Who, When, and Why – Investigating Cultural Footprints at Early Iron Age Tel Kinrot

Ancient Kinneret (Tel Kinrot [Hebrew]; Tell el-‘Orēme [Arabic]) is located on a steep limestone hill on the northwestern shores of the Sea of Galilee (map ref. 2508.7529 [NIG]; 35.56/32.87 [WGS84]). The site, whose settlement history began sometime during the Pottery-Neolithic or the early Chalcolithic period, is emerging as one of the major sites for the study of urban life in the Southern Levant during the Early Iron Age (c. 1130–950 BCE). Its size, accessibility by major trade routes, and strategic location between different spheres of cultural and political influence make Tel Kinrot an ideal place for studying the interaction of various cultures on urban sites, as well as to approach questions of ethnicity and regionalism during one of the most debated periods in the history of the ancient Southern Levant.

Money is not enough: exploring the impact of social and cultural resources on youth health

Findings on socioeconomic health differentials in youth remain fragmented with the role of cumulative and interaction effects of different forms of health resources not well understood.

The Interaction Between Forest Fires and Human Activity in Southern Switzerland

The impact of human activities on the fire regime in southern Switzerland was studied using (pre)historical charcoal and pollen data from lake sediments and statistical data from the 20th century. The cultural impact on forest fire was established by correlating charcoal-influx data with pollen percentages of anthropogenic indicators such as Plantago lanceolata, the Cerealia (sum of Avena t., Triticum t. and Hordeum t.) and Secale. During the 20th century, fire frequency was correlated with precipitation, dry and very dry periods and landscape management indicators. The effects of human activity on the fire regime are clearly recognisable since at least the Neolithic period. Using palaeoecological or statistical data, the variations in fire regime originating from anthropogenic actions may be differentiated from those due to climatic changes if they are sufficiently conspicuous.

Cultural Legacies and Political Preferences: The Failure of Separatism in the Swiss Jura

The study of secession generally stresses the causal influence of cultural identities, political preferences, or ecological factors. Whereas these different views are often considered to be mutually exclusive, this paper proposes a two-stage model in which they are complementary. We posit that cultural identities matter for explaining secessionism, but not because of primordial attachments. Rather, religious and linguistic groups matter because their members are imbued with cultural legacies that lead to distinct political preferences – in this case preferences over welfare statism. Further, ecological constraints such as geography and topography affect social interaction with like-minded individuals. On the basis of both these political preferences and ecological constraints, individuals then make rational choices about the desirability of secession. Instrumental considerations are therefore crucial in explaining the decision to secede, but not in a conventional pocketbook manner. To examine this theory, we analyze the 2013 referendum on the secession of the Jura Bernois region from the Canton of Berne in Switzerland, using municipal level census and referendum data. The results lend support to the theory and suggest one way in which the politics of identity, based on factors like language and religion, can be fused with the politics of interest (preferences for more or less state intervention into the polity and economy) to better understand group behavior.