Book reviews

TRANSFORMATION SCENE: THE CHANGING CULTURE OF A NEW GUINEA VILLAGE, by Ian Hobgin. The International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1951. xiv + 326 pp. with 2 maps and 22 plates. Price 30s.

AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS. By Professor W. Friedmann. 2nd ed. London, 1952 (Macmillan & Co. Ltd.), pp. xiv + 384. (Maps and tables).

THE SOCIAL SERVICES OF MODERN ENGLAND. By M. Penelope Hall. Routledge, 1952. Pp. viii 332. Price 25s.     

BARNSLEY PARK VILLA; ITS INTERPRETATION AND IMPLICATIONS

The Roman villa at Barnsley Park was interpreted by its excavator as a farm run by a family and a body of workers, its distinctive archaeological features being the division into three yards and the existence of a number of circular structures described as pens. An alternative hypothesis envisages a kin-group, the 'pens' being the houses associated with three farmyards. The three families are presumed to have held and worked the surrounding land in some kind of joint proprietorship. This system became Romanised as a hall-type villa designed for the occupation of some modified form of the kin-group.     

Characterizations of palace lantern tassels preserved in The Palace Museum,Beijing, by UPLC-ESI-Q-TOF

Palace lanterns were important and highly visible decorations in the imperial palace in Beijing, China, during the Qing dynasty (1636–1912). Most lanterns had colourful tassels made of fibres. The study performed a comprehensive investigation of the materials and dyes used for palace lantern tassels preserved in The Palace Museum, Beijing. Eight samples with different colours, including yellow, green and red, from five palace lanterns were analysed. By using ultra-performance liquid chromatography combined with time-of-flight mass spectrometry, the compositions of the dyes were identified quickly, and thus the dyes' origins were explored. A X-ray fluorescence spectrometer assisted in the detection of whether a mordant was used during the dyeing process. As a result, the tassels were all made of silk, discovered through the use of microscopic observation and micro-Fourier transform infrared spectrometry analysis. Different dyeing techniques were found in these tassels: yellow tassels were dyed by cork tree or turmeric by a direct dyeing method; greens were dyed by pagoda bud with an iron mordant, or by the combination of cork tree and indigo using multi-dyeing method; and red tassels were coloured with different acid red industrial dyes. These results provide valuable data for the conservation of ancient textile tassels and contribute to the investigation of other hanging tags.     

Fear and loathing in Kansas City: Political harassment and the making of moderates in America's abortion wars (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The pro‐life movement regularly employs tactics of political harassment in its campaign against abortion. As the murder of the controversial abortion doctor George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas, demonstrated last year, such tactics often betray a potential for violence. This paper explores how the militant tactics of the pro‐life movement in the 1990s have contributed to the formation of a ‘new’ political identity in Kansas politics: that of the moderate Republican. But for those that seek to counter‐mobilize against the Christian right, the political stakes remain high.     

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.