Academic literature on the topic 'Dating (Social customs) – Cross-cultural studies'

Bronze Age ceramics – A source of information on communication and social interaction in Bronze Age DenmarkIf not avoided completely, Bronze Age ceramics have generally been dealt with in terms of either Early or Late Bronze Age. Attempts to classify the ceramics within these periods according to ordinary typological conventions have mostly failed. It is therefore argued that Bronze Age ceramics should be viewed in a much broader chronological framework. It is also emphasised that ceramics should be seen in a social context and in relation to functional change. Therefore, all published ceramics from periods I to V from Jutland and Funen have been subjected to an investigation of the chronological and functional implications of groupings in form and attributes (figs. 1-2). As a result, it can be concluded that certain types of vessels that have not previously been classified are diag nostic for periods II-III and IV-V, respectively. Other types of vessels appear sporadically from period II and become frequent from period IV onwards, while yet further types are current during the entire Bronze Age (fig. 3). There is certain agreement with the Swedish A/B-phase partition in the investigated material, such that a Western Danish A-phase can be dated primarily to period IV (with a few exceptional occurrences in the Early Bronze Age), and the B-phase to periods V and VI (with a few occurrences in period IV) (figs. 4-5). Although the A/B-features are chronologically significant there seems to be some overlap between the two phases in Jutland and on Funen, which is also the case in Southern Sweden. It is therefore argued that future research on the subject is necessary and could provide better means of dating Late Bronze Age ceramics (fig. 6). The changing stylistic traits seen in the ceramics at the transition from Early to Late Bronze Age can be considered from a communicational point of view. In proposing this, the European context becomes very relevant. Different levels of similarity between the Continental and the Western Danish ceramics can be pointed out. Cases of very accurate copying and even possible import of foreign vessels are seen in both the Early and Late Bronze Age. But also a more general form of inspiration can be traced. In particular, three themes in vessel shape are omnipresent: Bi-conical vessels, quadri-partite vessels and carinated bowls. Also the tradition of face and house urns is a Pan-European phenomenon. Although some of these Lausitz-inspired vessel types occur sporadically in the Early Bronze Age, European influence on the Danish ceramics tradition seems to become radically more standardised and thorough from period IV onwards. By examining relationships between form and archaeological context it has been attempted to examine the functions of ceramics in a wider perspective. Probable practical functions are discussed briefly on the basis of settlement ceramics, archaeological field observations and general knowledge concerning form and function deduced from ethnographic studies. Attention is drawn to a certain combination of large vessels and smaller cups or bowls that can be recorded in settlement context. It is suggested that this “set” represents storage vessels and individual service. The function of ceramics in relation to burial practice is also discussed. Through comparison of ceramics from settlements and graves it can be stated that grave ceramics in both the Early and Late Bronze Age represent a wide range of vessel types. In contrast, certain types do not occur at settlements, for example, the three Lausitzinspired shape themes bi-conical, quadripartite vessels and carinated bowls in the Early Bronze Age, and face urns and house urns in the Late Bronze Age. Ceramics form a part of the formal transition from inhumation to cremation and urn graves. Apparently, proportional factors were dominant when it came to choosing a vessel for burial. Primarily small beakers were chosen for inhumation and, not surprisingly, large vessels were used as urns, combined with bowls placed upside down as lids. In cremation graves without urns, ceramics were used in much the same way as in inhumation graves. Also the earliest urn graves seem to reflect a transitional phase bet ween different uses of ceramics (fig. 7). The small vessels in the Early Bronze Age inhumation graves could be seen as being linked to a general drinking cult related to burial rites as has been suggested for cups made of other materials, e.g. bronze and gold. This possible drinking cult clearly has European implications. Additionally, it seems that vessels in Early Bronze Age inhumation graves were primarily a masculine privilege as was also the case with other kinds of containers. On the other hand, the earliest ceramic urns seem to have been reserved entirely for women and children as far as can be concluded from the sparse evidence. The latter brings to mind the fact that the earliest cremation graves on the Continent are likewise those of women. The combination of large vessels and bowls that can be seen in both settlement- and grave assemblages also seems to have its roots in Continental practising of the urn-grave custom (fig. 8). Bronze Age society is often regarded as an exogamic and patriarchal tribal system. Cases of women buried with a complete set of equipment originating from a different region to that in which they were interred are normally interpreted as evidence of intermarriage and alliances between distant tribes. Five very similar vessels have been found dispersed from Hammah, near Hamburg, through Northern Germany to the southwestern and eastern coasts of Jutland and as far as Thy in Northern Jutland. It is an interesting thought to see these as an expression of related women married into different regions passing on a certain ceramic tradition. It is proposed that potters in the Early Bronze Age were very much at liberty to express themselves in creating vessels, being limited only by the broad conventions implied in bodily rooted patterns shared by cultural groupings (so called Motor Habits). Early sporadic occurrences of certain vessel types from period II onwards can be seen within this framework. The changes, which ceramics underwent between periods III and IV, seem rather radical and must be explained in another way. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu, an attempt has been made to connect different kinds of “symbolic capital” to the ceramics. It is argued that ceramics have more to do with the domestic sphere and the changes in burial customs than with prestige and political alliances in a classical sense. Ceramics and urn burials could also be connected with the female sex. It has previously been documented that there could have been a change in the status of the female gender during the Bronze Age (figs. 9-12). It is therefore stated that the development in pottery tradition, towards new vessel types and a higher degree of standardisation and possibly specialisation, should be seen in the light of a new role in society for the female gender, implying new ritual and social skills internally on the settlements, and in external communication. Using Michael B. Shiffer’s thoughts on communication and material culture, it is recommended to focus attention on the receiving part in a communication process. In this way the transformations in ceramic production between the Early and Late Bronze Age can be seen as an expression of changing associations in the mind of the receiver. Vessels in the Early Bronze Age might only have signalled individual factors, whereas ceramics in the Late Bronze Age were associated with certain Pan-European conventions connected to burial customs and women. The standardisation of the ceramic production and higher degree of similarity in vessel shape and ornamentation across large geographical areas might indicate a different kind of group identity, at least for female potters. Such identification can happen “down the line” between small local groups, or it can involve some sort of imagined community over larger areas. In addition, an attempt has been made to sketch a possible cognitive framework behind the perception and use of ceramics in the Bronze Age. It is suggested that Early Bronze Age use of grave ceramics reflects a tradition where the vessel is a container either for provisions on the journey to an after-world or for ritual consumption during burial. The urn in the Late Bronze Age, on the other hand, can be seen as a metaphorical house and/or likewise metaphorical body for the remaining part of a pluralistic soul, while the bowl could be a symbolic roof and/or head on the “urn house/body”. These deduced connotations may to some extent have formed common ground in large communities as variations on a theme. Finally it is stated that synthetic studies such as this are sometimes necessary in order to move in archaeological research, forward although not all data can be handled with equal profundity. This article aims to draw attention to the interesting aspects of a ceramic record, which deviates from the general typological development, and recommends keeping the potential of this source in mind when dealing with interpretations of Bronze Age society.Julie LolkMoesgård Museum

