Evaluating the geographic concentration of industries using distance-based methods

We propose new methods for evaluating the spatial distributionof firms. To assess whether firms are concentrated or dispersed,economists have tradi-tionally used indices that analyse theheterogeneity of a spatial structure at a single geographiclevel. We introduce distance-based methods, Besag's L function(derived from Ripley's K function) and Diggle and Chetwynd'sD function to describe simultaneously spatial distribution atdifferent geographical scales. Our empirical applications considerthe distribution of French manufacturing firms in the Parisarea and in France generally. For some geographic levels, resultsshow significant concentration or dispersion of firms accordingto their sector of activity.     

WHO SUFFERED FROM THE CRISIS OF HISTORICISM? A DUTCH EXAMPLE

Was the crisis of historicism an exclusively German affair? Or was it a “narrowly academic crisis,” as is sometimes assumed? Answering both questions in the negative, this paper argues that crises of historicism affected not merely intellectual elites, but even working‐class people, not only in Germany, but also in the Netherlands. With an elaborated case study, the article shows that Dutch “neo‐Calvinist” Protestants from the 1930s onward experienced their own crisis of historicism. For a variety of reasons, this religious subgroup came to experience a collapse of its “historicist” worldview. Following recent German scholarship, the paper argues that this historicism was not a matter of Rankean historical methods, but of “historical identifications,” or modes of identity formation in which historical narratives played crucial roles. Based on this Dutch case study, then, the article develops two arguments. In a quantitative mode, it argues that more and different people suffered from the crisis of historicism than is usually assumed. In addition, it offers a qualitative argument: that the crisis was located especially among groups that derived their identity from “historical identifications.” Those who suffered most from the crisis of historicism were those who understood themselves as embedded in narratives that connected past, present, and future in such a way as to offer identity in historical terms.     

Regulating Regional Uneven Development and the Politics of Reconfiguring Belgian State Space

Abstract: This article mobilises a strategic‐relational approach to state spatial restructuring to overcome the weaknesses of the conventional “New Regionalist” account in economic geography of the resurgence of the region as a strategic site for economic governance. Focusing on hegemonic projects and the shifting nexus of spatial dependencies and engagements through which these are reproduced, undermined and transformed, the role and geography of political agency in state spatial restructuring is highlighted. To illustrate this point, I analyse the construction of new regional state spaces in Belgium, paying particular attention to the hegemonic projects that create a social basis for particular state spaces, the construction of collective agency on different scales (Belgian‐national and Flemish‐regional) and the various ways in which these processes are informed by pre‐existing state spatial and scalar selectivities.     

The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars,Pechenegs and Byzantium

The article seeks to explain the connection between the migration of the Magyars and Pechenegs in central and south-east Europe, in the late ninth and early tenth century, and the conflict between Byzantium and Bulgaria during the same period. Through reference to anthropologists discussing the relations between nomadic and sedentary societies (Khazanov, Barfield), and historians studying medieval rituals (Buc, Althoff, Koziol), the article interprets the aggressive policy of the Bulgarian tsar Symeon as a consistent effort to displace Byzantium as major partner of the nomadic polities in the area. By subverting the principles of Byzantine diplomacy and political culture, Symeon turned his own kingdom into a society-structuring factor in the nomadic world. The article evaluates the very meaning of imperial claims not so much in legal terms, as an effort to guarantee Bulgaria’s sovereignty in a Byzantium-centred world, but in the real-time capacity of a ruler to make use of imperial symbols and act upon the dynamically changing conjuncture.     

