Ancient Maritime Fish-Traps of Brittany (France): A Reappraisal of the Relationship Between Human and Coastal Environment During the Holocene

The present-day maritime landscape of Western France forms the geographical framework for a recent research project dedicated to the archaeological study of ancient fish-traps, combining regional-scale and site-scale investigations. Based on the compilation and exploitation of a large unpublished dataset including more than 550 sites, a preliminary synthetic study allows us to present some examples of synchronic and thematic approaches, and propose a morphological classification of the weirs. These encouraging first results open up new perspectives on fish-trap chronology closely linked to wider studies on Holocene sea-level changes.     

A new map of Qâni’ (Yemen)

Qâni’, the main seaport for the export of goods from South Arabia, was founded by the Hadramawt kingdom in the first century BC. A geomorphological survey and a general surface reconnaissance of Qâni’ have revealed a new image of the site. Originally a royal entrepôt in a fortress on an ancient island, separated from the mainland by a silted channel lined with a mangrove forest, Qâni’ gradually grew and spread around the beach fronting the mooring place of the trade ships that arrived by sea. Sacred spaces, cemeteries, dwellings and trade quarters appear to be well‐defined areas forming a real town within the limits imposed by the surrounding sea.     

The brains in Brain: the coevolution of localization and its images

Images of brain localization from Brain's inception to the present are analyzed. Textual representations and their accompanying images are shown to coevolve; that is, the technological and conceptual development of the research program of localization is shown to evolve simultaneously with the exploitation of visual resources that support these developments. The semiotics of Peirce, the social semiotics of Kress and van Leeuwen, and the insights of Gestalt psychology provide a critical vocabulary with which to describe and to analyze these visual resources. I conclude that brain images evolve in a manner that reflects the uniformity in measuring instruments and the increase in their precision in the localization of brain functions; at the same time, they draw attention away from a persistent constraint: the brain functions so precisely localized are just those that are not constitutive of our humanity.     

The Role of Cultural Clustering in Attracting New Immigrants

Abstract This paper argues that new immigrants cluster in culturally homogeneous groups in the host country because of imperfect information. However, a pulling effect exists provided that the cultural communities are not too large. With a panel of migration flows to the major O.E.C.D. countries from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s, it is shown that the existence of similar cultural communities attracts new immigrants. However, the effect is not homogeneous for all types of source and destination countries. Furthermore, the pulling effect is shown to fall to zero for cultural communities above a certain threshold size.