Cultural Horizons Research Articles

Uczestnictwo w kulturze

Over the past years we have been witnessing far-reaching changes in the broadly understood sphere of cultural participation, resulting for example from the modern technology development. There still exist, however, ”traditional” cultural institutions on the cultural horizon (cinemas, theatres, museums, etc.), although their role and significance are changing. The article discusses the most recent edition of the survey of cultural participation, carried out in 2010. The first part presents general results of the survey, while the second one focuses on correlates of cultural participation. The most interesting relations between participation and a number of social and demographic variables are highlighted.

Identifying regional variability in Middle Stone Age bone technology: The case of Sibudu Cave

A few pieces of worked bone were previously reported from Sibudu, a site from KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa featuring a stratigraphic sequence with pre-Still Bay, Still Bay, Howiesons Poort, post-Howiesons Poort, late and final MSA cultural horizons. Here we describe an expanded collection of worked bones, including twenty-three pieces. Technological and use-wear analysis of these objects, and their comparison with experimental and ethnographic data, reveals that a number of specialised bone tool types (wedges, pièces esquillées, pressure flakers, smoothers, sequentially notched pieces), previously known only from the Upper Palaeolithic and more recent periods, were manufactured and used at least 30,000 years earlier at Sibudu Cave. These tools appear to be part of a local tradition because they are absent at contemporaneous or more recent southern African sites. Variability in Middle Stone Age material culture supports a scenario in which, beyond broad similarities in lithic technology, significant differences between regions, and trends of continuity at a local scale emerge in other aspects of the technical system, and in the symbolic domain. The archaeological record is revealing a complexity that prevents evaluation of the modern character of Middle Stone Age cultures in antinomic terms. We argue here that it is the detailed analysis of cultural variation that will inform us of the non-linear processes at work during this period, and contribute in the long run to explaining how and when crucial cultural innovations became established in human history.

God in de economie

God in economics? During the 20th century, in Christian churches and amongst Christian theologians a new interest was found in economics as an object of theological reflection. This article researches the nature of such theological reflection, amongst others from the critical question of how a connection can be made between a constructivist approach of theology and the analysis by today’s economic sciences of the market as an important horizon of human culture and of human communities.

Senses of the Past: The Old English Vocabulary of History

The Anglo-Saxons had a sophisticated and complex sense of history. That much is agreed upon by most Anglo-Saxonists today. The exact nature of this sense of the past, however, remains elusive and contradictory. The issue has been addressed repeatedly, not without significant results. Scholarship on this matter usually takes one of two paths which could be labelled ‘Bede’ and ‘Beowulf.’ The first approach sees Bede, in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, as the Anglo-Saxon representative of ‘standard’ early medieval historiography (together with Isidore of Seville, Gregory of Tours, and others), whose sense of the past was heavily informed by Latinate and Christian sensibilities, but who works with native material. The second sees Beowulf as the source of an original Anglo-Saxon understanding of history rooted in the legendary historical consciousness of Germanic heroic verse. For Bede (but also Ælfric or Alfred), history is a teleological (because divine) process of salvation of an entire gens — thus, historiography becomes a kind of “historical theology.” For the anonymous poets of Beowulf, The Fight at Finnsburg, and Waldere, history entails both re-creating the ancient world of the heroic age and, at the same time, mourning its passing, though it also involves negotiating present realities with its help. Most scholars agree that there is a disjunction between these two cultural horizons and choose one or the other for framing their subject of enquiry. Under these conditions, modern understanding of the greater spectrum of Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards history is bound to be fragmented. There have been attempts to bridge this gap and to counter the assumption that ‘Bede’ and ‘Beowulf’ are antagonistic approaches to history (or, indeed, that they are the only possible ones), yet even the most extensive study to date still works with this dichotomy.

Radiocarbon dating & Bayesian modelling from the Grotte du Renne & a Neanderthal origin for the Châtelperronian

Hublin et al (2012) have published a new series of AMS determinations from the site of the Grotte du Renne at Arcy-sur-Cure, one of the key sites in discussions regarding late Neanderthal behavior and adaptation. The site is well known as one of the very few Châtelperronian sites that appear to contain evidence for the range of ornaments and objects that are usually found in sites of the Proto- or Early Aurignacian in Europe, and therefore associated with anatomically modern humans. For this reason it is important that we have an idea of the chronology of the sequence here, so that we may compare it with other contexts where similar cultural horizons have been excavated.Higham et al (2010) published a series of 31 AMS dates from well-selected humanly-modified material from several layers of the site. They found variation in the results that they ascribed to taphonomic influences, which implied strongly that there was some degree of mixing of material within the site. They recommended that caution was ther...

