Subsistence practices and pottery use in Neolithic Jordan: molecular and isotopic evidence

This paper presents direct evidence of subsistence practices and pottery use at a Late Neolithic site at al-Basatîn, northern Jordan. Measurable concentrations of C_16:0 and C_18:0 were recovered from 8 of 10 archaeological pottery fragments through use of a microwave-assisted silica gel and aminopropyl solvent protocol developed for the isolation and concentration of free fatty acids in marine sediments. Subsequent isotopic analysis of the surviving C_16:0 and C_18:0 saturated fatty acids revealed ∂¹³C ratios consistent with those of adipose fats of ruminant and non-ruminant animals pastured on lands adjacent to the Jordan Valley. The high recovery of diagnostic compounds from the al-Basatîn material is discussed in context of a wider examination of the initial development and use of pottery in the Fertile Crescent, and the emerging debate concerning the efficacy of stable carbon isotope values in characterizing organic residues embedded in pottery fragments recovered from the earliest ceramic horizons in the Middle East and Europe.     

放射性碳素测定年代报告(三八)

本报告发表的是中国社会科学院考古研究所考古科技实验研究中心碳十四实验室和中国科学院地球环境研究所西安加速器质谱测试中心在2007～2011年期间测定的40个考古数据。数据表示方式与以往所发报告相同。为方便应用另做如下几点说明。1.碳十四年代半衰期按5568年计算。2.校正年代所用程序为OxCal,校正曲线为1998年公布版本。3.与以往报告相同,所给年代误差范围均为±16,年代范围的概率分布为68.2%。4.由于树轮年代校正曲线各区段形状不同,校正后年代范围可能形成几组,总合概率为68.2%(与过去报告中总合概率表示为100%相同)。5.校正均按单一样品方式处理。6.数据均作碳十三     

Combining research-based student fieldwork with staff research to reinforce teaching and learning

This paper addresses the relationship between teaching and research in a fieldwork context by seeking student views over 3 years across two institutions to assess the perceived value of blending staff research activity with student fieldwork. Student views were solicited using questionnaires. Despite the contrasting environments, locations and approaches of the institutions’ respective field courses, student perceptions are remarkably similar. Engaging in research activity in fieldwork (and specifically combining research-based student fieldwork with staff research) is perceived strongly to add value to study for a degree, as well as stimulate interest in the subject and improve understanding of methodologies employed.     

Home–work relations and the spatialization of care: wives on the margins of the Israeli high-tech industry

This study applies the concept of care to examine how home–work transitions of high-tech men affect others in these two places, namely their wives and managers. The high-tech industry is famous for its particularly demanding culture and masculine disposition, which contest daily involvement with family and domestic affairs. Care is conceptualized as a wide-ranging multifaceted notion that embraces work, morals, and policy, and is represented by the exchange of various tangible and intangible, resources across the home–work divide. In-depth interviews with 22 high-tech managers and 47 wives of high-tech engineers disclose a well-established reciprocity of care resources. The managers reward the wives' nonmaterial support of the engineers/husbands with rhetorical recognition and nonfinancial benefits. The spatialization of care across the home–work divide is discussed, pointing to its hierarchical – not only contextual – relations.     

Science as propaganda: Swedish scientists and the co-production of American hegemony in Sweden during the cold war, 1953–68

This article takes a close look at how the United States used the funding of scientific research in Sweden as a hegemonic and propaganda tool in the 1950s and 1960s. It shows that non-aligned Sweden functioned just as much as a node in the international science network set up by the Americans after the Second World War as did the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries. These funds were awarded mainly to an elite network of prominent Swedish scientists. The article sheds interesting light on the controversies of such funding in Sweden during the cold war and adds important knowledge about Swedish–American relations during the cold war. The article argues that this Swedish scientific elite co-produced US hegemony in Sweden by actively seeking out American military funding and by making use of it. It also argues that US funding was intended to portray the United States as an altruistic patron of science in the world and thus serve American propagandistic purposes as well.     

