Search results for " Settlement"
showing 10 items of 149 documents
A 2500 year record of natural and anthropogenic soil erosion in South Greenland
2012
International audience; The environmental impact of the Norse landnám in Greenland has been studied extensively. But to date, no study has quantified the soil erosion that Norse agricultural practices are believed to have caused. To resolve this problem, a high resolution sedimentary record from Lake Igaliku in South Greenland is used to quantitatively reconstruct 2500 years of soil erosion driven by climate and historical land use. An accurate chronology allows for the estimation of detritic fluxes and their uncertainties. Land clearance and the introduction of grazing livestock by the Norse around 1010 AD caused an acceleration of soil erosion up to 8 mm/century in 1180 AD which is two-fo…
The Sicilian Countryside in the Early Middle Ages: Human–Environment Interactions at Contrada Castro
2021
Within the project ‘Harvesting Memories: Ecology and Archaeology of Monti Sicani Landscapes’, this paper aims to reconstruct human–environment interactions in the inland areas of Western Sicily during the Early Middle Ages through a comparative analysis of environmental archaeological data. We analyse carpological and anthracological finds and faunal remains originating from different layers of the rural settlement of Contrada Castro (Corleone, Palermo), excavated in 2017–2019. The site was mainly occupied between the Byzantine and Islamic periods (late 8th to 11th c. AD). The examination of wood charcoal enabled the identification of plant species selected and exploited in the landscape of…
Bodegas, lagares y almazaras en el territorio de Kelin (siglos V-III a. C.): el caso de la Rambla de la Alcantarilla (Requena, Valencia)
2016
Archaeological evidences date the expansion of grape vineyards in the territory of the Iberian Iron Age city of Kelin from the 5th to 3rd centuries BC; although the origins are documented in the 7th BC. One of the singularities of this territory is the existence of outdoors stone structures for the production of wine and oil. All are located in a specific area of the territory (la Alcantarilla and Los Morenos ravines) (Requena, Valencia), and are associated with archaeological materials that allow date them as Iberian. In this paper we approach the rural settlement pattern in la Alcantarilla ravine and we present in detail the archaeological sites of Rambla de la Alcantarilla and Solana de …
Oppida, Agglomerations, and Suburbia: the Bibracte Environs and New Perspectives on Late Iron Age Urbanism in Central-eastern France
2013
This paper explores the nature and chronology of La Tène and early Roman unenclosed agglomerations in central-eastern France. It has been prompted by the discovery of a c. 115 ha La Tène D2b/Augustan (c. 50 BC to AD 15) site close to Bibracte in the Morvan, located around the source of the River Yonne. This complex provides a new perspective on the chronology and role of Late La Tène and early Roman unenclosed settlements, adding further complexity to the story of the development of Late La Tène oppida. It indicates that these ‘agglomerations’ followed remarkably varied chronological trajectories, raising important issues concerning the nature of landscape and social change at the end of th…
Captación y selección de materias primas en la primera metalurgia del Sureste de la península ibérica
2020
The authors are grateful for the technical and human support provided by SGIker of UPV/EHU and European funding (ERDF and ESF). We are also in debt with Eduardo Galán, Ruth Maicas and Carmen Cacho, curators of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Madrid) for facilitating the sampling and study of metal objects as well as with Ignacio Soriano Llopis for his help on the selection and sampling of the Palmela points, with Massimo Chiaradia who performed the analyses of the Palmela points at the Department of Earth Sciences (University of Geneva, Switzerland) and with Óscar García Vuelta for his pictures of some assemblages. We also appreciate and the careful work of editing and style of the TP edit…
Climbing into the past—first Himalayan mummies discovered in Nepal
2003
In a cave system in Mebrak (Mustang District, Western Nepal), a team of archaeologists investigating extensive abandoned settlements in the high Himalayas made an extraordinary discovery in 1995. One of the caves had been used as a community burial chamber from ca. 400 BC to 50 AD. Inside, approximately 30 naturally mummified bodies rested in bed-like wooden coffins exhibiting ornamental carving and elaborate painting. The dead had been furnished with a rich store of grave goods consisting of both personal ornaments and objects of daily life as well as the remains of domestic animals. Due to the favourable climatic conditions, all of the artefacts, which also include fur and textile garment…
New data about the landscape of the first occupation of Mallorca: Coval Simó (Escorca, Mallorca)
2020
The Coval Simó shelter provides some of the oldest evidence for settlement on the island of Mallorca and the Balearic archipelago. It also has the peculiarity of being a habitat in a mountain area, so that the human groups that settled there had to adapt their agricultural and farming system to this environment. The plant remains (wood charcoal and seeds) recovered in the occupation levels allow us to address these issues, since they are the result of the different activities developed in this cavity: fuel for domestic activities, food for livestock, etc. The results of this study show that between the III and II millennium cal BC, an agricultural system based on livestock and cereal farmi…
Estimating “land use heritage” to model changes in archaeological settlement patterns
2016
International audience; In this paper, we present a method to calculate a “land use heritage map” based on the concept of “memory of landscape”. Such a map can be seen as one variable among others influencing site location preference, and can be used as input for predictive models. The computed values equate to an index of long-term land use intensity. We will first discuss the method used for creating the land use heritage map, for which kernel density estimates are used.We will then present the use of these land use heritage maps for site location analysis in two study areas in SE France. Earlier analyses showed that the influence of the natural environment on settlement location choice i…
The Infestation Degree of Trees with Common Mistletoe Viscum album L. and their Health Status (on the Example of Praszka City)
2017
The research was carried out in September and October 2013. Their main aim was to obtain the information on the abundance and distribution of the common mistletoe in Praszka, assess the health status of the trees infested with this semi-parasite, and to determine its impact on the health of the hosts. All the trees with mistletoe were examined (in terms of the species, the number of semi-parasite shrubs, the host health). The distribution and density hosts were presented on a prepared network with an area of 1 ha and Pearson's correlation factor was used to determine the relationship between the infestation degree of a host and its state of health. Only the typical subspecies of mistletoe –…
Settlement dynamics and recruitment responses of Mediterranean gorgonians larvae to different crustose coralline algae species
2020
International audience; Sessile marine species such as Anthozoans act as ecosystem engineers due to their three-dimensional structure. Gorgonians, in particular, can form dense underwater forests that give shelter to other species increasing local biodiversity. In the last decades, several Mediterranean gorgonian populations have been affected by natural and anthropogenic impacts which drastically reduced their size. However, some species showed unexpected resilience, mainly due to the supply of new individuals. To understand the mechanisms underlying recovery processes, studies on the first life history stages (i.e. larval dispersal, settlement and recruitment) are needed. In tropical cora…