title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: The Visitor Center near the Colonial Parkway features a short movie, "", which debuted in 1957. Visitors may park at the Visitor's Center, as automobiles are restricted from the restored area. Wheelchair-accessible shuttle bus service is provided to stops around the perimeter of the Historic District of Williamsburg, as well as Jamestown and Yorktown, during the peak summer season.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: The costumed interpreters have not always worn Colonial dress. As an experiment in anticipation of the Bicentennial, in summer 1973 the hostesses were dressed in special red, white, and blue polyester knit pantsuits. This confused and disappointed visitors, so the experiment was dropped at the end of summer, and for the Bicentennial, docents wore historical costumes.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Many reenactments by Colonial Williamsburg's historical interpreters wearing period costumes are posted online. In addition to simple period reenactments, Colonial Williamsburg, at various times, features certain themes, including the founding of Williamsburg, occupation by British forces, or visits from Colonial leaders of the day, including General George Washington.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Some of the costumed interpreters work with animals. The Colonial Williamsburg Rare Breed Program helps to preserve and showcase animals that would have been around during the colonial period. John P. Hunter wrote an excellent book on the topic, "Link to the Past, Bridge to the Future: Colonial Williamsburg's Animals", which explains the importance of, as well as details how interpreters are a part, of this program.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Colonial Williamsburg is a part pet-friendly destination. Leashed pets are permitted in specific outdoor areas and may be taken on shuttle buses, but are not permitted in buildings except the visitor center.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: The Grand Illumination is an outdoor ceremony and mass celebration involving the simultaneous activation of thousands of Christmas lights each year on the first Sunday of December. The ceremony, Goodwin's idea, began in 1935, loosely based on a colonial (and English) tradition of placing lighted candles in the windows of homes and public buildings to celebrate a special event, such as the winning of a war or the birthday of the reigning monarch. The Grand Illumination also has incorporated extravagant fireworks displays, loosely based on the 18th-century practice of using fireworks to celebrate significant occasions.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: In the 1990s, Colonial Williamsburg implemented the Teaching Institute in Early American History, and Electronic Field Trips. Designed for elementary and middle/high school teachers, the institute offers workshops for educators to meet with historians, character interpreters, and to prepare instructional materials for use in the classroom. Electronic Field Trips are a series of multimedia classroom presentations available to schools. Each program is designed around a particular topic in history and includes a lesson plan as well as classroom and online activities. Monthly live broadcasts on local PBS stations allow participating classes to interact with historical interpreters via telephone or internet.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: In 2007, Colonial Williamsburg launched iCitizenForum.com. A mix of historical documents and user-generated content such as blogs, videos, and message boards, the site aims to prompt discussion about the roles, rights, and responsibilities of citizens in a democracy. Preservation of the Founding Fathers' ideals in light of recent world events is a special focus of the site.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: CW hired former NBC journalist Lloyd Dobyns to produce the early podcasts for the museum. He usually interviewed staff about their specialties. Podcast interviews passed to other hands after his retirement.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: The John D. Rockefeller Library is considered the "intellectual center of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation." The library houses special collections including:


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: The library also has a visual resources collection, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation corporate archives, and media collections. Also offered are photo reproduction and licensing services. The library published a quarterly newsletter in digital format, as well as a podcast.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Colonial American craft items and souvenirs, some manufactured abroad, are peddled in historic area stores. Many souvenir shops sell such items as floral and herbal soaps, knitted hats, and handcrafted toys made from wood and clay.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Colonial Williamsburg is owned and operated as a living museum by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the non-profit entity endowed initially by the Rockefeller family and over the years by others, notably "Reader's Digest" founders Lila and DeWitt Wallace, and Philadelphia publisher Walter Annenberg.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: The major goal of the Restoration was to re-create the physical colonial environment and to facilitate education about the origins of the idea of America, which was conceived during the decades before the American Revolution. In this environment, Colonial Williamsburg strives to tell the story of how diverse peoples, having different and sometimes conflicting ambitions, evolved into a society that valued liberty and equality.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Cliff Fleet, former President of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, was appointed President and CEO of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 2019. Mitchell Reiss, former President of Washington College, was the Foundation's President and CEO from 2014-2019. Reiss succeeded Colin G. Campbell, who held the position for 14 years. Thomas F. Farrell II was Chair of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Board of Trustees from 2011-2016 and served on the Board from 2006-2018.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Attendance at Colonial Williamsburg peaked in 1985 at 1.1 million visitors. After years of lowered attendance, it began to rebound somewhat with the Jamestown 2007 celebration and the "Revolutionary City" programs of live, interactive street theater between reenactors and audience members, which began in 2006.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Since its lowest point in 2004, total attendance has climbed about 10 percent total over the following years, according to a report in July 2008. During 2008, CW's hospitality revenue increase of 15 percent was much stronger than the ticket sale gain of 5 percent, reflecting how the hospitality money is not always coming from CW historic area tourists, according to an official.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: The foundation's official attendance figures are best read in context. Until the 1990s they reflected only general admission tickets sold, and that number was sometimes artificially bolstered by internal year-end sales and new year repurchases between the non-profit foundation and its for-profit wholly owned subsidiary hotels. Afterward, the foundation estimated the number of tourists who walked the streets without purchasing a ticket, and added them to attendance figures. In the 2000s, head counts were adjusted to reflect tourists who rode the foundation's buses, who visited its museums, who bought carriage rides, who went to night programs, and the like. These numbers were reported as "turnstile" counts. From old annual reports, it appears general admission ticket sales have never reached one million.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Persistent operating deficits challenge Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Income comes from attendance and merchandising, but is lost at hospitality properties. Other funds come from investments of the endowments and a fundraising operation that occupies half of the foundation's four-story headquarters. Financially focused efforts in recent years have primarily concentrated on cost containment and stimulating attendance and hospitality revenues. The foundation has also sold some property assets it decided were no longer essential to its core mission, including most of its formerly owned properties on nearby Peacock Hill, which has the local distinction of having formerly been home to Georgia O'Keeffe, Mayor Polly Stryker, and Dr. Donald W. Davis, founder of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: In 2017, due to losses, Colonial Williamsburg former President Mitchell Reis outsourced management of commercial operations of their hotels, 19 retail stores, and three golf courses.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: In 2003, as CW attendance and operating revenues continued to drop, Carter's Grove was closed to the public while its mission and role in CW's programs were redefined. After the sale, officials belatedly determined Carters Grove was paying for itself, one of the bright spots in its troubled balance sheet. Later in 2003, Hurricane Isabel seriously damaged Carter's Grove Country Road, which had linked the estate to the historic area, a distance of , bypassing commercial and public roadways. Colonial Williamsburg shifted some of the interpretive programs to locations contiguous to the historic area in Williamsburg, including the ersatz farm Great Hopes Plantation next to its Visitor Center.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: The foundation announced in late 2006 that Carter's Grove would be sold under restrictive conditions. In a front-page article December 31, "The New York Times" reported that the foundation, struggling because of dwindling attendance and insufficient endowment for upkeep, would be offering the Carter's Grove mansion and grounds for sale to a private purchaser, possibly as soon as January 2007. The foundation justified the sale, in part, by saying it wanted to concentrate on its 18th-century core—as opposed to such attractions as the reconstruction of a 17th-century village on the site—a position at odds with its later, and subsequently undone, decision to assume management of 17th-century historic Jamestowne. "The Times" said that the dilemma of historic museums and houses is that there are too many of them, upkeep is too expensive, and fewer people are visiting them.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: In December 2007, the Georgian-style mansion and were acquired for $15.3 million by CNET founder Halsey Minor, whose announced plans to use the property as a private residence and a center for a Thoroughbred horse breeding program. The conservation easement on the mansion and 400 of the is co-held by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Some local residents lamented CW's decision to sell Carter's Grove; others stated relief that it would remain largely intact, no small matter in one of the fastest developing counties in Virginia. There was general agreement, however, that the transaction was a disaster for the foundation's management and reputation. In 2011, Halsey Minor stopped making payments, and was foreclosed on by CW after a lengthy legal battle and some deterioration of the house and grounds. In 2014, CW repurchased Carter's Grove from the bankruptcy court, and sold it to a new private investor.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: In addition to the large sale of surplus land of the old Kingsmill plantation to Anheuser Busch in the 1970s and the more recent sale of Carter's Grove, the foundation has also sold outlying tracts of land not considered fundamental to its mission, as well as multiple now-privately owned homes in Peacock Hill.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: One of these is a tract along historic Quarterpath Road north of State Route 199 and south of U.S. Route 60 east of the historic area. In 2005, it was the City of Williamsburg's largest undeveloped tract under single ownership".


