Cultural Exchange

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In the past, researchers who studied ceramics tended to focus on the imitation of marbled ware in the pattern, or to incorporate it into the lead-glazed pottery system to be discussed. Research focused on marbled ware is relatively rare so far, and the value of historical data is still potential to be explored. In addition, in the newly unearthed archaeological information in recent years, marbled ware is widely found in tombs and ruins in East Asia. However, the use of this batch of materials and the export route have not been systematically studied.

In this research, we will first investigate the unearthed materials and related documents, then organize the marbled ware collections of museums in various countries to build a systematic research database. Furthermore, by comparing the styles of each type, this research will try to illustrate the relationship between the production time period and evolution of each type of marbled ware.

After sorting out the basic information of marbled ware in the Tang and Song dynasties, this article will also study the foreign trade status of marbled ware, the class of users and the group of sponsors, and its special significance in religion and political rights. By comprehensively analyzing the historical information revealed by marbled ware, this research will try to restore its context of use during the Tang and Song Dynasties.

"Vienna’s Museum für Vökerkunde holds in its collections a rare sixteenth-century Taíno cotton
belt from Hispaniola (today’s Dominican Republic/Haiti) – one of only two surviving Taíno
cotton artefacts to feature European ‘exotics’, including mirrors, jet beads and brass. This complex
woven structure – a wearable work of art – offers a rare window on to one of the most prestigious
of Taı´no valuables, a personal ornament that literally wrapped the wearer in wealth, status and
spiritual power. The paper charts the original context and use of Taı´no belts, and provides a
detailed account of the Vienna belt’s collection history, its construction and its chronological
placement (radiocarbon-dated using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to AD 1475–1635). The
question of how and when the European materials were incorporated into the belt is explored,
critically engaging the entangled histories of association between the two."

In this article it is argued that Odin's discovery of the runes when hanging on the tree, as related in the Icelandic Hávamál, is not an indigenous attribute of that god. Nor should the attribution of the invention of letters to Mercury in the Old English  Prose Solomon and Saturn be linked to the Hávamál, as is generally done. Instead I demonstrate that Odin's invention is an adaptation of Roman Classical mythology in which the invention of letters is ascribed to Mercury. The Romans in their turn borrowed this myth from the Greeks, with Hermes Trismagistos playing that role, while the Greeks and borrowed it from the Egyptians, equating their god Thoth with Hermes.

This volume examines political and diplomatic relations, as well as cultural exchanges between Tuscany and Spain from a new perspective that has overcome traditional approaches and has contributed to the opening of new historiographical currents on diplomacy and political history.
The role of the Medici Grand Dukes and that of their agents and ambassadors between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is considered not only through the analysis of the networks of relations established in the Spanish court and in the areas of politics, but also of the examination of information circuits and cultural exchange channels.
In this way, a universe of complex relationships is reconstructed, in which the individual abilities of sovereigns, princes, ministers and ambassadors constituted the background of the relations between the Medici Grand Dukes and Spain in the Habsburgs age.                                                                                                                                                           
En este volumen se examinan las relaciones políticas y diplomáticas, así como los intercambios culturales entre Toscana y España desde una nueva perspectiva que ha superado el enfoque tradicional y ha contribuido a la apertura de nuevas corrientes historiográficas sobre diplomacia e historia política. Se considera el papel de los Grandes Duques Medici y el de sus agentes y embajadores entre los siglos XVI y XVII no solo a través del análisis de las redes de relaciones establecidas en la corte española y en los espacios de la política, sino también del examen de los circuitos de información y los canales de intercambio cultural. Se reconstruye, así, un universo de relaciones muy complejas, donde las habilidades individuales de soberanos, príncipes, ministros y embajadores constituyeron la trama de fondo de las relaciones entre los Medici y la España de los Habsburgo.                                                                                                                                                 
Nel volume sono esaminate le relazioni politiche, diplomatiche e gli scambi culturali fra Toscana e Spagna da una nuova prospettiva che ha superato gli approcci tradizionali e ha contribuito all'apertura di nuove correnti storiografiche sulla diplomazia e la storia politica.
Si prende in considerazione il ruolo dei granduchi, dei loro agenti e degli ambasciatori fra i secoli XVI e XVII non solo attraverso l'analisi delle reti di relazione stabilite alla corte spagnola e negli spazi della politica, ma anche grazie all'esame dei circuiti di informazione e ai canali di scambio culturale. Si ricostruisce in questo modo un universo di relazioni complesse, in cui le abilità individuali di sovrani, principi, ministri e ambasciatori costituirono la trama di fondo delle relazioni fra i Medici e la Spagna degli Asburgo.

