About time: age,period, and cohort effects on support for Quebec sovereignty

Can age, period and cohort effects help explain support for Quebec sovereignty? Previous work on this question has focused mostly on the effects of age and cohort. We contribute to this debate by adding a period perspective. As such, our study is the first to investigate the impact of age, cohort and period effects in a single study of opinion towards sovereignty in Quebec. We take advantage of an original dataset that includes survey data collected between 1985 and 2012. We use these data to examine the impact of age, birth year and survey year on support for this constitutional option among francophone Quebeckers. Our results are in line with previous work: we show that younger Quebeckers are more likely to support sovereignty, and that some cohorts – namely, respondents born between 1945 and 1959 – are also more likely to favour this option. Perhaps more surprisingly, we find that specific events are comparatively the most important factor to explain fluctuations in Quebeckers' attitudes towards sovereignty.     

Socio-economic status and religious identity in medieval Iberia: The zooarchaeological evidence

This paper synthesises faunal data from medieval archaeological sites in the Iberian Peninsula, aiming to identify zooarchaeological evidence that can improve our understanding of socio-economic status and cultural identities. The main zooarchaeological indicators for social differentiation are explored: food procurement and cuisine (taking into account different types of sites – high status, urban and rural), and different socio-political systems (Islamic and Christian regions), from a diachronic perspective.     

Khirbat al‐Mana‘iyya: an early Islamic‐period copper‐smelting site in south‐eastern Wadi ‘Araba,Jordan

Recent excavations in south‐eastern Wadi ‘Araba in Jordan have revealed the first early Islamic‐period copper‐smelting site known in the eastern side of the valley, which extends south of the Dead Sea to the Gulf of ‘Aqaba. Five test pits were excavated in 2012 at Khirbat al–Mana‘iyya, a prominent copper‐smelting camp in south‐eastern Wadi ‘Araba, Jordan. The results of these excavations demonstrate that the site was primarily active in the seventh–ninth century AD. Its distance from the copper sources of south‐west ‘Araba suggests that its location was chosen based on proximity to wood and water resources, rather than copper ore deposits. The discovery that the site dates to the early Islamic period has implications for previous and future work in south‐east ‘Araba. In particular, it challenges the common—until now—view of the region as virtually devoid of settlement during this period.     

What Can the State Do for You?

It has been suggested that Swedish policy during the early post-war period was strongly directed towards mobility-increasing expenditures – most notably relocation allowances – aimed at moving labour from north to south. While this view has dominated the academic discussion on labour market policy, there is little direct evidence. We make three claims. First, the relocation allowances have to be evaluated against the regional policy. Second, by doing so we show that the mobility-oriented policy was predominant only for a short period of time: in the early 1970s, there was a decisive shift towards a policy directed at stimulating employment in the north. Third, drawing on this, we revaluate the previous view on policy making in Sweden. Our analysis suggests that the Social Democratic government acted in a voter-maximizing way. The relocation allowances were introduced at the behest of the Trade Union Confederation (LO). The regional subsidies were expanded when voter sentiment turned against the perceived depletion of rural regions. However, this strategy interacted with the political and institutional environment. The new election law in 1970 and political competition from the Centre Party pushed the Social Democrats to shift their policies on regional subsidies.     

The legacy of Cesare Lombroso and criminal anthropology in the post-war Italian police: a study of the culture,narrative and memory of a post-fascist institution

This article examines the employment in post-war Italy of positivist scientific policing originally inspired by the work of the criminal anthropologist Cesare Lombroso at the end of the nineteenth century and subsequently developed at the scientific policing institute (Scuola Superiore di Polizia) in Rome. It analyses how the post-war police addressed the fascist regime’s employment of scientific policing for oppressive purposes and how far post-war scientific policing reflected the legacy of fascism. The article argues that post-war police narratives stressed the international importance of Lombroso and Italian criminal anthropology in order to ‘normalize’ the activities of the Scuola Superiore di Polizia during the fascist period and legitimize its work after the Second World War. Positivist criminological theories continued to influence police repression and criminal investigations in post-war Italy. However, the extent to which police officers and officials working outside the Scuola Superiore were convinced by such theories is questionable.     

Faunal remains from the Islamic fort at Luluyyah (Sharjah,UAE)

Knowledge about human subsistence and the role of animal economy in the Islamic period of south‐east Arabia is still sketchy. The analysis of faunal remains from the coastal fort at Luluyyah (Sharjah, UAE), dated to the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century CE, provides some information. People depended on marine resources and domestic animals, a trait observable in the region since the Neolithic. Livestock breeding was not particularly developed. Judging by the distribution of their skeletal remains, the animals were slaughtered at the fort, implying that they either lived there or reached it alive.     

Fabric fragments from Pine Island,Alabama: indicator of an evolving male costume item

European and indigenous artifacts from a grave near a mound on Pine Island in the Tennessee River near Guntersville, Alabama, donated to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in 1915, included a group of fabric fragments. The fragments, which incorporate interlaced bison-hair yarns, most likely represent portions of a sash, an accessory with a long history in Mississippian iconography but with few extant archaeological examples. This paper addresses fabric attributes, comparable archaeological and historical fabrics, and the social significance of this costume item.     

Radiocarbon Dating and the Historical Archaeology of Korea: An Alternative Interpretation of Hongryeonbong Fortress II in the Three Kingdoms Period,Central Korea

Relying heavily upon historical records to build archaeological chronologies, many Korean historical archaeologists question the utility of radiocarbon dating. To challenge this tendency, we test a model based on historical records by analyzing radiocarbon dates. We dated two bulk samples from Hongryeonbong Fortress II, Seoul, South Korea, which is known historically to have been occupied between a.d. 500 and 551. By dividing bulk samples into smaller aliquots, we dated 40 subsamples and statistically estimated consensus dates. The consensus dates do not support expectations of the historical model, as they do not lie within the temporal range provided by historical records. We propose an alternative model that explains both the radiocarbon dates and the historical records. It is suggested that radiocarbon dating can be successfully applied to the reconstruction of historical periods and is a way of mitigating possible biases of models based solely on historical records.