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Observers have noted that, while most of the Quarterpath land will be developed, the previously vacant land will include park and recreational facilities, and Redoubt Park, dedicated to preserving some of the battlegrounds from the Battle of Williamsburg that occurred on May 5, 1862 during the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: A portion of the Carr's Hill Tract in York County, north and west of Bypass Road and State Route 132, was also sold. Developments thereon were restricted under the terms of sale so as to not negatively impact the vista available to motorists approaching Colonial Williamsburg. In February, 2007, a developer announced that 313 homes were planned to be built on of the historic tract's . CW had earlier announced that it had donated three conservation easements to the Williamsburg Land Conservancy on of the Carr's Hill tract land west of Route 132 in York County.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: The closest commercial airport is Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport 25–30 minutes driving distance away. Williamsburg is midway between two larger commercial airports, Richmond International Airport and Norfolk International Airport, each about an hour's distance away.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Amtrak offers a passenger rail service stop at Williamsburg, as does Greyhound and Carolina Trailways with intercity buses.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Williamsburg is adjacent to east–west Interstate 64 and the parallel U.S. Route 60 passes through the city. A third road, State Route 143, also extends east to Newport News and Hampton, ending at Fort Monroe. From Richmond, Interstate 295, and other points west, many visitors approach via State Route 5, a scenic byway which passes many of the James River Plantations, or from the south via State Route 10, State Route 31 and the Jamestown Ferry. The Virginia Capital Trail is available for bicycles and pedestrians along the Colonial Parkway and Virginia Route 5.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Williamsburg offers good non-automobile driving alternatives for visitors. The area has both a central intermodal transportation center and Williamsburg Area Transit Authority (WATA), a public transit bus system which operates a network of local routes. The community's public bus system, has its central hub at the transportation center. Color-coded routes, with buses accessible to disabled persons, serve hotels and motels, restaurants, stores, and non-Colonial Williamsburg attractions.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Colonial Williamsburg operates its own fleet of buses with stops close to attractions in the historic area, although no motor vehicles operate during the day on Duke of Gloucester Street (to maintain the colonial-era atmosphere). At night, all the historic area streets are open to automobiles.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Some residents of Williamsburg, including Major S. D. Freeman and Cara Armistead, questioned the 1928 transfer of public lands (as compared to private properties). In January 1932, the large marble Confederate Civil War monument was removed from Palace Green, where it had stood since 1908, and placed in the Cedar Grove Cemetery, on the outskirts of town. Some citizens who supported the Colonial reconstruction felt this was too much. The case went to court, and eventually the monument was moved to a new site east of the then-new courthouse. For many years, the memorial rested in Bicentennial Park, just outside the Historic Area. In July 2020 the city council voted unanimously to remove it, and it was returned to the United Daughters of the Confederacy in August 2020.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: The approach to restoration and preservation taken by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has long been subject to criticism.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Goodwin was troubled by what he perceived as encroaching commercialization. Among his parting words of advice to Colonial Williamsburg's management were: "If there is one firm guiding and restraining word which should be passed on to those who will be responsible for the restoration in the future, that one word is integrity. A departure from truth here and there will inevitably produce a cumulative deterioration of authenticity and consequent loss of public confidence. Loyalty demands that this principle of integrity be adhered to".


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: One of the foundation's in-house publications concedes that "Colonial Williamsburg bears the burden of criticism that the restored town appears too neat and clean, too 'spick-and-span', and too manicured to be believable". Ada Louise Huxtable, an architecture critic, wrote in 1965: "Williamsburg is an extraordinary, conscientious and expensive exercise in historical playacting in which real and imitation treasures and modern copies are carelessly confused in everyone's mind. Partly because it is so well done, the end effect has been to devalue authenticity and denigrate the genuine heritage of less picturesque periods to which an era and a people gave life".


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: All of the restored houses were improved with electricity, plumbing, and heating by 19th- and 20th-century residents and later by Colonial Williamsburg. They have also been furnished with stoves, air conditioners, refrigerators, and bathrooms by today's residents or the foundation. Plaster, woodwork, flooring, siding and roofs were replaced.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: In 1997, anthropologists Eric Gable and Richard Handler discussed Colonial Williamsburg as an attraction which catered to America's upper/middle to high-level affluent socioeconomic classes. Their report mentions instances where some of Colonial Williamsburg's employees often straddle expectations of maintaining authenticity of the museum's programs while still in-authentically creating products to sell in the museum's gift shops. An even harsher interpretation is that of University of Virginia Professor of Architectural History Richard Guy Wilson, author of "Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont", who described Colonial Williamsburg as "a superb example of an American suburb of the 1930s, with its in-authentically tree-lined streets of Colonial Revival houses and segregated commerce". All of these reproaches have led many critics to label Colonial Williamsburg and its Foundation a "Republican Disneyland".


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Among the answers to these criticisms is that "Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area is a compromise between historical authenticity and common sense, between brutal realism and gentle ambiance, between being a moment in time in the eighteenth century and being nearly three hundred years old". Critics assert that setting "historical authenticity" against "common sense" is a false dichotomy and that commercial and proprietary factors are what are really at issue. Of course archaeological and historical research is an ongoing process at Colonial Williamsburg, and as new information surfaces, reconsideration is often prompted and changes made accordingly.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: In March 2016, the foundation's new president and chief executive officer, Mitchell Reiss, told the "Richmond Times-Dispatch" that Colonial Williamsburg aimed to be "accurate-ish."


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: At Appalachian State University a graduate level class focuses on the preservation and restoration of Colonial Williamsburg as part of its Public History program.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Colonial Williamsburg has been criticized for neglecting the role of free African-Americans in Colonial life, in addition to those who were slaves. When it first opened in the 1930s, Colonial Williamsburg had segregated dormitories for its reenactors. African-Americans filled historical roles as servants, rather than free people as in the present day. In a segregated state, Colonial Williamsburg allowed the entry of Blacks, but Williamsburg-area hotels denied them accommodation, and state law forbade Black people from eating with white people in such public facilities as the restored taverns and from shopping in nearby stores.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: Colonial Williamsburg offered some of the earlier public accommodations on an integrated basis. In the 1970s, in reaction to increasing scorn of its one-sided portrayal of colonial life, Colonial Williamsburg increased its number of African-American interpreters who played slaves. This was parodied by a sketch that aired on "Saturday Night Live", which showed a reenactor abusing his accuracy by being racist to employees. In 1994, it added slave auctions and slave marriages; the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference later protested. One controversial example was the “Publick Times” program, a reenactment of a slave auction staged in October 1994. The event was widely publicized by news outlets such as "The Baltimore Sun", "Chicago Tribune", and "The New York Times". While some members of the public applauded the reenactment as a reflection of the reality of slavery in the American colonies, others criticized the program for using a slave auction as a source of entertainment. In 1981, Colonial Williamsburg added a program to explain slavery and its role in Colonial America, but this "Other Half Tour," which is composed by the Foundation's African American and Interpretation Programs Department (AAIP), provides a different form of historical interpretation than does its counterpart tour, "The Patriots' Tour," thus creating a marked dichotomy between how visitors are expected to interpret history at the museum.


title: Colonial Williamsburg

text: In recent years, Colonial Williamsburg has expanded its portrayal of 18th-century African-Americans to include free Blacks as well as slaves. Examples of these expanded portrayals in the "Revolutionary City" program include Gowan Pamphlet, a former slave who became a free landowner and Baptist minister, Edith Cumbo, a free Black woman, Matthew Ashby, a free Black man who eventually purchased the freedom of his family, and a number of other enslaved men and women who were part of the Williamsburg community during the Revolutionary period. A re-created Great Hopes Plantation represents a middling plantation, not one owned by the wealthy, in which working-class farmers worked alongside their slaves. Their lives were more typical of colonial Virginians in general than the lives of the wealthier planters, their families and slaves.


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: "Sailing to Byzantium" is a poem by William Butler Yeats, first published in the 1928 collection "The Tower". It comprises four stanzas in ottava rima, each made up of eight lines of iambic pentameter. It uses a journey to Byzantium (Constantinople) as a metaphor for a spiritual journey. Yeats explores his thoughts and musings on how immortality, art, and the human spirit may converge. Through the use of various poetic techniques, Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium" describes the metaphorical journey of a man pursuing his own vision of eternal life as well as his conception of paradise.


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: Written in 1926 (when Yeats was 60 or 61), "Sailing to Byzantium" is Yeats' definitive statement about the agony of old age and the imaginative and spiritual work required to remain a vital individual even when the heart is "fastened to a dying animal" (the body). Yeats's solution is to leave the country of the young and travel to Byzantium, where the sages in the city's famous gold mosaics could become the "singing-masters" of his soul. He hopes the sages will appear in fire and take him away from his body into an existence outside time, where, like a great work of art, he could exist in "the artifice of eternity." This is a reference to the legend that when the Turks entered the church (Hagia Sophia) in 1453, the priests who were singing the Divine Liturgy took up the sacred vessels and disappeared into the wall of the church, where they will stay and only come out when the church is returned to Christendom (see Timothy Gregory, "A History of Byzantium", page 337). In the final stanza of the poem, he declares that once he is out of his body he will never again appear in the form of a natural thing; rather, he will become a golden bird, sitting on a golden tree, singing of the past ("what is past"), the present (that which is "passing"), and the future (that which is "to come").


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: The Golden Bough (mythology) is a reference to the "Aeneid", book VI, by the Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC), where it is offered as a gift by Trojan hero Aeneas to Proserpina to enter the gate of the underworld. Aeneas' father Anchises describes the spirit inside every body


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: This describes the tension between physicality and spirituality, mortality and immortality, which are the themes of this poem.


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: I am trying to write about the state of my soul, for it is right for an old man to make his soul, and some of my thoughts about that subject I have put into a poem called 'Sailing to Byzantium'. When Irishmen were illuminating the Book of Kells, and making the jeweled croziers in the National Museum, Byzantium was the centre of European civilization and the source of its spiritual philosophy, so I symbolize the search for the spiritual life by a journey to that city.


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: John Crowe Ransom comments: "The prayer is addressed to holy sages who dwell I know not where; it does not seem to matter where, for they seem qualified to receive the prayer, and it is a qualified and dignified prayer."


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: Epifanio San Juan writes that the action of the poem "occurs in the tension between memory and desire, knowledge and intuition, nature and history, subsumed within a vision of eternal order".


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: Cleanth Brooks asks whether, in this poem, Yeats chooses idealism or materialism and answers his own question, "Yeats chooses both and neither. One cannot know the world of being save through the world of becoming (though one must remember that the world of becoming is a meaningless flux aside from the world of being which it implies)".