There is hardly a country in this industrialized world today, where one can find an ethnically homogenous population. The aftermath of colonialism, the creation of refugees- often the result of ethnic conflicts- and the movement of people in search of greater economic, political or social opportunities have contributed to the worldwide mix of people. Canada and India are the countries affected by the growing diversity. However this diversity has different facets in both the countries. In the literary world Canada, Multiculturalism is the main theme of writing and in India, presentation of cultural diversity is yet at the beginning stage. This statement has to be tasted on the fictional works of Margaret Atwood from Canada and Bharati Mukherjee from India. Both the writers are very unique in their writing and have trodden the different ways of using Cultural-diversity.
 Culture is an integral part of a human society and its nation. Then the question arises: what is culture? The Oxford English Dictionary defines culture as a “particular form or type of intellectual development in a society generated by its distinctive customs, achievements and outlook.” At the wide canvass, culture is taken as consolidating the way of life of an entire society and includes codes of manners, dress, language, rituals, social customs and folklore of a nation. Every country has a typical and distinctive culture of its own. However, when an independent country becomes a colony, the native culture goes under a change. This is the case with the countries like Kenya, Nigeria and India. When these countries came in contact with western culture, a process of change in culture was initiated, and this journey made the traditional culture of respective countries destroyed. While Indian literature had cross cultural encounters with the English studies, Canada has been undergoing a cultural metamorphosis with the mix of second races and people from all over the world.

