Ruy Cinatti,the French–Portuguese mission and the construct of East Timor as an ethnographic site*

The French–Portuguese Ethnological Mission to Portuguese Timor (1966/1969) financed by French and Portuguese research bodies and initially directed by Louis Berthe was the first mission that conducted lengthy and thorough ethnographic research in East Timor vernaculars and with East Timorese communities. Using personal and scientific archives, printed and oral sources, this article analyses the mission’s background, the role of Ruy Cinatti (a Portuguese poet, former colonial official in Timor and anthropologist trained in Oxford) in its launch, and its political and scientific context. The mission, undertaken during the Portuguese late colonial period and subject to the Portuguese authorities’ approval and surveillance, marked East Timor as a site of anthropological inquiry into the Anthropology of European tradition produced in Southeast Asia, affiliated to post-war structuralism. This case study throws light on individual agency, Portugal’s shortcomings in modern anthropology training, the international competition for Portuguese Timor as part of the Indonesian “field of ethnological study” and the transnational connections in its construction in the era of decolonization.     

Morgawr: an experimental Bronze Age‐type sewn‐plank craft based on the Ferriby boats

This paper reports on the construction of a full‐scale Bronze Age‐type sewn‐plank boat based on the Ferriby boats. The boat, which was named Morgawr, was constructed in the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth, England, during 2012 and the first months of 2013, as part of a larger exhibition in the museum. This paper provides the background and context of the project, describes the process of building the craft, and reflects in particular on differences between Morgawr and the ‘hypothetical reconstruction of a complete sewn‐plank boat’ published in 1990 by Ted Wright and John Coates which formed the basis for this project.     

Remembrance as a Tool for Reflecting a National Identity: A Cuban Punk Approach

This paper takes several examples from the work of one Cuban punk band – Porno Para Ricardo – to assess the use of memory as a tool for reflecting fragments of a national identity which is both quotidian and contemporary. This singular case study is chosen not for their pertinence within Cuban culture, or even within Cuban alternative music, but rather as an exemplar of the assertion that popular music, rather than changing identities, often reflects aspects of identity and how they manifest in the everyday. Porno Para Ricardo are one such point of reflection. However, their remembrances often stray into areas too traumatic or politically admonished to be ‘remembered’ as part of a more rigid revolutionary history. By remembering the cultural (and thus, vicariously, the political) legacy of the Soviet Union within Cuba, and by re-personalising (or personifying) the traumas of mass generational exodus experiences in the early 90s, Porno Para Ricardo both augment the space of collective Cuban memory, and thus identity, but also attempt to reconnect the slabs of Cuban history often cleaved into evental epochs after which a ‘new way of being’ is constructed, as a means to better make sense of, and better reflect, contemporary Cuban identity.     

Reduction Factors for Seismic Design Spectra for Structures with Viscous Energy Dampers

A simple mathematical expression is proposed to estimate spectra reduction damping factors for seismic design of systems with viscous dampers. The expression is obtained from the ratios between ordinates of uniform hazard spectra associated with two different return intervals (50 and 125 years), corresponding to sites with different types of soil within the Valley of Mexico. The expression proposed depends on the dominant period of the soil, and on both the vibration period and damping ratio of the structural system. Values of the damping factors proposed here are comparable to those recommended by different authors and seismic design building codes.     

Polyphasic hydrothermal and meteoric fluid regimes during the growth of a segmented fault involving crystalline and carbonate rocks (Barcelona Plain,NE Spain)

A polyphasic tectonic‐fluid system of a fault that involves crystalline and carbonate rocks (Hospital fault, Barcelona Plain) has been inferred from regional to thin section scale observations combined with geochemical analyses. Cathodoluminescence, microprobe analyses and stable isotopy in fracture‐related cements record the circulation of successive alternations of hydrothermal and low‐temperature meteoric fluids linked with three main regional tectonic events. The first event corresponds to the Mesozoic extension, which had two rifting stages, and it is characterized by the independent tectonic activity of two fault segments, namely southern and northern Hospital fault segments. During the Late Permian‐Middle Jurassic rifting, these segments controlled the thickness and distribution of the Triassic sediments. Also, dolomitization was produced in an early stage by Triassic seawater at shallow conditions. During increasing burial, formation of fractures and their dolomite‐related cements took place. Fault activity during the Middle Jurassic–Late Cretaceous rifting was localized in the southern segment, and it was characterized by hydrothermal brines, with temperatures over 180°C, which ascended through this fault segment precipitating quartz, chlorite, and calcite. The second event corresponds to the Paleogene compression (Chattian), which produced exhumation, folding and erosion, favouring the percolation of low‐temperature meteoric fluids which produced the calcitization of the dolostones and of the dolomite cements. The third event is linked with the Neogene extension, where three stages have been identified. During the syn‐rift stage, the southern segment of the Hospital fault grew by tip propagation. In the relay zone, hydrothermal brines with temperature around 140°C upflowed. During the late postrift, the Hospital fault acted as a unique segment and deformation occurred at shallow conditions and under a low‐temperature meteoric regime. Finally, and possibly during the Messinian compression, NW‐SE strike‐slip faults offset the Hospital fault to its current configuration.