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: A second poem written by W. B. Yeats, "Byzantium", extends and complements "Sailing to Byzantium". It blends descriptions of the medieval city in nighttime darkness with spiritual, supernatural and artistic imagery.


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: The short story "No Country for Old Men" by Irish author Seán Ó Faoláin, about two veterans of the Irish War of Independence struggling to find their place in the Irish Republic of the 1950s, takes its title from the first line of the poem. His daughter, author Julia O'Faolain, added her own twist when she titled her Booker-nominated 1980 novel "No Country for Young Men".


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: A science fiction novella by the same name by Robert Silverberg was published in 1985. The story, like the poem, deals with immortality and includes quotations from the poem.


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: Philip Roth's 2001 short novel The Dying Animal takes its title from the third stanza, and is explicitly referenced in the text.


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay's historical fantasy duology The Sarantine Mosaic was inspired by this poem.


title: Sailing to Byzantium

text: The title of the 2005 novel "No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy and the 2007 Oscar winning film adapted from it, comes from the first line of this poem.


title: Lena (actress)

text: Lenaa (born 18 March 1981) is an Indian actress and scriptwriter who appears predominantly in Malayalam cinema.


title: Lena (actress)

text: She made her debut in Jayaraj's "Sneham", which was followed by critically acclaimed "Karunam". She had also established as a lead actress in the Malayalam television industry with serials like "Omanathinkalpakshi", "Ohari", "Malayogam" and "Thadankalpalayam" before focusing on her film career. She is also a television host and manages the YouTube Vlogging channel - "Lena's Magazine". She has over 100 films to her credit in Malayalam cinema along with films in English, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi languages.


title: Lena (actress)

text: Some of her noted performance were in the critically acclaimed "Traffic" (2011) after which she acted in films such in "Snehaveedu", "Ee Adutha Kaalathu", "Spirit", "Left Right Left" and "Ennu Ninte Moideen" in supporting roles. Lenaa will star alongside Adil Hussain (Parched, Hotel Salvation) in a British-Indian feature titled "Footprints On Water", to be directed by Nathalia Syam.


title: Lena (actress)

text: Lenaa attended the Seventh Day Adventist Higher Secondary School in Thrissur, and Hari Sri Vidya Nidhi School, also in Thrissur. Lenaa is a post-graduate in Clinical psychology, and has worked as a clinical psychologist in Mumbai, before she quit her job to enter full-time acting.


title: Lena (actress)

text: Lenaa has recently revealed her plans for a directorial debut as she confirmed completing the first draft of the project which is in pipeline.


title: Wilmar International

text: Wilmar International Limited () is a Singaporean food processing and investment holding company with more than 300 subsidiary companies. Founded in 1991, it is one of Asia's leading agribusiness groups alongside the COFCO Group. It ranks amongst the largest listed companies by market capitalisation on the Singapore Exchange (SGX), being the second largest as of September 2010. It was ranked 211th in the Fortune Global 500 list in 2020. It was ranked 3rd in the World's Most Admired Company (Food Production) by "Fortune" in 2019.


title: Wilmar International

text: Wilmar International business activities include oil palm cultivation, edible oils refining, oilseeds crushing, consumer pack edible oils processing and merchandising, specialty fats, oleochemicals, and biodiesel manufacturing, grains processing and merchandising, and sugar milling and refining. In 2021, Wilmar placed 2nd on FoodTalks' Global Top 30 Specialty Oil Companies list. It has over 500 manufacturing plants and an extensive distribution network covering China, Indonesia, India and some 50 other countries. The group employs a multinational workforce of more than 100,000 people.


title: Wilmar International

text: Wilmar's merchandising and processing segment encompasses merchandising of palm oil and laurics-related products, operations of palm oil processing and refinery plants and crushing, further processing and refining of a range of edible oils, oilseeds, grains and soybean. Its consumer products include edible oils, rice, flour and noodles in China, Indonesia, Vietnam and India. Its plantation and palm oil mills segment engages in oil palm cultivation and milling.


title: Wilmar International

text: Wilmar has come under criticism for its exploitation of child labour and slave labour, as well as unsafe working conditions on its plantations amidst other worker mistreatment incidents. The company has also been exposed for its environmentally degrading practices, and forced displacement of poor populations, amongst other unethical behaviours.


title: Wilmar International

text: Unilever is one of the main customers of Wilmar. Unilever and Wilmar are members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) which brings together retailers, producers and NGOs like Oxfam and WWF.


title: Wilmar International

text: Palm oil, extracted from palm fruit pulp, is Wilmar's main product. Palm oil is the most widely used edible oil, and there is 42 million acres under cultivation worldwide. Commercial production has helped many communities in Africa and South-east Asia tackle local poverty. However, environmentalists have been concerned that such widespread cultivation has led to deforestation and air pollution, and is a threat to endangered species. In 2013, Wilmar changed its approach and endorsed sustainability principles, and now encourages their suppliers and customers to do likewise.


title: Wilmar International

text: Wilmar was founded by Kuok Khoon Hong and Martua Sitorus on 1 April 1991 and commenced operations as a palm oil trading company.


title: Wilmar International

text: Forbes named Kuok the twelfth richest person in Singapore in 2021 and Martua is the twelfth richest person in Indonesia.


title: Wilmar International

text: In 2004, Friends of the Earth Netherlands performed a review of Wilmar's palm oil operations in Sumatra Riau as undertaken by PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa. Wilmar had 20,800 hectares of land there and the operation was financed by the Dutch Rabobank and the International Finance Corporation. Satellite photos proved that in 2004 the plantations were on sea shore peat rain forests, the depth of the peat being four meters, whereas such land is actually protected under Indonesian law. Nevertheless, in 1997 Wilmar received permission to plant there despite it being peat land. According to locals, the plantation endangers the Sumatran tiger population that inhabits the area, and this became a point of conflict with Wilmar in 2004. Soon after, Wilmar sold PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa and joined the WWF Palm Oil Association (WWF for World Wide Fund for Nature).


title: Wilmar International

text: According to Friends of the Earth Netherlands, Wilmar International starts forest fires and violates the rights of local populations. In July 2007 Friends of the Earth and two local environmental organizations criticized Wilmar's illegal forest felling in Kalimantan, in Indonesia. As a result of this campaign against Wilmar's projects in Sambas, West Kalimantan, the company agreed to implement a number of new measures and policies.


title: Wilmar International

text: In July 2013, a report published by the WWF which documented that Wilmar (as well as the Indonesian company Asian Agri) were purchasing palm oil fruit which was grown illegally in Tesso Nilo National Park, Sumatra. According to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, both Wilmar and Asian Agri took immediate action to stop this illegal sourcing.


title: Wilmar International

text: In October 2015, Wilmar and Sinarmas, reportedly involved with the case of forest fires in Indonesia that led to the island of Sumatra and Kalimantan burn and cause catastrophic smog


title: Wilmar International

text: In 2018, a Greenpeace International report asserted that Wilmar International is "the biggest and dirtiest palm oil trader in the world"


title: Wilmar International

text: In 2020, global campaign organisation Mighty Earth reported that Wilmar International was involved in cutting down of natural forests inside an oil palm concession in Indonesia's easternmost region of Papua, but Wilmar's investigation concluded that the deforestation is smaller than alleged and done by smallholder farmers.


title: Wilmar International

text: According to Friends of the Earth, Wilmar and Bidco Africa through Bidco Uganda, have been involved in long running dispute over land with local communities.


title: Wilmar International

text: According to The Guardian in March 2015, the land grab issue has plagued the community of Kalangala for a number of years. In July 2011, residents awoke to "find yellow machines churning up her land and razing the crops she had grown in a bid to make way for palm oil plantations." Bidco Africa and Wilmar have made no recorded statement on these matters. Again according to Friends of the Earth International, the projects implications include: Forced displacement, poor labour standards, deforestation, and insecurity amongst other. The community have now taken the conglomerate to court.


title: Wilmar International

text: In February 2016, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) received a petition from the Bugala Farmers Association in Uganda related to UNDP's association with Bidco Africa Ltd.


title: Wilmar International

text: A complaint was also received by the UNDP's Stakeholder Response Mechanism (SRM) and Social and Environmental Compliance Unit (SECU). In May 2016, UNDP visited Kalangala to further investigate the issues surrounding the matter. In November 2016, the UNDP faulted a decision inviting Bidco Ltd into partnership with the United Nations Development Programme's Business Call to Action in Uganda.


title: Wilmar International

text: On 30 November 2016, Amnesty International published a report into working conditions on the Wilmar International plantations and refineries in Indonesia. It alleged human rights abuses, including "forced labour, low pay, exposure to toxic chemicals and discrimination against women". According to Amnesty International, Wilmar International profited from 8- to 14-year-old child labour and forced labour. Some workers were extorted, threatened or not paid for work. Some workers suffered severe injuries from exposure to herbicides containing paraquat. Wilmar customers include FAMSA, ADM, Colgate-Palmolive, Elevance, Kellogg's, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser and Unilever. Wilmar palm oil may be used in popular products like Magnum ice-cream, Colgate toothpaste, Dove (toiletries), Knorr soup, KitKat, Pantene shampoo, Ariel, and Pot Noodle.


title: Wilmar International

text: On 5 December 2013, Wilmar committed to a No Deforestation, No Peat & No Exploitation Policy (NDPE policy) for both its own operations and third party suppliers. It promised to stop buying from suppliers who cleared forest, drained peat land, or exploited locals. This was lauded as a transformational step towards responsible and sustainable palm oil development. Preliminary analysis estimated that Wilmar's commitment would eliminate more than 1.5Gt CO emissions in total between 2016 and 2020.


