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Newly recorded archaeological sites at Gona (Afar, Ethiopia) preserve both stone tools and faunal remains. These sites have also yielded the largest sample of cutmarked bones known from the time interval 2.58-2.1 million years ago (Ma). Most of the cutmarks on the Gona fauna possess obvious macroscopic (e.g., deep V-shaped cross-sections) and microscopic (e.g., internal microstriations, Herzian cones, shoulder effects) features that allow us to identify them confidently as instances of stone tool-imparted damage caused by hominid butchery. In addition, preliminary observations of the anatomical placement of cutmarks on several of the recovered bone specimens suggest that Gona hominids may have eviscerated carcasses and defleshed the fully muscled upper and intermediate limb bones of ungulates-activities that further suggest that Late Pliocene hominids may have gained early access to large mammal carcasses. These observations support the hypothesis that the earliest stone artifacts functioned primarily as butchery tools and also imply that hunting and/or aggressive scavenging of large ungulate carcasses may have been part of the behavioral repertoire of hominids by c. 2.5 Ma, although a larger sample of cutmarked bone specimens is necessary to support the latter inference. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Published evidence of Oldowan stone exploitation generally supports the conclusion that patterns of raw material use mere determined by local availability. This is contradicted by the results of systematic studies of raw material availability and use among the earliest known archaeological sites from Gona, Afar, Ethiopia. Artifact assemblages from six Pliocene archaeological sites were compared with six random cobble samples taken from associated conglomerates that record pene-contemporaneous raw material availability. Artifacts and cobbles were evaluated according to four variables intended to capture major elements of material quality: rock type, phenocryst percentage, average phenocryst size, and groundmass texture. Analyses of these variables provide evidence of hominid selectivity for raw material quality. These results demonstrate that raw material selectivity was a potential component of Oldowan technological organization from its earliest appearance and document a level of technological sophistication that is not always attributed to Pliocene hominids. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Comparative biomolecular studies suggest that the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, lived during the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene 1,2. Fossil evidence of Late Miocene-Early Pliocene hominid evolution is rare and limited to a few sites in Ethiopia 3-5, Kenya 6 and Chad 7. Here we report new Early Pliocene hominid discoveries and their palaeoenvironmental context from the fossiliferous deposits of As Duma, Gona Western Margin (GWM), Afar, Ethiopia. The hominid dental anatomy (occlusal enamel thickness, absolute and relative size of the first and second lower molar crowns, and premolar crown and radicular anatomy) indicates attribution to Ardipithecus ramidus. The combined radioisotopic and palaeomagnetic data suggest an age of between 4.51 and 4.32 million years for the hominid finds at As Duma. Diverse sources of data (sedimentology, faunal composition, ecomorphological variables and stable carbon isotopic evidence from the palaeosols and fossil tooth enamel) indicate that the Early Pliocene As Duma sediments sample a moderate rainfall woodland and woodland/grassland., (C) 2005 Nature Publishing Group

In this article, I explore the ideological underpinnings of the Indian government's language policies in the school setting, and I investigate why they fail to be compelling to residents of Banaras, a city in North India. The multiple language markets that exist in India are incommensurate and subvert the government's language policies in multiple ways. By exploring the uneven quality of these markets, this article illustrates the especially complicated dilemmas in which postcolonial nation-states are implicated.

