bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Elsa screams, or The birth of music drama
Authors: Hoeckner Berthold
Published: August 2008

This essay examines the story of two stories, both by Richard Wagner: a story of Lohengrin, knight of the Holy Grail, and ofLohengrin, the opera. Lohengrin's story is well known: Elsa of Brabant, accused by her former suitor Friedrich of Telramund of having killed her brother and heir to the throne, prays for help from the unknown knight in her dreams, promising herself as wife in exchange for his assistance. Miraculously, the knight appears in a boat pulled by a swan and accepts her offer on condition that she never ask about his origin, name or nature. But political and personal intrigue spun by Friedrich and the gypsy woman Ortrud nourish doubts about the knight's magical existence, doubts that ultimately drive Elsa to ask the forbidden question during her wedding night. Lohengrin publicly discloses his identity and leaves Elsa, though not without returning her brother (whom Ortrud had transformed into the swan) to power.
Pellegrin, opera and tragedy
Authors: Dill Charles
Published: August 2008

The day following the première of Jean-Philippe Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), Voltaire observed in a letter to Pierre-Robert Le Cornier de Cideville that the opera's libretto was by the abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, and he added with characteristic irony that it was ‘worthy of the abbé Pellegrin’. As we know, Voltaire was not alone in his sentiments. Few poets were reviled with the relish one finds in criticism of Pellegrin. Doomed to be a less-than-perfect poet in a literary culture, Pellegrin was forced by circumstance to do something few of his time could understand or accept: he earned a living writing poems on commission. This made him a faiseur. a hack who pursued art for money rather than inspiration, a paid servant who, improbably, sought to move in the very social circles that employed him. It is emblematic of Pellegrin's situation and his reputation that in 1774, twenty-nine years after his death, Voltaire did write noëls when the marquise du Deffand requested them, but complained that it was ‘une rude commission’ and compared his lot to Pellegrin's. Chastened, the marquise apologised. Pellegrin's artistic destiny would seem to have little to do with diat of die urbane and widely admired Voltaire, but I will argue that, in spite of this, the two shared some similar attitudes and experiences regarding the emplotment of tragedy and tragic opera, and further, that these shared views may have had a direct bearing on Rameau's development as a composer.
Laughing at History: the third act of Meyerbeer'L'Africaine
Authors: Cruz Gabriela
Published: August 2008

A mythical giant, a Malagasy slave, a song, an accomplished baritone, an outraged critic; these seemingly incompatible figures are bound together in the Paris premiere of Giacomo Meyerbeer'sL'Africainein 1865. They are the fundamental elements of my story of the opera's third act, a narrative web binding together early modern nautical history, epic poetry, grand-opera dramaturgy, and the nineteenth-century politics of operatic performance and listening in an exploration of how the opera's rather fictionalised account of Vasco da Gama's first sea voyage to India five centuries ago bears witness to the strength of the historicist project in grand opera.
A food-based dietary strategy lowers blood pressure in a low socio-economic setting: a randomised study in South Africa
Authors: Charlton Karen E , Steyn Krisela , Levitt Naomi S , Peer Nasheeta , Jonathan Deborah , Gogela Theresa , Rossouw Katja , Gwebushe Nomonde , Lombard Carl J
Published: August 2008

Objective

To assess the impact of a food-based intervention on blood pressure (BP) in free-living South African men and women aged 50–75 years, with drug-treated mild-to-moderate hypertension.

Methods

A double-blind controlled trial was undertaken in eighty drug-treated mild-to-moderate hypertensive subjects randomised to an intervention (n40) or control (n40) arm. The intervention was 8-week provision of six food items with a modified cation content (salt replacement (SOLO™), bread, margarine, stock cubes, soup mix and a flavour enhancer) and 500 ml of maas (fermented milk)/d. The control diet provided the same quantities of the targeted foods but of standard commercial composition and 500 ml/d of artificially sweetened cooldrink.

Findings

The intervention effect estimated as the contrast of the within-diet group changes in BP from baseline to post-intervention was a significant reduction of 6·2 mmHg (95 % CI 0·9, 11·4) for systolic BP. The largest intervention effect in 24 h BP was for wake systolic BP with a reduction of 5·1 mmHg (95 % CI 0·4, 9·9). For wake diastolic BP the reduction was 2·7 mmHg (95 % CI −0·2, 5·6).

Conclusions

Modification of the cation content of a limited number of commonly consumed foods lowers BP by a clinically significant magnitude in treated South African hypertensive patients of low socio-economic status. The magnitude of BP reduction provides motivation for a public health strategy that could be adopted through lobbying of the food industry by consumer and health agencies.
Trends in excess weight and thinness among Spanish schoolchildren in the period 1992–2004: the Cuenca study
Authors: Martínez-Vizcaíno Vicente , Sánchez López Mairena , Moya Martínez Pablo , Solera Martinez Montserrat , Pacheco Blanca Notario , Salcedo Aguilar Fernando , Rodríguez-Artalejo Fernando
Published: August 2008

Background

In developed countries, there is abundant information on the epidemic of childhood obesity, but only a few studies on trends in the dual burden of body weight (overweight and thinness).