Limonov by Emmanuel Carrère

76 | World Literature Today reviews It’s hard to praise this book too much and even more difficult to select passages for quotation: one wants to quote the entire book. Still, here’s the final passage from a poem, “The Mole,” in which, terminally ill, the speaker “has become / nothing but / a collection of quiet / tics and twitches / as if something / wanted out / of his riddled bones . . . as if joy / were the animal / in him, blind, / scrabbling, earth- / covered creature / tunneling / up from God / knows where to stand / upright, feasting / on distances, gazing / dead into the sun.” What supremely intelligent lineation we see here, compounding meaning. In “A Good Landscape for Grief,” we read: “a moment / opens and opens in the end / of days like a rose / on which a bee in all its hirsute specificity / has landed, its feelers feeling / everything as it crawls slowly inside, / and never comes out.” These poems will stun you into admiration, despair, joy, laughter, anger, and deep sobriety as you accompany the speaker into the prospect of his final hours, wondering if you yourself will have the dignity, honesty, and insight that he has, who, having endured, though riven, is somehow made whole. Fred Dings University of South Carolina miscellaneous Emmanuel Carrère. Limonov. Paris. P.O.L. 2011. isbn 9782818014059 The Prix Théophraste-Renaudot is one of the five major literary prizes in France, second only to the Prix Goncourt in terms of the prestige it confers . Created in 1926, the Renaudot is typically awarded to a novel. This year marks an exception, because the prize went to Emmanuel Carrère for Limonov. The latter is decidedly not a novel (though it makes many gestures in the direction of the novel); rather, it is a biography. The fact that it should win the Renaudot testifies to how embattled the very idea of the novel is on the contemporary cultural horizon, where in recent years that form has been influenced in key ways by genres once imagined to be quite distinct from it: biography , autobiography, testimony, travel writing, historiography, journalism, and so forth. Carrère’s book focuses on the life of Eduard Limonov, and indeed a more “novelistic” life could hardly be imagined. Born in the Russian provinces in 1943, he was by turns a hooligan, a homeless poet, an exile, a majordomo to a New York billionaire , a soldier in dubious combat, an avant-garde memoirist, an unrepentant Stalinist, a political prisoner, a dissident among dissidents, and the founder of the National Bolshevik Party. Carrère is clearly fascinated by his subject, but that fascination is significantly distressed. He admires the man’s courage and strength of purpose on the one hand; on the other, he deplores his tendencies toward fascism and his unwavering sympathy for the Serbian cause in former Yugoslavia. Throughout the book, Carrère frets about his own motives, never quite coming to satisfactory terms with his decision to write on Limonov. In certain inevitable ways, Limonov forces Carrère to consider himself anew, and that process is an intriguing one, especially for those readers familiar with Carrère’s previous work. He recognizes in Limonov a writer determined to account for the world as he imagines it to be, and perhaps it is that which engages Carr ère so closely, as he himself searches for new ways to describe the world around us, beyond the confines of the traditional novel. Warren Motte University of Colorado Second Read: Writers Look Back at Classic Works of Reportage. James Marcus, ed. New York. Columbia University Press. 2011. isbn 9780231159319 Sometimes one forgets that opening a newspaper begs a suspension of disbelief. It’s certainly more subtle a demand than that of a Phillip K. Dick novel or some tale of dystopian apocalypse, but it does necessitate the passing of your critical-thinking reins to a beat reporter, a foreign correspondent, or some other such person “embedded” amid faraway action. That is, if a good story’s what you’re looking for. Thankfully, Second Read’s assembled troupe of Pulitzer Prize winners, contributors to the Columbia Journalism Review, professional journalists, and authors of fiction steers well clear of the intrepid...

El complejo megalítico de Monte Baranta en Cerdeña: ¿centro de peregrinaje en la Edad del Bronce Antiguo?

