Paleolithic Personal Ornaments from Xiaogushan Cave: The Formation of Early Symbolism and Its Regional Features in Northeast China

This article presents the results of a comparative study of personal ornaments from Xiaogushan Cave in the interregional and regional context of the formation of modern behavior. Xiaogushan is a Paleolithic and Neolithic site in Northeast China. In the Upper Paleolithic layers of the site, apart from tools, personal ornaments were found— pendants made from animal teeth, and a decorated bone disc. The date of the site is a matter of debate; ornaments from layers 2 and 3 date to ~30 ka BP. Like other bone artifacts (harpoon, needles, point), and together with types of stone tools and lithic technology, they mirror the local process of Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. We focus on similarities between the Xiaogushan ornaments and Upper Paleolithic pendants from northern China and Eurasia in general, attesting to modern behavior during the transitional period and being an important marker of the spread of Upper Paleolithic innovations from the centers to the periphery. Xiaogushan is the fi rst Upper Paleolithic industry in Northeast China known to date, and demonstrates skills and symbolic behavior typical of the initial Upper Paleolithic. The Xiaogushan pendants follow the general tendencies, while being specifi c markers of the evolution of symbolic behavior in Eastern Eurasia.

The Mercosur in the midst of the crisis

Since 2016, the four States Parties to the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay - are experiencing internal political and economic crises that cannot be understood without observing the South American regional context. With the pandemic of the new coronavirus, the crisis also took on a health dimension, whose repercussions in 2021 made the celebration of the bloc's thirty years a moment of reflection on the effectiveness of the integration process, due to the absence of territorial management that addresses the Mercosur needs. The purpose of this text is to discuss the measures adopted in the context of Mercosur in the face of the current pandemic, economic and political crisis. The methodology used for the elaboration of the text included a bibliographic review on the regional integration process in Mercosur and the analysis of news about the situation and the measures adopted to contain the effects of the crisis in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Lutsi speakers and rememberers in the late 20th and early 21st centuries

This article describes the language of the last speakers of Lutsi as well as their family background and the sources of their language knowledge, in order to show the paths by which Lutsi language knowledge – even if only of a fragmentary sort – has survived up to the present day. The language knowledge of these last speakers is described using observations taken from the field notes and memories of other researchers as well as from my own encounters with them. This information is placed in a historical and regional context by providing a detailed overview of the historical extent of the Lutsi community, theories about Lutsi origins and how this connects with the memory of Lutsi families and observed language variation within the Lutsi speech area, changes in Lutsi speaker numbers and language use, and the history of Lutsi documentation and the observations of the researchers who documented them. Kokkuvõte. Uldis Balodis: Lutsi keele kõnelejad ja mäletajad 20. ja 21. sajandi vahetusel. Lutsi keelt räägiti mitu sajandit Kagu-Lätis Ludza linna ümbritsevates valdades ja külades. Lutsi keel ja kultuur said tähtsaks osaks nii Latgali kui ka kogu Läti kultuuriajaloost. Lutsi keel on ühendanud Eestit ja Lätit ning saanud nende ühise pärandi sümboliks. Selle artikli esimeses osas kirjeldatakse lutsi keele uurijate (Oskar Kallas, Heikki Ojansuu, Paulopriit Voolaine, August Sang) mälestusi ja tähelepanekuid ajast, kui seda keelt veel räägiti igapäevaselt. Artikli teises osas antakse ülevaate Põlda valla Jaani küla Nikonovide perekonnast, kes olid viimaseid lutsi keele oskajaid. Samuti vaadeldakse viimaseid lutsi keelepärandi kandjaid tänapäeval – nn mäletajaid –, käsitledes nii nende elulugusid kui ka teadmisi lutsi keelest. Kokkovyteq Lutsi kielehn. Uldis Balodis: Lutsi kiele kynelejaq ni mälehäjäq 20. ni 21. sā-āstaga vaihtusel. Mitu sā-āstakka kyneldi lutsi kīlt Ludzi ümbre valdohn ni küllihn. Lutsi kīļ um nī Lätkalihn ku kaq kȳ Lätihn kultūri aolū tähtsä oza. Lutsi kīļ um kaq tähtsä köüdüs Läti ni Ēstimā vaihel ni noide ütidze perändüze tunnismärķ. Sjōl kirotuzel um katș ossa. Edimädzehn ozahn ma selledä lutsi kiele ūŗjide (Oskar Kallas, Heikki Ojansuu, Paulopriit Voolaine, August Sang) mälehüizi ni tähelepandmizi aost, ku tūd kīlt vīl egä päiv kyneldi. Tȳz̦ ehn ozahn tī ülekaehuze Pylda valla Jāni külä Nikonovi perrest, kohn elliq perämädze lutsi kiele myistjaq. Ma ka kynele perämädzist Lutsi inemizist tǟmbädzel pǟväl – nm mälehäjidest –, kiä viļ tīdväq veidüq lutsi kīlt, ni kaq noide elolūst ni kiele tīdmizest.

