bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Interpreting paintings without a commentary: meaning and motive, content and composition in the rock art of the western Cape, South Africa
Authors: Parkington John
Published: January 2016

The graphic rock-paintings of southern Africa, with their lively and colourful scenes, have long been one of the glories of the continent's archaeology. The last years have seen them become intellectually quite as graphic, as fragments of San ethnography and ethnohistory have been found to provide a commentary that allows aspects of their symbolism and meaning to be explored. This paper goes beyond, to see what can be iluminated without benefit of commentary.
An archaeologist's guide to classification of cropmarks and soilmarks
Authors: Edis Jonathan , Macleod David , Bewley Robert
Published: January 2016

The classification of man-made features recorded on aerial photographs depends on a combination of morphological comparison and functional interpretation. Here, a computer-based method of morphological recording and classification is described, and its advantages argued. It has special relevance in England, where the Monument Protection Programme needs to assess the relative value and importance of many thousands of buried archaeological sites that are known only from the evidence of aerial photography.
Alternative models of Pleistocene biocultural evolution: a response to Foley
Authors: Clark G. A.
Published: January 2016

Human origins research has had a long history of vigorous debate. Recent discussion has been no exception, the more so perhaps as the strands of evidence — anthropological, archaeological, and now molecular-biological — are sufficiently diverse that not many can be well placed to deal fairly with them all. Here issue is taken with Foley's cladistic view of human evolution, and with the ‘Garden of Eden’ hypothesis of a single source in Africa for modern human populations.
Computer applications for the All American Pipeline Project
Authors: Plog Fred , Carlson David L.
Published: January 2016

Most large-scale excavation projects are computerized, more-or-less, now in their methods of data recording. Here is described one which is computerized with more conviction and on a larger scale than most, with reflections on what that can and should amount to.
Writing archaeology: site reports in context
Authors: Hodder Ian
Published: January 2016

As it is written in site reports today, the modern language of archaeology is not a handsome tongue, efficient though it may be at conveying neutral data (another horrid word). Are there lessons to be found in the beguiling style of site reports from a couple of centuries ago? And is there more to their charm than antiquarian romance?
The rise and decline of surgery in dynastic Egypt
Authors: Rowling J. Thompson
Published: January 2016

The Egyptian mammified bodies and the Egyptian texts between them offer a unique insight into the medical skills of an early civilization. Here the evidence for surgery is surveyed, and a pattern of rise and decline identified in its accomplishment.
Two Roman samovars (authepsae) from Caesarea in Cappadocia
Authors: Yazici M. , Lightfoot C. S.
Published: January 2016

How old is the samovar, that ceremonial apparatus traditionally associated with the serving of tea in (old) Russia and the Near East? This new find from Anatolian Turkey provides further evidence for the use of this kind of vessel for making hot drinks back in Roman times.
Early rice cultivation in Southeast Asia: archaeological and palynological evidence from the Bang Pakong Valley, Thailand
Authors: Maloney B. K. , Higham C. F. W. , Bannanurag R.
Published: January 2016

In Southeast Asia the archaeological record is virtually silent about early rice cultivation, for which there is now good evidence from the Chinese Neolithic. Here, new fieldwork from Thailand provides both direct evidence of rice cultivation and, earlier, an indirect clue from palynological indicators.
What the Rose can tell us
Authors: Orrell John , Gurr Andrew
Published: January 2016

What is known of the physical size and shape of the Elizabethan theatres for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays? And how is our knowledge changed by the discoveries in spring 1989 at the site of the Rose theatre, Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames in London? John Orrell and Andrew Gurr, theatre historians who are themselves involved in the plans to rebuild the more famous Globe theatre (Gurr & Orrell 1989), on the bank of the Thames just a few yards west of the Rose site, near to the original Globe site which is due for excavation in the next few months.

An earlier version of this paper appeared in the Times Literary Supplement (9–15 June 1989, pages 636, 649); it is reprinted by kind permission of the TLS.
Evolutionary theory and post-processual archaeology
Authors: Mithen Steven
Published: January 2016

‘Revolutions may come and go, but evolution just keeps on growing.’ A century after Darwin, and social darwinism, evolutionary theory still has an important place in archaeological thought. Here its relevance and application is set out in relation to recent discussions of archaeological theory.
Ancient factory mass-production techniques: indications of large-scale stone bead manufacture during the Egyptian New Kingdom Period
Authors: Stocks Denys A.
Published: January 2016

Among the craftworkers depicted in Egyptian tomb-painting are drillers of beads about their work. An experimental study of bead-drilling leads to an assessment of the industrial nature of the enterprise.
Lapita sites of the Bismarck Archipelago
Authors: Gosden C. , Allen J. , Ambrose W. , Anson D. , Golson J. , Green R. , Kirch P. , Lilley I. , Specht J. , Spriggs M.
Published: January 2016

The Lapita question

The prehistory of the western Pacific has, for the last 30 years, been dominated by the problem of the origins of the present Polynesian and Melanesian cultures (Terrell 1988). In 1961 Golson drew attention to the distribution of highly decorated Lapita pottery, now known to date from between 3500 BP and 2000 BP, which crossed the present-day division between Melanesia and Polynesia. Furthermore, sites with Lapita pottery represented the first evidence of occupation on Tonga and Samoa, the most westerly Polynesian islands from which it was thought that the rest of Polynesia was colonized. Lapita pottery came to be associated with a movement of people from Melanesia to Polynesia and was seen to represent the founding group ancestral to later Polynesian groups.
Commentary: what Lapita is and what Lapita isn't
Authors: Terrell John
Published: January 2016

The essays in this special section on early settlement in Island Southeast Asia may be puzzling to readers of Antiquity who are uninitiated to the ways and concerns of archaeologists working in the Pacific. Some of these authors appear almost reluctant to draw conclusions from the evidence they survey. Others champion their own interpretations unequivocally. What is going on here?

