Shape matters: assessing regional variation of Bell Beaker projectile points in Central Europe using geometric morphometrics

Despite the large-scale expansion of Bell Beaker phenomenon, there is a tension between the normative Bell Beaker material culture categories and their local objectification in the form of real artefacts. Stone projectile points provide an opportunity to evaluate how much was the general category of such a point influenced by regional and local factors. The aim of this paper is to explore shape and size variation of Central European Bell Beaker projectile points from Moravia (Czech Republic) to elucidate factors responsible for this variation. The sample consists of 194 projectile points from 54 Central European Bell Beaker sites (2500–2300/2200 BC) distributed in Morava River catchment. The size and shape of projectile points were studied by landmark-based geometric morphometrics and expressed as shape groups, which have been assessed in terms of their spatial distribution, raw material, and reutilization. Although several shape categories of points were identified, there is a strong degree of uniformity in the research sample. The dominant shape category (75.4 % of points) was pervasive across geographic space and was not significantly affected either by raw material or reutilization. A lower degree of reutilization of points is interpreted as a consequence of a non-utilitarian role of projectile points, which represented a critical component of Bell Beaker mortuary practices.     

A resampling approach to gender relations: the Rebešovice cemetery

Early Bronze Age society in Central Europe is often depicted as a society dominated by males. It is suggested that archaeological evidence is not always in agreement with this view. This study reports the analysis of mortuary variability at the Early Bronze cemetery Rebešovice in Moravia (Czech Republic) that uses computer-intensive resampling techniques. The results indicate that there are only minor differences in the mortuary treatment of females and males. There is neither a qualitative restriction of body treatment and objects buried with males, nor a quantitative emphasis on burials of males. In fact, burials of females are equipped with a higher number of bronze artifacts. Funerals of females were at least as significant social events as the funerals of males. We argue that the model of a male dominated community that used this cemetery is unwarranted. These findings do not refute the existence of gender-specific activities and roles that may be valued differently, but instead suggest that both females and males had access to resources from which they could draw power.     

Nationalism and Historicity

Abstract. In this article the nation is shown to be a historical subject. As such, it is constructed and constantly reconstructed by discursive practices of power and knowledge. The author argues that the symbiotic interlinkage between nationalism and the organising knowledge principle of historicity, is an example of a power practice in the modern state. Throughout the article, it is shown that this practice is produced by interaction between the institutionally represented, sovereign or objective state and intellectual knowledge and its institutionalisation within the state as an academy, which acquires sovereignty in the production of objective truth. This peculiar discursive representation of making what really is personal interactions and struggles into official institutions has managed to produce the subject of the historical nation. The empirical case of Sweden is briefly discussed. During the age of great power, an exclusivist discourse of noble genealogical distinction of the ‘Goths’ was established. In modem Sweden, this genealogical myth is transformed to a popular national myth of exclusivity, a myth with great power potentials in the ‘national projects’ of modem politics.     

Modelling the eco-cultural niche of giant chestnut trees: new insights into land use history in southern Switzerland through distribution analysis of a living heritage

During the Middle Ages and the early modern period the cultivation of the chestnut tree became dominant in various mountain regions in Western Europe. Large numbers of giant chestnut trees have been reported throughout the continent that may be considered the living heritage of this period. In this paper we used a systematic inventory of giant chestnut trees in southern Switzerland for reconstructing the eco-cultural niche related to the long-term cultivation and conservation of such remarkable trees. To this purpose we implemented a retrospective logistic modelling approach with the presence of giant chestnuts as response variable compared with 65 environmental and cultural predictors. We performed different logistic regression analyses using untransformed and transformed variables. Out of the 42 models produced, we finally selected two models, on the basis of their parsimony and accuracy. Many of the selected predictors, such as distance from the lake, abundance of small livestock or number of secondary settlements, reveal that former local and regional socio-economic conditions and environmental constraints have considerable explanatory power. The approach allows us to detect several aspects of the targeted eco-cultural niche that may have acted in the distant past to support the development of the traditional fruit chestnut culture, as well as more recently, to preserve the giant chestnut tree population during the disruption phase of this culture. Most results are in line with the historical documentation, while others go beyond the dictates of written history and reveal interesting traits of the past economic and cultural systems.     

Sami Rights and Sami Challenges

In this article the authors analyse the conflict in contemporary Sami politics in Sweden. To understand this conflict a historical perspective is necessary, and the authors reconstruct the ideas and beliefs in the public debate that has legitimized a system of Sami rights over more than a century, and analyze the challenges to these by the Sami movement. Two parallel themes are discussed: the first deals with the continuity and change of the Swedish Sami policy, where the authors show how ideas and beliefs concerning the Sami have limited the possibilities of political action. The second theme focuses on the political mobilization of the Sami in Sweden and their challenges of the established view of the Sami in official policy. One of the conclusions made is that it is of importance to grant indigenous peoples, like the Sami, some kind of secure political platform from which they could participate in the democratic procedure and legitimately counter‐act the power of the nation states in which they live.     

