This study presents a cross-disciplinary revision of the Little Ice Age (LIA) advance of Nigardsbreen glacier, an outlet from Jostedalsbreen ice cap in western Norway. The associated glacier foreland ...is characterised by a well-preserved moraine series succeeding the 1748 CE LIA culmination, and a robust age control of individual moraines exists from abundant historical written and pictorial information as well as extensive lichenometric studies. The retreat dynamics of Nigardsbreen ever since the LIA maximum extent was attained is considered well-known. The timing of initiation of the LIA advance and dynamics of the glacier growth prior to reaching its maximum extent, however, is less understood as any moraines predating 1748 CE have been subsequently overridden. Potential archives available for exploring the glacier advance are therefore mostly confined to historical data such as for example, tax records, paintings, and church books, which has resulted in a present-day consensus of the LIA onset of Nigardsbreen c. 1710 CE. However, we show that a lack of adequate critical analysis on the accuracy of published historical data has allowed erroneous ages of glacier terminus positions to manifest in literature, resulting in for example, overestimated glacial advance rates. Here, we combine a novel data set of local tax load directly reflecting glacial impact on farming productivity with a cross-disciplinary assessment of published historical data, including rejection of several data points of former glacier extents. As a result, we present a revised glacier length curve for the LIA advance of Nigardsbreen towards its maximum extent.
The devastating 1822 earthquake is one of the relatively recent events that struck northwestern Syria and the nearby areas of central-southern Turkey, at the junction of the Dead Sea fault system ...with the Eastern Anatolian fault system. This earthquake is re-examined, in this work, based on new original contemporary and near contemporary sources of information not cited in previous litera- ture. Analysis of these sources reveals the following: (1) more detailed descriptions of the earthquake effects are provided for cities of Aleppo, Antakia and Latakia, and the identification of six new loca- tions affected; (2) assessment of relevant earthquake parameters such as the epicenter, surface-wave, moment magnitudes and seismic intensity; (3) documentation of evidences of a seismic sea wave that occurred between the Cypriot and the Syrian coasts and (4) identification of the Saint Simeon fault, located to west of Aleppo, as the probable causative fault. Furthermore, the ground motion gener- ated by the 1822 earthquake has been simulated using the extended stochastic simulation method. Acceleration time series and damped pseudo acceleration spectra were generated for Aleppo Citadel, where the peak ground acceleration, due to the earthquake, has been estimated at 0.4 g. The results will contribute to updating the seismic hazard setting in the northwestern Syria and central-southern Turkey.
In recent decades, there has been growing interest in the use of wills as historical sources. This period has seen a tenfold increase in the number of source publication volumes and editions ...published by Hungarian researchers, and an even greater increase in the number of wills published in their entirety. In the period under review, around 70 researchers have been actively working with this source type: besides the archivists spearheading their publication, dozens of legal historians, historians, and ethnographers have been involved in the work. Following an overview of the most important historical research antecedents and a brief appreciation of the work of Ernő Tárkány Szücs in this field, the present study examines the respective work carried out in Hungary during the last four decades, grouped according to the researched periods. With the publication of the Prothocollum Testamentorum of Bratislava, the number of published wills from the late Middle Ages significantly increased, while important findings have also emerged in terms of research on the wills of the nobility. From the early Middle Ages, a significant selection has been made from among the extant testaments originating from various royal free cities (e.g., Nagyszombat Trnava, Slovakia, Sopron, and Debrecen) and market towns (e.g., Gyöngyös, Győr, and Kecskemét), while a significant number of wills belonging to the Transylvanian nobility have also been published. While large numbers of extant testaments originating from market towns (Nyíregyháza, Szentes, Vác, Zalaegerszeg, etc.) in the 18th and 19th centuries have been published, important publications have also appeared containing the wills of the nobility, clergy, and village serfs. The vast majority of such volumes have included a longer or shorter introductory study, although we might also mention the dozens of important analytical essays published in volumes of collected studies, which illustrate the value of testaments as sources in the fields of social, economic, cultural, ecclesiastical, and legal history.
Dendrochronological studies are carried out on rural buildings in the French Alps for twenty years. In this contribution, we examine an extensive dataset of larch timbers (n = 1294) that were ...dendrochronologicaly dated at 139 buildings. This material yielded felling dates spanning the 11th century to the 20th century and contributed to improve our knowledge of human occupation and exploitation of mountain forests during the second millennium CE. From the 11th to the 14th century, rural populations increasingly exploited older forests. The crises of the 14th century led to a significant decrease in construction and by extension in tree cutting. The beginning of the 15th century marks a resumption of construction and felling which is continuous until the beginning of the 20th century. There is a relationship between the age of harvested trees, the number of dates and population fluctuations, which corroborates findings at the European scale. Regional trade probably influenced the stem diameters used in constructions in the immediate vicinity of the forests. Logging regulations can be perceived through variations in the age of harvested trees. The 14th century gap in felling dates would also mark a transition period in the exploitation of mountain forests and by extension a transformation of the economy.
