Mobilities and Pottery Production Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives

Our workshop aims at a deeper understanding of various itineraries of pottery and dif-ferent forms of human mobilities in which pottery is relevant, bringing together archae-ological and anthropological perspectives. For thousands of years, pottery has been an important part of many societies’ material culture and therefore a major research topic in both disciplines. In past and present societies the material existence of ceramic vessels is informed by various movements across time and space but also by periods of stasis: from the mo-ment of their production until their exclusion from daily practices, either disposed as waste, excluded as funerary objects or stored as collectibles. In their seemingly endless material durability, ceramic vessels might outlive their human producers, distributors or consumers and travel farther and longer. Still they are embedded in the regimes of human mobility, ranging from daily subsistence-based mobility to long-term migrations. In such processes, pottery shifts between spatial, temporal, social, economic and cultural contexts. Thereby ceramic vessels are appropriated and integrated in new contexts of action and meaning, sometimes leading to material transformations. This workshop takes place in the context of our archaeological research project „Mobili-ties, Entanglements and Transformations in Neolithic Societies on the Swiss Plateau (3900-3500 BC)“ to which our PhDs are connected. We address the above outlined topic by analysing the production of pottery. Based on dendrochronologically dated settle-ments between 3900 and 3500 BC, two regional pottery styles and their local variations are well known, Pfyn and Cortaillod. The vessels share the same habitus and were made of clays and temper deriving from the settlements’ surroundings. However, some vessels specific to other pottery styles are also present on the sites. They are characteristic for pottery styles known from more or less far off regions (Michelsberg, Munzingen or Néo-lithique Moyen Bourguignon). Some of them were travelling objects, as their non local raw materials show. Others seem to have been produced locally, pointing to long-term mobility and a change of residence from neighbouring social groups.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Luxury Consumption: an Empirical Comparison between Japanese and Swiss Consumers

On the background of the global rise of luxury consumption, the importance of knowing cross-cultural luxury consumption preferences grows accordingly. We investigate cross-cultural specifics of luxury consumption for two cultures, Switzerland and Japan, which clearly differ along Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions (Hofstede 2013). Using these dimensions as a conceptual background, we conduct qualitative interviews with luxury consumers from both cultures and derive propositions concerning the meaning of these dimensions for luxury consumption.

Itineraries of pottery: a mixed methods approach to mobility

Neolithic wetland sites in the Swiss Plateau provide an extraordinary database for the study of mobilities, entanglements and transformations in material culture. Based on dendrochronologically dated settlements between 3900 and 3500 BC, two regional pottery styles and their local variations are well known, Pfyn and Cortaillod. The vessels share the same habitus and were made of local raw materials. However, some vessels specific to other pottery styles are also present in the sites. By focusing on itineraries of vessels and shifts in pottery knowledge, their appropriation in different contexts and the resulting material entanglements, we want to approach the multiple regimes of mobility: At Lake Constance - known for Pfyn pottery - specific Michelsberg vessels like tulip beakers and lugged jars occur in small numbers. These travelling objects were produced with exogenous raw materials and transported to the sites from Southern Germany. At Concise (Lake Neuchâtel) besides the local Cortaillod pottery the whole repertoire of NMB pottery, characteristic for Eastern France, was also produced. Further cases from the same space-time frame point to other regimes of mobility. In our two PhD-projects we compare pottery practices - styles, techniques, raw materials - from over 20 key sites in the region. Based on Bourdieu’s reflexive anthropology, we apply different qualitative and quantitative archaeological and archaeometrical methods, thus striving for a deeper understanding of habitus and the transformative potential of moving people, objects and ideas on local and regional scales and related social contexts.

Pottery as an indication of mobilities?

