This thesis focuses on practices of disarticulation and bodily manipulation in the Mesolithic of north-west Europe. While the presence of 'loose human bone' has been noted on Mesolithic sites for several decades, this has often been dismissed as the result of taphonomic factors, such as disturbed graves. Instead, studies of mortuary practices have primarily focused on the cemeteries and issues of social complexity, ranking and status. Disarticulated human bone, which cannot throw new light on such issues, has consequently been ignored. Only with more recent discoveries of larger collections of disarticulated human remains, from secure contexts, has this phenomena begun to be taken more seriously, Cauwe (2001) arguing for example, that disarticulation represents the primary Mesolithic mortuary practice. Despite this claim, little work has focused on practices of manipulation and disarticulation beyond a few studies of individual sites, thus little is understood about the nature and variability of these mortuary practices. The aim of this thesis is therefore to provide a broad study of disarticulated Mesolithic remains across north-west Europe (though excluding Scandinavia). In order to tackle the methodological issues involved in the analysis of these assemblages, as well as to provide a considered study of the context of these remains, three detailed osteological case studies - Hardinxveld in the Netherlands and Les Varennes and Petit Marais in France - are presented. These are then compared with a series of well-published sites in order to draw out the full parameters of Mesolithic mortuary variability. It is argued here that Mesolithic mortuary practices were complex and were often temporally and spatially extended. These practices of disarticulation and manipulation also appear to indicate a concern with bodily decay and the circulation of body parts. The implications of these practices for the understanding of Mesolithic identities, bodies, and attitudes to death are also drawn out.

This study aims to analyse women’s self-employment in five regions of Europe, namely Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, North-West Europe and Western Europe in two years, 2002 and 2016. To assess the factors affecting women’s self-employment in Europe we base our analysis on push and pull theory and as far as the quantitative part is concerned we estimate a probit model. Our research questions are the following: What socio-economic factors influence women to enter self-employment in the five regions of Europe? How are these factors related to the push and pull theory? Is there a trend of convergence over time in the five European regions studied? The main findings are that being women decreases the probability to become self-employed in the five European regions, except in the Northern part of Europe. The result suggests that women more often than men are pushed into self-employment as they have to balance work with family. Being young (18-35) also decreases the probability of being self-employed compared to middle age individual (36-50) in the year 2002 and 2016. Individuals with low and medium-skill level have a lower probability of being self-employed in comparison to the individual with high skill. Regarding the research questions, this study found that variable age (18-36), age (51-65), married, children, medium education, high education, low skill and high skill are factors that influence women in their decision to become self-employed. Observing the change over time of self-employment, we found that the probability increases being selfemployed in Southern Europe whereas it decreases in Northern Europe.

This thesis will examine the British way of war as experienced by two British Infantry Divisions - the 43rd ‘Wessex’ and 53rd ‘Welsh’ - during the Overlord campaign in North West Europe in 1944 and 1945. The main locus of research centres on the fighting components of those divisions; the infantry battalions and their supporting regiments. In order to understand the way the British fought this part of the war, the thesis will consider the British Army’s history since 1918: its level of expertise at the end of the First World War; the impact of inter-war changes, and the experience of the early part of the Second World War, as these factors were fundamental in shaping how the British Army operated during the period covered in this study. These themes will be considered in the first chapter. The following seven chapters will study each of the two infantry divisions in turn, to maintain a chronological order. This is so that the experiences of each division can be examined in a logical way, from their initial experiences of combat in late June 1944 through to March 1945. Naturally, their major battles will be considered but so will their minor engagements and day-to-day experiences, as this will give a good, detailed, overview of each division’s campaign. This layout of chapters is also convenient for allowing comparisons between the two divisions as the campaign progressed. This thesis contains several strands of enquiry which will consider how Montgomery’s prosecution of the war actually translated to the smaller units of the division (the battalions, 4 companies, platoons and sections). The historiography for this campaign tends to suggest that the British Army fought the war in a cautious way, and that this approach was characterised by the use of overwhelming material superiority and rehearsed set piece attacks; tactics that were designed not only to destroy the enemy, but also to avoid the heavy casualties of the major battles of the First World War; a factor that was perceived to be vital to the maintenance of fragile infantry morale. Although the basic premise of a ‘cautious’ British way of war is generally accepted (along with its attendant emphasis on consolidation of objectives rather than exploitation of opportunities, and a reliance on adherence to lengthy orders), this study will conclude that the way the war was fought at sub-divisional levels was frequently at a pace that did not allow for such caution. Instead, it was characterised by command pressure to achieve results quickly, hasty planning and a reliance on massive artillery and mortar contributions to compensate for deficiencies in anti-tank and armoured support. This thesis will further conclude that a conscious policy of casualty conservation appears not to have been a priority at divisional command level, but was instead a consideration for company, platoon and section commanders and the men that they led.