It may be, as some say, that academics are by nature a quarrelsome lot. Even so, why is the Lapita cultural complex ‘ever a hot source of debate’ (Bellwood & Koon, above, p. 613)? The essays published here may lack the direct cantankerousness of face-to-face confronat international symposia and professional meetings, but they reinforce the suggestion made in Antiquity a year ago that archaeologists in the Pacific today have come to a crossroads where we often find ourselves talking past each other because we are no longer in general agreement on what is interesting about Pacific prehistory and why (Terrell 1988).
Aerial reconnaissance in mainland Britain in the summer of 1989
Authors: Griffith F. M.
Published: January 2016

The summer of 1989 was hot and exceptionally dry in Britain, making it a good year for aerial archaeology, especially in those damper regions which are rarely forthcoming with visible crop- or parch-marks. Major finds of last year are presented, in the context of the larger pattern of year-by-year work.
Quentovic defined
Authors: Hill David , Barrett David , Maude Keith , Warburton Julia , Worthington Margaret
Published: January 2016

Some of the major sea-ports of medieval Europe still continue and flourish as ports; medieval Hamwic became the container port of Southampton. Some have faded away, as their harbours have silted or the pattern of trade has moved away. Some have so completely failed that certain knowledge of what and where they has been forgotten. Chief of these lost ports of Europe is Quentovic, whose site has been sought in northern France and is here defined in the Canche valley, south of Boulogne.
The origin of the raw elephant ivory used in Greece and the Aegean during the Late Bronze Age
Authors: Hayward Lorna G.
Published: January 2016

Carvings made of elephant ivory are a characteristic, though uncommon, artefact of the later Bronze Age in Greece and the islands. Where did the raw material for them come from — Syria to the east, or Africa to the south and southwest?
The reluctant Greening of archaeology
Authors: Pryor Francis
Published: January 2016

Francis Pryor, whose work in the English Fenland is at the heart of the territory where the battle for archaeological survival is being fought, takes up the Green debate.
Respect for Rapa Nui: exhibition and conservation of Easter Island stone statues
Authors: Van Tilburg Jo Anne
Published: January 2016

Writing in 1968, archaeologist William Mulloy rightfully called Easter Island (Rapa Nui) an ‘outdoor archaeological museum of unique significance’. Indeed, the potential value of the island’s archaeological sites and their import for the island’s tourist economy meant that sites were touted as museum displays worthy of preservation, restoration and curation (Mulloy & Figueroa G.-H. 1966; Mulloy 1968: iii). That value encouraged successful funding appeals by Mulloy for restoration of several ceremonial sites at Tahai, Ahu Akivi and elsewhere.

These restorations, first and foremost, ‘produced archaeological information bearing on the reconstruction of the local prehistoric culture’, while at the same time ‘the restorations are expected to serve as exhibit materials in relation to presently developing plans for a tourist industry’ (Mulloy 1968: iii).
Mesolithic cutting arrows: functional analysis of arrows used in the hunting of large game
Authors: Friis-Hansen Jan
Published: January 2016

Arrowheads and projectile points, with their elegant shapes, are the very stuff of archaeological classification. But do the classes relate usefuly, or at all, to real differences in arrowhead purpose or efficiency? Modern and Mesolithic arrowheads are studied with their killing purpose in mind
A Late Bronze Age landscape on the Denbigh Moors, northeast Wales
Authors: Manley John
Published: January 2016

The identification by excavation of a small shepherd's hut within an enclosure at Graig Fechan and its radiocarbon dating suggests parallels with Dartmoor and the Peak District, when a few centuries of milder climate seem to have favoured upland farming
A preliminary distribution map of stone axes in Ireland
Authors: Grogan Eoin , Cooney Gabriel
Published: January 2016

Stone axes are numerous in Ireland, where there are important porcellanite sources in the northeast. Now there is a first clear idea of just how many Irish axes there are and what their pattern of distribution is
The depopulation of native America
Authors: Zubrow Ezra
Published: January 2016

The replacement, for the most part, of native American populations by immigrants in the centuries after 1492 is one of the great demographic shifts of the modern world. It is fundamental for American archaeology, of course, and makes the background for acute moral and ethical issues, which will become more visible as the 500th anniversary of the Columbus landfall nears
Olenii ostrov: first radiocarbon dates from a major Mesolithic cemetery in Karelia, USSR
Authors: Price T. Douglas , Jacobs Kenneth
Published: January 2016