Pottery is one of the most common and stylistically differentiated sources in prehistoric archaeology. This might be the reason why it served as a waste projection surface for archaeological notions about culture, identity, and mobility in the past. As we do not have access to emic categorisations of Neolithic societies we focus on contexts of practice in which pottery was incorporated. It is the moment of production, which left some of the clearest traces on the vessels. Different ways of using raw materials, specific techniques, and characteristic pottery styles can be observed. We understand them as a result of habitus, as socially shared internalized schemes, patterns and habits in pottery production. Taking this as a staring point, two main pottery groups can be differed on the Swiss Plateau between 3900 and 3500 BC: the Mediterranean influenced Cortaillod pottery in Western Switzerland and the Danubian influenced Pfyn pottery in North-Eastern Switzerland. These pottery styles were not only entangled to some degree. Furthermore, in some settlements vessels made in “foreign” styles - Michelsberg, Munzingen, Néolithique Moyen Bourguignon - are present too. Some of them were travelling objects, as their nonlocal raw materials show. Others were locally made, indicating long-term mobility of their producers. To analyse these phenomena of mobilites and entanglements in our PhDs we plan to apply different archaeological and archaeometrical methods, thus striving for a deeper understanding of the transformative potential of moving people, objects and ideas in Neolithic societies on the Swiss Plateau.

A Lentiviral Vector Expressing Japanese Encephalitis Virus-like Particles Elicits Broad Neutralizing Antibody Response in Pigs.

BACKGROUND Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is the major cause of viral encephalitis in Southeast Asia. Vaccination of domestic pigs has been suggested as a "one health" strategy to reduce viral disease transmission to humans. The efficiency of two lentiviral TRIP/JEV vectors expressing the JEV envelope prM and E glycoproteins at eliciting protective humoral response was assessed in a mouse model and piglets. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS A gene encoding the envelope proteins prM and E from a genotype 3 JEV strain was inserted into a lentiviral TRIP vector. Two lentiviral vectors TRIP/JEV were generated, each expressing the prM signal peptide followed by the prM protein and the E glycoprotein, the latter being expressed either in its native form or lacking its two C-terminal transmembrane domains. In vitro transduction of cells with the TRIP/JEV vector expressing the native prM and E resulted in the efficient secretion of virus-like particles of Japanese encephalitis virus. Immunization of BALB/c mice with TRIP/JEV vectors resulted in the production of IgGs against Japanese encephalitis virus, and the injection of a second dose one month after the prime injection greatly boosted antibody titers. The TRIP/JEV vectors elicited neutralizing antibodies against JEV strains belonging to genotypes 1, 3, and 5. Immunization of piglets with two doses of the lentiviral vector expressing JEV virus-like particles led to high titers of anti-JEV antibodies, that had efficient neutralizing activity regardless of the JEV genotype tested. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE Immunization of pigs with the lentiviral vector expressing JEV virus-like particles is particularly efficient to prime antigen-specific humoral immunity and trigger neutralizing antibody responses against JEV genotypes 1, 3, and 5. The titers of neutralizing antibodies elicited by the TRIP/JEV vector are sufficient to confer protection in domestic pigs against different genotypes of JEV and this could be of a great utility in endemic regions where more than one genotype is circulating.

Effects of divergent selection for growth on egg quality traits in Japanese quail

The experiment was designed to investigate the impact of selection for increased body mass on external and internal egg quality traits of Japanese quail. Three hundred and sixty Japanese quail, divergently selected over three generations for different body mass at 4 weeks of age, were used. Quail were homogeneously divided into three groups each consisting of 120 birds: high body mass (HBM), low body mass (LBM) and Control. ANOVA was used to detect the effect of selection on egg quality. In addition, correlation between external and internal egg quality traits was measured. Our results revealed thatHBMquail laid heavier eggs (P = 0.03 compared with LBM but not significantly different with Control quail) with a higher external (shell thickness, shell weight, eggshell ratio and eggshell density, P = 0.0001) and internal egg quality score (albumen weight, P = 0.003; albumen ratio, P = 0.01; albumen height, yolk height, yolk index and Haugh unit, P = 0.0001) when compared with both the Control and LBM. The egg surface area and yolk diameter were significantly higher in HBM when compared with the LBM but not with the Control line. Egg weight was positively correlated with albumen weight (r = 0.54, P = 0.0001), albumen ratio (r = 0.14, P = 0.05), yolk height (r = 0.27, P = 0.0001), yolk weight (r = 0.23, P = 0.002), yolk diameter (r = 0.14, P = 0.05) and yolk index (r = 0.21, P = 0.005) but was negatively correlated with yolk ratio (r = –0.16, P = 0.03). Our results indicate that selection for higher body mass might result in heavier eggs and superior egg quality.