The imposing megalithic complex located on the Monte Baranta plateau, near the town of Olmedo in North-west Sardinia is one of the best preserved monuments of the pre-nuragic period, and pertains to the cultural horizon called Monte Claro (2500-2200 BC circa). The complex is particularly interesting in the context of late-Neolithic architecture since it was abandoned already during the Monte Claro phase, and only sporadic frequentation is documented afterwards. The site is usually interpreted as a fortified stronghold but this interpretation has many drawbacks. As a consequence, we have subjected the site to a new survey with the specific aim of gaining a better understanding of its function. Our survey, based on classical topographic observations combined with GPS measurements has led to a new reading of the megalithic complex: topographical and archaeo-astronomical data indeed clearly point to a radically new interpretation of this site as a sacred place, probably a pilgrimage centre.

Recognizing Inland Expansion of Latte Period Agriculture From Multi-Disciplinary Data on Tinian, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

ABSTRACT Archaeological investigations at the West Tinian Airport in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands have revealed evidence of inland forest clearing and associated occupation at approximately AD 1155, near the beginning of the prehistoric Latte Period. Radiocarbon dated charred Cocos nucifera nutshell from a shallow feature within a thin organic cultural horizon suggests short-term occupation of a low limestone bench above nearby clay loam soils. While direct evidence of cultivars was not encountered within the feature or on its ceramics, pollen in the soils from Cycas, Hibiscus, a non-Cocos palm family, and wetland sedge Pseudoschizaea suggest native limestone forest resources were being exploited. Clearing of this forest was suggested by the presence of macerated cellulose tissue, an unidentified starch granule, and multi-lobate fiber phytoliths on two polished basalt adzes, plus abundant charcoal in the pollen sample, one indicator of agriculture often cited in the Marianas. Three possible postholes perhaps from an insubstantial structure built on the clay loam nearby suggest this site represents a swidden field camp. The presence of quartzose hybrid sand temper in two ceramic sherds from the feature, and quartz-free volcanic sand temper in two other sherds, indicates early inland expansion of agriculture on Tinian occurred within an era of contact with Saipan and Guam, respectively.

19. Digital Enlightenment: The Myth of the Disappearing Teacher

This paper argues that the emerging post-print digital culture of knowledge creation and dissemination in higher education is even more demanding of effective and committed teaching than hitherto. This may run counter to a widespread view that the digital environment reduces the need for a strong culture of teaching, to be replaced by an educational culture of independent, self-sufficient learners. However, evidence for the precariousness of this outlook is provided by many recent reports in the United Kingdom that have illustrated how the assumptions of a ‘digital natives’ perspective on students and academics are largely inaccurate. While acknowledging the phenomenal expansion of the cultural horizon that has been afforded to students and academics in the post-print digital environment of university learning, the crucial role of the academic in the creative use of digital technology in teaching should not be underestimated, or higher education may be rendered incapable of supporting effective learning. To substantiate this viewpoint the paper presents preliminary data from a small-scale pilot survey of the take-up of information and communication technology (ICT) for teaching in our own School of Education.

Cultural horizons for mathematics

As a result of a number of government reports, there have been numerous systemic changes in Indigenous education in Australia revolving around the importance of partnerships with the community. A forum with our local Dubbo community established the importance of working together and developed a model which placed the child in an ecological perspective that particularly noted the role of Elders and the place of the child in the family. However, there was also the issue of curriculum and mathematics education to be addressed. It was recognised that a colonised curriculum reduces the vision of what might be the potential for Indigenous mathematics education. This paper reports on the sharing that developed between our local community and some researchers and teachers from Sweden, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. It has implications for recognising the impact of testing regimes, the teaching space, understanding the ways children learn, the curriculum, and teacher education. As a result of these discussions, a critical pedagogy that considers culture and place is presented as an ecocultural perspective on mathematics education. This perspective was seen as critical for the curriculum and learning experiences of Indigenous children.

