An overview of bitumen trade in the Near East from the Neolithic (c.8000 BC) to the early Islamic period

The aim of the paper is to summarise the present state of knowledge concerning bitumen trade in the Near East from the Palaeolithic (70,000 BP) to the Early Islamic period. During the Palaeolithic and Early Neolithic period, bitumen utilisation was mostly concentrated in settlements close to oil seeps. From the Ubaid 3 period, bitumen from the Mosul area became more important and was traded as far as the southern Persian Gulf. The Uruk period is a turning point for Mesopotamian history as settlements evolved into city‐states. These cities had a great need for raw materials, and this marks the beginning of large‐scale exploitation of Hit bitumen. This bitumen was traded at settlements along the Euphrates, where a large trade network was established. Hit bitumen entered the Persian Gulf at the turn of the second millennium (Dilmun period). Bitumen from Iraq (Mosul and Hit) became predominantly used in most settlements along the southern coast of the Gulf. During this period Iranian bitumen was also exported and this supply tended to increase, especially during the Partho‐Sasanian period. Dead Sea bitumen had its own exchange network, which was concentrated across present‐day Israel and Egypt where it was extensively used for mummification.     

从海上交通看中国与百济的关系

2～7世纪的东亚世界,正处于国家整合和社会变革的非常时期。其时位于朝鲜半岛西海岸的国家——百济与中国大陆各朝代的交往最为密切和频繁,成为中国大陆、朝鲜半岛和日本列岛诸国之间沟通联系的重要使者和促进东亚汉字和儒学文化圈形成的重要媒介。透过古代史籍文献中的有关记载和考古的发现研究,以连接中国大陆东部和朝鲜半岛西部的海上交通为切入点,可以从航海史的角度揭示中国与百济之间来往和交流的历史面貌。     

Anxiety and injustice: the anatomy of contemporary English nationalism*

ABSTRACT. An explicit and politically mobilised English nationalism has been remarkable because of its absence from deliberation on constitutional change in the United Kingdom. In short, it remains a mood and not a movement. This article explores the mood and explains why that mood has not become, as yet, a movement. It examines three related aspects of the English nationalist mood. First, it considers anxieties about the condition of contemporary England which can be found in the work of intellectuals and artists. Second, it identifies the sense of injustice which animates the lobby group the Campaign for an English Parliament. Finally, it looks at how mainstream party politics responds to these national anxieties and that sense of national injustice.     

The Neolithic Macro-(R)evolution: Macroevolutionary Theory and the Study of Culture Change

The macroevolutionary approach in archaeology represents the most recent example in a long tradition of applying principles of biological evolution to the study of culture change. Archaeologists working within this paradigm see macroevolutionary theory as an effective response to the shortcomings of neo-Darwinian biological evolution for studying cultural evolution. Rather than operating at the level of individual traits, macroevolutionary archaeologists emphasize the role of hierarchical processes in culture change. While neo-Darwinian archaeologists disavow any element of human intent in culture change, to macroevolutionary archaeologists human agency is a key component of cultural evolution that allows cultures to respond to pressures more quickly and with greater degree of flexibility and directedness than found in biological evolution. Major culture change, when it happens, is likely to be rapid, even revolutionary, with periods of rapid change separated by periods of relative stasis of actively maintained stability. The emergence of Neolithic cultures has long been recognized as one of two periods of major revolutionary culture change in human prehistory. Here I examine the record for the Near East, tracing the empirical record for the origin of agriculture in this region, as well as other demographic, social, and ideological components of Neolithic emergence. While the empirical record from the Near East subscribes in a general way to basic principles of macroevolutionary theory, cultural evolution cannot be understood through appeal to principles of biological evolution alone, whether based in macroevolutionary theory or neo-Darwinianism. Instead, the key role of human agency in culture change distinguishes cultural evolution from biological evolution and requires a more pluralistic and less doctrinaire appeal to multiple models of change based in both the biological and social sciences.     

