Historical Data Sources Research Articles

Digital historical research and the repositioning of Africa in knowledge production

Africa�s historical knowledge production has exhibited promising signs of progress, particularly in strengthening the continent�s weak link in the global knowledge network. While such knowledge ought to intersect and interact with other bodies of knowledge from the rest of the world, the terrain is shifting quickly due to changing historical circumstances. This study deploys a case study of Zimbabwe to illustrate how the slow digital transformation in historical research has hindered efforts to confront the overarching question of constrained knowledge production in Africa. The over-reliance of economic history, archaeology, or history on the use of centralised state archives poses complex methodological challenges, particularly for the study of the recent African past. Despite the advantages offered by digital humanities, the research options for these disciplines continue to shrink in the face of serious discomfort by academics in embracing digital sources of data that complement paper-based archival evidence and re-gear the continent�s research performance. The article stresses that the sources of historical data, particularly on Africa�s post-colonial history, can be found in digital form outside state repositories.

Intercomparison of Bias-Correction Data Sources and Their Influence on Watershed-Specific Downscaling Climate Projections

HighlightsBias correction from three historical data sources (NCDC, PRISM, and NEXRAD) were assessed.Bias correction removed watershed-average bias in general circulation model (GCM) data for a historical period.Subbasin-specific variability was detected in future projections for each bias-correction data source.Data source had less impact on uncertainty in future projections than GCM or a representative concentration pathway.Uncertainty from bias-correction data sources was higher for precipitation than for temperature.Abstract. Climate projections developed by general circulation models (GCM) are often used in watershed modeling applications to project future hydrologic changes. In many models, the climate projections are downscaled to individual map units represented by grid cells or subbasins. Uncertainty of downscaled climate projections are a product of uncertainties arising mainly from the model itself, from the representative concentration pathway (RCP), and from the downscaling procedure. Other sources of uncertainty may include the historical observations used for GCM bias correction and data aggregation from GCM grids to map (often subbasin) units. This study evaluated effects of three sources of historical data (ground-based weather station network, NCDC, and two gridded datasets, NEXRAD and PRISM) on historical variability, and shifts and uncertainty in precipitation and temperature projections. Climate projections from six GCMs and three RCPs were evaluated in 54 subbasins of the Smoky Hill River watershed in the U.S. Central Great Plains. Bias correction of GCM projections reduced bias of watershed-average annual precipitation in the historical period to near zero, but subbasin-specific variability remained in future projections with little difference among bias-correction data sources. For minimum and maximum temperatures, the GCM ensemble statistics for basin-average and subbasin-specific future projections were similar for all bias-correction data sources. Increase in RCP forcing was found to widen the uncertainty in future projections. Overall, the uncertainty due to data source selection was smaller than the uncertainty due to GCM model and RCP forcing selection. The results demonstrate that statistical downscaling is essential to account for local climate factors within a watershed, and that both weather station-based and gridded bias-correction data sources can be used effectively, but that future climate projections may inherit the historical bias in a selected data source. These inherent uncertainties associated with application of GCMs in hydrological and geospatial modeling should be carefully considered for understanding climate projections when building watershed models and interpreting the results. Keywords: Bias correction, Climate change, Downscaling, GCM, Uncertainty, Watershed.

Urban Economics in a Historical Perspective: Recovering Data with Machine Learning

A recent literature has used a historical perspective to better understand fundamental questions of urban economics. However, a wide range of historical documents of exceptional quality remain underutilised: their use has been hampered by their original format or by the massive amount of information to be recovered. In this paper, we describe how and when the flexibility and predictive power of machine learning can help researchers exploit the potential of these historical documents. We first discuss how important questions of urban economics rely on the analysis of historical data sources and the challenges associated with transcription and harmonisation of such data. We then explain how machine learning approaches may address some of these challenges and we discuss possible applications.

