Locational Disadvantage and Household Locational Decisions: Changing Contexts and Responses in the Cessnock District of New South Wales,Australia. 1964–1999

Following the rapid demise of local coalmining in the 1950s and early 1960s, the former coal towns of the Cessnock area have survived in their newfound dormitory role, with cheap serviced housing acting as a major constraint on out–migration and an incentive for in–migration for low–income householders, mainly engaged in external commuting or outside the workforce. Behavioural responses to widening local job deficits in the early 1960s were reported in this journal (Holmes, 1965). From household surveys and other sources, Holmes examined the interplay between individual, household and locality variables and presented a spectrum of projected future outcomes for localities, according to accessibility, size and service provision, either attached to the Newcastle–Maitland labour market as low–income outer suburbs or experiencing varying rates of decline while providing low–cost welfare housing. While these broad trends have continued over the last 35 years, significant variants, not predictable in 1965 have emerged, notably: the increased residential attractiveness of some small localities; the strengthening of welfare migration, notably from Sydney; the increase in non–workforce households; and, some evidence of emerging socio–economic polarisation in larger towns. In these respects, Cessnock localities can be viewed as a microcosm of wider trends in Australian society, trends which are most fully revealed in disadvantaged metropolitan peripheral localities.     

Variability and sampling strategy of cave wall concretion: Case study of the moonmilk found in Leye Cave (Dordogne)

Cave Art is a fragile testimony of past human societies and the development of modern behaviours. In limestone caves, moonmilk commonly endanger the artworks. It is a calcite deposit with a large variability of chemical composition and morphological structures and it hosts numerous microbial communities. The possibility to characterize this deposit in the field would aid in a better understanding of cave behaviour and allow the setting up of proper conservation measures. The present study analyses the variability of a moonmilk strip of metric size in Leye Cave in the Vézère Valley (Dordogne, France). The cave was not ornate and was selected as a laboratory cave in which in‐situ observations and micro‐sampling could be carried out, before they were performed in cavities hosting parietal artworks. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations of 24 samples allowed, for the first time, an investigation of the variability of moonmilk deposits over the same wall of a few metres dimension. The observations highlighted the low variability of the moonmilk at the microscopic scale when regarding the chemical composition and morphological structures, despite significant macroscopic diversity, thus providing insights into how to optimize the sampling strategy of moonmilk in ornate caves.     

汉代黄河流域麦作发展的环境因素与技术影响

汉代冬小麦的推广与普及,具有自东向西的时空特点。麦作发展是区域自然环境与技术条件交互作用的结果,其中自然环境条件是影响汉代黄河流域冬麦普及过程的基本因素。不论是黄河下游地区冬麦种植的较早普及还是关中地区冬麦推广的迟滞,均首先与当地的自然环境有关。在黄河下游地区,人们利用冬麦的生长特性趋利避害,减少和防止河汛水患的影响,保障粮食生产,麦子得以广泛种植。在关中地区,干旱的困扰一度制约了冬麦的推广和普及。在自然因素推动下的汉代麦作推广与普及,促进了黄河流域抗旱耕作及粮食加工技术的发展,影响深远。     

《中国历史地图集》北宋秦凤路图正误三则

《中国历史地图集》北宋秦凤路图中,有两地可进一步讨论,一处缺失可增补。来远寨在今天水市武山县洛门镇裴家庄西南东旱坪,而非马力镇袁河村;大洛门寨在四门镇北之大南河沿岸。威远寨亦非滩歌镇镇兴堡,而在洛门镇蓼阳村与湾儿村附近。来远、大洛门、威远三寨控驭洛门谷,协同防御秦州西部的渭河河谷。     

黄河流域早期铜器演进初探

黄河流域是中国早期铜器起源与发展的关键区域,早期铜器的演进受社会复杂化程度制约。在文明化进程的视野下,本文通过用铜遗存的考古信息与社会经济背景,将黄河流域早期铜器的演进分为早期用铜的萌芽、发展初期及区域化特征形成三个阶段,初步阐释铜制品从出现到规模化使用的过程。人群流动、定居农业、手工业生产、城市与权力的集中是影响黄河流域早期铜器演进模式的重要因素。大体在公元前2300年至前1400年的文明进程中,黄河上游铜器的制作与使用具有相似的风格及开放共融的特征,而黄河中下游地区防御性城市与权力的发展,推动了铜器技术与社会功用的本土化转变。     

