Trees as technology: planting shelterbelts on the Great Plains

The turbulent climate of the Great Plains made windbreaks necessary for the protection of settlers and their livestock and crops. At first individual farmers tried to plant their own shelterbelts but with little success. The US Forest Service, with the establishment of the Bessey tree nursery, in 1902, and the field planting of the Nebraska National Forest, developed the expertise to carry out farm forestry on the plains. In 1934 the Forest Service undertook the Prairie States Forestry Project, an eight‐year program to plant shelterbelts from Canada to Texas, in response to the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. These shelterbelts were a technological solution to environmental and social problems. As they grew, successful shelterbelts developed forest characteristics and served as habitat for birds and wildlife. As systems that were both technical and ecological, shelterbelts embodied a confluence of culture and nature in the technology that farmers and foresters used to engineer a more suitable environment for American society on the Plains.     

Six seasons of wild pea harvest in Israel: bearing on Near Eastern plant domestication

Harvest experiments of wild crop relatives are essential for our understanding of the biology of wild plants embodied in the economy of ancient forager communities. Most of the previous experimental harvest reports spanned a single season and therefore are unable to address questions concerning long-term yield potential. Herein we report on six consecutive harvest seasons taking place at four sites in Israel that harbour wild pea populations: three typical Pisum fulvum sites and one typical Pisum elatius site. Three out of the four sites showed no indication of a decline in grain yield as a result of repeated harvest and the removal of a considerable portion of mature seeds. Site-specific factors seem to have a strong influence on the grain yield as no seasonal yield similarity was observed between adjacent and ecologically similar sites harbouring the same wild pea taxon. The erratic year-to-year wild pea yield we observed calls for a reassessment of the presumed role of grain legume species in Near Eastern hunter–gatherers' diet. Combined with published data on cultivation of wild pea, our results are inconsistent with models suggesting protracted domestication of Near Eastern grain legumes or with the preliminary attempts to apply Niche Construction Theory to the study of plant domestication in the Near East.     

Unpacking the discursive Irish woman immigrant in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Newfoundland

From the late 1600s to the early 1800s, Irish migrants journeyed to Newfoundland to take advantage of opportunities in the lucrative Newfoundland cod fishery. Focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this essay explores constructions of Irish-Newfoundland womanhood as articulated by local British officials, the Catholic Church, and male-centred family history narratives. These discourses located women at the margins of early settlement experiences or rendered them invisible altogether. Yet Irish-Newfoundland women were able to negotiate their own subjectivities within this discursive terrain, finding spaces for identity construction in the disjuncture between rhetoric and lived experiences. Some resided more immediately under the hegemonic gaze and struggled to break free from dominant narratives. But most became essential workers in household fishing production outside the capital of St John's, and their vital contribution as shore crews gave them considerable power and authority both in their households and in the broader community. Performing demanding physical work on stages and flakes (elevated wooden structures) or in gardens and fields, carrying out various economic activities in their own right, they were hardly the unproductive, unruly bodies of British official discourse or the passive flowers of civilisation narrated from Catholic pulpits. And far from being absent from the migration story, they were central players in community formation and the economic life of the island. In this historical context, proximity to/distance from hegemonic knowledge production created variations in identity construction within a group often represented in the literature as homogeneous and powerless.     

Fragments of Boats from the Canale Anfora of Aquileia,Italy, and Comparison of Sewn‐Plank Ships in the Roman Era

Fragments of Roman sewn‐plank boats have been found, during rescue excavations, in the Canale Anfora, an artificial channel used by Roman ships to enter the Roman city of Aquileia. Remains were found in both 1988 and 2005 at the same site. Elements of what were probably two boats are analysed and compared to other finds of Roman sewn boats found along the coast of the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions. They are evidence of the use of this technique, instead of the more widespread mortise‐and‐tenon system, in the quite limited area of the Northern Adriatic. These boats were used both for inland and for maritime navigation.     

