Search

This study deviates from traditional approaches by focusing on data analysis instead of historical information to comprehend the dynamics shaping societal culture. Analyzing the cultural changes in European countries over the past two decades, the study utilizes the largest dataset to date, the Integrated Values Survey. Data from four distinct time periods spanning from 2000 to 2022 have been scrutinized. Expectation Maximization method is employed to address missing data in the dataset, and factor analysis-CLARA clustering algorithm is applied for each time period. The primary objective of this academic endeavor is to understand the dynamics of cultural evolution from a data-centric perspective. This analytical approach provides a robust foundation for comprehending cultural changes and predicting potential future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population aging is a global phenomenon due to declining birth rates and increased life expectancy. This demographic shift poses a challenge to society, requiring adaptation of policies, economies, and healthcare systems to safeguard the well-being of older individuals. Health inequalities, influenced by social determinants such as education, economic status, and place of residence, impact this population group, with notable differences between men and women. Several studies have demonstrated that social determinants of health (SDH) affect the quality of life (QoL) of older individuals, especially women. In general, women report lower quality of life indicators, lower educational levels, and poorer health compared to men. This study aims to examine how social determinants of health can influence the quality of life of the population aged 50 or older in different European countries, from a sex perspective, through a longitudinal approach. The main SDHs associated with poorer QoL were female sex advanced age, economic hardship, educational level, and geographic location within Europe. Depression in women and men in Southern Europe was associated with a decrease in QoL scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the influence of climate change on past extreme weather impacts is a vital research task. However, the effects of climate change are obscured in the observed impact data series due to the rapid evolution of the social and economic circumstances in which the events occurred. The HANZE v2.0 (Historical Analysis of Natural HaZards in Europe) dataset presented in this study quantifies the evolution of key socioeconomic drivers in Europe since 1870, namely land use, population, economic activity and assets. It consists of algorithms to reallocate baseline (2011) land use and population for any given year based on a large collection of historical subnational- and national-level statistics, and then disaggregate data on production and tangible assets by economic sector into a high-resolution grid. Raster datasets generated by the model enable reconstructing exposure within the footprint of any extreme event both at the time of occurrence and anytime between 1870 and 2020. This allows the separation of the effects of climate change from the effects of exposure change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important type of world heritage sites, cultural landscape has always been an important research subject. In order to explore the spatial distribution and evolution mode of cultural landscape all over the world, the paper systematically elaborated the historical context of cultural landscape. The distribution characteristics were analyzed by statistical methods, and the connotation and evolution law represented by cultural landscape in different regions were expounded. The word frequency of regional heritage criteria was analyzed, and the local characteristics of each case were discussed. The research shows that the spatial distribution of global cultural landscape is unbalanced, mainly concentrated in Europe, and the spatial distribution characteristics are closely related to geographical environment, social history, economic development level and many other factors. In terms of inscribed criteria for world heritage sites, most cultural landscapes are mainly based on cultural criteria, but also involve natural criteria. The recognition and protection of cultural landscapes that simultaneously meet multiple criteria will become the focus in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding and quantifying the influence of climate change on past extreme weather impacts is vital for climate litigation, the loss and damage debate, and for building more accurate models to assess future impacts. However, the effects of climate change are obscured in the observed impact data series due to the rapid evolution of the social and economic circumstances in which the extreme events occurred. The model and data presented in this study (HANZE v2.0) aims at quantifying the evolution of key socioeconomic drivers in Europe since 1870, namely land use, population, economic activity and assets. It consists of algorithms to reallocate baseline (2011) land use and population for any given year based on a large collection of historical subnational- and national-level statistics, and then disaggregate data on production and tangible assets by economic sector into a high-resolution grid. Maps generated by the model enable reconstructing exposure within the footprint of any extreme event both at the time of the event and in any other moment in the past 150 years. This allows the separation of the effects of climate change from the effects of exposure change. In addition, HANZE v2.0 can be used for assessing socio-economic influences on hazard (e.g. effects of land use-change on hydrological extremes) and vulnerability (e.g. the changing structure of assets at risk). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population dynamics set the framework for human genetic and cultural evolution. For foragers, demographic and environmental changes correlate strongly, although the causal relations between different environmental variables and human responses through time and space likely varied. Building on the notion of limiting factors, namely that at any one time, the scarcest resource caps population size, we present a statistical approach to identify the dominant climatic constraints for hunter-gatherer population densities and then hindcast their changing dynamics in Europe for the period between 21,000 to 8000 years ago. Limiting factors shifted from temperature-related variables (effective temperature) during the Pleistocene to a regional mosaic of limiting factors in the Holocene dominated by temperature seasonality and annual precipitation. This spatiotemporal variation suggests that hunter-gatherers needed to overcome very different adaptive challenges in different parts of Europe and that these challenges varied over time. The signatures of these changing adaptations may be visible archaeologically. In addition, the spatial disaggregation of limiting factors from the Pleistocene to the Holocene coincided with and may partly explain the diversification of the cultural geography at this time. Here, the authors use climate and resource availability, to statistically model the limiting factors in the dynamics of hunter-gatherer population densities in Europe between 21,000 and 8,000 years ago. They find that limiting factors varied spatiotemporally and the effects of these may be visible in the archaeological record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Scientiarum Naturalium Universitatis Sunyatseni / Zhongshan Daxue Xuebao is the property of Sun-Yat-Sen University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The role of environmental change in the evolution of cultural traits is a topic of long-standing scientific debate with strongly contrasting views. Major obstacles for assessing environmental impacts on the evolution of material culture are the fragmentary nature of archaeological and – to a somewhat lesser extent – geoscientific archives and the insufficient chronological resolution of these archives and related proxy data. Together these aspects are causing difficulties in data synchronization. By no means does this paper attempt to solve these issues, but rather aims at shifting the focus from demonstrating strict chains of causes and events to describing roughly contemporaneous developments by compiling and comparing existing evidence from archaeology and geosciences for the period between 40 and 15 ka in Central Europe. Analysis of the archaeological record identifies five instances at around 33, 29, 23.5, 19, and 16 ka, for which evidence suggests an increased speed of cultural evolution. By comparing data from different geoscientific archives, we discuss whether or not these instances have common characteristics. We stress that common characteristics per se are no proof of causality; repeated co-occurrences of certain features over long periods of time, however, suggest that certain explanations may be more plausible than others. While all five cases roughly coincide with pronounced and rapid environmental changes, it is also observed that such conditions do not necessarily trigger major changes in the material culture. Increases and decreases in the diversity of cultural traits seem to be rather correlated with the overall demographic development. In compiling and comparing our data, we also identify periods with high need and potential for future research regarding the relation between environmental change and cultural evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dirasat Tarbawiya is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Social Economy encompasses a wide array of private organizations that can be situated along a continuum that ranges from civil society to the business sector, e.g., associations, foundations, cooperatives, social enterprises, social business initiatives. The social sphere populated by SE/TS organizations operates in complex and multi‐layer environments and is particularly sensitive to institutional configuration. This paper deals with the institutional policy and attitude of the EU Commission towards SE/TS organizations in the field of welfare policy. We start with an illustration of the key features of the Social Investment policy framework, that stresses the adoption of an 'active policy' orientation and the overriding of more traditional 'compensatory policies'. Secondly, we analyze the regulatory eco‐system of the EU towards Social Economy in the last three decades. Thirdly, we present the main results of an European research project aimed at analyzing the 'level of recognition' and 'institutionalization' of the SE sector in ten European Countries. Then, we provide some data about the consistency of the Social Economy in EU, based on several research reports promoted by European Institutions (EESC). Finally, the main results of the analysis are summarized in order to assess the current conjuncture of the Social Economy sector in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals of Cultural Studies / Roczniki Kulturoznawcze is the property of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Institute of Cultural Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Just as Dover juxtaposes past and present, drawing comparisons based on a similar analytical (in this case, informational) lens between Europe and elsewhere should also reap rewards. By Dover, Paul M. (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2021) 342 pp $84.99 cloth $29.99 paper We have become accustomed to the idea that we live in the "information age", the result of an "information revolution." Dover questions both these standpoints by placing the "information revolution" in Early Modern Europe. [Extracted from the article]

