A New Albion in New America: British Periodicals and Morris Birkbeck’s English Prairie, 1818–1824

The “English Prairie” settlements in Edwards County, Illinois attracted an inordinate amount of commentary in the post‐Napoleonic War period, providing a window into British intellectual life of the period. Morris Birkbeck, the more famous of the English Prairie’s two founders, came to personify America for British readers. Commentators ranged widely in their opinions of the English Prairie, speaking in broad terms of either superior aspects of western American society and polity or else making the new state of Illinois a foil to illustrate the ills of democracy and religious disestablishment. Three of the most prominent British reviews of the time – the Edinburgh Review, Quarterly Review, and Westminster Review – were vital participants in this debate that was really about the future of Great Britain. The periodicals created images of America suited to their understanding of the situation, as one small part of sparsely populated Illinois became a vicarious arena for competing concepts of politics and religion.     

Mountains

Glacier ice from the south and west invaded upper Strathspey forming an ice sheet not less than 700m thick as it submerged the entire landscape. When the ice sheet wasted away, its meltwaters created complex sequences of fluvioglacial landforms. During the final stages of deglaciation, deposits left by the wasting ice mass were eroded by water, terraces spread out, gorges cut and the broad, low‐lying corridor on both sides of the River Spey was formed. There is evidence of a later, local readvance of the glaciers in three of the tributary valleys.     

Correspondence

EUROPE

The Scotland of Our Fathers. By Elizabeth S. Haldane. London : A. Maclehose and Co., 1933. Price 18s. 6d. net.

Fifty Tears and More of Sport in Scotland. By the Duke of Portland. London : Faber and Faber, 1933. Price 21s.

The Woodlands and Marshlands of England. By H. A. Wilcox. University Press of Liverpool; London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1933. Price 6s.

The Face of Scotland. By Harry Batsford and Charles Fry. London : B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1933. Price 7s. 6d. net.

The Charm of Brittany. By R. A. J. Walling. London : George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd., 1933. Price 7s. 6d.

Poland. By Roman Dyboski. London : Ernest Benn Ltd, 1933. Price 21s.

Rumania : Its History, Politics and Economics. By George Glenton Logio Manchester : Sherratt and Hughes, 1932. Price 5s.

Belgium : The Land and its People. By Clive Holland. London : Herbert Jenkins Ltd., 1933. Price 5s.

Pavements and Peaks. By Anthony Bertram. London : Chapman and Hall Ltd., 1933. Price 7s. 6d.

AFRICA

My Farm in Lion Country. By Joyce Boyd. London : Hurst and Blackett Ltd., 1933. Price 12s. 6d.

AMERICA

The Explorers of North America, 1492–1806. By J. B. Brebner. London : A. and C. Black Ltd., 1933. Price 18s.

Land of Feast and Famine. By Helge Ingstad. London : Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1933. Price 16s.

From Pacific to Atlantic: South American Studies. By Kenneth G. Grubb. London : Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1933. Price 10s. 6d.

True North. By Elliott Merrick. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933. Price 10s. 6d.

AUSTRALASIA

Gold Dust and Ashes. By Ion L. Idriess. Sydney : Angus and Robertson, 1933. Price 6s.

GENERAL

Light on the Dark Continent. By Garveth Wells. London : Jarrolds Ltd., 1933. Price 16s.

The Horse and the Sword. By Harold Peake and H. J. Fleure. London : Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1933. Price 5s.

The Problem of Disarmament. Edited by R. Schmidt and A. Grabowsky. Berlin : Carl Heymanns Verlag, 1933. N.p.

Nansen of Norway. By C. Turley. London : Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1933. Price 5s.

Voyage of the “ Parma.” By A. J. Villiers. London : Geoffrey Bles, 1933. Price 25s.

Come Easy, Go Easy. By Arthur Mason. London : Jonathan Cape, 1933. Price 7s. 6d.

Far Vistas. By Sir Percival Phillips. London : Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1933. Price 12s. 6d.

Round the World to Freedom. By Major Paul Stoffa. London : John Lane (The Bodley Head) Ltd., 1933. Price 7s. 6d.

Seaplane Solo. By Francis C. Ghighester. London : Faber and Faber, 1933. Price 10s. 6d.

Thames to Tahiti. By Sidney Howard. London : George Bell and Sons Ltd., 1933. Price 10s. 6d.

Scamper Tour to Rhodesia and South Africa. By Mrs. Maude Speed. London : Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd., 1933. Price 7s. 6d.

Trade Winds. By Louis Kornitzer. London : Geoffrey Bles, 1933. Price 10s. 6d.

Historical Geology. By Raymond C. Moore. New York : McGraw‐Hill Book Co. Inc., 1933. Price 24s.

A Political Geography of the British Empire. By C. B. Fawcett, B.Litt., D.Sc. London: University of London Press, 1933. Price 18s.

EDUCATIONAL

Economic and Social Geography. By Ellsworth Huntington, Frank E. Williams and Samuel van Valkenburg. New York and London : John Wiley and Sons, 1933. Price 23s.

The Story Atlas. Edited by John Stirling. London : Ivor Nicholson and Watson, n.d. Price 31s. 6d.

Our World To‐day. By W. R. Kermack. Edinburgh : W. and A. K. Johnston Ltd., 1933. Price 2s. 6d.

This Land of Ours. By Wm. Platt. London : George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1933. Price 2s.     

