Anatomy,behavior, and modern human origins

The fossil record suggests that modern human morphology evolved in Africa between 150,000 and 50,000 years ago, when the sole inhabitants of Eurasia were the Neanderthals and other equally nonmodern people. However, the earliest modern or near-modern Africans were behaviorally (archaeologically) indistinguishable from their nonmodern, Eurasian contemporaries, and it was only around 50,000-40,000 years ago that a major behavioral difference developed. Archaeological indications of this difference include the oldest indisputable ornaments (or art broadly understood); the oldest evidence for routine use of bone, ivory, and shell to produce formal (standardized) artifacts; greatly accelerated variation in stone artifact assemblages through time and space; and hunting-gathering innovations that promoted significantly larger populations. As a complex, the novel traits imply fully modern cognitive and communicative abilities, or more succinctly, the fully modern capacity for Culture. The competitive advantage of this capacity is obvious, and preliminary dates suggest that it appeared in Africa about 50,000 years ago and then successively in western Asia, eastern Europe, and western Europe, in keeping with an African origin. Arguably, the development of modern behavior depended on a neural change broadly like those that accompanied yet earlier archaeologically detectable behavioral advances. This explanation is problematic, however, because the putative change was in brain organization, not size, and fossil skulls provide little or no secure evidence for brain structure. Other potential objections to a neural advance in Africa 50,000-40,000 years ago or to the wider 05kw83/xxlarge8220.gif" alt="ldquo" align="MIDDLE" BORDER="0">Out-of-Africa05kw83/xxlarge8221.gif" alt="rdquo" align="MIDDLE" BORDER="0"> hypothesis, include archaeological evidence (1) that some Neanderthals were actually capable of fully modern behavior and (2) that some Africans were behaviorally modern more than 90,000 years ago.     

Contesting the Divided City: Arts of Resistance in Skopje

This paper examines issues of power and resistance in “divided cities”. Basing my analysis on fieldwork I carried out in Skopje, Macedonia, I look at how urban space may be constructed and used by hegemonic groups as a means of asserting their power and how, in turn, the city may be a place of resistance where power is contested and public space reappropriated. Drawing on Lefebvre's perspective on the production of space, I compare the conceived city to the lived city and examine how urban inhabitants may resist the division of the city and challenge hegemonic representations. I also draw on Debord's psychogeography to define an artistic, active and participatory approach to urban space through which the inhabitants may re‐conquer their right to the œuvre and to the city. I argue that the city as a lived environment may offer narratives other than division and that there are alternatives to the divided city.     

Studying Immigrant Policy One Law at a Time

This article shows that, in the study of immigrant integration policy in the U.S. states, it is critical to report data and coding decisions for individual laws. This analysis uses an updated and public database of law‐level decisions, which includes 2,703 legislative actions recorded by the National Conference of State Legislatures from 2005 to 2016. These data are used to estimate models of aggregate state policy activity in a variety of ways: as a single continuum of policy balance versus separate models of welcoming and hostile, lumping all policy subareas together versus analyzing a specific subarea, and lumping all years together in one cross section versus panel analysis. The results in these models differ enough to indicate that reporting codes for individual‐level laws is absolutely essential so that each researcher easily can construct the measure that fits his or her theoretical framework best.     

Forbidden Images: Rock Paintings and the Nyau Secret Society of Central Malaŵi and Eastern Zambia