The first radiocarbon determinations for a large prehistoric cemetery in Karelia, USSR, have been obtained using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) of several organic fractions from prehistoric human bone samples. These determinations suggest an age of c. 7500 b.p. for the burials, definitely within the Mesolithic period. Additional information from skeletal and isotope evidence confirm Olenii ostrov as a very important Mesolithic site in northern Europe.
Chiefly lineages in Kofun-period Japan: political relations between centre and region
Authors: Tsude Hiroshi
Published: January 2016

Mounded tomb burial for the elite is the hallmark of Japan’s Kofun period (AD 280-700) This is also known to be the period of state formation, and the burials of the paramount chiefs or early kings are concentrated in the present-day prefectures of Nara and Osaka. This centre of power will be referred to in this article as the ‘central court’, in contrast to the surrounding regions of western Honshu such as Kyoto, Hyogo, and Okayama prefectures, which also have many mounded tomb burials. The central court in the 4th century is often called the Miwa Court and in the 5th century the Kawachi Court. The extent of influence or control of the central court over the regions in these centuries is an issue addressed in the following discussion.
A late Saxon monastic enclosure ditch and canal, Glastonbury, Somerset
Authors: Hollinrake C. , Hollinrake N.
Published: January 2016

An important addition to knowledge of the medieval topography of Glastonbury, Somerset.
Understanding the Late Palaeolithic tools with lustrous edges from the Lower Nile Valley
Authors: Jensen Helle Juel , Schild Romuald , Wendorf Fred , Close Angela E.
Published: January 2016

A new examination of the polish on Late Palaeolithic tools from the Nile identifies some kind of siliceous sheen, but shows no ‘sickle gloss’. This is consistent with the demonstration that cereals were not in precociously early cultivation in Egypt.
The power of stone: symbolic aspects of stone use and tool development in western Arnhem Land, Australia
Authors: Taçon Paul S.C.
Published: January 2016

For want of other secure evidence, the study of art in prehistoric societies normally amounts to looking at pictures, though there must have also been sound, and surely music. The long lithic tradition of central northern Australia permits a rare insight into another kind of prehistoric art, the meaning and aesthetic order that may lie behind a lithic industry.
Jebel Moya revisited: a settlement of the 5th millennium BC in the middle Nile Basin
Authors: Caneva Isabella
Published: January 2016

A new look at the old collections from Jebel Moya, the site in the southern Sudan excavated by the Wellcome expedition early in the century, sets Jebel Moya in the light of modern understanding of the Nile and Sahara sequences.
The word förhistorisk, ‘prehistoric’, in Swedish
Authors: Welinder Stig
Published: January 2016

Another contribution to discovering the history and origin of words for ‘prehistory’ comes from Sweden, a critical land for 19th-century archaeological ideas.
Ancient Greek measures of length in nautical contexts
Authors: Morrison John
Published: January 2016

John Morrison reported in Antiquity (61: 455–9; 62: 713–14) on the sea-trials of his reconstructed trieres (trireme) Olympias, tests which explored the capacities in the water of this most feared of ancient fighting craft. Here he looks critically at two ancient Greek measurements, the units of length to which the trieres was built, and the units of distance over which she sailed.
The Szeletian in Czechoslovakia
Authors: Oliva Martin
Published: January 2016

The Szeletian represents the most original – and I would not hesitate to say the most aboriginal – Upper Palaeolithic culture in Central Europe. In fact, it is the only European Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) complex the local development of which is so evident that the attribution of some of its archaic inventories to the Middle or Upper Palaeolithic has often been a controversial issue. This is exactly the reason why the Szeletian is so interesting in current discussions about the origin of the Upper Palaeolithic civilization in Europe.
Approach to the study of the Late Hallstatt and Early La Tène periods in eastern parts of Central Europe: results from comparative classification of ‘Knickwandschale’
Authors: Bujna Jozef
Published: January 2016

The chronological sequence of the latest phases of prehistory in Central Europe is a critical question, concerning the relationship between the Hallstatt and La Téne periods, and their regional variants. My aim in this article is to draw attention to one source of chronological evidence, the pronounced Late Hallstatt pottery form which is represented by the bowl with curved neck and sharply carinateded belly, the ‘Knickwandschale’. The genesis of this form may be looked for in cups of the Middle Hallstatt period (Hallstatt C2–D1), and its final development in the Early La Téne period (La Téne A–Bl). Its long tradition and morphological development, together with its extraordinarily broad geographical distribution, make it one of the leading types for relative chronological periodization of the Late Hallstatt and Early La Téne periods as well as for the synchronization of cultural development in central Europe (FIGURE 1).
Studies of structural change in medieval settlement in Bohemia
Authors: Klápště Jan
Published: January 2016

This contribution intends to present, very briefly, one of the facets of medieval archaeology in Bohemia, a land which to this day bears the marks of having belonged to ‘the other Europe’. I will focus on a short phase of Bohemian history and within it, I will take out just a small portion that is accessible via the archaeological evidence. In spite of all the material limitations, I want to show that in this theme Bohemian archaeology documents one of the components of the gradual emergence of Europe, a continent so varied and yet so internally coherent.
The archaeologist and the art market: policies and practice
Authors: Cook B. F.
Published: January 2016

The Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum sets out his view of where responsible museums and researchers should find a balance in the difficult matter of unprovenanced antiquities that may be the spoils of recent looting.
A collector/dealer's view of antiquities
Authors: Chesterman James
Published: January 2016

