Domesticated Landscapes: The Subsistence Ecology of Plant and Animal Domestication

Harvesting different species as foods or raw materials calls for differing skills depending on the species being harvested and the circumstances under which they are being taken. In some situations and for some species, the tactics used are mainly behavioral—that is, people adjust, or adapt, their own actions to fit the behavior and circumstances of the species they are taking. Under other circumstances and for other species, the skills and tactics used may call for greater environmental preparation or manipulation. Therefore, instead of trying to distinguish people today and in the past as either foragers or farmers, it makes sense to define human subsistence behavior as an interactive matrix of species and harvesting tactics, that is, as a provisions spreadsheet.     

Commemoration in Germany: Rediscovering history

In Germany a common narrative of the First World War could never be established. In the post-1918 period, explanations of Germany's defeat were highly contested between the political factions of the Weimar Republic. The subsequent Nazi tyranny, the Second World War and the Holocaust came – and continue – to overshadow any other event in German history. During the Cold War, the First World War was largely a forgotten conflict. In recent years, the federal government has remained hesitant about embracing the centenary, but countless exhibitions, seminars, books and other media productions have brought this aspect of history back to public attention from late 2013, and with it has come a renewed public debate on war guilt.

在德国是不会有共同的一战叙事的。1918年以后,对德国战败的解释成为魏玛共和国不同的政治派别的战场。接下来的纳粹独裁、二战以及大屠杀,则让德国历史上的任何其他事件黯然失色。在冷战期间,一战差不多被遗忘了。近些年联邦政府一直对庆祝百年的事犹犹豫豫。不过2013年底以来,无数的展览、研讨会、图书以及其他媒体产品使得这段历史成为公众关注的对象,关于战争的罪孽问题又起纷争。     

社会史:新的史学范式与新的通史观念--评赵世瑜著《狂欢与日常--明清以来的庙会与民间社会》

赵世瑜教授是当代中国社会史研究的积极倡导者和实践者之一,所著《狂欢与日常——明清以来的庙会与民间社会》一书,探讨了当代中国社会史研究力图形成的新的历史解释思路、新的通史意识及其发展态势与存在的问题。     

Office Cultures and Corporate Memory: Some Archaeological Perspectives

It is only when one moves home or office that one really thinks about what gets left behind, what is discarded, and what we decide to keep. How we deal with this in our personal lives is interesting enough, where senses of loss and discard are potentially heightened given the intimate heritage which many familiar objects and items possess. But what happens when the transition is corporate, when an organisation moves? Here, briefly, is an archaeological perspective on the move English Heritage made in 2006, from its long-time HQ in Savile Row (London, UK) to new accommodation in Holborn and elsewhere.     

Hydrology of the combination irrigation system in the Wadi Faynan, Jordan

The field system of the Wadi Faynan in southern Jordan was fed by an ancient combination irrigation system that incorporated runoff farming and diversion irrigation techniques. The hydraulic characteristics of this system were most probably designed to take advantage of the confluence of three tributary streams. A theoretical model of discharge produced by runoff is based on contemporary ground conditions and historic climate reconstructions. The design principles of the main hydraulic features are examined and velocity and discharge measurements in principal conveyance irrigation channels are reconstructed. The design of this hydraulic system took into account the environmental constraints and opportunities of the area and maximized different sources of water in the catchment using various techniques of water collection.     

Informal markets and global value chains – the disembedding of Romanian dairy smallholders

The Romanian dairy-farming sector is marked by subsistence and semi-subsistence farms. Through consolidation in the retail and dairy sector, the price pressure has moved toward producers of raw milk. Through new European, national and private standards and global actors tapping into the Romanian market this development is reinforced. At the same time, the smallholders, formerly accepted to be acting on an informal level, cannot access their main distribution channels anymore. Additionally, through several legal constraints being developed since Romania’s accession to the European Union, the smallholders are neither able to issue invoices, nor to access certain subsidy programmes as they are not considered juridical persons. This article focuses on the consequences of this disembedding of farmers. The peasants are pushed toward informal activities or value chain positions, in which they do not have any bargaining power with the globally sourcing intermediaries they are supplying. The contemporary approaches of global value chains and global production networks build the theoretical framework for the study. Here it is argued that informal markets must be included into these approaches more concisely.     

Cows and capitalism: humans,animals and machines in West German barns, 1950–80

ABSTRACT

From the beginning of the 1950s, milking machines increasingly replaced former agricultural workers in West German stables who now preferred better-paid jobs in the industrial sector. The investment necessary for the milking machines led to new ideas about economic thinking and production-optimization, which changed the interplay among human, animal and technology. Within less than two decades, cattle farming in the Federal Republic of Germany changed from an animal-lacking, devastated economic branch of manual labour to a mechanized profit-oriented industry, which produced more than was demanded. This essay challenges the prevailing historical interpretation in which the industrialization of farming has been described as one of the last stages of capitalism’s penetration of society. Central aspects of capitalism remained unfulfilled: there was neither a free market nor individual autonomy of entrepreneurs, and wage labour literally vanished within the barns. A close-up view of the practices at the place of action reveals an arbitrary mixture of efficiency and care that made the industrialization of animal farming differ from the traditional narrative of capitalistic expansion. When animals are the resources to be utilized, capitalist economic activity reaches its limits at the point where the animals’ vital processes begin to malfunction. By bringing together human-animal studies with economic history, this article offers new insights into the role of animals as living beings in history as well as into the expansion of capitalism in an economic sector that continued to operate according to its own rules.