Impact of earthquake-induced liquefaction and related ground failure on a Mississippian archeological site in the New Madrid seismic zone, central USA

An investigation of earthquake-induced liquefaction features and related ground failure at the East archeological site (3PO610) located near the southern end of the New Madrid seismic zone was crucial to the identification of cultural features and horizons and interpretation of archeological data. Through the examination of stratigraphic and structural relations in the archeological excavation as well as in three nearby trenches, it was determined that cultural horizons and features, including the floor of a sweat lodge, are tilted, displaced downward, and buried by a vented sand deposit, known as a sand blow. This sand blow is up to 1 m thick and is composed of four major depositional units, suggesting that it formed during a sequence of large earthquakes. The compound sand blow directly overlies cultural horizons and features, indicating that the earthquakes occurred near the end of or soon after occupation. On the basis of radiocarbon dating of samples collected above and below the sand blow, the earthquakes are estimated to have occurred between A.D. 1300 and 1670. A New Madrid earthquake sequence ca. A.D. 1450 ± 150 was the probable cause of liquefaction and ground failure at the site and may have led to cultural abandonment of the site. Ironically, the earthquakes that may have led to abandonment of the site also helped to preserve it for posterity.

Christianity and Cultures: Japan & China in Comparison 1543–1644 (review)

Reviewed by: Christianity and Cultures: Japan & China in Comparison 1543–1644 Paul A. Rule Christianity and Cultures: Japan & China in Comparison 1543–1644. By M. Antoni J. Üçerler, S.J. [Bibliotheca Instituti Historici Societatis Jesu, Vol. 68.] (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu; published in collaboration with the University of San Francisco, the Ricci Institute, and the Macau Ricci Institute. 2009. Pp. xlvi, 410. €60,00. ISBN 978-8-870-41368-7.) The study of Christianity in China and Japan for institutional and other reasons has generally taken place in mutual isolation; hence the great value of the comparative survey provided by this volume. It is appropriately based on a conference held at the end of 2006 in Macau, the place where the two Jesuit missions (in this period they were mostly Jesuit enterprises) interacted and from which they were controlled. [End Page 404] However, one conclusion that a China specialist would most likely reach from a study of this rich and rewarding collection of papers is that the two fields have more divergences than commonalities. Some of this no doubt derives from language differences and translation difficulties. Worship may mean in English extreme respect—as in the “with my body I thee worship” of the old marriage rite—but when used to translate Chinese bai or to describe ancestor rituals in a theological context, it begs the question. Chinese rituals—especially Confucian rituals, when seen through Japanese eyes, at least as presented here—are necessarily idolatrous, and the issue is seen as whether idolatry may be tolerated. This was never the case in China, where the issue was precisely whether they were idolatrous, and, as Matteo Ricci concluded, the people were certainly not idolatrous and perhaps not even superstitious, a position not reversed until in 1704 the Holy See determined otherwise. A valid question is whether the Buddho-Confucian syncretism so common in Japan is the source of this apparent confusion. There are so many original and stimulating contributions in the collection that it is impossible to do them justice individually. However, a few may be singled out for comment. William Farge’s study of “translating religious experience” through Japanese translations of Christian works in Latin points to an extremely fruitful area for further investigation, of Chinese Christian literature as well as Japanese. However, in China at least, the aim was always adaptation rather than translation (as shown in Li Sher-shiueh’s contribution to this volume), and the Latin is not as intellectualist as Farge argues. Asami Masakazu’s study of Antonio Rubino’s defense of the Jesuit position on Chinese Rites is long overdue. However, it suffers from some misconceptions about Rubino and the theological issues. Amongst the cultural issues covered in this collection are artistic exchanges. Painting and sculpture are discussed but not, unfortunately, architecture and music, which are little explored. Macau is again and appropriately the focus. Thomas Lucas, in his commentary on this section of the book, points to the irony of a probable fourteenth-century European influence on the Guanyin/Kannon imagery of mother and child in China and then Japan. He might have added the further irony of a considerable export trade in porcelain figurines of madonna and child from China to Europe, the Philippines, and the New World. The last substantial chapter, by Timothy Brook, is perhaps the most thought-provoking. Brook asks whether what was called Xixue in China or “Western learning” should rather have been labeled Europaeology, by analogy with Sinology. At stake is the basic question of universality of values and [End Page 405] knowledge. Joseph Needham states that the fundamental clash was not between East and West, but between a universalizing science, which the Jesuits, as good Renaissance scholars, upheld, and an equally universalizing Chinese science. This is not to deny the problem of restricted cultural horizons, but teaching Western philosophical and scientific paradigms was not necessarily cultural imperialism. Rather, it was, in intention at least, a “fusion of horizons” in Hans Georg Gadamer’s terms. Christianity and Cultures advances such a fusion. Paul A. Rule Ricci Institute, University of San Francisco La Trobe University, Australia Copyright © 2011 The Catholic University of America Press

