Interpolating geochemical patterning of activity zones at Late Neolithic and Early Copper Age settlements in eastern Hungary

The Late Neolithic of southeast Hungary is known almost exclusively from excavations of large settlement mounds, or tells. Geochemical analyses of sediments collected from boreholes at small, flat Late Neolithic and Early Copper Age settlements in Hungary's Körös River basin provide data necessary to interpret the spatial organization of small settlements for the first time in this region. Principal Components Analysis of multi-element data produced a workable number of variables. Spatial analyses of these components via interpolation in ArcGIS 9 identified specific task areas, and when combined with sediment characterizations, phosphate ‘spot-tests’ and pH, suggest long-term cultural traditions in the location of activity zones within small farmsteads. The results demonstrate the usefulness of multi-element geochemistry as an intra-site prospection method.     

Glass trade beads in North America: An annotated bibliography

Historical Archaeology -     

From stone to metal: New perspectives on the later prehistory of West Africa

Earlier views saw West Africa as culturally stagnant through much of the Holocene until stimulus or intervention from north of the Sahara transformed Iron Age societies. Evidence accumulating over the past 15 years suggests that stone-using societies from 10,000 to 3000 B.P. were far more diverse than previously thought. Against an increasingly detailed record of Holocene climate change, the complexity of local adaptation and change is becoming better understood. Although a strong case currently exists for the introduction of copper and iron to West Africa from the north in the mid-first millennium B.C., the subsequent development of metallurgy was strongly innovative in different parts of the subcontinent. Soon after the advent of metals, a dramatic increase in archaeological evidence for social stratification and hierarchical political structures indicates the emergence of societies markedly more complex than anything currently documented in the Late Stone Age. The best-documented examples come from the Middle Niger region and the Nigerian forest. In these areas, earlier diffusionist models in which complexity originated outside West Africa have yielded to evidence that indigenous processes were instrumental in this transformation. Trade, ideology, climate shifts, and indirect influences from North Africa, including the introduction of the domesticated horse to the Sahelian grasslands, are identified as factors essential to an understanding of these processes.     

Primitive Ideas: Protected Area Buffer Zones and the Politics of Land in Africa

This article critically evaluates participatory, integrated conservation and development programmes in Africa, focusing on protected area buffer zones. I argue that, despite the emphasis on participation and benefit-sharing, many of the new projects replicate more coercive forms of conservation practice and often constitute an expansion of state authority into remote rural areas. I suggest that the reasons for this state of affairs can be traced in part to the persistence in conservation interventions of Western ideas and images of the Other. These stereotypes result in misguided assumptions in conservation programmes which have important implications for the politics of land in buffer zone communities.     

Publications briefly noted

China

ANGELA ZITO. Of Body and Brush: grand Sacrifice as Text/Performance in Eighteenth‐Century China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. xix, 311 pp. US$17.95, paper.

JAMES D. SEYMOUR and RICHARD ANDERSON. New Ghosts Old Ghosts: prisons and Labor Reform Camps in China. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. xvii, 313 pp. Bibliography, tables, charts, maps, index. No price given, hardcover.

ANDREW NATHAN. China's Transition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. xiv, 313 pp. US$27.50, paper.

Y. M. YEUNG and DAVID K. Y. CHU (eds). Guangdong: survey of a Province Undergoing Rapid Change, 2nd ed. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1998. xviii, 536 pp. HK$310.00, hardcover.

Japan and Korea

STEVEN D. CARTER (ed & trans). Unforgotten Dreams: poems by the Zen Monk Shotetsu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. xxx, 232 pp. US$19.00, paper.

LAURA HEIN and MARK SELDEN (eds). Living with the Bomb: American and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the Nuclear Age. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1997. 300 pp. US$19.95, paper.

ROY STARRS. An Artless Art: the Zen Aesthetic of Shiga Naoya. Surrey: Curzon Press, 1998. 261 pp. US$47.00, hardcover.

VICTOR ARGY and LESLIE STEIN. The Japanese Economy. London: Macmillan, 1997. 379 pp. £47.50, hardcover; £17.50, paper.

MARISAKO and HIROKI SATO (eds). Japanese Labour and Management in Transition: diversity, Flexibility and Participation. London: Routledge, 1997. 344 pp. £50.00, hardcover; £14.99, paper.

KEVIN WATKINS. Economic Growth with Equity: lessons from East Asia. Oxford: Oxfam, 1998. 160 pp. £6.95, paper.

South Asia

S. W. R. DE A. SAMARASINGHE and VIDYAMALI SAMARASINGHE. Historical Dictionary of Sri Lanka (Asian/Oceanian Historical Dictionaries, no. 26) Lanham, Md. and London: Scarecrow Press, 1998. xliii, 214 pp. Chronology, appendices, bibliography. US$38.50, hardcover.

Southeast Asia

HERMAN C. KEMP. Bibliographies on Southeast Asia. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1998. Bibliographical Series no 22. xix, 1128 pp. NLG 175, paper.

DAVID LEE (ed). Documents on Australian Foreign Policy 1937–49, volume XV: Indonesia 1949. Canberra: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 1998. xxv, 675 pp. A$57.50, hardcover; $37.50, paper.

J. TH. LINDBLAD (ed). Historical Foundations of a National Economy in Indonesia, 1890s‐1990s. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie van Wetenschappen, 1996 (Verhandelingen, Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, deel 167). viii, 427 pp. NLG 95, paper.

MANUEL F. MONTES. The Currency Crisis in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, third reprint (updated), 1998. xxxvii, 88 pp. US$24.00, hardcover; US$17.90, paper.

DANG PHONG and MELANIE BERESFORD. Authority Relations and Economic Decision‐making in Vietnam: an Historical Perspective. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 1998. 117 pp. £30.00.

