Search results for " Paleontology"

The ELSA - Stacks (Eifel-Laminated-Sediment-Archive): An introduction

2016

Climate indices in historical climate reconstructions: a global state of the art

2021

Narrative evidence contained within historical documents and inscriptions provides an important record of climate variability for periods prior to the onset of systematic meteorological data collection. A common approach used by historical climatologists to convert such qualitative information into continuous quantitative proxy data is through the generation of ordinal-scale climate indices. There is, however, considerable variability in the types of phenomena reconstructed using an index approach and the practice of index development in different parts of the world. This review, written by members of the PAGES (Past Global Changes) CRIAS working group – a collective of climate historians a…

2019

Abstract. Records of grape harvest dates (GHDs) are the oldest and the longest continuous phenological data in Europe. However, many available series, including the well-known (Dijon) Burgundy series, are error prone because scholars so far have uncritically drawn the data from 19th century publications instead of going back to the archives. The GHDs from the famous vine region of Beaune (Burgundy) were entirely drawn from the archives and critically cross-checked with narrative evidence. In order to reconstruct temperature, the series was calibrated against the long Paris temperature series comprising the 360 years from 1659 to 2018. The 664-year-long Beaune series from 1354 to 2018 is als…

Timber Logging in Central Siberia is the Main Source for Recent Arctic Driftwood

2015

Abstract Recent findings indicated spruce from North America and larch from eastern Siberia to be the dominating tree species of Arctic driftwood throughout the Holocene. However, changes in source region forest and river characteristics, as well as ocean current dynamics and sea ice extent likely influence its spatiotemporal composition. Here, we present 2556 driftwood samples from Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, and the Faroe Islands. A total of 498 out of 969 Pinus sylvestris ring width series were cross-dated at the catchment level against a network of Eurasian boreal reference chronologies. The central Siberian Yenisei and Angara Rivers account for 91% of all dated pines, with their oute…

The ELSA tephra stack: Volcanic activity in the Eifel during the last 500,000 years

2016

Abstract Tephra layers of individual volcanic eruptions are traced in several cores from Eifel maar lakes, drilled between 1998 and 2014 by the Eifel Laminated Sediment Archive (ELSA). All sediment cores are dated by 14C and tuned to the Greenland interstadial succession. Tephra layers were characterized by the petrographic composition of basement rock fragments, glass shards and characteristic volcanic minerals. 10 marker tephra, including the well-established Laacher See Tephra and Dumpelmaar Tephra can be identified in the cores spanning the last glacial cycle. Older cores down to the beginning of the Elsterian, show numerous tephra sourced from Strombolian and phreatomagmatic eruptions,…

Coarsely crystalline cryogenic cave carbonate – a new archive to estimate the Last Glacial minimum permafrost depth in Central Europe

2012

Abstract. Cryogenic cave carbonate (CCC) represents a specific type of speleothem whose precipitation is triggered by freezing of mineralized karst water. Coarsely crystalline CCC, which formed during slow freezing of water in cave pools, has been reported from 20 Central European caves located in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. All these caves are situated in an area which was glacier-free during the Weichselian. Whereas the formation of usual types of speleothems in caves of this region usually ceased during the glacials, coarsely crystalline CCC precipitation was restricted to glacial periods. Since this carbonate type represents a novel, useful paleoclimate proxy, data…

Not only flint: Levallois on quartzite and limestone at Abrigo de la Quebrada (Valencia, Spain): Implications for neandertal Behavior

2016

This paper investigates the application of the Levallois technique to the knapping of nonflint raw materials (limestone and quartzite) in the upper levels of the Abrigo de la Quebrada rockshelter (Chelva, Valencia, Spain). Besides highlighting the significant flexibility that characterized Neandertal behavior, such an application is of singular interest because goodquality flint—lacking fissures and impurities and presenting a compact and homogeneous texture—is abundant in the site’s immediate vicinity. In other assemblages, the scarcity or poor quality of flint often suffices to explain the recourse to alternatives, but in these Quebrada levels raw material choice must be primarily determi…

Recent advances in paleoflood hydrology: From new archives to data compilation and analysis

2018

8 pags, 4 figs

Un disco-coraza de hierro de la Bastida de les Alcusses (moixent, valencia)

2017

Se presenta un disco-coraza de hierro procedente del oppidum ibérico de la Bastida de les Alcusses documentado con motivo de la revisión completa de los hallazgos de las excavaciones realizadas entre 1928 y 1931. La pieza es una lámina seudocircular en cuyo perímetro se distribuyen unos pequeños remaches para suspender el disco a las correas de sujeción, realizadas probablemente en cuero. Después de presentar el disco y los resultados de las analíticas EDXRF que permiten identificar los metales utilizados en la producción del disco (hierro) y los remaches (plata y cobre), se analiza su contexto de hallazgo, se encuadra históricamente esta categoría de armamento defensivo. Finalmente, se int…

Ocre, hematites y óxido de hierro: el problema terminológico = Ochre, Hematite and Iron Oxid: The Terminological Issue

2016

Los óxidos de hierro son prácticamente omnipresentes al analizar contextos, no solo referentes al arte rupestre, sino también en relación con toda una serie de actividades que podríamos considerar cotidianas en ambientes prehistóricos. Sin embargo, su estudio sistemático no ha comenzado hasta tiempos muy recientes. Fruto de ello, podría decirse que una parte de la literatura arqueológica no especializada en el campo de la pigmentología muestra, en ocasiones, cierta inexactitud terminológica. Con este documento pretendemos, a través de un análisis tanto de su funcionamiento, como de las propiedades geoquímicas y mineralógicas del ocre, la hematites y los propios óxidos de hierro, exponer la …