Bourges in the Earlier Iron Age: An Interim View

Author(s):  
Ralston Ian

Berry in central France figures frequently in assessments of the level of complexity in western temperate Europe at the annexation of Gallia comata in 52 BC. Information from a number of sites, particularly Levroux (Indre: e.g. Büchsenschütz et al. 1988; 1992; 2000; Krausz 1993), contributes to what is now a tolerably well-understood pattern, contrasting markedly with the poorly known settlement record for the earlier Iron Age of the area. One site forms a conspicuous exception. For the end of the Hallstatt Iron Age and the initial phase of its successor—broadly the decades either side of 500 BC— Bourges (Cher) is now known to be of critical importance, not only in regional terms, but also as a variant of the elite phenomenon known as the Fürstensitze that occurs widely across west-central temperate Europe. It will come as no surprise that the first English-language author to recognize the emerging importance of this site was Barry Cunliffe in The Ancient Celts, and it is thus with pleasure that this interim statement on Bourges and its immediate hinterland at the time of the transition from the Hallstatt to La Tène Iron Age has been prepared. Since 1995, with Jacques Troadec, the municipal archaeologist, Olivier Büchsenschütz, Pierre-Yves Milcent and others, the author has been excavating within and on the periphery of Bourges—by the first century BC certainly Avaricum of the Bituriges—as part of a long-term rescue project on that site and its surroundings. A few, selected aspects of this are considered below. The pace of development, and evolving legislative arrangements for rescue archaeology, mean that other important sites in the commune have been examined by Alexis Luberne and colleagues in the State Archaeological Rescue Service, INRAP, and reference to some of their work is included below. The rate of change in and around the city, particularly as military establishments—many initially set up at the time of the 1870 Franco-Prussian war—are redeveloped for light industry, and new housing, transport and other infrastructure is constructed, provides much scope for new discoveries; what follows is thus by necessity provisional.

2021 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-450
Author(s):  
Jonathan Ben-Dov

AbstractAdministrators in ancient Judah used schematic 30-day months and a 360-day year alongside other annual frameworks. This year was never practiced as a “calendar” for any cultic or administrative purpose, but rather served as a convenient framework for long-term planning, as well as for literary accounts that were not anchored to a concrete calendar year. Examples for such a usage are attested here from Mesopotamian texts. Material evidence for the 360-day year in Judah comes forth from a series of small perforated bone plaques from various sites in Iron Age Judah. One such item was recently unearthed in the city of David. These objects can reasonably be understood as reflecting a schematic 360-day year, serving as desk calendars for Judahite administrators. Several priestly pentateuchal texts are best understood against this background, such as the dating of some festivals and most notably the dates in the Flood narrative (Gen 7–8). The original dating system is best represented in LXX Gen 7:11, while the reading of MT is a late modification, inserted later, when calendar debates took a central place in the religious discourse. MT is thus a link in a chain of later reworking of this narrative in Second Temple literature. The 360-day year is thus a unique case where material culture dovetails with literary evidence, and may shed light on the material culture of priestly sources. This insight is significant for future studies of biblical time reckoning.


Author(s):  
Konstantin L. Lidin ◽  
Maria E. Sumenkova

From the behavioural economy point of view, the image of a region becomes more and more important. Image has strong influence on forming the demographic situation, at the level of investment attractiveness and some other aspects of competitiveness of a region. Image is mostly important for tourist business development.Throughout the last fifteen years we have developed methods that enable measuring the emotional essence of images with high objectivity and accuracy. First of all, the given methods are intended for studying the most widespread forms of image – verbal and visual ones. Both techniques exist in the form of computer programmes which provide high speed and enable analysing big amounts of initial data.The emotional spectrum of statements of Kraków visitors (on the materials of English language tourist blogs) contains a relatively high share of emotions of grief, fear and anger. It is possible to assume that for tourists from Central and Western Europe, visiting Kraków is emotionally somehow close to visiting Siberia, both are thought of as “East” for them.On the contrary, the emotional essence of advertising materials is strongly shifted towards emotions of interest and pride. The advertising materials devoted to many other tourist magnets of Europe, America or Asia have similar spectrums. As a result, the image of Kraków is deprived of individuality. Uniqueness of the city is not reflected.The narrow and monotonous emotional spectrum of advertising can push away a potential tourist. The emotional maintenance of advertising materials forms quite certain expectations of a potential buyer (tourist). Discrepancy between the emotions promised by advertising and the real experience leaves an impression of deceit, not justified expectations. In a long-term prospect, such advertising inevitably reduces tourist appeal and competitiveness of the region.