Beyond Knee-Jerk Environmental Thinking: Teaching Geographic Perspectives on Conservation,Preservation and the Hetch Hetchy Valley Controversy

Attention to scale, use of space and connections between places and regions are general, yet distinctive, geographical concepts that may be employed in introductory level human-environment geography courses to distinguish them from other environmental studies offerings. This article demonstrates how attention to the aforementioned concepts provides fresh insight into the notions of exploitation, conservation and preservation for many environmental studies students. Furthermore, it is suggested that the Hetch Hetchy Valley controversy, commonly used in many US environmental studies textbooks to demonstrate the difference between conservation and preservation, is actually quite problematic when critically assessed from alternative geographic perspectives.     

查果西沟摩崖造像2009年考古调查简报

2009年6月,陕西省考古研究院与西藏自治区文物保护研究所联合对西藏自治区昌都地区芒康县查果西沟摩崖造像进行了全面而详细的考古调查,现存的7尊造像可以分为三组:第一组包括大日如来与二菩萨、一供养人在内的4尊造像具有明显的吐蕃造像特征,时代为公元9世纪初期;第二组的1尊高浮雕造像与第三组的2尊线刻造像时代可能为公元12世纪甚至更晚,显示了查果西沟及周边地区佛教的发展及延续性。     

Jiangzhai: Social and economic organization of a Middle Neolithic Chinese village

The Early Yangshao period (5000–4000 BC) village of Jiangzhai is the most completely excavated and reported of any early agricultural community in the middle reaches of northern China’s Yellow River Valley. This comprehensive dataset can better our understanding of early agricultural village societies and complex society development, especially the emergence of economic inequality. Analyses of Jiangzhai’s architectural remains and their arrangement; estimates of household population, storage capacity, and animal consumption; and analyses of household artifact assemblages are used to reconstruct the social and economic organization of this important Neolithic settlement. Our analyses suggest that differences in economic organization at the household level are responsible for patterns of intra-settlement economic differentiation previously attributed to higher-order “corporate” institutions. Rather than a segmental society composed of redundant homologous units, Jiangzhai displays substantial variability among residential sectors and constituent households in terms of activity emphases and surplus accumulation. Substantial intrasite variation in socioeconomic organization has previously been thought characteristic only of more complex Late Neolithic societies in the middle Yellow River Valley region.     

Implications of a freshwater radiocarbon reservoir correction for the timing of late Holocene settlement of the Elk Hills,Kern County,California

Uncertainties regarding the magnitude of freshwater radiocarbon reservoir effects can introduce random errors into dates on archaeological freshwater carbonates. As a result, many archaeologists avoid dating freshwater shells unless no other datable materials are available. The chronology of prehistoric occupation of the former Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 1 (NPR-1) at Elk Hills, Kern County, has been established with 50 radiocarbon dates on freshwater mussels (Gonidea and Anodonta sp.). Characterization of any freshwater radiocarbon reservoir effect is crucial for the accurate interpretation of inferred settlement and subsistence changes on the Elk Hills. Paired charcoal and freshwater mussels sampled from closely associated contexts were dated to identify a freshwater reservoir effect. Paired Anodonta and Gonidea sp. shells were dated to investigate interspecific differences in fractionation. Results indicate that a 340 ± 20 ¹⁴C yr correction should be applied to conventional ¹⁴C dates on freshwater carbonates in the Buena Vista Basin before calendar calibration. Evidence of interspecific differences is inconclusive. Dates recalibrated with the reservoir correction indicate that widespread occupation of the Elk Hills is correlated with increasing precipitation towards the end of the Medieval Climatic Anomaly and during the Little Ice Age, suggesting that slough resource exploitation may have been driven by regional population pressure rather than drought-related declines in aquatic productivity.