Norse Animal Husbandry in Liminal Environments: Stable Isotope Evidence from the Scottish North Atlantic Islands

ABSTRACT

This paper employs δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N analysis of bone collagen to explore animal management at large Norse settlement sites in the liminal environments of the Scottish North Atlantic Islands. The Norse period was a time of social, cultural and economic change; the need to feed an expanding population and the demand for trade meant that domestic stock were a crucial resource. Our results indicate that rearing animals in these challenging insular environments required careful management. At all sites, the diet and movement of domestic cattle and sheep were highly similar and carefully controlled and, despite many of the analysed settlements lying close to the coast, there was no use of shorefront grazing or fodder resources. In contrast, pig rearing strategies varied across the island groups. In the Western Isles pig diets were diverse, indicative of household or ad hoc management, whilst on Orkney all pigs consumed a more restricted diet based primarily on terrestrial protein. A comparison of red deer with domestic stock on the Western Isles indicates that both groups were exploiting similar grazing niches.     

内外有别:美国华人基督徒研究中观察主体身份特点的学术意义

论文运用参与观察法分析,认为族裔身份、宗教信仰、移民背景等是影响美国华人基督教信仰研究中研究者内部人还是局外人身份及其学术观点形成的重要因素。研究显示,运用参与观察法进行社会研究,观察者是内部人还是局外人往往会影响到与被观察者之间的交流沟通,从而进一步影响到研究素材的搜集整理和研究结果的形成。区分参与观察者内部人还是局外人的身份有助于更好地理解这种方法的情境特点以及观察结果的相对意义,也有助于从多角度分析和衡量这种方法所产生的学术作品。作为一种实证研究方法,参与观察法尽管有自己内在的局限性,却在针对华人基督徒的研究中发挥了重要作用。     

Using multivariate statistics and fuzzy logic system to analyse settlement preferences in lowland areas of the temperate zone: an example from the Polish Lowlands

The influence of relief, as well as other environmental features such as soils or the hydrological regime, on prehistoric settlement patterns is commonly accepted. Settlement patterns and preferences changed over time in different areas, so it is difficult to formulate general rules of human behaviour throughout history. In lowland areas of the temperate zone, which lack radical relief changes and have widespread access to water resources, specific settlement preferences and significant changes in these preferences are difficult to interpret.New methods developed to address the problem of the settlement transformations as a result of prehistoric settlement and economic processes using multivariate statistics have been adapted for the middle part of the Great Poland Lowland. In this region, data from the Polish Archaeological Record Project database have been used.Models of the dependence between geomorphological features and settlement intensity form the basis for estimating changes in prehistoric settlements. The degree of preference (or avoidance) is a nonparametric function of the number of archaeological sites observed in the area relative to the number of sites expected from a completely random pattern. The most crucial factors for settlement are distance to plateau edges, distance to water bodies, and the wetness index. The results show that the entire investigated area is more or less suitable for settlement, but the most occupied terrains are the areas near plateau edges.     

Projectile points,people, and Plains Paleoindian perambulations

Archaeologists generally agree that Paleoindian residential groups moved regularly over extremely large ranges. However, on the Great Plains, this argument depends substantially on datasets derived largely or entirely from projectile points rather than from systematic analysis of a wide range of artifacts. This paper argues that projectile points differ from most Paleoindian tools in ways that make such datasets unlikely to be reliable sources of information on range sizes. Furthermore, evidence from Paleoindian tool caches and the condition of discarded points suggest strongly that the raw material used to produce projectile points at least sometimes moved across the Plains independently of material used to make most other kinds of flaked stone tools. This, in turn, implies that not all stone used during Paleoindian times was procured by visits of whole residential groups to raw material sources, raising serious questions about the validity of widespread views of Paleoindian mobility.     