title: Wilmar International

text: In 2015, Wilmar won the Special Recognition Award at the Singapore Apex CSR Awards 2015 organised by the Global Compact Network Singapore, Singapore Business Federation and The Business Times. It was hailed for being the first major palm oil player to step up to ensure its supply chain is de-linked from any forest destruction and human rights abuse.


title: Asansol

text: Asansol is a (Tier-II) metropolitan city in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the second largest and most populated city of West Bengal and the 33rd largest urban agglomeration in India. Asansol is the district headquarters of Paschim Bardhaman district. According to a 2010 report released by the International Institute for Environment and Development, a UK-based policy research non-governmental body, Asansol was ranked 11th among Indian cities and 42nd in the world in its list of 100 fastest-growing cities. Asansol is classed as a Y-category city for calculation of HRA (House Rent Allowance) for public servants, is rate 16%, making it a Tier-II city.


title: Asansol

text: "Asan", a species of tree which generally grows thirty meters tall, is found on the banks of the Damodar River; "sol" refers to land. The name "Asansol" is a combination of these two words. Asansol is a city on the banks of Damodar and its land is rich in minerals.


title: Asansol

text: Historically the city was anglicized as "Assensole" during the British era but the name was reverted after Independence.


title: Asansol

text: The region is believed to have been a part of the kingdom of Vishnupur where the Malla dynasty ruled for approximately a thousand years till the emergence of the British. This theory is backed by the presence of Vishnupur style temple present at Chhotodighari village and Domohani village in Asansol.


title: Asansol

text: Asansol is a cosmopolitan city located on the lower Chota Nagpur Plateau, which occupies most of Jharkhand, between the Damodar and Ajay rivers. Another river, the Barakar, joins the Damodar near Dishergarh. Two small rivulets, Nunia and Garui flows past Asansol.


title: Asansol

text: While Dhanbad district in Jharkhand lies on the western side, Durgapur subdivision lies on the eastern side. To the south, across the Damodar river are the Purulia and Bankura districts. To the north are Dumka and Birbhum districts. Dhanbad district is a major coal mining area and has close links with Asansol; both lie in the Damodar valley.


title: Asansol

text: The city is connected by the Grand Trunk Road and by rail with Durgapur, Burdwan, and Kolkata. It is an important coal-trading and railway centre, with large railway workshops and a railway colony.


title: Asansol

text: Asansol North police station has jurisdiction over Raniganj CD Block and parts of Asansol Municipal Corporation. The area covered is 50 km and the population covered is 410,000 (2001).


title: Asansol

text: Asansol South police station has jurisdiction over parts of Asansol municipal corporation. The area covered is 69 km and the population covered is 475,439 (2001).


title: Asansol

text: Raniganj, Jamuria, Hirapur and Kulti police stations also serve parts of Asansol municipal corporation area.


title: Asansol

text: According to the Kolkata Gazette notification of 3 June 2015, the municipal areas of Kulti, Raniganj and Jamuria were included within the jurisdiction of Asansol Municipal Corporation.


title: Asansol

text: Asansol is administered by the Asansol Municipal Corporation. In 1850, a union committee was formed to look after the civic needs of Asansol. The Assensole (now Asansol) Municipality was approved in 1885 but started functioning effectively in 1896. It was upgraded to the status of a corporation in 1994. Since 2011 it has had its own Police Commissionerate.


title: Asansol

text: In 2015, Kulti, Jamuria and Raniganj Municipalities were dissolved and now these areas are administered by the Asansol Municipal Corporation. Thus the proper city limits of Asansol includes the old Asansol Area, including Burnpur, as well as other prominent locations like Raniganj, Chinakuri, Mithani, Barakar, Kulti, Dishergarh, Neamatpur, Sitarampur and Jamuria. Asansol Municipal Corporation has 106 wards.


title: Asansol

text: Asansol-Durgapur Development Authority (ADDA) was established in April 1980 by the merger of the Asansol Planning Organisation and the Durgapur Development Authority. Jurisdiction of ADDA covers the areas administered by Asansol Municipal Corporation, the Jamuria Panchayet Samiti, the Community Development Blocks of Andal, Pandabeswar and Durgapur-Faridpur, Durgapur Municipal Corporation and a small part of Kanksa Community Development Block.


title: Asansol

text: Asansol has hot and dry summers and mild winters. In summers temperatures soar above 45 °C with dry hot air blowing known as 'loo' while in winter temperatures go below 10 °C. Monsoon lasts from June to September.


title: Asansol

text: As per the 2011 census, the total population of Asansol is 1,243,414 out of which 646,052 are males and 597,362 are females. The city has a literacy rate of 83.30%. The major religions in Asansol are Hinduism, followed by 75.18% of the population, and Islam, followed by 21.26% of the population. 1.09% of the populace are adherents of Sikhism, while 0.99% of the population adheres to Christianity.


title: Asansol

text: The Grand Trunk Road (NH 19 - old numbering NH 2) runs across the subdivision and NH 14 (old numbering NH 60) connects Asansol with Odisha. NH 19 has been broadened as part of the Golden Quadrilateral project and now allows three-lane traffic in both directions. A highway bypass avoids the areas of Ushagram, Murgasol, Asansol Bazar, Chelidanga, BNR, Gopalpur, Neamatpur, Kulti, and Barakar. Some of the other important roads of the city are namely Vivekananda Avenue, Burnpur Road, and S.B Gorai Road.


title: Asansol

text: The South Bengal State Transport Corporation operates daily bus services to Kolkata and numerous other destinations, such as Malda, Siliguri, Midnapur, Bankura, Siuri, Purulia, Burdwan, Kalna, Howrah, Barackpore, Digha, Bolpur, Kirnahar and Berhampore. The North Bengal State Transport Corporation also runs services to and from the city and towns in North Bengal like Malda, Raiganj and Balurghat. There are also many private buses, Taxis and Radio Taxis, which ply locally and on intercity and interstate routes.


title: Asansol

text: Asansol Junction railway station is the Division of Eastern Railway zone This is one of the oldest divisions on the Indian Railways and has always been in the forefront of operations, both freight and passenger. As far as Eastern Railway is concerned, Asansol Division is referred to as the heart of operations, being at the crossroads of the Grand Chord route via Gaya and the main line route via Patna. With a total of 629.38 route kilometers, the division has the unique distinction of having quadruple lines (two up and two down line) from Khana to Sitarampur.


title: Asansol

text: The railway track from Kolkata to Delhi passes through the subdivision and bifurcates into the main line and the grand chord line at Sitarampur railway junction, a little to the west of Asansol railway junction. Another railway track links Asansol with Adra and then to Jamshedpur via Purulia and Kharagpur via Bankura. A branch line connects Andal with Sainthia on the Sahibganj Loop.


title: Asansol

text: Almost all the trains linking Kolkata with north India also connect with Asansol including Sealdah Rajdhani, Howrah Rajdhani, Howrah Duronto, Sealdah Humsafar Express, Yuva Express and Shalimar Duronto. As a result, Asansol enjoys good connectivity with cities like New Delhi, Jammu, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Allahabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Dehradun, Jaipur, Kota, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Gwalior, Bhopal, Indore, Patna, Ranchi and Dhanbad on the one hand and commands a fairly good traffic movement towards the western cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Surat and southern cities like Bhubaneshwar, Visakhapatnam, Vijaywada, Chennai, Bangalore and Trivandrum. It is also connected with Guwahati in the north-east region.


title: Asansol

text: The domestic airport that serves the city is Kazi Nazrul Islam Airport. The airport is located in Andal. It is roughly from the Asansol City Bus Terminus.


title: Asansol

text: There is also a private airport located at Burnpur Riverside Area. At present this Airport is operated by IISCO. Recently Airport Authority of India gave nod to start commercial flights for six routes in West Bengal; Burnpur Airport being one of them is hopeful to receive its first commercial flight by the last quarter of 2019.


title: Asansol

text: The nearest international airport is Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at Dum Dum in Kolkata.


title: Asansol

text: The economy of Asansol is primarily dependent on its steel and coal industries, railways, and its trade and commerce.


title: Asansol

text: The Steel Authority of India IISCO (Indian Iron and Steel Company Ltd) steel-making plant at Kulti was the first such facility in India. It became well known during the 1960s and 1970s, with its company shares being traded on the London Stock Exchange. However, a decade later the company became loss-making until it was revived in 2006 when it merged with the Steel Authority of India. Modernisation at IISCO Steel Plant has helped the city develop at a very rapid pace. The plant's capacity will be raised from 0.4 MT to 2.5 MT of saleable steel, using what will be the biggest blast furnace in the country. As of 2015, the investment for modernization was the single largest investment in West Bengal till then.


title: Asansol

text: Eastern Coalfields, which has its headquarters in Sanctoria P.O. - Dishergarh, has a significant presence in the area due to the huge deposits of high-quality coal. However, most of the coalfields and surrounding residential colonies are located away from the main city. Nearby areas like Raniganj, Chinakuri, and Jamuria are of particular importance as coal blocks. As of 2012, the total coal reserve in the ECL command area up to 600 metre depth was 49.17 billion tonnes.


title: Asansol

text: Railways also is a big contributor to the economy of Asansol. Railways were the first employer in the city and they are credited with developing the city in the late 19th century. Asansol is one of four divisions of Eastern Railway Zone and among the major revenue generating divisions in Indian Railways. World's largest vertically integrated organisation Chittaranjan Locomotive Works under Indian Railways is also situated here. It is India's first locomotive works and Asia's largest Locomotive manufacturer.


title: Asansol

text: Other industries include Dishergarh Power Supply, Damodar Valley Corporation, Burn Standard Co. which is now a subsidiary of Eastern Railways, Hindustan Cables Limited and cement factories like Burnpur Cement.


