Ritual practices and collective consumption of animal products at the Iron Age rural settlement of Mas Castellar de Pontós (Girona,Spain) (5th–4th centuries BC)

Abstract

Animals have played an important role in certain ceremonies or rites in the past. During such activities, animals may have been alive, dead or been used as raw material. The disposal of detritus from these practices can lead to the formation of faunal assemblages with a particular taxonomic and anatomic composition. At the Iron Age ‘Mas Castellar de Pontós’ site (Girona, Spain), associations of archaeological materials excavated from Pit feature FS362 were suggestive of deposits arising from collective ceremonial consumption. Analysis of the 1309 mammal remains recovered from this feature is used to determine the nature and dynamics of the ceremony. At the same time, the relationship of these faunal remains with the other archaeological materials recovered in the pit will allow light to be shed on the significance and importance of these ceremonies in the framework of the social and political relations that governed the life of the inhabitants of this settlement.     

Multiscalar Settlement Ecology Study of Piedmont Village Tradition Communities,A.D. 1000–1600

This research analyzes the spatial patterning of settlement sites in relation to landscape features to determine the factors that influenced settlement location choices for Late Precontact (A.D. 1000–1600) Piedmont Village Tradition (PVT) communities in the Yadkin, Dan, Haw, and Eno river valleys of the Piedmont Southeast. We employ geographic information systems to estimate characteristics of past landscapes, nearest neighbor analysis to describe basic settlement patterns, and discriminant function analysis to determine spatial correlations between settlements and landscape features. We examine the data on three scales and also assess potential changes over time. Results indicate that settlement location choices were broadly similar on the regional scale, but specific influences varied between and within valleys and over time. When examined with current archaeological, ethnohistoric, and linguistic information, the results suggest that PVT communities engaged in regional interaction networks in highly variable ways and that the relationship between subsistence and settlement varied according to settlement size. Using these results, we explore the roles PVT communities played in the formation and maintenance of natural and cultural landscapes in the Late Precontact Southeast.     

Migration and left-behind parents and children of migrants in Cambodia: a look at household composition and the economic situation

ABSTRACT

This paper examines composition of households formed after the outmigration of a household member in rural Cambodian and correlates household types with indicators of economic condition. The paper focuses on households containing left-behind parents and the children of migrants. Excess mortality in the 1970s due to war suggests the association between migration and economic condition may be gendered. This could be exacerbated when migration leads to a skip-generation household containing a left-behind parent and a child of migrant without an own parent of the child present. Data come from the Cambodian Rural-Urban Migration Project (CRUMP), a project designed to study migration in rural Cambodia. Most households formed after a migration contain a left-behind parent of migrant. While about 22 per cent of these households contain a left-behind child of migrant, the per cent is over 60 per cent when the migrant is themselves a parent. The economic situation tends to be worst for left behind solo mothers (mothers of migrants who do not live with a spouse) and best for left-behind coupled parents of migrants. There is evidence that the combination of left-behind solo mothers living with children of migrants in a skip-generation situation is the most disadvantaged.     

The Effects of Inter-generational Support on the Mortality of Older People in Rural China

As inter-generational support is the primary source of support for the Chinese elderly in rural areas, such support is likely to affect their physical and psychological health. This paper investigates the effects of four types of inter-generational support on the mortality risk of the elderly in Anhui Province. Results showed that mortality risk was influenced significantly only by receiving household support. Financial support and personal care had no effect. Results also indicated that household and emotional support were effective in reducing mortality when delivered at closer proximity, suggesting that quality of support may be enhanced by co-residence and ready access to children. Conclusions about the health benefits of tangible forms of support need to be tempered by an understanding that poor health predisposes inter-generational co-residence, and that the quality of household assistance and emotional support may be sensitive to the geographic distance between older parents and their adult children in rural China.     

THE SHEPHELAH IN THE IRON AGE: A NEW LOOK ON THE SETTLEMENT OF JUDAH

Abstract

The Shephelah was densely settled in the Late Bronze Age, but most of the settlements were gradually abandoned during the transition to the Iron I period. Only a few Iron I settlements existed in the eastern part of the region (excluding the Philistine sites at the northwestern edge of the Shephelah), forming a small Canaanite enclave. During the Iron II period the region was gradually resettled, and it became part of Judah. This process lasted until the 8th century BCE, when the region reached an unparalleled demographic peak. Sennacherib's campaign brought wide-scale destruction, and the region recovered only partially before being devastated by Nebuchadnezzar. After reconstructing the region's settlement history, the article reassesses its political and demographic history in comparison to the neighbouring regions of the Judean highlands and the southern coastal plain, it is concluded that the Shephelah had a lesser role in the history of Judah than some recent studies suggest.     

The Economics of Rural Households in Russia: Impact of Village Location

An American specialist on Russia's agrarian sector and two collaborators explore the effects of distance to nearby urban markets on the agricultural output and income of Russian rural households. Unlike previous studies that have largely tested such effects on the basis of household distance from relatively large oblast administrative centers, the authors adopt a micro-level scale of analysis, focusing on distance from smaller rayon centers. Comparison of two sample populations (near vs. remote from rayon center) from a larger survey population of 900 households in nine representative regions of Russia reveals marked differences in household incomes, commodity output, and real holdings of land that are statistically verified by a linear regression model. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O18, P32, Q15, Q18. 4 tables, 46 references.     

Factor Decomposition of Rural Income Inequalities in China

A Chinese geographer explores changes in inter-provincial rural income inequality in China since the late-1970s economic reforms by decomposing it into different component factors based on the Gini index (more specifically, into contributions by different income sources: wages, household operations, properties, and transfers). The influence of each factor on inequality changes is further decomposed into its structure effects and its real inequality effects. Quantitative analysis then makes it possible to determine the relative influence of each component on changes in rural provincial inequality over time.     

Territorially unequal rural development: the cases of the LEADER Initiative and the PRODER Programme in Andalusia (Spain)

This paper studies the territorial effects of the LEADER approach in Southern Europe, by analysing the region of Andalusia (Spain). Our research has revealed that, in many cases, projects were concentrated in the most dynamic, most populated areas, with a well-established business network with the financial and organizational capacity required to access European funding. In these areas, the economic leadership of the most dynamic municipalities has been reinforced at the expense of more depressed areas with little social capital and few businesses. These programmes have not, therefore, helped to mitigate territorial imbalances. In a minority of rural areas, however, this trend was not observed, which shows that although territorial inequality is a widespread problem in the practice of neo-endogenous rural development, it does not affect all areas to the same degree.     

汉代的民间宴饮与乡里社会

在中国古代,宴饮活动承载着一定的政治、社会和文化的功能,对国家权力的建构和社会秩序的维系,起到某种微妙的作用。汉代民间的宴饮活动可以分为政治性、宗教性和生活性三种类型,对建构乡里社会的秩序结构、满足百姓的精神需求和人情需要、促进基层社会关系和家族内部关系的协调,具有重要的作用。民间宴饮成为透视乡里社会形态和特征的一个特别视窗。