Transjordan During the Nineteenth Century: Reconsidering the Relation Between Arab Tribes and Christian Religious Communities

AbstractThe article aims to reconsider the history of Ottoman Transjordan during the second half of the nineteenth century. Istanbul's decision to impose its direct control over this province triggered a process of evolution and change within local political spaces. The traditional balance of power was altered and tribes were forced to accept the authority of the Ottoman Empire. States and tribes were not the only political actors. Christian religious institutions also participated in the dynamics of change. The article reconsiders the history of a Christian village of Transjordan, Madaba, to describe the complex relationship between tribes and Christian religious communities during this period of change and evolution. The section Karak highlights the main aspects that characterized the refoundation of Madaba. In the section The Exodus and the Rebirth of Madaba, the exodus of several Christian tribes from Karak to Madaba is analyzed to explain the overlap and intertwinement between the different cultural horizons and sociopolitical logics of the two actors. The section The Village of Madaba analyzes some episodes of daily life in Madaba to detail the consequences of the interaction between tribes and religious communities. Finally, the functioning of the local sociopolitical space on which the Hashemite emirate was later founded is explained. The religious community‐tribe dyad was, in fact, part of the transition from “the tribe to the state.”

Revolution and the art of history in France: Daniel Auber’s Gustave III (1833)

Following the July Revolution of 1830, French history writing began to reflect a new personal perspective that allowed many to identify with the earlier revolution of 1789. This immediate association with the past allowed individuals to connect with history in ways that reflected themselves as well as the new political and cultural horizon. French grand opéra represented this desire for historical knowledge by displaying a dramatic narrative akin to the writings of French academic historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874). Through the analysis of the music and libretto of Daniel Auber’s Gustave III (1833) it is shown that the historical narrative found within this so-called’ opéra historique’ embraces the same historiographic narrative of revolution as found in the writings of Michelet. Such an investigation highlights the aesthetic and cultural importance of grand opéra in France as well as the genre’s relationship to national identity in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Central Asia between the Ottoman and the Soviet Worlds

Central Asia between the Ottoman and the Soviet Worlds Adeeb Khalid (bio) On 1 September 1920, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, accompanied by local militias, undertook what tsarist armies had consistently chosen to avoid. It stormed the gates of the city of Bukhara and overthrew the emir, Sayyid Alim Khan. The need to assuage British fears about Russian expansion had meant that when Russian armies conquered Transoxiana in the last third of the 19th century, they had left the rulers of Bukhara and Khiva on their thrones, ruling over much diminished territories and with their foreign relations under a Russian protectorate.1 Russian armies had occupied Bukhara in 1910, but only temporarily at the request of the emir in the aftermath of murderous sectarian clashes between the city's Sunni and Shi'i populations. The existence of the protectorate meant that Bukhara and Khiva remained beyond the reach of the Russian Revolution. While the rule of the khan of Khiva crumbled in the face of domestic insurgency, Alim Khan, ruling over the much larger realm of Bukhara, sought to maximize his independence from Russia. The fact that Turkestan was cut off by civil war from inner Russia until late 1919 helped him. By the summer of 1920, however, the Red Army had connected Turkestan back to Russia; and Mikhail Frunze, commanding the troops, grew increasingly impatient with the continued existence of the emirate. Against political opinion in Moscow, he prepared the invasion over the summer and carried it out in September. Largely for geopolitical reasons, Moscow chose not to incorporate Bukhara into Soviet [End Page 451] Turkestan after the conquest. Rather, the Red Army installed a "people's soviet republic"—a designation first dreamed up earlier that year when Khiva was similarly stormed—with the Bukharan Communist Party (BCP) as its vanguard. The BCP had been re-formed for the occasion with the forced merger of an older BCP, founded in 1918 and consisting mostly of Turkestanis and Tatars with only tenuous connections to Bukhara, and the more numerous party of the Young Bukharans, a local opposition group increasingly radicalized after 1917 and organized in Soviet Turkestan. The Young Bukharans were notable for the fact that their traditions of Muslim reform tied them in meaningful ways to late Ottoman debates. Thus it came about that an offshoot of the Ottoman political world took root in the maelstrom of the Russian Revolution. In this article I explore the ways in which post-Ottoman and early Soviet models of political and social action and of cultural transformation floated back and forth across the imperial boundaries before 1914. This was a period of great ferment in which models radicalized rapidly and became intertwined in unexpected ways. The Young Bukharan case represents in an especially acute form the predicament of Muslim reformers in the Russian Empire, who existed at the intersection of the Russian and Ottoman intellectual worlds. The collapse of the old order in both empires in 1917–18 set into motion a period of intense transformation in the political and cultural horizons of Muslim intellectuals of both empires. The Bolsheviks were always alert to the national and colonial dimensions of the Russian Revolution, and many Muslim intellectuals in the Russian Empire (and some in the Ottoman) found their model very attractive. At the same time, late Ottoman models of political and cultural reform of Muslim society, albeit interpreted in a radicalized form, continued to exert considerable influence on Muslims in both empires. The central concern of this paper is to examine the ways in which late Ottoman and early Soviet models intersected in Central Asia. Models across Empires Trade, education, Sufi initiation, and pilgrimages connected Muslim communities of the Russian empire to many parts of the broader Muslim world, from India through Arabia to Egypt. For the modernist reformers who began to emerge in the late 19th century, however, the most significant node of interest by far was the Ottoman Empire. The attraction of the Ottoman Empire for Muslim reformers lay not in some primordial religious or ethnic solidarities—as the much abused terms "pan-Islamism" and "pan-Turkism" imply—but rather in the fact that the Ottoman Empire was the...

