Soil geography and diversity of the European biogeographical regions

For decades, soil geography has beenmainly a qualitative and descriptive discipline. There are nowtechnologies and mathematical tools available that allow formalizing soil geography in more quantitative terms. In this paper, the distribution and diversity of the soils of Europe are analyzed using GIS tools and pedodiversity algorithms. Soil data were taken from the European Soil Database (V2.0) and computed within the spatial framework of the Biogeographical Regions of Europe (BGRE) as defined by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) on the basis of climate and vegetation. The results obtained show the soil assemblages, including dominant soils and endemic and non-endemic soil minorities,…

An antler sickle from the Neolithic site of Costamar at Cabanes (Castellón) on the Mediterranean Spanish coast

Archaeological excavations at the settlement of Costamar between 2006 and 2008 by the Fundació Marina d'Or uncovered an area of 57 905m² containing 683 archaeological features belonging to Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iberian, Roman, Islamic, late medieval, modern and contemporary times. The Neolithic features belong to two phases. The first, with 203 storage pits, is characterised by the presence of pottery with incised-impressed decoration combined with plastic decoration and pigmentation with red ochre. One outstanding nearly complete vessel is decorated with an anthropomorphic motif. This phase has been dated by a cattle bone (Bos Taurus) to 5996±38 (4990–4790 cal BC at 2σ) and by a grain of …

Islands of biogeodiversity in arid lands on a polygons map study: Detecting scale invariance patterns from natural resources maps.

Many maps (geology, hydrology, soil, vegetation, etc.) are created to inventory natural resources. Each of these resources is mapped using a unique set of criteria, including scales and taxonomies. Past research indicates that comparing results of related maps (e.g., soil and geology maps) may aid in identifying mapping deficiencies. Therefore, this study was undertaken in Almeria Province, Spain to (i) compare the underlying map structures of soil and vegetation maps and (ii) investigate if a vegetation map can provide useful soil information that was not shown on a soil map. Soil and vegetation maps were imported into ArcGIS 10.1 for spatial analysis, and results then exported to Microsof…

Anthracological analysis of an Early PPNB roof from Tell Qarassa North (southern Syria)