The decrease in socioeconomic differences in mortality from 1920 to 2000 in the United States and England

This study found that the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on mortality decreased steadily during the twentieth century. It examined trends in age-specific adult mortality rates for employed men and infants in a number of social classes based on occupation in England and Wales and for black, white, and immigrant nationality groups of men, women, and infants in the United States. Both countries experienced continuing decreases in mortality rates and narrowing of SES differences in mortality rates from 1920 to the end of the century. Most of the decrease and narrowing in England and Wales occurred before the establishment of the National Health Service and the unprecedented improvements in clinical and preventive medicine after midcentury. Current cancer mortality rates in both countries show no consistent relationship with SES. The very low mortality rates of some low SES immigrant nationality groups in the United States throughout the century demonstrate that other social factors can have a greater effect on health than SES.     

Sourcing temper sands in ancient ceramics with U–Pb ages of detrital zircons: a southwest Pacific test case

Through use of methodology common in sedimentary geology, we apply U–Pb ages of detrital zircons to source nonlocal temper sand in an ancient ceramic assemblage recovered from Roviana Lagoon of the New Georgia Group in the Solomon Islands. Most potsherds from the Roviana Lagoon contain local volcanic sand as temper, but a small number of sherds contain anomalous granitic temper sand that does not appear to be local. To determine the origin of the anomalous temper, ages of zircons from the anomalous Roviana sherds are compared with ages of zircons in materials from Lizard Island off the Queensland coast and in sand from Muyuw Island in the Solomon Sea where generically similar granitic sands occur. U–Pb analyses of grains from the Roviana sherds yield Middle Miocene ages, while analyses of grains from Lizard Island granitic bedrock, sand, and local potsherds yield much older Permian-Triassic ages, disproving any possibility that the Roviana sherds were derived from Lizard Island, but suggesting local production of the Lizard Island sherds. Ages of grains in a sand sample from Muyuw Island are nearly identical to the ages of grains in the Roviana sherds. All grains in the Muyuw sand are Middle Miocene in age, overlapping closely with the Roviana age population. This strong similarity in detrital zircon signals indicates that the Roviana temper was likely derived from Muyuw Island sands. Our test case for the use of U–Pb ages of detrital zircons in sourcing temper sands is of only regional significance, and not of intrinsic global interest. The methodology, however, should find wide applicability for sourcing temper sands in many parts of the world, for it provides more specific data for the origins of tempers than either petrographic or chemical analysis.     

UNESCO, URI, and Archaeology in the Deep Blue Sea: Archaeological Ethics and Archaeological Oceanography

Multiple groups have interests that intersect within the field of deep submergence (beyond the 50 meter range of SCUBA) archaeology. These groups?? differing priorities present challenges for interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly as there are no established guidelines for best practices in such scenarios. Associating the term ??archaeology?? with projects directed at underwater cultural heritage that are guided by archaeologists poses a real risk to that heritage. Recognizing that the relevant professional organizations, local laws, and conventions currently have little ability to protect pieces of cultural heritage across disciplines and international boundaries, the authors propose institution-specific mechanisms, called Archaeology Review Boards, guided by local and international laws and conventions concerning cultural heritage, as the best means to provide oversight for academically centered archaeological activities at the local level.     

Too late to buy a home? School redistricting and the timing and extent of capitalization

In the past 50 years, a voluminous literature estimating the value of schools through capitalization in home prices has emerged. Prior research has identified capitalization using a variety of approaches including discontinuities caused by boundaries. Here, we use changes in school boundaries and the opening of a new school in Fayette County (Lexington), Kentucky to identify this capitalization. Critical to properly estimating the effect of redistricting is to account for when information on redistricting is available. We treat the information about the effects of zoning as occurring in three stages: announcement of the intent to open the new high school and redistricting, approval of the specific redistricting plan (map), and implementation (opening of the new high school and actual changes in boundaries). We find significant changes in values for homes redistricted from lower-performing schools and we find that this capitalization occurs well before implementation of the redistricting. As we show, failure to account for capitalization occurring before implementation will attenuate and even change the sign of capitalization.     

The Sartre–Camus Quarrel and the Fall of the French Intellectual

Over the past thirty years, the disappearance, if not the death, of the intellectual in France has been the focus of significant conversation and debate. Yet a good bit earlier, two writers who epitomized that very figure of the intellectual, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, in works written after their bitter break, seemed to have already sensed this decline. The present essay explores what Camus's novel La Chute [The fall] and Sartre's autobiography Les Mots [The words] share thematically and, in particular, how both works anticipate the fall of the French intellectual.     

Shifts in Neandertal mobility,technology and subsistence strategies in western France

We propose a reassessment of Neandertal mobility strategies by crossing technological and zooarchaeological data. A broad comparative approach to the Middle Paleolithic series from western France shows that the Levallois and laminar flaking systems, the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA) shaping system and the Quina and discoidal-denticulate flaking systems, vary significantly in terms of duration of reduction sequences, blank versatility and tool maintenance. These technological systems, which prevail in this context over different time periods, reflect distinct mobility strategies as a response to differing hunting practices. This new approach to Middle Paleolithic technologies and related mobility patterns gives new insights into Mousterian diversity. It also highlights the determinant role played by large game hunting strategies in the organization of late Neandertal societies.     

Geochemistry of sauceboats excavated from Independence National Historical Park (Philadelphia): evidence for a Bonnin and Morris (c. 1770–73) provenance and implications for the development of nascent American porcelain wares

Porcelain sauceboats excavated from a privy with a late 18th century (1786 or later) context at Independence National Historical Park (INHP) are anomalously Al-rich compared with previously analysed Anglo-American sulphurous phosphatic wares. Apart from their S content, they are most similar to phosphatic W^m Reid porcelain (Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, c. 1755–67, and its branch at Shelton, Staffordshire) in terms of their major element constituents, but they contain heavy minerals (e.g., TiO₂ polymorphs) and in this regard resemble a dated (1773) silicious-aluminous-calcic (S-A-C) Bonnin and Morris porcelain (Philadelphia) openwork porcelain basket. In terms of morphology and composition, some TiO₂ polymorphs in the 1773 basket match those from clay from White Clay Creek, Delaware, a resource reputedly exploited by Bonnin and Morris. Their high Nb/Cr ratios indicate derivation from a metapelitic (or granitic pegmatite) source. So too do some from the INHP sauceboats, although others are chrome-rich (∼1% Cr₂O₃), indicating a mafic source. The bedrock beneath White Clay Creek includes metasediments, granitic pegmatite, and metabasites (e.g., of the Wissahickon Formation), pointing to a local source for the TiO₂ polymorphs in the porcelains described here. Although the evidence for a Bonnin and Morris provenance for the INHP sauceboats is circumstantial, their enrichment in heavy minerals, unusual – perhaps experimental – compositions, and aesthetic characteristics nonetheless suggest a Philadelphia origin for these artifacts. The compositions of 18th century Philadelphia porcelain support the contention that knowledge of phosphatic and S-A-C pastes originating in London was transferred first to Staffordshire and Liverpool, and then to Philadelphia, perhaps via a potter by the name of W^m Ball.