While scholars working in colonial and post-colonial North India have devoted a great deal of attention to language variation, they have largely ignored the discursive use of names for language varieties. In this article, I investigate the ways that speakers enter into dialogic relationships with distinct voices, in the rubric of Bakhtin, depending upon which names for language varieties they mention. I reflect upon conversations between residents of Banaras, a city of approximately two million in North India, in which names for language varieties cluster into three sets. Each set of language names invokes particular language ideologies constructed in India's colonial and post-colonial past. The first two sets-one comprised by “Hindi” and “English” and the other comprised by names for more local varieties-intersect official notions about the proper fit between language and its context of use. The third set does not. In order to account for the third set, in which speakers forego official, authoritative descriptions of languages, I note that interactional phenomena, in addition to ideological dimensions of language, are crucial in understanding the ways that people differently reflect on language varieties in practice. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A 4.5 Ma record of fluvial and lacustrine deposits is well exposed at Gona, in the Afar Depression of Ethiopia. We use isotopic values of pedogenic carbonate and fossil teeth to reconstruct Plio-Pleistocene environmental change at Gona. An increase in δ13C values of pedogenic carbonates since 4.5 Ma points to a shift from woodlands to grassy woodlands in the early Pliocene, -10.4 to -3.9‰ (VPDB), to more open but still mixed environments in the late Pleistocene, -3.0 to -1.4‰ (VPDB). This pattern is also seen in isotopic records elsewhere in East Africa. However, at 1.5 Ma the higher proportion of C4 grasses at Gona is largely a result of a local facies shift to more water-limited environments. The wide range of δ13C values of pedogenic carbonate within single stratigraphic levels indicates a mosaic of vegetation for all time intervals at Gona that depends on depositional environment. Elements of this mosaic are reflected in δ13C values of both modern plants and soil organic matter and Plio-Pleistocene soil carbonate, indicating higher amounts of C4 grasses with greater distance from a river channel in both the modern and ancient Awash River systems. δ18O values of pedogenic carbonates increase up-section from -11.9‰ in the early Pliocene to -6.4‰ (VPDB) in the late Pleistocene. The wide range of δ18O values in paleovertisol carbonates from all stratigraphic levels probably reflects short-term climate changes and periods of strong evaporation throughout the record. Based on the comparison between δ18O values of Plio-Pleistocene pedogenic carbonates and modern waters, we estimate that there has been a 6.5‰ increase in mean annual δ18O values of meteoric water since 4.5 Ma. δ18O values of pedogenic carbonate from other East African records indicate a similar shift. Increasing aridity and fluctuations in the timing and source of rainfall are likely responsible for the changes in δ18O values of East African pedogenic carbonates through the Plio-Pleistocene. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Fluvio-lacustrine sediments of the Hadar and Busidima Formations along the northern Awash River (Ethiopia) archive almost three million years (3.4 to <0.6 Ma) of human evolution, including the earliest documented record of stone toolmaking at 2.5-2.6 Ma. This paper brings together sedimentologic and isotopic evidence for the paleoenvironmental context of early hominids from both formations, but with particular emphasis on the setting for the early toolmakers. The pre-2.92 Ma record (Hadar Formation) is characterized by low-gradient fluvial, paludal, and lacustrine deposition in an undissected topography most analogous to reaches of the modern middle Awash River near Gewane. The Gona area experienced repeated deep dissection and aggradation by the Awash River, starting between 2.92 and ca. 2.7 Ma and continuing through the top of the record at <0.6 Ma (Busidima Formation). Each aggradational succession is 10-20 m in thickness and fines upward from well-rounded conglomerates at the base to capping paleosols at the top. During this period the ancestral Awash represented by these fining upward sequences was dominantly meandering and flowed northeast, as it does today. Smaller channels tributary to the axial Awash system are also extensively exposed in the Busidima Formation. Compared to the axial-system conglomerates, the tributary channels transported finer, less mature volcanic clasts mixed with abundant carbonate nodules reworked from adjacent badlands. Stone artifacts (Oldowan; 2.6-2.0 Ma) at the oldest archaeological sites are only associated with the axial Awash system, in the bedded silts or capping paleosols of the fining upward sequences. The implements were made from rounded cobbles from the channels, but manufacture and use of the tools was always away from the channel bars, on the nearby sandy banks and silt-dominated floodplains. Archaeological sites higher in the record (Acheulian; <1.7 Ma) occur in similar axial river contexts, as well as along tributary channels further removed from artifact raw material sources. Mature paleosols in the Hadar and Busidima Formations are mostly pale to darkbrown Vertisols typified by abundant clay slickensides, pseudo-anticlinal and vertical fracturing, and carbonate nodules. Such calcic Vertisols are common in the region today, demonstrating that the paleoclimate over the past 3.4 m.y. has been semi-arid and strongly seasonal. Carbon isotopic results from pedogenic carbonates in the Vertisols allow reconstruction of the proportion of C3 plants (trees and shrubs) to C4 plants (grasses) through time. The δ 13C results from the Hadar Formation prior to 2.9 Ma range from -9.3‰ to -4.1‰, indicating a dominantly forested environment but with locally substantial (average 34%) grasses on the Awash floodplain. The δ13C values from soil carbonate in the lower Busidima Formation (2.7-1.6 Ma) increase (-6.5‰ to -2.7‰) in floodplain paleosols, indicating ∼ 50% average grass cover. Vertisols of the upper Busidima Formation (< 1.6 Ma) formed on gently sloping alluvial fans adjacent to the Awash floodplain and display even more positive δ13C values, up to -1.8‰, showing that grassland dominated the margins of the active Awash floodplain. © 2004 Geological Society of America.

