Laboratory Excavation of a Neolithic Grave from Avignon-La Balance-Ilot P (France): Burial Practices and Garment Reconstruction

The grave of La Balance-Ilot P, in Avignon, southern France, is an individual and isolated burial, attributed in the 1970′s to the Mesolithic or the Early Neolithic. The grave, partially unearthed, was exhibited and stored at the Calvet Museum until its rediscovery and laboratory excavation in 2009. We used 3D laser recording and field anthropological methods, followed by a multidisciplinary approach. The deceased, an adult male, was buried in primary deposition without any architectural features preserved. For the first time in the Mediterranean early Neolithic, this study led to the identification of a garment adorned with sophisticated embroidery using 158 red-colored Columbella rustica shells and 16 red deer canines. Calibrated AMS dates allow us to reliably place it in the early 5th millennium b.c. reinforcing evidence for long distance intercultural relationships in Europe during the Neolithic.     

War,Gender and National Mourning: The Significance of the Death and Commemoration of Edith Cavell in Britain

This article takes as a case study Edith Cavell, arguably the most prominent British female war casualty of the First World War. It builds on the existing work on Cavell by situating her commemoration within the context of the commemoration of British war casualties, both male and female, with particular reference to the commemoration of Captain Charles Fryatt, the British merchant seaman executed by the Germans in Belgium in 1916 whose death initially caused an outcry in Britain similar to that caused by the execution of Cavell.

résumé ?Cet article se penche sur le cas d'Edith Cavell, la victime britannique la plus célèbre de la première guerre mondiale, pour contextualiser son historiographie dans le contexte de la commémoration des victimes de guerre et en la comparant au cas du capitaine Charles Fryatt, de la marine marchande, exécuté en Belgique en 1916.     

Closing the Neoliberal Gap: Risk and Regulation in the Long War of Securitization

Abstract: When US military commanders refer today to the “long war”, they could more instructively refer to the “long war of securitization”, involving both practices of war and reconstruction that have always been based on a therapeutic logic of preemption and an endgame of protection from global economic risk. Since the early 1980s, the centrepiece of US foreign policy has been the securitization of the Persian Gulf region, with the newly created United States Central Command (CENTCOM) given the task of effecting a grand strategy that has subsequently been consistently based on two interrelated tactics: first, the discursive identification and positing of the Persian Gulf as a precarious yet pivotal geoeconomic space, essential to US and global economic health; and second, the enactment of a dual military–economic securitization strategy to secure, patrol and regulate designated “vital interests” in the region. With the rhetorical power of “risk management” perhaps more palpable today than ever, this paper reflects on the neoliberal discourses of “risk” and “regulation” that sustain a “long war” in which the perennial potentiality of a volatile global political economy necessitates securitization by US military force.     

Engendering New Netherland: Implications for Interpreting Early Colonial Societies

Here, we study the Algonquian and Iroquoian women who lived in settlements surrounding the Dutch colony of New Netherland, in today’s northeastern United States. We begin by examining their roles in the colony and find that their lives did not fall into the pattern of servitude, concubinage, culture-brokering, and intermarriage that many have seen as the fate of Native or African women in other colonial societies. Instead, these women were, by and large, independent agents and followed their own indigenous customs as they interacted with Europeans. We then go on to explore how this new revisionist view of their actions affects archaeological interpretations of their households and the households of the Europeans as well. We further point out how the role of Native women in New Netherland was influenced in part by the presence and absence of other groups of women—both European and African—there.     

Using Simulated Data to Examine the Determinants of Acute Hospital Demand at the Small Area Level

