WHO AND WHY IN PALAEOLITHIC ART

Summary. No consideration has ever been given to the possibility that women may have had a part in the execution of European Upper Palaeolithic art; however, an examination of the history of research in this field suggests that preconceptions, prejudice, and the acceptance of unproved theories have perhaps been responsible for the view that it was a male-only activity.
Some of its so-called 'religious' aspects are reconsidered, and re-explained from a female perspective in the light of an experimental attempt to reproduce Palaeolithic plaques with superimpositions. The results of this experiment suggest that Palaeolithic art may well have been multipurpose, at least some being illustrative and part of a general visual communication system — perhaps a forerunner of written communication. It seems probable that all members of society, especially women, were involved.     

When is a nation ‘a nation’? Identity‐formation within a French West Indian people (Martinique)*

ABSTRACT. Nationhood is usually considered a subjective state of being acquired by a self‐conscious group sharing cultural distinctiveness and political goals. Social scientists and historians also endeavor to delineate objective factors that impart national status to minority peoples. Rarely do the elected officials of a non‐sovereign people have the opportunity to vote on whether or not their constituency constitutes a discrete nation. The extraordinary Congress of 2002 in Martinique did provide such an opportunity, however. The contradictory outcomes of that seminal event – including the plebiscite one year later on a proposed change of status for this Caribbean island within the French Republic – reveal much about the ambiguous status of Martinican group identity. They also underline the need for theoreticians of nationalism to take into account politically and culturally specific understandings of the very concept of ‘nation’. That a formerly colonised people may materially benefit disproportionately from ongoing institutional relationships with its former colonial power – countercolonialism – also needs to be considered.     

Awake anon the tales of valour: the career of a war memorial in St. Catharines,Ontario

Memorials cultivate a common understanding of the past that is communicated through the celebration of select people, places or events. Because memorials are located in public space and crafted from time‐defeating materials, the process of commemoration is inherently political. Scholars have studied this process to discover the agendas that inform the ideological content of memorials, but rarely how this content is received by its audience. This question is especially pertinent when memorials outlast the generation and the ideology that created them. This study attempts an answer by exploring the career of one memorial: the monument in St. Catharines, Ontario, dedicated to Private Alexander Watson, a casualty of the Battle of Batoche (1885). It finds that the monument's significance was transformed by political, cultural and historiographical shifts. While its local audience has forgotten its specific message, its generic intent to honour fallen soldiers is still recognized.     

Humeral Impingement on the Acromion in a Scottish Island Population of c. 1600 AD

Apparently-articular facets on the undersurface of the anterior third of the acromion have been known in skeletal material since 1922 but without full discussion of the mechanism responsible. Twelve instances are described here, selected because an impingement area could be demonstrated on the greater tubercle of the humerus or on osteophytes that had replaced it. Both sides were affected but, with two exceptions, the right more severely; the less affected side could be regarded as an earlier stage. All were affected by osteoarthrosis. One was complicated by coraco-humeral impingement. The anatomical mechanism that normally prevents the humerus from rising against the coraco-acromial arch is described as well as the causes of the breakdown in the mechanism that leads to the impingement, derived largely from the clinical field, where the disorder is well-known. The complexity of the relation of the disorder to degenerative arthrosis is discussed because the degeneration is an age change in which wear and tear plays a localized part and the changes as they affect the shoulder joint differ fundamentally from those in the weight-bearing hip-joint. The mean estimated age of the group of twelve was 59 years but the occurrence of the acromion impingement disorder in young athletes illustrates the part played by mechanical joint abuse. Women predominated in this small group, partly because, through their longer life-spans, their joints were exposed longer to the susceptible period of age-related degeneration and also because their less robust musculo-skeletal systems were less adapted than men's to the equally shared labour. Two traditional women's tasks, corn-grinding and tweed-shrinking, are shoulder stressful.     

The necessity of Britishness: ethno‐cultural roots of Australian nationalism*

ABSTRACT. Until the last third of the twentieth century, Britishness figured prominently in the national identity of Australians. Many scholars of Australian nationalism have assumed an inherent antipathy between British and Australian solidarities; others have appreciated that there was a degree of mutuality between the two; few have explained why. This article offers such an explanation. It focuses on the crucial nation‐building period twenty years on either side of the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901. Drawing on ethno‐symbolist approaches to nationalism, it argues that Britishness provided the necessary ethno‐cultural foundations for Australian nationhood, the only available repertoire of myth and symbol that could fulfil the nationalist aspiration for unity. Yet Britishness in the antipodes was significantly different to that of the British Isles, as were the civic/territorial components of Australian conceptions of nationhood, giving rise to a distinctive British‐Australian composite nationalism.     

PROBLEMS OF PHASING: A RECONSIDERATION OF THE BLACK PATCH MIDDLE BRONZE AGE 'NUCLEATED VILLAGE'

The Middle Bronze Age settlement complex of Black Patch, East Sussex, originally considered to represent the remains of a single phase 'nucleated village', is here reconsidered as representing the remains of two chronologically distinct settlement units. The dangers inherent in overlooking sequence and assuming contemporaneity for all archaeological features revealed within the course of a single excavation, are outlined.