Penetrating Historical Discourse’s Truth Matrix: A Corpus Analysis of Oral History Testimonies

Historical Discourse’s Truth Matrix was first posited by Michel Foucault to describe the emergence of a discourse of historical events subsequent to the cessation of war and established by the most powerful arbiters of those events. This paper adapts the implements of Foucault’s toolbox to conceptualise the dimensions of subjectivity that historical events pass through from the original event to the subsequent depictions of those events in historical writing or other media. The Corpus of Irish Historical Narratives (COIHN) is a one-million-word representative corpus of oral-history witness testimonies taken from the Bureau of Military History Archive (BMH) which depict the events surrounding the Irish struggle for independence from the lead up to the 1916 rising to the signing of the Anglo-Irish treaty in 1921. The archive provides a rich source of both historical, social and cultural data and has been the source of many publications pertaining to events of this pivotal time in Irish history. This study takes a hybrid corpus-driven and corpus-based approach to the analysis of epistemic modality in these statements through hedged expressions using mental process verbs and, in doing so, offers a framework for the analysis of a core dimension of historical discourse’s truth matrix. The notion of ‘paradoxical authority’ is proposed, stating that the authority of a witness is boosted rather than mitigated by expressing weak commitment to the truth of a proposition.

Psychology as a Historical Science.

Psychology has traditionally seen itself as the science of universal human cognition, but it has only recently begun seriously grappling with cross-cultural variation. Here we argue that the roots of cross-cultural variation often lie in the past. Therefore, to understand not only how but also why psychology varies, we need to grapple with cross-temporal variation. The traces of past human cognition accessible through historical texts and artifacts can serve as a valuable, and almost completely unutilized, source of psychological data. These data from dead minds open up an untapped and highly diverse subject pool. We review examples of research that may be classified as historical psychology, introduce sources of historical data and methods for analyzing them, explain the critical role of theory, and discuss how psychologists can add historical depth and nuance to their work. Psychology needs to become a historical science if it wants to be a genuinely universal science of human cognition and behavior.

Hispanic Poems in Philippine Literature: Materials in teaching Regional Culture and History

This paper discussed the use of Hispanic poems as sources of Filipino culture and local historical data (directly or indirectly mentioned in the poems), in teaching regional culture (of Bicol) and history. The poems are originally written in Spanish language and are translated into English by Hornedo. The analysis employed qualitative-descriptive approach of literary criticism, anchored on the theory of New Historicism and formalist-contextualist approach. In particular, the analysis delved on the content rather than on form and structure. Findings revealed that the poems are good sources of information about the image of the places in terms of physical and cultural milieu. Furthermore, the poems were found to be reflective of reliable materials in understanding Bicol soil and of the way of life of its inhabitants. These findings suggest that literature and history be taught side by side with original materials from a certain locality that eventually unveil cultural identity.

Reconstruction of Xi Qingling Temple in Guilin: Cultural, Moral, Ethical, Economic and Tourist Prospects

Today, the state reconstruction policies for historical sites in China represent strategic long-term plans that meet the heritage conservation demands of the public. Once Buddhism consolidated in China, the extant architectural designs of Buddhist temples, statues and wall paintings became an important source of historical data in the Chinese Buddhism research. This study focuses on one of these extant architectural pieces—the Xi Qingling Temple in the city of Guilin. Given the spiritual and historical value of the Xi Qingling Temple, restoring it will go deep with not only the Chinese society but also the large Buddhist community. In the plan for temple reconstruction, the priority is laid on blending in the rebuilt construction seamlessly with its unique surroundings. In this regard, the study aims to reveal the social and cultural aspects that influenced how the Xi Qingling Temple was designed, which were then incorporated into a macro-plan of the symbolic and cultural reconstruction of an historical object. The economic impacts of this reconstruction project were examined.

Applying the usual rules to an unusual ecological situation: Fire rotation in Great Lakes Pine Forests

Fire regimes in Eastern North America are often determined from historical data because land-use change and natural resource policy have confounded natural fire processes. It is good practice to combine multiple historical data sources, which can serve to both corroborate findings and fill knowledge gaps that might exist when trying to gain a full picture of historical ecological processes. In the Great Lakes Region (GLR) fire rotation, or the number of years it takes to burn an area equivalent to the area of interest, is an extensively used metric that has been calculated based on the Euro-American settlement era General Land Office Public Land Survey (GLO) records. However, fire rotation methods and GLO records are best suited for understanding high-severity fire, and low- to moderate-severity fires have received less attention in forested ecosystems in this region. We used dendrochronological (tree-ring) data to evaluate GLO data and fire rotation methods in relation to low-severity fires. Tree-ring and GLO data were well-aligned in some ways, with high concurrence of tree species, tree density, and common fire dates. However, GLO data did not identify fires for survey points closest to any of our sites (n = 26), though 71% of sites burned within one year and all sites burned within 8 years of surveys. Mean fire return intervals for our sites ranged from 2 to 9 years for all fires and 6–20 years for fires recorded on ≥25% of samples within sites (1602–2018) with relatively minor effects of filtering on return intervals. Thus, fires were historically frequent and widespread within sites. We estimate that fires burned on average 858 km2 to 2564 km2 per year within five ecological landscapes with rotation intervals ranging between 11 (Northeast Sands) and 34 years (Northern Highlands; µ = 22 years across all five landscapes). We found 25 regional fire years that were synchronous among multiple (2–5) ecological landscapes over a 218-yr period with evidence that drought plays a role in regionally widespread fire years. High-severity fire was likely limited in the GLR; however, low- to moderate-severity fires were abundant, large-scale, widespread, and an important forcing mechanism shaping forests of the GLR over millennia.