The aim of this article is to establish whether spatial variation exists in acute hospital utilization in Ireland and, if it does, to identify the microlevel factors influencing this variation. First, an alignment process is used to calibrate the acute inpatient attendance and nights spent in hospital variables produced by a spatial microsimulation model at both the national and the subnational levels. Comparing the results of the national and subnational alignment allows us to examine whether spatial variation exists. Second, after establishing that hospital utilization displays a significant spatial pattern, we use a nationally representative survey to determine which individual‐level factors significantly affect inpatient attendance and the number of nights spent in hospitals. Using the calibrated data from the aforementioned spatial microsimulation model, we examine whether the spatial patterns of those variables found to influence hospital utilization match the spatial pattern of actual hospital utilization rates at the small area, electoral division level. That is, are the individuals/areas with the highest demand for acute hospital services utilizing acute hospital services? Finally, the results of this research are discussed in relation to both the national and international literature. El objetivo de este artículo es determinar si existe variación espacial en la utilización aguda y urgente (acute) de hospitales en Irlanda, y de ser así, identificar los factores microeconómicos que influyen en esta variación. En primer lugar, se utiliza un proceso de alineación para calibrar las variables de concurrencia (asistencia) de pacientes hospitalizados con casos agudos y de noches de estancia en el hospital, producidas por un modelo microsimulación espacial, tanto para niveles nacionales como subnacionales. Comparar los resultados de alineación de los niveles nacionales y subnacionales nos permite examinar si existe variación espacial. En segundo lugar, después de establecer que la utilización de hospitales muestra un patrón espacial significativo, empleamos una encuesta (un censo) nacional representativa para determinar qué factores a nivel individual afectan significativamente la concurrencia de pacientes hospitalizados y el número de noches de estancia en los hospitales. Al usar los datos calibrados del ya mencionado modelo de microsimulación espacial, analizamos si los patrones espaciales de esas variables que influyen en la utilización de hospitales concuerdan con el patrón espacial de las tasas reales (existentes) de utilización hospitalaria al nivel de las áreas pequeñas de división electoral (DE). En otras palabras, ¿Son las/los individuos/áreas con la mayor demanda de casos agudos de servicios de hospitalización las/los que están utilizados los servicios de hospitalización aguda? Finalmente, los resultados de esta investigación se analizan (discuten) en relación a la literatura especializada nacional e internacional. 本文的研究目的在于通过建立模型以检验爱尔兰急症医院的利用是否存在空间分异。如果存在空间分异,则识别影响其空间分异的微观尺度的驱动因子。首先,在国家和地方两个尺度,通过空间微观模型对所要构建模型的求诊人数及他们花费的夜间数进行校正和调整,并通过对比国家与地方两个尺度的校准结果,来检验其是否存在空间分异。其次,通过建立的模型检验出急诊医院的利用具有显著的空间模式,利用一份具有全国代表性的调查以确定哪些个体层面因素显著影响着求诊人数与在医院花费的夜间数。利用上述空间微观模拟模型检测影响医院利用的那些变量的空间模式,与实际的医院利用率的空间模式在被划分的小区域尺度上是否匹配。也就是说,这些对急症医院服务具有最大需求的个体或区域是否真正实际在使用着这些服务。最后,将本文结果与国内和国际文献进行了相关探讨。.     

Les deux identite´s de la France

Regionalism is an important element in the representation of French identity. Often considered as a right-wing ideology, it appeared as a left-wing movement in the 1960s, and references to regionalism are to be found in much French political discourse today. This article highlights the place of the regionalist element in French identity by advancing the hypothesis that for more than a century there has been a dual French identity. The Third Republic asserted that France was 'one and indivisible', but also that the country was richly diverse. The exaltation of diversity permitted the reaffirmation of French superiority over other nations. In order to develop a mass education grounded on patriotic feeling, those responsible for education declared that this had to be based on children's spontaneous affection for their 'petite patrie'. The regional identities celebrated in republican France are not at odds with national identity. The process of constructing national identities in Europe led to the creation of a 'check-list' forming the basis of all national identities. Regional identities were constructed on the basis of a dual relationship between the local and the national: the model of the national as a perfect mosaic of diversity, or the model of the 'mise en abyme', that is, the local representing the national in miniature.     

Early Cretaceous polar biotas of Victoria,southeastern Australia—an overview of research to date

Poropat, S.F., Martin, S.K., Tosolini, A.-M.P., Wagstaff, B.E, Bean, L.B., Kear, B.P., Vickers-Rich, P. &; Rich, T.H., May 2018. Early Cretaceous polar biotas of Victoria, southeastern Australia—an overview of research to date. Alcheringa 42, 158–230. ISSN 0311-5518.

