The earliest fractured tetrapod bone

A tetrapod radius from the Early Carboniferous Ducabrook Formation of the Drummond Basin, Queensland, is described. Early tetrapod radii are scarce in the fossil record but comparison with those available suggests that the new specimen is morphologically primitive. An unusual swelling of the proximal extensor surface is shown, by X-ray, to be a comminuted fracture, the earliest bone fracture recorded among tetrapods.     

Der gescheiterte Frieden von Münster: Spaniens Ringen mit Frankreich auf dem Westfälischen Friedenskongress (1643–1649)/La paix des Pyrénées. Vingt-quatre ans de négociations entre la France et l’Espagne (1635–1659)/Mazarin's Quest: The Congress of Westphalia and the coming of the Fronde

WALTER LAFEBER. The Clash: US-Japan Relations throughout History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. Pp. xxii, 508. $29.95 (US); PATRICK SMITH. Japan: A Reinterpretation. New York: Pantheon Books, 1997. Pp. 385. $27.50 (US); MICHAEL SCHALLER. Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. 320. $44.50 (CDN); STEPHEN D. COHEN. An Ocean Apart: Explaining Three Decades of US-Japanese Trade Frictions. Westport: Praeger, 1998. Pp. xi, 256. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Warren I. Cohen     

Pests in an ancient Egyptian harbor

Our investigations combine detailed identification and interpretation of plant remains and associated fauna and their mode of arrival in one of the rock-cut galleries, Cave 3, at the site of Mersa/Wadi Gawasis on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. The site served as a staging area and harbor from which Middle Kingdom pharaohs launched seafaring expeditions to the land of Punt in the early second millennium BC. Quantities of wood, including ship timbers, fastenings, debris related to ship dismantling and reworking, and charcoal were excavated and analyzed. Evidence of marine mollusk infestation (shipworm) was abundant in Cave 3, as were the remains of insect pests of stored foods. We also report on a unique find of a plaster “spill” that preserved the floor of Cave 3 as it was when people worked in the gallery ca. 3800 years ago. The plaster spill created a sealed deposit of plant and insect remains with a diagnostic ceramic fragment, allowing us to securely associate insect remains and “hollow” spikelets of emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum) recovered from the gallery. An impression of the beetle Trachyderma hispida and its associated exoskeleton fragments provide new evidence of this species as a potential pest not yet reported from an archaeological grain storage site in Egypt. The finding of Tenebroides mauritanicus from the same deposit is the earliest known association of this pest with stored grains. These unique finds shed new light on the risks associated with preserving food supplies, combating pest infestation, and dealing with marine organisms on land and at sea in the pharaonic harbor.     

Of Dice and Women: Gambling and Exchange in Native North America

Although archaeologists have had success in documenting the movement and distribution of trade goods, they often fail to specify the actual social mechanisms by which such goods are shunted across archaeological landscapes. A thesis is developed that in Native North America gambling was one common mechanism for intergroup exchange. Particular attention is paid to dice games that, according to ethnographic accounts, were often played primarily by women. Building upon the pioneering compilation by Stewart Culin, game paraphernalia, playing rules, as well as odds and payoffs associated with wagering are described and mapped. The social and mythological contexts of dice games are also reviewed. Results indicate that making hitherto neglected links among exchange, gender, and gambling promises novel and more culturally informed ways of approaching the archaeological record.