Landscapes without the car: a counterfactual historical geography of twentieth-century Britain

Despite increased concern about environmental damage and resource depletion, the private motor car, and associated automobility, are taken-for-granted aspects of twenty-first-century life. This paper makes the counterfactual assumption that private ownership of cars was severely restricted at the start of the twentieth century, and uses a range of historical data to examine the ways in which such a scenario might have impacted on transport infrastructure, personal mobility and urban life. It is argued that, even without the wholesale adoption of the motor car as a means of personal transport, patterns of everyday mobility would not have differed significantly from today so long as other forms of transport had remained or expanded to cope with this demand. However, such a scenario would probably have required journeys to be planned in different ways, may have been qualitatively different from travel today, and could have disadvantaged particular groups of the population, including some women. A landscape without cars would probably also have altered the form of cities, with services provided closer to where people live, and levels of air pollution substantially lower. The counterfactual historical analysis is used to argue that, although there is little likelihood of cars being banned in Britain, greater restrictions on private motor vehicles would not necessarily lead to the fundamental changes in everyday mobility that some might predict.     

乌江流域土司时期文化环境审视

乌江流域土司时期的文化环境是该地社会进步、经济发展和民族团结的现实空间,地域特征极其鲜明。一是有深厚的人文积淀,二是强化的汉文化教育,三是开放的文化心态,四是丰富的物质资源,五是鲜明的民族风情,六是剧烈的社会动荡。笔者认为,理清乌江流域土司时期的文化环境,对挖掘该地深厚的土司文化资源,促进现今民族地区的经济发展、社会进步和民族团结具有十分重要的意义。     

基于LoRa与NB-IoT技术的文物保存环境监测系统探索及思考——以四川博物院为例

针对当前文物保存环境监测系统实际应用中,存在布线复杂、通信稳定性差、造价及安装维护成本高、需要频繁更换电池等一系列问题,本工作比较研究了几种成熟网络通信技术在文物保存环境监测系统中的应用现状及特性,并以四川博物院现有433 MHz技术监测系统为例,通过对博物馆应用场景的实验测试,从信号强度、丢包率和电池功耗等多方面,对比分析采用433 MHz、LoRa和NB-IoT等3种网络通信技术的优劣。实验结果表明,基于433 MHz技术的文物保存环境监测系统,存在现场布线复杂、建设成本较高、安装维护困难等明显弊端,而基于LoRa、NB-IoT技术的监测系统,与现有的433 MHz技术相比,在大大降低安装维护成本的同时也减少了中间节点的传输损耗,但所有测试点信号质量并未达到监测所需的覆盖效果,需要通过调整监测系统部署、优化网络应用性能等方式加以解决。在此基础上,结合文物预防性保护的实际应用需求,提出初步思考及建议,以探索一种布局安装方便快捷、使用维护成本低廉的新型文物保存环境监测系统。研究结果对今后文物保存环境监测系统网络构架的选择和博物馆预防性保护工程建设具有重要参考价值。     

Some chronological implications of a fossil molluscan assemblage from a neolithic site at Brook,Kent, England

The later post-glacial history of a valley in the chalk escarpment near Brook, Kent, is described, based on molluscan stratigraphy, archaeological evidence and radio-carbon dating. Differences in size and colour banding, respectively, of fossil and living representatives of two species of land snails, Pomatias elegans (Müller) and Cepaea nemoralis (L.), are correlated with climatic change during the post-glacial period. The problems of the use of fossil shells of these species as samples for radiocarbon dating are discussed.     

Prologue to a contextual archaeology

The thesis of this essay is that a gap presently exists between the research interests of modern scientific archaeology and the research methodology which structures archaeological investigation. It is argued that this is a function of the traditional objectives of archaeology, and that a methodology justified by a distinctive set of goals is necessary to produce studies more closely related to present archaeological concerns. The traditional goals of archaeology are here characterized as the historical result of prior interests, reinforced by the character of formal programmes of graduate study. The set of distinctive goals identified in the essay derives from assessment of the significance of methodologies appropriate to the investigation of palaeoenvironments in modelling prehistoric cultural systems and subsystems.The proposed methodology is substantively, as well as substantially, different from methodologies in present use. I have called it Contextual Archaeology in recognition of its debt to the statement of an archaeologically-significant method Butzer (1978) has advanced under the name Contextual Approach. It is argued here that contextual archaeology, despite practical problems, is both a productive and an implementable alternative.