THE DOUBLE-AXE: A CONTEXTUAL APPROACH TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF A CRETAN SYMBOL IN THE NEOPALATIAL PERIOD

The Double-Axe has always been considered as one of the most important religious symbols in Minoan Crete. This paper reassesses the significance of the Double-Axe and puts forward a new interpretation for it. It recognizes the great potential for change in symbolic meanings during the Bronze Age and seeks to understand the Double-Axe in as narrow a period as is realistically possible by filtering out evidence from other periods. Central to the argument is the principle that the meaning of symbols is contextually dependent. It builds, therefore, a new interpretation of the Double-Axe on the basis of as wide a range of contextual associations as possible, both within iconographic sources and in the wider material record. From these contextual associations, it suggests that in the Neopalatial period the Double-Axe was a symbol primarily associated with a social group which exercised power in the economic, military and religious realms and that it became a solely religious symbol only later.     

Day-to-day variations in nearshore bar patterns on a small sandy beach through a lunar tidal cycle

Nearshore water circulation and bar patterns at Coledale, New South Wales, were surveyed daily over thirty-six consecutive days, from 3 November to 8 December 1978, to identify sequences of changes that might occur in response to spring-to-spring tide cycles of fourteen days, changing barometric and wind conditions associated with the passage of anticyclonic weather systems across the coast, and day to day variation in the nearshore wave regime. During the survey the bar patterns tended to vary from transverse bars, through a composite arrangement incorporating longshore and transverse bars, to a longshore bar pattern as the tide changed from its spring to neap tide phase. However, this sequence was too brief to unequivocally establish variations in nearshore bar pattern that might be attributed to the fourteen day, spring-to-spring tide cycle. Nevertheless, morphologic changes occurring in response to wave regime fluctuation at Coledale were broadly in accord with studies from elsewhere by Dolan et al. (1979, 1982), and Clarke and Eliot (1982, 1983) in that bars and rips were systematically distributed along the beach. At Coledale, bars tended to relocate approximately 0.4 and 0.75 of the distance along the beach from its southern end. The preferred bar spacing closely matches hypothetical standing waves trapped between the headlands of the Coledale embayment. Temporally, the nearshore morphology is highly responsive to wave regime changes such that, as primary breaker heights decrease and remain below H_max=1.0m, the bar pattern changes from longshore through mixed to transverse bar patterns within three to five days. On one occasion the bar pattern switched from a longshore to a transverse bar pattern within twenty-four hours.     

Living with nuclear hedging: the implications of Iran's nuclear strategy

For the past decade, much attention has been devoted to the potential consequences of a nuclear‐armed Iran. Yet the binary ‘acquisition/restraint’ lens through which the Iranian nuclear issue is frequently viewed is limiting. There is now much evidence to suggest that Iran is engaged in a strategy based on nuclear hedging, rather than an outright pursuit of the bomb. This does not change the need to contain Tehran's proliferation potential, yet it does add another layer of complexity to the challenge. Iran will retain a low level of latency whatever the final outcome of longstanding diplomatic efforts to constrain the scope and pace of its nuclear efforts. This article will explore the implications of Iranian nuclear hedging and consider how regional rivals might interpret and respond to Tehran's nuclear strategy. On a larger scale, the article will explore the potential impact of the international community's approach to the Iranian case—implicitly recognizing, even giving legitimacy to, hedging—both in terms of the future of the Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the ability of the international community to limit the negative effects of this form of proliferation behaviour.     

Labour Market Dynamics in Resource Dependent Regions: an Examination of the Western Australian Goldfields

Labour shortages have become an increasingly significant barrier to economic development in regional Australia. Many firms and government agencies are operating below capacity as a result of their inability to fill jobs. In the mineral resources sector, this has been compounded by rapidly rising demand for commodities and the very remote locations of many mine sites. This paper explores the dynamics of labour shortages in the minerals sector of the Western Australian Goldfields. It demonstrates close linkages between commodity price, labour supply and demand, and resource output. Against the background of a state-wide ‘resources boom’, the paper also points to an increase in intra- and inter- regional competition for labour.     

Sustainable development and climate change

In 1987, the authors of Our common future argued that unless the world embraced and operationalized sustainable development, it would risk being overwhelmed by a series of interlocking crises related to population growth, urbanization, poverty and environmental degradation. Since then, many authors have argued that the world is on a worst case scenario trajectory. Post‐Rio assessments of progress towards sustainable development have been largely negative. Since 1987, climate change has added a new stressor to the mix while shortening the time frame for transformation. In the context of accelerating change and converging stresses is the concept of sustainable development as compelling today as it was twenty years ago? Is it reasonable to believe there are means by which to reduce poverty and simultaneously protect the environment? This article briefly reviews the global challenges that first stimulated the concept of sustainable development and asks how contemporary processes of global change are affecting both these challenges and this approach to addressing them. While there are some grounds for optimism, several variables are identified that make sustainable development increasingly difficult to design and implement. The article concludes with an evaluation of how these difficulties might be overcome, and why it is essential that we try.     

Evolutionary Perspectives on Rural Australia

An enduring concern within Australian rural geography has been to understand the nature and implications of change. Much of the intellectual effort has been focused on interpreting how rural economies, populations, social institutions, cultures, and land uses have been transformed through processes operating across a range of spatial and temporal scales. This paper offers a critical appraisal of recent rural research in Australia and how this body of work has attempted to make sense of change. It argues that despite an ongoing focus on the nature of change, it is often reduced to a relatively simple historical narrative. We suggest that some of the emerging ideas in ‘evolutionary economic geography’ might offer an alternative means of conceptualising the trajectories of rural economies, institutions, and communities. The paper outlines the contours of evolutionary economic geography and the ways in which some of its key conceptual foundations might offer a means of understanding not only rural change, but also continuity.