Defiance to compliance: Visions of the computer in postwar Britain

In a climate of profound uncertainty over Britain’s postwar status, some industrialists and policymakers sought solace in a ‘defiant modernist’ aesthetic, proposing radical technological transformations to circumvent economic constraints. The British computer industry, which briefly challenged that of the USA for technological sophistication, presents a revealing instance of this approach and its limitations. Early promoters, notably Vivian Bowden of Ferranti, shrewdly laid the rhetorical groundwork to position the new machines as the natural outcome of a uniquely British technological trajectory. Into the 1960s, however, their agenda was disrupted not only by economic realities, but also by the increasing importance of software and compatible systems as opposed to individual machines, and by growing public and industrial familiarity with computing in general. Promoters sought new points of differentiation, but had made little headway when a combination of national policy changes, growing market dominance by US-based corporations, and Anglo-French rapprochement rendered the British national exception largely unworkable. Its powerful rhetorical appeal, however, ensured that it never entirely disappeared.     

The use of OSL dating in unstructured sands: the archaeology and chronology of the Hutton Sands at Canteen Kopje (Northern Cape Province, South Africa)

Archaeological research at the site of Canteen Kopje, Northern Cape Province, South Africa, has focused on the rich Earlier Stone Age assemblages recovered from the Younger Vaal Gravels. This paper presents the results of excavation and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of the overlying Hutton Sands. We discuss the evidence for colonial period interaction between diamond miners and indigenous groups at the site, as well as the presence of an earlier phase of terminal Middle Stone Age/early Later Stone Age occupation. The OSL analyses demonstrate the potential distortion of OSL ages due to substantial bioturbation and its effect on the dating of archaeological sites situated in unconsolidated sands.     

An investigation of Uruk settlement patterns in Susiana

Gregory Alan Johnson. Local Exchange and Early State Development in Southwestern Iran. Anthropological Papers No. 51. Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1973. x + 205 pp. Figures, tables, maps, appendixes, and bibliography. $4.00 (paper).     

Global Poverty and Inequality: Change and Continuity in Late Development

This contribution assesses the ‘converging divergence’ thesis that global inequality is falling and national inequality is rising. The article argues that falling global inequality is primarily due to China's development and that national inequality has risen in some developing countries and fallen in others. In light of the dominance of China's development in the global picture, questions arise as to what has changed and what has not changed outside of China. A set of changes and continuities is presented. It is then argued that these changes and continuities provide for the contemporary relevance an older conceptual lens — that of ‘late development’.     

Psychological components of middle paleolithic technology: The proceduralization of lithic core reduction

Exploring the evolution of human cognition has been as methodologically problematic as it has been a vital area of study over the last couple of decades. In particular, the integration of archaeology and psychology, while fundamental to many such studies, has suffered from a difficulty by many researchers to effectively link models from the cognitive sciences with the archaeological data ( [Wynn, 2009] and [Wynn and Coolidge, 2010] ). In the current study one psychological process, proceduralization is used to examine the technological strategies that underpin the sequential nature of lithic core reduction. This is done via the application of sequential lithic information analysis (SLIA), a method developed by the author for the concurrent study of qualitative and quantitative sequential information. In the present context SLIA helps elucidate both the micro- and macro-level dynamics that underlie the reduction of a sample of Middle Paleolithic refitted Levallois cores from the site of Taramsa-1, Upper Egypt. The results of this study provide an explanation for the variability recognised within the Levallois technology and also speak to the existence of certain aspects of modern cognition by ca. 70,000 years before present.     

Shadows on the landscape: an inquiry into the value of some Australian places

In 1922, Australian places connected with a solar eclipse were of world‐historical significance as they were associated with empirical confirmation of Einstein's general theory of relativity. They also formed a major part of Australian national consciousness, although they have since reverted to lost geographies. An exploration of Australian reception of eclipse science leads to questions of official heritage construction and stereotypical national identity. An argument is presented for the importance of intangible heritage at national, communal, and individual levels. At the complex intersection between memory and identity, place value is investigated within wider social‐political formations with emphasis on participation across perceived boundaries of social class, gender, and ethnicity, including the valuable role of Aboriginal peoples.     

Status,scale and secret ingredients: the retrospective invention of London porter

Porter, a dark style of beer that was the staple of London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is conventionally addressed as a discrete invention, suited to large‐scale production, whose appearance led rapidly to enclosure of the trade by a few industrial‐scale producers. This paper by contrast presents the capitalist industrialization of brewing as co‐extensive with, and reinforced by, the long‐term emergence of a consensus definition of porter; the invention story is a retrospective construct that telescopes a century or more of technical change. Balancing established economic accounts, I address the role of product identity as a rhetorical device. London’s greatest brewers were in part assisted in capturing smaller competitors’ trade by the enshrining of large‐scale production as a ‘secret ingredient’ in its own right, essential to the nature of the ‘true’ product.