While Disney is often characterized as the embodiment of American culture, other narratives intersect and thrive within the Disney universe. This is particularly true when it comes to Europe, a place from which many of the Disney legends were originally derived. This work explores the physical interactions between Disney and Europe to be found at Orlando's Walt Disney World. I propose that Disney challenges our idea of Europe by extracting traditional European tropes and resituating them in highly unorthodox contexts. Simultaneously, Disney has embedded itself within European space in a way that brings into question numerous facets of Europe's authenticity via both pathways, the verisimilitude between the real and imagined Europe bears the potential of fundamentally altering our understanding of Europe itself. This work seeks to problematize Disney/Europe and interrogate how perceptions of Europe from beyond its borders inform Europe's identity and might even have a bearing on its cultural evolution in our era of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Upper Palaeolithic period in the Levant is divided into three chronological stages: Initial (IUP), Early (EUP) and Late (LUP). While the Initial stage is the interphase between the Middle and the Upper Paleolithic periods, it was during the EUP that modern human populations fully established themselves in the region. The EUP consists of two techno-complexes, the local Ahmarian tradition, and the Levantine Aurignacian, conceived as an intrusive culture from Europe. Recent excavations at Manot Cave in western Galilee, Israel, have exposed rich Ahmarian and Aurignacian remains. The Ahmarian remains were found at the center of the cave superimposed by Aurignacian layers. They are characterized by long and narrow uni-and-bidirectional blades produced by soft hammer percussion. The tools consist of retouched blades, end scrapers and burins on blades and el-Wad points. These have been radiocarbon dated to 46-42 ka cal BP (68%). The Levantine Aurignacian remains, currently the dominant techno-complex at Manot, were recorded at the entrance and center of the cave. Distinctive finds include carinated and nosed end scrapers, Aurignacian blades, curved-twisted bladelets and antler spear points. The radiocarbon ages of the Aurignacian layers at the entrance and center of the cave range from between 39-33 ka cal BP (68%). The EUP at Manot is represented by faunal, botanical and shell remains. The faunal assemblages consist of large-medium (ungulates) and small (birds and reptiles) game. The charred/wood remains comprise species indicating a Mediterranean forest environment. Notably, a relatively fair amount of sea shells were recovered from the EUP contexts, some were used as personal ornaments and others consumed as food. The EUP sequence at Manot starts with the Ahmarian, followed by a repetitive Aurignacian exploitation of the cave until ca. 30 ka, which is the estimated time of the collapse of the cave entrance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Neolithic is regarded as one of the most important developments in prehistory, a major cultural threshold marked by combined shifts in economy, technology, ideology, settlement and social organisation. Many foundational ideas about the Neolithic emerged within the context of European archaeology, and substantial work has now been directed at understanding how this 'package' of innovations appeared first in the Near East, and then dispersed steadily out into the rest of northwest Europe. Papers presented in this special issue are an output of the international NEOMAP Project (Neolithization and Modernization: Landscape History on East Asian Inland Seas) (2005-2012), which sought to apply two key approaches drawn from European Neolithic studies to the archaeology of East Asia: (a) the concept of Neolithization, defined as a long-term and historically-contingent process of culture-change; and (b), the contextual study of this process via the framework of cultural landscape research. This exercise has been highly productive, and provides new insights into a series of unique cultural transformations in East Asia, most of which have a very different sequence and character to those in the European Neolithic. It is hoped that, in turn, these comparative insights into the Neolithization of East Asian cultural landscapes will encourage those working on the European Neolithic to look back over their own regional datasets and critically reflect on some of their deeper assumptions about the internal logic and cultural content of the European Neolithic transition. Given the existence of so many fundamentally different kinds of Neolithic across the broader continent of Eurasia, the overall goal of this special issue is to re-kindle international debates about how best to explain each of these distinctive regional Neolithization trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological and paleoecological investigations of Neolithization processes in Southern Primorye (or the Maritime Region) of the Russian Far East are generating new insight into the complex interactions between human populations and the natural environment during the Middle Holocene. Dynamic coastal and terrestrial ecosystems have been linked to transformations in the paleoeconomy and social structure of prehistoric societies that gave rise to the Boisman Neolithic culture (7500-4500 BP) of coastal hunter-fisher-gatherers. These human-environment relations are reconstructed in the current paper, drawing from a wide range of available evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of our article is threefold. First, we present and discuss the extant literature on creationism in Europe (the “facts”). Within this section, we offer a review of the literature as well as an overview of the most remarkable developments and events recorded therein. Second, we indicate which material is missing from the literature (the “gaps”) and signal which gaps we think should first be filled. Third, on the basis of a forthcoming international historical study, we outline the possible factors that affect the popularity of