Foes or Allies? Portuguese Colonial Policies towards Islam in Mozambique and Guinea

Drawing its information from documents in Portuguese, French and British archives, this article examines the evolution of Portuguese colonial policies regarding Islam in Guinea and Mozambique. Such policies swayed between an image of the Muslim as foe and a more conciliatory picture, in which Muslims could be presented as potential allies of Portuguese power in the war against nationalist movements. Although the first image prevailed until the end of 1950s and the second one emerged in the mid-1960s as part of the last stage in the colonial wars, ambivalence was their common trait. That ambivalence did not hinder the development of a whole new strategy to address the Muslim communities, based on the ‘psychological’ and ‘sociological’ techniques of counter-insurgency war. The article analyses the transition from governing methods based on the control and repression of colonised Muslims to strategies aimed at co-opting them, sketching a comparison between the results achieved in Guinea and Mozambique.     

Monks on the move? An assessment of mobility at the medieval Nubian monastery of Ghazali,Sudan (ca. 680–1,275 CE)

The location of Ghazali monastery away from the Nile valley within the relatively isolated environs of the Bayuda desert presents a landscape suggestive of mobility toward the monastery by those who chose to reside there as monks. To assess this potentiality, a sample of 37 individuals from the monastic cemetery (Cemetery 2) were analysed for ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and δ¹⁸O to assess residency during dental enamel formation. The data generated bring into question the nature of mobility to Ghazali monastery, particularly in regard to the potential movement of people from the Nile valley, adjacent desertic landscapes, and further afield.     

The Yezidi Wednesday and the Music of the Spheres

The article is an attempt to answer the question why Wednesday has the status of a holy day in Yezidism. Wednesday can be seen as a commemoration of the fourth day of creation, when the life on earth began and the Peacock Angel became its ruler. The article points to the Yezidi worship of the Moon and the Sun and related angels (Melek Fakhradin and Melek Sheikh Shams) and connects it with the Pythagorean concept concerning the movement of the planets and the Music of the Spheres. Two sacred Yezidi instruments, def and shibab, appear as allegories of celestial bodies in the Yezidi sacred hymns in the cosmogonic context of the creation of the macrocosm and microcosm (Adam). The article also points out the meaning of Wednesday in Judaism as the day when God created the sun, moon and stars and briefly discusses relationships with planet worship in Harran, Zoroastrianism and Mandaeism, especially in the context of the Yezidi Çar?emiya Sor festival which takes place on the first Wednesday of the month of Nisan.     

Do environmental disturbances of an individual's growth and development influence the later bone involution processes? A study of two mediaeval populations

Age‐dependent cortical bone loss was studied in two mediaeval Polish populations differing with regard to socio‐economic status, as well as the intensity of the occurrence of skeletal indicators of living conditions in the early stages of ontogenesis (compression of the skull base and the narrowing of the lumbar vertebral canal). Cortical bone loss was analysed on the basis of the radiographs of the second metacarpal. Cedynia population (better living conditions) is characterized by higher arithmetic means for the height of the skull base in comparison with Słaboszewo group (low socio‐economic status). In the case of the vertebral canal index, significant interpopulation differences apply only to men. Similar patterns of difference between groups under study regarding bone loss was also found. It turned out that males from Cedynia had more bone mass in adultus and maturus age categories; in females, these differences concern only adultus category. The study involved an analysis of a relationship between the characteristics measuring reactions to environmental stress in early stages of growth and the intensity of bone loss in adult life. We believe that the results presented justify a conclusion that both phenomena may be interrelated to a considerable degree. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Federation Projects in Central Europe, 1848–1918

This paper deals with the less researched issue of regional federation projects in East-Central Europe from the period 1848 to 1918. Based on exhaustive research, primarily using original sources—works of the intellectuals who designed these projects—the paper examines the reasons why these federation projects were written, their historical-political context, and why these plans had to fail at their time. Similarities and differences of ideas in these projects are also presented. The intention is not to give a simple presentation of a series of historical facts, but to present some early ideas focused on regional integration, which, in turn, could also provide inspiration in the present.     

Using the Capability Approach to Conceptualise Inequality in Archaeology: the Case of the Late Neolithic Bosnian Site Okolište c. 5200–4600 <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">bce</Emphasis>

The past few decades have witnessed a growing realisation that market-based measures of human well-being—measures that centre on income and consumption distributions—miss some other perhaps even more essential elements of human well-being. This insight has found a prominent expression in the work of the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen’s so-called capability approach. At the same time, the market-based measure of inequality as a function of the distribution of material remains in graves and other locations remain dominant in archaeology. In this paper, we explore the significance of the capability approach, and the associated concept of human well-being based on the idea of capabilities, to the archaeology of social inequality and social malintegration. We discuss these notions using the case study of the Late Neolithic Bosnian tell site Okoli?te and argue that there, in c. 5200–4600 bce, the monopolisation of certain critical goods led to a critical capability inequality, malintegration and to a prolonged period of social unrest and decline.     

Propagation of error formulas for K/Ar dating method

In this paper has been derived the most relevant propagation of error formula in the case when argon peaks are measured. The most frequently cited formula published by Cox and Dalrymple deals with the isotope ratios, instead of isotope peaks heights, considered as independent variables.