Urban political ecology in late prehistory: New evidence from El Purgatorio,Peru

One of archaeology's greatest strengths is its reliance on interdisciplinary collaboration and the utilization of multiple lines of evidence to inform archaeological interpretation. For example, through an examination of faunal and floral remains, production and storage facilities, and the isotopic analysis of human skeletal remains one can develop a model for urban political ecology in ancient cultures. In this case study, the political ecology of the Casma capital city, El Purgatorio, Peru, is investigated in order to inform our interpretations and conclusions regarding Casma political, economic and social organization. The results indicate that Casma political ecology was firmly based in coastal resources and oriented towards supporting state-sponsored feasting and ritual activities, suggestive of a largely elite-controlled redistributive economy. In contrast to previous models characterizing this time period as one of factionalism and environmental stress, the data suggest that coastal cultural adaptations produced an era of widespread political and economic stability.     

Book reviews

THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD ARENA: AN ESSAY IN RECENT HISTORY. W. W. Rostow. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1960. Pp. xxii + 568. $8.75.

LORD LOTHIAN (PHILIP KERR) : 1882–1940. J. R. M. Butler. London, Macmillan & Co., 1960. Pp. xiii + 385. Australian price 57/9.

THE SOVIET BLOC: UNITY AND CONFLICT. Zbigniew K. Brzezinski. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1960. Pp. xxii + 470. Australian price 85/3.

THE SOVIET DICTATORSHIP. Herbert McClosky and John E. Turner. N.Y., McGraw Hill Book Company Inc., 1960. Pp. xiv + 657. $7.95.

FRANCE, TROUBLED ALLY: DE GAULLE'S HERITAGE AND PROSPECTS. Edgar S. Furniss. For the Council on Foreign Relations. N.Y., Harper and Brothers, 1960. Pp. xiii + 512. $5.75.

THE NEXT FIFTEEN YEARS. Pierre Mendes‐France. Cambridge University Press, 1960. 3/6.

NATIONALISM AND THE RIGHT WING IN JAPAN. Ivan Morris. Under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. London, Oxford University Press, 1960. Pp. xxviii + 476. Australian price 81/3.

ELECTIONS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. T. E. Smith. With an introduction by B. Keith‐Lucas. London, Macmillan, 1960. Pp. xvii + 272.

THE BELGIAN CONGO. Some Recent Changes. Ruth Slade. For Institute of Race Relations. London, Oxford University Press, 1960. Pp. viii + 55. 3 maps. Australian price 8/6.

RACIAL PROBLEMS IN SOVIET MUSLIM ASIA. Geoffrey Wheeler. For Institute of Race Relations. London, Oxford University Press, 1960. Pp. xii + 66. 2 maps. Australian priee 10/‐.

THE DIPLOMACY OF SOUTH‐EAST ASIA, 1945–1958. Russell H. Fifield. N.Y., Harper and Brothers, 1958. Pp. xiii + 584. $7.50.

POLITICAL FORCES IN PAKISTAN, 1947–1959. Keith B. Callard. N.Y., Institute of Pacific Relations, 1959. Pp. 48. $2.00.     

Drought,Domestic Budgeting and Wealth Distribution in Sahelian Households

Over the past twenty‐five years, Sahelian households have experienced recurrent harvest failure and greater reliance on remittances from migratory wage labour. Household subsistence has become less dependent on household grain stores and more on the liquidation of individual wealth stores. This study investigates how these broader changes have affected struggles between household members over obligations to support the household in the Zarmaganda region of western Niger. As the land‐derived leverage of male patriarchs has declined and household dependence on individual wealth stores has increased, domestic budgeting has become more contested. Household heads make case‐by‐case moral claims on other household members during times of grain shortage. Women and subordinate males invoke Islamic law, which accords primary provisioning responsibility to the household head, to protect their individual wealth in times of grain deficit. This article investigates the nature of these budgetary struggles, showing how individuals’ decisions to contribute individual wealth to support the household are best understood as highly situated, affected not only by the specific material conditions of the household but also the interplay of the moral, structural, and individualistic imperatives that derive from one’s position within the household. Using reconstructed livestock wealth histories for the members of fifty‐four households in western Niger, this study investigates the material consequences of these struggles. Male heads of corporate households, the historic managers of the household’s land and agricultural labour, have lost wealth relative to their wives and married male subordinates since the drought of 1984.     