Образовательный туризм как  форма и инструмент политики культурных обменов в контексте проекта ЕС  "Северное измерение"
Магистратура «Историческая политология»

Научный руководитель д.и.н., проф. Шабаев Ю.П.
Институт Гуманитарных Наук, Кафедра истории, социологии и политологии

CIGE-2009中艺博国际画廊博览会

China International Gallery Exposition (CIGE), Beijing, China. 2009

Supported by the Ministry of Culture of The People’s Republic of China, the Sixth Edition of the China International Gallery Exposition (CIGE 2009) takes place at the Exhibition Hall of the China World Trade Centre in Beijing in April. Under the artistic direction of Luca Zordan, CIGE 2009 hosts around 80 selected outstanding galleries from over 20 countries, presenting a panorama of cutting edge contemporary art, welcoming and encouraging any form of art expression, including photography, video, painting, sculptures, mixed media,
installations, prints, digital and net art, textile, design…

CIGE is China’s first and most established international art fair, presenting around 84 contemporary art galleries from over 20 countries. In 2009 CIGE strengthens its relations in China, presenting 23 outstanding art galleries from Mainland China and 9 from Taiwan. Solid ties and exclusive networks are established with neighbouring Japan and Korea, which are represented at the art fair respectively with 7 and 12 galleries. South East Asia vibrant contemporary art scene also emerges as great protagonist at CIGE, with the participation of 7 galleries from Indonesia, 2 from the Philippines, 1 from Singapore, and 1 from India. In 2009 CIGE widens its artistic horizons through Asia and the Asia-Pacific Region. For the first time in the history of CIGE participating galleries are from Pakistan (1), Mongolia (1), and Australia (2).

Facing the challenges and changes of the economical and political balance of our multipolar and interdependent world, CIGE would like to position itself as a dynamic and unique platform, open to contemporary artistic creations and visions from all over the world. For the first time in its history, CIGE presents art galleries from all the five continents (Asia, Europe, America, Africa, and Oceania).

CIGE 2009 features art galleries from Europe, Italy (3), Spain (3), Germany (3), England (1), Austria (1), and The United States of America (1), and is delighted to welcome galleries from Latin America (Cuba and Mexico), Middle East (Syria and Israel), and Africa (Kenya). The participation of art galleries from Syria and Kenya marks the first gallery presentation at CIGE of contemporary art from the Arab world and the African continent.

CIGE 2009 continues to focus on contemporary art, encouraging any form of art expression, including photography, video, painting, sculptures, mixed media, installations, prints, textile, design.

Understanding the relevance of technology and globalization on the economic infrastructure of the art world, CIGE 2009 SPECIAL PROJECTS invite galleries, artists, not-for-profit art organizations, museums, institutions, private collection, and visitors to reflect on our contemporary visual culture.

On the Second Floor of the China World Trade Center, MAPPING ASIA presents a selection of solo shows of contemporary artists from Asia. Mapping Asia Solo Projects are evaluated by an international Art Expert Committee of Major Museum Directors and Curators from USA and Europe, which will act as a Jury choosing and announcing the 3 most interesting solo shows in occasion of CIGE 2009 Opening Preview.