This paper discusses postwar Japanese adoption of American culture in a debut novel by Lynne Kutsukake entitled The Translation of Love. This novel is set during the U.S. occupation of Japan after the end of World War II. Postwar Japanese are forced to live under American power, while undergoing an economic, social, and moral crisis (kyodatsu). By using postcolonial perspective under Transnational American Studies, this paper finds the adoption of American culture by postwar Japanese characters in the novel, which come from various social backgrounds, including schoolteachers, schoolchildren, bar girls, and prostitutes. The adoption of American culture includes language (English), Western dating (lifestyle), custom, and fashion. This cultural adoption can be defined as the construction of new Japanese society built under American influence to be more “American-oriented”. Moreover, it further implies the devaluation of Japanese culture, the humiliation of postwar Japanese people, and the birth of Japanese cultural dependency toward American culture.Keywords: American culture; postcolonial; postwar Japan; transnational; U.S. occupation

Since the Customs Union came into effect on 1 January 1996, Turkey has effectively become part of the European Union's single market. This high degree of economic integration has not been matched in the sphere of political and social integration. Turkey was omitted from a list of countries with which accession negotiations began in March 1998, and the Cardiff European Council of May 1998 confirmed Turkey's marginalization from the current process of enlargement.

Many indigenous African religions, specifically that of the Yoruba of Nigeria, the Bamana and Malinke of Mali, and the Nuer of southern Sudan, are characterized by a system of spiritual beliefs surrounding the life and death of twins. Separation by death poses an extreme threat to the soul(s) of twins, and many rituals and customs designed to sustain the spirit of surviving twins are widely practiced. Despite twin loss being overlooked in Western psychological studies of grief, recent research and in-depth interviews of bereaved twins clearly identifies the unique nature of losing a twin, and the importance of acknowledging this distinction in the surviving twin's ability to cope with the death. The spiritual practices of the Yoruba, Bamana, Malinke, and Nuer are conducive to dealing with the specific nature of twin loss. They take into account the uniqueness of the twinship experience, and provide material for reflection on healing approaches outside the traditional parameters of psychology.

Les Chamanes de la Préhistoire: Transe et Magie dans les Grottes Ornées, by Jean Clottes & David Lewis-Williams, 1996. Paris: Éditions Seuil; ISBN 2-02-028902-4 hardback 249FF, 110 pp., 114 colour ills.The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves, by Jean Clottes & David Lewis-Williams, 1996. New York (NY): Harry N. Abrams; ISBN 0-8109-4182-1 hardback, US$49.50, 120 pp., 116 colour ills.Jean Clottes and David Lewis-Williams' recent book Les Chamanes de la Préhistoire builds on a body of rock art research which has come to dominate the field, marginalizing interest in other cultural themes such as totemism and records of everyday foraging. Shamanism and totemism are, however, two of the most pervasive indigenous theories of being to have been discussed in the anthropological literature. The word totem comes from the Ojibwa, a native North American people, while the word shaman comes from the Tungus of central Siberia. Their use cross-culturally to refer to types of religion (i.e. shamanism and totemism), is an artefact of anthropology. Shamanism can be applied to customs that are inferred to have arisen independently in different parts of the world; customs in a single circum-arctic culture area; or scattered survivals from an allegedly original human condition. The cross-cultural validity of shamanism has been considered by Eliade, Lewis, Hultkrantz and Vitebsky. Shamanism refers to the use of spirits as guardians and helpers of individuals, contacted through trance. The validity of totemism as a cross-culturally-valid category has been vigorously debated in anthropology. It is generally agreed to refer to the use of animals or plants as emblems or guardians of social groups celebrated in ritual. The rationale of totemism is that each group is identified with a different species; the significance of each species derives from its place in the cognitive structure. Group A is kangaroo because it is not emu or python. While Durkheim interpreted totemism as the original human religion, Lévi-Strauss persuasively argued that totemism is a product of human cognition, which has developed independently in North America, Australia and Africa.

Although not a new topic, there is a growing trend in ethnology to interpret changing kinship terminology, social organization, and marriage practices deep into prehistory. These efforts are largely guided by phylogenetic, neoevolutionary, and historical particularist theoretical models using 19th to 20th century ethnographically recorded kin terminology. However, the “high-level” theoretical models and their assumptions are untestable without data dating to prehistory. Archeological kinship analysis based on cross-cultural “mid-level” factual correspondence between social organization and patterns in material culture, which is not biased by any given “high-level” theory, can empirically test the ethnological models and assumptions. Archeological case studies on the Chontal Maya and Hohokam illustrate problems in phylogenetic, neoevolutionary, and historical particularist theoretical assumptions. Instead, the results are consistent with contemporary anthropological theory emphasizing practice and agency within historically contingent political economic social contexts.