This paper examines the rock art of the nyau secret society of eastern Zambia and central Mala0p5044/xxlarge373.gif" alt="wcirc" align="BASELINE" BORDER="0">i. The art dates principally from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It has been known to researchers since the 1970s but has given up few of its secrets. I examine the questions of why the art was made and why the tradition ceased. Key to answering these is the realization that the art belonged to a specific historical and geographic context: the era and area where nyau was forced to become an underground movement because of its suppression by Ngoni invaders, missions, and the later colonial government. The art provides us with detailed insights into the way nyau has served in the process of overcoming and manipulating the traumatic social changes faced by Che0p5044/xxlarge373.gif" alt="wcirc" align="BASELINE" BORDER="0">a society in the last few centuries.Cet article examine l'art rupestre de la société secrète de nyau au est du Zambia et Mala0p5044/xxlarge373.gif" alt="wcirc" align="BASELINE" BORDER="0">i centrale. L'art date principalement aux dix-neuvième et bas vingtième siècles. Recherchers ont su l'art depuis les années soixante-dix, mais ils ont appris peu de ses secrets. J'examine les questions de pourquoi l'art était fabriquer et pourquoi la tradition a cessé. Pour résoudre ces questions c'est important à réaliser que l'art était à sa place dans un milieu spécifique d'histoire et géographie: au temps et place où nyau était forcer à devenir un mouvement clandestin à cause de sa répression par les envahisseurs Ngoni, les missions et, plus tard, le gouvernement colonial. L'art nous donne les aperçus détaillé sur comment nyau a servi dans le procès à surmonter et manipuler les changements traumatiques que la société Che0p5044/xxlarge373.gif" alt="wcirc" align="BASELINE" BORDER="0">a a bravé dans les siècles récents.     

INVESTMENT RISK AND THE TRANSITION INTO HOMEOWNERSHIP*

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the extent to which house–price uncertainty affects the transition of renter households into homeownership. Using a 14‐year household panel from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics during the years 1984–1997 and measures of the time‐varying risk and return to owner‐occupied housing, we estimate a Cox proportional hazard model of the effect of house–price volatility on the transition into homeownership. Results indicate that house–price uncertainty has a negative and dramatic impact on transitions into homeownership. In addition, we find that the low‐wealth renters are particularly sensitive to house–price risk.     

Naval Battlefield Archaeology of the Lost Kublai Khan Fleets

From AD 1274 Chinese emperor Kublai Khan dispatched fleets of ships in a series of attempts to expand the empire's hegemony and extend his rule into East Asia (Japan) and Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Champa and Java). Archaeological remains associated with the fleets and battles have been found at Takashima Island, Japan and on the B?ch 08;?ng River, Vietnam. This paper develops a thematic approach to these sites within a framework of naval battlefield archaeology. It compares the similarities and differences in environmental conditions and archaeological contexts of the two sites in Japan and Vietnam. It also outlines recent archaeological research conducted between 2008 and 2010 on the physical remains at the B?ch 08;?ng River battlefield site.     

