INTO CLEANNESS LEAPING: THE VERTIGINOUS URGE TO COMMIT HISTORY

Surely one of the key issues in historiography is how to account for those mind-boggling and sometimes extremely bloody events in which we enter something really, sublimely new. In this essay my point of departure is that retrospectively it is almost impossible even for the historical actors themselves to get access to the contingent, irrational, "sacrilegious" aspect of the sublime event they brought about. In order to get a grip on the evanescent essence of the historical sublime, I propose to bring to a head, instead of leveling down, the tension that characterizes all historical and biographical discontinuities: the tension between the fact that discontinuities are made by the participants, yet are portrayed by these very participants as having come as a surprise. I will argue that discontinuity is not a regrettable side-effect of our ambition to attain goals that are in line with our identity, but that every now and then we give in to the urge to cut ourselves loose from our moorings. A key concept of the perspective that with sublime historical events "in the beginning is the deed" is vertigo. Vertigo may feel like a fear of falling, but really it is a wish to jump, covered by a fear of falling. Vertigo predisposes, as psychoanalysts say, to "counterphobic" behavior. Giving in to vertigo is a strategy for escaping from an unbearable tension by doing something—by breaking apart from what one used to cherish, by eating the apple, by committing an "original sin". Making history—in the sense of embarking upon something that is as sublimely new as the French Revolution or the First World War—thus is not a matter of pursuing some interest but of willfully fleeing forward into the unknown.     

Adding insult to injury: opportunistic treponemal disease in a scalping survivor

Although the taking of scalps is arguably a perimortem trophy‐taking behaviour, cases of scalping survival are occasionally reported in the historical documents of the American Colonial Period and the 19^th century westward expansion. Survival cases are also detected in pre‐Columbian bioarchaeological contexts. Although scalp avulsion injuries can heal without complication, often the process is compromised by secondary osteomyelitis, usually attributable to environmentally ever‐present Staphylococcal or Streptococcal bacteria. A scalping survivor case from the late prehistoric (AD 1200–1600) Hampton site (40RH41) of East Tennessee unusually displays infectious sequelae in the area denuded by scalp avulsion which are pathognomonic for treponemal disease (caries sicca, stellate scarring). This infection is probably a reflection of the easy opportunity afforded by the large size of the wound bed, poor post‐trauma hygiene, and direct inoculation of the diploë by a ubiquitous Treponema. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

China's and India's perspectives on military intervention: why Africa but not Syria?

This article addresses the puzzle for students of international relations as to why China and India, two major re-emerging powers in Asia, do not always baulk at military intervention invoked by Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, while they rhetorically harbour strong reservations about it. The recent cases of Côte d'Ivoire (2011), Libya (2011), Syria (since 2011) and Mali (since 2012) show that both China and India acquiesced in external military intervention in these African countries plunged into brutal civil wars, with only intervention in Syria being rebuffed. By studying how they voted in the United Nations Security Council in 2011–12 and their discourses on intervention, including humanitarian intervention, this article examines why their decisions about intervention in Africa diverged from their decisions regarding intervention in Syria. The authors put forward the thesis that their behaviour can be explained by an interplay between norms and interests, in which they express a common anti-US liberal imperialist stance, shaped by a ‘collective historical trauma' and ‘post-imperial ideology', and demonstrate concerns for state failure and preferences for regional initiatives and political mediation to resolve civil wars.     

Toward a topography of national trauma: mapping the past onto the future of American nationalism

Since the inception of the United States, many of those who have spoken for and to the nation have struggled to define and defend a coherent American nationalism. This article proposes that one of the reasons for this lies in the fault lines inherent in the invented traditions that underpin American, as many other nationalisms. Determined by warfare and by the desire for land, and frequently defined in racial terms, they have undermined more than they have stabilized the nationalist structures they seek to support through what they have excluded from the national imaginary. In common with other settler nations, in fact arguably with most Western nations, America's nationalist narratives struggle to serve as cohesive foundation myths. They represent the lasting legacies of national trauma derived from the nation's violent colonial past and the severing of the imperial bond in the eighteenth century, chattel slavery, and the civil war it caused, and westward expansion and the imperative toward hemispheric control. Through the mapping of a topography of national trauma predicated on these national traditions and located within the tensions arising from warfare, land, and race, scholars can better comprehend the still frequently acrimonious debates over American nationalism that persist today.     