Introduction. The relevance of the study of cross-cultural marriages in Russia and Iran is due to the fact that Russia and Iran are characterized by both attention to the observance of cultural needs and the desire for innovative development. These contradictory manifestations are also manifested in family and marriage relations. There is a shortage of empirical studies that reflect the range of opinions of various social strata in Russia and Iran, allowing a comparative analysis of attitudes towards cross-cultural marriages to determine the prospects for state policy to support the institution of marriage in a cross-cultural environment. The purpose of the public research is to analyze the relationship with cross-cultural marriages in Russia and Iran against the background of the proposed family model. Materials and Methods. Sociological research is carried out by the method of a quantitative survey. 153 people were interviewed in total, urban residents of Russia and Iran aged 18 to 60 who are in cross-cultural marriages or an interethnic, interfaith environment. To analyze the results, descriptive statistics methods, frequency distributions, and a tabular data visualization method were used. Results. The survey results have revealed the presence of different ideas about the desired model of family and marriage both in Iran and Russia (both traditional and modern). The study has revealed a friendly attitude towards interethnic marriages in both countries (primarily for urban residents). In many ways, the success of cross-cultural marriages is determined by the attitude of relatives and the local community towards them. Discussion and Conclusion. The results obtained can be used to develop strategies for the development of socio-cultural interaction between Russia and Iran. It is essential to consider the study’s conclusions when supporting cross-cultural families in the process of adaptation and acquaintance with the norms, traditions, and customs of a new culture spouse. It is necessary to conduct a study on a more representative sample to assess the differentiation and determinants of people’s opinions in interethnic marriages living in Iran and Russia.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study ethics, values and cross-cultural differences in China, Mexico or the United States. Three distinct and unique nations, the USA, Mexico and China, have different political structures, historical backgrounds and economical systems. While each of these nations can be considered an integral part to the world economy, each nation has their own distinct ethics, values and culture which serve as the backbone of the particular region. To be successful in international business, knowledgeable as an expatriate and culturally or ethically aware of key nations in the global market, individuals need to have researched information pertaining to the ethics, cultures and values of the USA, Mexico or China to blend in and succeed with the foreign cultural environment. Design/methodology/approach – This research paper will focus extensively on the impact values, ethics and cultural differences (based majorly and solely on the Rokeach Values Survey, Forsyth Studies and Hofsteade’s Model) have on the societies of the USA, Mexico or China. A review of the empirical studies will demonstrate the importance values, ethics and culture have on individual life or business environment for the USA, Mexico or China. Findings – Culture can be a factor which heavily influences a region or nation’s ethics and values. Research limitations/implications – When discussing culture, there are many factors such as values, religion, societal norms, customs, beliefs or deeply rooted faiths which can impact a nation’s overall collective culture. As a result, cross-cultural differences among a variety of nations, countries, regions or sub-regions may vary when compared with one another. Through more empirical investigation, research or study of a nation’s cultural values may there be a more profound, detailed and legitimate basis for assessing a nation’s ethical constructs. Practical implications – Understanding the differences of ethics, values and culture of the USA, China or Mexico can impact an individual’s experience if serving as an expatriate at the particular location. Each nation has its own distinct and unique social, business and cultural environment. To successfully accomplish international business or to operate a multinational corporation in a global market, individuals need to have a prior understanding of varying cultures, ethical standards or values in a particular region. Originality/value – This research paper will present and deliver pertinent information to individuals interested in serving as an expatriate in the USA, China or Mexico. Individuals can also read this paper to understand, comprehend or consume more general knowledge of the ethics, values and culture of the researched locations.

This paper is an attempt at the refutation of certain fallacies, which have gained a wide currency in legal and criminological thinking. These fallacies are the following. First, the mistaken interpretation of universal statements such as “Any person condemns murder” as the expression of a cross-cultural consensus about the blameworthiness of a certain type of behaviour; such statements, it is argued, are mere tautologies reflecting the cogency of our linguistic customs. Second, the erroneous belief that criminology can dogmatically account for the sum of the facts which appertain to its field of study, by means of a single, all-encompassing explanation; arguments are given to show that the fate of criminological studies is fragmentation. Third, it is argued that the criminal justice system should be conceived as an apparatus for social provocation rather than as institutionalized social reaction. Fourth, it is pointed out that we must draw an unambiguous distinction between the legal notion of a sentence and the intuitive notion of punishment; stressing this difference leads the author to compare briefly the main tenets of what he respectively calls dogmatic and sceptical criminology. Finally, the necessity to recognize as separate issues the justification and the allocation of criminal sanctions is proven and it is shown how the penal fascination with capital punishment is responsible for blurring the distinction between these issues.