Analysis of export of agricultural products in the context of the global food crisis

Purpose. The purpose of this article is to study the nature, main trends and problematic aspects of realization of the export potential of agricultural production in the countries of South America, OECD, North America and Europe in the context of aggravating food crisis. Methodology / approach. Theoretical and empirical methods of cognition are used in their dialectical combination. The main methods used in this study are statistical analysis, index, graphical and analytical methods, methods for estimating structural dynamic shifts, comparisons and monographic method. The study also involved general methods of economic research, in particular: theoretical generalization and comparison, induction and deduction are used in revealing the content of the export potential of agricultural production, drawing conclusions; the current condition and tendencies of development of export of agricultural products is estimated by means of synthesis and the economic analysis; graphic, economic, statistical and interstate comparisons are used to analyse the export of agricultural products; statistical methods (grouping) are applied to assess the domestic and external export potential of agricultural products in the regional context. The influence of external and domestic export potential on wheat exports is studied by regression analysis. Results. The need to ensure food security by countries around the world urges the importance of the agricultural sector as a catalyst for economic development, sources of foreign exchange earnings, investment direction, etc. The study of agricultural specialization led to the conclusion that wheat and sugar are goods with the highest export potential. It is substantiated that the countries of South America, OECD, North America and Europe have the highest level of fulfilment of export potential of agricultural production, and African countries are import-dependent. Besides, the low export orientation of Africa and Asia due to the peculiarities of their natural and climatic conditions is established based on the assessment of export-import operations in the regional context. The internal and external export potential of each of the regions is analysed. The direct correlation between the exports volume and area of land used for wheat cultivation, as well as with its yield, was established through the correlation and regression analysis. Originality / scientific novelty. The scientific novelty of the results of the study is that the authors were the first who carried out a comprehensive analysis of the potential capacity and ability to increase exports of agricultural products in the world and by product groups. The essence and features of economic representation of export potential of agricultural products at the international and national levels are determined. The main factors influencing the development of the export potential of agricultural products in the regional context are outlined and their influence is investigated by carrying out the regression analysis. The study of domestic and foreign export potential by regions of the world is further developed. Practical value / implications. The analysis of the internal and external export potential of agricultural production was carried out in the regional context, which resulted in the identification of the main recommendations for increasing their level in order to enhance the development of the agro-industrial sector of the economy.

Governance Sensitivities and the Politics of Translation: Rethinking the Colonisation of the Shuar of Ecuador's Amazonian South-East

The article analyses two delegated governance projects carried out in Ecuador's Amazonian south-east in the twentieth century. In collaboration with the military and public institutions, two Catholic missions, the Salesian and the Franciscan, were central actors in the colonising of an area inhabited by the Shuar. Considering the wider historical and ethnographic regional context and focusing on practices of cultural translation and territorial politics, I discuss the two missions’ divergent governance sensitivities vis-à-vis the Shuar. ‘Governance sensitivities’ refers in this context to the colonial actors’ capability to recognise colonised subjects as culturally distinct. I combine new empirical material from the historical archive of the Franciscans in Zamora with secondary sources in order to analyse how differences between the two missions’ sensitivity and insensitivity to Shuar otherness became especially prevalent in the 1960s and 70s. The divergent ways the Salesians and Franciscans perceived the Shuar colonial subject had consequences for how they engaged in the protection of Shuar land and for how they contributed to facilitating or holding back indigenous political organisation.

Risk factors for loneliness among older people in a Nordic regional context – a longitudinal study

The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of loneliness among older people and to identify risk factors for loneliness in a Nordic regional context over a six-year period. Longitudinal data from the Gerontological Regional Database (GERDA) study of 4,269 older adults living in northern Sweden and western Finland, aged 65, 70, 75 and 80 at baseline in 2010, were analysed. Logistic regressions were used to analyse socio-demographic, social and health-related risk factors at baseline and changes in these for experiences of loneliness at follow-up. The results showed that most older adults (85%) did not experience loneliness at baseline or at follow-up in our study region. However, 3 per cent of the sample reported loneliness in both study years, indicating enduring and chronic loneliness. Analyses revealed that being widowed and becoming a widow/er as well as poor self-rated health at baseline and the onset of depression were risk factors for loneliness. Finally, the risk of loneliness was higher in older people living in Sweden. Further work is needed to explore changes and stability in loneliness as well as to increase our understanding of between-country differences in loneliness.

Pre-Mesozoic basement of Tvarditsa Stara Planina Mountain, Central South Bulgaria: U-Pb geochronology and regional implication

The easternmost coherent tract of the pre-Mesozoic basement of the Carpatho-Balkanide belt is exposed in Tvarditsa Stara Planina Mountain. Two metamorphic units – the Lazovo and Shivachevo complexes as well as the Tvarditsa pluton were distinguished, as their ages are still not well constrained. Here, we present U-Pb (ID-TIMS) data for the Shivachevo complex and the Tvarditsa pluton, putting this information in the regional context of the late Variscan geodynamic evolution of the region.

Amerindian Wayúu Legacy and Garciamarquezian Literary Fable

García Márquez is the only novelist of the so-called Latin American Boom whose origins lie in the rural world. Does this bear on his personal upbringing, and does it project onto his literary fabulation/storytelling? This article attempts to reply in the affirmative to these questions, recognizing the intercultural and regional context whence the author comes and carrying out a perspectivist reading that will compare the highly frequent images of the supernatural in his stories and novels to the hierophantic images of Wayúu-Amerindian narrative tradition—to which the domestic servants who accompanied his childhood in the home of his maternal grandparents in Aracataca belonged. Among the author’s narratives, the first explicit mention of the Wayúu people (the Guajiros) occurs in “Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo.” And his intercultural childhood, which can be read as an autobiographical trait, is noticeable in the character Ulises’s heteroglossia in “Eréndira,” in the Buendía children in One Hundred Years of Solitude, and in Sierva María in Of Love and Other Demons. The article argues that the intercultural childhood of the novelist is the source of the co-presence of the natural and the supernatural as unfolded in these writings, which had Colombian culture and history almost as their exclusive subjects. To this innovative reinvention of the Colombian nation, the article attributes two larger cultural consequences: first, the subversion of national literary tradition, and second, the change in Colombia’s self-image brought about by its reception.