First records of modified snake bones in the Pre-Columbian archaeological record of the Lesser Antilles: Cultural and paleoecological implications

The past distribution of Boa snakes and their interactions with Pre-Columbian human populations in the Lesser Antilles (Caribbean) remain enigmatic. These snakes currently have a patchy distribution in the islands and are nearly absent from archaeological deposits. This raises questions about whether their absence from Pre-Columbian contexts should be interpreted from a biological or a cultural point of view. In this study, I provide three new references to Boa remains from archaeological and natural deposits on the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, most of which were manufactured into beads. These are the first objects in the Lesser Antilles known to be manufactured using snake bones and all appear to be made from Boa, despite a wider diversity of snakes occurring in this region. Using these new observations and combined pieces of evidence from archaeological, historical, and biological data sources, I propose that the extreme scarcity of Boa in zooarchaeological assemblages reflects their prominent status in Pre-Columbian Amerindian communities.

A relational ethic of rural home support on two Gulf Island communities, 1978–2018

Since their widespread establishment in the 1970s, home support services across Canada have been subject to shifting state logics, policies, and funding models. The impacts and responses of local actors differ across historical, socio-cultural, and geographical settings. This paper traces the development and evolution of a small home support society on two rural islands off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Using historical and current data sources, we demonstrate that local actors have consistently engaged a relational ethic that challenges neo-liberal discourses and practices. Our central thesis is that the islands' distinct social, cultural, and rural features set the context for particular constructions of relational care. We identify three themes central to a relational ethic of home support on two rural islands: the strength of intergenerational connections, community-embedded relationships, and care as compassionate civic engagement. Within each theme, we consider how shifting policy structures inform changes over time in the nature and delivery of home support. To conclude, we elaborate on the conditions that allow for relational care to flourish in a particular rural context, and on the potential relevance to other settings.

Improvement and Application Analysis of Lake Water Body Tracking and Recognition Algorithm

Basing on 30 years’ historical image data sources of Sanshan Lake between 1986 and 2017, this paper proposes a water body tracking and recognition algorithm according to the complex water area features of the lake and its branches to conduct the extraction of the historical water surface area and analysis on influence factors of Sanshan Lake. Comparing to conventional image extraction methods such as the region growing algorithm and the two-pass scanning method, this method shows its advantage of being fast and accurate. By analysing the water surface variation law of Sanshan Lake in 30 years and the influence factors, the area of Sanshan Lake is found to show a significant attenuation trend with the annual average attenuation rate reaches 0.98%; the water surface area weakly correlated with the precipitation change; the lake shore waterline line retreated 0.3- 10 meters in the 30 years; the pond and farmland area increased by 133%, indicating that the regulation of the lake water body is more affected by the lake shoreline dike and the Regulating capacity of gate pump.

Examining the seascape of compliance in U.S. Pacific island fisheries

Noncompliance is a major threat to marine social-ecological systems. Recent noncompliance research has focused on illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fisheries and capacity shortfalls in marine protected areas (MPAs), but less work has assessed other aspects of noncompliance. Although there is wide recognition of the role of noncompliance in governance failures, the academic literature on compliance rarely acknowledges the connections between governance processes, compliance activities, and management outcomes. Likewise, scholars often highlight instrumental approaches that include law enforcement tools, instead of a diverse suite of non-instrumental interventions that encourage voluntary compliance through education, outreach, and targeted behavior change. We sought to understand the seascape of compliance across the United States Pacific islands region, an area of 5.83 million km2 that includes Hawai'i, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and one of the world's largest MPAs. The region includes commercial, subsistence, and non-commercial fisheries, and a diversity of cultures that rely on them. To examine compliance, we employed a qualitative approach, including an extensive review of historical and archival data sources, an analysis of the fisheries management literature in the region, and 29 expert interviews. While the literature highlighted the importance of enforcement, experts called attention to multiple factors that affected compliance, such as capacity, governance processes, and a lack of data. Although several fisheries may benefit from an increased enforcement presence, we argue that non-instrumental and governance approaches can complement enforcement and should be part of an integrated compliance approach both in the region and worldwide.

