The chemical identification of baltic amber at the Celtic oppidum Staré Hradisko in Moravia

The Celtic oppidum Staré Hradisko north of Brno in Moravia, SSR, has long been noted for its wealth of archaeological amber artifacts. Since there are several substantial deposits of fossil resins in the immediate vicinity of the site, it has been an open question whether the settlement was a centre of exploitation and exportation of these local raw materials, or whether it was an entrepôt of Baltic amber on its way to southern and southeastern Europe.Because of extensive weathering, many of the amber finds at Staré Hradisko cannot be identified by infra-red spectroscopy. A new analytical method, which determines the amount of succinic acid by means of gas chromatography, has been developed to show that the amber of Staré Hradisko is, in fact, of the Baltic variety called succinite.     

History perceptions and national identity among Latvian youth: Entrapped between narratives of Latvia and Russia?

This article examines the extent to which history forms national identity among Latvian youth. Being a multiethnic country, Latvia provides a unique opportunity to study the role of history in nation-building among dominant and minority ethnic groups. The majority of Latvia's ethnic minorities are Russian-speaking; therefore, a peculiarity of the Latvian case is the influence of the historical narratives promoted by Russia. The research problem of the paper is the formation of national identity when a foreign country promotes distorted historical narratives to discredit a state. The empirical findings are based on 30 in-depth interviews with young people. The main conclusion is that history plays a rather limited direct role in forming national identity among youth in Latvia. The influence of Russia's historical narratives is observable but not as strong as expected in the context of Russia's influence activities.     

‘The True Love of the People and the Motherland’: The concept of socialist patriotism,socialist nation and anti-nationalism in Hungary in the 1960s and 1970s

In the late 1950s, the concept of socialist patriotism in Hungary was reformulated as a basic political concept in the ideology and propaganda of state socialism. The definite appropriation of Leninist contraposition of socialist patriotism and bourgeois nationalism became paramount in the second half of the 1950s because of the nationalist sentiments of the 1956 revolution. I trace the history of the concept of socialist patriotism in the 1960s and 1970s in socialist Hungary. During this period, socialist patriotism served as a slightly undetermined, yet didactic counter-concept to set against ‘bourgeois nationalism’ which was characterised as a xenophobic sense of nation. From the late 1960s, the doctrine of socialist patriotism confronted a new ideological enemy: supra-nationalism or cosmopolitanism. In the mid-1970s, a new ideological equilibrium was elaborated in Hungary between socialist patriotism and proletarian internationalism, which served the economic and political integration of the Eastern bloc countries. In this sense, socialist patriotism was meant to express a link with socialist political order, its achievements and its institutions, in contrast to the ethnic character and revanchist tendencies of nationalism.     

Olmec archaeology: A half century of research and its accomplishments

The Olmec of Mexico's southern Gulf coast (3100-2450 B.P.) are the most famed of Formative period Mesoamerica's early complex cultures, and are particularly noted for their elaborate stone monuments. After five decades of research, scholars remain in sharp disagreement on what the archaeological record means with regard to the impact the Olmec had on social and political evolution in Mesoamerica. A discussion of interpretive problems and a review of 50 years of Olmec archaeology illustrates reasons for the disagreements, as well as the type, quantity, and quality of data that have been recovered from excavations. Those show that, until recently, knowledge of the Olmec has been based primarily on two limited pre-1970 data sets. New research is discussed, and topical issues in Olmec archaeology are treated in detail.     

A Review of Swahili Archaeology

The Swahili people have been viewed as of Persian/Arabic or Cushitic-speaking origin. Scholars have used historical and archaeological data to support this hypothesis. However, linguistic and recent archaeological data suggest that the Swahili culture had its origin in the early first centuries AD. It was the early farming people who settled on the coast in the last centuries BC who first adopted iron technology and sailing techniques and founded the coastal settlements. The culture of the iron-using people spread to the rest of the coast of East Africa, its center changing from one place to another. Involvement in transoceanic trade from the early centuries AD contributed to the prosperity of the coastal communities as evidenced by coastal monuments. More than 1500 years of cultural continuity was offset by the arrival of European and Arab colonizers in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries AD. Le peuple Swahili a souvent été consideré comme un peuple dont la langue avait pour origine le Perse/Arabe ou le Cushite. Les chercheurs ont utilisé des donées historiques et archéologiques afin de supporter cette hypothese. Cependant l'étude linguistique de cette langue, ainsi que de nouvelles découvertes archéologiques suggérent que la culture Swahili trouve son origine au début de l'ère chrétienne. Ils furent les premiers fermiers à s'installer le long du littoral, fondant des villages côtiers, vers les premiers siécles de notre ère, les premiers aussi à adopter les techniques du fer et les techniques de navigation. La culture du fer s'étendit rapidement au reste des côtes d'Afrique de l'Est, son centre se déplaçant d'un endroit à un autre. Leur implication dans le commerce océanique contrbua à la prosperité de leur communautés côtières, mise en évidence notamment par les monuments le long du littoral. Plus de 1500 ans de continuité culturelle pris fin à l'arrivé des colonisateurs Européens et Arabes de dixseptième et dixhuitième siècles.     