title: Asansol

text: Prasar Bharati has a High Power Transmitter Station at Asansol which broadcasts Doordarshan National / Bangla and Doordarshan News Channel. Transmissions are not only received by the city but also neighbouring places. Other than national channels, several local channels are available through cable TV networks, such as Vision 24, Drishti Channel, ATV, and ISP Channel.


title: Asansol

text: Asansol currently has four FM radio stations: All India Radio 100.3 FM, 92.7 BIG FM, 93.5 RED FM and Radio Mirchi 95 FM.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Cuba has had a socialist political system since 1959 based on the "one state – one party" principle. Cuba is constitutionally defined as a Marxist–Leninist state. The present Constitution of Cuba, which was passed in a 2019 referendum, also describes the role of the Communist Party of Cuba to be the "leading force of society and of the state" and as having the capability of setting national policy, and First Secretary of the Communist Party is the most powerful position in Cuba. The 2019 Constitution of Cuba identifies the ideals represented by Cuban independence hero José Martí and revolutionary leader Fidel Castro as the primary foundation of Cuba's political system, while also stressing the importance of the influence of the ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: The President of Cuba is Miguel Díaz-Canel, who succeeded Raúl Castro as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the supreme leader position in 2021. Díaz-Canel is the first ruler of Communist Cuba to not hail from the family of Fidel or Raúl Castro. Executive power is exercised by the government, which is represented by the Council of Ministers, headed by the Prime Minister of Cuba. Legislative power is exercised through the unicameral National Assembly of People's Power, which is constituted as the maximum authority of the state. With effect from 10 October 2019, Miguel Díaz-Canel is the president and Manuel Marrero is the Prime Minister of Cuba. The previous president of the State Council was Raúl Castro, brother of former leader Fidel Castro; Raúl Castro remained First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, and Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces until 19 April 2021. Fidel Castro ruled from 1959 to 2006, before illness forced him to hand power to his brother. Esteban Lazo Hernández is the president of the National Assembly.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Political scientists characterize the political system of Cuba as a single-party authoritarian regime where political opposition is not permitted. There are elections in Cuba, but they are not considered democratic. Censorship of information (including limits to internet access) is extensive, and independent journalism is repressed in Cuba; Reporters Without Borders has characterized Cuba as one of the worst countries in the world for press freedom.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Executive power is exercised by the government. From February 1959 until February 2008, Cuba was led by revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who was Head of State, Head of Government, First Secretary of the Communist Party, and Commander in Chief of the Cuban armed forces. The Ministry of Interior is the principal organ of state security and control.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: According to the Constitution of Cuba, Article 94, the First Vice President of the Council of State assumes presidential duties upon the illness or death of the President. On July 31, 2006, during the 2006 Cuban transfer of duties, Fidel Castro delegated his duties as President of the Council of state, first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party and the post of commander in chief of the armed forces to first Vice President Raúl Castro. Since 2019, the President of Cuba is also limited to two five year terms.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Cuba has an elected national legislature, the National Assembly of People's Power ("Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular"), which has 612 members, elected every 5 years and holds brief sessions to ratify decisions by the executive branch. The National Assembly convenes twice a year in ordinary periods of sessions. However, it has permanent commissions to look after issues of legislative interest. Among its permanent or temporary commissions are those in charge of issues concerning the economy, sugar industry, industries, transportation and communications, constructions, foreign affairs, public health, defense and interior order. The National Assembly also has permanent departments that oversee the work of the Commissions, Local Assemblies of the People's Power, International Relations, Judicial Affairs and the Administration.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Article 88(h) of the Constitution of Cuba, adopted in 1976, provides for citizen proposals of law, prerequisite that the proposal be made by at least 10,000 citizens who are eligible to vote. In 2002 supporters of a movement known as the Varela Project submitted a citizen proposal of law with 11,000 signatures calling for a national referendum on political and economic reforms. The Government response was to collect 8.1 million signatures to request that Cuba's National Assembly enact a constitutional amendment making socialism an unalterable feature of Cuban government.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution is a network of neighborhood organizations across Cuba of which most Cubans are members. The organizations are designed to put medical, educational or other campaigns into national effect, and to report "counter-revolutionary" activity. It is the duty of the CDR officials to know the political activities of each person in their respective blocks.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Suffrage is non-compulsory and is afforded to Cuban citizens who have resided for two years on the island. Such citizens must be aged over sixteen years, must not have been found guilty of a criminal offense, and cannot be mentally handicapped. Cubans living abroad are denied the right to vote. The national elections for the 612 members of the National Assembly of People's Power are held according to this system and the precepts of the 1976 Constitution.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Under the system, neighbors meet to propose the candidates to the Municipal Assemblies in a public, show of hands vote. The candidates do not present a political platform, but only their resumes. No political party, not even the Communist Party of Cuba, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any candidate. The municipal candidates elected in each neighborhood then elect the Municipal Assembly members. In turn, the Municipal Assembly members elect the Provincial Assembly members, who in turn elect the national Assembly members. A direct vote is then cast to decide whether the decanted members that appear in the final step need to be ratified.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Cuba's foreign policy has been scaled back and redirected as a result of economic hardship after the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Without massive Soviet subsidies and its primary trading partner Cuba was comparatively isolated in the 1990s, but has since entered bilateral co-operation with several South American countries, most notably Venezuela and Bolivia. Cuba has normal diplomatic and economic relations with every country in the Western hemisphere except El Salvador and the United States. El Salvador, under the new government of Mauricio Funes, is expected to institute both in June, 2009.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: The United States continues an embargo "so long as [Cuba] continues to refuse to move toward democratization and greater respect for human rights."


title: Politics of Cuba

text: The European Union accuses Cuba of "continuing flagrant violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms", but also "Reiterates its condemnation of the US embargo on Cuba, and calls for it to be lifted forthwith, as the UN General Assembly has repeatedly demanded."


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Cuba has developed a growing relationship with the People's Republic of China and Russia. In all, Cuba continues to have formal relations with 160 nations, and provided civilian assistance workers – principally medical – in more than 20 nations. More than two million exiles have escaped to foreign countries. Cuba's present foreign minister is Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Political scientists characterize the political system of Cuba as non-democratic and authoritarian. It is a single-party authoritarian regime where political opposition is not permitted. There are elections in Cuba but critics challenge whether they are democratic. Censorship of information (including limits to internet access) is extensive, and independent journalism is repressed in Cuba; Reporters Without Borders has characterized Cuba as one of the worst countries in the world for press freedom.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Officially, Cuba frames itself as a "people's democracy", as opposed to the "liberal democracy" of Western states. Cuba thus rejects criticism of its political system as a lack of appreciation for different forms of democracy other than those in capitalist states. It alludes to the grass roots elements in the nomination of candidates at neighborhood level (in the so-called "circunscripciones").


title: Politics of Cuba

text: Opposition groups inside and outside the country as well as a summary published by Human Rights Watch and certain foreign governments have described the Cuban political system as undemocratic. The United States Government has initiated various policy measures; these have been ostensibly designed to urge Cuba to undertake political change towards a multi-party electoral system. These plans have been condemned by the Cuban Government, who accuses the United States of meddling in Cuba's affairs.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: According to Human Rights Watch, Castro constructed a "repressive machinery" that continues to deprive Cubans of their basic rights. The Cuban government has been accused of numerous human rights abuses, including torture, arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, and extrajudicial executions (a.k.a. ""El Paredón""). Human Rights Watch reports that the government represses nearly all forms of political dissent. There are many restrictions on leaving the country.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: The country's first ever transgender municipal delegate was elected in the province of Villa Clara in early 2013. Adela Hernández is a resident of the town of Caibarién and works as a nurse electrocardiogram specialist. In Cuba, delegates are not professional politicians and, therefore, do not receive a government salary.


title: Politics of Cuba

text: The 2012 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index ranked the Cuba 58th out of 176 countries, tied with Jordan and Namibia. and has lower levels than most of the other countries in the Caribbean and Central America. In 2006, it was ranked in 112th place, tied with India.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Spanish Filipinos (; ; Filipino/; ; ) are an ethnic group who trace some of their ancestry to early Spanish settlers from Spain and Mexico who passed through or settled in the Philippines during the Spanish Crown’s ownership of the territory, and also more recent arrivals.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi sailed from Mexico, conquered parts of the islands, and founded the first Spanish settlement in Cebu in 1565. Later he established Manila as the capital of the Spanish East Indies in 1571. The Philippine Islands were named after King Philip II of Spain and it became a territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain which was governed from Mexico City until the 19th century, when the First Mexican Empire obtained independence. From 1821, the Philippine Islands were ruled directly from Madrid, Spain.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Spaniards are referred to by Filipinos as "Kastila" (Castilian), in the Malay fashion, from the Portuguese name for the former Kingdom of Castile, now a region of Spain.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: They are also referred to as "Spanish Filipino", "Español Filipino" and "Hispano Filipino". They are also referred to colloquially as "Tisoy", derived from the Spanish word "mestizo".