Klippel‐Feil syndrome in an Early Hungarian Period juvenile skeleton from Austria

The excellently preserved skeleton of a juvenile from the Early Hungarian Period (10^th century AD), recently excavated in Gnadendorf (Lower Austria), displays typical symptoms of Type II congenital ‘Klippel‐Feil syndrome’ (KFS): fused cervical vertebrae 2 and 3, and fused thoracic vertebrae 2 and 3. Other features observed in this skeleton clinically reported for KFS include a basilar impression and a spina bifida occulta. The bilateral symmetrical hypoplasia of the basilar part of the occipital bone is probably also linked to this syndrome, as well as the constricted external acoustic meati, which almost certainly led to hearing impairment. A cranial lesion and its possible consequences are discussed in the context of the specific KFS alterations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Patterns of trauma in a unique medieval parish cemetery

The church and cemetery of St Margaret Fyebridgegate, Norwich were in use from AD 1245 to 1468. The cemetery was used to bury both the parishioners and hanged felons. On excavation, 52 group burials of various sizes were encountered, some containing prone individuals. Four hundred and thirteen inhumations have been examined, of which one-third had evidence of episodes of trauma. Comparison is made of the types of trauma present with evidence from the sites of the Blackfriars, Ipswich and the Mary Rose. Evidence is presented for some possible activity-related trauma at two of the sites.     

Survival of a multiple skull trauma: the case of an early neolithic individual from the LBK enclosure at Herxheim (Southwest Germany)

The Early Neolithic enclosure of Herxheim yielded the human remains of more than 450 individuals mainly represented by cranial vaults and numerous fractured cranial and postcranial bones. The skulls were shaped post‐mortem into skull caps by intentional separation of the cranial base and facial bones. One of these calottes revealed four ante‐mortem traumatic lesions and additional cut marks.The defects of this individual were analysed in detail to obtain information on the chronology and consequences of the traumata and manipulations and their probable intention. Four marks could be attributed to at least two violent incidents because of their different stages in the healing process. There is no evidence of cranial surgery, but the individual may have received some medical treatment and social care to survive the injuries without complications. The peri‐mortem cut marks and the post‐mortem intentional shaping of the skull cap, however, can be seen as typical for the treatment of the Herxheim dead and cannot be attributed to violent conflicts. The results support the evidence gained from preliminary examinations of the Herxheim human remains and suggest a more complex view of the final phase of the Linear Pottery Culture (LBK) in southwest Germany. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The occurrence and implications of post-mortem ‘pink teeth’ in forensic and archaeological cases

On sectioning six of eight externally well-preserved teeth taken from four skeletons from Medieval Chichester they displayed a superficial similarity to teeth described in the forensic literature as ‘pink teeth’. This article reviews the occurrence of ‘pink teeth’ in forensic specimens and describes the teeth from Chichester using a variety of analytical techniques. We conclude that, despite the similarities, the pink coloration in the archaeological specimens has a different cause from the forensic samples, and that in archaeological contexts the pinkness is probably related to post-mortem change brought about by saprophytic fungi. However, the exact cause of the coloration remains unexplained. We discuss briefly the implications of this observation for dental ageing techniques and other studies of archaeological teeth.     

State‐of–the–art imaging in palaeopathology: the value of multislice computed tomography in visualizing doubtful cranial lesions

Non‐invasive imaging techniques are of great value in palaeopathology. Computed tomography (CT) is widely established to visualize changes in human remains that occurred both pre and post mortem. Since 1999 an advanced form of helical CT—so called Multislice‐CT (MSCT)—has become available for clinical purposes. We now present for the first time three historic cranial lesions of doubtful aetiology visualized by MSCT. Both original images and virtual reconstructions of the specimens are of high quality. In combination with peri‐lesional bone density measurements these images allow an improved assessment of aetiology. The cases presented are diagnosed by MSCT as being of intra vitam nature in two individuals and of post mortem character in one case. Time consuming post‐processing analysis and the still small number of scanners presently available may limit application of this new technique. Nevertheless, based on our preliminary results, we strongly recommend non‐invasive evaluation by MSCT to be used for non‐clinical purposes such as palaeopathological research. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.