Objective

To examine trends in overweight and thinness among 9–10-year-old Spanish children in the last decade.

Methods

Data were taken from cross-sectional studies on schoolchildren in Cuenca (Spain), conducted in 1992, 1996, 1998 and 2004 with similar methods. Weight and height were measured by trained personnel with standardized procedures. Overweight (including obesity) and thinness were defined according with the International Obesity Taskforce BMI cut-offs.

Results

The overall prevalence of overweight increased from 24·4 % in 1992 to 30·9 % in 2004 (P = 0·07), rising from 21·2 % in 1992 to 32·0 % in 2004 (P = 0·03) among boys and from 27·7 % to 29·8 % (P = 0·67) among girls. The overall prevalence of thinness was 2·7 % in 1992 and 9·2 % in 2004 (P < 0·001); in the same period, thinness prevalence rose from 1·9 % to 9·0 % (P = 0·10) among boys and from 3·7 % to 9·5 % (P < 0·01) among girls.

Conclusions

The dual burden of body weight has increased among children in Cuenca in the last decade. Population-based policies addressing childhood obesity, which is the most frequent problem, should not increase the risk of thinness.
Recent developments in Dutch archaeology
Authors: Slofstra Jan
Published: August 2008

Two stereotype views exist with respect to recent developments in Dutch archaeology. The first holds that the confrontation with New Archaeology in 1968/69 signalled the beginning of an entirely new period in Dutch archaeology. At that point, Dutch archaeologists were first involved in international theoretical discussions, which they have more or less followed ever since. This resulted in the emergence of counterparts in Dutch archaeology of New (or processual) Archaeology, and later of post-processual approaches.
The Dutch Experience Experienced from Britain
Authors: Hodder Ian
Published: August 2008

From Slofstra's interesting paper it would seem that, in its main essentials, Dutch archaeology has the characteristics of most European archaeological traditions. In particular, it is wedded to an historical perspective, in which attention is paid to specific sequences and contexts. This commitment to history is evident from the Cultural-Historical Research Tradition earlier this century, it is seen in the lukewarm reaction to the generalising claims of processual archaeology, and it resurfaces in the new historical-anthropological perspective. As Slofstra argues, this last move towards a theoretically informed historical approach is a logical evolution within the Dutch tradition even if, as I will suggest below, it is also part of wider trends.
Grounding arguments about burials
Authors: Shennan Stephen
Published: August 2008

Lohof's paper represents an interesting and important attempt to analyse and interpret Late Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age burial practices in the Netherlands. His suggestions are of wide relevance, not least because the phenomena he discusses were widely distributed over much of Europe. In what follows I wish to raise a number of issues which I think need clarifying, in order to elicit his response.
Of ‘Little People’ and Ancient Monuments
Authors: Lemaire Ton
Published: August 2008

Roymans' article is an original and valuable contribution to an interpretation of the ‘cultural biography’ of the landscape of a specific area by combining archaeological and folkloric evidence. His study concentrates on the sacred places of this landscape, especially the urnfields and barrows, because ‘these are focal points from which local communities order and interpret the surrounding landscape’. The author rightly stresses that funerary monuments not only had a certain significance in the societies that constructed and used them, but that they also had a prominent place in the landscape of later societies up until pre-modern times. He suggests that, in the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt region, there has been ‘a long-term incorporation of prehistorical burial monuments in the mythical landscape of later inhabitants’. Archaeology itself, for that matter, should be understood in the perspective of the (dis)continuing biography of the landscape because it presupposes the destruction of the ancient mythical geography, including the Christian one. Archaeology is the product of the ‘modernisation’ of space: it is presupposing and reflecting (upon) the coming of the modem world with its rationalisation and Entzauberung (disenchantment) of the landscape. In a similar way the study of folklore (Volkskunde in both Dutch and German) has been made possible and interesting by the waning of rural popular culture as a consequence of both the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution. Thus, it is no accident that modernity produced the conditions of becoming aware of the mythical meaning of the landscape exactly at the time that its traces are disappearing in the physical landscape as well as in the memory of the rural population.
Heidegger and archaeology
Authors: Oudemans Th.C.W.
Published: August 2008

Under the title Triumphal procession from the blind alley, the German magazine Der Spiegel in the autumn of 1995 published a series of articles on the latest developments in the archaeology of Homo sapiens and its ancestors. These articles focus on mankind's evolution, and its relationship to the capacities of mankind's mind and culture. The question is posed: Did the prevailing circumstances force mankind to develop its mental abilities, or did evolution plant the seeds of culture in the brain of Homo sapiens? As soon as we hear a question like this, we have the suspicion that its rests on a shaky metaphysical foundation: the distinction between natural evolution on the one hand, and mind, culture, art, myth, religion, and language on the other.
The phenomenology of the British Neolithic?
Authors: Patton Mark
Published: August 2008