CIGE 2009 INTERNATIONAL SOLO SHOWS -also located on the Second Floor of the China World Trade Center- would like to present the works of international artists, who have entered in direct contact with China, valuing the importance of intercultural experience as well as of the capacity of adaptability to the local environment, its bio diversity and cultural richness.

In order to guarantee a display of international artistic quality, CIGE 2009 SUBLIMINALS and VIDEO LOOPS develop collaborations, quality partnerships and strategic alliances with museums, art institutions and cultural centres.

CIGE 2009’s FORUM will be co-host by UCCA, The participants invited to the conference are directors and curators of major American and European museums and art institutions who have deep and long relations with contemporary art in Asia.

The interactions between the art fair and worldwide institutions aim to stimulate dialogue and discussion, giving the cultural centres the opportunity to present their programs of exhibitions, and contributing to enrich cross cultural knowledge in China.

Mallarmé's Children, published in 1999, explored the links between French symbolism and U.S. pragmatism in the emergence of a new critical culture at the beginning of the 20th century.  It is more an interactive than a comparative history.  The introduction lays out the main arguments as well as the narrative structure of the book.

In 1934 Ramiro de Maeztu, one of the most influential Spanish intellectuals of the time, published Defensa de la Hispanidad. This book was a vindication of Spain’s identity as a Catholic country, and of its history as an attempt to extend Catholic ideals throughout the world, one that had been particularly successful in Spain’s colonization of Latin America. Maeztu’s notion of Hispanidad as the cultural and historical bonds that united the Spanish-speaking nations of the world was greatly influential in twentieth-century conservative discourse, both in Spain and in Latin America. Critics have situated Maeztu’s Hispanidad within the tradition of Spanish nineteenth-century and conservative vindications of Spain’s colonial project. However, I believe that Maeztu’s formulation of Hispanidad was much more indebted to the radical and socialist critique of British imperialism that was formulated in London during the years in which Maeztu was a foreign correspondent there (1904-1919). This paper will explore how the writings of figures like J. A. Hobson and Keir Hardie influenced Maeztu’s understanding of what modern imperialism was and what an ‘alternative’ imperialism might look like. In doing this, I aim to identify the peculiar intellectual lineage of one of the most important concepts of twentieth-century Spanish conservatism.

This study seeks to investigate and examine the motivations as well as the expectations of higher education exchange students. The motivation of the study is geared at understanding the underlying notion of the so-called Erasmus-generation. The study employed a sample of nearly one thousand international student participants from the European Union and Erasmus+ partner countries for a time frame of one and two semesters long Erasmus+ learning mobilities and traineeship participants respectively. The analysis shows that intercultural competences, language skills and flexibility were the key skills acquired. The findings from this study can be used to aid HR managers, international departments and other stakeholders in planning and decision making.

In the summer of 1974, the Soviet Union first opened its borders to a large number of climbers from the west. In a special camp in the Soviet Pamir mountains, climbers from ten different Western nations, were to climb and live side by side with each other and with Soviet and Polish climbers nearby. Inscribed in the context of political détente, the Pamir camp allowed for more cultural contact across the Cold War divides. It can thus be seen as a microcosm of different climbing communities, sometimes overcoming, but sometimes also divided by the lines of nationality, language, political system, and last but not least by gender. From the camp, two all-women groups attempted to reach Pik Lenin: a Soviet team of eight women led by El’vira Shataeva, and a mixed international women’s team composed of the Swiss Heidi Lüdi and Eva Isenschmid and the American Arlene Blum. Their attempts ended with the tragic death of all eight Soviet women and of Eva Isenschmid. This article looks at the camp as an intersectional place between political systems and gendered climbing by analyzing and comparing the women's climbing biographies, their interaction and the interpretations their all-women climbing parties were attributed.

TITLE: Attribution of Authorship: Art Critics in the Baltic and St. Petersburg German Periodical Press at the Turn of the 20th Century and Their Contribution to the Promotion of Latvian Art.