Fish rubbings, 'gyotaku', as a source of historical biodiversity data.

Methods for obtaining historical biodiversity information are mostly limited to examining museum specimens or surveying past literature. Such materials are sometimes time limited due to degradation, discarding, or other loss. The Japanese cultural art of ‘gyotaku’, which means “fish impression” or “fish rubbing” in English, captures accurate images of fish specimens, and has been used by recreational fishermen and artists since the Edo Period (the oldest known ‘gyotaku’ was made in 1839). ‘Gyotaku’ images often include distributional information, i.e., locality and sampling date. To determine the extent and usefulness of these data, field and questionnaire surveys targeting leisure fishing and boating stores were conducted in the following regions where threatened or extinct fishing targets exist (four regions including the northernmost to the southernmost regions). As a result, 261 ‘gyotaku’ rubbings were digitally copied with their owners’ consents. From these, distributional data were extracted for 218 individuals, which roughly represented regional fish faunas and common fishing targets. The peak number of ‘gyotaku’ stocked at the surveyed shops was made in 2002, while ones made before 1985 were much fewer. The number of ‘gyotaku’ rubbings made in recent years shows a recovery trend after 2011–2012. The present study demonstrates the validity of examining ‘gyotaku’ for historical biodiversity information.

Generating Substantially Complete Landslide Inventory using Multiple Data Sources: A Case Study in Northwest Himalayas, India

Abstract Landslide inventory contains basic information about landslides such as location, classification, morphometry, volume, run-out distance, activity, date of occurrence, damages caused etc. In most landslide inventory maps only spatio-temporal distribution of slope failures is shown. A complete portrayal of landslide inventory, both in number of landslides mapped and associated attributes such as morphometry, classification etc. is a must as it has bearing on the estimation of landslide susceptibility, hazard and risk. Despite of its enormous importance, landslide inventory is rarely found to be complete. This can be attributed to limited availability of requisite data and the inherent uncertainties in landslide inventory mapping from different sources and importantly the insufficient field inputs. In the present work in the Mandakini valley of Uttarakhand Himalayas attempts have been made to prepare a substantially complete landslide inventory, both in terms of number of landslides and attributes, using multifarious data sources substantiated with thorough field checks. Supplementary historical data sources along with the conventional data sources have been used to prepare the inventory. The approach followed includes pre-field mapping of landslides from different Earth Observation (EO) data followed by interpretation of archival records and detailed field surveys. The data available for the period 1962 to 2013 were used to build up the inventory database in GIS. A total of 644 landslides have been mapped and attributed using conventional EO data and also the different supplementary data sources for an area covering 400 sq. km. An inventory of 151 landslides prepared from EO data have been confirmed and updated during the field study. Finally, the detailed landslide inventory prepared during the course of this study was analysed to understand the behaviour of landslides and role of triggering factors in susceptibility mapping and the geo-environmental conditions governing the magnitude of the event.

System approach for Digital History

Present advanced capabilities for information storage and a clear presentation, uncover the possibility of accumulation in digital form large volumes of historical data. For this purpose, it is necessary to establish the theoretical foundations and principles of formalization and presentation of historical knowledge. This paper presents the description and experience of practical implementation of the developed methods for formalization and analysis of historical data sources.

Subcarpathian Ruthenia in conditions of pre-war international crisis of 1938 and territorial encroachments of neighboring states (on regional press materials)

