A Forest of Contradictions: Producing the Landscapes of the Scottish Highlands

While total global forest cover is decreasing, in many parts of the world forests are on the rebound. Uncritical examinations of this phenomenon credit the benign diffusion of capitalist development for this "forest transition." More critical readings of this question—including green Marxian and poststructuralist approaches—might conclude something very different, however. In this paper, we explore the question of expanding forest cover, using the case of the Scottish Highlands, where forestland has tripled since the 1920s, in an attempt to critically explain regional land–cover change. Drawing upon historical sources and Scottish Executive and Forestry Commission data, we examine the specific environments currently forming in the Highlands under conditions of economic change. We conclude that two divergent forestry practices and ecologies have been formed in the wake of economic restructuring: those geared towards industrial production and those targeted at consumption through ecotourism. We conclude, therefore, that capitalism's spatial fix to declining industrial power in the region is an inherently ecological one that takes the form of "schizophrenic forestry," in which forest expansion leads to the rise of degraded monocultures alongside "pristine" sites of conservation.     

Geology and lithic procurement in Upper Palaeolithic Europe: a weights-of-evidence based GIS model of lithic resource potential

In this paper we examine ways to predict the distribution of siliceous rock in Europe, using a Bayesian technique known as ‘Weights-of-Evidence’. We use the technique to classify bedrock geological formations in terms of their likelihood of yielding tool-quality lithic raw materials, and we use the results to re-examine possible causes of a west–east cline in maximum lithic raw material transfer distances observed when comparing sites in both Middle and Upper Palaeolithic Europe. It is evident from our results that there is a decline in abundance of geological formations highly predictive of tool-quality rock along a west–east cline, predominantly reflecting a decrease in abundance of Jurassic and Cretaceous chert-bearing sedimentaries. Our results are consistent with an interpretation of the Upper Palaeolithic record of transfer distances as indicating special-purpose procurement.     

Book reviews—comptes rendus

Seventeenth‐Century France—France du dix‐septième siècle

Thomas WORCESTER, Seventeenth‐Century Cultural Discourse: France and the Preaching of Bishop Camus, Mouten de Gruyter, Berlin & New York, 1997, ix + 306p., ISBN 3–11–015220–7 DM 228

John A. LYNN, Giant of the Grand Siècle. The French Army 1610–1715, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997, 651pp. £45 ISBN 0 521 57273 8.

Themes in Cultural History—Thèmes en histoire culturelle

Susan PLANN, A Silent Minority: Deaf Education in Spain, 1550–1835, University of California Press, Berkeley, California & London, 1997, xvi + 323 pp. £40.

Charles DIERICK and Pascal LEFEVRE eds., Forging a New Medium: The Comic Strip in the Nineteenth Century, VUB University Press, Brussels, 1998.

Larry WOLFF, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of Enlightenment, Stanford University Press, Stanford 1994. xii + 419 pp. Paperback, £15.95.

Social History—Histoire sociale

Ann‐Louise SHAPIRO, Breaking the Codes: Female Criminality in Fin‐de‐siècle Paris, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1996, pp. viii + 265, ISBN 0–8047–2 693–0.

Nancy GREEN, Du Sentier à la 7e avenue. La confection et les immigrés, Paris‐New York, 1880–1980, Paris, Le Seuil, collection “L'univers historique”, 1998.

Nancy GREEN, Ready‐To‐Wear and Ready‐To‐Work. A Century of Industry and immigrants in Paris and New York, Duke University Press, 1997.

Lewis J. EDINGER & Brigitte L. NACOS, From Bonn to Berlin. German politics in transition, Columbia University Press, New York, 1998, ISBN 023108413729 £13.50£39.50

Themes in European Politics—Aspects du politique européenne

Dimitrije DJORDJEVIC, Scars and Memory: Four Lives in One Lifetime, Boulder, East European Monographs, 1997, pp. 463, ISBN 0–88033–368–5, £34.

Grigor MCCLELLAND, Embers of War: Letters from a Quaker reliefworker in war‐torn Germany, IB Tauris 1997, pp. xxiii + 230, ISBN 1–86064–312–4, £25.

Michael BERKOWITZ Western Jewry and the Zionist project, 1914–1933, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0 521 47087 0 hardback £40

Paul W. DOERR, British foreign policy 1919–1939, Manchester, Manchester University Press 1998, ISBN hb: 0–7190–4671–8 pb:0–7190–4672–6. £45.00 (hb) £14.99 (pb).     

The analysis of copper artifacts of the copper inuit

Metallography and neutron activation analysis have been used to investigate copper artifacts from 19th century archaeological sites associated with the “Copper Inuit” of the west-central Canadian Arctic. A knowledge of the source of the copper from which the artifacts were manufactured - native (local) copper or European (exotic) copper - is important, for example, to studies of the effects of European contact on utilization of native copper and on the general lifestyle of the Copper Inuit. Trace element analysis by neutron activation using the SLOWPOKE reactor has allowed local native copper, from the Coppermine River and Victoria Island, NW Territories, to be clearly distinguished from 19th century European smelted copper, which was found to contain higher concentrations of arsenic, antimony, nickel and selenium. Moreover, optical and scanning electron metallography revealed significant microstructural differences between native copper and the 19th century smelted copper. As a consequence it was possible to differentiate between native copper archaeological artifacts and those produced from smelted copper.     

An archaeologically validated protocol for computing obsidian hydration rates from laboratory data

This paper reports the computation of hydration rate for Topaz Mountain obsidian from laboratory data, and a comparison with archaeological data from a well-dated site, Camels Back Cave, in western Utah. Topaz Mountain obsidian is found to be slow-hydrating, with a rate of 0.071 ± 0.021 μ/yr^½ at an effective hydration temperature of 16.01 °C. This rate agrees with a rate developed from archaeological data from Camels Back Cave within ∼6%. Activation energy of Topaz Mountain obsidian is 10370 ± 544 K, and its diffusion constant is (1.87 ± 9.13) × 10¹³ μ²/yr, both of which are independent of temperature. Its intra-source variability in hydration rate is very low (CV < 0.01), implying a low variability in intrinsic water. We present a model of chemical erosion which shows why earlier laboratory-determined rates were incorrect, and discuss the implications of our findings on the determination of experimentally derived rates in obsidian hydration dating.     

Unearthing Barrow Island’s Past: The Historical Archaeology of Colonial-Era Exploitation,Northwest Australia

The “modern world” of recent centuries is characterized by colonialism and imperialism, greater instances of cultural encounter and competition, increasing global connectivity, and the enhanced movement of resources and people especially for their labor (Falk 1991; Orser 1996). Northwest Australia provides important insight into these elements of modernity, as a region where the capitalist production of resources for international markets followed British colonization and relied on forms of non-European labor, both Indigenous Australian and Asian. This paper describes Barrow Island in the Northwest Australian maritime desert where archaeological research at recently discovered historic settlements indicates the deliberate translocation of Aboriginal people to the island presumably by white pearlers. The sites provide new information regarding commercial extractive industries, particularly the colonial pearl fisheries and their multicultural and exploitative nature.