Stable isotope analysis of prehistoric populations from the cemeteries of the Middle and Lower Dnieper Basin,Ukraine

This paper presents the results of new stable isotopes (carbon and nitrogen) analysis of human, faunal and fish remains from thirteen cemeteries from the Middle and Lower Dnieper Basin, Ukraine. The results are integrated with earlier analyses, undertaken solely on human samples, in order to provide a comprehensive overview of subsistence across the Upper Palaeolithic through to Eneolithic periods in this region. This is the first time that a combined sample of human, faunal and fish remains has been studied in order to interpret subsistence strategies across these periods in Ukraine. The total dataset comprises 113 samples of human, faunal and fish remains, 59 of which include new analyses of faunal and fish remains that have not previously been made available for study (Table 1). The analysis of the faunal and fish remains allows for a consideration of trophic levels which indicates that the consumption of freshwater fish occurs from the Epipalaeolithic period onwards. Whilst the majority of the cemeteries and the individuals therein cluster in relatively tight groups, there is a significant offset between the human and faunal samples due to the consumption of freshwater resources. The fish samples analysed in the study appear to exhibit a relatively random distribution when compared to the other samples analysed. In general, freshwater resources remain significant through until the end of the Neolithic period and into the Eneolithic period at the sites investigated.     

博物馆策展人:学者艺术鉴赏家展览组织者——屈志仁先生专访

博物馆策展人的素质与能力是博物馆陈列展览特别是专题展览成功的关键因素之一.美国大都会艺术博物馆亚洲艺术部主任、国际著名博物馆策展人屈志仁先生以"忽必烈的时代"展为例指出:博物馆策展人应同时具备学者、艺术鉴赏家与展览组织者的素质与能力,通晓与展览有关的历史学、艺术史、文化史及文物与博物馆学等学科知识,组织、协调从研究策划...     

Resource nationalism or resource liberalism? Explaining Australia's approach to Chinese investment in its minerals sector

Since 2005, a burgeoning wave of Chinese investments has set off a new ‘minerals boom’ in the Australian iron ore and coal mining sectors. While normally a welcome development, the state-owned and strategic nature of the investors has raised concerns in Australia about how these should be regulated. As a result, in February 2008 the Australian government declared an intention to more closely screen foreign direct investment (FDI) from state-owned sources, which both supporters and detractors alike have claimed is evidence of ‘resource nationalism’ in Australia's approach towards its trade and investment relationships with China. This article challenges this understanding through an examination of the characteristics of Chinese mining FDI, the dilemmas these present to the Australian government, and the relatively restrained nature of its response. Through this, Australia's FDI policy is explained as a defensive move against the potential for strategic behaviour by Chinese investors resulting from their state ownership, rather than any national program to subject minerals trade and investment to political control. On this basis, the article argues that Australian government policy instead evidences a ‘resource liberalism’ approach, which intends to ensure that the governance of Australia's minerals trade and investment with China remain market-based processes.     

‘A dog who I know quite well’: everyday relationships between children and animals

Adult discourses often represent relationships between children and animals as beneficial for children's psycho-social development or as reflecting a ‘natural’ connection between children and animals. In contrast, this paper draws on recent work in sociology and geography where human–animal relationships are seen as socially situated and where conventional constructions of the human–animal boundary are questioned. Focussing on children's own perspectives on their connections with animals, it is argued that these relationships can also be understood within the social and relational context of children's lives. It is argued that this ‘relational’ orientation to children's relationships with animals might significantly enhance our understanding of children's lives and also open up ways of thinking about the place of animals in children's (and adults') social lives.     

Diversity in foddering strategy and herd management in late Bronze Age Britain: An isotopic investigation of pigs and other fauna from two midden sites

Abstract

Middens of the southern British late Bronze and Iron Age are vast accumulations of cultural debris that can be explained as refuse dumps linked with large periodic feasting events. A distinctive feature of these sites is that their faunal assemblages invariably comprise a considerably higher proportion of pig remains than contemporaneous settlement sites. This paper presents results from a programme of stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotope analysis of fauna from two major midden sites, Llanmaes in South Wales and Potterne in Wiltshire. The research aim is to reconstruct husbandry strategies and foddering regimes, particularly concerning pigs, to better understand how the challenges of raising large herds were met. Analysis produced exceptionally wide-ranging results for pigs and other domesticates at both sites, particularly in terms of δ¹⁵N values, demonstrating that diverse foddering strategies were employed. Diversity in the late Bronze Age pig foddering regimes indicates that the Neolithic husbandry practices (focusing on woodland fodder) had not been abandoned, but that new husbandry methods (consumption of household waste) were also being practised, which subsequently became more widely established in the Iron Age. The heterogeneity of signatures suggests that animals may have been husbanded in a piecemeal fashion at a local, household level. This in turn hints that fauna may have been brought to these sites from households across the surrounding landscape, rather than being husbanded by specialist producers in the vicinity of the middens.