The Politics of Knowledge: Julian Steward,Leslie White,Melville Herskovits,and L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza

Biographies of four important figures in the history of anthropology—Julian Steward, Leslie White, Melville Herskovits, and L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza—illustrate that current “public anthropology” has deep historic roots and that anthropology, even subfields that involve the basic sciences, like genetics, are shaped by personal and political experience as much as by intellect. All the biographical subjects discussed here had first-hand experience with racism, fascism, and bigotry, whether in their home or public lives, and resisted those forms of hegemony by fashioning anthropological theories to explain and appreciate human diversity.     

… OF SHERDS AND SOIL AND SEALING LAYERS, OF COBBLING AND COINS…

Summary. From 1985 to 1987 an experiment was conducted alongside an excavation to examine the effect of trampling on cobbled layers, and to see if the movement of small objects could change their stratigraphic relationships. An experimental area was excavated and backfilled with soil and a cobbled layer containing plastic markers, flower pot sherds and coins. The area, part of a path, was subjected to daily trampling, and was excavated after seventeen months, using normal excavation methods; all the soil was dry sieved. The results show varying recovery rates and horizontal movements for different types of object, and demonstrate the need for further investigation of the causes and implications of differential movement of buried objects.     

L'église d'al-Qousour Failaka, État de Koweit

In 1989 a French team conducted excavations at the site of al-Qousour on the island of Failaka, State of Kuwait. The excavations resulted in the discovery of a Christian church complete with two crosses made out of stucco. The building and its contents are described, and a preliminary attempt is made at determining the period of Failaka's evangelisation and of the flourishing of Christianity there.     

Russian ‘deniable’ intervention in Ukraine: how and why Russia broke the rules

The Russian military interventions in Ukraine, which have led to the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and to the entrenchment of separatist enclaves in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, directly challenge the post‐Cold War European state system. Russia has consistently denied any wrongdoing or illegal military involvement and has presented its policies as a reaction to the repression of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers. This article argues that it is important to examine and contest unfounded Russian legal and political claims used by Moscow to justify its interventions. The article proceeds to assess in detail three different explanations of the Russian operations in Ukraine: geopolitical competition and structural power (including the strategic benefits of seizing Crimea); identity and ideational factors; and the search for domestic political consolidation in Russia. These have all played a role, although the role of identity appears the least convincing in explaining the timing and scope of Russian encroachments on Ukrainian territorial integrity and the disruption of Ukrainian statehood.     

Russia resurgent? Moscow's campaign to ‘coerce Georgia to peace’

Russia's military incursion into Georgia in August 2008 and formal recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia raise fundamental questions about Russian regional policy, strategic objectives and attitudes to the use of armed force. The spectacle of maneouvre warfare on the periphery of Europe could form a watershed in post‐Cold War Russian relations with its neighbourhood and the wider international community. The speed and scale with which Russia's initial ‘defensive’ intervention to ‘coerce Georgia to peace’ led to a broad occupation of many Georgian regions focuses attention on the motivations behind Russian military preparations for war and the political gains Moscow expected from such a broad offensive. Russia has failed to advance a convincing legal case for its operations and its ‘peace operations’ discourse has been essentially rhetorical. Some Russian goals may be inferred: the creation of military protectorates in South Ossetia and Abkhazia; inducing Georgian compliance, especially to block its path towards NATO; and creating a climate of uncertainty over energy routes in the South Caucasus. Moscow's warning that it will defend its ‘citizens’ (nationals) at all costs broadens the scope of concerns to Russia's other neighbour states, especially Ukraine. Yet an overreaction to alarmist scenarios of a new era of coercive diplomacy may only encourage Russian insistence that its status, that of an aspirant global power, be respected. This will continue to be fuelled by internal political and psychological considerations in Russia. Careful attention will need to be given to the role Russia attributes to military power in pursuing its revisionist stance in the international system.     

Economic nationalism in Flanders before the Second World War

ABSTRACT. In this article the author makes the claim that economic nationalist ideas had their origins in the Flemish Movement before the First World War and were further developed in the interwar period. This is an important modification of the classical view that Flemish nationalism before the Second World War was mainly focused on the linguistic and cultural situation in Belgium. Central to this contribution is the view of economic nationalism as an ideology using social and economic means for nationalistic purposes, although there are variations in the degree to which economy and nationalism are tools or purpose. In any case there was not much consistency, because there were different views on what constituted the interests of the ‘Flemish nation’, and which social and economic principles should be adopted. In addition, a movement that did not show much unity could not construct a homogeneous social‐economic agenda.     

NEOLITHIC AXES FROM ROMAN SITES IN BRITAIN

Finds of Neolithic axes are usually regarded primarily as evidence for Neolithic occupation in the area of the findspot. Neolithic axes from Roman contexts are also usually regarded in this way, often being classed as residual material. However, a study of axes from Roman sites in Britain has shown that they may well have been deliberately collected, in the Roman period, for religious or superstitious reasons. Many have been found on sites of a religious nature (an aspect well documented for temple sites on the Continent) and the beliefs associated with such axes may have been widespread.     

The Historical Geographies of Showing Livestock: a Case Study of the Perth Royal Show,Western Australia

This paper examines changes in the entries of livestock to competitions at the Perth Royal Show in the course of the twentieth century. It identifies trends in the showing of animals at the Show and explains these with reference to the wider geographies of state and national agricultural change in Western Australia (WA). In doing so, it provides a longitudinal perspective on the socioeconomic contexts of farming in WA and identifies some of the key cultural and economic drivers that have influenced livestock farming in that locality. In turn, these findings contribute to wider understandings of the global countryside and of the imagined ruralities that exist within and beyond the spaces of showgrounds.     

A Healed Wound Caused by a Flint Arrowhead in a Neolithic Human Innominate from the Trou Rosette (Furfooz,Belgium)

A new case is described here of a wound caused by a flint arrowhead in the neolithic period. The specimen comes from a collective burial excavated last century in the cave Trou Rosette (Belgium). It consists of a fragment of left adult ilium. The fragment of arrowhead is located in a rounded cavity which is open in the medial surface of the bone. The CT scan and the artefact study allow us to reconstruct the scenario of the accident. The arrow pierced the musculus gluteus of the individual prior fixing in the iliac blade. The arrow tip broke at the moment of impact; its tang broke either at the moment of impact or during attempts to extract the arrow.