The New Frontiers of Edutainment: The Development of an Educational and Socio-Cultural Phenomenon Over time of Globalization

Problem statement: The cultural aspect of the game lies in its extrao rdinary value as a learning tool, as even traditional model of sports, eventually took on new and expanded features. Motor-sports activities proposed in the form of pla y, are increasingly seen as a real social need, whi ch involves large and small, young and old, able-bodie d and disabled people in perspective of a practice that is not just reserved for a select few and tied to the achievement of high performance but is increasingly accessible and adapted to all individu al skills and abilities, as stated by Corona. Among the possible applications of information technology in the United States has been imagined and realized the combination of two areas or learning, education, entertainment and fun. Approach: The new roles in the training areas in Europe have crea ted a radical shift to a more focused reflection on ways and methods that can facilitate transmission o f knowledge using tools borrowed from its edutainment. In fact they are multiplying in this s ense approaches and experiences that change, depending on the cultural horizons examined the pra ctices of learning fun. Results: A cognitive knowledge cannot be separated from knowledge and thus affective learning tacit or experimental is considered effective. When we experience our feelin gs are engaged and respond directly, learning experience and its knowledge in a spontaneous and s ensory. Conclusion: Research conducted in the field has shown that recreational activities can te ach children different things: To tell stories, to know and be able to count the numbers, participate and b e together with others. Yet even for the highest ag e group we must move towards the game-teaching.

Asian urbanisms and the privatization of cities

The majority of Asia’s cities are being constructed from private funding and by private labor. This has always been the case for so-called informal settlements. Recently, however, the newly acquired socioeconomic status, aspirations, and cultural horizons of the emergent professional and business middle classes in Asia have captured both popular imagination and critical academic attention. These classes are building their own urban spaces, with or without state intervention or support. To what extent can these trends be understood by drawing upon the existing Anglophone literature, which conventionally considers the global cities of Western Europe and North America as the leading edge of urban change and theorization? What can diverse empirical cases in Asia tell us about the global privatization of urban space? Arising from a workshop on the privatization of urban space in Asia, this Viewpoint article addresses four issues that arise from comparison of several Asian cases. More specifically, this work challenges Western-centered assumptions about the spatiotemporal origins of urban change; positions Asia at the leading edge of certain urban trends that may also be discerned elsewhere; questions the prior ‘public-ness’ implied by the term ‘privatization;’ and unravels the dystopianism of Anglophone academic treatment of privately owned, constructed, or regulated spaces.

