Search results for "NIV"
showing 10 items of 7213 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…
Hunted or Scavenged Neanderthals? Taphonomic Approach to Hominin Fossils with Carnivore Damage
2017
Carnivore damage on Neanderthal fossils is a much more common taphonomic modification than previously thought. Its presence could have different explanations, including predatory attacks or scavenging scenarios, which are both situations with important implications concerning Neanderthal behaviour. In the present paper, we analyse several Neanderthal hominin fossils from a taphonomic and forensic perspective in order to infer the nature of the modifications observed on the bone surfaces. Fossils displaying carnivore modifications from Spain, Germany, Belgium and Greece are evaluated from a taphonomic perspective for the first time in a significant sample of hominin specimens. Our results sh…
Earliest salt working in the world: From excavation to microscopy at the prehistoric sites of Ţolici and Lunca (Romania)
2018
Abstract Since the Early Neolithic, salt has played an important role in the social and economic development of populations. Consequently, the study and comprehension of salt management strategies have become a significant component of current archaeological research. This study is part of an interdisciplinary research program consisting of excavations and detailed analyses on two Early Neolithic salt working sites situated in the sub-Carpathian region of Romania, Lunca and Ţolici (county Neamţ). These remarkably well-preserved sites are characterised by stratified deposits several meters thick. Detailed stratigraphic descriptions were followed by optical microscopy analysis (soil micromorp…
Intra-skeletal variability in trace elemental content of Precolumbian Chupicuaro human bones: the record of post-mortem alteration and a tool for pal…
2011
14 pages; International audience; This study applies an intra-skeletal sampling strategy to examine post-mortem alteration of archaeological human bone from west Mexico, and to reconstruct ancient diet. Human bone from the Chupicuaro culture (Mexico, Preclassic period) constitutes an ideal material with which to examine subsistence strategies because the specific hydrothermal environment in which the population lived would have provided certain food components (hydrothermal waters and carbonates) with distinct signature in Ca, Mg, F, Li, Sr, Mn, V and U values. Four to ten samples were taken from the long bones of six skeletons. Bone trace element content (Ca, P, F, Mn, Mg, Na, Li, V, Zn, R…
Pleistocene paleoenvironmental reconstructions and mammalian evolution in South-East Asia: focus on fossil faunas from Thailand.
2006
16 pages; International audience; Mammalian faunal studies have provided various clues for a better reconstruction of hominid Quaternary paleoenvironments. Inthis work, two methods were used: (1) the cenogram method, based on a graphical representation of the mammalian communitystructure, and (2) the species richness of murine rodents to estimate climatic parameters. These methods were applied to Middle andLate Pleistocene mammalian faunas of South-East Asia, from South China to Indonesia. Special emphasis was laid on a fauna fromnorth-east Thailand dated back to approximately 170,000 years (i.e. a glacial period). This Thai fauna seems characteristic of aslightly open forested environment …
Tracking archaeological and historical mines using mineral prospectivity mapping.
2014
13 pages; International audience; The present study proposes a technological transfer from modern mining prospection to the field of archaeology, providing a methodology to facilitate the discovery of ancient mining sites. This method takes advantage of the thousands of geochemical analyses of streambed sediments, performed by national geological surveys to inventory mineral substances. In order to delineate geochemical anomalies, the datasets are treated following two different approaches: Exploratory Data Analysis and a fractal-based method often recognised as more powerful. Mineral prospectivity maps are then obtained by combining the results with a geographical information system. The s…
Wildcat scats: Taphonomy of the predator and its micromamal prey
2019
Small sized felids, such as wild and domestic cats, are one of the most common predators in the nature and in sites occupied by humans in archaeological and historical contexts. Wildcats have ingestion/ digestion traits highly destructive for their prey, i.e.: teeth to chew causing extreme breakage, and digestion along the entire digestive tract with low pH gastric juices causing extreme bone corrosion. Small sized cats are also well known to play with the prey and select skeletal parts to ingest. The present study is focused on the taphonomic analysis of micromammal remains recovered from scats produced by European wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris) during several months and years. Exc…
Identifying fossil rabbit warrens: Insights from a taphonomical analysis of a modern warren
2016
14 pages; International audience; The European rabbit is a small burrowing mammal that is particularly abundant in Western Europe since the Pleistocene and introduced around the world over the last few centuries. Rabbit bones are regularly recovered from archaeological and palaeontological sites; however, demonstrating their contemporaneity with associated material is often difficult. Additionally, determining the origin of rabbit remains in fossil sites is equally problematic due to the lack of reference collections for natural accumulations. In order to address these issues, we excavated a modern rabbit warren in southwestern France using modern archaeological field methods and techniques…
Obsidian in the Upper Palaeolithic of Iberia
2021
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Environmental responses of past and recent agropastoral activities on south Greenlandic ecosystems through molecular biomarkers
2016
Paleoenvironmental studies previously performed on Lake Igaliku revealed two agropastoral phases in south Greenland: the Norse settlement from AD 986 to ca. AD 1450 and the recent installation of sheep farmers, since the 1920s. To improve the knowledge of the timing and magnitude of the Greenlandic agropastoral activities, a lipid inventory was realized and compared with biological and geochemical data. During the 12th century, a major increase in deoxycholic acid (DOC) and coprophilous fungal spores revealed a maximum of herbivores. Synchronously, a minimum of the n-C29/ n-C31 alkane ratio and tree and shrub pollen and a maximum of triterpenyl acetates showed a reduction in the tree and s…