The archaeological literature, Antiquity included, has often taken a severe view of the consequences, for archaeological collections and for archaeological knowledge, of private collections of antiquities. Here is another viewpoint on the issue.
Epicuticular wax components preserved in potsherds as chemical indicators of leafy vegetables in ancient diets
Authors: Evershed R. P. , Heron C. , Goad L. J.
Published: January 2016

The determination of the leafy vegetable constituents of the diets of early societies is notoriously difficult using traditional archaeobotanical techniques. In an effort to provide a solution to this problem, a new approach, using gas chromatography (GC) and GC/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), has been adopted to detect the presence of preserved epicuticular leaf wax components absorbed in potsherds. The characteristic compounds identified can serve as chemotaxonomic indicators of the vegetables prepared in vessels during their usage.
Excavation of Deeping St Nicholas Barrow Site 28, Lincolnshire
Authors: French C. A. I.
Published: January 2016

Accounts of the early barrow-diggers are chilling, both in their tales of prehistoric wood and textiles that blew away to dust at the touch of the spade, and in their vigour, a barrow quarried out in an afternoon, a barrow cemetery in a fortnight. Salvage imperatives, in advance of destruction by drainage in the Lincolnshire Fens, now make necessary the rare excavation of a whole barrow cemetery, with a happier organic outcome.
The chronology of colonization in New Zealand
Authors: Anderson Atholl
Published: January 2016

New Zealand was the last substantial landmass to be colonized by prehistoric people. Even within Oceania, where there are much smaller and more remote islands, such as Pitcairn and Easter Island, New Zealand stands out as the last-settled archipelago. Its prehistory promises, therefore, better archaeological evidence concerning prehistoric colonization of pristine land-masses than is the case anywhere else, as is apparent in the extinction of megafauna (Anderson 1989a). But much depends on the precise antiquity of human colonization and this, following a long period of consensus, is now a matter of sharp debate.
The social aims of Chinese archaeology
Authors: Pearson Richard J.
Published: January 2016

From its early stages, on 16 March 1967, the Department of State Affairs and the Central Army decreed the protection of cultural objects and books, and during the summer, 1971, a large exhibition in Peking featured an immense range of archaeological materials, all uncovered in the past few years (Kung, 1972). Archaeology may be studied as one of the best-documented humanities in contemporary China.
The archaeology of Samnite settlement in Molise
Authors: Barker Graeme
Published: January 2016

The province (or regione) of Molise is roughly the size of Lincolnshire or Devon, and stretches from the Apennine mountains to the Adriatic coast (FIG. I). In the Roman period Molise was occupied by the Samnite peoples and by related tribes such as the Frentani (Salmon, 1967, 25, map I). The historical tradition describes the Samnites as a rustic and warlike people, whom the Romans subdued only after the long series of savage wars in the last three centuries BC. Despite this historical evidence, however, the lack of previous archaeological research in Molise until the recent past meant that the archaeological record for this period in the province prior to 1974 was essentially confined to two major town sites of the Roman period (Boiano and Sepino), and two Samnite and Roman religious sanctuaries. For the same reason practically nothing was known about earlier prehistoric settlement. In the rest of Italy the evidence for early man built up by survey and excavation usually goes back at least as far as the Middle Palaeolithic, up to some 100,000 years ago. For Molise, however, there were in 1974 only chance finds of prehistoric flint and stone artifacts in local and national museum collections, most with little or no exact information about provenance. Molise was therefore virtually a blank area on the archaeological map of Italy.
A handaxe of Libyan Desert glass
Authors: Roe Derek A. , Olsen John W. , Underwood James R. , Giegengack Robert F.
Published: January 2016

The handaxe of Libyan Desert glass (PL. XIIIb & FIG. I) was found on 23 June 1979, in the Sand Sea of S.W. Egypt, at latitude 25°o8' N, longitude 25° 35·5' E, near the southern boundary of the known distribution area of the glass. Lying just north of the Gilf Kebir, this part of the Sand Sea is characterized by an extensive field of linear dunes, trending almost exactly N-S, which are up to Ioom high, tens of km long, and separated by interdune corridors or ‘streets’ 2–5 km wide.
Archaeological retrospect 3
Authors: Hawkes Christopher
Published: January 2016

My father’s forebears were ironmasters in Birmingham. Yet neither he (born 1877) nor my uncle (born 1870), let alone five aunts, knew more than the name of their firm, The Eagle Iron Foundry. When their mother died and the family moved to Beckenham, all were children. A remote cousin Arthur, Borough Librarian of Wigan, genealogist, and thence FSA, wrote when I became that (1932) to tell me that Hawkeses were Warwickshire under Charles I1 already, when a branch went to Ireland. But he said nothing of William Hawkes, who in 1824 (June), with a young Mr M. H. Bloxam of Rugby, went to Oldbury, in the country near Atherstone, and opened a barrow. Bloxam stated, naming him and the firm, that he was leader of the dig, when publishing it in Charles Roach Smith’s Col1ectanea Antiqua, vol. I part 3 (issued 1843, then in whole vol. of 1848), 33, with Pl. xiv, engraving of the finds. (My knowing this is entirely due to Sonia Hawkes’s finding it, in her luckily-obtained Collectanea a few years ago.) His publication cited in VCH Warwickshire and in Gerloff, 1975 (172 and Pl. 27 no. 332) was thus his second, and the first needs adding to the barrow’s bibliography.
The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979
Authors: Scarre Chris
Published: January 2016