Strategy and Circumstance: the Response of American Firms to Japanese Competition in Semiconductors, 1980-1995

The transistor was an American invention, and American firms led the world in semiconductor production and innovation for the first three decades of that industry's existence. In the 1980s, however, Japanese producers began to challenge American dominance. Shrill cries arose from the literature of public policy, warning that the American semiconductor industry would soon share the fate of the lamented American consumer electronics business. Few dissented from the implications: the only hope for salvation would be to adopt Japanese-style public policies and imitate the kinds of capabilities Japanese firms possessed. But the predicted extinction never occurred. Instead, American firms surged back during the 1990s, and it now seems the Japanese who are embattled. This striking American turnaround has gone largely unremarked upon in the public policy literature. And even scholarship in strategic management, which thrives on stories of success instead of stories of failure, has been comparatively silent. Drawing on a more thorough economic history of the worldwide semiconductor industry (Langlois and Steinmueller 1999), this essay attempts to collect some of the lessons for strategy research of the American resurgence. We argue that, although some of the American response did consist in changing or augmenting capabilities, most of the renewed American success is in fact the result not of imitating superior Japanese capabilities but rather of taking good advantage of a set of capabilities developed in the heyday of American dominance. Serendipity played at least as important a role as did strategy.

Oceanographic Data of the 37th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition from November 1995 to March 1996

The results of oceanographic observations on board the icebreaker "Shirase" and tidal observations at Syowa Station, Antarctica, are presented in this report. The oceanographic observations were carried out by the summer party of the 37th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE-37) during the austral summer of 1995/1996. The tidal observations were carried out by the winter party of JARE-36 from February 1995 to January 1996.

Mobilities, Entanglements, Transformations. Outline of a Research Project on Pottery Practices in Neolithic Wetland Sites of the Swiss Plateau

A large number of later Neolithic sites (3900–3500BC) in Switzerland, Southern Germany and Eastern France offer outstandingly well preserved archaeological materials from cultural layers. Due to the wide use of dendrochronology, settlement remains and artefact assemblages can now be placed into a precise and fixed chronological framework, thus presenting a unique case within prehistoric archaeology. In earlier research, chronological and regional units were constructed on the basis of pottery. These spacial and temporal units of typical pottery sets were understood as Neolithic cultures, as culturally more or less homogenous entities connected with (ethnic) identities. Today, with a larger data corpus of excavated settlements at hand, we can begin to understand that this period of the past was in fact characterised by a multitude of cultural entanglements and transformations. This is indicated by the occurrence of local and non-local pottery styles in one and the same settlement: for example typically local Cortaillod pottery is found together with NMB-styled pottery in settlements at Lake Neuchâtel or Michelsberg pottery is regularly occurring in settlements at Lake Constance where Pfyn pottery style is the typical local one. These and many more examples show that there must have been complex entanglements of social ties expanding between Eastern France, Southern Germany and the Swiss Plateau. Given these circumstances the former notions of Neolithic culture should be critically revised. Therefore, in late 2014, the Prehistoric Archaeology Department at the Archaeological Institute of University of Berne started a four-year research project funded by Swiss National Science Foundation in late 2014: ‘Mobilities, Entanglements and Transformations in Neolithic Societies of the Swiss Plateau (3900-3500 BC)’. It’s objective is to address the topic sketched above by adopting a mixed methods research (MMR)-design combining qualitative and quantitative approaches from archaeology and archaeometry. The approach is theoretically based on Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology and his concept of habitus but includes further concepts of practice theories. By shifting the focus to the movement of people, ideas and things – to pottery production practices in contexts of mobility – a deeper understanding of the transformative capacities of encounters can be achieved. This opens the path for new insights of Neolithic societies including social, cultural and economic dynamics that were underestimated in former research.