Captain Everill’s Error: Mapping the Upper Strickland River in Papua and New Guinea, 1885–1979

An error dating from 1885 in mapping the upper Strickland River, Papua New Guinea, was reinforced and extended by government officer Charles Karius in 1929 when reporting results from a lengthy exploratory patrol. Detailed maps produced by the US Army and the Royal Australian Survey Corps in, respectively, 1942 and 1966 perpetuated these errors. It was not until 1979, with release of a series of 1:100,000 topographic maps, that long-standing errors were finally put to rest. Throughout these years, the contributions of well-informed people tended to be ignored in favour of the opinions of those whose status implied authority.     

Deceptive data? The role of the investigators in the New Survey of London Life and Labour 1928–32

The data collected by the New Survey of London Life and Labour between 1928 and 1932 is one of the most significant resources of detailed household information for the interwar period, with data extracted for almost 30,000 households, providing detailed information including birthplaces, hours of work, and wages. This article assesses the process of the original data collection, highlighting issues that mean users of the extracted data must proceed with a measure of caution. In particular, it demonstrates that one investigator employed by the survey, who provided information for around a fifth of households, appears to have regularly submitted generic and estimated information that problematizes the dataset.     

Illustrating the Phaenomena: Celestial Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Abstract

The Ordnance Survey's Boundary Survey, carried out between 1841 and 1888, was a major undertaking which resulted in the local administrative boundaries of the whole of Great Britain being reliably mapped for the first time. This was not achieved by imposition but by the use of local knowledge of boundaries, thus making permanent a communal memory of administrative geography and rendering it globally accessible through maps. The Boundary Survey aided the reform of local government areas, a process which started during the same period and provided derived data for the burgeoning collection of statistics in the nineteenth century.     

2009年陕西省考古研究院考古调查发掘新收获

本文精选了陕西省考古研究院2009年考古工作的主要收获,其中有周公庙、秦雍城、秦始皇陵和汉唐帝陵等大遗址项目,也有获选全国十大考古发现的杨官寨、梁带村遗址,以及靖边渠树壕汉代、韩城宋代壁画墓,还有引起极大关注的蓝田吕氏家族墓地等。文中在对各项考古工作介绍之余还配以精美的图片,以期迅速的报道田野考古新成果,为进一步研究提供线索。     

2007年以来抗美援朝研究述评

<正>2007年以前关于抗美援朝战争史(或朝鲜战争史)以及抗美援朝运动研究情况的综述已有几篇①。本文仅对2007年至2010年6月有关抗美援朝的研究成果简略综述。一、研究概况2007年以来出版的有关抗美援朝战争研究的专著约有三十多部,再版书十余部,发表的相关论文上     

Applying the H/V Method to Dense Cities. A Case Study of Valencia City

The aim of this study was to apply Nakamura's technique to Valencia city center, after some preliminary tests in Barcelona. Previous studies of Barcelona had measured periods in restrictive conditions and in various types of material ranging from very soft soil (with a predominant period of approximately 2 s) to rock (0.3 s), and under different measurement conditions. The Valencia city center measurements were taken by using the distance from buildings and car and pedestrian traffic to construct a measurement grid that was as regular as possible. We also estimated possible soil-structure interaction to detect potential vulnerability.     

International activity in Antarctica 1955–56

Small farmers in the Crofting Counties receive relatively low prices for their store stock partly because most of them are bought by dealers. Dealers rather than farmers purchase the stores because they are marketed in small diverse lots and because many of them are sold at centres far removed from the main areas of demand. Suggested improvements in the marketing system include grouping stock prior to sale and selling them at large accessible markets rather than at small remote ones.     

Use of stone hammer tools and anvils by bearded capuchin monkeys over time and space: construction of an archeological record of tool use

Wild bearded capuchins (Sapajus libidinosus) in the cerrado (seasonally dry savannah-like region) of Brazil routinely crack open several species of palm nuts and other hard encased fruits and seeds on level surfaces (anvils) using stones as hammers. At our field site, their nut cracking activity leaves enduring diagnostic physical remains: distinctive shallow depressions (pits) on the surface of the anvil, and cracked shells and stone hammer(s) on or next to the anvil. A monthly survey of the physical remains of percussive tool use at 58 anvils in our study site over a 36-month period revealed repeated use, seasonal consistency, temporal variation, landscape-scale patterning, appearance of new hammers and transport of existing hammers to new anvil sites. Artefactual evidence of the temporal and spatial pattern of tool use collected in the survey is in correspondence with concurrent direct observation of monkeys using and transporting tools at this site. Shell fragments endure for years above ground, suggesting that they may also endure in the strata around anvil sites. The bearded capuchins provide an opportunity to study the construction of percussive tool sites suitable for archeological investigation concurrently with the behavior responsible for the construction of these sites. We suggest several lines of inquiry into tool sites created by capuchin monkeys that may be useful to interpret the archeological evidence of percussive tool use in early humans. Archeologists should be aware that transported stone materials and artificial durable landscape features may be the result of activity by non-human animals.     

Sacred,but not surveyed: Nineteenth‐century surveys of Palestine

Abstract

Nineteenth‐century Palestine mapping projects based on systematic land surveying reached a peak with the Ordnance Survey of Western Palestine between 1871 and 1877, conducted on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund by officers of the British Royal Engineering Corps. Various other nineteenth‐century proposals for an organized survey of the country—some of which bore partial results while others were never implemented—are also presented. The surveying of one region, Mesopotamia, during the 1830s and 1840s, forms the basis for the discussion of the reasons for the relative lateness of the topographical survey. The sacredness of the region seems not to have been a sufficiently convincing motive for entrepreneurs to organize and finance such a survey. The main reason for the delay in mapping the country as a whole was that it was not especially important, either strategically or geo‐politically, for the European nations engaged in the international struggles in the Middle East until the last quarter of the nineteenth century.     

W. W. deLacy's 1865 map of the territory of Montana

Abstract

The Topographical Survey of the Orange Free State, executed by the British War Office between 1905 and 1911, was not only one of the first but also one of the finest topographical surveys to be undertaken in British colonial Africa. The motivation for this undertaking stemmed from three sources: the personal interest of Sir David Gill (H.M. Astronomer at the Cape) in the measurement of the arc of the 30th meridian; Britain's imperialistic intervention in South Africa which resulted in the South African War (1899–1902) against the Boer Republics and which stressed the need for reliable military maps for warfare as well as for the general defence of the new colonies; and the need for accurate maps for purposes of colonial administration and land tenure. The survey took five and a half years to complete, and the 1: 125,000 series (G.S.G.S. 2230) that was compiled represented the only accurate maps of this part of the continent for almost seven decades.