Patterning in procurement of obsidian in Chaco Canyon and in Chaco-era communities in New Mexico as revealed by X-ray fluorescence

X-ray fluorescence analysis of obsidian artifacts from sites located in Chaco Canyon and from three Chaco-era communities in New Mexico permits determination of their geological origin. These source data are used to describe patterning in obsidian procurement in sites located in Chaco Canyon dating from A.D. 500–1150, and in a three non-Canyon communities occupied during the period of Chaco Canyon's regional prominence (ca. A.D. 875–1150). These data demonstrate that the most proximate sources generally dominate the sourced obsidian assemblages from sites of all periods, but also suggest differences in procurement patterning both over time and across space. Within Chaco Canyon, there is a notable shift from Mount Taylor obsidian to use of Jemez Mountains sources over time. These data also suggest that earlier analyses of obsidian from sites in Chaco Canyon misidentified some obsidian artifact sources; these new data indicate the central areas of disagreement and provide a revision of procurement patterning. In the Chaco-era communities located outside Chaco Canyon, procurement patterning diverges. The Blue J community shows an increase in use of the nearby Mount Taylor source over time. Two communities located toward the southern extent of the Chaco great house distribution reveal a markedly distinct procurement pattern, obtaining nearly all of their obsidian from southern sources largely unrepresented at Chaco Canyon. Combined, these data provide new insights into raw material procurement and artifact production at sites in Chaco Canyon, and in communities occupied during the Chaco Phenomenon, the period of the Canyon's greatest regional influence.     

美国早期史研究中的自我探索与历史叙事 --评《透过一块晦暗的玻璃》

《透过一块晦暗的玻璃》体现了美国早期史研究领域的较新的发展趋势。这本论文集从小历史的角度来论述了早期美国史研究中关于个人认同的自我探索与边缘化状态的问题,并较好地弥补了大历史的缺陷,使人们从历史叙述、文本细读和语言学转向这三个方面更新了对小历史长处的认识。     

安徽泗县刘圩汴河故道遗址发掘简报

2011年3～4月,安徽省文物考古研究所对安徽泗县刘圩遗址进行了抢救性发掘,揭示一批汉至唐宋遗迹。其中,唐宋汴河北堤的发现,在隋唐大运河泗县段尚属首次;宋代踩踏面及相关遗迹的发现反映了汴河漕运的繁华;北宋末至南宋初土坑墓的发现印证了相关文献记载的汴河废弃时代。     

Lake levels,mobility and lithic raw material selection and reduction strategies: A Great Lakes case study

Abstract

It has recently been proposed that lowered lake levels after 4250 BP broadened opportunities for mobility and interaction patterns among hunter-gatherer populations in the Saginaw drainage and in Michigan more broadly (; ). Here, data are presented on chipped stone reduction strategies as reflected in two site assemblages in Bay City, Michigan (20BY28, 20BY387) that bridge this key point in time. The earliest Late Archaic components of these sites, occupied during the higher than modern post Nipissing recession ca. 3200 BP, are typified by on-site reduction of local cherts, often utilising a bipolar reduction strategy. Subsequent uses of the area largely shifted to lower elevations. The more recent site components contain both more diverse projectile styles, many of which can be linked with Ontario types, and higher occurrences of non-local raw materials, specifically Onondaga chert apparently arriving at the site as preforms. The last use of these sites occurred during the Late Woodland, also during lower water levels approaching modern, and reflecting the highest use of Onondaga chert. We suggest that these changes resulted from shifting mobility and exchange patterns, facilitated in part by lowered post Nipissing water levels.     

晚明华北宗族与族谱的再造——以山东青州《重修邢氏宗谱》为例

山东青州邢氏原是务农的家族,在邢玠科举成功为官之后,转型为官宦之家,成为地方望族。从万历时的邢玠开始,到崇祯时的邢彤庭,邢氏从事宗族建设,制定并实践各种宗族制度,宗族乡约化、组织化。邢氏受到宋代程颐、程灏的宗会思想很大影响,通过"宗会"复兴"宗法"。这是宋以后宗族组织化的一种重要模式,以往的宗族研究重视不够。邢氏也编修了族谱,有家庙或者家堂,将御赐的祭田作为族田,还设置了宗学、义仓,族长实际上就是宗正。邢玠受到苏洵苏氏谱法以及睦族主张的影响较大,邢氏族谱着眼于睦族,收录大量宗族制度的文献,内容非常丰富,面貌大为改观,成为重要的民间文献。晚明不仅再造宗族,也再造了族谱,完成了中国近世宗族与族谱的基本形式。