Nitrogen cycling in western India as revealed by nitrogen isotopes,and the historic production of saltpetre

Saltpetre (KNO₃) manufacture was a principal monopoly industry in early Modern India when the United Kingdom governed the social and economic systems. The process represented microbial transformation of excrementitious livestock and human wastes deposited around habitats, resulting in formation of salt efflorescence at an economic scale. Low caste people collected these wastes for extraction and production of rough saltpetre under the administrative control of British India. Stable isotope composition (δ¹⁵N and δ¹⁸O) was used to trace details of the microbial transformation processes, often involving the isotopic fractionation of nitrogen and oxygen. Marked elevation in δ¹⁵N and δ¹⁸O values for nitrates in soils and deposits, relative to those of primary organic nitrogen in diets and water sources, characterizes the unique processes of historic saltpetre manufacture in British India.     

Inconsistent,downplayed, and pathologized: How mining's gendered impacts are considered in BC environmental assessment

To what extent do mining environmental assessments in British Columbia (BC) consider gendered impacts? How are they considered? And how are these considerations shaped during the environmental assessment process? To answer these questions we undertook a systematic review of all completed BC mining environmental assessments between 1995 and 2019 (n = 37). Through a careful reading of documentation archived in the BC Environmental Assessment Office registry, we found that 60% of projects did not consider the gendered impacts of mining development; the remaining 40% of projects inconsistently assessed gendered impacts. While noting an increase in gender considerations in environmental assessments since 1995, also quantified in our results is what has not changed. Even where gender is considered, the assessments often collapse this concern into one of “women's issues,” obscuring intersectional impacts and downplaying violence along racialized and gender diverse lines, including those experienced by Indigenous women, children, two-spirit, trans, queer and non-binary people. Environmental assessment is a regulatory tool designed to adjudicate the impacts of mining projects, yet our results lead us to conclude that it is also a tool of environmental injustice, compounding and further sedimenting heteropatriarchal and racialized patterns produced through generations of settler colonial resource extraction in BC.     

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.     

Zopilotes,Alacranes, y Hormigas (Vultures,Scorpions, and Ants): Animal Metaphors as Organizational Politics in a Nicaraguan Garbage Crisis

While scholars frequently frame conflicts over urban waste in terms of a politics of infrastructure, this article frames such conflicts in terms of a politics of organization. In 2008, self‐employed recyclers in and around Managua, Nicaragua blockaded local dumps in an effort to secure rights to scavenge for resellable material. Over the course of this “garbage crisis”, a material and semiotic entanglement of human labor organization with animal ecology became politically salient. At different points, recyclers were compared to ants (hormigas), vultures (zopilotes), and scorpions (alacranes). State officials, NGOs, and recyclers themselves used these animal metaphors to describe the organization of waste collection. Drawing on theories of value from political ecology and economic anthropology, as well as analysis of the deployment of these “organic” metaphors, we outline an “organizational politics” of urban waste.     

RACE AND ANIMAL‐BREEDING: A HYBRIDIZED HISTORIOGRAPHY

Because it associates animals with one of the most vital topics in human history, the historiography of the cross‐connections between race and animal‐breeding is at once controversial and inspiring. This article wishes to position this historiography in a more systematic framework than has been done thus far by examining both its merits and failings along with the more and less appropriate ways to write on the subject. The article identifies two main narratives in race–animal‐breeding historiography: the influence narrative and the projection narrative. The first reveals how perceptions of animal breeds and livestock‐breeding practices influenced the rise of racialist and eugenic worldviews. By contrast, the second shows how conceptualizations of human racial segregation contributed to the construction of ideas about the subdivision of domestic animal species into different breeds. The article argues that despite the projection narrative's inherent anthropomorphism, this perspective renders it possible to draft a nonanthropocentric history of the cross‐connections between race and animal‐breeding with a focus on human–animal relations rather than on human society.     