Julian Thomas' published work since 1988 has been largely concerned with the integration of theory and practice. If there is now a general recognition that ‘practice without theory is blind’ (Shanks and Tilley 1987), Thomas counterbalances this with a welcome reminder that ‘theory without practice is sterile’. In his words, this is an attempt to ‘write about prehistory while at the same time meditating on what that writing involves’.
Heritage and Identity
Authors: Odermatt Peter
Published: August 2008

First, I would like to thank the commentators, Beatrice Annis, Peter Fowler, Michael Herzfeld and Ovar Löfgren for their inspiring comments, and the editors ofArchaeological Dialoguesfor providing us with the opportunity to engage in a debate about the politics of heritage (re) presentation. Naturally I am unable to pay attention to all the significant and interesting, and at times highly provocative suggestions. My reaction primarily addresses issues that have been raised by at least two commentators. As the debate continues, many of those suggestions neglected here will be picked up, by me or by others, in different contexts. Personally, Fowler's remarks about an archaeology of tourism, intrigued me most. It is, however, a subject so complex, that it cannot be addressed in a few sentences. Suffice it to say, that in my opinion, Eric Leed'sThe Mind of the Traveler, provides an excellent starting point for such an enterprise.
‘Settlement patterns’ or ‘landscape studies’?
Authors: Sherratt Andrew
Published: August 2008

In considering the history of regional archaeological projects, I propose to use a long-term perspective. Rather than surveying relatively recent examples and inductively working out the differences between them, I should like instead to venture some historical generalisations about the mental and practical traditions in which such projects are set. I want to suggest that two contrasting attitudes and approaches have presented themselves, largely as alternatives, throughout the history of archaeology; and that these choices are still offering themselves today. While this is perhaps a rather long perspective to take, the alternative is a very short one. If we take the description ‘regional projects’ to mean the integrated investigation of sites in landscapes, then the concept is effectively post-1945 and really post-1965. The reason is very simple: money. Archaeologists at earlier periods just did not have the size of budget which now seems essential for what we call ‘regional projects’. Of course there were earlier examples of landscape studies in Europe, and excavations of two or more complementary sites; but it would be hard before the 1960s to find the degree of integrated investigation which is today the defining characteristic of a regional project. (Perhaps archaeologists in the Near East, by using very cheap labour, had the equivalent of a modern regional budget; but they had whole abandoned cities to investigate, so the regional label scarcely applies.)
Regional archaeological projects
Authors: Barker Graeme
Published: August 2008

Explicitly regional projects have been a comparatively recent phenomenon in Mediterranean archaeology. Classical archaeology is by far the strongest discipline in the university, museum and antiquities services career structures within the Mediterranean countries. It has always been dominated by the ‘Great Tradition’ of classical art and architecture: even today, a university course on ‘ancient topography’ in many departments of classical archaeology will usually deal predominantly with the layout of the major imperial cities and the details of their monumental architecture. The strength of the tradition is scarcely surprising in the face of the overwhelming wealth of the standing remains of the Greek and Roman cities in every Mediterranean country. There has been very little integration with prehistory: early prehistory is still frequently taught within a geology degree, and later prehistory is still invariably dominated by the culture-history approach. Prehistory in many traditional textbooks in the north Mediterranean countries remains a succession of invasions and migrations, first of Palaeolithic peoples from North Africa and the Levant, then of neolithic farmers, then metal-using élites from the East Mediterranean, followed in an increasingly rapid succession by Urnfielders, Dorians and Celts from the North, to say nothing of Sea Peoples (from who knows where?!). For the post-Roman period, church archaeology has a long history, but medieval archaeology in the sense of dirt archaeology is a comparatively recent discipline: until the 1960s in Italy, for example, ‘medieval archaeology’ meant the study of the medieval buildings of the historic cities, a topic outside the responsibility of the State Archaeological Service (the Superintendency of Antiquities) and within that of the parallel ‘Superintendencies’ for monuments, libraries, archives and art galleries.
Field survey methods in Central Italy (Etruria and Umbria)
Authors: Terrenato Nicola
Published: August 2008