BOB REECE. Masa Jepun: Sarawak under the Japanese 1941–1945. N.p.: Sarawak Literary Society, n.d. xix, 254 pp. No price given, hardcover.

D. S. RANJIT SINGH and JATSWAN S. SIDHU. Historical Dictionary of Brunei Darussalam. Lanham, MD and London: Scarecrow Press, 1997. xliv, 179 pp. Asian/ Oceanian Historical Dictionaries no. 25. 9 maps. US$64.00, hardcover.

C. VAN DIJK and J. LEEMBURG‐DEN HOLLANDER. European Directory of South‐East Asian Studies, x, 618 pp. NLG 40.

JORGE MANUEL DOS SANTOS ALVES. O Dominio do Norte de Sumatra. A historia dos sultanatos de Samudera‐Pacem e de Achem e das suas relacoes com os Portugueses (1500–1580) . Lisbon: Sociedade Historica da Independencia de Portugal, 1999.

General Asia

TON OTTO and AD BORSBOOM (eds). Cultural Dynamics of Religious Change in Oceania. Verhandelingen 176. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1997. viii, 144 pp. NLG 40, paper.

RONG‐I WU and YUN‐PENG CHU (eds). Business, Markets and Government in the Asia Pacific: competition Policy, Convergence and Pluralism. London: Routledge, 1998. x, 348 pp. Bibliography, figures, tables, index. £19.99, paper.

DARRELL Y. HAMAMOTO and RODOLFO D. TORRES (ed). New American Destinies: a Reader in Contemporary Asian and Latino Immigration. London: Routledge, 1997. 350 pp. £16.99, paper.

RUTH HAYHOE and JULIA PAN (eds). East‐West Dialogue in Knowledge and Higher Education. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1996. xvii, 316 pp. US$72.95, hardcover.

EVA‐MARIE KROLLER, ALLAN SMITH, JOSUA MOSTOW, ROBERT KRAMER (eds). Pacific Encounters: the Production of Self and Others. Vancouver: Institute of Asian Research, 1997. 217 pp. CAN$19.95, paper.

INSTITUTE OF ASIAN RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. The Empowerment of Asia: reshaping Global Society. Vancouver: The Institute, University of British Columbia, c. 1998. 137 pp. CAN$10.00, paper.

ROBERT ALDRICH and JOHN CONNELL. The Last Colonies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xiv, 335 pp. A$59.95, hardcover.

R. F. WAITERS and T. G. McGEE, with GINNY SULLIVAN (eds). Asia‐Pacific: new Geographies of the Pacific Rim. Bathurst, NSW: Crawford House Publishing, 1997. xxi, 362 pp. No price given, paper.

HAIDER A. KHAN. Technology, Development and Democracy: limits of National Innovation Systems in the Age of Postmodernism. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1998. x, 198 pp. £49.95, hardcover.     

Obscure oases: natural,cultural and historical geography of western Queensland's Tertiary sandstone springs

The distribution of surface water dictates human and animal activity in arid zones. Although typically small, hidden, and inaccessible, springs and wells fed by local aquifers were the only sources of reliable water across vast areas of inland Australia until the last century. Compared to larger, more accessible water sources such as riverine waterholes and Great Artesian Basin discharge springs, their history is sketchy and poorly documented, although rich in intrigue and mythology. Since the expansion of artificial waters and motorised transport, many of these small oases have been forgotten, and their location and permanence are now less well‐known than for thousands of years. We examine the distribution, hydrogeology, cultural history, and biological values of Tertiary sandstone springs in western Queensland based on a review of historical literature, interviews with long‐term residents, and extensive field surveys. One hundred and sixty springs were documented, and nearly 40% of these have declined in flow or become inactive since pastoral settlement for reasons that are not well understood. While their decline in some areas seems related to shallow bores sunk into their local aquifers, it is possible that some smaller springs owed their existence to regular human maintenance. Others are probably naturally dynamic over decadal time scales. This study documents an almost‐forgotten aspect of Queensland's natural and cultural history.     

The politics of evolution: Morphology,medicine, and reform in radical London

Summary

This essay closely examines the highly contested but widely employed historiographical category ‘absolutism’. Why are scholars so divided on whether it is even legitimate to use the term and, if they agree to do so, why are they still much at odds in explaining what it is? What are the main historiographical currents in the study of absolutism? Is it the same thing to speak of absolutism in regard to the practices of early modern European monarchies and with reference to the political ideas of so-called absolutist theorists? By addressing these questions through the methodology of intellectual history, this essay provides a comprehensive account of debates on absolutism and, at the same time, suggests that further work needs to be carried out on its theoretical aspects. In this respect, the author will propose a series of key ideas and principles which are meant to encapsulate the core of an early modern doctrine of absolutist monarchical sovereignty. It will also be argued that, when studying political thought, the term ‘absolutism’ might be abandoned in favour of the plural ‘absolutisms’ as a better way of understanding the past, its languages, opinions, people. In so doing, a thorough analysis of what political absolutism(s) is will be set forth, and a series of more general considerations on history-writing will also be advanced.     

Mode‐Locking and Regional Business Cycle Synchronization*

Abstract. Business cycles in different regions of the United States tend to synchronize. This study investigates the reasons behind this synchronization of business cycles and the consequent formation of a national business cycle. Trade between regions may not be strong enough for one region to “drive” business cycle fluctuations in another region. This study suggests that regional business cycles synchronize due to a nonlinear “mode‐locking” process in which weakly coupled oscillating systems (regions) tend to synchronize. There is no definitive test for mode‐lock. However, simulations, correlations, Granger causality tests, tests for nonlinearities, vector autoregressions, and spectral analysis reveal modest econometric support for the regional mode‐locking hypothesis of business cycle synchronization.