Seashore Settlement Patterns in the Koné and Naïa Periods: Case Studies from Southwestern New Caledonia

As part of a geological survey in southwest mainland New Caledonia, potsherds were recorded in the profiles at four coastal sites. Subsequent archaeological investigations at two of these sites have allowed us to diversify the ceramic data and show them to be local variants of Podtanean, Puen, and Plum ceramic types. These are characteristic of production in the southern part of the archipelago during the first millennium BC and first millennium AD. The presence of fishing sites showing no indication of permanent settlements on these seashores, and the clear absence of second millennium AD occupations related to the “Traditional Kanak Cultural Complex”, characterized by large sedentary hamlets, illustrate a significant shift in settlement patterns between the first and second millennium AD.     

Australia's embrace of investor state dispute settlement: a challenge to the social contract ideal?

This paper explores the origins of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) treaties and their implications for the Australian social contract. This analysis includes how and why ISDS emerged in NAFTA, was rebuffed with the failure of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), and became incorporated into most subsequent bilateral US trade and investment agreements. The paper considers Australia's exposure to ISDS—first through using it in bilateral investment agreements in nations with inadequate governance mechanisms to support the rule of law, then turning against it when a multinational tobacco company tried to use the mechanism to overturn scientifically endorsed, democratically approved and constitutionally validated tobacco plain packaging measures. The paper concludes by exploring the hypothesis that an alternative governance vision can be achieved in which the system of investment arbitration and trade law is made coherent with presumptively more democratically legitimate normative systems such as constitutional and international law.     

Coarse cloth and clerical tailoring: negotiating Boston-Irish cultural imperatives in the Famine era

Recent calls for updated approaches to the Irish-American historical experience recommend more systematic attention to complexities inherent in Irish immigration and settlement. They also seek further contextualisation of the history of the Irish in the USA within broader North American, transatlantic and global frameworks. The need to review and potentially reappraise longstanding, essentialist perspectives on Irish arrival and assimilation is equally evident. This article expands on foundational narrative histories of the Boston Irish to re-examine Famine-era settlement and contending agendas within spheres of religious affiliation and political activism. The character and evolution of Irish-American ethnic identity, and the tragic imprint of the Famine under consideration here pave the way for new readings of traditional orthodoxies. Collectively, they reveal Boston's Irish historical terrain to be more complex than the record currently suggests.     

Life at the end of the Holocene moist phase in south‐east Arabia — the Late Neolithic site of Jebel Thanais 1 (JTH1)

The surface site of Jebel Thanais 1 is located in the Emirate of Sharjah (U.A.E.) at the western flank of the Jebel Faya/Jebel Buhais anticline structure. A dense scatter of lithic artefacts and fireplaces indicates Stone Age settlement activities in this area. Radiocarbon dates obtained from fireplaces date the occupation of the site to both the beginning and the very end of the fifth millennium cal. BC. During the second half of the fifth millennium the deterioration of climatic conditions in south‐east Arabia had a noticeable impact on settlement patterns and subsistence strategies. While coastal habitation sites from this time are well known along the shores of the Oman peninsula, only a few poorly dated sites allow insights into habitation and raw material procurement strategies and lithic technology in the interior. Investigations into the spatial structure of the site and an analysis of lithic finds will contribute to a better understanding of this period.     

关于新石器时代的三次“革命”

在新石器时代文化研究中,农业革命和城市革命的理论认识早就普遍接受。但把农业革命作为新石器时代革命的基本内容,仍不能充分解释旧石器时代向新石器时代的过渡问题。在农业革命之前,还应存在着以资源开发为目的、以居住方式变革为重要途径的居住革命,即发达的新石器时代文化曾经历过的三次革命性变化。     

解剖性发掘及其聚落考古研究意义

在田野考古及聚落研究实践中,解剖性发掘是十分必要的。无论是各类遗迹的地上设施还是地下部分,都需要从未知的角度实施解剖性清理,这样才有可能获取有关埋藏过程与堆积特点方面的信息和证据。     

论中世纪晚期英国的圣徒崇拜

在中世纪晚期,英国的圣徒崇拜盛行,成为民众宗教信仰的中心。与中世纪早期相比,晚期的圣徒崇拜已发生了一些变化,民众已经开始关注到自己,具有了自我取向与现实取向。这表明在中世纪晚期,英国民众的宗教信仰中出现了“个人主义”倾向,在物质力量增长的同时,英国民众的精神力量也在发展。     

传统农区城乡体系空间结构演变及其形成机制研究——以河南省周口市为例

以传统农区周口市为研究对象，利用聚落斑块面积和相关社会经济指标，探讨了周口市城乡体系空间结构演变规律与作用机制。研究发现，周口市城乡体系空间结构演变呈现低端均衡结构（1973年）-点轴结构（1990年）-中心外围结构（2000年）-圈层结构（2015年）的演进过程，每种结构对城乡要素流动的方向和作用各不相同，从而使城乡体系的空间结构各不相同。交通导向机制是影响城乡体系空间结构演变的早期主导因素，促进城镇体系空间结构不断拓展，并带动乡村体系空间结构不断更迭；特色产业是影响城乡体系空间结构的新机制，助推城乡体系空间结构进一步完善；政府作用机制有效地引导城乡体系空间拓展方向，推动城乡空间格局结构性地演变。     

Protrusion, Bioturbation, and Settlement Detection during Surface Survey: The Lowland Maya Case

In upland settings in humid and semihumid temperate and tropical environments, bioturbation is a major factor in the burial of modest architectural remains, which are abundant components of the settlement systems of complex societies. Surface survey, favored by archaeologists of complex societies as a settlement detection method, seldom is appropriate for discovering architectural remains buried through bioturbation. Where the focus of analysis includes settlement represented by architectural remains, surface survey is appropriate only where all or a representative sample of all types of architectural remains are protrusive. Protrusion describes a relationship (affected by climate, environment, topography, and cultural variables) between the height of a ruined building and the depth of the biomantle, which is the zone of bioturbation. To enable archaeologists to assess the appropriateness of settlement detection procedures, including surface survey, I propose a scheme that classifies architectural remains in terms of their protrusion, building height, and visibility characteristics. The scheme can be employed to determine if and why architectural remains are protrusive in particular study areas. To demonstrate its analytical utility, I apply the scheme and the model of building burial through bioturbation that underlies it to the problem of Maya invisible settlement. I conclude that in the Maya lowlands of Mesoamerica, building remains buried through bioturbation are a more abundant settlement category than many archaeologists have supposed.     

Regional Approaches to Mesopotamian Archaeology: The Contribution of Archaeological Surveys

This work synthesizes and critically evaluates the results of field surveys conducted over the last 20 years in southern (lower) and northern (upper) Mesopotamia, with emphasis placed on the increasing contribution of off-site and intensive surveys to regional analysis. During the Ubaid period the density of settlement was probably higher in the rain-fed north than the irrigated south, and even during the phase of 3rd millennium B.C. urbanization, settlement densities in the north were probably equivalent to or even exceeded those in the south. Although trends in settlement were often synchronous between north and south, there was also a marked spatial variability in settlement, with declines in one area being compensated by rises elsewhere. Particularly clear was the existence of a major structural transformation from nucleated centers during the Bronze Age towards dispersed patterns of rural settlement and more extensive lower towns in the Iron Age.