Structures and Members: An Overview of The Cumann na nGaedheal Party Organisation, 1923–33

This article re‐examines Cumann na nGaedheal's approach to party organisation. Cumann na nGaedheal has been portrayed as a badly organised, ‘top‐down’ party that suffered electorally for its reluctance to match the structure and organisation of its main anti‐Treaty rival, Fianna Fáil. Moreover, the party has been caricatured as a conservative organisation with little affinity for the ideology of the Irish revolution. While recent studies have reappraised Cumann na nGaedheal's engagement with the revolutionary inheritance, while highlighting underappreciated aspects of the party's electoral innovations, its organisational structures require further scholarly attention. Closer scrutiny of Cumann na nGaedheal's organisational structures sheds further light on its fate as nationalist Ireland's first party of government and ultimately its demise as a distinct party in 1933.     

The Postholocaust Landscape of Chelmno on the Ner (Kulmhof an der Nehr): An Ecological Perspective

ABSTRACT

This article shows how the ecology and nature of the Rzuchów Forest (in the Rzuchów district of the Ko?o forestry inspectorate in Greater Poland) was indirectly affected by the extermination of the Jewish population as a result of it being used to camouflage evidence of the crimes. Tracing the environmental history of commemoration in the forested part of the former death camp at Che?mno on the Ner (Che?mno nad Nerem/ Kulmhof an der Nehr) will give an indication of the ecological consequences of efforts to preserve the material traces of the camp and its natural surroundings. These efforts continued into the late 1980s. The ecology of commemoration and environmental commemoration form the two poles of this ecological continuum. It is possible to bring them closer together by furthering debates on the relationship between genocide and ecocide, while also expanding existing narratives on the Holocaust by turning to environmental aspects. This research is guided by the idea that it is necessary to rethink existing (and planned) forms of commemoration of crimes against humanity in the context of environmental ethics, with this approach leading to forms of commemoration at killing sites that give more consideration to the environment.     

Contested archaeological approaches to mass grave exhumations in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

Within the last 50 years, present day Zimbabwe, (Figure 1), formerly Rhodesia, a Southern African country, has gone through various pogroms resulting in the death of over 50,000 people in total both within and outside the country. The massacres consist of the Liberation War (1966–1979); political violence characterized by every election since 1980; the Matabeleland Democide (1982–1987); and the diamond conflict in Marange, Eastern Zimbabwe (2006–2018). These various episodes of violence have produced a myriad of human body depositional sites which include mine shafts, mass graves at schools and hospitals, burials at detention centres, pit latrines, and caves. This paper will analyse the disagreements and antagonism between professional archaeologists and vernacular exhumers that emerged during various limited exhumation of mass graves within the country. The paper will conclude by offering avenues of approaches to mass graves exhumation as the material evidence might in future, subject to judicial inquiries, contribute towards truth telling and peace and reconciliation.     

A case study of os cuneiforme mediale bipartum from Sigtuna,Sweden

An adult male from an early Medieval mass grave in Sigtuna displayed bilateral os cuneiforme mediale bipartum. This is an unusual congenital anomaly and this study is the first published example found in an archaeological skeletal assemblage in Sweden. Another adult male in the same grave shows horizontal grooves of both medial cuneiform bones. This paper discusses a possible hereditary tendency of the anomalies. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.