Plant economy at a late Neolithic lake dwelling site in Slovenia at the time of the Alpine Iceman

We present the results of a plant macroremain study of the late Neolithic lakeshore settlement Stare gmajne (SG) at Ljubljansko barje, Slovenia, with cultural horizons that ended around 3330 and 3110 cal. b.c., as obtained by dendrochronological and radiocarbon dating of the most frequent construction timbers of Quercus sp. (oak) and Fraxinus sp. (ash). Fourteen systematically taken samples were investigated, using standard methods for studying waterlogged plant remains, which had been developed during lake dwelling research north of the Alps. Most of the remains were preserved in a waterlogged state, and we identified a total of 93 taxa. The most important cultivated plants were Triticum dicoccum (emmer), Hordeum vulgare (six-rowed naked barley), T. monococcum (einkorn), Linum usitatissimum (flax) and Papaver somniferum (opium poppy). The numerous possibly gathered plants also included Trapa natans (water chestnut) and Vitis vinifera ssp. sylvestris (wild grapevine). Chenopodium album (goosefoot) and Brassica rapa (turnip) with seeds/fruits rich in oil and starch were probably gathered as well. Comparisons of the Stare gmajne results with contemporary north Alpine sites (NA) showed, among other things, that Triticum durum/turgidum (tetraploid naked wheat), frequent at NA, was not found at SG. Trapa natans (water chestnut) was rare and Vitis (grapevine) was not found at NA. The observed differences in the wild plant spectra may have ecological causes, for example a warmer climate south of the Alps, but differences in cultivar spectra are more likely for cultural-historical reasons.

The diachronic study of orientations: Mérida, a case study

AbstractThe study of orientations is a key ingredient in most archaeoastronomical research. Typically, a number of synchronistic monuments belonging to a given culture or cultural horizon are measured and studied in order to see if they share a similar orientation. If an astronomical orientation appears, we may apply other archaeoastronomical procedures to justify further conclusions.On a few occasions we perform studies that compare, for a given site, monuments of different periods. At most two or three periods are usually compared to verify persistence or to check for evolution in customs of orientation. We argue here that it would also be interesting to study orientations from a diachronic point of view, in order to investigate the persistence/evolution of this particular conception of space through time.Mérida (Extremadura, Spain) and the neighbouring areas present a rich and highly interesting monumental heritage spanning from the Neolithic to the present, with monuments belonging to several different periods and cultures.In the present study we will review the orientation of the monuments in that area. We will present some conclusions on the evolution/persistence of customs of orientation and value the applicability of this method to other areas.

Students’ opinion regarding types of mobility with a purpose in the construction of leisure time and limitative factors in the practice of leisure time motric activities

Problem Statement: Among the reasons that determine the modern individual to commute from his residence in order to visit another county, an area, a country we can enumerate: the need of relaxation, physical or mental rest, of relaxing through motric activities, the need of escaping the polluted urban area and the everyday stressing life, the need of leisure through varied motion both as form and as structure, the necessity of having fun, the desire of knowing the beauties of a country, or its culture, and last, but not least, the sake for one's health. These reasons, which determine an individual to travel, summarizes the types of mobility with a purpose of building the program for one's leisure time and the touristic motivation as a form of psychological and social manifestation. We can therefore state that leisure time and touristic activities “are more and more detached from the periods which rhymed the alternation between seasons, between holiday and work, between day and night…”(Bota A., 2006) Purpose of Study: This study has been initiated in Romania staring from the research undertaken regarding the same theme in the United States of America (1979), Greece (1999). The number of subjects surveyed was made of 100 students (men and women).Research Methods: Bibliographic study method; Observation method; Enquiry method (dialogue, questionnaire, etc.); Pedagogical experiment method; Statistical-mathematical method; Graphical method. Findings: The following research started from the hypothesis that there is a new touristic culture structuring, in which game activities are intertwined, and the symbols of leisure time (holidays, travels, sports, arts, cultural aspects) are combined and penetrate one's social consciousness, offering new identities. Conclusions: The study permitted the verification of the hypothesis. Tourism, sports tourism, leisure time activities, determine the apparition and the development of social connections, it contributes to the development of an understanding and peaceful climate, it activates people's financial possibilities and leisure time, enlarging enriching their cultural horizon. Furthermore, it contributes to one's health regeneration, work capacity, at improving one's knowledge, at the satisfaction of spiritual motivation, and at the creation of an understanding and peaceful climate between the peoples.