Urbanization,ruination, and refusal: racialized geographies in 1920s Rio de Janeiro

This article focuses on a community located in downtown Rio de Janeiro that was destroyed to make way for the commemorations of Brazil’s Centenary of Independence in 1922. Morro do Castelo was once a space customarily inhabited by Afro-descendants, but Italian and Portuguese immigrants predominated there by the time of its destruction. I argue that whatever Castelo’s racial heterogeneity it was imagined and treated as a black space by planners and policy makers, hence its disposability. In Castelo's neglect during the colonial period and in the urbanization projects that sought to destroy it in the first two decades of the 20th century, one can discern the continuity of imperial processes of ruination of racialized spaces and bodies. The article examines ways in which residents of Morro do Castelo established territory and engaged in various forms of refusal when faced with the ruination of their neighborhood. The spatial practices of the hillside’s diverse population suggest that its various racialized and ethnic groups mapped difference onto a palimpsestic site that defied official classificatory systems and troubled official mappings of the concept city.     

The Dystopic Theme Park: The Role of Lorelei in Marcelo Cohen's El oído absoluto

The purpose of this article is to analyze the function of theme-park design in Argentinean author Marcelo Cohen's novel El oído absoluto. Cohen's work takes place in a fictitious theme park in a not-so-distant future that serves the double duty of utopia for entertainment and consumption as well as reformatory for social deviants posing a danger to greater society. The article examines the parallels between the theories at the heart of the design of modern-day theme parks, such as Disney World, and the dystopic theme park in Cohen's novel. The shared ideology behind the design of these dystopic spaces demonstrates how the theme-park designers manipulate architectural spaces to facilitate consumption and the homogenization of global culture as a response to social fragmentation and disintegration in a postindustrial world.     

The first fossil avian egg from Brazil

Marsola, J.C.A., Grellet-Tinner, G., Montefeltro, F.C., Sayão, J.M., Hsiou, A.S. & Langer, M.C., 2014. The first fossil avian egg from Brazil. Alcheringa 38, 563–567. ISSN 0311-5518.

In contrast to the rich record of eggs from non-avian dinosaurs, complete eggs attributable to Mesozoic birds are relatively scarce. Nevertheless, several well-preserved specimens have been discovered over the last three decades revealing functional and phylogenetic characters that shed light on the breeding strategies of extinct birds. Here we report the first fossil avian egg from Brazil, which was discovered in Upper Cretaceous strata of São Paulo in the southeastern part of the country. The taxonomic identity and structural features of the biomineralized tissues were determined using a combination of Scanning Electron Microscopy, Wave Dispersion Energy analyses and Computed Tomography. These show that the 125.5-μm-thick shell of the 31.4?×?19.5?mm egg incorporates three structural layers of similar thickness with both prismatic and aprismatic boundaries. Close similarity between the Brazilian bird egg and those of enantiornithines from the Upper Cretaceous Bajo de la Carpa Formation (Río Colorado Subgroup) of Argentina advocates affinity with basal Ornithothoraces. Furthermore, coherency of their depositional contexts might imply a compatible preference for breeding and nesting environments.

Júlio Cesar de A. Marsola [juliomarsola@gmail.com], Annie Schmaltz Hsiou [anniehsiou@ffclrp.usp.br] and Max C. Langer [mclanger@ffclrp.usp.br], Laboratório de Paleontologia de Ribeirão Preto, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Avenida Bandeirantes 3900, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo state, 14040-901, Brazil. Gerald Grellet-Tinner [locarnolugano@gmail.com], Centro Regional de Investigaciones La Rioja—Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Entre Ríos y Mendoza s/n, 5301 Anillaco, Argentina; Orcas Island Museum, PO Box 134, 181 North Beach Road, Eastsound, WA 98245. Felipe C. Montefeltro [felipecmontefeltro@gmail.com], Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Avenida 24A 1515, Rio Claro, São Paulo State, 13506-900, Brazil. Juliana M. Sayão [jmsayao@gmail.com], Laboratório de Diversidade do Nordeste, Núcleo de Biologia, Centro Acadêmico de Vitória, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Rua do Alto do Reservatório s/n, Bela Vista, Vitória de Santo Antão, Pernambuco state, 52050-480, Brazil. Received 18.12.2013; revised 30.4.2014; accepted 18.5.2014.     

Who brought in the rabbits? Taphonomical analysis of Mousterian and Solutrean leporid accumulations from Gruta do Caldeirão (Tomar,Portugal)

In the Iberian Peninsula, leporids, and specifically rabbits, play a key role in the understanding of hunter-gatherer economies. They appear to have been especially important in the Tardiglacial, when large numbers of small prey animals and of the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) in particular, are a ubiquitous feature of faunal assemblages from archaeological sites. Since a large number of non-human predators can also contribute to the formation of such assemblages, the ability to discriminate between bones accumulated by humans and by other kinds of predators is a key prerequisite to their interpretation. On the basis of systematic actualistic studies carried out on modern leporid remains produced by mammalian terrestrial carnivores, nocturnal and diurnal raptors, and humans, we identified diagnostic taphonomic indicators of the different predators. In this paper, the patterns observed on the modern material are applied to the taphonomical analysis of two archaeological samples of rabbit and hare remains from Mousterian and Solutrean layers of Gruta do Caldeirão, a cave site located in Central Portugal. Our results suggest that Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo) were mainly responsible for the Mousterian accumulations, whilst the Solutrean ones were most likely the result of human activity. These data support the notion that, in Iberia, significant reliance on rabbits does not become a feature of subsistence strategies until later Upper Palaeolithic times.     

