Prison Heritage,Public History and Archaeology at Fannie Bay Gaol,Northern Australia

Prisons play an important role in the Australian psyche. As places in which the lawless element of society is incarcerated they possess a resonance that harks back to the stereotyped and mythologised convict foundations of the Australian nation. Many former places of confinement have been transformed into publicly accessible heritage sites and museums, but visitor numbers often do not reflect the widespread public interest in confinement. It is not at all clear how to engage the public with the individual histories of these places. This paper examines this issue by reference to the public display of Fannie Bay Gaol prison museum in Darwin. Changing themes and foci in the display of this site are discussed. The role of the historian and archaeologist is examined in the context of the public presentation of narratives of the Gaol's past.     

Public vices,private remedies in nineteenth-century Italy: Giulia Falletti di Barolo Colbert and Le Forzate

In nineteenth-century Italy notions of femininity and, no less, masculinity influenced the ways in which crime was viewed. The result was that criminality was perceived, judged and explained differently according to the sex of the offender. At every stage in the penal process, cultural understandings of what women were like, and how they ought to behave, operated to define the appropriate response to their misconduct and to structure their punishment. These 'gendered' aspects of criminal justice have influenced the practices of prosecution and sentencing, and, most clearly of all, the special regimes and attitudes adopted in women's prisons: throughout the century male prison regimes emphasized discipline and deterrence, while female prisons developed individualized programmes of 'moral regeneration'. This article deals with the history of the first prison destined exclusively for women - which was opened in Turin in 1821 - with the circumstances which brought about its creation as well as with its organizational structure and its aims. Its promoter - both in money and in spirit - was a woman, named Giulia Falletti di Barolo Colbert. Giving special consideration to the ideals of its foundress, this article examines how nineteenth-century perceptions of the female criminal differentiated the nature and purpose of penal servitude for women.     

对监狱行刑社会化的几点思考

监狱行刑社会化,是指在刑罚执行过程中充分应用一切社会资源和社会力量教育改造罪犯。目前,我国监狱行刑工作的社会化程度还处在较低的水平上,监狱行刑走向社会化还有许多制约因素。为此,应从监狱职能、行刑观念、行刑立法、行刑模式等方面探索监狱行刑社会化的问题。     

Cartographical evidence of efforts to develop Acre during the last decades of Ottoman rule: did the Ottomans neglect the city?

Using dozens of Ottoman maps from the Central Ottoman Archives in Istanbul, the article challenges the prevailing standpoint regarding the historical-geographic process that took place on both sides of the Bay of Acre/haifa during the last decades of the Ottoman period, and led to Haifa’s emergence as one of the most important port towns in the eastern Mediterranean, and concomitantly to Acre’s demise and negligence. To date, the few researchers who have dealt with this process, especially from the viewpoint of Haifa’s local history, have viewed the Ottoman regime as a passive force that did not act to preserve the status or economic strength of Acre, the regional headquarters, the province’s capital city and the region’s most important town for many years. We argue that the central Ottoman government in Istanbul did not perceive the process of Acre’s demise and Haifa’s rise as a deterministic process. Official Ottoman maps drawn at the request of the imperial centre as early as the 1880s show that plans existed to develop Acre and its region. These plans, even if only partially implemented, would have clearly contributed to preserving Acre’s status over Haifa. The Ottomans attempted to preserve the geo-strategic status of Acre and its importance and made plans to upgrade various infrastructures in the town’s vicinity, which might have changed processes related to physical conditions and powerful technological advances. This approach, which is based on the belief in the human ability to confront and deal with deterministic geographic and physical conditions, seems to have been the foundation of Ottoman planning in the case of Acre. The Ottomans’ capacity to implement these plans was very limited, however, and they eventually had to acknowledge this reality. Thus, Acre was reduced to its formal status as the capital of an Ottoman administrative district until the end of the Ottoman rule in Palestine. In a way, its fate was not very different from that of other traditional centres of Ottoman rule along the eastern Mediterranean coast, whose importance diminished at that time, while new centres that were more cosmopolitan and connected to developments overseas came to power.     

Diversity of Pre-colonial Earthworks in the Brazilian State of Acre,Southwestern Amazonia

Amazonian earthworks, which are an important testimony to ancient anthropogenic landscape modifications, have a significant variety of structures and sizes, and are found in different geographical and ecological locations that indicate separate time periods, distinct cultural affiliations, and diverse purposes. We introduce data from diverse archaeological earthwork sites, geoglyphs, mound sites, and walled enclosures situated in the interfluves of the Purus River in the Brazilian state of Acre and propose a type definition for these sites. The abundant anthropogenic landscape features and their associated material culture indicate considerable human-induced environmental alterations and diverse earthworking traditions that are characteristic of the region of eastern Acre from at least ca. 2000 b.p. onwards.     