No description available.

Shortly after landing in France on D-Day, 6 June 1944, the British began a programme of care for the military dead of North-West Europe which would last for some seven years. The dead included not only the fatal casualties of the 1944-45 campaigns to liberate the occupied countries and conquer Germany, but also those who had died during the defeats in Norway and France in 1940. In addition, there the many thousands of missing RAF airmen who had been lost throughout the six years of the war. The Royal Navy, for obvious reasons, had few land-based dead, and thus it was the Army and the RAF who carried out the complex programme, ranging over vast areas of Europe and into Soviet territory as the Cold War began. The Army had the central role in registrations, exhumations, and the creation of the new military cemeteries, whilst the RAF’s focus was almost entirely upon the search for its missing airmen. The Services had different motivations and different agendas, but the ultimate goal of each was the honourable burial of the dead and the creation of registers of the long-term missing, who would later be commemorated on memorials. The British search and graves units, by the nature of their work, often discovered evidence of war crimes. The high cultural standing of the British dead was intrinsically related to the horrors of the Nazi regime, and revulsion against the nation responsible for so much suffering led to difficult policy decisions on servicemen’s graves in Germany. It was a matter of pride, however, that the German dead, many thousands of whom became the responsibility of the British, were treated in almost exactly the same way as their own servicemen.

This paper proposes the notion that words mirror ideas, perspectives and worldviews. Etymologies and meanings of general words for ‘islands’ in a number of languagesin North and West Europe are then discussed. Here, islands are shown to be etymologicallyconstituted by the interplay between land and water, and which of these two is emphasizedvaries. In the third section, a number of Swedish island words are surveyed, in an attemptto illuminate the principle of linguistic relativity. Finally, the implications of these findingsfor island studies are discussed.

