Complex Hunter–Gatherers in Evolution and History: A North American Perspective

A review of recent research on complex hunter–gatherers in North America suggests that age-old tensions between evolutionary and historical epistemologies continue to cultivate progress in anthropological understanding of sociocultural variation. Coupled with criticism of the evolutionary status of ethnographic foragers, archaeological documentation of variation among hunter–gatherer societies of the ancient past makes it difficult to generalize about causal relationships among environment, subsistence economy, and sociopolitical organization. Explanations for emergent complexity on the Pacific Coast that privilege environmental triggers for economic change have been challenged by new paleoenvironmental findings, while hypotheses suggesting that economic changes were preceded by, indeed caused by, transformations of existing structures of social inequality have gained empirical support. In its emergent data on mound construction apart from significant subsistence change, the southeastern United States gives pause to materialist explanations for complexity, turning the focus on symbolic and structural dimensions of practice that cannot be understood apart from particular histories of group interaction and tradition. Taken together, recent research on complex hunter–gatherers in North America has not only expanded the empirical record of sociocultural formations once deemed anomalous and/or derivative of European contact but also has contributed to the ongoing process of clarifying concepts of cultural complexity and how this process ultimately restructures anthropological theory.     

Marine Tourism in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia

Marine tourism is an important component of nature‐based tourism in the Kimberley Region of northern Western Australia. It offers a wide range of passive and active recreational activities in near‐pristine wilderness areas. Marine tourism in the region is recognised as a growth sector having expanded rapidly since 2000, and it is unusual in that growth has been limited by a lack of vehicular access points to the coast. This unplanned growth has been irregular. A marked downturn in visitation by yachts has coincided with an increase in visits by charter boats. Although only five bush camps are established along the coast, boat visits occur at approximately 216 locations that are all subject to potential environmental damage. The extent to which this unplanned industry can be sustained without jeopardising environmental, social and economic values remains open to question.     

Emergence of an integrated city-system in France (XVIIth–XIXth centuries): Evidence from toolset in graph theory

In this article, the authors discuss the emergence of an integrated city-system in France one century before the Industrial Revolution, starting from two different databases, the postal roads relays and the cities and towns populations, between 1632 and 1833. They first model historical distances, weighted by elevation and connectivity (measured as a conductance). A major transformation of inter-urban exchange space is then enlightened, with new roads systematically privileged in the northern part of France and the largest cities, but avoiding mountains. They then study territorial integration processes on two different scales: the national, with the diffusion of hubs (characterized by a high betweenness centrality) all over French territory, and the regional, with the emergence of regional city-systems (modeled by a Reilly equation) in the northern part of France. The role of medium-sized cities as necessary links for connecting local and national scales is emphasized in most results.     

INTERNET EST-IL SOLUBLE DANS L'ESPACE? RÉFLEXIONS SUR LA DIFFUSION DU WEB EN FRANCE

Cet article analyse les grands traits de la diffusion spatiale du Web en France et montre la nécessité et les possibilités d'aborder spatialement Internet en dépit de nombreux problèmes techniques. L'analyse se base sur la cartographie de 7000 sites en avril 1997 et met en évidence une assez bonne ressemblance d'ensemble avec la hiérarchie urbaine. Mais le milieu rural montre aussi de fortes différenciations et en particulier des concentrations dans la partie méridionale du pays: les sites touristiques et de produits de terroir les expliquent largement.
This article analyses the main features of the spatial diffusion of the Web in France. It argues that it is necessary and possible to approach the Internet from a spatial point of view, in spite of the many technical problems this presents. The analysis is based on the cartography of 7000 sites in April 1997 and shows a good correspondence to the urban hierarchy. But rural space also shows strong differentiations, particularly some concentrations in the meridional part of the country: these are explained largely by tourist sites and products of the soil.     