Saharan prisons

ABSTRACT

The Sahara has long served as a site for high-security prisons. Prisons here however rarely locked people away; rather, they set them to work. Prisoners survival in these conditions hinged on their ability to establish social ties locally, as is arguably still the case with transregional migrants today.     

Contested Trans‐national Heritage: The Demolition of Changi Prison,Singapore

In 2004 the Singaporean government demolished Changi prison in the face of considerable opposition from the Australian government because of the prison’s association with the captivity of prisoners of war during the Second World War. In opposing the demolition the Australian government was constrained by the fact that it was challenging the accepted right of a sovereign government to manage national heritage sites; by the lack of a shared history surrounding Changi; and the absence of any agreed international regimes governing ‘transnational heritage’. The case of Changi also demonstrates the manner in which heritage significance can be displaced from ‘real’ to ‘un‐real’ (or substitute) sites, that lack the authenticity attributed to them but are invested with a significant emotional power at the level of individual memory and popular culture. In this, Changi is, finally, a testimony to the way in which the construction of memory is a dynamic interactive process between individuals, organisational stakeholders and the state.     

A new species of Scirrotherium Edmund & Theodor, 1997 (Xenarthra,Cingulata, Pampatheriidae) from the late Miocene of South America

Góis, F., Scillato-Yané, G.J., Carlini, A.A. & Guilherme, E. 2013. A new species of Scirrotherium Edmund & Theodor, 1997 (Xenarthra, Cingulata, Pampatheriidae) from the late Miocene of South America. Alcheringa 37, 175–186. ISSN 0311-5518.

A new species of Scirrotherium Edmund & Theodor (Pampatheriidae) is described: S. carinatum. This genus was previously represented by a single species, S. hondaensis Edmund & Theodor, 1997, recorded from the middle Miocene (Laventan) of Colombia. Pampathere remains are common in the ‘Conglomerado osífero’ (late Miocene) of the Ituzaingó Formation in the Paraná River cliffs of Entre Ríos, Chubut (Argentina) and Acre (Brazil). All of them were referred to Kraglievichia paranense, and they are mostly osteoderms. However, only a few of these specimens are strictly consistent with that species. The new species described herein differs from S. hondaensis in having very thin osteoderms with more elaborate ornamentation. The movable band (or imbricate) osteoderms have a sculptured exposed surface and a single transverse row of anterior foramina; the lateral margins are wider and also bear foramina, and the longitudinal central elevation is long and proximally wide, and forms a posteriorly raised crest. This elevation is delimited by a fairly broad and shallow depression on each side, separating the marginal elevation from the longitudinal central one. The exposed surfaces of fixed (or fused) osteoderms bear large and deep anterior foramina, the longitudinal central elevation and delimiting depressions are very pronounced. This new species increases the known diversity of the pampatheres from the ‘Conglomerado osífero’. Additionally, a new nomenclatural scheme for Pampatheriidae osteoderms is proposed.

Flávio Góis [goisf@fcnym]unlp.edu.ar], Gustavo Juan Scillato-Yané [scillato@fcnym.unlp.edu.ar], Alfredo Armando Carlini [acarlini@fcnym.unlp.edu.ar], Departamento Científico Paleontología Vertebrados, Museo de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque, s/n, 1900, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina and CONICET; Edson Guilherme [guilherme@ufac.br], Universidade Federal do Acre, Laboratório de Pesquisas Paleontológicas (LPP), BR 364, Km 04, 69.915-900. Rio Branco, AC, Brazil. Received 11.5.2012; revised 31.7.2012; accepted 4.9.2012 .     

Olei Hagardom: Between official and popular memory

This article examines the interaction between official memory and popular memory through the case study of Olei Hagardom – Jewish underground fighters executed by the British in Mandatory Palestine. Studies of collective memory usually maintain that the ruling elite, with its control of state resources, dominates collective memory formation. However, the case of Olei Hargardom demonstrates the potentially limited power of institutional commemoration and exclusion in a democratic society. David Ben-Gurion and his government's attempt to exclude these right-wing heroes from the national pantheon had limited impact. Menachem Begin's persistent, partisan political efforts to include them were only partially successful. Ultimately, Olei Hargardom became entrenched in Israeli collective memory as a result of apolitical literary works, popular culture, and the establishment of a site of memory by spontaneous, grassroots efforts.