Bureaucrats and managers,peasants and pastoralists,imperialists and traders: Research on the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods in Mesopotamia

In recent decades the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods of the fourth millennium B. C. in Mesopotamia have been the subject of considerable research by scholars of the ancient Near East. Interests in and interpretations of these periods have focused on their credentials as early states, urban societies, and the immediate antecedents of Sumerian civilization. In this overview, I first present a brief historical background on the study of these periods, followed by a critical review of recent approaches that have had significant impacts on current directions of research and understanding of the fourth millennium. Finally, I suggest some research avenues currently being tentatively explored that may be especially appropriate for developing further our understandings of these periods.     

Origin and Collapse of Complex Societies in Oaxaca (Mexico): Evaluating the Era from 1965 to the Present

I summarize recent archaeological work in Oaxaca, Mexico, with a focus on questions central to world prehistory: the origin and collapse of complex societies. Monte Albán was the capital of an emerging civilization in the southern highlands of Mexico during the second half of the first millennium B.C. Soon after the foundation of the ancient city, there is evidence for state formation and a political expansion into regions outside the Valley of Oaxaca. Centuries later, Monte Albán went into decline, giving way to the competing small polities found throughout Oaxaca at the time of the Spanish conquest. Since the late 1960s, our knowledge of these changes has been transformed by study of Oaxaca's pre–Monte Albán past, regional settlement surveys, and processual model building. Evolutionary and historical perspectives allow for significant refinement of current debates surrounding the rise and fall of complex societies in Oaxaca.     

The Transition from Prehistory to the Historic Period in the Upper Mun Valley

The Early Historic Period in the Mun Valley occupies a critical three centuries, from A.D. 500 to A.D. 800, a period often known as that of Zhenla, a name derived from early Chinese accounts. This article first describes early findings of fieldwork designed to illuminate the prehistory of the upper Mun Valley, a period which covers approximately two millennia, with initial settlement now dated between 1500 and 1000 B.C. It then considers the nature of the transition to the complex polities of Zhenla. This involves a combination of archaeological and documentary evidence. Sources for the latter are rare for the Mun Valley, but by broadening the area considered, it is possible to integrate archaeological and historical sources in order to portray the intensifying social changes which characterize the Early Historic Period. It is suggested that most of the Mun Valley was occupied by Khmer speakers during the Iron Age, people responsible for the transition to increasingly centralized polities of the Early Historic Period. In the upper reaches of the Mun catchment, and in the Chi Valley to the north, the late prehistoric inhabitants spoke Mon. They had close affinities with the Dvaravati polities of Central Thailand. If confirmed, this hypothesis would indicate a series of local trends towards increasing social complexity which we can recognize in the early epigraphic record.     

War in the feudal zone: state failure and the abandonment of anthropological research in Mexico and Central America

We analysed the extent to which violent, organised crime has disrupted anthropological research in Mexico and Central America by conducting a survey of anthropologists who work in the region. We found that although anthropologists will continue research in regions they perceive to have the socio-economic characteristics of a failed state they are far less inclined to work in areas that they perceive as excessively violent. We continue with examination of the state failure and feudalisation that are affecting the region. We conclude that in the feudal zones, the state has lost its comparative advantage in the use of force and that state intrusion into these areas increases armed collective violence in a manner similar to that described in the literature on warfare in tribal zones.     

Report on the pottery from Tell Sufan in Nablus,Palestine

ABSTRACT

This research report aims to give detailed information on the pottery from the 1999 and 2013-16 excavation campaigns taking place at the Tell Sufan site in Nablus, Palestine. These were conducted by the Department of Antiquities at An-Najah National University (ANU) in Nablus. It is of note that this ancient pottery has never previously been the subject of research nor has any literature been published on it. Our methodology consists in: analysing the pottery by identifying it, typifying it, and giving it a function; providing chronological information on the site; comparison of the pottery with that from other sites in Palestine, using archaeological information from the site; and contextualising our findings with other historical and archaeological studies. Examination of the functional use of the pottery allows us to demonstrate human activity at the Tell Sufan site, giving information on the most prosperous phases of occupation in regard to economic aspects, through the late Bronze Age, Iron Age and Byzantine-Early Islamic periods.     

A new antiarch placoderm from the Emsian (Early Devonian) of Wuding,Yunnan, China

Pan, Z., Zhu, M., Zhu, Y. &; Jia, L., August 2017. A new antiarch placoderm from the Emsian (Early Devonian) of Wuding, Yunnan, China. Alcheringa 42, 10–21. ISSN 0311-5518.

Wufengshania magniforaminis, a new genus and species of the Euantiarcha (Placodermi: Antiarcha), is described from the late Emsian (Early Devonian) of Wuding, Yunnan, southwestern China. The referred specimens were three-dimensionally preserved in black shales, allowing a high-resolution computed tomography reconstruction of anatomical details. The new euantiarch is characterized by a large orbital fenestra, an arched exoskeletal band around the orbital fenestra and a developed obtected nuchal area of the skull roof. Maximum parsimony analysis, using a revised data-set of antiarchs with 44 taxa and 66 characters, resolves Wufengshania gen. nov. as a member of the Bothriolepididae, which is characterized by the presence of the infraorbital sensory canal diverging on the lateral plate, and the nuchal plate with orbital facets. New analysis supports a sister group relationship between Dianolepis and the Bothriolepididae. Luquanolepis, a coeval euantiarch from the neighboring site of the new form, is referred to the Asterolepidoidei and represents the basalmost and earliest member of the Asterolepidoidei.