黑龙江省冰雪旅游开发战略AHP决策分析

运用AHP层次分析法,对黑龙江省的冰雪旅游开发战略进行了定性与定量相结合的分析,并得出结论:黑龙江省应该首先实行冰雪旅游产业化战略目标,同时不可忽视冰雪旅游国际化战略目标;而争创品牌战略是第一重要的发展战略;当前亟待解决的首要问题是思想观念不够开放、经济欠发达和管理体制较落后,应该采取的措施是加大体制改革力度、根本改变"多头管理、政令不一"的现状,借鉴国内外冰雪旅游开发成功经验,大力发展滑雪旅游等。通过这些具体措施,可以确保实现"提高黑龙江省冰雪旅游的综合竞争力,把黑龙江省建设成为中国最大、世界知名的冰雪旅游胜地"的总体目标。     

Stone circles and the structure of Bronze Age society

Analyses of modern human societies have consistently demonstrated the presence of recurrent grouping levels forming a nested, hierarchical structure. That this structure exists in both hunter-gatherer and western industrialized societies suggests that it may be a fundamental organizing principle of considerable antiquity. Stone circles are perceived as being foci of aggregation for prehistoric groups and thus provide a proxy for the sizes of those aggregations. Combining an empirical analysis of a sample of 140 stone circles with a Monte Carlo simulation model that derives expectations for a continuous size distribution based on the nested hierarchy concept, the current paper suggests that similar organizing principles were already in place during the Bronze Age. Furthermore, it is suggested that findings traditionally attributed to the operation of the ‘rank-size rule’ may in fact reflect the basic underlying structure of human society.     

Human geography without scale

The concept of scale in human geography has been profoundly transformed over the past 20 years. And yet, despite the insights that both empirical and theoretical research on scale have generated, there is today no consensus on what is meant by the term or how it should be operationalized. In this paper we critique the dominant – hierarchical – conception of scale, arguing it presents a number of problems that cannot be overcome simply by adding on to or integrating with network theorizing. We thereby propose to eliminate scale as a concept in human geography. In its place we offer a different ontology, one that so flattens scale as to render the concept unnecessary. We conclude by addressing some of the political implications of a human geography without scale.     

生态旅游与世界遗产教育策略拟定之研究

世界遗产促进了旅游,旅游带来了发展.然而,不当的旅游行为也破坏和污染了遗产地独特的环境,对当地的资源构成了威胁,降低了遗产地的特色.因此实施可持续发展策略是世界遗产旅游的必需选择.世界遗产教育有助于促使人们保护世界遗产地生态系统的完整性、尊重当地社区的文化,并使当地居民积极分享社会和经济利益.本文将生态旅游作为世界遗产旅游的一种可持续发展方式,并将生态旅游计划制定的相关权益关系人,依照其影响力和重要性分群,根据每一个分群的特性,拟定生态旅游与世界遗产教育策略,让这些权益关系人了解世界遗产的相关知识和保护世界遗产的重要性,进而唤醒他们对于遗产保育的积极性,从而制定出最佳的生态旅游计划.     

Un classement multicritère des villes du québec pour favoriser la prise en compte de leurs différences

When it comes to making planning and development decisions, the concepts of small, medium-sized, or large cities are sometimes used to adapt public policies and instruments, or even to highlight challenges that are specific to certain categories of city. In this article, we take a look at the various dimensions that can be used to characterize cities, so as to empirically test a multi-criteria approach and build a typology of Quebec cities. Using an ascending hierarchical classification, we derive 11 classes of cities, whose conceptualization and graphic representation enable us to highlight their role and, in part, to localize their polarized area. This article complements and adds to works undertaken by other researchers over the last 20 years. Although it does not aim to propose specific changes to public policies and instruments, this article may serve to inform public decision makers in the development of such policies and instruments, and to enrich academic debates on the nature of small and medium-sized towns in particular.     

How much does urban location matter for growth?

This paper analyses the effect of location characteristics on urban growth using regression cubic splines. Our empirical analysis shows that in Spain, differences in accessibility to major urban centres and geographic isolation help explain differences in population growth rates across municipalities between 2001 and 2014. Moreover, even though physical proximity to large cities is usually assumed to be closely related to the attractiveness of a municipality, we found that urban population growth is even more related to the joint effect of distance to major centres and agglomeration. In this respect, there seems to be a threshold from which agglomeration diseconomies come into play such that a greater proximity to major cities and/or being localized within a more densely populated area goes against local growth.