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Experiments based on the premise of uniformitarism are an effective tool to establish patterns of taphonomic processes acting either before, or after, burial. One process that has been extensively investigated experimentally is the impact of trampling to large mammal bones. Since trampling marks caused by sedimentary friction strongly mimic cut marks made by humans using stone tools during butchery, distinguishing the origin of such modifications is especially relevant to the study of human evolution. In contrast, damage resulting from trampling on small mammal fossil bones has received less attention, despite the fact that it may solve interesting problems relating to site formation processes. While it has been observed that the impact of compression depends on the type of substrate and dryness of the skeletal elements, the fragility of small mammal bones may imply that they will break as a response to compression. Here, we have undertaken a controlled experiment using material resistance compression equipment to simulate a preliminary experiment, previously devised by one of us, on human trampling of owl pellets. Our results demonstrate that different patterns of breakage can be distinguished under wet and dry conditions in mandibles, skulls and long bones that deform or break in a consistent way. Further, small compact bones almost always remain intact, resisting breakage under compression. The pattern obtained here was applied to a Pleistocene small mammal fossil assemblage from Wonderwerk Cave (South Africa). This collection showed unusually extensive breakage and skeletal element representation that could not be entirely explained by excavation procedures or digestion by the predator. We propose that trampling was a significant factor in small mammal bone destruction at Wonderwerk Cave, partly the product of trampling caused by the raptor that introduced the microfauna into the cave, as well as by hominins and other terrestrial animals that entered the cave and trampled pellets covering the cave floor. This project was funded by a Leakey Foundation grant to F.-J.Y. and the project CGL2016-79334-P of the Spanish National Program funded by the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation and the Spanish Council of Scientific Research (COOPB20287). Funding for field work at Wonderwerk Cave is provided by a grant from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to C.M. The Université de Rennes 1 (France) and the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC, Spain) provided the Convention de Stage n. 46360 to R.L. to do this work as practical stage of the Master M2 mention Biologie-agro-santé spécialité préhistoire, paléontologie et paléoenvironnememt in 2015. G.-M.S. has a pre-doctoral grant funded by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and Banco Santander (CT42/18-CT43/18). Peer reviewed

The Tigray region in Ethiopia witnessed the rise and fall of the Pre-Aksumite and Aksumite communities between the mid 2nd millennium bce and the late 1st millennium ce. Despite the importance of these entities in recent African prehistory, the issue of how they interacted with their surrounding environment has only been addressed very recently. Here, we present the first systematic anthracological analysis from the region. Wood charcoal samples from two archaeological sites were analysed, the Pre-Aksumite rural site of Mezber (ca. 1600 bce-1 ce) and Ona Adi (ca. 600 bce-700 ce), an urban centre occupied continuously from the Late Pre-Aksumite period to the fall of the Aksumite kingdom. A total of 2,708 charcoal fragments from 25 samples and nine archaeological phases were analysed and 19 plant taxa associated with at least three different vegetation types were identified. The results demonstrate rather stable environmental conditions at a local level, with no major or abrupt environmental changes. They also evidence a process of landscape degradation as a result of human activity during the early to mid 1st millennium bce, as well as a subsequent recovery that occurred gradually during the next ca. 1,500 years. Finally, differences in firewood use were identified in relation to the rural or urban nature of each settlement, showing an evolution in wood selection, management and strategies of use which indicates that both Pre-Aksumite and Aksumite peoples had a significant degree of resilience and adaptive capacity. This research has been done as part of the Eastern Tigray Archaeological Project (ETAP). We are grateful for the participation of the Ethiopian Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage (ARCCH) and the Tigray Tourism and Cultural Commission (TCTB). Many thanks are due to Margareta Tengberg for granting access to wood collections of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris, France), and especially to the residents of the Gulo Makeda district (Tigray, Ethiopia) for their help, hospitality and participation in all ETAP interviews and excavations. ARG is a member of CaSEs, an excellence group of the Generalitat de Catalunya (SGR-0122) and Unidad Asociada of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IMF_CSIC) and is developing his work within the RAINDROPS Research Project (ERC-Stg2017 G.A. 759800). Financial support was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Partnership Grant #890-215-003) and the Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères (AVENIR Excellence Grant #901738L). Peer reviewed

International audience; A recent literature has used a historical perspective to better understand fundamental questions of urban economics. However, a wide range of historical documents of exceptional quality remain underutilised: their use has been hampered by their original format or by the massive amount of information to be recovered. In this paper, we describe how and when the flexibility and predictive power of machine learning can help researchers exploit the potential of these historical documents. We first discuss how important questions of urban economics rely on the analysis of historical data sources and the challenges associated with transcription and harmonisation of such data. We then explain how machine learning approaches may address some of these challenges and we discuss possible applications.

COVID-19 outbreaks at nursing homes during the recent pandemic, which received ample media coverage, may have lasting negative impacts on individuals’ perceptions regarding ursing homes. We argue that this could have sizable and persistent implications for savings and long-term care policies. We first develop a theoretical model predicting that higher nurs- ing home aversion should induce higher savings and stronger support for policies subsidizing home care. We further document, based on a survey on Canadians in their 50s and 60s, that higher nursing home aversion is widespread: 72% of respondents are less inclined to enter a nursing home because of the pandemic. Consistent with our model, we find that the latter are much more likely to have higher intended savings for older age because of the pandemic. We also find that they are more likely to strongly support home care subsidies.

International audience; Bolivian migration in borax and sulphur high-altitude mining was fundamental in sustaining industrial capitalism in northern Chile. In this paper, we quantify and characterize Bolivian migration in the border mining camps of the municipality of Ollagüe, through the analysis of 335 migratory files, dating from 1888 to 1946. We focus on the Bolivian presence in eight villages and camps involved in sulphur and borax mining. We present the entry periods of Bolivian workers, as well as their origin, trade and profession, gender, marital status, age, and literacy. Results give an account of the central role played by the Bolivian migrant labour force for the development of non-metallic and high-altitude mining industries in the region. It is concluded that the capitalist expansion in the Chilean border was sustained by an ethnic subsidiarity of an international subordinate workforce.

Contemporary political economy is predicated on widely shared ideas and assumptions, some explicit but many implicit, about the past. Our aim in this Special Issue is to draw attention to, and to assess critically, these historical assumptions. In doing so, we hope to contribute to a political economy that is more attentive to the analytic assumptions on which it is premised, more aware of the potential oversights, biases, and omissions they contain, and more reflexive about the potential costs of these blind spots. This is an Introduction to one of two Special Issues that are being published simultaneously by New Political Economy and Review of International Political Economy reflecting on blind spots in international political economy. Together, these Special Issues seek to identify the key blind spots in the field and to make sense of how many scholars missed or misconstrued important dynamics that define contemporary capitalism and the other systems and sources of social inequality that characterise our present. This particular Special Issue pursues this goal by looking backwards, to the history of political economy and at the ways in which we have come to tell that history, in order to understand how we got to the present moment.