南非白人政权的“分别发展”图谋和“黑人家园”的设立

20世纪60年代“班图斯坦”（黑人家园）的设立,是南非现代史上的一个重大事件。白人政权不遗余力地积极推行这一“创举”,在南非国内和国际上都引起了强烈的反响。“黑人家园”的设立可谓“意味深长”,它是种族主义的极端体现,在政治上“让步”的背后,是精心设计的经济上“分别发展”计划的实施。     

A Segment is not a Monolith: evidence from the Howiesons Poort of Sibudu,South Africa

Segments from the Howiesons Poort of Sibudu, South Africa, can be separated into at least three populations based on quartz, hornfels and dolerite rocks used for their production. Length, breadth, thickness and tip cross-sectional areas are significantly different between segments made on the three rock types. Segments are not monoliths, and they were not intended as a single tool type, they were flexible enough to be mounted to shafts in a variety of ways. Several hafting strategies are evident, including the use of different adhesive recipes. Most segments were probably parts of hunting weapons, based on use trace analysis, but weapon types varied. Quartz segments have standardized shapes (short and deep), perhaps because they were hafted as transverse arrowheads. While hornfels and dolerite segments may on occasion also have been parts of projectiles, the large dolerite segments could sometimes have served as parts of spearheads, with two segments hafted back-to-back. Howiesons Poort segment technology is sophisticated; its makers appreciated distinct properties of rocks, their flaking, wear and impact possibilities. Further, they recognized the best sizes and shapes for use with each kind of weapon, they understood the qualities and applications of various adhesive recipes, and they knew how to make a variety of hafts from materials that included bone and wood.     

A method for estimating edge length from flake dimensions: use and implications for technological change in the southern African MSA

This paper presents a method for estimating edge length from flake dimensions. Comparison of estimated values with data from measured flake edges demonstrates the robusticity of the method. Building on the work of Braun (Braun, D.R., 2005. Examining flake production strategies: examples from the Middle Paleolithic of Southwest Asia. Lithic Technology 30, 107–125; Braun, D.R., Harris, J.W.K., 2003. Technological developments in the Oldowan of Koobi Fora: innovative techniques of artifact analysis and new interpretations of Oldowan behavior, in Mora, R., de la Torre, I. (Eds.), Oldowan: Rather More than Smashing Stones. Treballs d’ Arqueologia 9, pp. 132–144) this estimate is used to generate an edge length to mass value for complete flakes—taken to be a proxy for flaking efficiency. It is shown that this value is useful in tracking the onset, variability and decline of a well known technological phase—the Howiesons Poort of South Africa. The results suggest that the Howiesons Poort was a time in which flaking efficiency was emphasised. Furthermore, comparison of upper limits of edge to mass values for different raw materials may provide an insight into changes in raw material selection.     

New ages for the post-Howiesons Poort,late and final Middle Stone Age at Sibudu,South Africa

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) measurements are reported for single grains of quartz from deposits within Sibudu rock shelter. Such measurements enable rejection of unrepresentative grains and application of the finite mixture and central age models to obtain the most reliable age estimates. Three types of single-grain equivalent dose (D_e) distributions were observed: one sample represented a single dose population, three samples indicated mixing between Iron Age (IA) and Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits, and 10 samples (in addition to the three mixed samples) showed scattered distributions. The latter type resulted from differences in the beta dose received by individual grains. For these samples, the beta doses were modelled and adjusted accordingly. Ages for the 14 samples collected from MSA deposits post-dating the Howiesons Poort (HP) resulted in three age clusters, which are stratigraphically consistent with the three informally named cultural phases at Sibudu: namely, the post-HP, late MSA and final MSA. Weighted mean ages of 58.5 ± 1.4 ka, 47.7 ± 1.4 ka and 38.6 ± 1.9 ka were calculated for these phases, respectively. The three phases were separated by two occupational hiatuses with durations of 10.8 ± 1.3 ka and 9.1 ± 3.6 ka. We hypothesise that the punctuated presence of humans at Sibudu was determined by large-scale fluctuations in climate during oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 3, which resulted in alternating wet and dry periods. Phases of occupation correspond to wet periods when fresh water was available in the Tongati River, whereas intervals of site abandonment correspond to dry periods when people were forced to migrate in search of a reliable source of fresh water. Where people migrated to, remains unresolved.     

French geography, cartography and colonialism: introduction

This paper provides an introduction to a special feature of the Journal of Historical Geography devoted to recent research, by French scholars, on the relations between French geography, colonialism and the mapping of colonial boundaries, with particular reference to Africa between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.     

Sustained drought,vulnerability and civil conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa

With climate change projections indicating a likely future increase in extreme weather phenomena, it is an urgent matter to assess the effect of drought on civil conflict. However, studies of this relationship so far provide inconclusive findings. One reason for this inconsistency is that existing research has not sufficiently taken into account the local vulnerability and coping capacity that condition the effect of drought. In particular, the exposure to sustained droughts undermines alternative coping mechanisms of individuals. Moreover, reliance on rainfed agriculture for income and food provision renders individuals particularly vulnerable to droughts. Based on these observations, I suggest that areas experiencing sustained droughts or depending on rainfed agriculture are more likely to see civil conflict following drought as individuals in these regions are more likely to partake in rebellion in order to redress economic grievances or to obtain food and income. Using novel high-resolution data on civil conflict events in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1989 to 2008, this paper evaluates the relationship between sustained drought, rainfed agriculture and civil conflict violence at the subnational level. In line with the argument, areas with rainfed croplands see an increased risk of civil conflict violence following drought. There is also some support for the proposition that areas experiencing sustained droughts have a higher risk of conflict. The results are robust to a wide range of model specifications.     