Mrs Mary Aiken Littauer, a valued contributor to ‘Antiquity’ over some years, has a few bones to pick with Dr Ahmad Afshar and Dr Judith Lerner about their Note in our March 1979 issue.
TILLAGE AND RESIDUE MANAGEMENT FOR IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY AND RESOURCE-USE EFFICIENCY IN SOYBEAN (GLYCINE MAX)—WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM) CROPPING SYSTEM
Authors: KARUNAKARAN V. , BEHERA U. K.
Published: January 2016

Continuous rice–wheat (RW) cropping in an area of 13.5 million ha with intensive tillage has resulted in over exploitation of resources, decline of the factor productivity, loss of soil fertility and biodiversity and decline of resource use efficiency in the Indo-Gangetic plains (IGPs) of South Asia. This has led to unsustainability of agriculture in the region. Replacement of a cereal-cereal system with a legume–cereal system may prove beneficial for long-term sustainability of the system. A field experiment was conducted with soybean–wheat (SW) rotation in the IGP of India during 2009–10 and 2010–11 to assess the suitability of conservation tillage versus conventional tillage (CT) and crop-establishment techniques, namely bed (B) planting versus flat (F) planting. The study revealed that the zero tillage (ZT) for soybean during rainy and for wheat during winter season either in flat or in bed system performed equally good with CT. The maximum system productivity (7.06 t ha−1in 2009–10 and 8.48 t ha−1in 2010–11) was obtained with combined application of wheat + soybean residue. The maximum net returns of ₹46.98 and ₹65.08 thousands and B:C ratio of 2.35 and 3.08 were recorded in the SW system with zero tillage-flat (ZT─F) during 2009–10 and 2010–11, respectively. The minimum energy of 64.67 and 63.01 ×103MJ ha−1was utilized as input energy with zero tillage-bed (ZT─B) while the maximum energy use efficiency of 4.10 and 5.14 was obtained with ZT─F and ZT─B for the SW system during 2009–10 and 2010–11 respectively. The gross output energy was maximum with wheat + soybean residue (241.6 and 265.7 ×103MJ ha−1) contrary to this the net energy (194.4 and 213.4 ×103MJ ha−1) and energy use efficiency (9.03 and 10.96) was maximum with control (no residue) in the SW system. In wheat there was 37.85% improvement in irrigation water use efficiency (WUE) in raised bed planting than flat planting and 28.57% of irrigation water was saved. The study suggested that ZT either bed or flat planting to both the crops can successfully adopted along with application wheat + soybean residue together with full recommended dose of NPK fertilizers to the system for improving productivity, profitability, soil health and sustainability of SW system in the IGPs of South Asia.
TAHAR HADDAD AFTER BOURGUIBA AND BIN ʿALI: A REFORMIST BETWEEN SECULARISTS AND ISLAMISTS
Authors: Weideman Julian
Published: January 2016

Under the Bourguiba and Bin ʿAli regimes, the early 20th-century women's rights advocate Tahar Haddad (1899–1935) was a symbol of “state feminism.” Nationalist intellectuals traced the 1956 Personal Status Code to Haddad's work, and Bourguiba and Bin ʿAli claimed to “uphold” his ideals and “avenge” the persecution he suffered at the hands of the ʿulamaʾ at the Zaytuna mosque-university. Breaking with “old regime” narratives, this article studies Haddad as a reformist within Tunisia's religious establishment. Haddad's example challenges the idea that Islamic reformists “opened the door to” secularists in the Arab world. After independence, Haddad's ideas were not a starting point for Tunisia's presidents, but a reference point available to every actor in the political landscape.
The Experience of the Recited Qurʾan
Authors: Osborne Lauren E.
Published: January 2016

In this thought piece, I use the recited Qurʾan as a case study for asking what it may mean to feel sound—and more specifically, “religious sound,” or sound in a religious context. A range of scholars, including myself, have asked related questions about what the recited Qurʾan sounds like, and why it may sound the way(s) it does. Here I consider the sound of the Qurʾan on the level of experience or nondiscursive meaning, asking what the recited Qurʾan feels like.
An Earwitness to History: Street Hawkers and Their Calls in Early 20th-Century Egypt
Authors: Fahmy Ziad
Published: January 2016

Historians have recently started listening to the past, contributing to what David Howes has described as a “sensorial revolution in the humanities and social sciences.” In the same way that all five senses are relevant to our daily understanding of the world around us, they should be vital to our understanding of historical events. Interpreting how peoples of the past sensorially experienced their world makes possible a richer, more comprehensive grasp of historical events. A sensorially grounded historical narrative is an embodied history that is connected to everyday people and lives. Historians of the Middle East, however, with few exceptions, are still largely producing soundproof, devocalized narratives of the past.
The Sounds and Moves of ibtiẓāl in 20th-Century Iran
Authors: Meftahi Ida
Published: January 2016

