Animals and humans in complex societies

Antiquity ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (348) ◽  
pp. 1494-1496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nerissa Russell

Zooarchaeology, once largely confined to questions of subsistence and production strategies, has recently devoted much more attention to the social roles of animals in the past. Responding (belatedly) to trends in archaeological theory, on the one hand, and the growth of interdisciplinary animal studies, on the other, zooarchaeologists are now using animal remains to address a broader range of questions that are of interest to archaeologists and others (e.g. Gifford-Gonzalez 2007; Oma 2010; Hill 2013). The three books here exemplify this development, all using zooarchaeological data to explore the varied roles of animals in (mainly) complex societies. Each ranges widely and demonstrates the centrality of animals in the human world, and, therefore, their great potential to illuminate the workings of ancient societies. Each also integrates zooarchaeological data with many other sources of information to create a whole much greater than any of the parts. There is a little overlap in authorship, with a chapter by Sykes in Animals and inequality in the ancient world and contributions by Michael MacKinnon in both edited volumes. These common threads aside, they are quite different books, with different goals and audiences.

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.


1969 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-90
Author(s):  
C. R. Bawden

In general outline the pattern of government in Outer Mongolia during the Manchu dyasty in not unfamiliar and it is a well-known fact that there was no judiciary as such, the administration of justice being only one of the various duties of local officials at various levels. A certain amount of work has been done on problems of law and justice, but there remain many problems of detail to be both raised and commented upon. Two lines of inquiry are open. On the one hand it is instructive to see how the processes of investigation and trial worked—how an alleged offence came to offical notice, who investigated, how evidence was recorded, what instances a case passed through, and how, and on what legal basis, it was disposed of. Other closely related technical questions concern the form and language of official documents. On the other hand, examination of criminal cases will afford insight into the social status, living conditions, and perhaps the psychology, of the persons concerned. It is in fact largely through the medium of legal and other official documents that we shall glean whatever information there is to be had about the day to day lives of individual persons in Mongolia under the Manchus, since other sources of information—journalism, biography, fiction, letters, memoirs, and so on—are non-existent. Apart from reports of criminal cases, some of which have been dealt with in model fashion by Klaus Sagaster, much information can be found in other types of official document, such as complaints submitted by ordinary people against officials, but in the present article we shall be concerned exclusively with the report of one criminal case dating from the late eighteenth century.


Philosophy ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 58 (224) ◽  
pp. 215-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen R. L. Clark

Philosophers of earlier ages have usually spent time in considering thenature of marital, and in general familial, duty. Paley devotes an entire book to those ‘relative duties which result from the constitution of the sexes’,1 a book notable on the one hand for its humanity and on the other for Paley‘s strange refusal to acknowledge that the evils for which he condemns any breach of pure monogamy are in large part the result of the fact that such breaches are generally condemned. In a society where an unmarried mother is ruined no decent male should put a woman in such danger: but why precisely should social feeling be so severe? Marriage, the monogamist would say, must be defended at all costs, for it is a centrally important institution of our society. Political community was, in the past, understood as emerging from or imposed upon families, or similar associations. The struggle to establish the state was a struggle against families, clans and clubs; the state, once established, rested upon the social institutions to which it gave legal backing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-162
Author(s):  
Alexander Klimo

