Who Owns the State? Understanding Ethnic Conflict in Post-Colonial Societies

Abstract. This article aims to integrate different explanatory approaches to ethnic conflicts: studies on ethnic clientelism and discrimination, on political mobilisation by minority elites, on unequal relations between ethnoregions, and on the effects that different political systems have on the dynamics of ethnic conflicts. For each of these approaches, the relevant research is reviewed and illustrated by selected examples from post-imperial societies. Propositions that seem empirically plausible are integrated into a comparative model which is in turn based on a specific theory of political modernity. The premise holds that the politicisation of ethnicity is to be interpreted as a central aspect of modem state-building. For only when ‘people’ and state are mutually related within the ideal of a legitimate order does the question arise for which ethnic group the state has to act, who is regarded as its legitimate owner, and who is entitled to have access to its services. Ethnic conflicts can thus be interpreted as struggles for the collective goods of the nation-state. Within this paradigmatical frame, a step-by-step analysis at a medium level of abstraction tries to show under which conditions state-building leads to an ethnicisation of political conflicts and in some cases to an escalation into rebellions and wars.     

Archaeometallurgical Investigations in Nakhchivan,Azerbaijan: What Does the Evidence from Late Chalcolithic Ovçular Tepesi Tell Us about the Beginning of Extractive Metallurgy?

The Late Chalcolithic (4400–3950 b.c.) occupation levels from Ovçular Tepesi have yielded a significant assemblage of copper objects and remains of copper production. Together with ore finds, two fragments of nozzle, crucible remains, and a number of small metal artifacts, this assemblage includes the unexpected discovery of three copper axes in an infant burial jar. These axes are the earliest examples of large copper tools known to date in southwestern Asia, whether it is in the Caucasus, Iran, or the Anatolian highlands. More importantly, the fact that these objects were locally produced suggests that significant metallurgical activities were being carried out at Ovçular as early as the second half of the 5th millennium b.c. After presenting the evidence from Ovçular Tepesi, this paper will proceed to a reassessment of the available archaeological and geochemical data concerning the emergence of extractive metallurgy in the southern Caucasus.     

Wissenstransfer auf dem Prüfstand. Europäische Mediziner im Kampf gegen die Pest von Moskau 1771

Foreign knowledge being tested: European physicians fighting the Moscow plague of 1771. – The transfer of Western medicine to Russia increased significantly in the Eighteenth century. Foreign doctors were employed, their writings translated, their education standards copied. But who regarded that knowledge as superior and why? Taking the Moscow Plague of 1771 as a case study, this article examines the crucial role foreign and Russian medical practitioners played during the epidemic. It argues that especially those ideas and practices that were useful for social control filtered into politics and public discourse, but failed to convince the majority of the population.     

XRF analysis of glass beads from the Mycenaean palace of Nestor at Pylos,Peloponnesus, Greece: new insight into the LBA glass trade

In recent years there has been a growing interest in Mycenaean glass among archaeologists and scientists. Scholars have traditionally thought that all Mycenaean glass was imported either in finished form or as ingots and simply shaped or worked at the Mycenaean sites. Chemical studies of other Mycenaean glass (50 and 43) support the hypothesis that glass was imported into Mycenaean Greece, but there is also indication for glass production in mainland Greece at the palace of Thebes (Nikita and Henderson, 2006). There is no evidence for glass making or working at the Palace of Pylos, yet there is an abundance of glass beads there. The aim of this paper is to identify the technology and source for the glass of these beads and thus to ascertain how Pylos was connected to the broader Mycenaean and Mediterranean economies. The composition of the glasses was determined by means of portable XRF analysis and compared to that of other Late Bronze Age glasses from Egypt, Mesopotamia and mainland Greece. Four blue beads coloured with cobalt and one blue bead coloured with copper have Ti and Zr compositions consistent with an Egyptian origin of manufacture while five other beads show Ti and Zr concentrations consistent with a Mesopotamian origin (Shortland et al., 2007). Based on the dearth of Egyptian and Mesopotamian imports in Pylos, the presented data support the hypothesis that Pylos was receiving via internal Greek trade routes foreign-produced glass, which may have been worked abroad or in Greece.     

Bois Laiterie revisited: functional,morphological and technological analysis of a Late Glacial hunting camp in north-western Europe

Previous exhaustive analysis of the remains at Bois Laiterie Cave resulted in the classification of this site as a Magdalenian hunting camp. However, during recent analysis of usewear-traces on selected artefacts, one of the authors [KS] noticed in the collection numerous backed points which are rather untypical for the classical Magdalenian. In light of this, a typological and technological reinvestigation of the Bois Laiterie assemblage was undertaken. Here, we present the results of this investigation and the traceological analysis. Further, implications of these results for the interpretation of the chronological, archaeo-cultural and functional position of the Bois Laiterie site within the context of the north-western European Late Glacial are discussed.