Geoarchaeology at Gi,a middle stone age and later stone age site in the Northwest Kalahari

Gi with sealed middle stone age and later stone age occurrences is located in the Dobe Valley along the Botswana-Namibia border. The phases of middle stone age settlement were linked to a semiarid streamway during the early Upper Pleistocene. A major humid interval followed, when a large lake was ponded in the Dobe Valley. Later stone age settlement appeared after this lake disappeared and was replaced by a mosaic of pans (ephemeral lakes). Subsequently, another period of humid environment favoured another valley-wide lake during the late Upper Pleistocene. Later stone age settlement resumed when this second lake deteriorated into the modern pan terrains of the Dobe Valley. In total, the Gi beds record multiple environmental changes both more humid and more arid than present during the Upper Pleistocene and Holocene, as well as a variable array of adaptive opportunities for prehistoric settlement.     

BRAIN CIRCULATION AND FLEXIBLE ADJUSTMENT: LABOUR MOBILITY AS A CLUSTER ADVANTAGE

This article explores the role of labour mobility as a potential cluster advantage. We review the theoretical arguments as for how and why labour mobility could enhance the dynamism and performance of clusters of similar and related firms. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data from two information and communication technology (ICT) clusters is used to answer two research questions: (1) What is the role of mobility enhancing (or restricting) institutions in clusters? and (2) In what ways does labour mobility contribute to knowledge transfer within clusters? The two ICT clusters studied in the article generally seem to have higher levels of mobility, compared to the labour market at large. Although it is regarded as beneficial in theory, most cluster firms try to restrict mobility of workers since they fear the risk and costs of losing staff. Labour mobility is also rarely viewed as a viable way to increase the knowledge bases or contact networks of firms. However, when firms need to recruit the clustered labour markets seem to benefit them by facilitating the use of informal recruitment processes. By way of conclusion it is suggested that cluster firms might be under‐investing in mobility and that innovative institutional solutions could help realize clusters' mobility potential.     

IN SEARCH FOR THE ROOTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN

Contrary to widespread conception, environmental issues were commonly debated in public already over a hundred years ago. Based on an extensive newspaper study this paper concentrates on water management and animal welfare issues in the local newspapers in the city of Turku, Finland, in 1890–1950. At the time, the role of the newspapers was important in shaping public understanding of environmental issues. Although the amount of environment‐related writing remained scarce in comparison to today's media, the debate was continuous and sometimes even fierce. Both environmental protection and animal welfare received very positive comments in the press and they were considered important aims. The discussion reflected the opinions of the middle‐class and especially the well‐educated professionals and officials, whose views dominated the debate. However, animal protection also gave women a possibility to get their voice heard. Ordinary newspaper‐reading city dwellers must have been well aware of the local environmental problems already in the early 20th century.     

基于区域经济差异视角的重庆市经济区划研究

本文在传统区域经济差异指标泰尔指数的基础上提出经济区划度的概念,对重庆市自直辖以来出台的不同经济区划方案进行评价;并运用GIS热点分析方法,探讨经济区划调整的可能性。研究结果表明：①历次政府区划方案中,“五大功能区”经济区划度远高于其余三种方案,但近年来经济区划度呈现出逐年下降趋势,并不稳定;②基于GIS热点分析得到三种初始区划方案中,方案I（“四圈+两翼”）的经济区划效果表现最佳,并显著优于“五大功能区”经济区划,且其效果呈现出逐年上升的趋势。③综合考虑政府规划决策、地形地貌、历史发展基础以及交通条件等方面因素,微调后的方案I的区划效果良好且更符合实际区划要求。研究对重庆及西部内陆地区的可持续发展具有一定科学指导意义。     

INDIA,THE GREAT DIVERGENCE,AND THE WRECKAGE OF MODERNITY

Research over the last two decades on the economic divergence of Europe and China before the nineteenth century has stimulated much recent scholarship investigating similar diverging paths between Europe and India. Following the lead of Kenneth Pomeranz, this work focuses on the demographic, ecological, and geographical factors in this divergence and argues for the direct comparability of the most economically advanced parts of Europe with such places as Gujarat and Mysore in Mughal India, which showed considerable proto‐industrial development before their relative economic decline and deindustrialization in the nineteenth century. The book under review approaches this topic by deploying a modified Marxian‐Weberian framework and draws on extensive research in Indian and British archives to argue that both Gujarat and Mysore might have embarked on paths of sustained economic growth through natural commercial expansion and deliberate mercantilist statecraft hindered by the East India Company. Despite resurging interest in Marx, much recent work in global economic history highlights the limitations of modernization theories drawn from a long tradition of Western social science indebted to the theories of Marx and Weber.     

