More than Cleaning and Caring: The Profession of Dental Hygiene in Canada, 1951–2010

Dental hygiene has been a female-dominated profession that worked primarily for dentists who, until very recently, were usually male. This article explores the early history of dental hygiene in Canada during the 1950s and 1960s; its explosive growth in the 1970s; the influence of feminism on the profession; and the battles dental hygienists fought to improve the status of their profession including better educational opportunities; professional self-regulation and the right to practice independently of dentists. It argues that dental hygienists have made important gains, and yet the culture of ‘caring’ continues to complicate their professional status.     

The imperial word and its margins. Language and colonization in the Americas

Nouveau Monde et renouveau de l'histoire naturelle, vol. 2. Edited by Marie‐Cecile Benassy and Jean‐Pierre Clement. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1993. Pp. 135.

Langues et cultures en Amérique espagnole coloniale. Edited by Marie‐Cecile Benassy‐Berling, Jean‐Pierre Clement and Alain Milhou. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1993. Pp. 328.

Relecturas del Barroco de Indias. Edited by Mabel Moraña. Hanover, New Hampshire: Ediciones del Norte, 1994. Pp. xii, 334.

Early Images of the Americas: Transfer and Invention. Edited by Jerry M. Williams and Roberte. Lewis. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993. Pp. xviii, 319.

Discursos sobre la “invención” de América. Edited by Iris Zavala. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1992. Pp. 294.     

The Greek Neolithic: A new review

The Greek Neolithic, here divided into five phases, is the oldest in Europe. Geographically, it is the closest to the Near East and has thus long been seen as an impoverished derivative of the latter. However, recent research has tended to emphasize the autochthonous nature of Neolithic development in Europe, including Greece. The Greek Neolithic economy, which was based almost entirely on domesticates, and its densely packed, long-lived villages strongly recall the Near East, as do also the early emphasis on fine, decorated, nonculinary pottery and the wealth of figurines. On the other hand, the evolution of stylistic patterns is specifically Greek, although generally related to trends in the Balkans. Originality in the development of the Greek Neolithic is also seen in its latest phase, with apparent decreases, rather than increases, in site density, social differentiation, and, to some extent, long-distance trade. At the same time, however, the dichotomy became much sharper between the rich agricultural plains of northern Greece and the more pastoral(?) regions of the Peloponnese and Cycladic Islands; this presages similar contrasts during the Bronze Age.     

Planning in the 1990s: An international agenda

This paper, originally presented to the AESOP‐ACSP joint conference in Oxford in 1991, stresses that both in Europe and in the US, there is a major difference for planning in the switch from boom to recession. During the 1990s a major challenge will be to find new ways of public‐private partnership in financing new urban infrastructure at a time when developer contributions — a major innovation of the 1980s — have dried up. This particularly applies to the European high‐speed train system — one critical element of which will run through the East Thames Corridor, one of Britain's major urban developments in the coming years. In the US, planners are likely to remain more locally focused, less internationally concerned, than in a Europe in which national barriers are rapidly eroding.     

X-ray fluorescence analysis of late Roman and Sassanian silver plate

About 200 analyses have been made on late Roman and Sassanian silver objects using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence. This has shown that the main feature of the composition of the silver throughout the period and across the geographical area studied was towards high fineness (average silver percentage about 95%). Compositional differences are found between Roman and Sassanian silversmiths' products for the elements copper and lead. Much of the material analysed came from hoards, and using a statistical technique on the analytical data (Discriminant Analysis) broad compositional differences between hoards were found to emerge. The use of different compositions of silver for different joined parts of a single object are discussed.