一批流散海外的吐蕃文物的初步考察

吐蕃文物曾通过不同途径流散于海外,主要包括金银器与织锦。从中反映出吐蕃作为七世纪以来兴起于青藏高原的强大政治集团与唐、粟特、萨珊波斯等都有着密切的文化联系,并已形成具有自身特色的金银器制作风格;以对兽纹为主题的织锦是吐蕃人最为喜好的"番锦"之一,有可能为粟特锦,也有可能为包含粟特锦、波斯锦等中亚风格在内的"胡锦"。吐蕃银器上的纹饰更是多见于吐善时期的装饰性图案当中,并且影响到以后的藏族艺术。     

三角缘神兽镜的学术源流

本文旨在梳理三角缘神兽镜在日本古代史研究和古代中日关系史研究中的学术源流,结合中日学术界的相关研究,集中探讨三角缘神兽镜的定义、三角缘神兽镜与邪马台国论争、"魏镜说"、王仲殊先生的三角缘神兽镜研究、三角缘神兽镜与日本早期佛教的传播等问题,为相关研究的继续深入奠定基础。     

Metapodial asymmetry in draft cattle

Traction work by oxen has been well documented in various pictorial and written sources throughout human history. Analysis of metapodial dimensions has been carried out with the aim of quantifying asymmetry related to sexual dimorphism, body size and possibly heavy duty traction work. A modern reference sample of 103 animals from Hungary and Rumania has been used for this purpose. Bone measurements were correlated with bone density and morphological characteristics in order to make the results applicable for the identification of remains from draft cattle in archaeozoological assemblages. Asymmetry is more pronounced in the thoracic extremity and metacarpals of older or heavier animals, sometimes showing excessive widening of the third, medial ray within the fused bone. Relative broadening is also intensive in the distal end of medial metatarsals of cows and oxen. The bone mineral content of the medial carpal region attains mature density first. The weight of phalanges increases for a longer time in the laterally located toes.     

An Alternative Way Towards Food Production: The Perspective from the Libyan Sahara

Food production originated in various ways in different parts of the world. Plant domestication with the adoption of agriculture has been successful in some areas, but not in others, where animal domestication with nomadic pastoralism proved to be more effective. Likewise, the preceding phases of pre-adaptation and development of a broad spectrum of wild resource exploitation followed different pathways, according to the locally available resources, climatic and geographic conditions, and social organizations. Northern Africa greatly contributed to the understanding of the origin of food production under preconditions that differed from those in the Fertile Crescent. Apart from a narrow strip along the Nile valley, northern African lands are arid and scarcely productive for agriculture. Nevertheless, early studies interpreted northern African archaeological records of the Early and Middle Holocene according to the traditional north-western Mediterranean and Near Eastern frames of reference. Consequently, terms such as Epipalaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic were uncritically applied to northern African contexts. This paper compares and discusses the evidence for food production in the Near East and northern Africa, considering the question of introduction or local breeds of domesticated animals in the Maghreb and the Sahara. It then reviews the relevant data for long-held diffusionist models of pastoralism into Africa to provide a different perspective and the proper means of interpretation of the northern African archaeological records. Finally, it examines some recent findings from the Tadrart Acacus, in the Libyan Sahara, which contribute to clarification of distinctive African pathways and propose an alternative model for the beginnings of food production.     

An Osteobiography of a 19th‐Century Dog from Toronto,Canada

A 19^th‐century dog burial uncovered from a historical homelot in Toronto, Canada, provided a unique opportunity to reconstruct the individual's osteobiography. Of particular interest are the dog's very large size and a suite of skeletal pathologies. Recovery of a nearly complete skeleton combined with the use of X‐rays and micro‐computed tomography (micro‐CT) allowed for a discriminating differential diagnoses. Stable isotope analyses were applied to investigate questions of diet. Results reveal an individual who suffered greatly from disease towards the end of his life and hint at its owners attitudes towards dogs. The interdisciplinary approach applied to this case study highlights the potential information obtainable from pet burials. We argue that better analyses and reporting of pet burials will help address research questions targeting broader themes related to human–animal relationships. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.