The existence of regional traditions, in terms of methods and practices, has been an accepted fact in social sciences with a longer history than archaeology. In disciplines like anthropology and archaeology, with their strong emphasis on the description of phenomena that are peculiar to a given regional context, the development of a set of methodologies common to scholars dealing with the same region (a methodological ‘local knowledge’) has long been regarded as a natural tendency. It was only as a result of the main thrust connected with the appearance of processual archaeology that the idea (or should we say the myth?) of a universal methodology, i. e. one applicable to all contexts and periods, was developed. Thus, between the 1960s and the early 1980s, in parallel with a very positive standardization and intensification of archaeological techniques, a great effort went into the quest for an ultimate and universal field methodology (Binford 1964). As a result, a very wide agreement was reached fairly soon in some areas; for instance, as far as excavation is concerned, a kind of common practice was established, thanks to figures like Ph. Barker (1977) and E. C. Harris (1979). For some reason field survey has experienced a far less unilinear evolution, with sharp debates arising ever since the earliest attempts at a definition of a modern methodology (see for example the entertaining Hope-Simpson versus Cherry controversy, or the even more amusing debate imagined in Flannery 1976, 131–136).
There is only Mount Jingting
Authors: Berque Augustin
Published: August 2008

While feeling in tune with most of Lemaire's theses, I disagree on some points which are not altogether secondary.
The picture is not the terrain. Maps, paintings and the dwelt-in world
Authors: Ingold Tim
Published: August 2008

Lemaire's reflections on the concept of landscape struck a chord with me, and I found myself nodding in agreement with much of what he has to say. I did, however, have some difficulty in coming to terms with the idea that the landscape is wholly an invention of bourgeois sensibility. Moreover, in his emphasis on the landscape as an object of contemplation, ‘totalized by a human gaze’, I feel that he neglects the activity of depiction – whether this be painting, drawing, writing or musical composition – in favour of the end products, finished works. I should like to focus my comment on these two points.
Geographical Information Systems
Authors: Wansleeben Milco , Verhart Leo
Published: August 2008

It is one o clock in the morning of December 20. Buffalo is cold, five degrees below zero Fahrenheit with a wind chill of minus twenty five degrees. The Niagara River is frozen solid except at the Falls. Sounds travel far on these cold nights. I hear a loud crash as if the ice is beginning to crack. I fantasize about the spring and the ice breaking up into thousands of small icebergs that float down the river. Icebergs bring to mind GIS software. Like icebergs, GIS software is frequently attractive and even starkly beautiful. Yet GIS systems are sometimes foreign and can be very inhospitable. As in the case of those frozen fantasies, GIS software may look better from a distance than close up. (Zubrow 1990b, 184)
Landscape and Cosmology
Authors: Oosten Jarich
Published: August 2008

The notion of the landscape has become a central issue in anthropological debates (Hirsch 1995). By comparing different conceptualizations of the relationship between people and land we can get a better understanding of our own categories of nature and landscape. But the notions of nature and landscape are not a universal categories. Each society has its own categories to conceptualize the land. Notions of landscape are always embedded in cosmological notions. Burial places, river-crossings, or mountains are not neutral places. They have meanings and values. A landscape derives its meanings and values from a wider whole encompassing the earth, the sky, the underworld, and the sea. It is populated by people, animals, imaginary beings such as dwarfs, spirits, spirits of the dead. It is also embedded in temporal categories. It has a history. Each place derives meaning from its history. Therefore a landscape is never objectively given, it is a social construction.
Multiple levels of meaning and the tension of consciousness
Authors: Bekaert Stefan
Published: August 2008

When can we say that a Bantu smith knows the ‘meaning’ of iron smelting - only when he explicitly recognizes the underlying sexual structure of it or simply when he knows how to go on smithing? Is structuralist theory, which considers meaning as codic and diacritical, really incommensurable with a phenomenological view of meaning as something primarily experiential? In this posthumous paper, Stefan Bekaert argues that the differences between both perspectives are gradual rather than fundamental. Drawing on the sexual metaphors in Sakata iron technology, he presents a tentative scale of meaning levels: the level of typified experience, the level of pragmatic motive, the level of (meta)physical intervention, the level of experiential gestalt, the level of explicit metaphor, and the level of codic oppositions. Rejecting the ‘one-world-ism’ predominant in many social sciences, he argues that humans inhabit and draw on many worlds at once. (DVR)
Approaches to the perception of landscape
Authors: Johnston Robert
Published: August 2008

This paper is a review of recent academic debate dealing with the relationship between perception and landscape. It is suggested that there are two ways in which the perception of landscape is considered: the explicit and the inherent approach. The explicit approach isolates perception within the landscape as something between the observed and the cognitised. While an inherent approach does not isolate perception because it is embedded within ways of living - or being. The discussion is illustrated with archaeological examples.
Value, meaning and context in the interpretation of Mycenaean ceramics
Authors: Whitelaw Todd
Published: August 2008

The present article is a welcome contribution to the study of Mycenaean ceramics and to the study of East Mediterranean production, consumption and distribution systems. The general argument for an archaeology of value has wide-reaching relevance, while the specific case study usefully raises general issues of approach and methodology.
Sacred pasts, profane performances: A reply
Authors: Hamilakis Yannis , Yalouri Eleana
Published: August 2008