Contesting the ‘greening’ of hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon

The 21st century has witnessed a resurgence of hydropower projects across the globe, with the energy source an integral part of contemporary sustainable energy transitions. Yet, the environmentalist credentials of hydropower remain contested by anti-dam movements. This paper details the cases of the Belo Monte and São Luiz do Tapajós dams in the Brazilian Amazon to explore how the development, submission and acceptance of an Environmental Impact Assessment provides a key site in the contestation of hydroelectric projects. Whilst the provision of this document – and the wider environmental licensing process – represents a key component in the asserted ‘green-ness’ of hydropower, opposition groups extend the scope of analysis to include indirect and cumulative impacts that remain understudied in official assessments. This paper analyses interviews and questionnaires with and documents provided by national and international civil society organisations to trace this process of challenge and critique. It details how civil society actors forward alternative assessments of the impacts of the projects studied, uncovering and illuminating overlooked and understudied externalities of hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon. An analysis of this process not only demonstrates that the ‘green’ credentials of hydropower remain far from assured but also highlights how anti-dam actors advance new ‘sustainabilities’ to discredit the terrain upon which such credentials are set.     

Brazilian Horrors Past and Present: José Mojica Marins and Politics As Reproductive Futurism

Director José Mojica Marins is both the mastermind and actor behind Zé do Caixão, an icon within Brazilian popular culture and an international cult sensation. Marins encountered numerous conflicts with Brazil’s military dictatorship, and after producing the first two films of an intended trilogy, At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964) and This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse (1967), the third film, Embodiment of Evil, was not made until 2008. Throughout this trilogy, Zé do Caixão kidnaps, tortures, and murders scores of victims, effectively mimicking the human rights abuses that occurred under the dictatorship. He advocates liberation from the oppression of traditional morality while reinscribing its rhetorical raison d’être: purpose through procreation. The popular appeal of these films, their political intentionality, and their production during and after the dictatorship allow for an analysis of the rhetorical strategies employed by Marins in his attempt to both shock audiences and instill in them a counterhegemonic consciousness. Despite the radical agenda at work in Marins’s films, I will argue that this trilogy is conservative in its rhetorical framework, serving as an example of Lee Edelman’s reproductive futurism, wherein political legitimacy is contingent upon procreation.     

GPR survey at Lapa do Santo archaeological site,Lagoa Santa karstic region,Minas Gerais state,Brazil

In this work we present and discuss the results of a novel and timely GPR-2D and GPR-3D survey performed at an archaeological rock shelter site, Lapa do Santo, localized in the karstic region of Lagoa Santa, central Brazil. A total of 113 ground-penetrating radar profiles were acquired with 200 MHz and 400 MHz shielded antennas aiming in identifying geological and archaeological anomalies in order to assist archaeologists in an excavation program. The GPR results indicated clear geophysical anomalies characterized by hyperbolic reflections and areas with high amplitude sub-horizontal electromagnetic waves. The anomalies observed by GPR were confirmed by the excavation of test units, allowing the identification anthropogenic features such as a fire-hearth structure and wooden artifact, and natural features, such as, tree roots and rocky bodies such as speleothems, boulders and bedrock. The results showed the efficiency of GPR method in identifying potential buried archaeological targets in cave sites within a karstic area, and they oriented to archaeological excavations, reducing costs and increasing the probability of finding archaeological targets in the initial stages of a project.     

Pleistocene foraminifera from Botany Bay,New South Wales

Unconsolidated sediments from a borehole in Botany Bay have been analyzed for their foraminiferal content. Faunas from between 41 and 54 m below sea level are interpreted as Pleistocene in age. The foraminiferal assemblage from 54 m indicates marine conditions of moderately deep water (25–30 m), and a climate warmer than at present. The higher assemblages indicate a more brackish environment

The foraminifera, belonging to 123 species in 67 genera, are tabulated and 24 are discussed and illustrated. Three species, Oolina bifidocostata, Fissurina alatoquadrata and Elphidium botaniensis and one subpecies, Quinqueloculina affinis atrata, are described as new.     

Two possible cases of brucellosis from a Clarist monastery in Alcácer do Sal,southern Portugal

The Convent of Nossa Senhora de Aracoelli was a Clarist monastery located in Alcácer do Sal, southern Portugal, founded at the end of the 16th century and abandoned during the 19th century. This paper considers the presence of brucellosis in two lumbar vertebrae originating from an ossuary recovered at the Chapter House of the Convent. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mercator’s Lithuanian–Russian Borderlands: Russiae pars amplificata (1595) and Its Polish Sources

abstract

This article focuses on the inset on Gerardus Mercator’s large map of Russia cum confiniis [Russia with surrounding lands] that was published in his Atlas (1595), and the map Moscovia [Muscovy] published by Jodocus Hondius in the Atlas minor (1607). Comparison of the contents of Mercator’s inset map, titled Russiae pars amplificata [Part of Russia enlarged] and Hondius’s Moscovia map with the Polish propaganda poem Raid on Muscovy by Jan Kochanowski that had appeared in 1583—just after the war between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy—led to the suggestion that both Mercator’s and Hondius’s maps were based on Polish–Lithuanian narrative sources as well as on a map drawn by the Polish royal cartographer Maciej Strubicz. To test the hypothesis, a historical-linguistic analysis of the orthography of the map’s toponyms and hydronyms was employed to distinguish their Polish, German and Latin characteristics. The result confirms that the two maps were indeed based on a Polish military map containing a hidden Polish propaganda message.