Problematising the Historic Environment Record: Comments on Persistent Issues in England and Sweden

ABSTRACT

As a mainstay of local and national cultural heritage management, historic environment records play an effective role in the dissemination of data, particularly in the modern development control process. However, despite their functionality and sustained professional use, these inventories are not unproblematic, particularly in regards to informal usage. Based on the author’s professional experience this article will discuss some of the issues which convolute the delivery of historic environment data. These issues can be grouped thematically beneath the banners of fragmentation, interoperability, and accessibility. Underpinning these three topics is the relationship between historic environment records as institutions and digitality as both a cognitive process and a distribution mechanism. From a critical perspective, the extent to which these issues reoccur and inhibit the flow of data will be highlighted by examining the historic environment practice in England and Sweden in the hope that these insights can inform the contemporary approach.     

HOW WELL DID PAST UN POPULATION PROJECTIONS ANTICIPATE DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS IN SIX SOUTH-EAST ASIAN COUNTRIES?

This paper analyses the accuracy of the United Nations’ population projections since the late 1950s for six South-east Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The study uses available projected and estimated age-structured data as well as published assumptions on fertility and mortality trends. A decomposition of the total projection errors into base errors (wrong estimates of demographic conditions at the beginning of projection interval) and change errors (wrong assumptions about the trends) shows that the base errors have generally been decreasing over time presumably as a consequence of improving demographic monitoring systems. The change errors, however, do not seem to decline over time. This seems to be due to a number of country-specific cultural and political factors whose effect was not anticipated as well as to a lack of good theories with predictive power. These findings suggest the need to give more explicit attention to the treatment of uncertainty in future population projections.     

Explaining recent fertility increase in Central Asia

After a swift decline during the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union, period fertility rates have either been stagnating or increasing in all countries of Central Asia. In this paper, I investigate the role of data artifacts, population composition effect, economic context and shifting tempo effect in explaining fertility changes in Central Asia. The analysis is primarily based on comparison of fertility data from the vital registration system with estimates from other data sources. The results show that the recent changes to be real and not a result of data artifact. The most plausible explanations are to be found in the three other non-exclusive factors (population composition effect, economic context and shifting tempo effect) that contributed jointly and simultaneously to push up the period fertility rates in the region.     

Nativity Status and Voter Turnout in the Early Twentieth-Century Urban United States

Running counter to both theoretical expectations and the results of previous empirical studies, recent research has shown that European immigrants voted at higher rates than native-born Americans in urban areas of the United States during the beginning of the twentieth century. The explanation offered for this research finding, based on aggregate-level data, is that the numerical superiority of the immigrants in cities discouraged the native-born population from voting. However, a number of competing explanations could also be offered to account for this same finding. If this finding is valid, it could be attributable to the political machines spurring the immigrants to vote. Or this finding could be a spurious one caused by either the ecological fallacy or a census undercount of the foreign born. The authors, using both aggregate- and individual-level data, confirm that immigrants were more electorally active than the native born in one northeastern city. Their study reinforces the notion that the higher voter turnout of the immigrants was rooted more in demography than other factors.     

The Cortland Conference on Political History

Abstract. The 1851 Census of Religious Worship contains an excess of "round" numbers reported for congregation sizes, which indicates that estimates (as opposed to exact head counts) were often returned. The authors estimate the proportion of rounded estimates returned by the Church of England and the dissenting denominations. They develop a structural equation model to estimate for the mean degree of inflation (i. e., overstimation) that resulted from rounding. Anglican figures were most likely inflated by approximately 11 percent, whereas the corresponding figure for dissent was approximately 5.5 percent. The authors examine what sort of counting behavior could have led to such margins of inflation, and why denominational differences exist.     

The State Legislature in American History: A Review Essay

Abstract

The author discusses a very rich resource for studying the Great Depression: the Censuses of Manufactures from 1929, 1931, 1933, and 1935. He highlights the strengths and weaknesses of this source in terms of the information available on the schedules and the quality of the data. In terms of information collected, these censuses compare favorably with the modern Census of Manufactures with some limitations. The author also draws on some published studies to argue that the records held at the National Archives are (in general) complete enumerations of the establishments existing at the time. He then conducts tests for the presence of measurement error and finds a limited role.     

The spatial distribution of Palaeolithic human settlements and its influence on palaeoecological studies: a case from Northern Iberia

The aim of this study is to assess the influence of human site location choice on biogeographical and paleoecological studies based on archaeological remains, through a case study in north-western Spain. Data from an exhaustive literature survey and field trips were managed with GIS and subjected to statistical analyses. The results show that the influence of the different variables shifted through the Palaeolithic, although certain general preferences can be seen: low altitudes (median: 151 m a.s.l.), South-facing surfaces, generally gentle slopes (median: 13°) and moderate distances to water courses (median: 297 m). These choices were conditioned by geomorphological factors, with LGM glacier extent imposing an upper limit in the range of occupied altitudes and marine and fluvial terraces conditioning site location patterns. The results suggest that human site location patterns during the Palaeolithic were not random, conditioning the information available from archaeological remains. Our results allow us to identify some key areas where information on past faunal distributions, and more generally on biocoenoses, will be scarce or missing.     

Human refugia in Australia during the Last Glacial Maximum and Terminal Pleistocene: a geospatial analysis of the 25–12 ka Australian archaeological record

A number of models, developed primarily in the 1980s, propose that Aboriginal Australian populations contracted to refugia – well-watered ranges and major riverine systems – in response to climatic instability, most notably around the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) (∼23–18 ka). We evaluate these models using a comprehensive continent-wide dataset of archaeological radiocarbon ages and geospatial techniques. Calibrated median radiocarbon ages are allocated to over-lapping time slices, and then K-means cluster analysis and cluster centroid and point dispersal pattern analysis are used to define Minimum Bounding Rectangles (MBR) representing human demographic patterns. Exploring data between 25 and 12 ka, we find a refugia-type hunter-gatherer response during the LGM (∼23–18 ka) and again during the Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR) (∼14.5–12.5 ka), with expansion in the intervening period. Several refugia persist between 25 and 12 ka, including (by Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia areas) Gulf Plains/Einasleigh Uplands, Brigalow Belt South, Murray Darling Depression, and Tasmanian Central Highlands. Others appear sporadically through the same period. These include South Eastern Highlands, NSW South Western Slopes, Sydney Basin, Warren, Murchison, Gascoyne, Central and Northern Kimberley, Ord Victoria Plain, Arnhem Plateau, MacDonnell Ranges and Central Ranges. The Pilbara may also have been a refugium during the LGM, but geospatial results are problematic for this region. Areas devoid of human activity (‘barriers’) include the main desert regions, especially in the south and west of the continent, although some of these may be the result of an absence of archaeological fieldwork. Point dispersal pattern analysis indicates a reduction in occupied territory of nearly 80% during the LGM. A reduction of close to 50% was also evident during the ACR. A large number of the refugia were in close proximity to glaciated areas during the LGM, and probably benefitted from increased summer snowmelt along the major river systems. The remaining refugia are likely the result of a range of local environmental and resource factors. We identify areas for future research, including a focus on regional studies to determine possible cryptic or idiosyncratic refugia emerging in phlyogeographic studies.     

河南土地数据初步研究——以1368—1953年数据为中心

本文在对土地代用资料 (纳税单位) 考证、分类等综合分析基础上, 探索将土地代用资料转化为实际耕地数据的方法, 以及修正、验证各时间断面土地统计数据的可行性。同时, 尝试利用代用数据与实际耕地之间的转换关系, 重建一套完整的数据操作方法, 以便提高历史时期土地数据的可信度。