2019 ◽  
pp. 242-294
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Pratt ◽  
Martin V. Melosi

Houston began the twentieth century as a small cotton port linked to the Gulf of Mexico by a ship channel. It became an important center of oil production and refining before World War II, a leading producer during the war and its aftermath, and the global capital of energy focusing on technological innovation, refining, and petrochemicals as the world economy globalized. As it grew, the city drew migrants, Anglo- and African-American, from the U.S. South, many from Louisiana, to become a diverse but not simply segregated city. The long-term economic benefits of oil-led development allowed unequal yet shared gains and funded the rise of leading medical centers, sustaining a diversified economy after the 1980s oil bust made it a symbol of a major city built on oil. It expanded employment and improved infrastructure, but economic opportunities and physical growth came with high environmental costs, including health challenges and urban problems ranging from water supply, to pollution, to chronic flooding—as the city grew with a new wave of migration from Mexico into the twenty-first century.


2018 ◽  
pp. 91-110
Author(s):  
Paul A. Shackel

Northeastern Pennsylvania has undergone long-term deindustrialization, and the region has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. In the late 1990s, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania provided major tax breaks to corporations, and many companies moved their fulfillment centers to the region. Latinos, mostly of Dominican descent, have migrated to the area to fill these low-skilled positions. As a result, Hazleton’s Latino population has risen from 4 percent in 2000 to 37 percent in 2010, and by 2020 it will be a majority minority community. Fearing undocumented workers, the City of Hazleton passed anti-immigration laws, which have helped fuel anti-immigration sentiment across the United States. The memory of Lattimer and recognition of the undocumented status of the victims have been employed to protest this type of legislation.


Author(s):  
Bart Eeckhout ◽  
Rob Herreman ◽  
Alexander Dhoest

AbstractThis chapter investigates the historical permutations of those areas that come closest to qualifying as lesbian and gay neighborhoods in Antwerp, the largest city in Flanders (the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). Although Antwerp has come to be represented as the “gay capital” of Flanders, it never developed a full-fledged gay neighborhood in the Anglo-American tradition of the concept. The clustering of sexual minorities in the city has been limited largely to the economic, social, and cultural business of (nightlife) entertainment, with lesbian and gay meeting places historically concentrating in particular neighborhoods that, moreover, have shifted over time and dissipated again. The chapter’s fine-grained analysis intends to reveal geographic, social, and cultural specificities for which a more detailed understanding of both the Antwerp and the Belgian contexts is necessary. Its tripartite structure is shaped by the specific heuristic conditions set by it. Because the larger historical context for the investigated subject remains to be written, the chapter first undertakes a substantial and panoramic survey of the emergence of gay nightlife in Antwerp during the early half of the twentieth century. This provides the framework needed for a more detailed analysis in the second part, which zooms in on an area in the immediate vicinity of the Central Station and takes as its emblematic focus one sufficiently long-term and iconic gay bar, called Café Strange. Finally, the chapter zooms out again to sketch how even such a limited gay nightlife cluster in Antwerp has evaporated again in the course of the twenty-first century, leaving a landscape that is hard to map and largely virtual.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-73
Author(s):  
R. D. Oktyabrskiy

The article is devoted to the justification of the need to reduce the population density in the residential development of cities. The analysis of vulnerability of the urban population from threats of emergency situations of peace and war time, and also an assessment of provision of the city by a road network is given. Proposals have been formulated to reduce the vulnerability of the urban population in the long term and to eliminate traffic congestion and congestion — jams.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Sarah Hackett