Qu’ils soient néerlandais, anglais ou français, les ingénieurs du génie civil ont toujours fait autorité en matière d’aménagement du littoral. A travers la recherche constante d’innovations techniques, ils ont contribué à modeler le littoral – voire à le créer de toute pièce aux Pays-Bas – et imposé une vision techniciste de ce territoire entre terre et mer. Le tournant écologique et social qui a caractérisé les années 1970 a remis en question cette vision imposée par les ingénieurs, créant un véritable bouleversement pour la profession. Cette étude comparée tente d’expliquer comment les ingénieurs se représentent aujourd’hui le littoral qu’ils aménagent, et comment, en concertation avec d’autres scientifiques, ils élaborent désormais des solutions innovantes en adéquation avec une gestion intégrée du littoral. Il ressort que l’opposition entre vision linéaire et statique du littoral, longtemps imputée aux ingénieurs, et celle, plus large et systémique, généralement attribuée aux autres scientifiques, s’estompe. Des différences culturelles entre les trois pays semblent plus pertinentes pour expliquer les avancées observées. Par ailleurs, les ingénieurs semblent être en train de dépasser et de s’approprier le mouvement « vert » des dernières décennies pour saisir de nouvelles opportunités, tant professionnelles que territoriales. / Whether Dutch, English or French, civil engineers have long been a recognized authority on coastal management. Through their relentless search for technical innovations, engineers have been instrumental in both shaping the coast – in the case of the Netherlands creating it almost entirely – and imposing on it a technical vision. The social and ecological movement which characterized the 1970’s brought this engineering vision into question. This change in outlook would create real turmoil for the profession. This comparative study attempts to explain how nowadays engineers envision the coast they manage and how, in collaboration with other scientists, they now derive innovative solutions in line with an integrated coastal management. It appears that the classical opposition, between a vision long imputed to engineers of a static and linear coast and one attributed to other scientists who view the coast as something larger and more systemic, has become blurred. Cultural differences between the three countries are more relevant to explain the differences observed. Into the bargain engineers seem to have overtaken the “green” movement of the last decades to seize new opportunities, professional ones as well as territorial. / Of ze nu Nederlands, Engels of Frans zijn, de waterbouwers zijn autoriteit als het aankomt op het beheren van de kust. Met hun niet aflatende zoektocht naar innovatieve technieken hebben ze een bijdrage geleverd aan het vormen van de kustlijn – of om het even welke deel van Nederland dan ook – en hebben ze de kustlijn gevormd op een technocratische wijze. De ecologische en sociale omwenteling, kenmerkend voor de jaren ’70, heeft vraagtekens gezet bij deze, door ingenieurs opgelegde, visie en veroorzaakte een serieuze omwenteling in het vakgebied. Deze studie probeert uit te leggen hoe de ingenieur vandaag de dag de kust behartigt en hij hoe tegenwoordig in overleg met andere wetenschappen nieuwe oplossingen ontwikkelt die in lijn zijn met een integraal kustbeheer. Het blijkt dat het onderscheid tussen de rechtlijnige en statische visie over de kust, lang toegeschreven aan ingenieurs, en de bredere en systematische aanpak, over het algemeen toegeschreven aan andere wetenschappers, vervaagt. Culturele verschillen tussen de drie landen lijken een belangrijkere reden te zijn voor de geconstateerde ontwikkelingen. Daarnaast lijken de ingenieurs zich de "groene" kennis in de afgelopen decennia eigen gemaakt te hebben om nieuwe kansen te grijpen, zowel voor hun vak als voor hun omgeving.

An international maritime labour market study, the thesis focuses on the Dutch naval labour market, analysing wartime Zeeland admiralty crews. The research is based primarily on unique naval pay sources. Analysis of crew compositions has not been made on this scale in the period before. The 1667 Dutch Medway Raid is the starting point, where a few British played a leading role – amongst many others reported on the Dutch side. Pepys and Marvell primarily blamed their joining the enemy on the lure of superior Dutch payment. The thesis asks how many British there were really, how they came to be in Dutch service, and whether this involvement occurred, as indicated, at other times too. Part One is thematic and explores the background mechanisms of the maritime environment in detail, determining causation. First, the two naval recruitment systems are compared and completely reassessed in the light of state intervention in the trade sphere. Two new sets of ‘control’ data – naval wages and foreign shipping – are amongst the incentives and routes determined. British expatriate communities are examined as conduits for the supply of naval labour and civilian support. British personnel are compared and contrasted with other foreigners, against the background of Anglo-Dutch interlinkage and political transition from neutrality through conflict to alliance. Part Two is chronological, covering four major wars in three chapters. Micro-case studies assembled from the scattered record streams enable analysis of the crews of particular officers and ships. Seamen were an occupation that made them a very little known group: the thesis examines the different career types of British personnel of many different ranks, shedding light on their everyday lives. The thesis shows that British personnel were an integral part of Dutch crews throughout the period, even when the two nations were fighting each other. The basic need of subsistence labour for employment took precedence over allegiance to nation/ideology, demonstrating limitations in state power and the continual interdependence forced on the maritime powers through the realities of the labour market.