We would like to thank all commentators for their engaging responses and their useful and constructive remarks. Their commentaries offer us a second chance to clarify some of the issues which, in the interest of brevity and due to the broad nature of our analysis, we were not able to develop in the paper. At the same time they point to some of the methodological, ethical, and political problems that this kind of analysis faces. Our article was deliberately broad ranging, both in terms of time-scale and categories of evidence. This breadth has allowed us to trace a phenomenon from its genesis to its subsequent development and persistence, despite variations, up to the present-day. It also allowed us to demonstrate that the phenomenon is encountered in both official and unofficial discourses. It is expressed in a number of media, from public rhetoric to archaeological discourse, the mass media, social practices, and political rituals involving antiquities. Furthermore, in our attempt to demonstrate the interrelationships of the phenomenon with a whole range of other parameters, we have touched upon a number of issues without further exploration. Some of these issues, which have been explored by others in length, were omitted from our analysis. This is the case for example with ‘disemia’ (Herzfeld 1987,95–122); the differentiation between the Greek self-presentation and the representation of Greek identity to (non-Greek) outsiders. This issue has been commented upon by some (Sutton, Alexandri) and, given its complexity, we would prefer not to discuss it within the limits of this commentary. We should note, however, that the phenomenon of the sacralisation of the past seems to be associated with both strategies. Given that the commentaries have largely focused on different issues, we have decided to treat them separately, making the links where appropriate.
Archaeology and Europe: ‘Reflexiveness’ and Action
Authors: Willems Willem J.H.
Published: August 2008

For more than a decade, since the mid-80s, the context of archaeology has changed rapidly and profoundly all over Europe. We are still in the middle of this development and numerous recent publications show an increasing awareness of archaeologists about its causes and implications. This is what Gramsch in his paper calls the self-reflexive approach and I join him in his appeal for the development of an archaeological reflexive theory embedded in sociological theory and epistemology. Not only to help us to be better aware of the changing context of our work but also to provide us with the insights and the tools to cope with such change.
Death, fire and abandonment
Authors: Verhoeven Marc
Published: August 2008

This article offers an interpretation of the structure and meaning of a mortuary ritual at Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria. Remains of this funeral have been uncovered in the ‘Burnt Village’, a late neolithic settlement largely destroyed by fire. The possibly intentional and ritual burning of the settlement is related to the mortuary ritual; it is suggested that here we have evidence for an extended ‘death ritual’ ending, but also transforming, human and material life. Death, fire and abandonment, then, seem to have been closely related. Some examples suggest that these relations also existed at other neolithic sites in the Near East.
Interpreting the Unique
Authors: Last Jonathan
Published: August 2008

Presumably it is because I work at Çatalhöyük, a site referred to in just about every publication on ritual in the prehistoric Near East, that I have been asked to respond to Verhoeven's stimulating and thoughtful paper. It is certainly welcome to see an approach to ritual practice in the prehistoric Near East from a comparative and anthropological perspective rather than one in thrall to the search for origins of much later religious practices - as the discoverer of Çatalhöyük, James Mellaart (1965a, 77) puts it, ‘a cult of the Mother Goddess, the basis of our civilization’. At Çatalhöyük the debate has been dominated by the discourse of the goddess to the extent that other interpretations have been excluded, often subconsciously, so strong is this metanarrative (Meskell 1995). For instance, recent virtual reality reconstructions still depict the buildings as austere, atmospheric shrines rather than busy, smoky, dirty places of domestic work and (often rather restricted) movement. In a paper cited by Verhoeven I suggested that in order to counter this we should concentrate less on the iconography of the Çatalhöyük images and more on the mode of their experience and consumption (Last 1998). It is the need for an explicitly contextual consideration of meaning that forms my main criticism of the present paper. While a lot of detail is presented about the deposits found in the Burnt Village, the citing of various parallels from sites not necessarily greatly connected in time and space ultimately leaves a sense of vagueness, particularly in attempting to assimilate the fascinating clay ‘monsters’ to a widespread Near Eastern ritual interest in horns. In this contribution I wish to discuss the problems of interpreting the unique, offer some thoughts on how to get at the meaning and significance of these objects, and conclude by mentioning a recently discovered deposit from Çatalhöyük which raises similar issues.
Comments
Authors: Campbell Stuart
Published: August 2008

Because of the climate and the nature of the sites, most archaeological material in the Near East has survived the passage of time in a reasonably well preserved state (at least, until recent decades). It remains true, however, that occasional deposits with exceptional preservation provide a level of detail that opens up new areas of interpretation to archaeologists. The classic examples are, perhaps, Çatalhöyük and Nahal Hemar. The ‘Burnt Village’ at Sabi Abyad is proving to be another where the new evidence is leading to a series of publications offering interpretations of the settlement which will have profound implications for our perception of the late Neolithic in northern Mesopotamia. This stimulating article amplifies one area of discussion, attempting to bring some of the most striking features of the ‘Burnt Village’ into a single, unified interpretation. Importantly, this unified interpretation draws on a range of contemporary approaches to understanding the past and, given the tendency of near eastern archaeologists to function in a degree of isolation from wider archaeological trends, this article is to be particularly welcomed. Inevitably it can be criticised in certain areas and it might have gone further in others but these comments start from the basis of welcoming, enjoying and being stimulated by this piece of work.
The exhibition of architecture and the architecture of an exhibition
Authors: Bernbeck Reinhard
Published: August 2008

