thin- and thick-wares. This Sāmoan ceramic record is different from nearby Tonga and Fiji where early decorated Lapita ceramics are widely distributed, there are no thickness-defined ware types, and for Fiji, post-Lapita ceramics are more variable. Here we investigate the apparent uniqueness of the Sāmoan ceramic record through an analysis of early plainware ceramics, the second oldest after the Ofu deposits, from Tutuila Island in the center of the Sāmoan archipelago. Our assemblage-specific findings are similar to other Sāmoan plainware analyses, but we suggest the ceramic and other archaeological evidence from Sāmoa and the region indicates Sāmoa was colonized by a few isolated groups and that within the context of cultural transmission of ceramic variants, selection explains thickness variation and likely other aspects of Sāmoan ceramic change.     

An Archaeology of History: The Wang Mang Nine Temples from Early Imperial China as Reconstructed by History and by Archaeology

In this paper, I examine the relationship between the construction of history by the textual history of early imperial China and by Chinese archaeology in the second half of the twentieth century, considering how these two fields of scholarship were directed by ideologies of the Chinese government. The locus for this investigation is the complex of imperial ancestral temples constructed by the emperor Wang Mang (r. 9–23 CE) for his brief interregnum dynasty. Although this group of buildings is described in the official dynastic history, compiled only fifty years after its construction, as having nine temple buildings with specific ancestors ascribed to each, its archaeological excavation in the late 1950s instead revealed twelve temples in a carefully organized plan. The discrepancy between the original construction of the temple complex and its subsequent revision in textual history is revealing in terms of the relationship between received tradition and individual action in the context of establishing imperial legitimacy, whereas the modern attempts to reconcile the discrepancy between textual history and excavated history are indicative of the relationship between Chinese archaeology of that period and the nationalist revision of history.     

Canadian Diplomacy and the 1982 Falklands War

As a case study, Canadian diplomacy during the Falklands War is emblematic of the confused, and at times contradictory, components of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's utopic and idealistic foreign policy. Canada's diplomatic actions during the war were based on four principles. The first, and most significant, was the safeguarding of what were deemed to be Canada's economic interests: chiefly nuclear exports. The second was Trudeau's ‘Third Option’ policy and the belief of ‘the vital importance of the North-South dynamic to Canada’. Third was the desire to distance Canadian foreign policy, economics, and military commitments from those of both the United States and Great Britain. Trudeau had mixed feelings about the Commonwealth and disliked both President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Lastly, during the war Canadian politicians and diplomats took the position of an ambiguous neutrality to protect and promote what they perceived to be Canadian interests. Many of the political and economic decisions made by Canada during the Falklands War were met by harsh criticism nationally and internationally in both public and political spheres.