Tristan da Cunha

This paper explores the ambiguities of Englishness/ Britishness from a political geography perspective. An Anglo‐British identity is described in which English territoriality is shown to be both more and less than the geographical area of England. Upper England comprises the south‐east corner of the country only — the Home Counties’ — which is identified as the Crown Heartland of a particularly conservative nationalism. Greater England is the British face of English identity which as hegemon, empire and currently through the City of London used and uses Upper England as a base for extra‐territorial projects. Finally the implications of this unusual nationalism are reviewed in terms of a possible break‐up of England.     

Alaska

The paper reports on results of an experiment concerned with assessing the cartographic accuracy of an optically processed spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image taken over a very hilly area in the Scottish Highlands. A number of mathematical algorithms were used to transform the image to the terrain co‐ordinate system. The results show that it is indeed possible to extract metric information from this type of imagery to suit the purposes of small‐scale reconnaissance‐type planimetric mapping at 1:250,000 and smaller. This is important for many developing countries where topographic coverage is either poor or completely absent.     

The Occurrence and Possible Aetiology of Spondylolysis in a Pre‐contact California Population

The occurrence of spondylolysis (neural arch separation at the pars interarticularis) is reported in a pre‐contact (720–550 Cal BP) Central California population, CA‐CCo‐647 (n = 46). Spondylolysis was examined within this population to assess differences in sex, age, and possible relationships with biological affinity. Furthermore, prevalence rates of spondylolysis were compared across various populations to discern the aetiology of the defect. Within CA‐CCo‐647, spondylolysis was found in 17.4% (8/46) of the population. All occurrences are complete, bilateral separations of the neural arch in the lower lumbar (L4 and L5). The defect is not seen in individuals below the age of 18, and there is no correlation between adult age and spondylolysis. Male individuals display the defect at a higher rate (30.8% ‐ 4/13) than female individuals (12.1% ‐ 4/33); however, this is not a statistically significant finding. There does seem to be a correlation between an individual's sex and the onset of the defect; male individuals display spondylolysis at a younger age than female individuals. This finding could represent differences in activity patterns among young male and female individuals. In a biological distance analysis using craniometric data, male and female individuals with spondylolysis clustered closely, suggesting a genetic component for the defect. Finally, significant differences were found in spondylolysis prevalence between various populations representing distinct geographic and temporal settings. Significant differences were found among Native pre‐contact samples and even between two comparable pre‐contact California skeletal samples. These populations all engaged in distinct activities and were likely composed of genetically distinct groups of individuals, which may account for the differences in spondylolysis prevalence. All of these findings, both within CA‐CCo‐647 and between the various samples, suggest that the aetiology of spondylolysis is likely an interaction of genes and activity. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New Data on South American Camelid Bone Size Changes during Middle‐Late Holocene Transition: Osteometry at Peñas Chicas 1.5 (Antofagasta de la Sierra,Argentinian Puna)

Approaching the study of camelid bone size change in the meridional portion of the South Central Andes is a significant subject especially when the assemblages are associated to radiocarbon dates placed at a time of social transition from an extractive to a producer economy. In this sense, this paper presents the results of applying osteometric techniques on a set of 10 elements from the Peñas Chicas 1.5 site dated around 3800 BP . The analysis shows the presence of at least three individuals, one of which corresponds to an Andean guanaco (Lama guanicoe) morphotype. The second and the third are similar in size to a modern llama (Lama glama) in their ‘intermediate’ and ‘cargo’ morphotypes. This is consistent with patterns already seen for sites from the Argentinian and Chilean Puna where the identification of larger individuals than the Andean guanaco modern standard shows the early stages of an increasingly bone size variability of South American camelids. This paper contributes with new data to understand the complex processes that occurred in the South Central Andes that led to the domestication of one of the most conspicuous animals in the archaeological record of the Argentinian Northwest. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Iberian Dendrochronology and the Newport Medieval Ship

At the time of the discovery of the Newport medieval ship, it proved impossible to date the timbers used in its original construction through dendrochronology. Associated British timbers and artefacts provided dating to the mid 15th century, with the latter pointing to strong Iberian connections. The development of regional oak ring‐width chronologies in the Basque Country, and their extension back in time to overlap with the ring‐width mean developed for the Newport Ship, has allowed absolute dating and provenance of timbers used in its original construction. Further research is required to clarify the geographical source of the timbers and to develop a high‐resolution network of tree‐ring data for the region.     

A Needle Assemblage from a Roman Shipwreck off the Israeli Coast

Underwater excavation of a shipwreck‐site off Hof Carmel, south of Haifa, Israel, yielded numerous artefacts associated with a ship and cargo dated to the 3rd century AD. Among them were eight sewing needles: six of bronze, one of copper and one of brass. This article describes the needles including their chemical composition, discusses comparable finds from nautical and domestic contexts, and their possible uses and roles aboard a Roman ship.     

Notes on the Identification of the Roman Masts Found in the Port of Olbia,Sardinia

This paper presents both archaeological evidence and technical features that allows the identification of two of the wooden objects discovered in 2001 at the site of a 1st‐century‐AD shipyard in Olbia, Sardinia, as masts. The structure and dimensions of the objects are presented and compared with similar artefacts which have been interpreted as rudder‐stocks in order to establish their specific and distinct features. Possible retaining and lowering systems for the masts, and evidence of wooden mast‐ladders are discussed through examination of archaeological parallels and Roman iconography.