title: Spanish Filipino

text: A Spanish Filipino is any citizen or resident of the Philippines who is of Spanish origin. They are represented in all levels of Philippine society and are integrated politically and economically, in the private and government sector.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Spanish Filipinos are present within several commerce and business sectors in the Philippines and a few sources estimate companies which comprise a significant portion of the Philippine economy are owned by Spanish Filipinos like International Container Terminal Services Inc., Manila Water, Integrated Micro-Electronics, Inc., Ayala Land, Ynchausti y Compañia, Ayala Corporation, Aboitiz & Company, Union Bank of the Philippines, ANSCOR, Bank of the Philippine Islands, Globe Telecom, Solaire Resort & Casino, to name but a few.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The term Hispanic broadly refers to the people, nations, and cultures that have a historical link to Spain. It commonly applies to countries once part of the Spanish Empire, particularly the countries of Latin America, Equatorial Guinea, and Spanish Sahara. The Spanish culture and Spanish language are the main traditions. The Philippines does not fit the U.S. federal government's official definition of "hispanic" because the country is not Spanish-speaking. However, the country is more broadly considered to have hispanic influence because of the effects of over 300 years as a territory of New Spain and later Spain itself.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Between 1565 and 1898, Hispanics from Latin America and Spain sailed to and from the Philippine Islands. This contributed to the assimilation of Hispanics into everyday society. According to an 1818 study by the renowned German ethnologist Fëdor Jagor entitled "The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes", not less than one third of the inhabitants of the island of Luzon were descendants of Spaniards, mixed with varying degrees of South American, Chinese, and Indian ancestry and the vast majority of military personnel then had Latin-American origins.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Spanish Philippines is the history of the Philippines from 1521 to 1898. It begins with the arrival in 1521 of European explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailing for Spain, which heralded the period when the Philippines was an overseas province of Spain, and ends with the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The Spanish conquest of 1565, prompted the colonization of the Philippine Islands that lasted for 333 years. The Philippines was a former territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain until the grant of independence to Mexico in 1821 necessitated the direct government from Spain of the Philippines from that year. Early Spanish settlers were mostly explorers, soldiers, government officials, religious missionaries, and among others, who were born in Spain and Mexico called Peninsulares (Spanish migrants living in the colony) or Criollo (Spaniards of pure blood), who settled in the islands with their families to governed the colony, and the majority of the indigenous population. Some of these individuals married or inter-bred with the indigenous Filipino (Austronesian/Malay/Malayo-Polynesian) population while most married only other Spaniards. Their succeeding generation called Insulares (Spaniards or Hispanics born from the islands), became town local officers, and were granted with haciendas (plantation estates) by the Spanish government. In some provinces like, Vigan, Iloilo, Cebu, Pampanga, and Zamboanga, The Spanish government encouraged foreign merchants to trade with the indigenous population, but they were not given certain privileges such as ownership of land. From this contact, social intercourse between foreign merchants, and indigenous people resulted in a new ethnic group. These group were called Mestizos (mixed-race individuals), who were born from intermarriages of the Spaniards and merchants with the indigenous Filipino (Austronesian/Malay/Malayo-Polynesian) natives. Some of their descendants, emerged later as an influential part of the ruling class, such as the Principalía (Nobility).


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The Spanish implemented incentives to deliberately entangle the various races together in order to stop rebellion: - "It is needful to encourage public instruction in all ways possible, permit newspapers subject to a liberal censure, to establish in Manila a college of medicine, surgery, and pharmacy: in order to break down the barriers that divide the races, and amalgamate them all into one. For that purpose, the Spaniards of the country, the Chinese mestizos, and the Filipinos shall be admitted with perfect equality as cadets of the military corps; the personal-service tax shall be abolished, or an equal and general tax shall be imposed, to which all the Spaniards shall be subject. This last plan appears to me more advisable, as the poll-tax is already established, and it is not opportune to make a trial of new taxes when it is a question of allowing the country to be governed by itself. Since the annual tribute is unequal, the average shall be taken and shall be fixed, consequently, at fifteen or sixteen reals per whole tribute, or perhaps one peso fuerte annually from each adult tributary person. This regulation will produce an increase in the revenue of 200,000 or 300,000 pesos fuertes, and this sum shall be set aside to give the impulse for the amalgamation of the races, favoring crossed marriages by means of dowries granted to the single women in the following manner. To a Chinese mestizo woman who marries a Filipino shall be given 100 pesos; to a Filipino woman who marries a Chinese mestizo, Ioo pesos; to a Chinese mestizo woman who marries a Spaniard, 1,000 pesos; to a Spanish woman who marries a Chinese mestizo, 2,000 pesos; to a Filipino woman who marries a Spaniard, 2,000 pesos; to a Spanish woman who marries a Filipino chief, 3,000 or 4,000 pesos. Some mestizo and Filipino alcaldes-mayor of the provinces shall be appointed. It shall be ordered that when a Filipino chief goes to the house of a Spaniard, he shall seat himself as the latter's equal. In a word, by these and other means, the idea that they and the Castilians are two kinds of distinct races shall be erased from the minds of the natives, and the families shall become related by marriage in such manner that when free of the Castilian dominion should any exalted Filipinos try to expel or enslave our race, they would find it so interlaced with their own that their plan would be practically impossible."


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Mexicans of European or Mestizo heritage known as Americanos (Americans) also arrived in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period. Between 1565 and 1815, Hispanics from Mexico and Spain sailed to, and from the Philippines as government officials, soldiers, priests, settlers, traders, sailors, and adventurers in the Manila-Acapulco Galleon, assisting Spain in its trade between Latin America and the Philippine Islands.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The Philippine Statistics Department does not account for the racial background or ancestry of an individual. The official population of all types of Filipino mestizos that reside inside and outside of the Philippines remains unknown.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The Spanish East Indies ("") were the Spanish territories in Asia-Pacific from 1565 until 1899. They comprised the Philippine Islands, Guam and the Mariana Islands, the Caroline Islands (Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia), and for some time parts of Formosa (Taiwan) and the Moluccas (Indonesia). Cebu was the first seat of government, later transferred to Manila. From 1565 to 1821 these territories, together with the Spanish West Indies, were administered through the Viceroyalty of New Spain based in Mexico City.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The Captaincy General of the Philippines (; ) was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire. The Captaincy General encompassed the Spanish East Indies which included the modern country of the Philippines and various Pacific Island possessions, such as the Caroline Islands and Guam. It was founded in 1565 with the first permanent Spanish settlements.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: For centuries all the political and economic aspects of the Captaincy were administered in Mexico by the Viceroyalty of New Spain, while the administrative issues had to be consulted with the Spanish Crown or the Council of the Indies through the Royal Audience of Manila. However, in 1821, after Mexico became an independent nation, all control was transferred to Madrid.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: In Asia, the Philippines, a former Spanish overseas province, was the only Spanish-speaking sovereign nation. Spanish was the "lingua franca" of the country from the beginning of Spanish rule in the late 1500s until the first half of the 20th century. It held official status for nearly half a millennium before being demoted as an optional language in 1987. However, Spanish still remained a very important language up until the mid-20th century, with a gradual decline over the decades. As of 2010, some groups were rallying to revive the language and make it a compulsory subject in schools. Development of demand for Spanish speakers within the Call Center and Business Process Outsourcing industries led to its reinvigoration. Classes in the Instituto Cervantes are often full because of this.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Most Filipinos of Spanish descent are considered to belong to regional ethnic groups in the Philippines because they speak their respective regional languages. They also use English in the public sphere, and may also speak Tagalog and other Philippine languages. Spanish was, along with English, the co-official language in the Philippines from the "Spanish Colonial Period" until 1987 when its official status was removed.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Only a minority of Spanish descended Filipinos speak Spanish; Some Filipinos of Spanish descent, particularly those of older generations and recent immigrants, have preserved Spanish as a spoken language. In addition, Chavacano (a criollo language based largely on Spanish vocabulary) is spoken in the southern Philippines, and forms one of the majority languages of Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga Sibugay, Basilan and is mostly concentrated in Zamboanga City. It may also be spoken in some parts of the northern Philippines.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Due to a decree by the Spanish government in 1849 to establish a census, Filipinos (of Indigenous descent) may have Spanish or Spanish-sounding surnames; The government distributed a book of surnames for the use of all Filipinos.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Philippine Spanish () is a Spanish dialect and variant of the Spanish language spoken in the Philippines. Philippine Spanish is very similar to Mexican Spanish due to Mexican and Hispanic American emigration to the Spanish East Indies (Philippines) during the Galleon trade. It is spoken mostly among Spanish Filipinos however it declined in numbers over the past few years.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Filipinos of Spanish descent currently constitute much of the upper and middle classes. Many are either in politics or are high-ranking executives of commerce and industry, entertainment and sporting ranks. A number of elite Filipino family dynasties, political families and the elite clans are of Spanish origin.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: According to a recent survey, the number of Spanish citizens in the Philippines regardless of ethnolinguistic affiliation was about 6,300 of the Philippine population with the vast majority of them being actually Spaniard-Filipinos, but excluding Philippine citizens of Spanish descent.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: During the Spanish Colonial Period, large numbers of Spaniards settled in the Americas, which resulted in widespread miscegenation between them, indigenous women and enslaved African women. The Spanish authorities developed and established a highly complex caste system based on a racial hierarchy of Spanish descent, which later became associated with "whiteness". The racial doctrine used after the end of the Reconquista, called "limpieza de sangre", or cleanliness of blood, was applied to the caste system. It described and classified a person based on their purity of Spanish "blood" or heritage. Some of the castes defined were as follows:


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Only in the Americas, however, were mixed-race persons of Spanish ancestry with less than one-eighth "indio", or Amerindian, blood considered legally classified as "criollo" or white.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The history of racial mixture in the Philippines occurred mostly during the Spanish colonial period from the 16th to 19th century.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Persons classified as 'Blanco' (white) were the "Filipino" (person born in the Philippines of pure Spanish descent), "peninsulares" (persons born in Spain of pure Spanish descent), mestizos de español, and tornatras. Manila was racially segregated, with 'blancos' living in the walled city Intramuros, un-Christianized sangleys in Parían, Christianized sangleys and mestizos de sangley in Binondo, and the rest of the 7,000 islands for the indios, with the exception of Cebu and several other Spanish territories.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Indio was a general term applied to native Malay or Malayan, a Malayo-Polynesian speaking people known as the Austronesian inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago, but as a legal classification, it was only applied to Christianized Malayo-Polynesian who lived in proximity to the Spanish colonies.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Persons who lived outside of Manila, Cebu, and the major Spanish posts were classified as such: 'Naturales' were Christianized Austronesian/Malay/Malayo-Polynesian of the lowland and coastal towns. The un-Christianized Aetas and Austronesian/Malay/Malayo-Polynesian who lived in the towns were classified as 'salvajes' (savages) or 'infieles' (the unfaithful). 'Remontados' (Spanish for 'situated in the mountains') and 'tulisanes' (bandits) were Austronesian/Malay/Malayo-Polynesian and Aetas who refused to live in towns and took to the hills, all of whom were considered to live outside the social order as Catholicism was a driving force in everyday life, as well as determining social class in the colony.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Persons of pure Spanish descent, as well as many mestizos and castizos, living in the Philippines who were born in Spanish America were classified as 'Americano'. A few mulattos born in Spanish America living in the Philippines kept their legal classification as such, and sometimes came as indentured servants to the 'americanos'. The Philippine-born children of 'americanos' were classified as 'Filipinos'. The Philippine-born children mulattos from Spanish America were classified based on patrilineal descent.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The Spanish legally classified the Aetas as 'negritos' based on their appearance. The word 'negrito' would be misinterpreted and used by future European scholars as an ethnoracial term in and of itself. Both Christianized Aetas who lived in the colony and un-Christianized Aetas who lived in tribes outside of the colony were classified as 'negritos'. Christianized Aetas who lived in Manila were not allowed to enter Intramuros and lived in areas designated for Indios.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Persons of mixed Aeta and Austronesian/Malay/Malayo-Polynesian ancestry were classified based on patrilineal descent; the father's ancestry determined a child's legal classification. If the father was 'negrito' (Aeta) and the mother was 'india' (Austronesian/Malayo-Polynesian), the child was classified as 'negrito'. If the father was 'indio' and the mother was 'negrita', the child was classified as 'indio'. Persons of Aeta descent were viewed as being outside of the social order as they usually lived in tribes outside of the colony and resisted conversion to Christianity.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: This legal system of racial classification based on patrilineal descent had no parallel anywhere in the Spanish colonies in the Americas. In general, a son born of a "sangley" male and an "indio" or "mestizo de sangley" female was classified as "mestizo de sangley"; all subsequent male descendants were "mestizos de sangley" regardless of whether they married an "india" or a "mestiza de sangley".


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The social stratification system based on class that continues to this day in the Philippines has its beginnings in the Spanish colonial area with this caste system.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The system was used for tax purposes. Indios paid a base tax, mestizos de sangley paid twice the base tax, sangleys paid four times the base tax, and the blancos or whites ('filipinos' or peninsulares) paid no tax. Negritos who lived within the colony paid the same tax rate as the indios.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The Spanish colonial caste system based on race was abolished after the Philippines' independence from Spain in 1898, and the word 'Filipino' expanded to include the entire population of the Philippines regardless of racial ancestry.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Chavacano or "Chabacano" is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines. The word "" is derived from Spanish, meaning "poor taste", "vulgar", for the Chavacano language, developed in Cavite City, Ternate, Zamboanga and Ermita. It is also derived from the word "chavano", coined by the Zamboangueño people.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Six different dialects have developed: Zamboangueño in Zamboanga City, Davaoeño Zamboangueño / Castellano Abakay in Davao City, Ternateño in Ternate, Cavite, Caviteño in Cavite City, Cotabateño in Cotabato City and Ermiteño in Ermita.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Chavacano is the only Spanish-based creole in Asia. It has survived for more than 400 years, making it one of the oldest creole languages in the world. Among Philippine languages, it is the only one not an Austronesian language, but like Malayo-Polynesian languages, it uses reduplication.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Philippine literature in Spanish () is a body of literature made by Filipino writers in the Spanish language. Today, this corpus is the third largest in the whole corpus of Philippine literature (Philippine literature in Filipino being the first, followed by Philippine literature in English). It is slightly larger than Philippine literature in vernacular languages. However, because of the very few additions to it in the past 30 years, it is expected that the latter will soon overtake its rank.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The Doctrina Christiana was an early book of Roman Catholic Catechism, written in 1593 by Fray Juan de Plasencia, and is believed to be one of the earliest books printed in the Philippines.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Noli Me Tángere (Latin for "Touch Me Not") is a fictional novel written by José Rizal, one of the national heroes of the Philippines, during the colonization of the country by Spain to expose the inequities of the Spanish Catholic priests and the ruling government.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Originally written in Spanish, the book is more commonly published and read in the Philippines in either Filipino or English. Together with its sequel, "El Filibusterismo", the reading of "Noli" is obligatory for high school students throughout the country.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: El Filibusterismo (lit. Spanish for "The Filibustering"), also known by its English alternative title The Reign of Greed, is the second novel written by Philippine national hero José Rizal. It is the sequel to "Noli me tangere" and, like the first book, was written in Spanish. It was first published in 1891 in Ghent.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: The novel's dark theme departs dramatically from the previous novel's hopeful and romantic atmosphere, signifying the character Ibarra's resort to solving his country's issues through violent means, after his previous attempt at reforming the country's system have made no effect and seemed impossible with the attitudes of the Spaniards towards the Filipinos. The novel, along with its predecessor, was banned in some parts of the Philippines as a result of their portrayals of the Spanish government's abuse and corruption. These novels along with Rizal's involvement in organizations that aim to address and reform the Spanish system and its issues led to Rizal's exile to Dapitan and eventual execution. Both the novel and its predecessor, along with Rizal's last poem, are now considered Rizal's literary masterpieces.


title: Spanish Filipino

text: Mi Último Adiós (English; "My Last Farewell") is a poem originally written in Spanish by Philippine national hero Dr. José Rizal on the eve of his execution by firing squad on 30 December 1896. The piece was one of the last notes he wrote before his death; another that he had written was found in his shoe but because the text was illegible, its contents today remain a mystery.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological localities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution. A steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley that stretches across East Africa, it is about long, and is located in the eastern Serengeti Plains within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in the Olbalbal ward located in Ngorongoro District of Arusha Region, about from Laetoli, another important archaeological locality of early human occupation. The British/Kenyan paleoanthropologist-archeologist team of Mary and Louis Leakey established excavation and research programs at Olduvai Gorge that achieved great advances in human knowledge and are world-renowned. The site is registered as one of the National Historic Sites of Tanzania.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: The gorge takes its name from the Maasai word "oldupai" which means "the place of the wild sisal" as the East African wild sisal ("Sansevieria ehrenbergii") grows abundantly throughout the gorge area. Twenty-five kilometers downstream of Lake Ndutu and Lake Masek, the gorge cuts into Pleistocene lake bed sediments up to a depth of 90 m. A side gorge, originating from Lemagrut Mountain, joins the main gorge 8 km from the mouth. This side gorge follows the shoreline of a prehistoric lake, rich in fossils and early hominin sites. Periodic flows of volcanic ash from Olmoti and Kerimasi helped to ensure preservation of the fossils in the gorge.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: The locality is significant in showing the increasing developmental and social complexities in the earliest Hominina, largely revealed in the production and use of stone tools. Prior to tools, evidence of scavenging and hunting can be noted—highlighted by the presence of gnaw marks that predate cut marks—and of the ratio of meat versus plant material in the early hominin diet. The collecting of tools and animal remains in a centralised area is evidence of developing social interaction and communal activity. All these factors indicate an increase in cognitive capacities at the beginning of the period of hominids transitioning to homininina—that is, to human clade.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: "Homo habilis", probably the first early human species, occupied Olduvai Gorge approximately 1.9 million years ago (mya); then came a contemporary australopithecine, "Paranthropus boisei", 1.8 mya, followed by "Homo erectus", 1.2 mya. Our species "Homo sapiens", which is estimated to have emerged roughly 300,000 years ago, is thought to have occupied sites in the gorge by 17,000 years ago.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: While travelling in German East Africa in 1911 to investigate sleeping sickness, German physician and archaeologist Wilhelm Kattwinkel visited Olduvai Gorge, where he observed many fossil bones of an extinct three-toed horse. Inspired by Kattwinkel's discovery, German geologist Hans Reck led a team to Olduvai in 1913. There, he found hominin remains which were later radiocarbon dated to 17,000 BP. Four more expeditions were planned, but World War I prevented their start. After the war, as Tanganyika came under British control, Louis Leakey visited Reck in Berlin and viewed the Olduvai fossils. Louis Leakey became convinced that Olduvai Gorge held stone tools, thinking the deposits were of similar age to the Kariandusi prehistoric site in Kenya. Reck and the paleontologist Donald McInnes accompanied Louis Leakey in his 1931 expedition, where Louis found a number of hand axes close to camp soon after their arrival. Mary Leakey first visited the area in 1935, joining Louis and Percy Edward Kent. Subsequent visits were made by the Leakeys in 1941, 1953, 1955 and 1957.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: Louis and Mary Leakey are responsible for most of the excavations and discoveries of the hominin fossils in Olduvai Gorge. In July 1959, at the FLK site (the initials of the person who discovered it Frida Leakey, and K for "korongo", the Swahili language word for gully), Mary Leakey found the skull of "Zinjanthropus" or "Australopithecus boisei". In addition to an abundance of faunal remains the Leakeys found stone tools Mary classified as Oldowan. In May 1960, at the FLK North-North site, the Leakeys' son Jonathan found the mandible that proved to be the type specimen for "Homo habilis".


