Nature-Society Interactions in the Pacific Islands

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on nature—society interactions in the Pacific Islands before European contact about 200 years ago. It argues that the character of early interactions was decided by both the nature of a particular island environment and the intentions of the human settlers. Throughout the pre‐European contact human history of the Pacific Islands, environmental changes of extraneous cause have been the main control of societal and cultural change. This environmental determinist view is defended using many examples. The contrary (and more popular) cultural determinist view of societal change in the Pacific Islands is shown to be based on largely spurious data and argument. A key example discussed is the ‘AD 1300 Event’, a time of rapid temperature and sea‐level fall which had severe, abrupt and enduring effects on Pacific Island societies. It is important to acknowledge the role of environmental change in cultural transformation in this region.     

留英学生与五四新文化运动——以《太平洋》杂志为中心

五四时期留英学生的思想活动鲜见论者讨论.本文以留英学生1917年初创刊于上海的<太平洋>杂志为中心,讨论其同人群体及其文化思想和教育主张.作为留英学界的一股知识力量,<太平洋>同人所提供的新思想观念,对于五四新文化运动具有积极推动和引导作用,这与以<新青年>作为运动的指导力量并无二致.但<太平洋>的思想背景有着浓厚的英伦调和主义色彩.     

Investigating compositional diversity among Fijian ceramics with laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS): implications for interaction studies on geologically similar islands

This paper presents a ceramic provenance analysis of 260 Fijian sherd clays by laser-ablation inductively-coupled-plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). Our analyses define three compositional groups in western Fijian ceramics distributed across the 2700 year ceramic sequence. Frequencies of compositional groups represented in the diachronic assemblages indicate an increasing spatial sphere of interaction until approximately 1500 BP. By 1000 BP interaction had spatially contracted to a significant degree. These findings suggest re-evaluation of current ideas about interaction in the southwest Pacific is necessary.     

美国早期共和国媒体的扩张话语

通过选择性的报道和评论,美国早期刊物积极鼓动美国政府和美国民众占领印第安土地,同化或者驱赶印第安人,利用一切机会蚕食和占据欧洲国家在北美的殖民地;某些媒体甚至还要求美国向太平洋扩张,谋求北美大陆之外的海洋霸权。虽说早期媒体的扩张话语并不等同于美国政府的实际政策,但却反映了众多政治家和民众的扩张意识,勾勒出了美国以扩张为手段建立世界帝国的主要线索。从该角度而言,建国初期的报刊杂志浓缩了美国的扩张史,为我们了解美国早期扩张思想创造了又一契机。     

隋唐宫廷绘画机构概述

唐代是中国宫廷绘画发展的第一个高峰期。其间名家辈出,名作累累。以往美术史界对其制度与机构的研究甚少。本文首次对唐代宫廷绘画的制度与机构作了较全面的介绍与分析。     

古代日本五月五日礼仪中的中国因素

古代日本的五月五日礼仪,始自7世纪初,形成伊始受到中国夏至理念的影响。至8世纪律令制国家确立后,五月五日节仪成为体现天皇与全体官人政治关系的重要国家礼仪。中国民间五月五日习俗中的菖蒲、续命缕等道具成为律令制五月五日节仪的必要组成要素,避邪除灾的观念也随之被融入五月五日节仪之中。     

Preservation of old‐growth forests: a case study of Big Timber Park,Whistler, BC

This paper explores the concepts of old‐growth forests, preservation and natural disturbance and demonstrates how contemporary biogeographic theory contributes to successful preservation of old‐growth forests. The case study analyzes the composition, structure, age and growth histories of trees in Big Timber Park, Whistler, British Columbia. Composition. The structure of the forest was diverse and tree ages ranged from 122 to 305 years. The densities of large old Douglas‐fir, shade‐tolerant trees and all snags are indicative of old‐growth forests; however, maximum tree diameters and densities of large snags and logs do not meet quantitative criteria for old‐growth forests. The abundance of tree regeneration and understory vegetation are relatively low. We conclude that some aspects of Big Timber Park are transitional between the mature and old‐growth stages of forest development. In the future, fine‐scale canopy gaps caused by tree senescence and interactions among insects, pathogens and wind are expected to dominate stand dynamics. Forest structure will become increasingly complex, exemplifying the dynamic nature of old‐growth forests. To successfully preserve Big Timber Park and La préservation des forêts other old‐growth forests in Canada requires understanding of natural disturbances. Preservation and the criteria and indicators used to measure successful preservation must explicitly include elements of natural change.     

Rock Art: A Potential Source of Information about Past Maritime Technology in the South-East Asia-Pacific Region

It is possible that most or all boats and rig-types used in prehistoric times in the South-East Asia-Pacific region have completely disappeared from the record, and that those recorded by Europeans in the 17th century may have been relatively recent innovations. The purpose of this paper is to introduce to the literature a new source of information on ancient boat and rig designs. This source is the information encoded in rock-art depictions of watercraft. This paper provides a technical appraisal of 18 images of watercraft from the Tutuala region of East Timor.
© 2007 The Authors     

Modeling ground slate knife production and implications for the study of household labor contributions to salmon fishing on the Pacific Northwest Coast

Despite longstanding anthropological concerns with the origins of intensive delayed-return subsistence economies and the timing of the development of increasingly complex political systems on the Northwest Coast, the use and production of slate knives—one of the most archaeologically visible tools used to process seasonally available salmon—has received little attention in the archaeological literature. This can be attributed, in part, to the persistence of artifact typologies that have failed to generate behavioral implications for variability in slate artifact assemblages. In this article, I use data derived from ethnographic, experimental, and actualistic research to develop an approach to the classification of slate artifacts expected of knife-production activities. Emphasis is placed on framing slate knife production as a temporally emergent and situated activity, but also as an operational sequence that can be modeled due to regularity in the decisions and motions expected of tool makers producing functionally specific tools. Using slate assemblages recovered during the partial excavation of seven Late and Contact period Coast Salish houses in southern British Columbia, I then evaluate and demonstrate the utility of this approach by considering variability in household labor contributions to salmon fishing.     

Performance measurement as policy rhetoric: the case of federal arts councils

Various reforms at the federal level have led bureaucracies, including arts councils, to design and implement performance measurement systems. We still know very little about whether performance measurement has any influence on the external conditions of arts councils, or whether it serves as policy rhetoric for arts advocacy. In this article, we seek to understand the answers to these questions by conducting a case study of performance measurement at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). We conclude that there is little evidence that performance measurement at the NEA has had any appreciable effects on agency appropriation levels. Therefore, as a policy response to federally mandated performance measurement systems, arts councils might do better in focusing exclusively on metrics that capture internal efficiency, as opposed to those that serve to demonstrate performance to external constituencies.