The scene opens with the camera zooming in on a small raised stage where a group of muṭribs (minstrel performers) are enacting a rūḥawzī piece. At stage left, a young man is singing a love song that describes the physical features of his beloved, Chihilgis. He is accompanied by an ensemble that plays rhythmic music (in 6/8 meter) on traditional Iranian instruments—the tunbak, the tār, and the kamānchih. Standing next to the singer is Chihilgis, performed by a crossed-dressed performer (zanpūsh) who sports a long wig and moves flirtatiously to the song, making coquettish gestures with the eyes, lips, and shoulders. Chihilgis then joins the dance center stage with the two other main characters: the protagonist, enacted by the black-faced performer Mubarak, who has a tambourine (dāyirih) in hand; and Haji, Chihilgis’ old father, who sports a white cotton beard. With variations based on the characters, the dance consists of typical muṭribī moves, including exaggerated wrist and hip rotations, facial gestures such as blinking, and sliding head movements. This musical segment is followed by a witty, humorous dialogue between Mubarak and Haji with sexual undertones.
REFLECTIONS ON THE LIMITS OF LAW
Authors: Mahmood Saba
Published: January 2016

To write a review essay about three books on what at first glance appear to be very divergent topics may seem like an impossible task. Samera Esmeir's book, Juridical Humanity, is an exploration of colonial law as it conscripted Egyptians into the grid of humanity; Judith Butler's Parting Ways is a critique of Zionism and state violence from a Jewish perspective; and Hussein Agrama's Questioning Secularism is about the paradoxical nature of secular power as manifest in modern Egypt. Despite this divergence, I found a rich thematic resonance between the three books that was unexpected and illuminating. All three books are deep meditations on the nature of law, its violent and performative character, even as they are also about a lot more. In what follows, I discuss the central themes of each book with a short rumination on their shared themes.
Use of expressed sequence tag microsatellite markers for exploring genetic diversity in lentil and related wild species
Authors: SINGH A. , DIKSHIT H. K. , SINGH D. , JAIN N. , ASKI M. , SARKER A. , SHARMA T. R.
Published: January 2016

Expressed sequence tag-simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) markers were used to analyse genetic diversity among three Lens species. The SSR loci amplified successfully in wild species, with 94·82% transferability in Lens culinaris subsp. orientalis, 95·4% in Lens nigricans, 98·81% in L. culinaris subsp. odemensis, 94·82% in L. culinaris subsp. tomentosus and 96·55% in Lens ervoides. Ninety-nine alleles (average 3·41 alleles/locus) were detected by 29 SSR markers. Based on the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean cluster analysis, all the genotypes were grouped into three clusters at a similarity level of 0·30. The diversity analysis indicated no species-specific clustering of the wild and cultivated species. Wild species L. nigricans and L. culinaris subsp. odemensis, L. culinaris subsp. orientalis and L. ervoides were grouped in Cluster I, whereas the Mediterranean land races of L. culinaris subsp. culinaris and L. culinaris subsp. tomentosus formed a separate group in Cluster II A. Cluster II B comprised L. ervoides, L. culinaris subsp. orientalis and L. culinaris subsp. culinaris. Clusters II C, II D and II F included cultivated Indian lentil genotypes. Cluster II E comprised Indian and Mediterranean germplasm lines. Cluster II F included three early maturing germplasm lines, whereas Cluster III included only two germplasm lines. The functional annotation of SSR-containing unigenes revealed that a majority of genes were involved in an important transport-related function or were a component of metabolic pathways. A high level of polymorphism of EST-SSRs and their transferability to related wild species indicated that these markers could be used for molecular screening, map construction, comparative genomic studies and marker-assisted selection.
The Ethics of Intervention: US Writers and the Mexican Revolution
Authors: O'NEILL KIMBERLY
Published: January 2016

During the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), stories of dangerous bandits, rebels, dictators, and Indians defined Mexico for US audiences. Most scholars assume that these narratives reinforce the conventional rhetoric of Latin savagery that justifies US imperialism, but this essay reveals an array of writers who told such stories to undermine state power and contest military intervention. Three of the era's best-known leftist journalists, John Kenneth Turner, John Reed, and Katherine Anne Porter, craft a discourse of activism to help the US public imagine themselves as participants in a new hemispheric democracy. These writers posit moral bonds between the US and Mexico that exceed the expansionist interests of politicians and industrialists. Their vision was embodied in the trope of the foreign correspondent, an American who could physically enter Mexican territory, witness the crimes and heroisms of the revolution, and relay the voices of the Mexicans whose lives were at stake in the conflict. Turner, Reed, and Porter hope that journalists can inspire democratic fraternity between the US and Mexican peoples. They also set the terms and conventions utilized by radical humanitarian journalists for decades to come.
Diversity of the Trypethelium eluteriae group in Thailand (Ascomycota, Trypetheliales)
Authors: LUANGSUPHABOOL Theerapat , PIAPUKIEW Jittra , PARNMEN Sittiporn , NELSEN Matthew P. , LUMBSCH H. Thorsten , SANGVICHIEN Ek
Published: January 2016

The diversity of the Trypethelium eluteriae group in Thailand was studied using molecular (ITS and mtSSU rDNA sequences), morphological, and chemical data. Three species were recognized, T. eluteriae, T. platystomum, and T. subeluteriae, with the latter two being new records for Thailand. The separation of the three species, which have sometimes been regarded as synonymous, is supported by molecular and phenotypic characters. The chemical profiles of the three species are distinct, while ascospore size, often used to distinguish species in the group, shows some overlap.
Neural correlates of social exchanges during the Prisoner's Dilemma game in depression
Authors: Gradin V. B. , Pérez A. , Macfarlane J. A. , Cavin I. , Waiter G. , Tone E. B. , Dritschel B. , Maiche A. , Steele J. D.
Published: January 2016

Background

Depression is a disabling disorder that significantly impacts on the interpersonal functioning of individuals. However, little is known about the neural substrates of such difficulties. In the last few years neuroeconomics, which combines imaging with multiplayer behavioural economic paradigms, has been used to study the neural substrates of normal and abnormal interpersonal interactions.