creationism in Europe (the “prospects”). We also sketch how a sustained study of European creationism can contribute to other research domains such as the study of cultural evolution and the relation between science and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: It is increasingly difficult to defend the existence of an absolute, abrupt break between “simple” MSA/Middle Paleolithic (Mode 3) technologies or human adaptions on the one hand and those of a more “complex” or “modern” LSA/Upper Paleolithic on the other hand. What went on during both blocks of cultural time was far from uniformity or stasis–quite to the contrary. Cultural evolution, as a long, drawn-out, mosaic process, must be disentangled from the question of the purely European replacement of the Neandertals by African-originated Homo sapiens idaltu/sapiens. A brief review of the African and European records points to the arbitrariness of the so-called Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition and to the notion of unilineal cultural evolution. The utility of the “transition” idea is as questionable as is the reality and homogeneity of the MSA/MP and LSA/UP culture-stratigraphic constructs. Variability is more relevant than essentialism in the study of any Paleolithic cultural adaptations; the notion of change with considerable continuity is more appropriate to describe what was going on throughout the late Upper Pleistocene than saltation. Demographic factors are probably more important in understanding many of the important changes that characterized the last 50-70,000 years of the Pleistocene than putative advances in human capacities-- mental and linguistic. The growth of human populations during MIS 3 seems to have led to increasingly complex technologies, subsistence intensification, burgeoning social relations mediated through symbolic behavior with material manifestations in “art” and personal ornamentation. The time has come to really acknowledge and grapple with complexity (e.g., multilineality, non-directionality, regional and functional variation) in the development of “modern-type” hunting-gathering adaptations among humans throughout the Old World during the last phases of the Paleolithic, regardless of the 19th-early 20th century labels archeologists may still use to describe classic culture-stratigraphic subdivisions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The battle of Las Navas de Tolosa was a product of the longue durée: a military and political event that marked merely one particular point in a long social and cultural evolution in the Iberian peninsula that had been initiated by the Arab–Berber invasion of 711 and redirected by a resurgence of the Christian population, both in the northern realms of the peninsula and in al-Andalus, where the continuing presence of the muwāllads came to be a critical factor. That resurgence, made possible by the limited cohesion of Andalusi civil society and the associated fragility of the Umayyad regime, was profoundly conditioned by social and cultural accommodation to Christian northwestern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the background and some preliminary results of the author's project of the same name, funded by the European Research Council. It outlines the different elements of the cultural evolution research programme, from theory-building to understanding the past, and explains why demography is central to both the programme and the project. The specific objectives of the project are then described, revolving around the reconstruction of regional demographic patterns in the European Neolithic and assessing the extent to which cultural, social and economic changes are related to them as causes or consequences. Demographic patterns in the British and southern Scandinavian Neolithic show evidence of major fluctuations that seem to be related to changes in other domains, such as monument building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education plays an important part in the European society, creating knowledge applicable to society and economy, and generating the process of economic and social evolution. Higher education institutions in Europe try to modernize both at the level of the courses they offer and at the level of their acting manner; European states as well as the private agents involved try to find out new, improved means of coordinating and financing. Starting from this idea, we would like to carry out an analysis of the manner of financing European higher education out of private funds with a view to identify new financing sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The A urignacian has long been interpreted as the culture that corresponded to the arrival of modern humans in Europe and, along with them, all the constituent elements of the Upper Paleolithic. In addition to noting the profound technological changes, we emphasize in particular the systematization and diversification of personal ornaments and the emergence of graphic arts. While not denying the impact of such transformations, and not questioning their close association with the Aurignacian, our objective here is to place them in their archaeological context in order to show that their development was not sudden but in fact more gradual than is usually considered. With respect to the internal chronology of the Aurignacian, we thus depict a more complex image of the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition, attenuating the impression of an abrupt and radical break that generally surrounds its interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on research which was conducted to determine whether culture and institutions interacted in generating different evolutionary trajectories of societal organizations in pre-modern China and Europe and to determine whether contemporary attitudes, institutions and behavior in China and Europe reflect pre-modern trajectories. Researchers found that pre-modern China and Europe evolved along distinct trajectories and that indigenous culture and institutions in both countries interacted to impact the countries as a whole and their development.