The originality of Emilio Sereni's new use of pictorial images in his most known work, have drawn the attention of many scholars. Regardless of positive or negative opinions, an underestimated ...evaluation of the countless types of sources used by the author for his argumentation about italian rural landscapes, has occurred. In particular, this work analyses the approach of Sereni towards historic and thematic cartography.
This article reviews the book „O tym nie wolno mówić…” Zagłada Żydów w opowieściach wspomnieniowych ze zbiorów Dionizjusza Czubali “We Are Not Allowed to Speak About It...” The Extermination of Jews ...in Memoirs from the Collection of Dionizjusz Czubala, selected and edited by Piotr Grochowski, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, Toruń 2019, 236 pp.
The experience called "Arcevia during the First World War" was a way of practicing the part of the local history curriculum, which is essential for promoting education in active citizenship and ...democratic coexistence in pupils. In fact, it is precisely through the study of the territory and the education in the historical and artistic heritage, that one becomes active and aware citizens, capable of acting on the territory through courageous and responsible choices. To carry out the research, we resorted to the use of written and visual sources, the reading of informative and historical texts, surfing the internet and watching videos. The work carried out in the municipal historical archive and the municipal registry office was very significant. The most significant documents were analyzed by the children through the compilation of guide cards for the collection of information useful for historical reconstruction. The work of is carried out in an interdisciplinary way, making use of the skills of the various disciplines such as geography, mathematics, art and music.
This paper aims at highlighting how interest in the issues of web and social media archiving and preservation has grown enormously, in parallel with the awareness of the importance of these ...‘resources’ as privileged sources for reconstructing the history of our era. How will the historians of the future be able to reconstruct the historical period we are living through if memory institutions are not able to archive and preserve the websites and social media of institutions, public bodies, parties, associations, government bodies, political figures, and famous people in general, given that everything is now conveyed through these channels? The fragility of the web, then, would require immediate action and the launch of ‘web and social media archiving’ initiatives without delay, on pain of the disappearance of all that has been made available online in recent years, but on this point the situation in Italy - with a few exceptions - appears to lag far behind other European countries and enormously behind the Anglo-Saxon countries. There is therefore an urgent need to launch initiatives to raise awareness on these issues and to train the skills and professionalism required to conduct web and social media archiving and preservation projects.
The article contains the main historical sources identified in order to study the preparation and conduct of elections to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly in the Kaluga province. Despite the ...extensive amount of research available, most of them are conducted by the interests and ideas of the Russian Social Democratic Party (Bolsheviks). The problems of holding the first all-Russian vote in the regions are not covered enough. Only since the 1990s. we can talk about the emergence of a variety of problems raised by researchers related to elections to the Constituent Assembly.The author identified the following groups of sources of an all-Russian and regional nature: legislative materials, office documentation of central and local bodies responsible for the preparation and conduct of elections, collections of documents of political parties and public organizations, journalistic works of representatives of political parties, sources of personal origin, periodical printing. One of the cases of the fund of the F-1128 State Archive of the Kaluga Region "Protocols of the Meshchovskaya District for Elections to the Constituent Assembly of the Commission" deserves special attention, since it is the only source identified at the moment containing a detailed report on the conduct of elections in the county.The author believes that due to the fragmentation of regional sources, the absence of specially formed groups of documents in regional archives, only a comprehensive study of regional and all-Russian sources will allow us to study in detail the process of preparing and holding elections to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly in a separate constituency. A necessary condition for further research of the electoral process in the Kaluga constituency is the expansion of the source base through the materials of archives neighboring the Kaluga provinces, work to identify sources of personal origin.
In this article I present a paradigmatic case to exemplify how cross-examining sources constitutes one of the core pillars of our research work. I argue that a primary source, which can be easily ...regarded as a piece of evidence that is beyond accidental or intentional alterations, that can only convey veracity, and is, therefore, broadly speaking, authentic, must also be cross-examined. There is no such thing, or there should be no such thing as a primary source invested with an aura of sanctity, exempt from the need for verification. The critical examination of sources, that process of comparing and contrasting information, is to our profession what the microscope and reagents are to the natural sciences. Cross-examining pieces of evidence constitutes the crux of all research work, as a piece of evidence is, as a rule, an incomplete and imperfect piece in the puzzle. But no matter how incomplete and imperfect they may be, those fragments of evidence are all we have to recreate the past. Tracing the origins of a tiny detail, such as a handwritten note in a mostly typewritten archival document, can be the thread that gives us the answer to a series of questions. From now on, all meticulous research work will consist of pulling this thread so that it may lead us to new and better explanations. That tiny detail is what we have been waiting for in order to finally piece together the pattern. This article is made from the analysis of documents from the Guatemalan Army, documentary collections from the Historical Archive of the National Police, newspapers, declassified documents from the United States Government, and oral sources.
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