Bone and antler combs: towards a methodology for the understanding of trade and identity in Viking Age England and Scotland

This paper outlines the methodology of a doctoral research project at the University of York. The medium of study is the bone and antler hair comb, and the approach is one of integration. The project’s aims are twofold: to elucidate the means of distribution of these artefacts, and to develop our understanding of identity in Viking Age England and Scotland. The first phase of the project involves the review of methods of raw material analysis, whereby new and established identification criteria will be tested on a large sample of modern material. Should the results prove promising, the techniques will be employed in a study of combs from Viking Age contexts in northern England and Scotland. These zoologically-based methods will then be integrated with techniques taken from other areas of artefact analysis. Style and manufacture will be investigated through a variety of statistical and map-based techniques. These fine-grained analyses will develop our understanding of the way in which these objects were produced and exchanged. Building from these bases, a study of context and associations, together with a review of ethnohistoric evidence from the period, should help to elucidate the comb’s role in the construction of identity

Examining Moral Hazard in the Healthcare Insurance Market

This study aims to examine the effect of insurance coverage on medical expenditure in the United States. The data was gathered from the Household Component Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and is a cross-sectional data set with a sample size of approximately 1500 observations. The study also distinguishes between public and private insurance coverage to compare the potential moral hazard in the two separate markets. The results of this study suggest that insurance status, specifically public, has a strong positive effect on healthcare expenditure. This result, combined with a negative relationship between household income and healthcare expenditure, suggests that the source of financial funds rather than the ability to pay determines the demand for healthcare services. The study indicates that individuals are very sensitive to the financial incentives provided by public insurance and inefficiencies within the public insurance market should be examined by future research

The role of zooarchaeology in the interpretation of socioeconomic status: a discussion with reference to Medieval Europe

Social inequality is ubiquitous in human society, and the concept of social standing has been of fundamental importance throughout time (Price and Feinman 1995). The inference of social status has encountered problems in many areas of archaeology (see Orser 1990; Grenville 1997), and the use of zooarchaeology as part of an integrated approach may contribute to our understanding of important issues (Crabtree 1990). This paper reviews the various criteria used to infer socioeconomic status from faunal assemblages, taking examples from a variety of contexts, but concentrating primarily on medieval Europe, and England in particular. The problems associated with the application of zooarchaeological methods to this sphere of research are discussed, and some possible solutions proposed. It is suggested that zooarchaeology can play an important role in answering questions relating to socioeconomic standing, provided that it forms part of a wider archaeological strategy

Concentrations of railway metal theft and the locations of scrap-metal dealers

Metal theft has become a substantial crime problem in many areas. In response, several countries have introduced legislation to regulate scrap-metal recycling yards. However, at present there is little evidence to support this use of the market reduction approach (MRA) in preventing metal theft. The present study sought to test the underlying assumption of the MRA that the presence of a market for stolen property (in this case provided by scrap yards) drives thefts in a local area. This study tested for a spatial association between the locations of scrap yards and those of metal thefts. The density of industry, local burglary rate and road-accessibility of an area were controlled for. Metal thefts from railway lines in England were shown to be significantly more common in areas with more scrap-metal yards, high road accessibility and high population density. The results support the use of the MRA in relation to metal theft