SUMMARY: A. M., A. R., A. S., -b-, B-l, -c-, C. W., -d -h, E. B., E. K., -en-, -f-, F. Ke, F-k, F-s, G. H. E., G. H. K., G. v. R., H. S., L. G., -m, -n, N., N-n, -nn, O. G., O. G-g, O. S., O. v. S., -rg, R. v. E., R. v. H., S., S-g, S-y, -tz, -um-, V., y, -y, W. B. M., W. N-n, W. S. etc. – this is not some mysterious code but a selection of signatures found in late 19th and early 20th century publications about Latvian art in Baltic and St. Petersburg German periodicals. These abbreviations are used either on a regular basis, or episodically; some of them obviously or possibly refer to the same contributor but others can be deciphered in several different ways, depending on the context of their appearance.
Studying the periodical sources of the time, it becomes frustrating to be ignorant of the identity of writers who were active in the local German-speaking art criticism. Even if authorship was not disguised, the contributor’s full name sometimes reveals so little to 21st century people that it seems as mysterious as a combination of cryptic symbols. Latvian art historians, including the author of this article, limited their previous and sometimes erroneous guesswork on the subject to footnotes without giving free rein to serious bio-bibliographical interest. In many instances, reading the “ciphers”, as the abbreviated signatures were commonly called, was a tricky problem already for contemporaries, and the prominent Latvian bibliographer Jānis Misiņš in the 1920s had grounds to announce that “any statements about such experts on ciphers must be simply denied” as baseless. It was critically declared with regard to his colleague Augusts Ģinters’ work on the famous index of the Latvian periodical press, Latvian Science and Literature. The local German periodicals of the period in discussion so far have not been indexed in a similar way at all, making any research into this field difficult and intriguing at the same time.
Despite Misiņš’ general scepticism, efforts to identify the authorship of turn of the 20th century press articles is not a hopeless affair and can prove more or less successful even today, with a distance of hundred years and more, combining traditional investigation methods and sources with the advantages of modern information technologies. The reader is invited to follow the researcher on her way from the abbreviated signature marks to obvious or hidden clues for eventual attribution of their owners and further on to often extraordinary biographies. The venture results in bringing together a colourful society of personalities interested in art who were born between the late 1840s and mid 1880s and who represented partly incompatible aesthetic platforms and basically moved within the area between St. Petersburg and German cities, the most distant sites of activity being located in the USA. (Full summary see at the end of the file).

This article studies on the images of Nagasaki made in early modern Japan in order to illuminate how the different cultures were perceived and presented in this area. Ever since the early 17th century, Nagasaki was the only city in Japan to trade with foreign countries. This unusual situation makes Nagasaki an exceptional example to observe the meeting, colliding and merging of different cultures. It focuses especially on the pictures of the Tōjinyashiki 唐人屋敷 (Chinese residence) and the Dejima 出島 (Dutch factory). The Tōjinyashiki and Dejima pictures were among the most distinctive groups of Nagasaki images as well as symbols of the Nagasaki port. Many paintings were created to illustrate these two foreign residences and very often they were made as a pair, whether in the format of scroll paintings, prints or screen paintings.  Through a careful reading and analysis of the Nagasaki images, this article aims to investigate the convergences and negotiations of Western civilization (represented in and brought by the Dutch) and East Asian civilization (represented and conveyed by the Chinese) with local Japanese culture. It shall then further our understanding of the various and dynamic visual cultures produced by the encounters of European and East Asian cultures in the Nagasaki areas.
長崎是十七世紀日本唯一對外的貿易口岸，本文討論當時以荷蘭為中介（蘭館）的歐洲文明，以及以中國人為主體（唐館）的東亞文化，在該地所形成的多方文化交會與互動。唐館與蘭館是長崎形象中最鮮明的呈現與象徵，本文在仔細地耙梳整理相關圖像，並詳細解讀與分析唐蘭館圖繪後，呈現長崎地區在多方文化交涉下，所產生的精彩多樣的視覺文化。

