Search results for "Archaeology."
showing 10 items of 6714 documents
Bioavailable 87Sr/86Sr in different environmental samples — Effects of anthropogenic contamination and implications for isoscapes in past migration s…
2012
(87)Sr/(86)Sr reference maps (isoscapes) are a key tool for investigating past human and animal migrations. However, there is little understanding of which biosphere samples are best proxies for local bioavailable Sr when dealing with movements of past populations. In this study, biological and geological samples (ground vegetation, tree leaves, rock leachates, water, soil extracts, as well as modern and archeological animal teeth and snail shells) were collected in the vicinity of two early medieval cemeteries ("Thuringians", 5-6th century AD) in central Germany, in order to characterize (87)Sr/(86)Sr of the local biosphere. Animal tooth enamel is not appropriate in this specific context t…
Needles made of human bones from Xochimilco
2018
Abstract This paper presents the study of needles made of long human bones (Homo sapiens) from the region of Xochimilco, now a quarter in Mexico City, which in pre-Hispanic times was one of the cities conquered by the Aztec empire. We shall discuss the development and use of these needles, as well as the identification of the raw material they are made of and a proposal about what people these bones were obtained from: captives or craftsmen's relatives? The archaeological household at San Pedro, in Xochimilco, presents in its early stages (12th century–15th century) stone technology, and in its final stages (16th century, around the time of arrival of the Spanish conquerors) the possible us…
Raw material, gestures, artefacts. An approach to the work of bone and ivory in the Iron Age in the Iberian peninsula
2018
Abstract This work seeks to give visibility to the industry of hard animal materials that is documented during the Iron Age in the Iberian peninsula. We focus on the analysis of three common artefacts within the bone and ivory industry in the Iberian culture (between the 6th to the 1st Century BC): pins, perforated plates and combs. We have studied these objects from a technological point of view, thanks to a series of experimental work carried out in order to meet different operational chains, necessary to manufacture each one of these items and tools that could be used for this purpose. So, we searched the archaeological tool models to work bone and ivory, and whenever it has been possibl…
Seasonal and habitat effects on the nutritional properties of savanna vegetation: Potential implications for early hominin dietary ecology.
2019
The African savannas that many early hominins occupied likely experienced stark seasonality and contained mosaic habitats (i.e., combinations of woodlands, wetlands, grasslands, etc.). Most would agree that the bulk of dietary calories obtained by taxa such as Australopithecus and Paranthropus came from the consumption of vegetation growing across these landscapes. It is also likely that many early hominins were selective feeders that consumed particular plants/plant parts (e.g., leaves, fruit, storage organs) depending on the habitat and season within which they were foraging. Thus, improving our understanding of how the nutritional properties of potential hominin plant foods growing in mo…
The Use of Medicinal Clay from Silesia “Terra sigillata Silesiaca”, Central Europe - A New Chance for Natural Medicine?
2019
Silesia is a region in Central Europe with beneficial conditions for the presence of clay, including those with potential therapeutic efficacies, due to its very diverse and mosaic geological landscape. The first use of clay deposits in medicine in Silesia, “terra sigillata Silesiaca”, has been dated to 1550 AD, and the oldest written information related to this use has been dated to 1586 AD. Medicinal clay is formed by the accumulation of a mixture of minerals such as smectite, bentonite, montmorillonite, kaolinite, illite, and metahaloisite, with impurities of other minerals and fractions, resulting from the chemical weathering of rocks and the sedimentation of detritus. The quantitative …
Experimental socioecology: Integrative science for anthropocene landscape dynamics
2016
Abstract The emergence of coupled natural and human landscapes marked a transformative interval in the human past that set our species on the road to the urbanized, industrial world in which we live. This emergence enabled technologies and social institutions responsible for human-natural couplings in domains beyond rural, agricultural settings. The Mediterranean Landscape Dynamics Project (MedLand) is studying the interacting social and biophysical processes associated with these novel socioecological systems and their long-term consequences using a new form of 'experimental socioecology' made possible by recent advances in computation. We briefly describe the MedLand modeling laboratory, …
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 …