The Rothschilds in Naples

Abstract

The Rothschild bank in Naples was founded following the Restoration of 1815, and thereafter played a major role in the financial affairs of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and other Italian states until Italy’s Unification after which its operations were transferred to Turin and Rome in 1863. This article examines the career of Karl Rothschild and his son Adolphe in Naples, and describes their close contacts with the Neapolitan government, their intervention to finance the return of Pope Plus IX to Rome following the revolution of 1848–9, and their financial dealings with Cavour and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Savoy in the early 1850s. As well as contacts with the parent Rothschild banking operations in Frankfurt and London, the article examines the Rothschilds’ relations with other foreign and local bankers in Naples. It also explores their role in Neapolitan society and their role in the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Naples in 1830, which they continued to watch with interest long after the family’s banking interests in the city had been wound up.     

Domesticating gender: Neolithic patterns from the southern Levant

This paper examines the extant evidence regarding gender reconstructions and relations for the Neolithic of the southern Levant of southwest Asia. Data from human skeletal remains, mortuary contexts, architecture, and figurative art provide the empirical bases for a broad assessment of gender in the realms of productive labor, social organization, and ideology. Overall, little evidence is found to support that Neolithic societies in this region were organized hierarchically in terms of gender.     

Settlement patterns,social complexity and agricultural strategies during the Chalcolithic period in the Northern Negev,Israel

Previous studies have reported a Chalcolithic site distribution pattern in the Northern Negev as clustered, exhibiting a number of characteristics that imply a chiefdom level of organization. However, a recent spatial analysis suggests that in some areas of the Northern Negev, settlement patterns were essentially random and that there is no evidence for regional chiefdom organization. We examine this controversy by closely inspecting the methods of spatial analyses employed by previous researchers, by introducing an additional multiscalar spatial technique, namely Ripley's K-function, and by using updated and modified data. Our results indicate that settlement distributions were essentially clustered, even in small areas along the wadis. Examining the relation between these spatial-dependent distributions and the landscape surroundings revealed that particular physiographic characteristics of the wadis contribute to increscent in site clusters. Furthermore, a general linear model analysis suggests that the distribution of Chalcolithic sites is determined primarily by environmental factors rather than factors related to political organization.     

Trauma to the Skull: A Historical Perspective from the Southern Levant (4300BCE–1917CE)

Background: Although the southern Levant is commonly perceived as having been a violent region throughout history, few studies have explored the pattern and intensity of skull trauma through time in the general population. The aim of this study is to follow changes in traumatic injury patterns in the southern Levant, over an extensive period of 6,000 years. Methods: 783 archaeological skulls from the Tel Aviv University osteological collection were examined for evidence of trauma. The specimens were divided into three periods: Chalcolithic‐Bronze‐Iron Age (4300–520 BCE), Hellenistic‐Roman‐Byzantine Period (332 BCE‐640 CE), and Early and Late Arab Period (640–1917 CE). The characteristics of injury on each skull were recorded. Results: A high frequency (25%) of traumatic lesions to the skull was evident among historic populations of the southern Levant, a rate that did not fluctuate significantly over 6,000 years. The most common pattern of trauma was minor circular depressed injuries. Most of the injuries were located on the parietal or frontal bones. Traumatic lesions were more frequent in males than in females, and in mature individuals than in adolescents and children, during all periods. Conclusions: The rate of trauma in the southern Levantine populations was shown to be considerably higher than in other archaeological populations worldwide. The fact that no significant differences in trauma rates were found over time implies that socio‐economical shifts (from agrarian to urban populations) had little impact on the local populations’ aggressive behavior. In contrast, changes in type of injury, from blunt force trauma to sharp force trauma and eventually projectile trauma, reflects changes in weaponry over time. The accumulated characteristics of cranial trauma pattern (type, location, side, size, sex, age) suggest that most of the individuals studied were not engaged directly in warfare. Rather, most injuries seem to be due to blows given during interpersonal violent encounters. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

河南淅川县杨岗码头汉墓群发掘简报

2008年9月,为配合国家重点工程-南水北调中线工程建设,山西省考古研究所对杨岗码头汉墓群进行了考古发掘,共发掘汉墓45座.此次发掘丰富了淅川地区汉代物质文化资料,对了解该地区汉代的埋葬制度和习俗以及普通民众的社会生活状况具有重要意义.     

New radiocarbon dating of the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic in Kebara Cave,Israel

The Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition (MP-UP transition) is considered a major technological and cultural threshold, at the time when modern humans spread “out of Africa”, expanded from the Levant into Europe and possibly into central and northern Asia. The dating of this techno-cultural transition has proved to be extremely difficult because it occurred sometime before 40,000 radiocarbon years before present (¹⁴C years BP), which is close to the end of the effective dating range of radiocarbon. Other dating methods such as Thermoluminescence (TL) or Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) are not sufficiently precise to date the recorded archaeological MP-UP transition in the Levant. Here we report a consistent set of stratified radiocarbon ages on freshly excavated charcoal from Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel (Israel), that span the late Middle Paleolithic (MP) and Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) This study applied novel strategies to improve sample preparation techniques and data analysis to obtain high-resolution radiocarbon models. From this study it is proposed that the MP-UP transition for this site can be placed immediately after 45,200 ± 700 ¹⁴C years BP and before 43,600 ± 600 ¹⁴C years BP or from 49/48 to 47/46 radiocarbon calibrated years before present (years Cal BP).     

OLYNTHUS MILLSTONES IN THE SOUTHERN LEVANT: THE BACKDROP TO THE MARITIME TRADE OF OLYNTHUS MILLSTONES

Abstract

This article aims to illustrate the background behind the maritime trade of Olynthus-type millstones in the eastern Mediterranean region. A look at the distribution of southern Aegean Olynthus millstones, whose provenances were identified by Williams-Thorpe and Thorpe’s petrographic analysis, reveals that millstones were not a major import into the southern Levant, where local Olynthus millstones were produced and distributed. They were more frequent in Cyprus, where they were valued locally due to the dearth of stones appropriate for use as millstones. The analysis of Williams-Thorpe and Thorpe also suggests that southern Levantine millstones, in contrast to millstones from earlier and later periods, were not exported to other Mediterranean regions. Shipwreck remains from the eastern Mediterranean, as well as the distribution of commercial Rhodian amphorae, reveal that Rhodian merchants carried wine and millstones from the southern Aegean to Cyprus. The southern Levant, where a number of locally produced Olynthus mills were unearthed, was self-sufficient in millstones. Hence, the Rhodian merchants, who dominated eastern Mediterranean trade, used the southern Aegean millstones as saleable ballast.     

Areni-1 Cave,Armenia: A Chalcolithic–Early Bronze Age settlement and ritual site in the southern Caucasus

Abstract

The beginning of the Bronze Age in the southern Caucasus has been thought to coincide with the appearance of the Kura Araxes (KA) culture around 3500 cal b.c. KA artifacts are known not only from the southern Caucasus but also from sites in Anatolia, Iran, and the Levant. Recent discoveries from Areni-1 Cave in the Vayots Dzor region of Armenia demonstrate that the origin of the distinctive KA artifact assemblage lies in the Late Chalcolithic of the late 5th to early 4th millennia b.c. The cave contains rich assemblages of desiccated botanical remains that allow the site to be precisely dated and that demonstrate that its inhabitants exploited a wide variety of domesticated and wild plants. It would appear that from 4000 cal b.c. onwards, people used Areni-1 Cave for habitation and for keeping goats, storing plant foods, and ritual purposes; unusual for this time period are ceramic vessels containing the skulls of children.