That infl uences the infl ow of foreign direct investments (FDIs) into South-Eastern Europe (SEE), whereby main emphasis will be put on republics of Former Yugoslavia, but also with some references to Romania's case. Choice of the countries for comparison is made upon assumption that they were characterized by relatively the same industrial, market and social development before they entered the process of transition, so comparisons from the aspect of achieved results is of scientifi c importance. Special attention will be directed to the result made by the Republic of Serbia in the process of attracting FDIs. First of all, main terms of foreign direct investments will be defi ned in this paper and we will give general review of literature related to allocation of foreign direct investments. Then, recent trends of foreign direct investments in south-astern Europe will be described. Finally, the factors that influence allocation of FDIs, as well as relationship between index of global competitiveness of observed countries and accumulated FDIs during period of transition will be analyzed**. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the study to spread the English language as lingua franca (ELF) through teaching it across the working and rural classes. It is noted that some developing countries have problems of spreading the language due to lack of materials, lack of qualified teachers and low levels of motivation for students. It is cited that 50 percent of the population in European countries has difficulties communicating in English in spite of studying the language for years at school. It is said that English is incontestable as lingua franca since the language is a product of political hegemony and socioeconomic and cultural evolution.

The article focuses on studies regarding to religious history taking into consideration the cultural evolution in Europe. Data related to the subject inform that these studies started as ecclesiastic history, based on documents written during the Early Middle Ages. The author mentions that though the subject used to be apologetic in nature and studied under non-scientific criteria, the political, social, cultural and scientific discoveries and events influenced the approach given to the theme. Facts like the II World War, the Holocaust, the Communist Revolution, the end of colonial powers and the establishment of multicultural societies are also mentioned as influential factors.