Before 1998, journalists in Indonesia walked a tightrope stretched between a western ideological system that valued a free press and a system of rigid government controls. To maintain their balance, reporters and editors used strategies that were uniquely Indonesian to maintain a journalistic frame that was essentially western. This article examines those strategies in the context of the values and beliefs of print newspeople in the capital of Jakarta, focusing on news coverage of the political crises of 1997 and 1998 that culminated in the resignation of President Suharto and that unleashed a relatively free press. It contends that the contradictions and resultant conflicts between the government and newspeople in Jakarta represented a contest between western and Indonesian notions of the purposes and duties of the press. Copyright © 2000 SAGE Publications.

Like other expressions of Christian conservatism, the Promise Keepers (PK) often enact complex and strained relationships between social change and social persistence. These strains are evident in the official PK literature, which employs techniques not unlike those used by mainstream pop psychology. These include the use of “scientific”-like classifications of information, authors presented as “experts” on the topic at hand, and the use of exercises to be enacted individually or in small PK discussion groups. Collectively, these strategies suggest that conservative Christians deal with many of the same complex role demands as non-conservatives. In Particular, the PK stance on gender roles, though Promoted as unambiguously “traditional” in favoring male leadership and female submission, in actuality often reflects acknowledgment and perhaps acceptance of some of the more egalitarian changes in gender role norms. Sociological implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Information on the number of carnivore taxa that were involved with archaeological bone assemblages is pertinent to questions of site formation, hominid and carnivore competition for carcasses and the sequence of hominid and carnivore activity at sites. A majority of early archaeological bone assemblages bear evidence that both hominids and carnivores removed flesh and/or marrow from the bones. Whether flesh specialists (felids) or bone-crunchers (hyaenas), or both, fed upon the carcasses is crucial for deciphering the timing of hominid involvement with the assemblages. Here we present an initial attempt to differentiate the tooth mark signature inflicted on bones by a single carnivore species versus multiple carnivore taxa. Quantitative data on carnivore tooth pits, those resembling a tooth crown or a cusp, are presented for two characteristics: the area of the marks in millimetres, and the shape as determined by the ratio of the major axis to the minor axis of the mark. Tooth pits from bones modified by extant East African carnivores and latex impressions of tooth pits from extinct carnivore species are compared to those in the FLK Zinjanthropus bone assemblage. Data on tooth mark shape indicate greater variability in the Zinj sample than is exhibited by any individual extant or extinct carnivore species in the comparative sample. Data on tooth mark area demonstrate that bone density is related to the size of marks. Taken together, these data support the inference that felids defleshed bones in the Zinj assemblage and that hyaenas had final access to any grease or tissues that remained. © 2001 Academic Press.

The paper empirically investigates the extent to which environmental factors affect the intermediation performance of the financial superstructure in Nigeria. A number of intermediation-environmental models were constructed and estimated against annual Nigerian data from 1970 to 2000. Among the various environments of financial intermediation, the socio-political environment, the regulatory environment, and the eco-financial environment exert very great influences on the operations of the financial superstructure. This is based on the evidence from the results, which revealed the socio-political index, regulatory index, and foreign exchange market variables as the most critical predictors of the financial intermediation-output-related index. Other factors such as inflation, taxation, financial market imperfection, and the growth rate of the economy appear not to exert statistically significant effects on the intermediation operations of the financial superstructure. Generally, the utility of the specified models was satisfied as indicated by the results of the global statistics. © 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rigths reserved.

This article examines the entry of professional service firms, specifically the Big Six international accounting firms, into emerging foreign markets and explores how they develop and expand their business once established in those markets. The study is based on survey data (supplied by the Big Six) regarding their penetration of the People's Republic of China, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and Central Europe. A conceptual model is employed to illustrate the interrelationship between a firm's specific characteristics, the foreign environment, and foreign subsidiary intrafirm structure. Growth potential, client needs, favorable political/legal climate, and cultural considerations emerged as important factors in determining market entry and growth strategies for professional services firms. The research findings broaden our understanding of factors that influence professional services firms' development of pricing and marketing mix strategies. While all firms surveyed offered a full range of services, their marketing mix strategy differed from domestic approaches because of various local constraints on pricing and promotion. Copyright © 2000 University of Illinois.