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.     

The Gift We Bring

Abstract

Miroslav Volf’s A Public Faith invites religious traditions, especially Christianity, to bring their best elements into the public square in a spirit of hospitality and engagement for the common good. With regard to Christianity, he claims that one of the best elements we can offer the public square is a complexly relational vision of the human person made to love self, others, God. In this essay Dávila proposes that the preferential option for the poor is a particular expression of this anthropological vision of Christianity that is well poised for public engagement based on humility and care for the most vulnerable members of society. Following Volf’s proposal, the option for the poor functions as a paradigm for imaginative and creative engagement in the public square that might help people of faith navigate seemingly intractable political and cultural disagreements in the public square.     

The Conflict between Traditional Christian Churches in Ukraine as a Conflict of Identities: Where to Search for the Prospects of Reconciliation? A Reflection in the Light of the Theories of Paul Ricoeur and John Paul Lederach

Abstract

After the independence of Ukraine in 1991 there emerged or re-emerged four churches that derive their roots from ancient Kyiv Christianity. Those churches conflict with each other, the main cause of the split and tensions being the issue of cultural and social–political identities in the country. Such conflicting narrative identities have to be reconciled by the mutual recognition of their diversity when churches in Ukraine want to become a real force for transformation in society. Among the different models of the search for rapprochement in this article I refer to the theories of Paul Ricoeur and John Paul Lederach. According to the ethics of memory of Paul Ricoeur, traditional Ukrainian churches should abandon endless circles of melancholia about their losses and create new identities through the process of mourning. Because the tensions among traditional Christian denominations in Ukraine are not likely to be solved by institutional measures as history proves, churches should concentrate their efforts on working on social and relational platforms. Here I refer to the ethics of moral imagination of John Paul Lederach that envisions focusing the reconciliatory activities on locations of interaction between people that should finally contribute to the rapprochement.     

John Calvin and the Jews: A Problem in Political Theology

Abstract

Although John Calvin rejected the angry invective of Martin Luther against the Jews, he nevertheless agreed with him that Christian biblical interpretation was a more reliable guide to the mind of the patriarchs in Genesis than the exegesis of Rabbinic Judaism. The Hebrew Bible was therefore properly understood as Christian Scripture and had always been addressed to the Church as well as to ancient Israel.     

THE CAREER OF L. S. BERG

The following appraisal is by Eduard M. Murzayev, physical geographer and toponymist, with interests in Mongolia and Central Asia, who was a student of Berg at Leningrad University, and since this graduation in 1930 has been associated with the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences USSR, first in Leningrad and after 1936 in Moscow. This article is based on a talk given by Murzayev in March 1976 at a memorial session of the Geographical Society USSR in Leningrad.     

Structural Change and Regional Disparities in Xinjiang,China

The paper by a noted American geographer and a specialist based in Germany examines and analyzes recent economic growth and structural change in the strategically significant and resource-rich (including oil and gas deposits) region of Xinjiang. The authors identify regional variation in the trajectory of economic development at the urban and county levels, employing conceptual approaches related to structural shifts in economic sectors and focusing on shifts in employment from agriculture to activities in the secondary and tertiary sectors. They also investigate the role of the tertiary sector using a labor transition model, examining its functioning in the context of the industrial sector's absorption of labor in the transitional economy of China. Calculations are based on the most recent official statistical data released by national and regional governments and available at present (mid-2006). Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: J21, J24, O18, R11. 9 figures, 4 tables, 45 references.     

INTERGENERATIONAL TIME AND MONETARY SUPPORT AMONG URBAN INDIAN FAMILIES

Intra-household time transfer is an important intergenerational support, less emphasised but more prominent than monetary transfers in the Indian family system. This paper attempts to study, empirically, the nature and pattern of time transfers between co-residing and non-co-residing parents and their adult married children in an urban setting in India. From the analysis of 673 representative sampled households, we have found that reciprocative time transfers between adult children and their parents constitute a central feature of the intergenerational support system, regardless of co-residency status. Significant correlates of time transfers to elderly parents are age, presence of other siblings in the household, headship status, and monetary support received from and made to parents. However, there is no evidence of inter-substitution between time and money between the two generations, i.e. married adult children and their parents. Time support is more frequent and intense when parents reside in the same city, whereas monetary transfers dominate when parents reside in a distant city or village.