区域东亚与知识“东亚”

"东亚"既是一个空间性概念——即地理性、地域性的概念,又是一个时间性的概念——即历史性的和意识形态的概念。现代性的介入,使得"东亚"成为一个需要不断重新界定和检验的概念。区域东亚是知识"东亚"的理解和阐释对象,知识"东亚"是区域东亚在理论和知识上的抽象和提升。区域东亚在结构上具有封闭性、多元性的特征,在功能上又具有流变性和开放性的特征。知识"东亚"的命题集中反映了知识界的"中心-边缘"结构、各种知识背后的意识形态竞争和权力诉求。现代性和东亚的关系并不是一种单向度的"冲击-回应"关系,而是一种双向的相互建构的共生关系。     

Situating middle class identities: American college women of South Asian descent

This article explores the ways in which American college women of South Asian descent discuss their positioning as middle class. The article analyses participants' talk around class as evidence of embeddedness in American class discourses and a complex and contradictory scheme of identification that implicates other identities like gender, race and culture. Respondents often articulated class using the American Dream, where the social capital their parents immigrated with is left unexamined in favour of a narrative of ‘rags to riches’. Young women also used other constructs like ‘stability’, ‘race’ and ‘resources’ to make reference to class, but also to participate in an American discursive silence around it. Finally, the notion of a drive towards professionalism as an immigrant goal is examined, and it is suggested that this serves to further deflect discussions of class. This article synthesises theories of diaspora, ‘translocational positioning’ and habitus, and examines the production of American class discourse as a performance of an American middle class habitus.     

Reaping the rewards: the potential of well designed methodology,a comment on Vardi et al. (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1716–1724) and Goodale et al. (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1192–1201)

The recent articles by Vardi et al., “Tracing sickle blade levels of wear and discard patterns: a new sickle gloss quantification method” (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1716–1724), and Goodale et al., “Sickle blade life-history and the transition to agriculture: an early Neolithic case study from Southwest Asia” (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1192–1201), are two papers that seek to address interesting archaeological questions through the development of new approaches to measuring the duration of stone tool use. Here comment is made on the fashion in which research design and analytic procedures contribute to limit the capabilities of each of the techniques presented. Whilst the authors support the investigation of novel techniques, in order for the results of any use-wear analysis to be accepted as reliable the methods employed must be demonstrably sound.     

Contested Cartographies: Empire and Sovereignty on a Map of Sistān,Iran (1883)

ABSTRACT

The papers of Malkam Khān (1833–1908), Iranian ambassador in London from 1872 to 1889, a staunch supporter of Iranian state modernization and a scholar, include an often-overlooked map of the Iran–Afghanistan border dating to 1883. Mirzā Mohammad-Rezā Tabrizi compiled this exceptional piece of nineteenth-century Iranian cartography. The map is an illustration of how quickly the Qajar administration was able to emulate European cartographical discourses to protect its own interests in the context of the so-called ‘Great Game’, that is, the often confrontational Russo–British relations over the control of Central Asia and Afghanistan in the nineteenth century. In this article we show that Iranian officials had developed a much more substantial articulation between cartography and statecraft than is conveyed by the stereotypes in nineteenth-century Western literature, when the capacity of local players to use counter-mapping to their own advantage was often underestimated by European agents. Mirzā Mohammad-Rezā Tabrizi’s map of Sistān exemplifies how the apparently all-powerful Western science that seemingly supported nineteenth-century imperial expansion was rarely left unchallenged locally. The genealogy and circulation of the map also reflects how overly simplistic the postulation of a polarization of ‘Western’ knowledge and ‘Eastern’ attempts at safeguarding local sovereignty can be.     

隋唐都城尺度设计方法新探

对隋唐都城设计尺度的还原分析表明,两京的尺度设计分别以数字"九"与"七"为基数控制宫、宫城与皇城、郭城、市、苑囿的东西广度,并以9:10与1:1为基准比例,确定全城的尺度结构与规模。两京的设计与布局方法与萌生于北魏洛阳,并影响到了同时期东亚其他都城的布局设计,同时也对唐以后中国历代王朝都城设计产生重要影响。     

伪满协和会分会规则的演变及成效

伪满协和会是近代日本侵略中国东北时期由日本侵略者勾结汉奸在伪满洲国发起成立的政治组织,分会既是协和会的基层组织单位,又是协和会开展活动的主体。1935年2月第一次调整协和会分会规则时,只调整了分会设置原则。1937年8月的第二次调整则对分会规则进行了全面调整。其目的都是为适应日本侵华政策的时局需要,最大限度地发挥协和会在伪满殖民统治的作用。经过这两次调整,分会数量大幅度增加,其恶劣行径所影响的范围也日趋扩大,给中国东北社会及东北人民带来深重的灾难。