Copyright of Pôle Sud is the property of Centre Comparatif d'Etudes sur les Politiques Publiques et les Espaces Locaux and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the cultural history of dance, particularly examining dance in modern society. Historical concepts that affect the time period between the European enlightenment and the end of the 20th century are discussed with regard to dance. Historiography and the historical process are evaluated in terms of European culture. Additionally, the author suggests that European dance history is viewed as synonymous with white culture and the avant garde movement.

In the last 25 years of the 20th century, two events occurred that may affect cultural evolution into the foreseeable future. First, birth rates in a number of industrialized nations dropped below the level of population maintenance, and, second, the HIV/AIDS virus emerged, spread, and became embedded and endemic in many nations. The relationship between the spread of HIV/AIDS and several parameters of a nation's demography is empirically examined. Then, three distinct cultural responses to the incidence HIV/AIDS are examined in three regions of the world: Europe, Sub Saharan Africa, and a Muslim area stretching from Mauritania to Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the myths of Europeanization. In its broad concept, Europeanization may involve is seen as a process of political, organizational and cultural change along European lines. The myth of Europeanization is centered on the superiority of European ideas and culture. History shows that Europe's political, technological and cultural advancements originated from the Orient and Middle East before the European era of expansion. Thus, Europeanization is not a modern occurrence.

The article proposes to conjoin the analysis of European integration and a modern systems theory of society. At first identifying some deficiencies in current debates on governance and democracy in Europe, it then introduces some tenets of modern systems theory relevant for the argument, focusing on the notions of 'world society', 'structural coupling', and 'social evolution'. Using the debate on an emerging European constitution as an example, it then demonstrates how a systems-theoretical perspective can help to resituate the account of a European constitutionalism in the overall evolution of world society's legal and political systems. In an equal fashion, it proposes to sharpen the theoretical discussion on democracy in Europe by first outlining the function of legitimacy in a functionally differentiated political system. A concluding section comments on the 'value added' of a modern systems-theoretical perspective which is still uncommon in European Studies and IR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article my purpose is to go thoroughly into the ideas expressed by economists regarding the legitimacy of absolute property rights. I visit the Lockian argument taken up by Murray Rothbard (1.1) and the principle of the finder keeper clarified by Israel Kizner (1.2). I argue that it is impossible to legitimate either the property of the finder keeper or the property of oneself if man does not think of himself as an individual. Indeed individualism becomes the cultural prerequisite required to acknowledge the rights of the finder keeper and the goods obtained through labour. Here, Hayek's complex individualism is akin to the hypothesis of the social animal of Benjamin Constant and the work of Gabriel Tarde on the transformation of law. The individual is both an effect and a cause of property rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article summarizes four mechanisms of cultural transmission: vertical (parent to child); pressure of social groups (many transmitters to one recipient); horizontal (infectious-like, based on contact between an "infectious" and a susceptible individual); and teacher or social leader to students or followers (one transmitter to many recipients), including as an extreme form, mass media. The first two mechanisms are highly conservative; the latter two permit or force rapid cultural change. Which mechanism will prevail depends largely on the type of societies and traits being considered. In traditional societies vertical transmission tends to play by far the major role, losing relative importance with transition to modern society in which mechanisms permitting the most rapid change tend to prevail. One can therefore expect and one does indeed observe, a continuous increase in the average rate of cultural change. Cultural evolution becomes faster and faster, although occasional catastrophes may stop the trend and set the clock back, as happened in Europe in during the early Middle Ages.