Drawing upon a collection of oral history interviews, this paper offers an insight into entrepreneurial and residential patterns and behaviour amongst Turkish Muslims in the German city of Bremen. The academic literature has traditionally argued that Turkish migrants in Germany have been pushed into self-employment, low-quality housing and segregated neighbourhoods as a result of discrimination, and poor employment and housing opportunities. Yet the interviews reveal the extent to which Bremen’s Turkish Muslims’ performances and experiences have overwhelmingly been the consequences of personal choices and ambitions. For many of the city’s Turkish Muslim entrepreneurs, self-employment had been a long-term objective, and they have succeeded in establishing and running their businesses in the manner they choose with regards to location and clientele, for example. Similarly, interviewees stressed the way in which they were able to shape their housing experiences by opting which districts of the city to live in and by purchasing property. On the whole, they perceive their entrepreneurial and residential practices as both consequences and mediums of success, integration and a loyalty to the city of Bremen. The findings are contextualised within the wider debate regarding the long-term legacy of Germany’s post-war guest-worker system and its position as a “country of immigration”.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ida Royani ◽  
T. Silvana Sinar

This study investigated the English students’ attitudes of IAIN Padangsidimpuan towards both English language teaching in terms of (a) language-centered, (b) learner-centered, and (c) learning-centered method; and learning English in terms of scales (a) attitudes toward long-term English learning, (b) interest in culture and communication, (c) perception about studying in school context, (d) images associated with English, (e) English learning activities, (f) exposure to English outside school, (g) self-rated four English skills, (h) self-reported academic English grade, and (i) identification of English role models. The data were obtained by questionnaire and interview from 10 selected students in which 4 male and 6 female students in 7th semester and were analyzed by steps provided by Gay, L.R and Airasian (1996). The result showed:  first, English students’ attitudes towards English language teaching had been found highly onlearning-centered method, followed by learner-centered method in second range, and almost negative view in language-centered method.Second, English students’ attitudes towards English language learningwere positivein scales; long-term English learning, interest in communication, and images associated with English.  Third, role of students’ gender on English language learning were not found. Reasons for this statement are (i) status of English as international language and (ii) equalization of getting education for male and female. Keywords: attitude, language teaching, language learning, and gender


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 72-85
Author(s):  
Nilanjana Ghoshal ◽  
Mst Tania Parveen ◽  
Dr Asraful Alam

In India, traditionally and from time immemorial, marriage has always been a sacred bond for people of this country. The aim of this study is to explain a socially sanctioned sex relationship involving people of two opposite gender whose relationship is expected to endure beyond time required for gestation. The functional method of the study has been set up on the field-based observation to find out the reasons behind rising of marital disharmony among working couples. But the problem is initially in modern times the concept of marriage is gradually taking a different turn between couples. Hence the focus of this paper is to study the various factors giving rise to marital disharmonies among working couples in urban India and how these discords can be solved so that couples can lead a happy harmonious married life ahead. Survey has been done in the city of Kolkata taking people from various walks of life. As Kolkata is one of the major Metropolitan cities of India it was easier to find people belonging to different professions. The result of this study is every marriage brings challenges in life. Maximum working couples are losing attachment with each other as they have lack of time for each other. Bringing work at home, sharing of parenthood, indifference towards each other, lack of adjustments are the causes for which level of disharmony is increasing.


Author(s):  
John Toye

This book provides a survey of different ways in which economic sociocultural and political aspects of human progress have been studied since the time of Adam Smith. Inevitably, over such a long time span, it has been necessary to concentrate on highlighting the most significant contributions, rather than attempting an exhaustive treatment. The aim has been to bring into focus an outline of the main long-term changes in the way that socioeconomic development has been envisaged. The argument presented is that the idea of socioeconomic development emerged with the creation of grand evolutionary sequences of social progress that were the products of Enlightenment and mid-Victorian thinkers. By the middle of the twentieth century, when interest in the accelerating development gave the topic a new impetus, its scope narrowed to a set of economically based strategies. After 1960, however, faith in such strategies began to wane, in the face of indifferent results and general faltering of confidence in economists’ boasts of scientific expertise. In the twenty-first century, development research is being pursued using a research method that generates disconnected results. As a result, it seems unlikely that any grand narrative will be created in the future and that neo-liberalism will be the last of this particular kind of socioeconomic theory.


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