Method

This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate neural activity in unmedicated depressed participants (n= 25) and matched healthy controls (n= 25). During scanning, participants played a behavioural economic game, the Prisoner's Dilemma. In this game, the participant and a co-player independently choose either to cooperate or not cooperate with each other.

Results

Depressed participants reported higher levels of negative feelings (betrayal, guilt) during the game than did controls. Neural activation was compared between ‘imbalanced’ events [when one of the players cooperated and the other defected (‘CD’ and ‘DC’)] and ‘draw’ events [when both players either cooperated or defected (‘CC’ and ‘DD’)]. Participants preferentially activated the anterior insula and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a region implicated in cognitive control and regulation of emotions. Importantly, compared to controls depressed participants showed reduced activation in the left DLPFC, with the extent of signal reduction correlating with increased self-report feelings of guilt associated with DC outcomes.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that depression is associated with reduced activation of the DLPFC during social events that involve unreciprocated cooperation. This abnormality may underlie anomalies in cognitive control and top-down regulation of emotions during challenging social exchanges.
LGBT recognition in EU accession states: How identification with Europe enhances the transformative power of discourse
Authors: Vasilev George
Published: January 2016

In the EU accession literature, there is a tendency to downplay the role of discourse in facilitating norm diffusion, particularly when domestic resistance towards European norms is strong. The assumptions in this thinking are that critical deliberations and civil society activism simply lack the potency required to elicit norm conforming behaviour in accession states and that the only realistic hope for achieving this rests with the introduction of material incentives that make the costs of normative adaptation lower than its rewards. I focus on developments in the field of LGBT politics to challenge these assumptions and to specify the conditions under which discursive strategies are likely to stimulate the domestic uptake of contentious norms. I highlight shared identity as a crucial factor in the success of discursive influence, contending that under conditions of identity convergence, a cultural environment prevails in which norm promoters can more effectively ignite a process of deliberative reflection, shame norm-violators into conformance and cultivate resonance around controversial ideas. I develop these arguments through an analysis of LGBT and accession politics in Croatia and Serbia, contending that Croatia’s strong identification with Europe accelerated LGBT recognition there while Serbia’s relatively weaker identification with Europe slowed it down.
Congruences involving product of intervals and sets with small multiplicative doubling modulo a prime and applications
Authors: CILLERUELO J. , GARAEV M. Z.
Published: January 2016

In this paper we obtain new upper bound estimates for the number of solutions of the congruence
$$\begin{equation}
x\equiv y r\pmod p;\quad x,y\in \mathbb{N},\quad x,y\le H,\quad r\in \mathcal{U},
\end{equation}$$
for certain ranges of H and |${\mathcal U}$|, where ${\mathcal U}$ is a subset of the field of residue classes modulo p having small multiplicative doubling. We then use these estimates to show that the number of solutions of the congruence
$$\begin{equation}
x^n\equiv \lambda\pmod p; \quad x\in \mathbb{N}, \quad L<x<L+p/n,
\end{equation}$$
is at most $p^{\frac{1}{3}-c}$ uniformly over positive integers n, λ and L, for some absolute constant c > 0. This implies, in particular, that if f(x) ∈ $\mathbb{Z}$[x] is a fixed polynomial without multiple roots in $\mathbb{C}$, then the congruence xf(x) ≡ 1 (mod p), x ∈ $\mathbb{N}$, x ⩽ p, has at most $p^{\frac{1}{3}-c}$ solutions as p → ∞, improving some recent results of Kurlberg, Luca and Shparlinski and of Balog, Broughan and Shparlinski. We use our results to show that almost all the residue classes modulo p can be represented in the form xgy (mod p) with positive integers x < p5/8+ϵ and y < p3/8. Here g denotes a primitive root modulo p. We also prove that almost all the residue classes modulo p can be represented in the form xyzgt (mod p) with positive integers x, y, z, t < p1/4+ϵ.
The case of Franca Viola: Debating Gender, Nation and Modernity in 1960s Italy
Authors: CULLEN NIAMH
Published: January 2016

Seventeen-year-old Sicilian Franca Viola was abducted and raped in 1965, with the intention of forcing her into marriage. She came to prominence in 1966 as the first Sicilian woman to refuse a so-called reparatory marriage – which would have legally absolved her rapist of his crime – resulting in his prosecution in a high profile trial in December 1966. Through an examination of the media coverage, and by making use of history of the emotions, this article examines the trial as a crucial moment for post-war Italy, when gender, sexuality and marriage were being redefined in a rapidly changing society. Different emotional styles could be connected to debates about national identity and regional character, as well as to broader anxieties about ‘modernity’ and ‘backwardness’.
A simple jig for the anti-parallel alignment of linacs’ lasers
Authors: Okkalides Demetrios
Published: January 2016

Background

Despite crossing at the isocentre, misaligned laser beams may cause significant positioning problems.