Searle's Social Reality

Book reviewed in this article:
The Construction of Social Reality by John R. Searle     

Insights into immigration and social class at Machu Picchu,Peru based on oxygen,strontium, and lead isotopic analysis

The Inca Empire (AD 1438–1532) made common practice of relocating individuals, households and entire communities throughout their expansive realm for different reasons depending on subjects' assigned social class. Reconstructing patterns of immigration at Inca-period sites could therefore permit some estimation of the social class(es) among their constituents, and thereby provide insights into the functional dynamics of Inca political economy. However, this is a difficult endeavor using only archaeological lines of evidence. This study presents oxygen, strontium and lead isotopic results from the well-preserved, well-contextualized skeletal population (N = 74) from the Inca site of Machu Picchu, Peru. Isotopic data are used to reconstruct patterns of immigration at the site, which are in turn used to directly estimate the social class of the population. The resulting isotopic data are widely distributed with no apparent modality, matching the expected distribution of a particular class of nonelite retainers. A novel application of multivariate statistics coupled with geological and faunal isotopic reference data also permits tentative estimation of individuals' regions of origin. This study provides empirical and analytical frameworks for future research in reconstructing residential movement and class dynamics in the late prehistoric Andes.     

Does Patronage Still Drive Politics for the Rural Poor in the Developing World? A Comparative Perspective from the Livestock Sector

Is the analysis of patron–client networks still important to the understanding of developing country politics or has it now been overtaken by a focus on ‘social capital’? Drawing on seventeen country studies of the political environment for livestock policy in poor countries, this article concludes that although the nature of patronage has changed significantly, it remains highly relevant to the ways peasant interests are treated. Peasant populations were found either to have no clear connection to their political leaders or to be controlled by political clientage. Furthermore, communities ‘free’ of patron–client ties to the centre generally are not better represented by political associations but instead receive fewer benefits from the state. Nonetheless, patterns of clientage are different from what they were forty years ago. First, patronage chains today often have a global reach, through trade, bilateral donor governments and international NGOs. Second, the resources that fuel political clientage today are less monopolistic and less adequate to the task of purchasing peasant political loyalty. Thus the bonds of patronage are less tight than they were historically. Third, it follows from the preceding point and the greater diversity of patrons operating today that elite conflicts are much more likely to create spaces in which peasant interests can eventually be aggregated into autonomous associations with independent political significance in the national polity. NGOs are playing an important role in opening up this political space although at the moment, they most often act like a new type of patron.     

The environment of northeast England during Roman times as shown by pollen analysis

Data from nine radiocarbon-dated pollen diagrams from the northeast of England are considered and it is argued that much of the area was deforested and used for farming during the late pre-Roman Iron Age. This farming continued throughout the Roman rule (approximately AD 80–AD 410) and lasted until at least the sixth century, implying a measure of political stability after the Roman withdrawal.     

Unlock the Volume: Towards a Politics of Capacity

In recent years “volume” has become a key analytic idea, and tool, for re‐imagining and making sense of historical and contemporary socio‐cultural and geopolitical phenomena. This paper argues that this important work could be pushed in new directions by thinking seriously of how volume might otherwise be interpreted spatially, as capacity. Accordingly, in this paper, we address what we call a “politics of capacity”. To do so, we draw specifically on debates in carceral geography and, in particular, the pressures on the prison system to illustrate our argument. Drawing on notions of “operational capacities” and “capacity building” in the prison setting, we outline a manifesto for volumetric thinking that moves beyond expressions of power that cut through height, depth and angles, to an understanding of how power is conveyed through maximum and minimum capacities; density and mass; and capacity‐building techniques.