Middle and Late Bronze Age settlement on the South Downs: the case study of Black Patch

By integrating the corpus of existing knowledge with new information gained by applying geo-archaeological techniques as well as more traditional techniques to fresh archaeological investigations at Black Patch and elsewhere, the aims of the research are to look at the economy, social organization and ritual behaviour of life in the Middle and Late Bronze Age on the South Downs in the light of modern archaeological theory to consider the questions ‘Why were these areas chosen for settlement?’, ‘What caused their abandonment?’ and ‘What can we learn about the life of the people associated with the settlements?’. The combination of field walking, field survey and soil sampling has shown the presence of a Neolithic flint spread, woodland clearance and agriculture before and during the period of site settlement at Black Patch. The positioning of the Hut platforms and enclosures across existing lynchets, the modification of the existing field system, the establishment of a new one and the adoption of more intensive farming techniques (manuring, weeding and crop location and rotation) would imply a change of social order and the adoption of a sedentary lifestyle for some. The existence of centrally placed hearths in huts found at Black Patch brings into doubt the existing day/night life/death metaphor currently commonly used for this period. Structured deposition points to a society concerned with agricultural fertility. The abandonment of Black Patch identified by Drewett and the dearth of later dated artefacts, at about the same time as the abandonment of the only other positively identified Deverel-Rimbury site in the immediate area, Itford Hill, suggests another change of social order, with livestock becoming more important as the Downland area around Black Patch appears then to be used only by nomadic herders. Areas to the west of the River Ouse which had been settled earlier developed more complicated specialist production sites. These have yet to be found east of the River Ous

Basin bifurcations, oscillatory instability and rate-induced thresholds for AMOC in a global oceanic box model

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) transports substantial amounts of heat into the North Atlantic sector, and hence is of very high importance in regional climate projections. The AMOC has been observed to show multi-stability across a range of models of different complexity. The simplest models find a bifurcation associated with the AMOC `on' state losing stability that is a saddle node. Here we study a physically derived global oceanic model of Wood {\em et al} with five boxes, that is calibrated to runs of the FAMOUS coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model. We find the loss of stability of the `on' state is due to a subcritical Hopf for parameters from both pre-industrial and doubled CO${}_2$ atmospheres. This loss of stability via subcritical Hopf bifurcation has important consequences for the behaviour of the basin of attraction close to bifurcation. We consider various time-dependent profiles of freshwater forcing to the system, and find that rate-induced thresholds for tipping can appear, even for perturbations that do not cross the bifurcation. Understanding how such state transitions occur is important in determining allowable safe climate change mitigation pathways to avoid collapse of the AMOC.Comment: 18 figure

Damages

Covers cases on the duty of the trial judge to award nominal damages after a finding of substantial damage (Hubbard) and on the recovery for value of good will in the conversion of business property (Quinn)

The Status of Teaching as a Profession: 1990-91

The objective of this report is to provide an empirical examination of the status of elementary and secondary teaching as a profession in the United States. The primary data source for this analysis is the nationally representative 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)

Property

Covers cases on the hostile intent requirement in adverse possession, on riparian rights in floodwaters and the common enemy doctrine, on the duty to inquire as to easements in the contract to convey free from encumberance (Moore), and on agreements to return goods in the same condition (Quinn)

Introduction of Computer Aided Instruction into an Aerospace Engineering Curriculum

The computer-aided education program at the U. S. Naval Academy has developed over a two-year period a nucleus of well trained and experienced faculty and technical staff members. The overall approach being used to introduce the use of computeraided instruction into the academic program is described. Details of the participation of the Aerospace Engineering faculty in this program, and the work done to date in courses which support the Aerospace Engineering curriculum, are presented