Shifting State–Business Relations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Post‐2014

This study aims to explore how state–business relations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been developing following the fall in oil prices in 2014 and the subsequent increased pressure to implement economic reforms. The main argument is that due to a combination of factors, the positions of the established business community vis‐à‐vis the ruling powers in those countries have become weaker. The factors are: 1) economic pressure and necessity to reform since the 2014 decline in oil prices; 2) the generational shift and subsequent centralizing tendencies in the ruling circles in some of the states; and 3) increased geopolitical rivalry and antagonism between the GCC members, including intensified competition for foreign investment and external political support. Meanwhile the governments have acquired more control over commercial activities that used to be the realm of the business elite. Although these changes are happening to a varying extent and at a different pace in each GCC country, the trend is recognizable in all six.     

Transport Infrastructure and Regional Integration in the Middle East

The soft aspects of the infrastructure of regionalism in the Middle East have previously been studied, while the impact of the region’s hard infrastructure, in particular transport infrastructure, has received little attention. This paper contributes to the study of regionalism in the Middle East by investigating the relationship between hard infrastructure and economic integration. It analyzes whether the state of domestic and cross‐border transport infrastructure in the region promotes regional trade. This is done by addressing the following sub‐questions: 1) What is the condition of domestic and cross‐border transport infrastructure in the Middle East? And 2) What is the relationship between domestic and cross‐border transport infrastructure and regional trade in the Middle East? These questions are answered by examining Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey as representative samples of the broader region. It is argued that regionalism relies on the development of domestic and cross‐border transport infrastructure and where the latter is limited, regionalism cannot deepen. The study concludes that domestic and cross‐border transport infrastructure performance is weak in several of the countries studied and that this weakness hinders regional economic integration regardless of the level of the region’s soft infrastructure.     

The Gulf Cooperation Council states: Crystallization of the regional cooperation and alliances amid dwindling resources

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states can be divided into two main camps in terms of hydrocarbon endowment per capita which can partially account for differences in policy directions. Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE (the rich triplet) have small populations while having large hydrocarbon (oil and natural gas) endowments compared to Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE have been effectively using their excess wealth in the form of investment for domestic economic diversification and overseas investments through their sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). Therefore, the rich triplet perceives the upcoming threat of decarbonization of the world's energy system lighter than the remaining members of the GCC in view of their prosperity. The expected decrease in oil demand and revenue within the next decade will put further strain on the relationship between these states.     

A European political-economic space that embraced Japan: the international context of the conventional-tariff network,ca.1892–1914

This article sheds new light on the economic globalization in Europe and Asia from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, with a special focus on the role of bilateral commercial treaties and import tariffs. Countries concluded a number of treaties in those days, and they came to form an extensive ‘conventional-tariff network’. This mechanism contributed to the stabilization of international economic-political space by facilitating reciprocal tariff concessions. The extent of this conventional-tariff network was both temporally and geographically larger than has been assumed. First, as the recent scholarship has shown, the network, which emerged in the 1860s, survived the political turbulence of the 1890s and spanned Central European countries such as Germany and Italy by the early 1910s. Second, the network spread outside Europe and reached East Asia by the 1910s, when Japan renegotiated its commercial treaties and became a new member of the network. The network embodied so strong a mechanism of self-maintenance based on the coordination of economic interests that it was resilient to a major political shock such as the First World War. While the tariff systems in Europe and in East Asia around 1900 have been separately discussed in the literature, this paper focuses on the treaty partnership between these two areas to show how the mechanism of the conventional-tariff network enabled the countries to cooperate for mutual concessions on international trade.     

Applied Zooarchaeology of Freshwater Mussel (Bivalvia: Unionidae) Shell from Golson (22HU508), A Deasonville-Period Site on the Yazoo River,Mississippi

Excavations at Golson (22HU508), an archaeological site on the Yazoo River in western Mississippi, USA, produced an assemblage of over 4000 freshwater mussel shells, 77 percent of which were identifiable to species. Although limited spatial sampling of the deposits limits what can be said about past mussel community characteristics, twelve new river records for mussel species are derived from the assemblage. This typical result emphasises the value of archaeological shell assemblages for conservation biology and provides a rationale for why sites containing shell may be considered significant based upon their potential contributions to environmental history.