Les Pradelles (Marillac-le-Franc, France): A mousterian reindeer hunting camp?

The site of Les Pradelles has an important mousterian stratigraphic sequence. In the lower levels, the very low density of artefacts as well as the carnivores scavenging of carcasses abandoned by the neanderthals point to short-term human occupations; the introduction of finished tools (made on non-local, good quality flint) later highly curated, together with an expedient strategy on strictly local flint, suggest a task-specific location, within a low mobility pattern. The large faunal sample (mainly reindeer) underlines the preponderance of hunting activities. A range of butchering activities took place on the site and the abundance of filleting marks may be an indication of the processing of meat for transport to another settlement. The hypothesis of “specialized hunting” during Middle Palaeolithic is assessed with this new data set.     

Navigational Equipment from 't Vliegend Hart (1735)

The Dutch United East-India Company ship 't Vliegend Hart sank in the mouth of the River Scheldt in 1735. With archival sources the wreck was located in 1979, and in the following years researched and excavated, a process still continuing. This article gives a brief historical introduction on the ship, followed by a paragraph on the art of navigation and navigational instruments at the time of 't Vliegend Hart 's sailing. Thereafter this is compared with the navigational artefacts retrieved from the wreck. In the final paragraph the exploration of the 't Vliegend Hart wreck is briefly dealt with.
© 2006 The Authors     

一部规范清代社会成员行为的图谱——有关《皇朝礼器图式》的几个问题

《皇朝礼器图式》是乾隆帝钦命绘制的一部与清礼息息相关的器物图谱。本文通过对该图所绘器物的含义及乾隆礼制思想确立的梳理,分析了乾隆绘制《礼器图》的本意是在表达一种治国理念,以期用图谱的形式为社会各等级人士设立行为规范,从而达到上下有序、尊卑有别的治国目的。透过这些器物,我们可以看到以服饰为代表的满汉文化的融合,以军器为代表的中国开始落后于西方的历史,以仪器为代表的中西文化的冲突等等很多重要的清朝社会波澜。此图不但是我们今天认识200年前天文地理仪器、冠袍带履、车马轿舆、枪炮军械、民族乐器等文物的重要参考文献,也是我们了解18世纪中国社会变化的一份珍贵的形象资料。     

Operationalizing social equity in public policy design: A comparative analysis of solar equity policies in the United States

While it is widely recognized that energy injustices are prevalent in the clean energy transition process, there has been limited research attention on policy efforts aiming to mitigate these inequities. In this paper, we use solar equity policies as an empirical case study to understand how social equity considerations are conceptualized and operationalized in energy policy content. We build upon the policy design literature and code institutional statements of 54 solar equity policies adopted between 2001 and 2021 in the United States. In our comparative analysis, we focus on three levels of policy design elements that can be directly observed in written policy language: macro-policy goal construction, meso-policy instrument choices, and micro-level policy settings and calibrations. We find that the policy goal of energy justice is multifaceted, with a great emphasis on solar energy accessibility and provision of economic benefits and security for disadvantaged communities. There is a dominant preference by policymakers to use redistributive policies and community solar programs to advance energy justice-related goals. Solar equity policy instruments on-the-ground measures have also been calibrated to target specific disadvantaged populations in the energy system, which focus mostly on income-based vulnerability.     

Chemical Alteration of Lithic Artefacts: an Experimental Case Study on the effect of Guano on Stone Flakes and Its Contextualization in the Archaeological Assemblage of Azokh Cave (Southern Caucasus)

Chemical weathering of archaeological material is well known; however, while there have been a number of experimental studies demonstrating different types and degrees of chemical alteration on faunal remains, little attention has been paid to stone tools, and the few studies that exist relate mainly to siliceous materials and water‐induced chemical alteration. Azokh Cave, located in the South Caucasus, contains a Middle Pleistocene to Holocene infill, and detailed macro‐ and microscopic examination of the lithic assemblages recovered there indicates potential chemical weathering of the stone artefacts. The cave is also currently home to one of the largest bat colonies in the region, and their guano forms a significant component of the infill of the inner galleries. Based on these two factors, an experimental pilot study was set up to artificially chemically alter a range of stone flakes produced specifically for the task, in order to determine the nature and likely cause of weathering. The experimental flakes, produced from different raw materials, were buried in fresh bat guano for up to two years. The results reported herein demonstrate that in a relatively short time, the highly acidic composition of bat guano strongly affects calcium‐bearing rocks (e.g., limestone, basalt) altering their entire surface. Similar comparisons may be made with chemical alteration evident on archaeological lithics from Azokh Cave, suggesting that bat guano has played a significant role in diagenetic alteration.     

Playing with Flint: Tracing a Child’s Imitation of Adult Work in a Lithic Assemblage

This paper examines the potential for identifying play and children’s imitation in the archaeological record and reviews cultural constructions of play and cross-cultural behaviour. A case study, using a lithic assemblage from a discrete knapping area for Scandinavian Neolithic axe production in Southern Sweden which identifies a child’s activity area, is discussed. The theoretical and methodological assumptions behind play, imitation and its identification as well as its social implications are also examined.     

Standing at the gates of Europe: Human behavior and biogeography in the Southern Carpathians during the Late Pleistocene

This study presents a behavioral analysis of Middle and Upper Paleolithic lithic assemblages from 14 sites located in the southern Carpathian Mountains. Using a whole assemblage behavioral indicator, we show that the hominins that manufactured those stone tools do not appear to have differed in terms of the flexibility of the mobility strategies they employed to exploit their landscapes. Rather than biological change, we argue that large-scale climate changes are likely more important drivers of behavioral changes during the Late Pleistocene of the region, including during the Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition. These results agree well with the results of studies having employed this methodology in other regions, suggesting that this is a generalized feature of the transition across Eurasia. Recasting the transition as a mainly ecological rather than purely biocultural process allows us to generate new perspectives from which to approach the question of behavioral change during the Late Pleistocene, and ultimately suggests that the process referred to as the ‘Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition’ is essentially a brief segment of a much more extensive process driven by prehistoric human–environment interactions that would culminate in the highly logistical mobility strategies documented throughout the continent at the Last Glacial Maximum.     

The Seventeenth-Century Terrestrial Globe by Morden,Berry and Lea

Throughout the early modern period, the intellectual and symbolic value of globes ensured these objects enjoyed a broad cultural appeal. Consequently, their design was subject to a wide range of social, commercial and intellectual pressures. The ways in which the intellectual and cultural concerns of seventeenth-century England became manifest in the cartographic design, resulting in a culturally specific product with broad appeal to an English audience, are highlighted in the case of a terrestrial globe constructed by Robert Morden, William Berry and Philip Lea, c.1683?1690, now in the Whipple Museum, Cambridge. Since this particular globe was produced at an early stage in the history of English globe making, light is shed on the emergence of a national globe-making tradition.