The Kulbulak Bladelet Tradition in The Upper Paleolithic of Central Asia

The article describes lithic industries of the Upper Paleolithic levels of Kulbulak, Uzbekistan, a key site in southwestern Central Asia based on materials from excavations at several sites in the western and northwestern Pamir– Tien Shan region (Kulbulak, Kyzyl-Alma-2, Dodekatym-2, and Shugnou). A new cultural and technological tradition is introduced, for which the authors suggest the name Kulbulakian. Its distinctive features are the bladelet technique and a microlithic set including backed pieces and triangular microliths. Stages in the evolution of the Kulbulakian tradition are reconstructed: origins, development, peak, and disappearance of the carinated technology. Industries belonging to this tradition have shaped the general appearance of the Upper Paleolithic in the area in question.     

东南亚地区农业起源研究综论

自20世纪50年代始,东南亚地区的农业起源探索历程至今已半个多世纪。大量考古发现表明,东南亚早期农业的性质是依赖于根系作物的驯化和块茎作物的栽培,该地区早期农业的特点与树木栽培的实践紧密相连,但农业起源的时间尺度仍未很好地建立。基于东南亚地区植物遗存和农业性质的特殊性,多种研究方法得以运用,也相继提出了许多不同的理念。东南亚地区农业起源的研究对中国华南地区早期农业的探索具有很好的启示作用。     

防疫还是排华？——1911年俄国远东地区大规模驱逐华侨事件研究

论文介绍了1911年俄国远东地区当局以＂防疫需要＂为名大规模驱逐华侨和限制中国人入境等排华事件的主要过程,分析了这一事件背后更深层的原因。认为当时华侨在俄远东地区的广泛存在,引发了俄国国内一部分政治势力在政治、国防方面的担忧和恐慌,便以＂防疫＂为名,以＂排华＂为实制造了这一标志着自19世纪60年代以来俄国境内排华活动达到高潮的事件。在此次事件中,中国政府努力对难民进行了安置,并进行外交交涉,但成效不彰。     

Asian migration to Australia: Changing trends and implications

International migration between Asia and Australia has undergone profound change in the last two decades. This paper outlines the major changes which have occurred in this movement. The proportion of Australia's resident population born in Asia has increased from 1.1 % in 1976 to 5.5 % in 2001. Asians now make up more than a third of new settlers to Australia but there has been an increased diversity in the flow of Asian settlers to Australia as well as the substantial increase in numbers. Australian international migration has entered a new era since the mid‐1990s with a greatly increased flow of temporary workers to Australia. The inflow of these workers is less dominated by Asia‐born people than is the permanent flow except for student migration. There is also an increasing flow of movers from Australia to Asia. Much current knowledge and research remain focused on Asian permanent settlement in Australia. While this is important and worthwhile, there is a need to broaden the work to encompass the full range of population movements between Asia and Australia if the impact of international migration is to be adequately assessed.     

Dreaming of a Golden Bengal: Discontinuities of Place and Identity in South Asia

This article analyses five different representations of the homeland category “Bengal”. The region of Bengal was partitioned twice in the twentieth century and imagined in a multitude of forms at different historical moments. The article describes the conditions that allowed different territories and peoples to crystallise as “Bengal” and “the Bengalis”, and investigates why some versions of the Bengali homeland proved durable as others faded away. Rather than asking who is the real Bengali and where is the real Bengal, it investigates how particular identity categories become popularly practised and why particular images of the homeland come to be perceived as true, legitimate and authentic. It concludes that homeland categories are never fixed and finalised, but are rather always in a process of becoming, and are contested, reimagined and redefined as socio-political contexts change.     

Politics and Public Policy

Abstract

Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others has been widely praised as the first German film to confront the horrors of the East German communist regime. But the film's politics may be ambiguous. As critical as it is of East Germany, it does not offer a ringing endorsement of West Germany. For example, the film's playwright-hero seems to have artistic problems in the West, just as he did in the East. The film's equivocal attitude toward communism is epitomized by its apparently positive view of the Marxist author Bertolt Brecht. This essay compares The Lives of Others with Brecht's play The Good Person of Szechwan in an effort to understand Donnersmarck's attitude toward his East German predecessor and what it means for his larger view of communism and its relation to art.     

Inferring attitudes from behavior

Abstract

The Middle East has long been a conflict zone; the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been a persistent factor for decades, and there have been wars over natural resources, ideological causes, and national or religious cleavages as well. How does a historian begin to compile a documentary record of such a struggle? At the beginning of my research stay in the Middle East in 2007, I decided to keep a diary about my experiences and assessments in the field. In this article, I recount and reflect about those experiences in order to propose potential solutions to the problem of on-site research in unstable areas. While field research generally requires a particular kind of preparation, and always faces obstacles and challenges, the success of fieldwork under difficult and hostile research settings is dependent on the skills of the researcher, and his or her ability and preparedness for the problems the nature of the research inevitably will bring forward.