Cases of hydatid disease in medieval Iceland

Eight individuals with calcified cysts preserved in the thorax and abdomen, one of which had a maximum diameter of 17–20 cm, were recovered during recent excavations at Skri0;uklaustur, a medieval monastic site which also functioned as a hospital during its operation from AD 1493–1554 in Eastern Iceland. Hydatid cysts are the result of parasitic infection by Echinococci commonly in the liver and lungs of the accidental human host. Echinococcus granulosus was likely introduced to Iceland soon after the settlement period (9th century AD) and became endemic around AD1200 when dogs were introduced from Germany. It has since been eradicated in Iceland due to an extensive educational literature programme and government controls implemented since the mid‐1800s. Reviews of the palaeopathological literature mentioning calcified shell fragments indicated hydatism to be the most logical aetiology. The eight individuals in question were buried in close proximity to one another. This may indicate that this particular ailment (sullaveiki) had its own classification during the medieval period in Iceland and perhaps even a distinct treatment if not in life, at least in death. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A ROOTED SENSE OF PLACE IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Sense of place was investigated in an interpretive approach to examine how it develops; how it varies cross-culturally among modern and indigenous peoples; and how it develops among various contexts (home and environs, family, community, and culture). Individual and group interviews were conducted using questionnaires on Banks Peninsula, New Zealand (a rural, farm-based setting) with 270 residents from 1987 to 1989, with 80 out-migrants interviewed around New Zealand in 1989. The methodology was based on phenomenology, ethnography, and social surveys. Statistical analyses indicated the significance of residential status and social belonging toward the development of a sense of place. Contextual influences were found to be important from qualitative data, with traditional culture of primary importance to Maori. Both Maori and European-descent respondents with long-term residence expressed a rooted sense of place for Peninsula environs. These respondents were less residentially mobile and were often tied to the land through ancestry and/or family farms. Newcomers to the region were usually treated as outsiders (for decades). The Maori community was partially sustained by a social network that extended beyond the Peninsula. Maori sense of place was based more on their cosmology and culture, which rooted them to their tribal territory spiritually and emotionally. To counter an amoral, modernist hegemony and to move toward community sustainability, postmodernists need to consider the significance of developing a place-based ideology that links people to place through a rooted sense of place. À l'aide d'une méthode interprétative, le sentiment d'appartenance à un milieu a été étudié pour examiner la manière dont il se développe, ses variations interculturelles parmi les populations modernes et autochtones, de même que l'incidence de divers éléments, tels la résidence et son voisinage, la famille, la collectivité et la culture, sur son développement. Entre 1987 et 1989, des entretiens individuels et de groupes ont été menés, en utilisant des questionnaires, auprès de 270 résidants demeurant dans la péninsule de Banks, en Nouvelle-Zélande, et appartenant à un milieu rural essentiellement agricole. De plus, en 1989, 80 émigrants répartis sur le territoire de la Nouvelle-Zélande ont été également intervieés. Les études phénoménologiques, ethnographiques et sociales ont servi de méthode fondamentale. L'analyse statistique a révélé l'importance de la qualité de résidant et l'importance de l'appartenance sociale sur le développement du sentiment d'appartenance à un milieu. D'après les données qualitatives, l'influence environnementale est significative, et la culture traditionnelle est capitale chez les Maoris. Les répondants établis depuis longtemps, qu'ils soient de descendance européenne ou maorie, ont manifesté un sentiment profond d'appartenance à leur milieu, que représente la péninsule. Ces répondants étaient relativement stables du point de vue résidentiel et possédaient souvent une terre ancestrale ou une ferme familiale. Les nouveaux arrivants ont été habituellement traités comme des étrangers (pendant des décennies). La communauté maorie a été soutenue en partie par un réseau social qui s'est étendu au-delà de la péninsule. Chez ce peuple, le sentiment d'appartenance au milieu s'appuie davantage sur la cosmologie et la culture, ce qui crée des liens spirituels et affectifs entre ces gens et leur territoire tribal. Pour s'opposer à l'hégémonie amorale et moderniste, et pour s'orienter vers la viabilité des collectivités, les post-modernistes doivent se rendre compte de l'importance d'élaborer une idéologie axée sur le milieu qui lie les gens par un sentiment profond d'appartenance.     

Spatial and environmental impacts on adverse birth outcomes in Ontario

This study assesses the overall spatial variations and neighbourhood‐level “hot spots” of low birth weight and preterm birth incidence within three public health units in Ontario, Canada. The analysis uses a stepwise approach of intra‐class correlation analysis, a spatial scan statistic, and multilevel spatial modeling. Results show that neighbourhood level variation accounts for only 2–3 percent of the total variation of adverse birth outcomes in the study area. However, strong spatial autocorrelation is observed at the neighbourhood level, and spatial clusters of relatively high adverse birth outcome rates exist in areas that are associated with environmental risks, including pollution sources and proximity to highways. Thus, although estimated neighbourhood impacts on adverse birth outcomes are small compared with those of individual‐level risks, local high potential environmental risk areas are identifiable. Environmental surveillance and spatial statistical analysis should be conducted regularly by local health authorities to identify and monitor the impact of environmental changes on health in general and on birth outcomes in particular. Specific community‐oriented health interventions may be required to reduce observed local health impacts.