Scurvy in the Great Irish Famine: Evidence of Vitamin C Deficiency From a Mid-19th Century Skeletal Population

Scurvy has increasingly been recognized in archaeological populations since the 1980s but this study represents the first examination of the paleopathological findings of scurvy in a known famine population. The Great Famine (1845–1852) was a watershed in Irish history and resulted in the death of one million people and the mass emigration of just as many. It was initiated by a blight which completely wiped out the potato—virtually the only source of food for the poor of Ireland. This led to mass starvation and a widespread occurrence of infectious and metabolic diseases. A recent discovery of 970 human skeletons from mass burials dating to the height of the famine in Kilkenny City (1847–1851) provided an opportunity to study the skeletal manifestations of scurvy—a disease that became widespread at this time due to the sudden lack of Vitamin C which had previously almost exclusively been provided by the potato. A three-scale diagnostic reliance approach has been employed as a statistical aid for diagnosing the disease in the population. A biocultural approach was adopted to enable the findings to be contextualized and the etiology and impact of the disease explored. The results indicate that scurvy indirectly influenced famine-induced mortality. A sex and stature bias is evident among adults in which males and taller individuals displayed statistically significantly higher levels of scorbutic lesions. The findings have also suggested that new bone formation at the foramen rotundum is a diagnostic criterion for the paleopathological identification of scurvy, particularly among juveniles. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Cold War and British Debates over the Boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics

This article examines the debate precipitated by the Thatcher government's (unsuccessful) attempt to secure a British boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Aware that it faced a struggle to win over the autonomous British Olympic Association, but with Thatcher in particular keen to support the United States, the government's case that the invasion required a specific response in the form of a boycott was steadily overshadowed as the public debate increasingly focused on arguments over human rights and détente and the use of state power.

Missing Links, Cultural Modernity and the Dead: Anatomically Modern Humans in the Great Cave of Niah (Sarawak, Borneo)

The Great Cave of Niah in Sarawak (northern Borneo) came into the gaze of Western Science through the work of Alfred Russell Wallace, who came to Sarawak in the 1850s to search for ‘missing links’ in his pioneering studies of evolution and the natural history of Island Southeast Asia and Australasia. The work of Tom and Barbara Harrisson in the 1950s and 1960s placed the Great Cave, and particularly their key find, the ‘Deep Skull’, at the nexus of the evolving archaeological framework for the region: for decades the skull, dated in 1958 by adjacent charcoal to c.40,000 BP, was the oldest fossil of an anatomically modern human anywhere in the world and thus critical to ideas about human evolution and dispersal. Although several authorities later questioned the provenance and antiquity of the Deep Skull, renewed investigations of the Harrisson excavations since 2000 have shown that it can be attributed securely to a specific location in the Pleistocene stratigraphy, with direct U-series dating on a piece of the skull indicating an age for it of c.37,500 BP and the first evidence for associated human activity at the site going back to c.50,000 BP. The new work also indicates that the skull is part of a cultural deposit, perhaps a precursor to the long tradition in Borneo of processing of the dead and secondary burial. These indicators of cultural complexity chime with the complexity of the subsistence behaviour of the early users of the caves discussed by Philip Piper and Ryan Rabett in chapter ten of this volume.

Knowledge Formation and the Great Divergence between China and Europe: Manuscripts and Printed Books, ca. 581–1840

Literature dealing with the history of Chinese printed books and printing is voluminous. Yet studies of how knowledge in general and utilitarian forms of knowledge in particular were generated, accumulated and circulated by printed books and their relationship with the long-term socio-economic transformation of China are rare. This paper aims to open up the subject by examining the long-term trends in the production of manuscripts and books and focusing on the connections between the generation and dissemination of useful knowledge in China and the production and circulation of printed books over the centuries and dynasties from circa 581 to 1840 compared to Europe. It connects trends in this indicator for knowledge formation and diffusion to economic growth, urbanization, changes in higher forms of education, the rise of literacy, the development of printing technologies, and changes in perceptions of the natural world. It concludes that human capital formation in China probably proceeded at a slower rate,which is relevant for narratives of the “divergence” between China and Europe.

Beyond the boundaries in the island of Ireland

The review essay opens with positive attributes of Ireland but then considers that the island has been subject to centuries of bitter dispute and unrest. The historical background to this is outlined, particularly the interactions between Ireland and its neighbouring island, Great Britain, which dominated Irish affairs. One policy adopted by the British was to encourage migration of Protestants into the largely Catholic island in the vain hope that this would reduce unrest. The
two islands were then united from 1801 as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland but demands from indigenous Irish Catholics for independence continued, resisted by the Protestant minority who wished to remain inside the UK. After the Great War a solution was imposed that granted most of Ireland independence but left the largely Protestant northeast corner within the UK as Northern Ireland. Reaction to and life with the Irish border are considered and the paper concludes with musings about its future.

Law, Politics and Financial Development: The Great Reversal of the U.K. Corporate Debt Market

This article examines the role of creditor protection in the development of the U.K. corporate bond market. This market grew rapidly in the late nineteenth century, but in the twentieth century it experienced a reversal, albeit with a short-lived post-1945 renaissance. Such was the extent of the reversal that the market from the 1970s onwards was smaller than it had been in 1870. We find that law does not explain the variation in the size of this market over time. Alternatively, our evidence suggests that inflation and taxation policies were major drivers of this market in the post-1945 era. Copyright © The Economic History Association 2013