Born in Melbourne? Considerations on the origins of Australian political science

In a pioneering academic discussion of Australian politics written just before the First World War, William Harrison Moore reinforced the image of Australia as an increasingly autonomous part of a slowly evolving but essentially liberal British Empire. In this 34-page account of ‘Political Systems of Australia’ published in George H. Knibbs, ed., Federal Handbook (Melbourne, 1914), the Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Melbourne arguably created the ur-text of the Australian Politics textbook. It is argued that there is an unbroken thread of Cambridge-inspired political science teaching and writing at Melbourne from Harrison Moore onwards. The early Australian politics textbooks and ‘Political Systems of Australia’ are cut from the same cloth, making the latter an important precursor.     

Mongolian Deer Stones,European Menhirs,and Canadian Arctic Inuksuit: Collective Memory and the Function of Northern Monument Traditions

Northern peoples and those living in the Arctic and environments with broad vistas created cultural landscapes with distinctive monument traditions that supported their cultural and political systems. This paper explores three societies in different geographic regions and time periods during the past 10,000 years that used stone monuments to humanize their landscapes and invoke or honor gods or spirits, mythological ancestors, or deceased leaders. Canadian and Greenland Inuit and their predecessors of the past thousand years marked their lands with abstract human figures known as Inuksuit; Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans built megaliths, henges, and passage graves; and Mongolian Bronze Age nomadic pastoralists populated the central Asian steppe with burial mounds (khirigsuurs) and anthropomorphic deer stone monuments. Each tradition contributed in different ways to shape and perpetuate the society’s values by invoking spirits, ancestors, or heroic leaders. The enduring presence of these creations reinforced cultural or ethnic identity through ritual, group ceremonialism, landscape values, communal enterprise and labor, and collective memory. This paper identifies commonalities and differences between these traditions and how they functioned. We also see how successive societies perpetuate, change, reinterpret, or invent new uses and meanings for ancient monuments and their landscape settings to create new ethnicities and histories for their own times.     

The Fall of the Fall in Early Modern Political Theory

In this essay I offer a contribution to a political genealogy of secularization through the fading of the Fall in early modern political theory. I begin by giving a brief overview of the importance of the Fall in pre-modern Christian political thought. I then examine the fate of the Fall in early modern thought, briefly discussing Niccolò Machiavelli and Francisco de Vitoria, but concentrating on the English tradition most influential on our context, namely Thomas Hobbes, Robert Filmer, and John Locke. I show how and why the Fall is replaced by the “state of nature” as pre-historical justification of political power. I conclude with some comments on what is lost when Western society no longer uses the Fall to mark the difference between the way things are and the way things are meant to be.     

A pilot study of “black chert” sourcing and implications for assessing hunter-gatherer mobility strategies in Northern England

Mesolithic hunter-gatherer logistic strategies and raw material procurement locales have been topics of considerable interest in northern England, accelerated by the early discoveries at Star Carr. Here we present the results of a pilot study investigating the potential for geochemically sourcing “black chert”, a material with similar qualities to flint but of inland limestone origin, using ICP-AES, ICP-MS and LA-ICP-MS. Several geological sources of black chert are known, and it is commonly present at upland Mesolithic sites along the Pennine chain. Four geological sources were sampled and analysed, along with a small sample of black chert artefacts from two upland Pennine archaeological sites. The results demonstrate that the four sampled sources can be easily differentiated from one another chemically. This research reveals the potential to apply this approach at a larger scale; the archaeological sample together with the source results indicate that additional sources will need to be identified and sampled before such data can be applied to address current questions of the Mesolithic of northern England.     

Paleodietary implications from stable carbon isotope analysis of experimental cooking residues

The regional timing of maize introduction in eastern North America is a long-standing topic of archaeological interest. Most recently, Morton and Schwarcz [2004. Paleodietary implications from stable isotopic analysis of residues on prehistoric Ontario ceramics. Journal of Archaeological Science 31, 503–517] investigated the timing of maize introduction in Ontario through isotope analysis of charred cooking residues adhering to the interior of prehistoric ceramic containers. They interpret their results to suggest maize was incorporated into diets after A.D. 600. We assess their approach and conclusions with stable carbon isotope assays on three sets of experimental cooking residues, evaluating the variable combustion of carbon fractions, contributions of fats and carbohydrates, and the contribution of total carbon. We also undertake multiple resource modeling of two part food mixes with green maize and maize flour. Our results suggest that systematic under representation of maize can result depending on residue composition and that some prior knowledge of C3 plant and animal contents is necessary to interpret stable carbon isotope values on cooking residues. We question the independent use of stable carbon isotope analysis of charred cooking residues as a viable technique for extracting paleodietary information.     

The Ethnic Dimension to Bureaucratic Encounters in Postcommunist Europe: Perceptions and Experience

Abstract. In a survey of public opinion about the behaviour of officials in four postcommunist countries ‐Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – we found pervasive suspicions of ethnic bias. Although ethnic minorities themselves were particularly suspicious of officials, there was a consensus across both ethnic majorities and minorities that officials favoured their own ethnic group and discriminated against others. Suspicion may distort reality, however. Citizens' own reports of dealing with officials generally revealed much less ethnic discrimination in their personal experience than in their suspicions, presumptions and perceptions. Either suspicion exaggerated reality or general perceptions of bias focused on the most badly treated, rather than the most numerous, minorities. Ethnic minorities themselves behaved in different ways towards officials. Amongst the ethnic minorities covered in this study, only Gypsies displayed the characteristics of hopelessness and ‘exclusion’. Some minorities behaved much like the titular nationality. But most compensated for their minority status by engaging more than the titular nationality in a wide range of strategies to influence officials ‐including the use of contacts, presents and bribes. Conversely, in areas where an ethnic minority was concentrated locally, members of the titular nationality displayed a measurably defensive reaction and a somewhat heightened degree of vigilance. The paper is based on a total of 6,050 interviews made in the winter of 1997–8, including representative country‐wide samples and special additional samples in areas where ethnic minorities were concentrated. It compares the four titular nationalities with eight ethnic minorities. This research was funded by the ODADFID (formerly Overseas Development Administration, now Department for International Development) under grant R6445 to Miller and Koshechkina, and by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) under grant R222474 to Miller and Grødeland. Translation and fieldwork was carried out by OPW (Opinion Window) of Prague and MVK of Bratislava both under the direction of Ladislav Koppl, CSD (Centre for the Study of Democracy) of Sofia under the direction of Alexander Stoyanov, and GfK‐USM (Ukrainian Surveys and Market Research) of Kyiv under the direction of Tatyana Koshechkina.     

I Want to Buy a Black Pot

Cooking pots made by craft specialists in a neighborhood in a small city in the Philippines are hand made, using the paddle and anvil technique, and then slipped with an iron-rich clay and polished with a marine shell. They are fired in an open fire, removed while very hot, and immersed in a bed of rice chaff. The result is a shiny black pot that is easily recognized in the market as being the product of this neighborhood. Such pots are valued by consumers as more beautiful and durable compared with pots made elsewhere. To see if the iron and carbon surface treatments improve the performance of the cooking pots, 50 pots were commissioned, with surfaces that varied from no treatment to slip only or carbon only as well as both carbon and slip. This collection was tested at the University of Arizona, and results clearly indicate that heating effectiveness is improved with both slip and carbon present. The surface treatments of red slip and smudge also affect the performance of pots for water permeability. However, our tests show no obvious relationships between strength and different surface treatments. The project illustrates the power of combining ethnoarchaeology with experimental studies in understanding artifact design.