Thai Labour NGOs during the ‘Modern Slavery’ Reforms: NGO Transitions in a Post-aid World

This article explores how domestic NGOs responded to new opportunities that emerged during the 2015–2020 ‘modern slavery’ labour reforms in Thailand's seafood sector. The analysis takes place against the background of civil society transitions in a ‘post-aid’ setting. Like NGOs in other middle-income countries, the Thai NGO sector has struggled to remain relevant and financially viable in recent decades, as international donors have withdrawn from countries with steadily declining poverty rates. As a result of the ‘developmental successes’ of Thailand, the NGO sector needed to rethink its strategies. Examining the modern slavery labour reform process provides an opportunity to understand the strategic choices available to NGOs in the face of several important phenomena: the emergence of new actors such as international philanthropic donors; the growing influence of the private sector in governance matters; and the need for NGOs to balance multiple strategic alliances. The article draws on in-depth interviews to explore narratives of Thai labour NGO adjustments during the period of the modern slavery reform. The study contributes to a better understanding of how NGOs in post-aid countries transition and adapt to changing circumstances by embracing new roles as ‘sub-contractors’ for emerging global philanthropic donors and as ‘partners’ of private corporations.     

Politics of Debt,War and Peace: Scandinavia 1800–1830

This article explores the dynamic relationship between war finance and economic and political developments in Scandinavia during the period 1800–1830. By comparing the organization of government debt in Denmark-Norway and Sweden, it is shown that the Danish system relied on revenues from trade and consumption, while the Swedish system was heavily influenced by internal political factors such as a divided fiscal authority. The leadership in Copenhagen was committed to maintaining existing relationships with creditors even when faced with severe fiscal constraints, while the Swedish government chose partial defaults as the politically expedient option when faced with fiscal difficulties.     

Using toponymy to reconstruct past land use: a case study of ‘brüsáda’ (burn) in southern Switzerland

Toponyms are frequently the outcome of a creative process, a subjective interpretation by the local inhabitants at the time of naming. They often survive changes in the local landscape, thus becoming historical documents of landscape dynamics or changes in land use. In this contribution we provide a systematic synchronic analysis of the toponym brüsáda (burn) in Canton Ticino. In total, 182 instances of place names containing brüsáda were recorded, of which 102 cases (56.0%) were localised. Based on oral information provided by the local people or on archival documents, it was possible to group the selected toponyms into different meaning classes such as burnt building, exposed sites, pasture-land and others without any indication (classified here as generic). On the basis of etymological, topographic, documentary, bibliographic, and historic evidence, as well as proxy-archives (such as charcoal in lake sediments), we hypothesise that most of the toponyms associated with pasture-land – and probably also a large portion of the generic toponyms – are directly or indirectly related to the habit of using fire to clear brushwood to improve pasture-land or to eliminate trees. In the study area, the practice of pasture-fires appears to have been a very well controlled and targeted activity in medieval times. In contrast, pasture-fires became very frequent and uncontrolled in the second half of the nineteenth century up until the Second World War. Our study confirms the usefulness and suitability of toponymy, in combination with other disciplines, for ecohistorical reconstructions of past environmental and land-use changes.     

From Incremental Dispossession to a Cumulative Land Grab: Understanding Territorial Transformation in India's North Karanpura Coalfield

This article explores a great contradiction in rural land debates in India: on the one hand, explosive political contestation that is often able to halt proposed land acquisition; on the other, an unprecedented urban‐industrial expansion that is appropriating rural land. The authors argue that land grabbing for mining proceeds in an incremental manner, yet its cumulative effect leads to territorial transformation. To investigate this incremental appropriation, a temporal study of the North Karanpura coal mining tract in eastern India was conducted, combining remote sensing, interviews and official land‐use data. The results reveal a cumulative land grab of thousands of hectares from the late 1980s to the present day as open‐cut coal mines swallow up vast swathes of agricultural fields and forests. The political economy mechanism behind this immense land grab, which to date has gone undetected, consists of three phases: the reservation of the land as a coalfield with multiple coal blocks; the division of the blocks into separate mines; and the flexible expansion of individual mines wherever reduced resistance to land acquisition is encountered. This research indicates that an aggregate analysis of land dynamics can more robustly place the dramatic rearrangements of the Indian countryside within the international land grabbing debate.     

Integrating human dimensions of Arctic palaeoenvironmental science: SEAD – the strategic environmental archaeology database

Environmental change has a human dimension, and has had so for at least the last 10 000 years. The prehistoric impact of people on the Arctic landscape has occasionally left visible traces, such as house and field structures. More often than not, however, the only evidence available is at the microscopic or geochemical level, such as fossil insect and seed assemblages or changes in the physical and chemical properties of soils and sediments. These records are the subject of SEAD, a multidisciplinary database and software project currently underway at Umeå University, Sweden, which aims to create an online database and set of tools for investigating these traces, as part of an international research infrastructure for palaeoecology and environmental archaeology.