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In this article, I apply Alain Badiou's theory of the event to make sense of the beliefs of an anti-sanction activist in Germany. Sanctions are deductions to unemployment benefits imposed by jobs counselors on their unemployed clients. Ethnographic research with Renate shows how her beliefs about the welfare state and her own personal life are examined by her as conditions for the abolition of sanctions in Germany, which is considered here as an event within Badiou’s ontological framework.
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We compare domestic architectural features in New England and the Maritime Peninsula to investigate the relationship between the adoption of horticulture and its relationship to social and settlement change during the Woodland Period. Horticulture was not practiced on the Maritime Peninsula until after European contact, despite cultural and environmental similarity to New England. In New England, horticulture has been implicated in profound social and settlement changes. However, aggregated villages, a unit typically investigated for evidence of social change, have proven elusive in the archaeological record. We compiled and analyzed a dataset of dwelling features instead of relying on identifiable villages. This novel quantitative approach uses dwelling feature shape and size as a proxy for social and settlement change, considering these changes at the scale of the house. We find that, during the Woodland Period, dwelling size was overall slightly larger in New England than on the Maritime Peninsula, but ranges heavily overlapped. After the introduction of horticulture, however, dwellings in New England grew in size overall and assumed bimodally distinct larger and smaller forms, which likely necessitated a restructuring of social and economic behavior. This pattern correlates maize horticulture with changes in social and economic lifestyle in Late Woodland New England. , Nous comparons des structures d'habitation domestiques de sites archéologiques de la Nouvelle-Angleterre et de la péninsule maritime afin d'explorer les conséquences de l'adoption généralisée de l'horticulture en termes de changements sociaux et de transformation des modes d’établissement en Nouvelle-Angleterre à la période Sylvicole. L'horticulture ne fut pas pratiquée dans la péninsule maritime avant la période du contact européen, malgré de fortes similarités culturelles et environnementales avec la Nouvelle-Angleterre. En Nouvelle-Angleterre, l'horticulture est présentée comme ayant été la source de changements sociaux profonds et d'une transformation des modes d’établissement. Au niveau archéologique cependant les sites de village font défaut, alors qu'ils constituent habituellement un repère pour l'identification et l’étude des changements sociaux; cette situation a provoqué des débats sur l'impact socio-économique de l'horticulture. Nous analysons ici un ensemble de données concernant des structures d'habitation individuelles en faisant fi de l'idée selon laquelle l’étude d'un village bien défini est nécessaire. Cette approche quantitative novatrice nous permet d'aborder la question des changements sociaux et de l’évolution des modes d’établissement à l’échelle de l'habitation, par l'intermédiaire de la forme et des dimensions des structures. Nous observons que durant la période sylvicole la taille des structures d'habitation était en général légèrement plus grande en Nouvelle-Angleterre que dans la péninsule maritime, malgré une fourchette de dimensions comparable pour les deux régions. Les habitations de la Nouvelle-Angleterre voient toutefois leur taille augmenter après l'introduction de l'horticulture, alors que se développe une division bimodale entre de grandes et de petites structures, changements rendus possibles par une probable réorganisation des comportements économiques et sociaux. Cette tendance met en corrélation la culture du maïs avec une transformation des modes de vie économiques et sociaux en Nouvelle-Angleterre durant le sylvicole supérieur.
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Functional analyses of the 4.4 Ma hominin Ardipithecus ramidus postcrania revealed a previously unknown and unpredicted locomotor pattern combining arboreal clambering and a form of terrestrial bipedality. To date, all of the fossil evidence of Ar. ramidus locomotion has been collected from the Aramis area of the Middle Awash Research Project in Ethiopia. Here, we present the results of an analysis of additional early Pliocene Ar. ramidus fossils from the Gona Project study area, Ethiopia, that includes a fragmentary but informative partial skeleton (GWM67/P2) and additional isolated manual remains. While we reinforce the original functional interpretations of Ar. ramidus of having a mixed locomotor adaptation of terrestrial bipedality and arboreal clambering, we broaden our understanding of the nature of its locomotor pattern by documenting better the function of the hip, ankle, and foot. The newly recovered fossils document a greater adaptation to bipedality in the Ar. ramidus ankle and hallux than previously recognized. In addition, a newly discovered scaphoid bone with a fusing os centrale provides further evidence about the nature of hominin hand evolution. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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The capacity of Homo sapiens for the intergenerational accumulation of complex technologies, practices, and beliefs is central to contemporary accounts of human distinctiveness. However, the actual antiquity and evolutionary origins of cumulative culture are not known. Here we propose and exemplify a research program for studying the origins of cumulative culture using archaeological evidence. Our stepwise approach disentangles assessment of the observed fidelity of behavior reproduction from inferences regarding required learning mechanisms (e.g., teaching, imitation) and the explanation of larger-scale patterns of change. It is empirically grounded in technological analysis of artifact assemblages using well-validated experimental models. We demonstrate with a case study using a toolmaking replication experiment to assess evidence of behavior copying across three 2.6 Ma Oldowan sites from Gona, Ethiopia. Results fail to reveal any effects of raw material size, shape, quality, or reduction intensity that could explain the observed details of intersite technological variation in terms of individual learning across different local conditions. This supports the view that relatively detailed copying of toolmaking methods was already a feature of Oldowan technological reproduction at ca. 2.6 Ma. We conclude with a discussion of prospects and implications for further research on the evolution of human cumulative culture.
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