‘Caught’ between foreign cultural and development policies: perspectives of German Studies and German as a foreign language in Africa

The promotion of the German language abroad and of German Studies plays a central role in German Foreign Cultural Policy. With regard to Sub-Saharan Africa, otherwise a peripheral region for foreign policy, German as foreign language is firmly established as second language after English. Learners especially in Francophone West and Central Africa have increased over the past decade. Numerous funding programmes and actions are supported by German nongovernmental organizations at college/university levels. But bilateral cooperation between German and African academic institutions are challenged both by negative perceptions of the ‘Global South’ among Western colleagues and by an infrastructure adverse to research and to career development in most African countries. Additionally, North/South relations are traditionally seen in terms of (under-)development by German institutions, effecting cooperation. The paper develops a differentiated picture of African Studies in Africa, and outlines benefits that can be attained through collaboration ‘at eye-level’.     

Sodic metasomatism in the Palaeoproterozoic Hotazel iron-formation, Transvaal Supergroup, South Africa: implications for fluid–rock interaction in the Kalahari manganese field

Petrological and geochemical evidence is presented on the occurrence of aegirine in the Palaeoproterozoic Hotazel iron‐formation, which hosts the giant manganese deposits of the Kalahari manganese field, South Africa. The mineral has an essentially pure Na end‐member composition and occurs sporadically in iron‐formation immediately bordering the manganese ore beds. The development of aegirine appears to have taken place due to the action of late‐infiltrating, saline hydrothermal fluids at the expense of a pre‐existing, binary quartz–hematite assemblage. It is proposed that such a process would have overprinted (and therefore post‐dated) a spatially more extensive, low‐temperature alteration event which brought about thorough carbonate leaching, oxidation and residual enrichment of metals in the Hotazel iron–manganese rocks.     

The Fauna from Ele Bor: Evidence for the Persistence of Foragers into the Later Holocene of Arid North Kenya

This paper reports on the results of zooarchaeological analysis of fauna from two stratified rockshelters at Ele Bor, 200 km east of Lake Turkana, Kenya. Ele Bor Site A, with radiocarbon determinations from 7000 to 1000 B P, yielded around 4000 identifiable bone specimens. The other site, Ele Bor M, yielded only a hundred bone specimens and will be discussed less extensively in this paper. Fauna from the EBA, although heavily modified by various taphonomic agents, testify to the strong continuity of a broad-based foraging pattern into the first millennium AD, the long stability of human use of a broad range of wild vertebrate species and to a stone-working tradition, augmented but not substantially modified by the introduction of ceramics and grinding equipment during the sixth to third millennium BC.Cette article présent des résultats de 1'analyses zooarquéologiques du faune de deux abris stratifiés à Ele Bor, situé 200 km à 1'est du Lac Turkana dans Kenya. Ele Bor Site A, avec datations du radiocarbon du 7000–1000 ans B.P., provient dans 1'environ de 4000 pièces identifiqués, et le de Ele Bor M, 100 pièces identifiques. Le faune de Ele Bor A, bien que modifiés par diverses processes taphonomiques, testifié à un continuité assez fort de subsistence bassé des especies vertébres indigènes, typiques d'environnements secs. Il n'ya pas d'évidences de adoptation de especies domestique, ni des plantes ni des animaux, jusqu'a 1'ultime millenaire avant présent.     

Possible evidence of bone tool shaping by Swartkrans early hominids

Ever since Dart (J. Phys. Anthrop. 7 (1949) 1) interpreted certain bones from Makapansgat as tools, scientific consensus has fluctuated as to whether some bone objects from early hominid sites should be interpreted as artefacts, or the result of non-human taphonomic processes, which are known to produce pseudo-bone tools morphologically similar to human modified or used artefacts. Here we present possible evidence of bone tool shaping from Swartkrans (Members 1–3; ca. 1.8–1.0 Mya). Four horncores and the proximal end of an ulna used as tools in digging activities also have facets covered by parallel spindle-shaped striations characteristic of grinding. Identification of these traces as possibly resulting from deliberate shaping or re-sharpening of the bone tools is based on the characterisation of the use-wear pattern and other taphonomic modifications observed on the Swartkrans bone tools. This interpretation is also supported by the study of the remainder of the horncores from Swartkrans, horncores from other southern African Plio-Pleistocene sites (Sterkfontein, Makapansgat, Gondolin), modern horncores affected by pre- and post-mortem modification, ethnographic, LSA, African Iron Age and experimental bone tools shaped by grinding. These data suggest that early hominids had the cognitive ability to modify the functional area of bone implements to achieve optimal efficiency.