One of the major archaeological museums, the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, serves as an example to discuss present problems of museology. I argue that the development of museums has to be analysed from a combination of perspectives, including an historical one, that of visitors and of museum staff. In a first section, the paper outlines the history of the Pergamon Museum, including an institutional history and the larger socio–political framework. To highlight the range of possibilities of understanding, I give two readings of the museum from the viewpoints of differently oriented visitors, one colonialist, the other postmodern. I then consider current debates among curators and distinguish between two main exhibition strategies, one pragmatist, the other purist. Finally, I discuss the larger framework in which museums exist, which shows their problematic status. Using critical theory's distinction between culture industry and affirmative (elite) culture, I show that the Pergamon and other museums survive today only through an uneasy compromise between these two extreme poles of culture.
Where Does History Meet Theory? Classical Heritage, Past and Present
Authors: Ceserani Giovanna
Published: August 2008

In an extremely rich and informed essay, Bernbeck offers sophisticated insights into the problems confronting museology today. Using the Pergamon Museum as a case study, he draws out specific issues facing the museum into broader theoretical questions, and thus reaches conclusions of much wider relevance. Finally, he brings these wider theoretical views back to the particular situation in order to comment on future plans for the Pergamon Museum. As if offering a virtual tour, Bernbeck takes the reader through the museum offering a variety of perspectives – historical outline, colonialist and post-modern visitor's viewpoints, current debates and conflicting theories in museology, critical theory of museum culture consumption, planning for changes in the Pergamon Museum. But he is also well aware of the politics of such a ‘reading tour’, and his essay, quite self-consciously, offers a series of possibilities for engaging in discussion and further dialogue.
Buried lives
Authors: Crossland Zoë
Published: August 2008

This paper writes a history of the forensic excavations in Argentina of the remains of ‘the disappeared’; people who were abducted and murdered under the military governments of the 1970s and early 1980s. The physical remains of these people were, and still are, located at a nexus of desires and attempts to reconstruct both individual and national collective memory, through creating and sustaining the individual and collective identities of the disappeared. As such the human remains have become a vigorously contested site for different and irreconcilable constructions. This paper considers the ambiguity of human remains; the tensions between humans as bodies and as people, the difficult issue of human embodiment after death, and the incompatible narratives that arise from these ambiguities. A textual analysis of the narratives created around the excavations of the disappeared in the Argentinian and English speaking media is used to illustrate the ways in which archaeological narratives about the dead are used in the creation of conflicting societal and personal constructions of the human body in Argentina, and the effect that this has had on the ways the disappeared are remembered.
Of calories and culture
Authors: Gerritsen Fokke
Published: August 2008

How did people feed themselves in the past? Archaeologists have been asking this question since the early years of the discipline and it remains an important topic to the present day. Perhaps not surprisingly, eating and drinking are among the most essential activities for human survival. Moreover, even though we do not frequently excavate food in a strict sense of the term, a great deal of the artefacts that we find are directly or indirectly related to food, its procurement and production, preparation and consumption and its waste products. In recent years, archaeologists increasingly recognise the cultural and social significance of food (and the animals and plant from which it stems). In this introduction to a special section on the archaeology of food and foodways I would like to reflect briefly on the potential of food archaeologies for studying diverse aspects of life as well as social processes in past societies.
The raw, the cooked and the burnt
Authors: Campbell Ewan
Published: August 2008

The iron age settlement at Sollas, North Uist, Scotland, provides an unusually varied set of data relating to food and the role of animals in society. By comparing the evidence of food residues on pottery with animal remains from middens, foundation burials and cremations, structural patterns emerge which throw light on the relative status of domestic species. Sheep and cows are treated differently, with sheep being mainly buried, and cattle cremated. This patterning enables a speculative world view of the inhabitants to be constructed, and further analysis shows that mature cattle were classified differently from younger animals. It is suggested that these normally hidden structuring principles cause difficulties for the conventional interpretation of animal remains on other iron age sites.
Howling wolf
Authors: Van Reybrouck David
Published: August 2008