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag beleuchtet die Rolle der Rentenversicherungspolitik des Reichsarbeitsministeriums im „Dritten Reich“. Auf der einen Seite stellt er dar, wie die Rentenversicherung herangezogen worden ist, um zusätzliche Arbeitskräfte für den Arbeitseinsatz zu gewinnen. Dabei wurde die Rentenversicherung durch die Gesetzgebung des Reichsarbeitsministeriums komplett auf die Anforderungen des nationalsozialistischen Arbeitseinsatzes ausgerichtet. Auf der anderen Seite beleuchtet er die Diskriminierung von jüdischen Versicherten und Rentnern. Die zuständigen Beamten des Reichsarbeitsministeriums und der Rentenversicherungsträger besaßen umfangreiche Freiräume, um die Ziele des Regimes zu verfolgen und zu unterstützen. Die nach dem Krieg verfolgten Rechtfertigungsstrategien und die mangelhafte Aufarbeitung der eigenen Rolle im „Dritten Reich“ hinderten hohe Beamte der Sozialversicherung nicht daran, ihre Karrieren in der Sozialverwaltung der Bundesrepublik fortzuführen. Abstract Anti-Jewish policy and its coming to terms with the past. The work of the social security department of the Reich Ministry of Labour in Nazi Germany The article examines the pension insurance policy of the Reich Ministry of Labour in Nazi Germany. On the one hand, it shows how the pension insurance has been used to generate additional workforces for the labour market. The pension insurance was completely aligned by the legislation of the Reich Ministry of Labour on the requirements of the National Socialist labour service. On the other hand, it highlights discrimination against Jewish insurants and pensioners. The responsible civil servants of the Reich Ministry of Labour and the pension insurance providers used their possibilities to pursue and support the goals of the Nazi regime. The justification strategies pursued after the war and the inadequate working up of one’s own role in Nazi Germany did not preventhigh civil servants from continuing their careers in the social administration of the Federal Republic of Germany.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-348
Author(s):  
Marjorie Silverman ◽  
Shari Brotman ◽  
Marc Molgat ◽  
Elizabeth Gagnon

Based on findings from a Canadian-based study, this article examines the stories of young adult women carers. Young adult women caring for a parent or grandparent were interviewed using social network maps, participant-driven photography and care timelines. The findings reveal numerous impacts on the women’s lives, which we categorise according to three temporal periods: the past (how they came to be carers); the present (their daily realities of care); and the future (how they imagine what is ahead). We conclude with a discussion regarding the tensions between the women’s personal stories and the social forces that shape young women’s caring.


1984 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 111-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted Benton

The topic of my talk is a very ancient one indeed. It bears upon the place of humankind in nature, and upon the place of nature in ourselves. I shall, however, be discussing this range of questions in terms which have not always been available to the philosophers of the past when they have asked them. When we ask these questions today we do so with hindsight of some two centuries of endeavour in the ‘human sciences’, and some one and a half centuries of attempts to situate the human species within a theory of biological evolution. And these ways of thinking about ourselves and our relation to nature have not been confined to professional intellectuals, nor have they been without practical consequences. Social movements and political organizations have fought for and sometimes achieved the power to give practical shape to their theoretical visions. On the one hand, are diverse projects aimed at changing society through a planned modification of the social environment of the individual. On the other hand, are equally diverse projects for pulling society back into conformity with the requirements of race and heredity. At first sight, the two types of project appear to be, and often are, deeply opposed, both intellectually and politically.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Noemi Álvarez-Fernández ◽  
Antonio Martínez Cortizas ◽  
Zaira García-López ◽  
Olalla López-Costas

AbstractMercury environmental cycle and toxicology have been widely researched. Given the long history of mercury pollution, researching mercury trends in the past can help to understand its behaviour in the present. Archaeological skeletons have been found to be useful sources of information regarding mercury loads in the past. In our study we applied a soil multi-sampling approach in two burials dated to the 5th to 6th centuries AD. PLRS modelling was used to elucidate the factors controlling mercury distribution. The model explains 72% of mercury variance and suggests that mercury accumulation in the burial soils is the result of complex interactions. The decomposition of the bodies not only was the primary source of mercury to the soil but also responsible for the pedogenetic transformation of the sediments and the formation of soil components with the ability to retain mercury. The amount of soft tissues and bone mass also resulted in differences between burials, indicating that the skeletons were a primary/secondary source of mercury to the soil (i.e. temporary sink). Within burial variability seems to depend on the proximity of the soil to the thoracic area, where the main mercury target organs were located. We also conclude that, in coarse textured soils, as the ones studied in this investigation, the finer fraction (i.e. silt + clay) should be analysed, as it is the most reactive and the one with the higher potential to provide information on metal cycling and incipient soil processes. Finally, our study stresses the need to characterise the burial soil environment in order to fully understand the role of the interactions between soil and skeleton in mercury cycling in burial contexts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-49
Author(s):  
Péter Krecz ◽  
Andrea Herneczky ◽  
József Csernák ◽  
Aranka Baranyi