Although Cretaceous fossils (coal excluded) from Victoria, Australia, were first reported in the 1850s, it was not until the 1950s that detailed studies of these fossils were undertaken. Numerous fossil localities have been identified in Victoria since the 1960s, including the Koonwarra Fossil Bed (Strzelecki Group) near Leongatha, the Dinosaur Cove and Eric the Red West sites (Otway Group) at Cape Otway, and the Flat Rocks site (Strzelecki Group) near Cape Paterson. Systematic exploration over the past five decades has resulted in the collection of thousands of fossils representing various plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. Some of the best-preserved and most diverse Hauterivian–Barremian floral assemblages in Australia derive from outcrops of the lower Strzelecki Group in the Gippsland Basin. The slightly younger Koonwarra Fossil Bed (Aptian) is a Konservat-Lagerstätte that also preserves abundant plants, including one of the oldest known flowers. In addition, insects, crustaceans (including the only syncaridans known from Australia between the Triassic and the present), arachnids (including Australia’s only known opilione), the stratigraphically youngest xiphosurans from Australia, bryozoans, unionoid molluscs and a rich assemblage of actinopterygian fish are known from the Koonwarra Fossil Bed. The oldest known—and only Mesozoic—fossil feathers from the Australian continent constitute the only evidence for tetrapods at Koonwarra. By contrast, the Barremian–Aptian-aged deposits at the Flat Rocks site, and the Aptian–Albian-aged strata at the Dinosaur Cove and Eric the Red West sites, are all dominated by tetrapod fossils, with actinopterygians and dipnoans relatively rare. Small ornithopod (=basal neornithischian) dinosaurs are numerically common, known from four partial skeletons and a multitude of isolated bones. Aquatic meiolaniform turtles constitute another prominent faunal element, represented by numerous isolated bones and articulated carapaces and plastrons. More than 50 specimens—mostly lower jaws—evince a high diversity of mammals, including monotremes, a multituberculate and several enigmatic ausktribosphenids. Relatively minor components of these fossil assemblages are diverse theropods (including birds), rare ankylosaurs and ceratopsians, pterosaurs, non-marine plesiosaurs and a lepidosaur. In the older strata of the upper Strzelecki Group, temnospondyl amphibians—the youngest known worldwide—are a conspicuous component of the fauna, whereas crocodylomorphs appear to be present only in up-sequence deposits of the Otway Group. Invertebrates are uncommon, although decapod crustaceans and unionoid bivalves have been described. Collectively, the Early Cretaceous biota of Victoria provides insights into a unique Mesozoic high-latitude palaeoenvironment and elucidates both palaeoclimatic and palaeobiogeographic changes throughout more than 25 million years of geological time.

Stephen F. Poropat*? [sporopat@swin.edu.au; stephenfporopat@gmail.com], Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, John St, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia; Sarah K. Martin*? [sarah.martin@dmirs.wa.gov.au; martin.sarahk@gmail.com] Geological Survey of Western Australia, 100 Plain St, East Perth, Western Australia 6004, Australia; Anne-Marie P. Tosolini [a.tosolini@unimelb.edu.au] and Barbara E. Wagstaff [wagstaff@unimelb.edu.au] School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia; Lynne B. Bean [lynne.bean@anu.edu.au] Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Acton, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2001, Australia; Benjamin P. Kear [benjamin.kear@em.uu.se] Museum of Evolution, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 16, Uppsala SE-752 36, Sweden; Patricia Vickers-Rich§ [prich@swin.edu.au; pat.rich@monash.edu] Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, John St, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia; Thomas H. Rich [trich@museum.vic.gov.au] Museum Victoria, PO Box 666, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia. *These authors contributed equally to this work. ?Also affiliated with: Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, Lot 1 Dinosaur Drive, PO Box 408, Winton, Queensland 4735, Australia. ?Also affiliated with: Earth and Planetary Sciences, Western Australian Museum, Welshpool, Western Australia 6101, Australia. §Also affiliated with: School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia.