RECENT RESULTS OF NEOLITHIC RESEARCH IN MOLDAVIA (USSR)

Summary. The area north of the Black Sea, from the Danube to the Caucasus, was a zone of interaction between farming populations and indigenous Mesolithic groups which acquired pottery and elements of stock-breeding. Recent research in Soviet Moldavia, at the western end of this area, has clarified the nature of contacts between farming groups of Balkan origin and local groups centred on the Dnestr and Bug.     

NUCLEAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE SPECTROSCOPIC AND ISOTOPIC ANALYSIS OF CARBONIZED RESIDUES FROM SUBARCTIC CANADIAN PREHISTORIC POTTERY

Late prehistoric pottery is found in abundance at archaeological sites around Southern Indian Lake. Black residues, found on the two dominant vessel forms, flat plates and round pots, are presumed to be the remains of prehistoric meals. ¹³C cross-polarization magic-angle-spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (CPMAS NMR) and¹³C and¹⁵ N isotopic ratios and C/N ratios are used to reconstruct prehistoric diet and to shed light on possible uses for the plates. Samples of foods were cooked in clay pots, on a wood fire, to simulate the conditions of burning that could have produced the residue. Decomposition of carbohydrates, protein, and fat during cooking is studied with ¹³C CPMAS NMR, and the effect of cooking on isotopic and C/N ratios documented. Predominantly fish and fat were cooked in the pots, whereas the residues from plates contain a greater proportion of fat and could have been used as frying pans or possibly as fat-burning lamps placed on the ashes of a wood fire.     

The creative destruction of Niagara-on-the-Lake

Heritage shopping villages are becoming increasingly commonplace in rural North America. Their creation reflects the demands of post-modern consumers to purchase symbolic capital in the form of unique products and experiences reflecting a bygone era. Entrepreneurs have responded to this by commodifying heritage and tradition; a process that leads to the creation of new landscapes and a perceived destruction of the old. This transformation has been described in the model of creative destruction (Mitchell 1998). In this paper the model is applied to Old Niagara-on-the-Lake, a heritage shopping village located in southern Ontario, Canada. Data on functional change, visitor numbers and residents' attitudes are analysed for the period 1950–1998. It is concluded that historic Niagara-on-the-Lake is in the early stages of 'advanced destruction'; one characterized by major investment, large numbers of visitors and partial destruction of the rural idyll. Results of this analysis confirm that while the basic premise of the model is sound, modifications are required to accommodate some of the study's findings.     

U.S. URBAN POLICY: THE POSTWAR STATE AND CAPITALIST REGULATION

This paper provides an historically grounded theory of U.S. urban policy which is informed by regulationist theory and recent contributions to the theory of the State. It is shown how the content and form of urban policy in the New Deal, was shaped by the rise of mass-production Fordism and informed by the particular struggles that emerged in the United States during the formative period of the 1930s and 1940s. These struggles produced a particular State policy response, setting in place a limited and constrained mode of State intervention in the economy. In the realm of urban policy, this narrow form of State intervention set limits on further rounds of State policy, leaving the U.S. State unable to respond in an effective way to the mounting economic crises of the 1970s and the 1980s, contributing to the so-called "failure" of urban policy.