Special attention should be paid to the human factors that influence the competitiveness of companies when analysing the correlations of economic processes. It is no longer controversial today that human capital is an important and crucial factor in a company's performance. The efficient, effective contribution of human resources to an organization's success depends to a large extent on how it can ensure employees' motivation in the long run. Robotics and automation are gaining more and more ground nowadays. In our study we explore how employee motivation is influenced by the rapid and widespread use of robotics. The industrial revolution that is still going on today is bringing enormous changes. The industrial revolutions that happened earlier in history have fundamentally changed the lives of people and have always posed serious challenges to various economic actors. Changes have had a dual impact in the past. On the one hand, industrial production has resulted in a change in the economy and, on the other hand, a huge change in the social structure. In recent years, mechanization has seemed extreme, but this phase must be seen today as a natural part of daily life.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 628-635
Author(s):  
D.V. Rimashevskiy ◽  
◽  
I.F. Akhtyamov ◽  
P.N. Fedulichev ◽  
Wessam Zaalan ◽  
...  

Abstract Over the past decades, there has been a steady increase in the incidence of osteomyelitis. It is associated with an increased use of implants in traumatology and orthopedics. The social aspects of osteomyelitis are, on the one hand, significant financial costs for the healthcare system, and on the other hand, high recurrence and re-infection in the treatment of joint pathology associated with long-term loss of work ability and a high risk of patient’s disability. Purpose To conduct a search and analysis of publications in Russian and English, devoted to the problem of osteomyelitis and periprosthetic infection, on the basis of which to summarize the main current notions about the etiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of osteomyelitis. Materials and methods The search was carried out in the Pubmed and CyberLeninka databases of literature sources over the past 10 years. The data were analyzed and compared with the materials from earlier publications. Only publications from peer-reviewed journals were considered for analysis. Results and discussion Success in the treatment of peri-implant infection with prosthesis re-implantation and satisfactory joint function has been achieved in only just more than a half of patients. Recent studies have significantly changed the understanding of the etiology and pathogenesis of osteomyelitis. It has been proven that in osteomyelitis and implant-associated infection, four reservoirs of infection are formed in the patient's body: abscesses in soft tissues and bone marrow canal, biofilms on the surface of implants and necrotic tissues, intracellular colonization with bacteria of the macroorganism and lacunar-canalicular system. Understanding the mechanisms of osteomyelitis development and its course forces the specialists to take a fresh look at the causes of failures in the fight against such a severe pathology and change approaches to its prevention, diagnosis and treatment.


Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Minna Sa

The Daur people are a minority living in Northeast China. They have adhered to a form of shamanism since ancient times. They believe that all things are spiritual. The Daur call an intermediary or messenger between the human world and the spirit worlds jad’ən (shaman). In addition, there are also different types of priests and healers, such as baɡʧi (healer and priest), barʃ (bone-setter), ʊtʊʃi (healer of child) and baræʧen (midwife), but only the jad’ən is a real shaman. The Daur’s system of deities is huge, complex, and diverse, mainly including təŋɡər (God of Heaven), xʊʤʊr barkən (ancestral spirit), njaŋnjaŋ barkən (Niang Niang Goddess), aʊləi barkən (spirit of mountain), nuʤir barkən (spirit of snake), ɡali barkən (God of Fire), etc. Among them, ancestral spirit is the most noble and important deity of the Daur, called xʊʤʊr barkən (spirit of ancestors). In the past, the social structure of the Daurs was based on the equal clan xal and its branches mokun. Xʊʤʊr barkən is the ancestral spirit of the mokun family. The shaman with xʊʤʊr barkən as the main patron is called xʊʤʊr jad’ən, that is, mokun shaman. The inheritance of the Daur shaman is very complicated. The xʊʤʊr jad’ən is strictly inherited along the patrilineal line, while the ordinary jad’ən can also inherit according to the maternal lineage. The inheritance rites of other types of shamans are also based mainly on the patrilineal lineage and occasionally the maternal lineage. The complexity of the Daur shaman inheritance is first and foremost related to the variety of the gods and spirits, secondly to their belief of polytheism, and finally to the constant split of the traditional clans and families, namely, the xal-mokun social structure.


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