A Career of Japan is the first study of one of the major photographers and personalities of nineteenth-century Japan. Baron Raimund von Stillfried was the most important foreign-born photographer of the Meiji era and one of the first globally active photographers of his generation. He played a key role in the international image of Japan and the adoption of photography within Japanese society itself. Yet, the lack of a thorough study of his activities, travels, and work has been a fundamental gap in both Japanese- and Western-language scholarship. Based on extensive new primary sources and unpublished documents from archives around the world, this book examines von Stillfried’s significance as a cultural mediator between Japan and Central Europe. It highlights the tensions and fierce competition that underpinned the globalising photographic industry at a site of cultural contact and exchange – treaty-port Yokohama. In the process, it raises key questions for Japanese visual culture, Habsburg studies, and cross-cultural histories of photography and globalisation.

This essay looks at the social and cultural aspects of the Irish peregrinatio to the Continent. The Irish wanderlust is generally recognised to have witnessed two phases; that of the Irish missions from the late sixth century and that of the Irish scholars flocking to the Continent in search for patrons in the late eighth and ninth centuries. In both phases, the migrants were consciously bringing social and cultural contributions to their new homes, while also having to negotiate continental norms and expectations. This essay aims to reflect on the ensuing episodes of cultural exchange, in particular the processes that determined how resident and incoming customs, practice, and beliefs were balanced, and the differences and similarities in this respect between the two phases. An important aspect will be identity formation and the extend to which the act of migrating and the role of the Irish in cultural exchange contributed to their self-definition and outsiders' views of them.

Comment le passé est-il présent dans nos mémoires collectives? Quels sont nos héros et héroïnes? Quels sont nos mythes, nos «lieux de mémoire»? Cet ouvrage collectif analyse à l’aide de nombreux exemples les usages du passé dans le processus de construction nationale.

Le lecteur sera confronté à une démarche qui lui semblera à première vue déroutante: non pas une histoire nationale «traditionnelle» – la reconstitution des grands faits nationaux –, mais une histoire de la construction des représentations luxembourgeoises. Ce livre étudie donc des symboles (comme le Lion Rouge), des légendes (Mélusine), des mythes (la «grève générale» de 1942), des dates phares (1839) et des lieux de référence (les hauts-fourneaux de Belval).

This article pays tribute to J. R. Mulryne’s cross-national and cross-disciplinary scholarship on festival culture in early modern Europe and seeks to identify and explore avenues for future research on festival occasions in which his pioneering scholarship can be implemented and further expanded. Its focus is on comparative approaches to court and civic festivals. By drawing on insights from cultural and postcolonial studies, the article proposes an all-encompassing comparative approach to festival culture in early modern Europe that seeks to acknowledge both the mediated nature and immaterial and intangible aspects of festive occasions, including beliefs, ideas, institutions, languages, practices, structures, diplomatic solutions and strategies, and spectatorial responses.

Background: UKs engagement in global health through Health Links seems to offer benefits on personal, professional and organizational level. However, the concept of Health Links is only in its infancy and particularly benefits perceived to make a positive impact on personal and professional development have not been monitored and evaluated in sufficient detail yet. This creates the need for further investigations in the field and particularly in the area of medical electives.
Purpose: To examine the impact of international involvement in Health Links on personal and professional development of medical students and to create an example of a systematic approach to monitoring and evaluating link performance in order to make use of their full potential.
Design: This paper proposes a qualitative exploratory study of observations and unstructured interviews with 20 medical students taking part in a University elective in Gambia, Africa.  Observations will take place over the 4 week elective. Interviews will be held at 4 weeks after return from the elective. The data will be analysed using the method of thematic analysis.
Conclusions: Limitations of previous studies could be overcome by emphasizing on Ethnographic interviewing techniques, focusing on medical student electives and combining observation and in-depth interviewing methods to gather longitudinal data on personal and professional development in order to create a more comprehensive source of information concerning the area of Health Links.