Through the prism of the Subcarpathian press of the first third of the twentieth century, the tragic period of establishment of the Ukrainian statehood on the eve of World War II, the struggle for the free development of the Ukrainian nation on the territory of Subcarpathian Ruthenia due to the Munich Agreement and the dangerous political game of England, France, Germany and Italy, as well as Poland and Hungary, in the epicenter of ambitions of which Transcarpathia was caught, is delineated. Further development was given to the issues of struggle of the Ukrainians in Transcarpathia for the realization of the “peoples’ right to self-determination” in the course of the forceful formation of the joint Polish-Hungarian border after the Second Czechoslovak crisis of 1938, which had given rise to the actual division of Czechoslovakia on the one hand, and the intensification of Ukrainians’ national aspirations - on the other. The geopolitical aspects of the game of the Central Powers, as well as of Poland and Hungary in the process of “redrawing Europe”, the international peculiarities of the policy of appeasement of an aggressor of 1938 as a process of concessions and losses, in which the Transcarpathian lands remained as currency and the government of the autonomous Subcarpathian Ruthenia had to struggle alone against imperial revisionism, aggressive propaganda and destructive armed sabotage, were analyzed. Based on the Transcarpathian periodicals, the development of relations between the Carpathian Ukraine and practically the only foreign-policy partner - Germany - is shown in the context of the formation of the Hitler’s strategy of the “Eurasian Axis”, where the Ukrainian lands had a significant role. Factors of influence on the formation of the new European political reality and the role of the Ukrainian country in it are investigated. When using the press as a key source of historical data, a comprehensive picture of the Central Powers’ encroachments and aspirations and their practical intentions in an international crisis is reflected.

African Diasporic Choices

The year 2017 marked the centennial transfer of the Virgin Islands from Denmark to the United States. In light of this commemoration, topics related to representations of the past, and the preservation of heritage in the present -- entangled with the residuum of Danish colonialism and the lasting impact of U.S. neo-imperial rule -- are at the forefront of public dialogue on both sides of the Atlantic. Archaeological and archival research adds historical depth to these conversations, providing new insights into the lived experiences of Afro-Crucians from enslavement through post-emancipation. However, these two sources of primary historical data (i.e., material culture and documentary evidence) are not without their limitations. This article draws on Black feminist and post-colonial theoretical frameworks to interrogate the historicity of archaeological and archival records. Preliminary archaeological and archival work ongoing at the Estate Little Princess, an 18th-century former Danish sugar plantation on the island of St. Croix, provides the backdrop through which the potentiality of archaeological and documentary data are explored. Research questions centered on exploring sartorial practices of self-making engaged by Afro-Crucians from slavery through freedom are used to illuminate spaces of tension as well as productive encounters between the archaeological and archival records.

Novas Medidas de Educação e de Desigualdade Educacional para a Primeira Metade do Século XX no Brasil

Resumo Este artigo descreve a trajetória do nível e da desigualdade educacional no Brasil desde a primeira metade do século XX. Combinamos diversas fontes de dados históricos, tais como os relatórios do Ministério de Negócios do Império, os Anuários Estatísticos do Brasil e os Censos Demográficos para construir novas medidas de escolaridade e calcular índices de Gini educacional entre 1900 e 2000 para cada região e para o Brasil como um todo. Nossos resultados mostram que entre 1900 e 1930, a proporção de pessoas com ensino primário completo na população permaneceu em torno de 5%, ao passo que a parcela com ensino secundário completo esteve sempre abaixo de 1% e que somente 0,3% tinham ensino superior completo. Assim, a desigualdade educacional permaneceu constante até 1920, declinou lentamente entre 1920 e 1950 e mais rapidamente somente a partir de então.

Tracking and analyzing dynamics of news-cycles during global pandemics

How does the tone of reporting during a disease outbreak change in relation to the number of cases, categories of victims, and accumulating deaths? How do newspapers and medical journals contribute to the narrative of a historical pandemic? Can data mining experts help history scholars to scale up the process of examining articles, extracting new insights and understanding the public opinion of a pandemic? We explore these problems in this paper, using the 19thcentury Russian Flu epidemic as an example. We study two different types of historical data sources: the US medical discussion and popular reporting during the epidemic, from its outbreak in late 1889 through the successive waves that lasted through 1893. We analyze and compare these articles and reports to answer three major questions. First, we analyze how newspapers and medical journals report the Russian flu and describe the situation. Next, we help historians in understanding the tone of related reports and how they vary across data sources. We also examine the temporal changes in the discussion to get an in-depth understanding of how public opinion changed about the pandemic. Finally, we aggregate all of the algorithms in an easy to use framework GrippeStory to help history scholars investigate historical pandemic data in general, across chronological periods and locations. Our extensive experiments and analysis on a large number of historical articles show that GrippeStory gives meaningful and useful results for historians and it outperforms the baselines.

Transformation of the Vltava Historical Riverine Landscape within the Modern Times

Transformation of the Vltava Historical Riverine Landscape within the Modern Times