Purpose

The jig proposed here is to be used in addition to the quality assurance procedures employed with linacs and deals with possible misalignments of transverse lasers.

Materials and methods

It is an inverted T construction with a two-sided rectangular, slightly transparent mirror set vertical on a piece of glass serving as its base. The device is carried by a horizontally set spirit-level surface and placed on the couch-top so that the sagittal laser passes through the vertical mirror’s plane. Then the therapy couch is translated along the Y direction until a laser beam shines on the corresponding side of the semi-transparent mirror. This spot is marked and is normally the linac’s isocentre set through an independent procedure employing a rotating plate. If the laser had been set properly, then its beam should be reflecting back on its source. If not, the alignment can be corrected by rotating and/or translating the laser holder until it does that. At the same time, it should be ensured that the beam does not wander away from the isocentre spot on the mirror. When both are achieved, the beam ends up perpendicular to the linac’s axis of rotation, while passing through the isocentre. The procedure can be repeated for the opposite laser.

Conclusion

The jig was simple to construct and has been found quite useful in practice. The accuracy of patient positioning will be restricted only by the size of the laser beam’s cross-section.
Transparent superwetting nanofilms with enhanced durability at model physiological condition
Authors: Hwangbo Sunghee , Heo Jiwoong , Lin Xiangde , Choi Moonhyun , Hong Jinkee
Published: January 2016

There have been many studies on superwetting surfaces owing to the variety of their potential applications. There are some drawbacks to developing these films for biomedical applications, such as the fragility of the microscopic roughness feature that is vital to ensure superwettability. But, there are still only a few studies that have shown an enhanced durability of nanoscale superwetting films at certain extreme environment. In this study, we fabricated intrinsically stable superwetting films using the organosilicate based layer-by-layer (LbL) self-assembly method in order to control nano-sized roughness of the multilayer structures. In order to develop mechanically and chemically robust surfaces, we successfully introduced polymeric silsesquioxane as a building block for LbL assembly with desired fashion. Even in the case that the superhydrophobic outer layers were damaged, the films maintained their superhydrophobicity because of the hydrophobic nature of their inner layers. As a result, we successfully fabricated superwetting nano-films and evaluated their robustness and stability.
Architecture and Function of Mechanosensitive Membrane Protein Lattices
Authors: Kahraman Osman , Koch Peter D. , Klug William S. , Haselwandter Christoph A.
Published: January 2016

Experiments have revealed that membrane proteins can form two-dimensional clusters with regular translational and orientational protein arrangements, which may allow cells to modulate protein function. However, the physical mechanisms yielding supramolecular organization and collective function of membrane proteins remain largely unknown. Here we show that bilayer-mediated elastic interactions between membrane proteins can yield regular and distinctive lattice architectures of protein clusters and may provide a link between lattice architecture and lattice function. Using the mechanosensitive channel of large conductance (MscL) as a model system, we obtain relations between the shape of MscL and the supramolecular architecture of MscL lattices. We predict that the tetrameric and pentameric MscL symmetries observed in previous structural studies yield distinct lattice architectures of MscL clusters and that, in turn, these distinct MscL lattice architectures yield distinct lattice activation barriers. Our results suggest general physical mechanisms linking protein symmetry, the lattice architecture of membrane protein clusters and the collective function of membrane protein lattices.
Calcium-chelating alizarin and other anthraquinones inhibit biofilm formation and the hemolytic activity of Staphylococcus aureus
Authors: Lee Jin-Hyung , Kim Yong-Guy , Yong Ryu Shi , Lee Jintae
Published: January 2016

Staphylococcal biofilms are problematic and play a critical role in the persistence of chronic infections because of their abilities to tolerate antimicrobial agents. Thus, the inhibitions of biofilm formation and/or toxin production are viewed as alternative means of controlling Staphylococcus aureus infections. Here, the antibiofilm activities of 560 purified phytochemicals were examined. Alizarin at 10 μg/ml was found to efficiently inhibit biofilm formation by three S. aureus strains and a Staphylococcus epidermidis strain. In addition, two other anthraquinones purpurin and quinalizarin were found to have antibiofilm activity. Binding of Ca2+ by alizarin decreased S. aureus biofilm formation and a calcium-specific chelating agent suppressed the effect of calcium. These three anthraquinones also markedly inhibited the hemolytic activity of S. aureus and in-line with their antibiofilm activities, increased cell aggregation. A chemical structure-activity relationship study revealed that two hydroxyl units at the C-1 and C-2 positions of anthraquinone play important roles in antibiofilm and anti-hemolytic activities. Transcriptional analyses showed that alizarin repressed the α-hemolysin hla gene, biofilm-related genes (psmα, rbf and spa) and modulated the expressions of cid/lrg genes (the holin/antiholin system). These findings suggest anthraquinones, especially alizarin, are potentially useful for controlling biofilm formation and the virulence of S. aureus.