Alveolar bone status of some pre-seventeenth century inhabitants of Taumako,Solomon Islands

The alveolar bone condition of 34 pre-seventeenth century Solomon Island Polynesians aged 20–35 years was investigated from dental remains. The distance between the cementoenamel junction and the alveolar crest (CEJ-AC distance) was measured for six index teeth. The mean CEJ-AC measurements for each tooth, which ranged from 3.9 to 7.9 mm, greatly exceeded the distance of 2 mm frequently cited as representative of teeth supported by healthy bone. Many pathological bony defects were seen, suggestive of episodes of acute periodontitis with remissions to a quiescent phase.     

Exploring Spatial Relationships between Material Culture and Language in the Upper Sepik and Central New Guinea

ABSTRACT New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse region in the world. Over 1,000 languages are found there. Unsurprisingly, controversy exists concerning the degree to which this diversity has been shaped by migration or interaction. At the centre of this controversy is the putative origin and migration path of Austronesian speakers. The advent of Lapita ceramic ware in Melanesia around 3,000 years ago is seen by some as important evidence for their arrival; nevertheless the validity of using Lapita as a marker for Austronesian populations remains in question. The Upper Sepik is one of New Guinea's most linguistically heterogeneous regions. Because it is not marked by far‐reaching exchange systems the region's language and material culture distributions provide potential for exploring such issues. This paper discusses these in the context of an analysis of important ethnographic collections from the region. It is shown that when material culture is assessed technologically and stylistically it is easier to determine an effect for important variables such as language and distance. Additionally, it is demonstrated that as men and women often have different levels of mobility and sociality, classes of material culture belonging to each may differentially reflect important socio‐historical processes.     

The Tertiary Turn: Locating “The Academy” in Autobiographical Accounts of Activism in Manchester,UK and Auckland,Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract: Activists often strategically negotiate sectoral boundaries by switching between public, private and voluntary sectors over the life course in order to pursue their aims. This paper draws on a cross‐national study that explored the extent of this inter‐sectoral movement and the specific “career pathways” activists developed in relation to governmental, private and voluntary/community sector organisations. Using an analysis of 46 biographical narratives gathered from activists in Manchester, UK and Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand during 2007 we situate “the academy” in these life stories of activism. Teasing out from these accounts the motivations behind a turn towards tertiary education at particular moments we examine how “academia” supports and sustains individual activists while legitimising and professionalising their activism. In so doing, we track the tactical transfer of knowledge, skills and expertise effected by contact with “the academy” to make substantive and conceptual claims around the future role universities might play in the knowledge economy.     

Enlivened Geographies of Volunteering: Situated,Embodied and Emotional Practices of Voluntary Action

Abstract

Examining the everyday practices and feelings of volunteering, in particular their situated, emotional and embodied nature, serves to place the experiences of volunteers centrally in accounts of what matters in the doing of volunteering and goes beyond service provision or active citizenship. Using qualitative evidence from three collaborative research projects, we present enlivened geographies of volunteering which focus on: the situatedness of formal volunteering in place and the negotiation of local ‘moral economies’ of norms and expectations surrounding access to volunteering opportunities and the practices of volunteering; complex positionings of informal volunteering in biographies of social participation; and intersections of embodiment and emotions in experiences among environmental volunteers. We contribute to the development of social geographies which are ‘more-than-representational’ and argue that connecting insights on everyday practices of volunteering with wider policy and practice agendas requires a focus on the enduring, but also emergent and excessive nature of the spaces of doing volunteering, on the relational nature of volunteering, and on opening up debates in the networks of research-policy-practice which understand spaces of volunteering as entailing more than volunteering.     

Historical context and chronology of Bronze Age land enclosure on Dartmoor,UK

The upland of Dartmoor, southwest England, is one of the flagship prehistoric landscapes within Britain owing to the excellent survival of extensive prehistoric coaxial field systems. Archaeological surveys and rescue excavations during the 1970s and 1980s did much to further the understanding of this landscape; however, much remains to be explored, in particular the chronology of enclosure, the nature of the pre-enclosure landscape and the relationship between Bronze Age communities and their environment. Reconsideration of this landscape is important, given the place it holds in our understanding of subdivision of the landscape across northwest Europe during prehistory. This paper presents new palaeoecological data recovered as part of an integrated archaeological and palaeoecological project on northeast Dartmoor. The sequences detailed here include the first dated Neolithic period palaeoenvironmental data from within the prehistoric enclosed land on the moor, providing a longer-term context for enclosure. Neolithic groups are implicated in the first establishment of heathland in the study area at around 3630–3370 cal BC. During the early Bronze Age, reestablishment of hazel scrub in the study area implies reduced use of the upland, although it is not clear whether this is local or indicative of the wider landscape. A combination of pollen and fungal spore data indicates a substantial shift to species-rich grassland with grazing animals at c.1480 cal BC in a phase that lasted 400 years. The later Bronze Age and early Iron Age are characterised by low intensity use of the upland. These data provide new chronological data for land cover change on Dartmoor and whilst they broadly confirm existing models of upland land use in later prehistory, their proximity to the standing archaeology affords a more nuanced interpretation of local change.     