Implementation of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems to Preserve Cultural Heritage — Pilot Motte Montferland

The shallow subsurface in historic cities often contains extensive archaeological remains, also known as cultural deposits. Preservation conditions for naturally degradable archaeological remains are strongly dependent on the presence or absence of groundwater. One of the main goals at such heritage sites is to establish a stable hydrological environment. Green infrastructural solutions such as Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) can support preservation of cultural deposits. Several cases show that implementation of SUDS can be cost effective at preservation of cultural deposits. These include Motte of Montferland, City mound of Vlaardingen, Weiwerd in Delfzijl, and the Leidse Rijn area. In all cases, the amount of underground infrastructure is minimised to prevent damaging cultural layers. SUDS have been implemented to preserve cultural heritage. The first monitoring results and evaluation of the processes give valuable lessons learned, transnational knowledge exchange is an important element to bring the experiences across boundaries.     

旋子彩画小议

旋子彩画以旋子花的变形图案为基础单元,分布在梁枋藻头位置。本文就其类型、适用范围和时代特征等问题作了简要论述,并对清式旋子彩画严格的等级制度作了初步探讨。     

新时期党内纪律检查工作的卓越领导人——陈云

纪律检查工作是党建工作的一个有机组成部分 ,紧紧抓住党风问题 ,是陈云同志指导纪律检查工作的一个突出特点 ,中纪委在陈云同志有关指示精神的指导下 ,集中抓了为刘少奇同志平反和康生、谢富治两个阴谋家的审理案件 ,对于明辨“文革”中的是非 ,实现拨乱反正 ,起到了重要作用 ;进入改革开放时期 ,陈云同志一再提醒全党和各级纪委 ,一定要严防改革开放可能带来的消极东西 ;从严执纪 ,是陈云同志的一贯主张 ,在纪检队伍的建设中 ,陈云同志特别强调了干部素质问题 ,陈云同志对新时期党风廉政建设和纪律检查工作作出的贡献是十分巨大的 ,他所形成的思想成果 ,是邓小平新时期党风廉政建设理论的重要组成部分。     

试论现代物流业与港口城市空间再造——以大连市为例

伴随着全球化的深入和世界性的产业转移高潮,处于全球供应链枢纽节点地位的大型港口城市在物流经济中起着越来越强大的极核作用。现代物流业在港口城市飞速发展,必将引起港口城市的产业结构和功能分区变化,并通过港口物流发展带动物流企业集聚、大型物流园区兴起、构建城市型轴--辐物流网络主导物流配送网点布局,参与港口城市空间再造。本文运用经济学和城市地理学的相关理论,结合大连市现代物流业发展予以论证。     

数字时代的历史事实建构——以电子族谱编撰为例

近年在网络世界出现的帮助用查考及编撰族谱的网页,是探讨数码时代在万维网上衍生的历史叙述的建构过程,以及其有可能产生的社会和心理后果的一个例证。电子族谱在内容上虽然可以沿用既有的手钞和印刷族谱的素材,然而,电子族谱所衍生的编撰传统绝对不能视作手钞和印刷族谱的延续。相反,电子时代的族谱编撰和字时代的族谱编撰,分别见证着两种不同的社会事实建构的过程。进入数码时代,族谱的编撰很有可能从一个传统的、集体的、乡村社会的配套仪式,变成是个人的、存在于城市和网络空间的孤立的仪式。     

中国共产党三代领导集体的西部开发思想与实践

从毛泽东、邓小平到江泽民的三代中央领导集体先后进行了可称之为三次西部开发高潮的建设。第一次是 50年代大规模西部新工业基地建设 ;第二次是 1 964— 1 978年进行的三线建设 ;第三次是 1 999年至今的西部大开发战略。三次西部开发体现了三代领导集体在不同的历史阶段进行的思想探索和实践努力 ,是一个继承、发展和创新的过程。特别是 80年代以后 ,从邓小平关于一部分地区先富起来最终实现共同富裕的思想 ,到江泽民“三个代表”思想指导下的西部开发 ,是一个重要的思路飞跃 ,为西部地区最终取得适合自身特点的经济发展 ,奠定了成熟的思想基础