Negotiating Nuclear Control: The Zangger Committee and the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group in the 1970s

ABSTRACT

In the 1970s, the Zangger Committee and the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group published guidelines on nuclear trade that drew a line between peaceful and dangerous nuclear technology, defining what was sensitive enough to require safeguarding and what was not. Given the ambivalence of nuclear technology, how was that line drawn? Historically, the understanding of whether a nuclear item is benign, sensitive, or especially sensitive has changed in response to the shifting balance between political, commercial and non-proliferation interests. The 1970s, however, merit special attention; they saw an unprecedented codification of nuclear sensitivity in the form of the published trigger lists that are still used today. In the absence of clear technical criteria, what interests and perceptions determined the sensitivity of specific nuclear items by the nuclear suppliers in the 1970s? Archival sources provide a unique insight into how the trigger lists and guidelines were negotiated and with what aims and considerations. This paper finds that nuclear sensitivity was driven by commercial interests in ensuring a level, and open commercial playing field, political interests in securing co-operation and practical interests in implementation and reputation, all of which outweighed technical considerations of how nuclear technology exports might assist a nuclear weapons programme.     

Northern Ireland and the Far Left,c. 1965 – 1975

ABSTRACT

The far left, defined as those to the left of orthodox communism, with few but important exceptions defined the Northern Ireland Troubles in essentially republican terms as a struggle to complete Irish national self-determination. Despite this lack of independent orientation, far left ideas fertilised both republicanism and loyalism in the 1970s. They are an important element in understanding the dynamics of ideological conflict in the period.     

Standing Posts and Special Substances: Gathering and Ritual Deposition at Feltus (22Je500), Jefferson County,Mississippi

Because it immediately precedes the Mississippi period, Coles Creek (A.D. 700–1200) culture is often viewed through the lens of Mississippian social organization. In particular, early platform mound-and-plaza complexes have long been understood as elite compounds due to their physical similarities with later sites. However, evidence regarding the construction and use of the monumental landscape at the Feltus site (22JE500) in Jefferson County, MS, suggests that platform mound construction was but one aspect of a broader ritual sequence aimed at gathering the dispersed Coles Creek community. In addition to mound building, this sequence included the setting and removal of freestanding posts, ritual feasting, and burial of the dead and focused on explicit deposition of meaningful objects and substances. Archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic analyses of the objects and substances included in the ritual deposits at Feltus suggest that they helped forge relationships between an extended kin network, including non-human fictive kin and non-living human kin. In this context, we find a metaphor of gathering to be useful in understanding the archaeological remains of a ritual sequence focused on bringing together social, cosmological, and temporal domains. This provides a distinctly different take on the meaning and use of platform mounds based on a review of Native beliefs and practices that looks beyond the traditionally relied upon sources.     

John Maynard Keynes,the Bloomsbury group and the origins of the arts council movement

The article examines the origins of the arts council movement in the ideas of the Bloomsbury Group and John Maynard Keynes. The Bloomsbury Groups' sense of experimentation and flexibility, their willingness to take action to create new institutions, and their distrust of bureaucracy, influenced Keynes's development of a new model for state patronage of the arts in 1946. He took an organization established during the Second World War to employ artists and organize morale‐boosting tours of the performing and visual arts, and oversaw its development into the Arts Council of Great Britain, the first such arts council. His model – making grants of public funds through semi‐autonomous government bodies to private individuals and privately operated arts institutions – became a standard form of public funding for the arts by the end of the twentieth century in many countries around the world.     

D’Arcy Thompson’s On Growth and Form and the Concept of Dynamic Form in Postwar Avant-Garde Art Theory

Abstract

The impact is considered of D’Arcy Thompson’s notion of biological form as set out in On Growth and Form on postwar avant-garde experimental art practices associated with the Independent Group, Nigel Henderson’s photography, and László Moholy-Nagy’s post-Bauhaus art theory. How Thompson’s insistence on the importance of physical forces in shaping biological form, and of distortion as a component of symmetrical systems, influenced the writings and practices of these artists, is explored, linking abstraction to legacies concerned with materiality and technique encountered earlier in Constructivism. Henderson’s photograms and ‘stressed photography’ are shown to be directly inspired by Thompson’s conception of form as a diagram of forces, and attest to a novel understanding of rules of symmetry in abstract form that may be seen in the dynamic processes at play in complex natural phenomena. How Moholy-Nagy explored these notions theoretically is examined, for example in his definition of drawing in Vision in Motion, which cites Thompson directly as a source of inspiration.     