GIS and the application of a model of pollen deposition and dispersal: a new approach to testing landscape hypotheses using the POLLANDCAL models

The recent advances in computer-based modelling of pollen dispersal and deposition through the POLLANDCAL (POLlen-LANDscape CALibration) network have enabled landscape simulations to be constructed and tested, both to validate the theoretical models, and to validate modelled landscapes using empirical data. This paper presents the first attempt to develop simulations based on real landscapes, by placing distinct vegetation communities using reclassified digital elevation models (combined slope and altitude data). The approach is tested by modelling a palynological signature for the expansion of mixed agriculture into an upland margin, and the results for 49 simulated pollen deposition sites, across an altitudinal range for a series of landscape scenarios, is compared with existing empirical data. The broad trends within the two data sets are in general accordance, and variation between them is attributed to local variation in vegetation heterogeneity. The results show that the POLLANDCAL models offer a new and exciting method by which sub-fossil pollen assemblages can be examined, theoretical models of landscape use tested, and will offer a significant tool in the interpretation of environmental data in archaeology, in particular when combined with GIS-based models of the physical environment.     

Characterising the late prehistoric, ‘Romano-British’ and medieval landscape, and dating the emergence of a regionally distinct agricultural system in South West Britain

Palaeoenvironmental evidence for the character of lowland cultural landscapes during the last 2500 years in Britain is poorly understood, owing to a combination of an over-reliance on data from upland sequences, and because lowland mires are typically located in positions marginal to areas of settlement and agriculture. This paper presents an attempt to derive environmental evidence for this time period from a lowland context in order to characterise the key periods of change and continuity in the lowlands. The study focuses on mid-Devon, in South West Britain, and uses small pollen sites which are embedded within the historic landscape. The South West is a particularly poor region for lowland environmental data, and has until now been reliant on upland sequences. The results show that continuity, rather than abrupt change, has characterised the landscape from the later Iron Age to the early medieval period (around cal AD 800). There is no palynologically distinct Roman period in the data, contrary to evidence from the high uplands of Exmoor that suggests a decline of the agricultural system during the immediate post-Roman period. Around cal AD 800 there is a change in the agricultural system from predominantly pastoral activities to one that led to relatively high proportions of cereal pollen appearing in the sequences, which is interpreted here as marking the onset of convertible husbandry, a regionally distinct agricultural system which is recorded from AD 1350, but whose origins are not documented. This agricultural system remained in place until the post-medieval period, when the predominant agricultural regime returned to pastoralism around AD 1750. The data clearly show discrepancies between the high uplands and the lowlands, demonstrating the potential hazards of extrapolating upland sequences to lowlands environments.     

Bronze Age landscape dynamics: spatially detailed pollen analysis from a ceremonial complex

The late Neolithic and early Bronze Age are periods marked by the construction of conspicuous concentrations of ‘ritual’ complexes, used for funerary rituals, seasonal gatherings and communal activities. Understanding the environmental context of monuments may provide detailed insights into relationships between the physical environment and the activities undertaken at individual monuments. Raised burial mounds (barrows) are generally assumed to have been constructed in open landscapes (the so-called ‘landscape openness’ hypothesis) thus rendering them highly visible in the surrounding landscape. This paper seeks to test to what extent vegetation (and in particular openness) around a dense concentration of barrows was actively managed, using three pollen sequences in close spatial juxtaposition to the archaeology. The local vegetation histories, supported by radiocarbon dating, demonstrate spatial differences in vegetation pattern both during the time of monument construction and use (c. 2000–1500 cal BC) and during subsequent periods. They do not support the ‘landscape openness’ hypothesis. This suggests that there is no single ‘blueprint’ for vegetation structure on and around these types of monument complexes. There is no evidence for major restructuring of the landscape during the early Bronze Age. The data describe a major transformation of the vegetation around 1500 cal BC (the Middle Bronze Age) in an area not known for archaeology of this date. This serves to emphasize the role of palaeoecology in augmenting the archaeological record of landscape re-organisation and transformation in prehistory.