The present thesis investigates the instrumentalization of art as a tool in foreign policy, taking as a case study the organization of art exhibitions in other countries by the Soviet Union during the Cold War period. Full use of archival materials has been made, and this evidence has been supplemented through interviewing. The thesis thus proposes to add to our knowledge both of the cultural Cold War in particular and of the employment of art in cultural diplomacy in general. 

The contribution made by Joseph S. Nye, the originator of the term ‘soft power’, has been a seminal one both in promoting and in shaping the study of cultural factors in interstate relations, but the phenomena under discussion require an analysis that goes beyond ‘soft power’. In particular, it is necessary to rehabilitate the category of ‘the arts’, as a distinct field within ‘culture’, if we are to be able to frame adequate theories of how states have sought to make paintings, literature, music, and drama serve political and diplomatic ends. 

The organization of art exhibitions overseas represents a convenient and under- explored area of cultural diplomacy, and also one that is of considerable intrinsic interest in view of the light it can shed on broader questions concerning the relationships between visual culture and state power. And the case of the USSR during the Cold War presents us with an example of a state that made active and deliberate use of art exhibitions, in the context of a comparatively intense cultural and ideological rivalry between the Eastern and Western blocs. 

On the basis of a detailed examination of particular exhibitions, and also of both Soviet and Western literature on the subject, the thesis demonstrates that the Soviet authorities organized art exhibitions in a differentiated manner that reflected wider foreign policy priorities with regard to the host states. This involved, in the first instance, a systematically different approach to exhibitions in
(a) fellow socialist countries,
(b) capitalist countries, and
(c) newly independent states; but further distinctions were then drawn within each of these broad groupings, in ways that can only be understood against the backdrop of the Kremlin’s shifting relations with each individual state. 

This analysis lays the foundations for productive further research, which promises to extend and deepen our understanding of states’ motivations in instrumentalizing the arts and also to establish reasonable criteria for assessing how politically effective such cultural and artistic initiatives may be.

The vast majority of the world’s poor are women. Two-thirds of the world’s illiterates are female and of the millions of school age children not in school, the majority are girls. Studies show that when women are supported and empowered, all of society benefits. Their families are healthier, more children go to school, agricultural productivity improves and income increases. In short, communities become more resilient. With tourism being one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world, it is essential that linkages between tourism business and the poor are made. Such linkages have the capacity to contribute to poverty reduction and enable poor people, particularly women, to participate effectively in productive development. This paper gives some examples of how women might contribute to the growth of tourism in the Great Lakes Region.

Cette publication rassemble les travaux présentés lors du premier colloque international « Medieval Europe in Motion. The Circulation of Artists, Images, Patterns and Ideas from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Coast (6th-15th centuries) » (Lisbonne, 18-20 Avril 2013;
https://sites.google.com/site/medievaleuropeinmotion2013/home), organisé par l’Instituto de Estudos Medievais da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (IEM-NOVA FCSH), et réunit les contributions des académiciens du Portugal, d’Italie, de la France et de l’Espagne, sous la direction scientifique de Maria Alessandra Bilotta, chercheur de l’IEM-NOVA FCSH et spécialiste des circulations des manuscrits juridiques, en particulier du Midi de la France, au Moyen Age. Le livre est le résultat d’une collaboration éditoriale entre l’Instituto de Estudos Medievais (http://iem.fcsh.unl.pt) et l’éditeur italien Officina di Studi Medievali de Palerme (http://www.officinastudimedievali.it/it/).

Les notions de mouvement et de mobilité sont essentielles à la compréhension de nombreux aspects de la société médiévale. Essentiellement, le mouvement implique des connexions entre le temps, les objets, les personnes et l’espace. Les contributions de ce volume enquêtent sur la façon dont les circulations, les mouvements et la mobilité des objets, des modèles, des commanditaires et des idées ont influencé la création artistique entre les siècles VI et XV de la Méditerranée à la côte atlantique. Le volume montre également la dimension internationale et interdisciplinaire de la recherche actuelle sur la circulation artistique et culturelle et la mobilité au Moyen Age européen.