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: While Hans Reck was the first geologist to attempt to understand the geology of the gorge, current understanding of the geology of the stratigraphic sequence of Olduvai Gorge was made possible in large part by the efforts of geologist Richard Hay. Hay spent twelve years studying the geology at Olduvai, much of it working along with Mary Leakey, finally formulating a detailed picture of the geologic history of the area. Hay's seminal work "The Geology of the Olduvai Gorge" was published in 1976.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: Reck identified five main layers of deposition in the gorge, which were labelled Beds I through V, with Bed I being the oldest and lowest in the sequence. Hay and other geologists working at the gorge since Reck's time have utilized Reck's original Bed outline, adding clarity, detail, and corrections to achieve a more thorough understanding of gorge history. Reck's original Bed IV interval was later distinguished as consisting of Bed IV and the Masek Beds, while Bed V has been reclassified as the Ndutu Bed and the Naisiuiu Bed.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: The stratigraphic sequence in the gorge is up to 90 m thick, with a welded tuff, the Naabi ignimbrite, forming the base. This is overlain by a series of lava flows from Olmoti and from another source to the south. The oldest fossils are found on this surface, dated at 1.89 mya, while stone tools have been dated at 1.7 mya through the first use of K-Ar dating by Garniss Curtis. In addition, fission track dating and paleomagnetism were used to date the deposits, while amino acid dating and Carbon-14 dating were used to date the bones. Hominid fossils and stone tools are found continuously throughout the entire exposed sequence in the gorge. Faulting between 100 and 30 kya, formed the Olbalbal Depression northwest of Ngorongoro.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: The 20–46 m thick Lower Pleistocene Bed I sediments overlying the Naabi ignimbrite consist of layers of Olmoti tuff and lake sediment claystone. Four well-preserved living sites of note are located within Bed I, the FLK and FLK North-North sites mentioned above, plus DK and FLK North. The DK site (Donald McInnes' first initial plus k for "korongo") has what Leakey considers to be a stone circle, and also many tools and fossil bones ranging in age from 1.75 mya to 1.9 mya.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: Bed II consists of 21–35 m of clay and sandstone Olduvai Lake and stream deposits. Manuports are abundant at the MNK (Mark Nicol Korongo) site in addition to a chert nodule quarry containing over 14,000 pieces, including gneiss and lava anvils and hammerstones. Hand axes were found at the EF-HR (Evelyn Fuchs-Hans Reck) and TK (Thiongo Korongo) sites. The BK (Bell's Korongo) site contained an "Australopithecus boisei" deciduous molar and canine.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: The distinctly red Bed III consists of 6–10 m of clays, sandstones and conglomerates signifying variable lake depths. Few fossils are present and only isolated stone tools, indicating a sparse early man presence.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: Bed IV is a distinctly different unit from Bed II in the eastern portion of the gorge. There, it is 5–8 m thick and composed of clays, and stream deposited sandstones and conglomerates. Four distinct tool-bearing levels are evident, including 500 handaxes and cleavers at the HK (Hopwood's Korongo) site, while phonolite handaxes and an elephant bone handaxe were found at the HEB (Heberer's Gully) site. The WK (Wayland's Korongo) site contained a "Homo erectus" pelvis and femur.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: The Masek Beds are composed of two episodes of aeolian ash from Kerimasi. A number of quartzite handaxes were found in this layer at the FLK site. Dunes formed after the deposition of Oldonyo Lengai tuffs make up the upper portion of the Ndutu Beds, but yield few fossils. Oldonyo Lengai tuffs also make up the Naisiusiu Beds.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: The few "Australopithecus boisei" remains, which include the skull, a thigh bone fragment, and several teeth, were found distributed throughout Beds I and II, which dates them in the range 1.1 to 2 mya. The more common remains of "Homo habilis" were found in Bed I and the lower portion of Bed II, which makes them contemporaries of "Australopithecus boisei". "Homo erectus" remains were found in the upper portions of Bed II, making them contemporaries of "Australopithecus boisei", but not of "Homo habilis".


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: Louis Leakey first described the Oldowan stone tool industry in 1951. The Leakeys determined that choppers were the most common stone tool found at the gorge, amounting to over half of the total number, and identified 11 Oldowan sites in the gorge, 9 in Bed I, and 2 in Bed II. They also identified the Developed Oldowan as the subsequent diverse tool-kit found in Beds II, III, and IV, with small tools made mostly from chert rather than quartzite. These tools are mostly spheroids and sub-spheroids, followed by choppers.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: Besides the chert quarry in Bed II, the Leakeys were able to identify the other source locations of the principal rocks used to make the stone tools. The most common material was quartzite, which originated from the Naibor Soit Inselberg just north of the gorges. The phonolite originated from the Engelosen volcano 5 km to the north. The gneiss came from the Kelogi inselborg 9 km to the southwest.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: The first species found by the Leakeys, "Zinjanthropus boisei" or "Australopithecus boisei" (renamed and still debated as "Paranthropus boisei"), featured a sagittal crest and large molars. These attributes suggested the species engaged in heavy chewing, indicating a diet of tough plant material, including tubers, nuts, and seeds—and possibly large quantities of grasses and sedges.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: Conversely, the Leakeys' 1960s finds presented different characteristics. The skull lacked a sagittal crest and the braincase was much more rounded, suggesting it was not australopithecine. The larger braincase suggested a larger brain capacity than that of "Australopithecus boisei". These important differences indicated a different species, which eventually was named "Homo habilis". Its larger brain capacity and decreased teeth size pointed to "Homo" as the probable toolmaker.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: The oldest tools at Olduvai, found at the lowest layer and classified as Oldowan, consist of pebbles chipped on one edge. Above this layer, and later in time, are the true hand-axe industries, the Chellean and the Acheulean. Higher still (and later still) are located Levallois artifacts, and finally the Stillbay implements. Oldowan tools in general are called "pebble tools" because the blanks chosen by the stone knapper already resembled, in pebble form, the final product. Mary Leakey classified the Oldowan tools according to usage; she developed Oldowan A, B, and C categories, linking them to Modes 1, 2, and 3 assemblages classified according to mode of manufacture. Her work remains a foundation for assessing local, regional, and continental changes in stone tool-making during the early Pleistocene, and aids in assessing which hominins were responsible for the several changes in stone tool technology over time.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: It is not known for sure which hominin species was first to create Oldowan tools. The emergence of tool culture has also been associated with the pre-"Homo" species "Australopithecus garhi", and its flourishing is associated with the early species "Homo habilis" and "Homo ergaster". Beginning 1.7 million years ago, early "Homo erectus" apparently inherited Oldowan technology and refined it into the Acheulean industry.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: Oldowan tools occur in Beds I–IV at Olduvai Gorge. Bed I, dated 1.85 to 1.7 mya, contains Oldowan tools and fossils of "Paranthropus boisei" and "Homo habilis", as does Bed II, 1.7 to 1.2 mya. "H. habilis" gave way to "Homo erectus" at about 1.6 mya, but "P. boisei" persisted. Oldowan tools continue to Bed IV at 800,000 to 600,000 before present (BP). A significant change took place between Beds I and II at about 1.5 mya. Flake size increased, the length of bifacial edges (as opposed to single-face edges) occurred more frequently and their length increased, and signs of battering on other artifacts increased. Some likely implications of these factors, among others, are that after this pivotal time hominins used tools more frequently, became better at making tools, and transported tools more often.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: Though substantial evidence of hunting and scavenging has been discovered at Olduvai Gorge, it is believed by archaeologists that hominins inhabiting the area between 1.9 and 1.7 million years ago spent the majority of their time gathering wild plant foods, such as berries, tubers and roots. The earliest hominins most likely did not rely on meat for the bulk of their nutrition. Speculation about the amount of meat in their diets is inferred from comparative studies with a close relative of early hominins: the modern chimpanzee. The chimpanzee's diet in the wild consists of only about five percent as meat. And the diets of modern hunter-gatherers do not include a large amount of meat. That is, most of the calories in both groups' diets came from plant sources. Thus, it can be assumed that early hominins had similar diet proportions, (see the middle-range theory or bridging arguments—bridging arguments are used by archaeologists to explain past behaviors, and they include an underlying assumption of uniformitarianism.)


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: Much of the information about early hominins comes from tools and debris piles of lithic flakes from such sites as FLK-Zinjanthropus in Olduvai Gorge. Early hominins selected specific types of rocks that would break in a predictable manner when "worked", and carried these rocks from deposits several kilometres away. Archaeologists such as Fiona Marshall fitted rock fragments back together like a puzzle. She states in her article "Life in Olduvai Gorge" that early hominins, "knew the right angle to hit the cobble, or core, in order to successfully produce sharp-edged flakes ...". She noted that selected flakes then were used to cut meat from animal carcasses, and shaped cobbles (called choppers) were used to extract marrow and to chop tough plant material.


title: Olduvai Gorge

text: Bone fragments of birds, fish, amphibians, and large mammals were found at the FLK-Zinj site, many of which were scarred with marks. These likely were made by hominins breaking open the bones for marrow, using tools to strip the meat, or by carnivores having gnawed the bones. Since several kinds of marks are present together, some archaeologists including Lewis Binford think that hominins scavenged the meat or marrow left over from carnivore kills. Others like Henry Bunn believe the hominins hunted and killed these animals, and carnivores later chewed the bones. This issue is still debated today, but archaeologist Pat Shipman provided evidence that scavenging was probably the more common practice; she published that the majority of carnivore teeth marks came before the cut marks. Another finding by Shipman at FLK-Zinj is that many of the wildebeest bones found there are over-represented by adult and male bones; and this may indicate that hominins were systematically hunting these animals as well as scavenging them. The issue of hunting versus gathering at Olduvai Gorge is still a controversial one.