Western India

Prachin bharath

Sugar industry

Chalcolithic cultures of western India

Fall of the imperial Guptas

This thesis comprises a regional synthesis of the diversity of the human experience in West Central Scotland during the Mesolithic period (c.7875-c.4200BCE). The research area incorporates the modern local authorities of Ayrshire, Dunbartonshire, Glasgow City, Inverclyde, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire. The regional profile has been constructed from a comparison of the lithic assemblages from mainland coastal and inland sites in a transect (c.2550km2) from Ballantrae and Girvan on the Ayrshire coast inland to Loch Doon, South Ayrshire and beyond to the Daer Valley in South Lanarkshire. Three other sites from South Lanarkshire outwith the transect have also been included in the study, namely Climpy, Powbrone and Weston. Reference has also been made to sites on the islands of the Firth of Clyde and at Loch Lomondside. The archaeological and environmental evidence from the Ayrshire coast has been considered, supporting the interpretation of probable sedentism at Girvan during the Late Mesolithic. The theoretical structure can be distilled into two main themes, namely variation and technology which are folded into a cohesive framework by reference to the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze, and in particular his 1968 work Difference and Repetition. The concepts of repetition, difference and becoming have given meaning to variation as something more profound than a mere contradiction. In this thesis, these concepts have been recast to incorporate the chaîne opératoire. Firstly, variation in people and things are forged in the social dimension through repetition. Secondly, technology is understood as inseparable from the agent, where the people and things are both subject and object, and things may be understood as detached parts of people. It is by conjoining these enhanced constructs of variation and technology that people and things as technology inscribe the landscape to create a meaningful taskscape; referring to the notion proposed by Ingold in 1993. These concepts as becoming have been used to explore notions of identity, group identity, social boundaries and taskscape as inseparable qualities of Mesolithic lifeways. Detailed technological analysis of the surface collections and excavated assemblages comprised within this study has confirmed the continuity of lithic practice across the greater part of the Mesolithic period. Subtle nuances have been recorded in technological choices made, and also in the composition of the lithic assemblages. The main variation lies in the choice of raw materials. The distinctions are more profound than the dominant use of flint at the coast and chert inland. Marked variations in both the colour and original cortical surface of raw materials are identified suggesting differentiated resources across the landscape and different groups of hunter-gatherers. The presence of flint at the inland sites is interpreted as representative of pioneer incursions. The variations in the assemblages of West Central Scotland, together with the cautious use of ethnographic analogy allow consideration of the cosmological significance of raw materials and the materiality of stone. The notion that the use of specific raw materials is culturally proscribed has been instrumental in the interpretation of hunter-gatherers groups who are either predominantly practising sedentism at the coastal lagoonal habitats of Girvan, or creating new group identities and adopting more mobile lifeways inland.

The connecting premise of this study is that the explanation of human action, much of which involves conflict in various forms, is distinctive. It must address the singularity of actions (their attachment to specific moments) and its contingency (that different actions could plausibly have been taken instead). Both stem from the involvement of time in human action, such that its explanation must adopt the form of historiography. Part One argues that the authority of explanation in the physical sciences does not extend to human action as it derives from successful physical demonstration in experiment or industrial replication, not from special epistemological warrant, processes inapplicable to human action; that the distinguishing involvement of human consciousness and the will to act introduces a particular awareness of the passage of time that confers timeliness to actions, while precluding full knowledge of the consequences of actions; that the social nature of human action involves the emergence of diverse groups that generate complex divisions between ‘we’ and ‘they’ that form the basis for conflict over the consequences of action; that resolving the conflict of warfare produces collective agreements to avoid future conflict; that this conflict can reach considerable levels of brutality and lethality even outside warfare; and that moral codes that might constrain such conflict have limited effectiveness. Part Two illustrates the relevance of perspectives in reducing the complexities of reality to facilitate action, referring to categories appropriate to the emergence of Scottish Jacobitism in the late seventeenth and early eighteen centuries: dynastic, religious, economic and military. It also suggests how contingency could be addressed through conjectures about the actions that might have been taken but were not. Part Three suggests a basis in the role of expectations for the tendency of human perspectives on their context of action to change radically, and for actions to change accordingly as situations are seen ‘in a different light’. At various points in the study use is made of an analogy drawn between the adversarial advocacies presented at a trial by jury and the general explanation of human action. This illuminates both the fact that different perspectives on the same evidence can yield contrary explanations and that all explanation of human action necessarily confronts a problem of reflexivity: the perspectives of agents have to be represented through the perspectives of those seeking to explain their actions.

No description available.

With the arrival of the Spaniards in the New World, the way of living of the indigenous population who habited Mesoamerica was blended with the traditions and customs of the European settlers who arrived as conquerors, and the emigrants from Europe that arrivedlater searching for fortune or a better kind of life from the one they had left behind in their land of origin. This encounter of cultures gave rise also to a technical and cultural exchange, and in the case of Mexico, this clash of cultures and techniques is well represented by the printing press, which was established in 1539 with the specific aim of accelerating the evangelisation and education of the Indians. As a consequence of this development, Mexico was turned into a centre of innovation, with the first printing press using movable metal type to be set up outside Europe, and other trades that support printing, such as bookbinding, were also developed. This thesis investigates the influence of the Spanish and other European bookbinding practices on sixteenth-century Mexican limp, laced-case parchment bindings by the analysis of the features of the bindings of Mexican printed books from that period. In addition, by the analysis of the materials and techniques used to bind these books, as well as the specific structural characteristics of the bindings, the patterns of work that could be described as typically Mexican in the sixteenth-century, are also identified. The research is divided into two parts: the first, theoretical, explains the historical context of Mexico during the sixteenth century when the printing press and bookbinding were developed. The second part concerns the archaeological study of the books as artefacts. For this purpose, thirty-nine sixteenth-century Mexican printed books bound in limp, laced caseparchment covers were analysed. The analysis of the features of these bindings, which form the majority of the whole sample, made possible the identification of Mexican patterns of work in the sixteenth century. Given the lack of information and of complete studies of the craft of bookbinding in Mexico in the sixteenth century, this thesis aims to enhance our current knowledge of the historyof bookbinding as well as of the booktrade and the market for books in Mexico.

No description available.