There are several reasons for not interviewing Lewis Binford. So much has already been written on the most famous archaeologist since Childe that one may well wonder why another text or an interview should be added to the corpus. This holds especially true now that Paula Sabloff has published a series of conversations with the man himself (Sabloff 1998). On top of that, his own literary output has proportions that can easily discourage even interviewers of the most intrepid kind. With fourteen monographs, two edited volumes, 59 articles in journals, 34 chapters in edited books, and several dozen reviews, comments and other genres of academic publishing—and this is only the harvest of the previous millennium, the counter is still ticking—Binford is not only one of the most influential archaeologists of the twentieth century, but also one of the most prolific ones. Another good excuse for leaving your tape recorder home is that if his work has made such an important impact, it must by definition be already extremely well known among archaeologists. Why bothering about talking to a man if everyone already knows the content of his thought? Binford has become textbook knowledge, many of his articles have become classics and figure on undergraduate reading lists, his writings belong to the canon of twentieth-century archaeological thought. So, why bother? Finally, everyone who considers, or even just starts thinking about interviewing Lewis Binford will be warned by well-intending colleagues who tell you that the man has a notoriously volatile temper and that you are putting yourself at risk.
Generations of aristocracy
Authors: Woolf Greg
Published: August 2008

This paper sets out to examine issues of continuity and change in the social hierarchies of the peoples of the Gallic interior, between the late Iron Age and the early Roman period. This part of the empire is one in which we might reasonably expect to find substantial continuity of social structure. Many scholars have argued that this is indeed the case, notwithstanding the evident changes in material culture. This paper argues that the opposite was true. Apparent similarities, I suggest, reinforced by the ways we have studied provincial cultures, have masked dramatic changes in the basis of social power. That conclusion has implications for other provincial societies, and for Roman imperialism in general.
Story-telling and theory. A reply
Authors: Slofstra Jan
Published: August 2008

I would like to thank Michel Christol, John Creighton, Louise Revell and Peter Wells for their stimulating comments on the two articles under discussion by Greg Woolf and myself. Since Christol and Wells mainly confine themselves to remarks on the cultural changes in Interior Gaul, my reply will focus on Revell and Creighton's critical comments on my paper. The most provoking of these, to me, was the term ‘story-telling’, as used by Revell. It is not, on first thoughts, a desirable designation for articles with a certain theoretical ambition. After all, the term evokes associations with the narrative traditions of the ‘pre-theoretical’ phase of Roman archaeology (Laurence 2001). This kind of story-telling does not belong in a theoretical journal such asArchaeological dialogues.
Heading south, looking north
Authors: Shepherd Nick
Published: August 2008

Archaeology has to re-think the terms of its practice, because current debate tends to intervene at the level of theory, which leaves the discipline ungrounded in a theory of practice or a conception of the historical coming into being of archaeology as a discipline. From a South African perspective, its grand narrative is primarily concerned with the development of social theory in the West but it does not provide - it cannot provide – an account of the formation of the discipline as a social and signifying practice situated in a broader social and political context. Central to this re-thinking, I argue, are questions of social value, and the role played by archaeology in projects of restitution, social justice, memory and identity.
Archaeology as encounter
Authors: Grima Reuben
Published: August 2008

Among the influences that have altered the nature of archaeology over the past two decades, two major trends are singled out for discussion here. The first is the emerging interest in understanding the subjective experiences and perceptions of life in the past. The second trend is the growing concern with making archaeology more meaningful and accessible to a wider public. Some of the characteristics of these two trends will be considered in turn. It is then argued that, although these two movements are generally considered as quite separate issues, they stem from shared social and historic roots. The recognition of the inseparability of these two areas of concern has far-reaching implications for the nature and role of future archaeological practice.
The Invention of Hunter-Gatherers in Seventeenth-Century Europe – A Comment from Upper Mesopotamia, Near East
Authors: Bischoff Damien
Published: August 2008

The interesting point in Pluciennik's paper, other than the well documented and useful part on the philosophical origins of the deep-seated categories of foragers and farmers and hunting and farming practices, is the focus placed on the opposition of the two terms and its ideological bases. He reviews the shift from foragers to farmers (from social evolution, progress systematised as universal schemes of human development defined by subsistence categories) following six inter-related factors relevant to him: the rise of individualism, the growth of modern economic theory and materialism, the birth of Reason and Science, the concepts and practices of improvement, the decline of Biblical authority, and tropes from classical authors.
‘Erecting Altars to Unknown Gods’: A reply to Bowden
Authors: Gillings Mark , Pollard Joshua
Published: August 2008

But topography (like cartography) also is a ‘practice’, knowledge put to use, knowledge in the service of power that is deeply intertwined in the cultural, social and political webs of a society (Duncan and Ley 1993, 1, emphasis added).
Significance tests for comparing digital gene expression profiles
Authors: Varuzza Leonardo , Gruber Arthur , Pereira Carlos
Published: August 2008

