Assembling the Austrasian Letters at Trier and Lorsch

This article is a reconsideration of the Epistulae Austrasicae. We critique the widespread notion that the constituent letters were compiled by a courtier in the late sixth century at Metz as a book of models for use in the Austrasian chancellery. We argue instead that a monk from the monastery of Lorsch assembled the letters in the early ninth century from individual exemplars and groupings that he found in archives at Trier. We conclude by outlining some implications of this rereading for the edition and interpretation of the letters as sources for the Merovingian period, and point out some avenues for future research on their reception in the Carolingian period.     

A scientific luther

Francis Bacon. By Perez Zagorin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998) xvi + 286 pp. $29.95, £19.95

Francis Bacon: The History of the Reign of King Henry VII. Edited by Brian Vickers (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1998) xlv + 284 pp. £40.00 cloth     

Commentary. The diseases of Alexander the Great

The accompanying articles that speculate that Alexander the Great had a traumatic carotid dissection or congenital cervical scoliosis demonstrate the difficulties in retrospective diagnosis as a historical enterprise. The extant primary sources were written centuries after Alexander's death and are ambiguous in their original languages, and even more so in translation. Thus we cannot be certain what illness Alexander actually had. Furthermore, anachronistic diagnosis removes Alexander from the medical context of this time, telling us little of historical significance about him. Such investigations also illustrate the more general limits that the absence of context imposes on the study of ancient history.     

Geochronology of plutonic rocks from the Sanandaj-Sirjan zone,Iran and new zircon and titanite U-Th-Pb ages for granitoids from the Marivan pluton

The Sanandaj-Sirjan zone of Iran is a metamorphic belt consisting of rocks which were metamorphosed under different pressure and temperature conditions and intruded by various plutons ranging in composition from gabbro to granite. The majority of these granitoids formed along the ancient active continental margin of the Neo-Tethyan ocean at the southeastern edge of the central Iranian microplate. Geochronological data published in recent years indicate periodic plutonism lasting from Carboniferous through Mesozoic to late-Paleogene times (from ca. 300 to ca. 35 Ma) with climax activity during the mid- and late-Jurassic. The age constraints for plutonic complexes, such as Siah-Kouh, Kolah-Ghazi, Golpayegan (Muteh), Azna, Aligoodarz, Astaneh, Borujerd, Malayer (Samen), Alvand, Almogholagh, Ghorveh, Saqqez, Marivan, Naqadeh and Urumieh, clearly indicate the periodic nature of magmatism. Therefore, the Sanandaj-Sirjan zone preserves the record of magmatic activity of a complete orogenic cycle related to (1) Permocarboniferous(?) rifting of Gondwana and opening of the Neo-Tethyan ocean, (2) subduction of the oceanic crust, (3) continental collision and (4) post-collision/post-orogenic activities. The formation of the Marivan granitoids, northwestern Sanandaj-Sirjan zone, for which we present U-Pb zircon and titanite ages of ca. 38 Ma, can be related to the collisional and post-collisional stages of this orogenic cycle.     

COLLEGE-TO-WORK MIGRATION OF TECHNOLOGY GRADUATES AND HOLDERS OF DOCTORATES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES

ABSTRACT.  This study estimates a series of random parameter logit models of the college-to-work migration decisions of technology graduates and holders of doctorates within the United States. We employ detailed information on the migration-relevant characteristics of individuals, as well as on their actual origins and destinations at the metropolitan scale. In addition to its obvious implications for "brain drain" policies in U.S. metropolitan areas, the study demonstrates the richness of the random parameters technique for behavioral-geographic analysis. We find that science and technology graduates migrate to better educated places, other things equal; that PhD graduates pay greater attention to amenity characteristics than other degree holders; and that foreign students from some immigrant groups migrate to places where those groups are concentrated.