The fish of Lake Titicaca: implications for archaeology and changing ecology through stable isotope analysis

Research on past human diets in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin has directed us to investigate the carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes of an important dietary element, fish. By completing a range of analyses on modern and archaeological fish remains, we contribute to two related issues regarding the application of stable isotope analysis of archaeological fish remains and in turn their place within human diet. The first issue is the potential carbon and nitrogen isotope values of prehistoric fish (and how these would impact human dietary isotopic data), and the second is the observed changes in the fish isotopes through time. Out of this work we provide quantitative isotope relationships between fish tissues with and without lipid extraction, and a qualitative analysis of the isotopic relationships between fish tissues, allowing archaeologists to understand these relationships and how these values can be applied in future research. We test a mathematical lipid normalization equation to examine whether future researchers will need to perform lipid extraction procedures for Lake Titicaca fish. We also analyze a number of aquatic plants to better understand the range of isotopic signatures of the Lake Titicaca ecosystem. We use these data to better understand prehistoric human diet and the role that fish may have played in the past as well as potential changes in local lake ecology through time.     

Intensive El Niño and the Iron Age of South-eastern Africa

Burnt daga structures in Iron Age villages serve as proxies for severe drought on the plateau of southern Africa. The distribution of burnt daga remains in two other rainfall areas, KwaZulu-Natal and the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone over Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, establishes a sequence of simultaneous burnings that parallels the severe droughts recorded for the interior plateau. These widespread correspondences suggest a common cause. Another correspondence with natural proxy data from South America indicates that intensive El Niño events most likely caused the droughts.     

Pottery politics: Late Classic Maya palace production at Motul de San José, Petén,Guatemala

Archeologists often rely heavily on stone monuments, architecture, settlement patterns, and written texts to reconstruct ancient political systems. In this paper we focus on the role of polychrome pottery as both a reflection of and critical component in the production of power relations. We present rare direct evidence of polychrome pottery production recovered from the Maya site of Motul de San José, the presumed Late Classic (ca. 600–900 AD) capital of the epigraphically-recognized Ik’ polity. Our contextual analysis of production debris and tools complement on-going polychrome vessel style and chemical analyses of Ik’ Style polychrome vessels to suggest that Motul de San José’s royal court was an important center in the manufacture of Ik’ Style polychrome pottery. These elaborate vessels indexed the political history, power, and networks of the Ik’ polity. By combining archeological, iconographic, and epigraphic data of polychrome pottery, we shed light on Motul de San José’s internal political-economic dynamics as well as its macro-political alliances and tensions with other polities.     

Specialization of ceramic production: A sherd assemblage based analytic perspective

One expectation of emergent complexity is that as ceramic craft specialization increases it is reflected by increasingly homogeneous products due to the modified organization of craft production by specialists. This question has most often been addressed by analysis of sub-sets of larger ceramic assemblages consisting of intact vessels from idiosyncratic contexts. However, excavations often do not yield appropriate whole vessel sub-sets. In order to evaluate the changing context of the organization of ceramic production, we engage a robust methodological approach to the analysis of ceramic sherd assemblages, rather than intact vessels, rooted in cluster analysis but which we rigorously evaluate by other means. We successfully employ this method to assess changes in the organization of ceramic production through a 1000 year sequence leading to the emergence of the Tarascan state, and conclude in this case that no significant reorganization of ceramic production occurred with Tarascan state formation.     

Near infrared spectroscopy as a tool for archaeological wood characterization

Archaeological wood, as most of natural materials, is slowly decomposing on the archaeological site due to various biological factors. Rapid and accurate estimation of the degradation level is extremely important for optimal restoration and conservation. The goal of this research was to verify the effectiveness of Fourier transform near infrared (FT-NIR) spectroscopy for archaeometry. The important advantage of the NIR spectroscopy is its accuracy, simplicity and ability to perform very high number of tests without needs of any destruction to the workpiece. Five oak pieces of the archaeological wood collected from waterlogged sites in Poland have been used. Cellulose and lignin contents, as well as crystallinity and the degree of polymerization were measured with standard reference methods and compared to the contemporary wood. The near infrared spectra represent all the physical/chemical changes of the wood due to waterlogging. This technique was successfully validated in rapid estimation of the cellulose and lignin contents. The method explored in this research might be a novel tool assisting experts in evaluation of the degradation state of archaeological and historical wooden materials.