Most of the statistical tests currently used to detect differentially expressed genes are based on asymptotic results, and perform poorly for low expression tags. Another problem is the common use of a single canonical cutoff for the significance level (p-value) of all the tags, without taking into consideration the type II error and the highly variable character of the sample size of the tags. This work reports the development of two significance tests for the comparison of digital expression profiles, based on frequentist and Bayesian points of view, respectively. Both tests are exact, and do not use any asymptotic considerations, thus producing more correct results for low frequency tags than the chi-square test. The frequentist test uses a tag-customized critical level which minimizes a linear combination of type I and type II errors. A comparison of the Bayesian and the frequentist tests revealed that they are linked by a Beta distribution function. These tests can be used alone or in conjunction, and represent an improvement over the currently available methods for comparing digital profiles.
Regulation and function of triacylglycerol lipases in cellular metabolism
Authors: Watt Matthew J. , Steinberg Gregory R.
Published: August 2008

The ability to store energy in the form of energy-dense TAG (triacylglycerol) and to mobilize these stores rapidly during times of low carbohydrate availability (fasting or famine) or during heightened metabolic demand (exercise or cold-stress) is a highly conserved process essential for survival. Today, in the presence of nutrient excess and sedentary lifestyles, the regulation of this pathway is viewed as an important therapeutic target for disease prevention, as elevated circulating fatty acids in obesity contribute to many aspects of the metabolic syndrome including hepatic steatosis, atherosclerosis and insulin resistance. In the present review, we discuss the metabolic regulation and function of TAG lipases with a focus on HSL (hormone-sensitive lipase), ATGL (adipose triacylglycerol lipase) and newly identified members of the lipolytic proteome.
Effects of Feedback Frequency and Timing on Acquisition, Retention, and Transfer of Speech Skills in Acquired Apraxia of Speech
Authors: Austermann Hula Shannon N. , Robin Donald A. , Maas Edwin , Ballard Kirrie J. , Schmidt Richard A.
Published: August 2008

Purpose

Two studies examined speech skill learning in persons with apraxia of speech (AOS). Motor-learning research shows that delaying or reducing the frequency of feedback promotes retention and transfer of skills. By contrast, immediate or frequent feedback promotes temporary performance enhancement but interferes with retention and transfer. These principles were tested in the context of a common treatment for AOS.

Method

Two studies (N= 4,N= 2) employed single-subject treatment designs to examine acquisition and retention of speech skills in adults with AOS under different feedback conditions.

Results

Reduced-frequency or delayed feedback enhanced learning in 3 participants with AOS. Feedback manipulation was not an influential variable in 3 other cases in which stimulus-complexity effects may have masked treatment effects.

Conclusions

These findings demonstrate that individuals with AOS can benefit from structured intervention. They provide qualified support for reduction and delay of feedback, although interaction with other factors such as stimulus complexity or task difficulty needs further exploration. This study adds to the growing body of literature investigating the use of principles of motor learning in treating AOS and provides impetus for consideration of pre-treatment variables that affect outcome in treatment studies.
Submental sEMG and Hyoid Movement During Mendelsohn Maneuver, Effortful Swallow, and Expiratory Muscle Strength Training
Authors: Wheeler-Hegland Karen M. , Rosenbek John C. , Sapienza Christine M.
Published: August 2008

Purpose

This study investigated the concurrent biomechanical and electromyographic properties of 2 swallow-specific tasks (effortful swallow and Mendelsohn maneuver) and 1 swallow-nonspecific (expiratory muscle strength training [EMST]) swallow therapy task in order to examine the differential effects of each on hyoid motion and associated submental activation in healthy adults, with the overall goal of characterizing task-specific and overload properties of each task.

Method

Twenty-five healthy male and female adults (
M
= 25 years of age) participated in this prospective, experimental study with 1 participant group. Each participant completed all study tasks (including normal swallow, Mendelsohn maneuver swallow, effortful swallow, and EMST task) in random order during concurrent videofluoroscopy and surface electromyography recording.

Results

Results revealed significant differences in the trajectory of hyoid motion as measured by overall displacement and angle of elevation of the hyoid bone. As well, timing of hyoid movement and amplitude differences existed between tasks with regard to the activation of the submental musculature.

Conclusions

Study results demonstrated differential effects of the 3 experimental tasks on the principles of task specificity and overload. These principles are important in the development of effective rehabilitative programs. Subsequent direction for future research is suggested.
Solitons in isotropic antiferromagnets: beyond the sigma model
Authors: Galkina E. G. , Galkin A. Yu. , Ivanov B. A.
Published: August 2008

Isotropic antiferromagnets display a rich variety of magnetic solitons with nontrivial static and dynamic properties. One-dimensional soliton elementary excitations have a periodic dispersion law. For the two-dimensional case, planar antiferromagnetic vortices having a nonsingular macroscopic core with a saturated magnetic moment are present. The dynamic properties of these planar antiferromagnetic vortices are characterized by the presence of a gyroforce.
Soliton transmission through a disordered system
Authors: Kovalev A. S. , Prilepsky J. E. , Gredeskul S. A. , Derevyanko S. A.
Published: August 2008

An exact formula for the transmission time in a disordered nonlinear soliton-bearing classical one-dimensional system is obtained.