Pierre Giroux le Parisien / par Auguste Ricard

Collection : Études populaires

Joined-up archaeology at Old Scatness, Shetland: thin section analysis of the site and hinterland

Excavations on the multi-period settlement at Old Scatness, Shetland have uncovered a number of Iron Age structures with compacted, floor-like layers. Thin section analysis was undertaken in order to investigate and compare the characteristics of these layers. The investigation also draws on earlier analyses of the Iron Age agricultural soil around the settlement and the midden deposits that accumulated within the settlement, to create a 'joined-up' analysis which considers the way material from the settlement was used and then recycled as fertiliser for the fields. Peat was collected from the nearby uplands and was used for fuel and possibly also for flooring. It is suggested that organic-rich floors from the structures were periodically removed and the material was spread onto the fields as fertilisers. More organic-rich material may have been used selectively for fertiliser, while the less organic peat ash was allowed to accumulate in middens. Several of the structures may have functioned as byres, which suggests a prehistoric plaggen system.

Detecting the environmental impact of the Baltic Crusades on a late-medieval (13th-15th century) frontier landscape: palynological analysis from Malbork Castle and hinterland, Northern Poland

Palaeoecological analysis of peat deposits from a small bog, combined with pollen analysis of sediments infilling the moat of the nearby Teutonic Order castle at Malbork, have been used to examine the ecological impact of the Crusades on the late-medieval landscape of Northern Poland. Studies of the environmental impact of the Crusades have been almost exclusively informed by written sources; this study is the first of its type to directly investigate the environmental context of Crusading as a force of ecological transformation on the late-medieval Baltic landscape. The pollen evidence from Malbork Castle and its hinterland demonstrate that the 12th/13th–15th centuries coincide with a marked transformation in vegetation and land-use, characterized by clearance of broadleaved woodland and subsequent agricultural intensification, particularly during the 14th/15th centuries. These changes are ascribed to landscape transformations associated with the Teutonic Order’s control of the landscape from the mid-13th century. Human activity identified in the pollen record prior to this is argued to reflect the activities of Pomeranian settlers in the area. This paper also discusses the broader palaeoecological evidence for medieval landscape change across Northern Poland.

"You can see some eagles. And hear the trumpets": the literary and political hinterland of T.S. Eliot's 'Coriolan'

There has been an increased amount of scholarly interest lately in T.S. Eliot's unfinished sequence, Coriolan (1932)—interest drawn from its Shakespearian allusiveness, and from analysis of this writing's particularly rebarbative, jarring poetic. Although, however, the two parts of the sequence published by Eliot are acknowledged as being his nearest approach to poetic commentary upon contemporary political ideas, little criticism exists establishing the hinterland of the political thought, with which Eliot was most familiar, as editor of the Criterion. Coriolan emerges at a time when the lure of fascism pulled hardest at Eliot's sensibility. This article reviews the full political context provided by Eliot's journal, as well as considering the connections between that political engagement and the readings of Shakespeare he was also promulgating through this forum, in order to provide a more complex sense than hitherto of the diverse pressures underlying the unsettled nature of the existing Coriolan poems.

A new governance perspective on port–hinterland relationships: the Port Hinterland Impact (PHI) matrix

We develop a new governance perspective on port–hinterland linkages and related port impacts. Many stakeholders in a port’s hinterland now demand tangible economic benefits from port activities, as a precondition for supporting port expansion and infrastructural investments. We use a governance lens to assess this farsighted contracting challenge. We find that most contemporary economic impact assessments of port investment projects pay scant attention to the contractual relationship challenges in port-hinterland relationships. In contrast, we focus explicitly on the spatial distribution of such impacts and the related contractual relationship issues facing port authorities or port users and their stakeholders in the port hinterland. We introduce a new concept, the Port Hinterland Impact (PHI) matrix, which focuses explicitly on the spatial distribution of port impacts and related contractual relationship challenges. The PHI matrix offers insight into port impacts using two dimensions: logistics dedicatedness, as an expression of Williamsonian asset specificity in the sphere of logistics contractual relationships, and geographic reach, with a longer reach typically reflecting the need for more complex contacting to overcome ‘distance’ challenges with external stakeholders. We use the PHI matrix in our empirical, governance-based analysis of contractual relationships between the port authorities in Antwerp and Zeebrugge, and their respective stakeholders.