Monumental architecture is a prime indicator of social complexity, because it requires many people to build a conspicuous structure commemorating shared beliefs. Examining monumentality in different environmental and economic settings can reveal diverse reasons for people to form larger social units and express unity through architectural display. In multiple areas of Africa, monumentality developed as mobile herders created large cemeteries and practiced other forms of commemoration. The motives for such behavior in sparsely populated, unpredictable landscapes may differ from well-studied cases of monumentality in predictable environments with sedentary populations. Here we report excavations and ground-penetrating radar surveys at the earliest and most massive monumental site in eastern Africa. Lothagam North Pillar Site was a communal cemetery near Lake Turkana (northwest Kenya) constructed 5,000 years ago by eastern Africa’s earliest pastoralists. Inside a platform ringed by boulders, a 119.5-m 2 mortuary cavity accommodated an estimated minimum of 580 individuals. People of diverse ages and both sexes were buried, and ornaments accompanied most individuals. There is no evidence for social stratification. The uncertainties of living on a “moving frontier” of early herding—exacerbated by dramatic environmental shifts—may have spurred people to strengthen social networks that could provide information and assistance. Lothagam North Pillar Site would have served as both an arena for interaction and a tangible reminder of shared identity.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/36/8942.full.pdf

A monumental cemetery built by eastern Africa’s first herders near Lake Turkana, Kenya

At present, there is no accepted standardised lexicon in English to describe burials and the position of buried human remains. Terms have tended to vary with the investigator and rely on loose, but often ill-defined systems of previous use. As a consequence, there are myriad terms used to describe the same phenomena or, as the case may be, no single well-defined term to do so. This means that new terms are continually invented – and sometimes re-invented bearing different nuances – that hinder use of published work and make comparisons across works difficult. In France for the last 40 years, Duday, his colleagues and students have published a series of papers employing a standard burial terminology that, until recently, was only available in French and in French language publications. Due to limited language competency of English-language scholars and a desire of French scholars to publish in their own (very precise) native language, these seminal works have not influenced English-language use. They clearly lead the way to the development of a standard vocabulary. What follows is a critique of previous non-standard terminological use and a series of suggestions to remedy this situation. This contribution’s debt to French language scholarship is clear, but it does not reproduce a mere translation of terms. Rather, it tries to synthesise French use with Englishlanguage scholarship. Its weakest point is that it does not integrate terms from other European languages that also have a long legacy of regional and time-specific application, nor can it claim to do so in other world languages. This is work for the future. This treatment concentrates on adult remains, with archaeothantological study of infant and children’s remains being at only a very anecdotal level to date.

Crouching in fear: Terms of engagement for funerary remains

Stress plays an important role in the etiology of multiple morbid and mortal outcomes among the living. Drawing on health paradigms constructed among the living augments our evolving knowledge of relationships between stress and health. Therefore, elucidating relationships between stress and both chronic and acute skeletal lesions may help clarify our understanding of long-term health trends in the past. In this study, we propose an index of "skeletal frailty," based on models of frailty used to evaluate the life-long effects of stress on health among living populations. Here, we assess the possible applicability of frailty to archaeological populations. The skeletal frailty index (SFI) is proposed as a methodological liaison between advances made by biological anthropologists studying relationships between stress and health among the living and bioarchaeologists studying stress and health among the dead. In a case study examining skeletal stress in Medieval London, the SFI is applied to nonmonastic (N = 60) and monastic (N = 74) samples. We used analysis of variance/analysis of covariance to compare SFI values between nonmonastic-monastic groups, sexes, and age cohorts. Results indicate higher lifetime morbidity among monastic groups. These results complement previous bioarchaeological findings on the same London populations, wherein lower risks of mortality and longer lifespans were observed for monastic populations. SFI data reflect the morbidity-mortality paradox observed in modern populations and accompany recent findings in bioarchaeology of variation in Medieval monastic and nonmonastic "health." Ultimately, this study demonstrates the SFI's utility in bioarchaeology, through its application of commonly assessed skeletal biomarkers, its ease of applicability, and its potential usefulness for assessing changes in skeletal health over time and across specific geographies.

In sickness and in death: Assessing frailty in human skeletal remains.

......................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... iii

National Identity and Nuclear Disarmament Advocacy by Canada and New Zealand

/pdf/great-lakes-navigation-and-navigational-aids-historical-2fbppdq1m5.pdf

Great lakes Navigation and Navigational Aids: Historical Context Study

Bones of the Ancestors: The Archaeology and Osteobiography of the Moatfield Ossuary

Intent for a Nation: What Is Canada For?

Fighting from Home: The Second World War in Verdun, Quebec

In the 1990s the Canadian Supreme Court was presented with the daunting challenge of assessing the legality of unilateral secession. It produced a ruling with the well-known conclusion that in the event of a clear expression of democratic will to secede, there was a duty on the part of all concerned to negotiate. There has been much debate about the idea of a duty to negotiate. Another aspect of the judicial decision that merits attention was the court's reliance on four principles (federalism, democracy, legitimacy and the rule of law, and respect for minorities) and their depiction of these principles. This essay reviews how the judiciary framed these principles and analyses the strengths and weaknesses of their conceptualisation. While the court's decision was a landmark in constitutional debates, the conceptual treatment of individual principles merits renewed attention, and various issues (such as the treatment of aboriginal peoples) warrant further reflection.

Hugh Mellon

Papers

Bones of the Ancestors: The Archaeology and Osteobiography of the Moatfield Ossuary

Intent for a Nation: What Is Canada For?

Fighting from Home: The Second World War in Verdun, Quebec

Secession and Constitutional Principles: Working with the Supreme Court's Statement of Principles

'Collecting Stamps Would Have Been More Fun': Canadian Publishing and the Correspondence of Sinclair Ross, 1933-1986