Recent research into oldowan hominin activities at Kanjera South, Western Kenya

This paper presents the initial results of excavations at Kanjera South, located on the Homa Peninsula in Western Kenya. Since 1995, our exploration of this locality has yielded a combination of artefacts and well preserved faunal remains in a sedimentary context that also allows for environmental reconstruction. Here we examine the history of exploration of Kanjera and its significance in the development of palaeoanthropological research in East Africa. We also summarise our findings from the recently discovered Oldowan site. Taphonomic analyses suggest that the archaeological layers were formed at least partially by hominin activity. Artefacts made from a wide variety of raw materials are abundant, as are animal bones. Results of our first analyses confirm that Oldowan hominins had considerable behavioural flexibility and occupied a range of habitats.Cet article présente des résultats préliminaires de nos fouilles au site de Kanjera South, situé sur la péninsule de Homa au Kenya occidental. Depuis 1995 nos explorations à cette localité ont produit une combinaison des outils lithiques et des restes fossils dans un bon état de conservation venant d’un contexte sédimentaire qui permet également les reconstitutions paleoenvironnementaux. Ici nous examinons l’histoire de l’exploration de Kanjera et de son importance dans le développement de la recherche paleoanthropologique en Afrique de l’Est. Nous récapitulons également nos résultats du gisement récemment découvert d’Oldowan. L’étude taphonomique suggère que les couches archéologiques ont été formées au moins partiellement par l’activité des hominins. Les objets fabriqués faits à partir d’une grande variété de matières lithiques sont abondants, de même que les os animaux. Les résultats de nos premières analyses confirment que les hominins d’Oldowan ont eu une flexibilité de comportement considérable et ont occupé une gamme d’habitats différents.     

Policy Change: An Advocacy Coalition Framework Perspective

One purpose of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is to explain policy change. Previous holistic reviews of the ACF by Weible, Sabatier, and McQueen (2009) and Pierce, Peterson, Jones, Garrard, and Vu (2017) of the framework have not explicitly analyzed all the concepts and their interactions in a systematic manner. To address this gap and inform scholars and practitioners about past findings, strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for future research, this article analyzes how the ACF's theory of policy change is applied to 148 policy processes among 67 journal articles from 2007 to 2014. Similar to Weible et al. (2009), this research finds the frequent use of multiple primary pathways to policy change, infrequent use of many of the ACF's concepts, a plurality of applications in the environment and energy domain, comparison of subsystems, and a need for greater clarity and transparency among applications. Unlike Weible et al. (2009), this article explores associations between primary pathways and policy domains, the frequency of associations between primary pathways and secondary components, policy change and stasis, and identifies threats to internal validity of key ACF concepts.     

Production Skill and Paleoindian Workgroup Organization in the Medicine Creek Drainage,Southwestern Nebraska

Extremely skillful stoneworking is widely cited as an important characteristic of the Paleoindian period in North America. This paper considers differences in finished and unfinished projectile points and bifaces from two Paleoindian sites in the Medicine Creek drainage of southwestern Nebraska with this in mind, arguing that these differences reflect significant differences in the overall level of skill of the stoneworkers who used these sites. Recognizing variability in Paleoindian flintknapping skill has implications for the organization of landuse in the Medicine Creek region and for our understanding of the archaeology of the Paleoindian period in general.     

Archaeology Unfolding: Diversity and the Loss of Isolation

Summary.   British historical archaeology has seen new theoretical engagement in recent years. A diverse and distinctive body of theory has developed in this increasingly vibrant and international area of study, testing disciplinary boundaries, especially with history, social anthropology and material culture studies.
This paper takes stock of three distinct processes within the new historical archaeology: the birth of material history, the loss of antiquity, and the loss of isolation. The implications of these processes for the wider discipline are explored with reference to landscape archaeology, using the example of the Ironbridge Gorge, Shropshire. In a consideration of future directions, it is argued that historical archaeology provides particular insights to the need across the discipline for archaeology to respond with self-confidence to complexity by drawing out and celebrating diversity in theory and practice.     

Dueling Decisions

In a government of divided powers, the respective roles of the president and Congress in determining American foreign policy often are disputed. Rival Supreme Court decisions on this matter, U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation (1936), and Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952), were resurrected and argued with renewed vigor following the Iran-contra affair. Despite attempts by the defenders of each decision to discredit or reinterpret the rival case, both decisions stand as reasonable, if incompatible, interpretations of constitutional meaning.