Geoarchaeological evidence for ritual closure of a kiva at Fourmile Ruin,Arizona

Geoarchaeological analyses, including soil micromorphology and chemistry, were used to characterize the deposition history of a fourteenth-century Pueblo ceremonial structure (or kiva) at Fourmile Ruin, east-central Arizona. These subterranean structures were often ritually “closed” by Pueblo societies through the burning of roofs and the deposition of special objects. These conspicuous markers are absent in the Fourmile Ruin kiva, but the composition of constituent materials and sedimentation processes nonetheless signal complex, highly-orchestrated closure activities. The study demonstrates the efficacy of geoarchaeological analyses of stratified deposits for modeling the subtle behaviors associated with the ritual closure and abandonment of sacred places.     

Progiraffa (Artiodactyla: Ruminantia: Giraffidae) from the Lower Siwalik Subgroup (Miocene) of Pakistan

Aftab, K., Khan, M.A., Ahmad, Z. & Akhtar, M., February 2016. Progiraffa (Artiodactyla: Ruminantia: Giraffidae) from the Lower Siwalik Subgroup (Miocene) of Pakistan. Alcheringa 40, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518

Previously, Progiraffa exigua has been reported only from the Kamlial Formation (ca 18.3–14.2 Ma) of the Siwalik Group. We record Progiraffa exigua from the Lower Siwalik Subgroup at five localities: Jaba, Chinji Rest House, Rakh Wasnal, Dhok Bun Amir Khatoon and Ghungrila, Pakistan, thus extending the range of P. exigua to the Chinji Formation of the Siwalik Group (ca 14.2–11.2 Ma).

Kiran Aftab [kiranaftab2012@gmail.com], Zaheer Ahmad [dr.zaheerahmed11@yahoo.com], Zoology Department, GC University, Lahore, Pakistan; Muhammad Akbar Khan [akbaar111@yahoo.ca], Muhammad Akhtar [drakhtarfdrc@hotmail.com], Dr Abu Bakr Fossil Display & Research Centre, Zoology Department, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.     

A Chak'an Itza Center at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén,Guatemala

Recent excavations conducted by Proyecto Itza investigated a Late Postclassic (a.d. 1400–1525) community at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala. This community was likely occupied by a faction of Itza Mayas called the Chak'an Itzas. Recent work focused on the community's civic-ceremonial architecture and nearby residences. The former was dominated by two colonnaded halls standing abreast. These buildings, believed to have been popol najoob (council houses), likely represented socio-political dualism in Chak'an society. The halls included various sculptures that seem largely associated with the deity Itzamna mounted into architecture so that they were clearly on display. Most sculptures were associated with one of the two halls suggesting that one faction was more powerful and more strongly advertised its connections with Yucatán. Excavations also revealed the avoidance of masonry in residential areas, which differentiated Chak'an residences from their civic-ceremonial areas and also distinguished Chak'an residences from those of their neighbors.     

The Phenomenon of the Influence of Gold Melt on Microinclusions of Platinum Group Minerals in Ancient Gold Objects

This study focuses on microinclusions of platinum group minerals (PGMs) in gold objects from the South Urals and North Black Sea archaeological sites. We demonstrate for the first time that melting of gold during archaeometallurgical work affects PGM microinclusions. Desquamation of primary PGM microinclusions with 28–55 wt% Os in the melt and their oxidation by hot air microbubbles results in the formation of secondary particles with 1–20 wt% Os around the primary inclusions. We conclude that the composition only of primary PGM microinclusions in ancient gold products is comparable to the composition of those from natural sources.     

Early Maya Ritual Practices and Craft Production: Late Middle Preclassic Ritual Deposits Containing Obsidian Artifacts at Ceibal,Guatemala

This article examines Preclassic Maya ritual practices and craft production by means of a study of ritual deposits containing obsidian artifacts dated mostly to the late Middle Preclassic period (700–350 b.c.) at Ceibal, Guatemala. New ritual practices developed at Ceibal during this period, possibly through political interactions and negotiation involving emerging elites and other diverse community members. Common objects in ritual deposits in the public plaza shifted from greenstone celt caches to other artifacts, including those made of obsidian. The inhabitants of Ceibal engaged in various kinds of craft production, including the manufacture of obsidian prismatic blades. They also conducted public rituals in the Central Plaza, depositing exhausted polyhedral obsidian cores and other artifacts with symbolic significance in caches and as offerings in incipient elite burials and interments of sacrificed individuals. These cores clearly demonstrate the use of a sophisticated blade technology. Like greenstone objects, exhausted polyhedral obsidian cores deposited in cruciform arrangements along the east–west axis of the central E-Group plaza were used as symbols and markers of the center and four cardinal directions within the Maya cosmos. Public rituals were important for creating collective identities and for processes of political negotiation within the community. Emerging elites likely came to play an increasingly important role in public rituals as principal performers and organizers, setting the stage for later public events centered on rulers.