Empty tombs? The taphonomy of burials on Bahrain

The number of empty tombs on Bahrain has been the focus of several analyses of Bronze Age burial practices on the island. Such analyses, however, have failed to take into account normal taphonomic processes affecting the recovery of bone. Once the factors determining the state of preservation have been accounted for, the frequency of empty tombs found on Bahrain is seen to be comparable to numerous other sites in the world. It is argued that mortuary analysis must take account of the intervening steps between burial in an ancient society and modern excavation of that burial, and that, in the case of Bahrain, elaborate explanations of the absence of human bone are unnecessary.     

The Supreme Court and Juvenile Justice

For so many things I thank the Historical Society profoundly, but place right at the top of my list the delightful opportunity your invitation has given me to read the prior Annual Lectures—interesting, exciting, thoroughly intimidating—touching on the Court's history, its cases, its people, even its wives (the subject of Justice Ginsburg's 1999 lecture). Wholly apart from the Society's many initiatives to preserve the Court's history and increase public awareness of its contributions to our nation, the now nearly three dozen Annual Lectures alone offer an amazing insight into this great institution.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in this Article: Jim Obelkevich, Lyndal Roper, Raphael Samuel, eds, Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Religion, Politics and Patriarchy. John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. Susan Mosher Stuard, ed, Women in Medieval History and Historiography. Bronislaw Geremek, The Margins of Society in Late Medieval Paris, transl. Jean Birrell. Sara Mendelson, The Mental World of Stuart Women: Three Studies. Alice Browne, The Eighteenth Century Feminist Mind. Helen Callaway, Gender, Culture and Empire: European Women in Colonial Nigeria. Claudia Knapman, White Women in Fiji 1835-1930: The Ruin of Empire?…. Marilyn Lake, The Limits of Hope: Soldier Settlement in Victoria 1915-38. Susan M. Reverby, Ordered to Care: the Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850-1945. Linda Gordon, Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence. Helena Whitbread, ed, I Know My Own Heart. The Diaries of Anne Lister 1791-1840 Zuzanna Shonfield, The Precariously Privileged. A Professional Family in Victorian London. Tierl Thompson, ed, Dear Girl. The Diaries and Letters of Two Working Women 1897-1917. Yamila Azize, La Mujer en la Lucha (The Woman in Struggle) (2nd revised ed.).