Zhaohui Pan* [panzhaohui@ivpp.ac.cn], Min Zhu* [zhumin@ivpp.ac.cn], You’an Zhu^? [zhuyouan@ivpp.ac.cn] and Liantao Jia [jialiantao@ivpp.ac.cn] Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PO Box 643, Beijing 100044, PR China. *Also affiliated with University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, PR China. ^?Also affiliated with Uppsala University, PO Box 256, 751 05 Uppsala, Sweden.     

Revision of the Early Devonian tabulate coral Pleurodictyum bifidum from New South Wales

Plusquellec, Y. &; Wright, A.J., October 2017. Revision of the Early Devonian tabulate coral Pleurodictyum bifidum from New South Wales. Alcheringa 41, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518.

The tabulate coral Pleurodictyum bifidum Jones, 1944 Jones, O.A., 1944. Tabulata and Heliolitida from the Wellington district, N.S.W. Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales 77, 33–39. [Google Scholar], from the Early Devonian (Pragian or lower Emsian) Garra Formation of central New South Wales, Australia is revised on the basis of the holotype and three other specimens. It is selected as the type species of the new monotypic genus Bifidomeria (Family Roemeriidae), which differs from Roemeria in its strictly cerioid corallum, its bifid septal spines and aspects of its microstructure. Study of the detailed microstructure of two other tabulate corals from the Devonian of New South Wales has led to the following revised generic assignments: Michelinia progenitor Chapman, 1921 Chapman, F., 1921. New or little known fossils in the National Museum. Part XXV—some Silurian tabulate corals. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 33, 212–225. [Google Scholar], previously assigned to Roemeripora, is assigned to Roemeria, and Holacanthopora clarkei Wright &; Flory, 1980 Wright, A.J. &; Flory, R.A., 1980. A new Early Devonian tabulate coral from the Mount Frome Limestone, near Mudgee, New South Wales. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 104, 211–219. [Google Scholar] is assigned to Michelinia.

Yves Plusquellec [yves.plusquellec@univ-brest.fr], Université de Bretagne Occidentale, CNRS-UMR 6538 ‘Domaines océaniques’, Laboratoire de Paléontologie, UFR Sciences et Techniques, 6 avenue Le Gorgeu, CS 98837, F-29283 Brest, France; Anthony Wright [tony.wright@optusnet.com.au], GeoQuEST Research Centre, School of Earth &; Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong NSW 2522, Australia.     

Lepidopteris callipteroides,an earliest Triassic seed fern of the Sydney Basin,southeastern Australia

Earliest Triassic shales in the Coal Cliff Sandstone, Caley Formation, Widden Brook Conglomerate and Dooralong Shale (all basal Narrabeen Group) of the Sydney Basin contain a low diversity fossil flora that survived the greatest mass extinction of all time at the Permian-Triassic boundary. Only one species of seed fern is known from this flora and its affinities were unclear until discovery of its reproductive organs and complete large leaves. An ovuliferous reproductive organ, Peltaspermum townrovii sp. nov., can be attributed to the same plant as the leaves because of their identical stomatal apparatus, which is cyclocytic with papillae overhanging the stomatal pit. Polleniferous organs, Permotheca helbyi sp. nov., may have belonged to the same plant, but are only linked by evidence of association on the same bedding plane yielding no other gymnosperms. Pollen masses found within the polleniferous organ include grains identified as Falcisporites australis (de Jersey) Stevens (1981) when found dispersed. The leaves of this plant have long been enigmatic and attributed to ‘Thinnfeldia’ callipteroides or ‘Dicroidium’ callipteroides; however, these genera had very different cuticular structure. Reassessment of the frond architecture of this plant, based on a large, nearcomplete specimen together with information from cuticles and ovuliferous organs, allows reassignment to Lepidopteris callipteroides (Carpentier) comb. nov. The remarkable cuticle thickness, small stomatal size and low stomatal index of these leaves reflect a time of unusually high atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. This plant was an invader of the Sydney Basin from northern Gondwana, spreading southward during the post-apocalyptic earliest Triassic greenhouse.     

Politics and Eschatology: Reassessing the Appeal of the “Jewish Indian” Theory in England and New England in the 1650s

This article examines the “Jewish Indian” theory — which claimed that American Indians were the ten lost tribes of Israel — in 1650s England and New England. The theory found support in England while failing in New England. This difference in reception can be explained by considering its ecclesiological, political, and eschatological implications. Biblical commentators in both England and New England held to a form of “Judeo‐Centric” eschatology, which looked for a sudden, miraculous conversion of the Jews and their eventual superiority to Gentile believers. Such beliefs undermined crucial elements of New England ecclesiology when applied to Native Americans. Conversely, the New England Company used the theory in its publications as a fund‐raising tool in England. These publications impacted upon debates on Jewish readmission to England in the mid‐1650s, with New England missionary models suggested as a way of evangelising Jews. This article therefore argues for the importance of understanding eschatological beliefs in local contexts, while demonstrating the way in which such beliefs can be maintained and reoriented in the face of apparent disconfirmation.