The exchange of landscape practice between China and Europe from 1500–1800 is an important chapter in art history. While the material forms of the outcome of this exchange, like jardin anglo-chinois and Européenerie are well documented, this book moves further to examine the role of the exchange in identity formation in early modern China and Europe.

        Proposing the new paradigm of “entangled landscapes”, drawing from the concept of “entangled histories”, this book looks at landscape design, cartography, literature, philosophy and material culture of the period. Challenging simplistic, binary treatments of the movements of “influences” between China and Europe, Entangled Landscapes reveals how landscape exchanges entailed complex processes of appropriation, crossover and transformation, through which Chinese and European identities were formed.

        Exploring these complex processes via three themes—empire building, mediators’ constraints, and aesthetic negotiations, this work breaks new ground in landscape and East-West studies. Interdisciplinary and revisionist in its thrust, it will also benefit scholars of history, human geography and postcolonial studies.

When individuals exchange gifts, social bonds are strengthened and reciprocity is created. If the gift and the reciprocation both come from private resources, it is clearly a gift. If what is reciprocated after a gift is given comes from an organization, or is a government resource rather than from " one's own pocket " then it is most likely a bribe. This study reviews the anthropological literature on gift giving and constructs a typology for examining the gift/bribe distinction in public administration. This classification helps distinguish analytically among different gift practices and clarify conceptual ambiguity of the terms gift and bribe.

Any historical study of Sámi religions links religion to the history of the language. Here, Proto-Sámi language spread is reviewed and the fundamental (and often implicit) assumption that religion spread with Proto-Sámi language is challenged. An alternative model that language spread as a medium of communication adopted by different cultures is proposed and tested against the Common Proto-Sámi lexicon. The finding is a lack of positive evidence for the spread of religion with Proto-Sámi language, while the name of the central sky-god / thunder-god in Sámi languages on the Kola Peninsula is identified as a loan from an indigenous language, indicating some degree of religious continuity through language change. The lack of positive lexical evidence for a spread of religion combines with evidence that vocabulary and apparently traditions linked to ritual and belief spread through the Proto-Sámi language networks subsequent to its spread. In addition, the archaeological record does not present positive evidence of spread of religion with the language and instead archaeological cultures seem to exhibit continuities through the relevant period. The paper concludes that religion formations documented among later Sámi language groups cannot be assumed to derive from a common Proto-Sámi religion or even to have an Uralic background.  Instead, it is possible or even probable that the diversity in later Sámi religions could be an outcome of multiple other linguistic cultural groups shifting to Proto-Sámi language while maintaining their vernacular religion, or at least parts of it. Consequently, generalizations about 'Sámi' religion, claims about common Sámi religious heritage, and also uses of Sámi evidence in comparisons with Uralic traditions should be built on arguments rather than assumptions.

The initial use of and trade in mineral raw materials, both north and the south of the Alpine divide, clearly shows a communication system based on a network of trading routes established during the Mesolithic period. Archaeometric investigations make it possible to characterise and trace
the origin of the various raw materials such as fl int, quartz, copper ore, etc. Moreover, typological analyses of  characteristics and cultural references, for example ceramics and jewellery, open up new ways of understanding production and trading mechanisms. Young Neolithic sites along the Lower
Inn Valley, such as the Kiechlberg site near Thaur and the Mariahilfbergl site near Brixlegg, have revealed an excellent fi nd inventory. These finds include goods with specifi c signifi cances, which are made particularly interesting by their distribution. Over the course of history, technological achievements have always prompted the development of new economic and social systems. Of these developments, few have had such signifi cant and far-reaching consequences as the mining and processing of copper during the Late Neolithic. During the following Early Bronze Age copper ore mining played an increasingly important role in human settlement and economic development in the Lower Inn Valley.