Neolithic economy in central Europe

This article presents a survey of Neolithic economy, land use, trade, natural environment, and usage of plant and animal resources in central Europe, 5415–2240 B.C. (4500–1800 bc). Early, Middle A and B and Late Neolithic materials are summarized and compared. The earliest farmers expanded from southern Hungary and adjacent areas into central Europe over a relatively short time period, 100–200 years. They occupied areas only with good soils; thus probably hunters and gatherers continued to exist in many regions of central Europe. There is an increase in population and more upland areas are exploited for farming during the Middle Neolithic A and B periods. By the Middle Neolithic B period, low-level hierarchical or ranked societies appear in some regions of central Europe. The Late Neolithic may represent a modification of the mixed farming strategy observed during the earlier periods. Perhaps the herding of domestic animals became more important.     

我国沿海港口港城关系协同发展与驱动机制研究

近年来,随着我国港口资源整合、港区功能调整和港口城市的转型升级,沿海港口与所在城市的关系发展面临新的变化和挑战。本文以我国沿海港口为例,结合定量分析与定性讨论,聚焦我国沿海港口港城关系问题,剖析港城关系的演变及驱动机制。研究发现：我国大部分沿海港口已进入极度协调发展阶段,但发展趋势逐渐放缓,区域分化特征显著,港城协同度差距呈现再扩大的发展趋势。在研究期间,我国城市驱动型港口城市数量显著增加,港口驱动型和港城互驱型港口城市数量减少。建议通过政府政策引导、港产城融合发展和港口转型升级等方式,不断提升我国沿海地区港城关系整体协调发展水平,为新时期我国沿海港口与所在城市的高质量发展提供重要支撑。     

As Basket and Papu: Making Manus Social Fabric

Between 2012 and 2019, Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, hosted Australia's offshore detention centre for asylum seekers and refugees, known as the Regional Processing Centre (RPC). This paper analyses some of the social impacts of the RPC on Lorengau town, the urban centre of Manus, through the analytical lens of the Manus idiom, as basket (Tok Pisin). Materially this refers to the everyday Manus basket whilst metaphorically, it refers to an individual's or community's social, cultural, political and economic base. First, I examine asylum seekers and refugees as a social category that emerged during this period when they were referred to as papu by locals. Papu is an honorific kinship term for grandfather or elder man; for men who are symbols for family identity, social belonging, and rights to land. Second, I examine the changing materiality of Lorengau's markets as indicative of wider societal transformations and dissonance brought about by the RPC. My ethnographic data are based on long term involvement in Manus, including three recent visits to Lorengau in 2017, 2018, and 2019 where I studied the social impacts and the changing social practices of Manus people in response to the RPC.     

Cattle Slaughter Industry in Qing China: State Ban,Muslim Dominance,and the Western Diet

Cattle slaughter and beef consumption are barely mentioned in the literature on Chinese economic, food, or animal history. This is possibly due to the widely held popular and scholarly assumption that beef was avoided and even considered taboo in the daily diet of Chinese people in premodern times. This article investigates the tangible regulation and practice of cattle slaughter in Qing China—the period when the beef taboo was argued to be formally subsumed into Chinese morality. I ask the following questions: To what extent did the Qing state ban cattle slaughter? How was the ban enforced in the localities? Did Chinese people slaughter cattle for consumption? Were there lawful beef markets in Qing China proper? How did increasing beef-eating Western sojourners since the mid-19th century impact this sector? Accordingly, I demonstrate that with the leeway provided by the state, the cattle slaughter industry developed in many regions of China proper, especially large cities. In this sector, Chinese Muslim merchants played a dominant role, even though the Han merchants could outnumber them. Their efforts have prepared the state and Chinese merchants to better cope with new circumstances since the mid-19th century. Broadly, this paper sheds light on how different religious, ethnic, and national groups affected the economy and the practice of law in the Qing dynasty.     

Changing models of settlement,economy, and ritual activity: Recent research in late prehistoric central Europe

Recent research in central Europe is changing our understanding of the role of centers in economic and social systems of late prehistoric times. Increased attention to smaller, more typical settlements shows that they engaged in economic activities similar to those at the large, fortified complexes. Abundant new evidence pertaining to ritual activity indicates that ritual was often integrated into daily life at settlements. The evidence from the exceptionally rich data on late prehistoric central Europe can be of substantial value for developing models applicable to contexts in other parts of the world.     

The archaeology of complex hunter-gatherers

Archaeologists' reconstructions of paths to complexity have all too often excluded complex hunter-gatherers. However, recent theoretical contributions and long-term field research programs in several regions of the world have now significantly advanced our understanding of complex hunter-gatherers. A discussion of definitions of complexity and a review of current models of the emergence of complexity provide a framework for analyses of complex hunter-gatherers and important cultural phenomena such as sedentism, political integration, prestige economies, feasting, and ideology.     

New technologies and the political economy of geomorphology

New technologies enable high‐resolution monitoring techniques and the generation of big data and have been heralded as increasing the depth of our understanding of geomorphic phenomena. These technologies, however, also provide us with a convenient entry point into the increasingly constraining political economy of geomorphology. Building on the work of Stuart Lane and of critical physical geographers, this paper traces and examines the multiple roles that new technologies have played in constraining research questions and directing resources. Using the activity sphere framework outlined by David Harvey, the influence of new technologies can be traced around the spheres and their constraining of existing relations within academia and explanation identified.     

Wasting Coconuts? Consumption Versus Commerce in Colonial Wallis and Futuna

ABSTRACT

Early colonial officials and other newcomers frequently lamented the poor copra production in Wallis and Futuna, positioning the continued consumption of coconuts by Islanders as a waste. This article explores the contested uses of coconuts and the divergent visions of the islands’ landscape and future held by Islanders, officials, missionaries and traders during opening decades of French colony rule. In particular, a variety of incidents in the 1920s – from an indigenous co-operative to French expulsions – highlight the centrality of the emergent copra trade to the social and political status of these different groups. More broadly, however, the article demonstrates the failure of elites – both indigenous and newcomer – to substantially increase copra exports prior to the Depression in 1930, indicative of the limits of their ability to demand labour and transform the lifeways of the wider population.     

‘The apostle of free trade:’ Adam Smith and the nineteenth-century American trade debates

This paper examines the diversity of uses of Adam Smith’s ideas in nineteenth-century American debates about the tariff. Legislative debates about American trade policy ran almost uninterrupted from the 1820s to the end of the century; as a result, they provide an abundance of examples of the ways in which legislators marshaled economic ideas to shape political discourse and influence policy. Smith’s causal ideas about free trade and its effects were referenced in policymaking, and Smith’s intellectual authority was often invoked as a legitimating device for partisan ideology. These uses, I argue, contributed to the sloganizing of Smith as the ‘apostle of free trade’ and his enduring popularity as a political icon in American politics.     

Young people’s disadvantages on the labour market in Italy: reframing the NEET category

Abstract

The worsening of young people’s condition on the labour market has been described as a long-term trend of contemporary advanced capitalist economies. In recent years, the NEET (not in employment, education or training) label has been increasingly used to assess the integration of young people into the labour market. Does the NEET category adequately grasp the complexity of the underlying processes? In this contribution we will try to answer this question considering the Italian case as an extreme example. Focusing on the features of the youth labour market in Italy, we show the heterogeneity that lies behind the NEET concept, as well as its relationships with the labour market, the education system and welfare institutions. We argue that the institutionalization of NEETs as an analytical category may prove to be problematic as it may fail to identify specific vulnerable subgroups clearly, thereby leading to ineffective one-size-fits-all policy responses.