Land-use patterns and cultural change in the Middle to Late Bronze Age in Ireland: inferences from pollen records

In Ireland, the Middle to Late Bronze Age (1500-600 cal. B.C.) is characterised by alternating phases of prolific metalwork production (the Bishopsland and Dowris Phases) and apparent recessions (the Roscommon Phase and the Late Bronze Age-Iron Age transition). In this paper, these changes in material culture are placed in a socio-economic context by examining contemporary settlement and land-use patterns interpreted from the pollen record. The vegetation histories of six tephrochronologically-linked sites are presented that provide high-resolution and chronologically well-resolved insights into changes in landscape use over the Middle to Late Bronze Age. The records are compared with published pollen records in an attempt to discern if there are any trends of woodland clearance and abandonment from which changes in settlement patterns can be inferred. The results suggest that prolific metalworking industries correlate chronologically with expansive farming activity, which indicates that they were supported by a productive subsistence economy. Conversely, declines in metalwork production occur during periods when farming activity is generally less extensive and perhaps more centralised, and it is proposed that disparate socio-economic or –political factors, rather than a collapse of the subsistence economy, lies behind the demise of metalworking industries.

The 1996 ‘Muslim holiday’ affair. Religious competition and state mediation in contemporary Mozambique

Political commentators often cast religious con? ict as the result of the numerical growth and political rise of a single faith. When Islam is involved, arguments about religious fundamentalism are quick to surface and often stand as an explanation in their own right. Yet, as useful as this type of explanation may be, it usually fails to address properly, if at all, two sets of important issues. It avoids, Ž rst, the question of the rise of other religions and their contribution to tensions and con? icts. Second, it reduces the role of the State to a reactive one. The State becomes an object of contest or conquest, or it is simply ignored. Adopting a different approach, this article investigates a controversy that took place in Mozambique in 1996 around the ‘ofŽ cialisation’ of two Islamic holidays. It looks at the role played by religious competition and state mediation. The article shows that the State’s abandonment of religious regulation – the establishment of a free ‘religious market’ – fostered religious competition that created tensions between faiths. It suggests that strife ensued because deregulation was almost absolute: the State did not take a clear stand in religious matters and faith organisations started to believe that the State was becoming, or could become, confessional. The conclusion discusses theoretical implications for the understanding of religious strife as well as Church and State relations. It also draws some implications for the case of Mozambique more speciŽ cally, implications which should have relevance for countries such as Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe where problems of a similar nature have arisen.