Presents the concluding part of an unpublished essay on the development of ballet and how the dance reflects European cultural evolution. Ballet as court entertainment during the sixteenth century; Ballet as a stage performance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Comparison of ballet with Eastern classical dances.

How should we think about the evolution of the managed economy in Europe? The paper analyses this issue in the context of the diverse traditions of economic management typifying the major European countries over the postwar period. The argument is that the effects of these traditions still linger in the emerging European management framework as the movement towards economic and monetary union gathers pace. The paper ends with an assessment of the prospects for an integrated European management approach and the impact this might have on the wider international economic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the palaeolithic religion and the principle of social evolution in Europe. In the archaeological record of Europe, the upper palaeolithic hunting culture begins with the arrival of modern man during the last glaciation. It replaced the Mousterian culture of the Neanderthal aboriginals, and in few restricted areas in south-west Europe, where conditions were most favourable to a hunting life, it produced the earliest known monuments of mural art in caves and rock-shelters. These paintings and engravings are of the greatest value for the spiritual history of mankind. But their interpretation in the light of the traditions of recently surviving hunting peoples meets with special difficulties. It can only be conclusive where works of art identical in style and content with the ancient works can be related to the rituals and beliefs and to the social structure of a modern group with the same technology and conditions of life as the ancient hunters, a combination of factors found only in the case of the Bushmen who flourished South Africa.

The article examines ideas about the influence of culture on social evolution. It cites some 20th century philosophers who underlined the inadmissibility of combining culture and civilization including Nikolas Berdjaev and Nikolas Roerich. It provides the definition of quality of life in Europe as the integrated characteristic of physical, psychological, emotional and social functioning of the person.

Reviews the Web site Pour Lire Pas Lu, http://www.homme-moderne.org/plpl/.

Despite a burgeoning science of cultural evolution, relatively little work has focused on the population structure of human cultural variation. By contrast, studies in human population genetics use a suite of tools to quantify and analyse spatial and temporal patterns of genetic variation within and between populations. Human genetic diversity can be explained largely as a result of migration and drift giving rise to gradual genetic clines, together with some discontinuities arising from geographical and cultural barriers to gene flow. Here, we adapt theory and methods from population genetics to quantify the influence of geography and ethnolinguistic boundaries on the distribution of 700 variants of a folktale in 31 European ethnolinguistic populations. We find that geographical distance and ethnolinguistic affiliation exert significant independent effects on folktale diversity and that variation between populations supports a clustering concordant with European geography. This pattern of geographical clines and clusters parallels the pattern of human genetic diversity in Europe, although the effects of geographical distance and ethnolinguistic boundaries are stronger for folktales than genes. Our findings highlight the importance of geography and population boundaries in models of human cultural variation and point to key similarities and differences between evolutionary processes operating on human genes and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. The thesis here submitted for debate and criticism is as follows: if today's governing principles that inspire policy choices and priority setting in our societies (which claim to be "knowledge-based societies") are to remain in place in the course of the coming five to ten years, the relative position of the less developed regions (and cities) vis-à-vis the most developed ones will again deteriorate, even though per capita real purchasing power might also slightly increase in the less developed regions. The if-hypothesis, however, is not the only possible pattern of future developments. Because present economic and political leaders are, in general, the promoters and supporters of today's predominant principles, the only way to make possible alternative future developments based on solidarity, sustainability and democracy is that citizens themselves take the initiative, locally and globally, to modify present practices and define new goals and new priorities. In consideration of the results obtained in recent years by civil social movements and protests, one may reasonably consider it as a possible scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]