The Santa María pottery of El Bolsón valley (Catamarca,Argentina): Compositional characterization and implications on the elaboration processes,ca. 1000–1600 ce

The results obtained from the multi-analytic compositional characterization of ceramic pastes and paints of the Santa María style, from the El Bolsón valley (Belén Department, Catamarca Province, Argentina), are presented here. This pottery style had a wide regional distribution in Northwestern Argentina between ca. 1000 and1600 ce and is characterized by its complex iconography painted in black, cream and red. The analyses show that the containers correspond to the technical tradition of using grog temper and suggest that its manufacture involved a double firing process. This reveals a new practice for the time.     

Restoration of paintings on domes with non-developable geometry (Los Santos Juanes Church in Valencia)

The restoration of paintings on elements in cultural heritage buildings (fundamentally, churches) involves two structural problems: capturing the geometry of the construction element and its development. In many cases, the geometries are regular (e.g., cylinders, spheres, elliptical domes). However, there are cases in which the elements cannot be adapted to any known geometry, much less one that can be mathematically developed. The development of surfaces becomes essential for the restoration of paintings over “flat elements” (over which work is performed on the ground) that are subsequently transferred to the real surface (ceilings). The mathematical transformations that allow regular geometries to be developed are widely known (cartographic projections). However, when the geometry is irregular, there is no development. This study presents a new methodology based on differential rectification and its application for the development of oculi in the Los Santos Juanes Church (Valencia), whose geometry is completely irregular both in shape and as a result of construction defects (and damage caused by fire). The present study focuses on the restoration of paintings damaged by fire.     

Re-evaluating the Neolithic: The Impact and the Consolidation of Farming Practices in the Cantabrian Region (Northern Spain)

Research projects undertaken in the Cantabrian region since 1980 have produced new, high-quality information about the neolithisation process(es) in this area. It is now necessary to review this archaeological information and test the main hypotheses put forward to explain it. This paper presents an update on the archaeological evidence (sites, chronological dates, archaeozoological, archaeobotanical and technological information) for the early Neolithic in the Cantabrian region. It summarizes recent research on neolithisation in the region, and assesses the impact of this process during the early Neolithic, and its later consolidation. Although the available information is still incomplete, it is now possible to identify the focal point of the introduction of elements characteristic of the Neolithic way of life in the region. Current evidence suggests that it is in the eastern sector, where the earliest arrival of domesticates and new technologies such as pottery has been attested. The existence of continuities—such as sustained reliance on hunting and gathering and the coexistence of old and new funerary rites—suggests the persistence of native populations, which gradually participated in the neolithisation process after an ‘availability phase’.     

Colonial Dreams and Nightmares: British and French Perceptions of Republican Policies in Spanish Morocco (1931–1936)

Historians’ continuing interest in the origins of the Spanish Civil War has recently extended to the colonial policies of the Spanish Second Republic in Morocco, a relatively unexplored issue in previous decades, which has informed new approaches to the military uprising of July 1936. Foreign sources and archives, however, have been generally overlooked in this context. This article claims that British and French delegates in Morocco made critical observations about republican reforms in Spanish Morocco, which have much to add to this debate. They raised questions regarding the continuity of republican policies in Morocco and the anti-republican attitudes within the Army of Africa. They also challenged conventional knowledge concerning the difficulties encountered by alternative colonial projects in Morocco. In the end, their reports not only questioned metropolitan options but also anticipated the attitudes of the British and French governments, vis-à-vis the military rebellion.     

From folk history to empathy: contesting heritage values in Chinchero,Peru

In the small Peruvian, Quechua-speaking town of Chinchero, processes of heritagization of the Pre-Hispanic legacy encouraged by the State and supported by the tourist industry have been trying to create among the population an obligation of historical and emotional identification with their Inca ancestors. This operation has been mainly effected through the territorial transformation of the vernacular space of the Inca ruins into an archaeological site for tourism consumption. The operation has left out other histories grounded in grassroots events, like the struggle for the land against the abusive landowners that took place during colonial times. More than the distant history of the Incas, it is this kind of more recognisable and meaningful folk history what people remember the most and what largely constitutes the fabric of social memory in Chinchero. It is precisely folk history what forms the basis for local heritage values that, unlike what happens with the Inca remains, express intense affective ties with the physicality of other non-archaeological spaces. In light of these developments, the author explores how the people of Chinchero are contesting official versions of heritage and history by foregrounding the emotional power of their own heritage values.     

La clerecía del Fernán González

The Poema de Fernán González is usually regarded as a hybrid text—while its subject matter is deemed epic, its expression, intentionality, and ideology are considered clerical. This article studies several elements shared by Fernán González and the other poems of the mester de clerecía school: the same stanza (the cuaderna vía) and poetic rules; similar modes of composition, transmission, and reception; and common structural, thematic, and verbal patterns. The article concludes that the Poema de Fernán González fully participates in the common artistry of the mester de clerecía and therefore can be regarded as the attempt to produce epic poetry by this learned clerical school.     

The "Gradient Effect" in Federal Laboratory-Industry Technology Transfer Partnerships

Based on data from 229 industry-federal laboratory projects, our research analyzes combinations of technical roles and laboratory characteristics to determine their relation to projects' effectiveness. The results show increased effectiveness when the combination of technical roles follows a "gradient." That is, performance is enhanced when the company plays a different technical role than the laboratory, but a role that is only a step away on the basic-applied-development spectrum. Effectiveness diminishes when both the company and the federal laboratory play the same technical role or when the technical roles are far apart on the basic-applied-development spectrum. The results may have general implications for public policy partnerships, suggesting that although partnership effectiveness requires distinctive roles, partner roles should not be so different as to undermine possibilities for coordination and integration.     

Communism and cultural heritage: the quest for continuity

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the theoretical genealogy and main uses of heritage in actually existing communist countries. This is performed by carrying out a critical review of Èleazar Aleksandrovi? Baller’s Communism and Cultural Heritage, (1984, Progress, Moscow). The analysis of Baller’s work reveals that the logics of heritage in communist countries differed in various ways from capitalist countries, mainly because of the almost total state control over the heritage apparatus and the subordination of heritage policies to Marxist–Leninist ideology. Heritage was fundamental in dealing with the problem of change and continuity with the traditions, narratives and identities of previous society, and in the process of transforming citizens into ‘new men’ through the cultural revolution and the inculcation of ideology through museums and monuments.     

A Contemporary Archaeology of Cultural Change in Rural North-Western Spain: From Traditional Domesticity to Postmodern Individualisation

This paper explores the built environment in two rural areas of Northwest Spain that were historically inhabited by two of the so-called “cursed peoples.” Combining contemporary archaeology and material culture studies, we analyze the role played by the house in processes of socio-economic and cultural change, and in the reproduction of internal hegemony within villages. To do so, we study the tensions and connections existing between the transformations undergone by the built environment during the last century and different socio-economic processes, including the depopulation of the rural areas, their conversion into tourist attractions, and the current process of individualisation of subjectivity in line with the transformations taking place in the postmodern era.