ÉVOLUTION DE L'AGRICULTURE MARAÎCHÈRE AU QUÉBEC DE 1940 À 1990: SUPERFICIES,PRODUCTIONS ET DIVERSITÉ

Depuis plus d'un siècle, l'agriculture québécoise en général, et la production maraîchère en particulier, ont subi d'importantes transformations. Cette étude historique vise à comprendre comment la production maraîchère a évolué par rapport aux changements dans l'environnement décisionnel général de l'agriculture entre 1940 et 1990. L'analyse des données statiques de superficie, de production et de rendement pour 12 légumes ont permis d'identifier trois périodes, intercalées d'années transitoires, dans l'évolution de la production maraîchère référant chacune à une stratégie agricole particulière. La première (1940–1957) correspond à une stratégie agricole de type familial traditionnel; la seconde (1963–1975), à une agriculture marchande spécialisée fondée sur la maximisation des revenus à court terme par intensification; la troisième (1980–1990), à une agriculture marchande diversifiée fondée également sur une maximisation à court terme. Les facteurs externes de l'environnement décisionnel qui ont entraîné ces changements sont identifiés et discutès. For more than a century, Quebec agriculture in general, and market-gardening production in particular, have experienced important changes. This study, using a historical perspective, seeks to understand how market gardening evolved in relation to changes in the broad decision environment for agriculture between 1940 and 1990. Statistical analysis of data on the areas cultivated, production levels, and yields for 12 vegetable crops revealed three distinct periods, separated by periods of transition, in the evolution of market gardening. Each period is characterized by a particular type of agricultural development strategy. The first period (1940–1957) is characterized by a focus on the traditional family form; the second (1963–1975), by a specialized market agriculture driven by short-term income-maximization intensification; the third (1980–1990), by a diversified marketoriented agriculture, also based on short-term income maximization. External environmental factors that stimulated these changes are identified and discussed.     

Naturwissenschaft und Religion in den Niederlanden um 1600

Dutch science flourished in the late sixteenth and in the seventeenth century thanks to the immigration of cartographers, botanists, mathematicians, astronomers and the like from the Southern Netherlands after the Spanish army had captured the city of Antwerp in 1585, and thanks to the religious and the socio-economic situation of the country. A strong impulse for practical scientific activities started from the Reformation, mainly thanks to its anti-traditional attitude, which had an anti-rationalistic tendency. Therefore, in the Northern Netherlands there was no ‘warfare’ between science and religion and the biblical arguments leading to Galileo's condemnation were not used. Although the growth of the exact sciences and of technology in the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries in Protestant cirles may be partly attributed to the expansion of trade, industry, navigation and so on, this does not explain why there was also at the same time a great interest in subjects as botany and zoology, which had no immediate economic utility. There were discussions about Copernicanism and Cartesianism. So a number of astronomers and theologians rejected the earth's movement on scientific and religious grounds, but there were also those who did not reject the Copernican system on biblical grounds. In the seventeenth century there was much discussion between science and religion in the Northern Netherlands, but that discussion was not followed by censure by the Church of the State. In the Republic there was a large amount of intellectual freedom in the study of the natural sciences, thanks to practical and ideological considerations. In the eighteenth century the seventheenth century tension between science and religion changed into a physicotheological natural science. It was believed that investigations into the workings of nature should lead to a better understanding of its Creator. So Bernard Nieuwentijt in his well-known book: The right use of-world views for the conviction of atheists and unbelievers (1715) intended to prove the existence of God on the basis of teleological arguments.     

Universitäre Freiräume im Spätmittelalter als Wegbereiter neuzeitlicher Naturwissenschaft

University freedom in late Middle Ages as a way to modern natural history: The question regarding the relation between faith and natural history in late Middle Ages was answered in different ways. In the way of thinking shaped by Augustinian philosophy there existed, in early Middle Ages, a close connection between natural science and religious belief. In the second half of the 13th century attempts were made at dividing natural science from supernatural sphere. In late Middle Ages it was endeavoured not only to liberate natural history from the domination of theology and metaphysics but also to achieve the autonomous treatment of nature. These endeavours became fully accomplished by Nicolaus Copernicus.     

K/AR DATING AS A MEANS OF SOURCING LEVANTINE EPIPALAEOLITHIC BASALT IMPLEMENTS

Through K/Ar dating of basalt implements from two Mount Carmel late Epipalaeolithic sites and samples of locally occurring basalts, it was possible to demonstrate clearly that the prehistoric inhabitants of these sites did not utilize the locally available Upper Cretaceous (88–77 My) basalts. The dates of the basalt implements are of Tertiary-Quaternary age (3.7-<0.250 My) which suggests the exploitation of basalt exposures at least 60 km east of the sites. This is the first direct evidence for long-distance exchange/trade of an essential raw material in the Levant as early as 13000 BP.     

OBSIDIAN IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AND THE NEAR EAST: A PROVENANCING SUCCESS STORY

Obsidian provenancing studies comprise one of the most productive and successful research programmes of archaeological science. Obsidian characterization has been successful because workable obsidian is homogeneous on a small scale, analysable by a large number of methods, and is restricted to a small number of mainly readily distinguishable geological sources. Analytical, dating, source, and trade studies within the western Mediterranean, central and eastern Europe, the Aegean, and Anatolia and the Near East during the last 30 years or so are reviewed. Research has shown that distributions are mainly separate in the four regions examined, and that obsidian was traded up to 900km in the prehistoric period. Publications on obsidian in the areas under review reached a peak of frequency in the later 1970s and 1980s, but have now decreased in number. This may reflect changing fashions in archaeometric studies, and a current lack of routine application of the provenancing methods developed.