Book reviews

Leonard Blussé. Strange company: Chinese settlers, mestizo women, and the Dutch in VOC Batavia . xiii, 302 pp. Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1986. (Verhandelingen van het Kononklijk Instituut voor Taal‐, Land‐ en Volkenkunde, 122.) Guilders 35.

John S. Guy. Oriental trade ceramics in South‐East Asia, ninth to sixteenth centuries. With a catalogue of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai wares in Australian collections, xiv, 161 pp. Singapore, etc: Oxford University Press, 1986. (Oxford in Asia Studies in Ceramics.) £47.50.     

In Search of Competitive Efficiency: Labour Process Flexibility in Canadian Newsprint Mills

This paper focuses on the strategies for production and work reorganization pursued in the Canadian newsprint industry during the 1990s. Many newsprint mill managers view new pulping technologies and increased labour process flexibility as the important keys to success in their never-ending quest to remain competitive in the U.S. market. These strategies are discussed in the context of two underlying themes: the nature of the particular competitive pressures faced by Canadian newsprint producers in the early 1990s and the specific nature of the labour process in newsprint mills. Evidence points to the central importance of achieving functional labour flexibility in newsprint mills and to the fact that numerical labour flexibility is not a viable strategy, given the continuous-process nature of the industry.
The Economics of Production, Technological Change, and Cost Competitiveness in the Newsprint Industry
Work Practices and Labour Conventions in the Newsprint Industry
Flexibility and the Quest for Competitive Efficiency in Canadian Newsprint Mills     

Effect of mollusc eating on human bone strontium levels

Empirical aspects of the movement of strontium through the food chain suggest that the level of bone strontium can be used as an indicator of the percentage of meat in human diet. In general, skeletal remains from agricultural peoples are expected to have high bone strontium levels relative to hunter-gatherers from the same geographical region because plants contain relatively higher amounts of strontium when compared with animal products. The results of the study described in this paper, however, indicate that the inclusion of molluscs as a component of the diet may produce the opposite of the expected strontium values. Burials from an Archaic (c. 2500 BC) hunting-gathering population excavated from Lu^o25, an archaeological site in northern Alabama, USA, exhibit a mean bone strontium level ( atomic absorption; neutron activation) that is higher than the mean level from an agricultural Mississippian (c. AD 1400) population ( atomic absorption; neutron activation) that was buried at the same site. The samples were analysed by two techniques (atomic absorption spectrometry and neutron activation analysis) and the results compared favourably; therefore, the results can be accepted as valid rather than being due to technique error. We propose that the ingestion of molluscs, whose meat is known to contain large amounts of strontium, has produced this reversal from expected results.     

Graph Theory Interpretation of Flow Matrices: A Note on Maximization Procedures for Identifying Significant Links

A maximization procedure for identifying significant links in a flow matrix is described and its use illustrated. The method appears to have advantages over primary-flow linkage methods and over methods based on flow-combination procedures.     

Making federalism work—The state perspective

Making Federalism Work: Towards a More Efficient, Equitable and Responsive Federal System, edited by Russell Mathews. Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations, ANU, Canberra, 1976. pp. xiv + 219.

Labor and the Constitution 1972–1975: The Whitlam Years in Australian Government, edited by Gareth Evans. Heinemann, Melbourne, 1977. pp. xv + 383.

The Government of Tasmania, by W. A. Townsley. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1976. pp. xii + 169.

The Government of Victoria, by Jean Holmes. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1976. pp. ix + 205.

The Government of South Australia, by Dean Jaensch. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1977. pp. vii + 203.

Administrative Federalism: Selected Documents in Australian Intergovernmental Relations, compiled land edited by Kenneth Wiltshire. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1977. pp. xiii + 309.     

Preliminary geology, paleontology and paleoecology of a sangoan site at Andalee, Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia

A rich stone tool assemblage is described of the Sangoan-type from a potentially semi-primary site, in association with a well-preserved fauna, and in paleo-environmental context. The site appears to be late Middle Pleistocene and contains a high proportion of small to medium-sized mammals (e.g. rodents, monkeys) deposited in low energy conditions. The environment is suggestive of a fringing woodland or riverine forest contained in a subarid climate.