Search results for "SD"
showing 10 items of 20459 documents
Pollen and non-pollen palynomorph evidence of medieval farming activities in southwestern Greenland
2010
International audience; Radiocarbon dating, pollen and non-pollen palynomorph analyses from a lake core were used to establish the timing and effects of farming activities around Lake Igaliku, Eastern Settlement, Greenland. The absence of agro-pastoral impact before the medieval colonization by Europeans provides an opportunity to understand the development of farming activity in a pristine landscape. The results show that the first phase of clearance and grazing pressure, without the expansion of the Norse apophyte (native plant, in habitats created by humans) Rumex acetosa type, could have occurred in the 9–10th century A.D. The presence of Norse settlers and livestock is clearly recorded…
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…
New palaeoecological approaches to interpret climatic fluctuations in Holocene sites of the Pampean region of Argentina
2021
The apparently regular and favourable climate that characterizes the Holocene as an interglacial period shows, however, important climatic instability well documented in the Northern Hemisphere. These fluctuations from colder to warmer or wetter to drier affected both biodiversity and human societies in the last 12,000 years, although the impact in Southern America is still poorly known. We are here investigating the biodiversity of small mammal faunas, more sensitive to climatic changes than large mammals, combining taphonomic and palaeoecological data in the Argentine Pampas to better understand the global nature and effect of these Holocene climatic fluctuations. This paper is pioneering…
Quantifying the evolution of animal dairy intake in humans using calcium isotopes
2021
International audience; The contribution of dairy products to modern human diets has a debated role in the expansion of Neolithic economies and the dynamics of demographic transitions. While current methods allow discussing dairy production and processing, no approach allows reconstructing quantitatively its effective consumption. Calcium isotopes (δ44/42Ca) potentially represent such a marker due to the abundance of isotopically fractionated Ca in dairy products. Here, we test Ca isotope sensitivity to dietary intake of dairy product: we first used a dietary model based on a compilation of available data of dietary Ca sources; we then compared the modelled outputs to available and newly ac…
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…
Seasonality and Intensity of Shellfish Harvesting on the North Coast of British Columbia
2013
ABSTRACT Biogeochemical and growth increment analyses show contrasting seasonal patterns of butter clam collection and rates of harvest intensity between archaeological shell midden sites from the Dundas Islands archipelago and the mainland coast in Prince Rupert Harbour, northern British Columbia. Growth increment analysis shows more intensive clam harvest in the Dundas Islands in comparison to the residential sites in Prince Rupert Harbour. Stable oxygen isotope analysis shows multi-seasonal collection of clams in the Dundas Islands and a more seasonally specific emphasis in Prince Rupert Harbour. Comparison of these results to those of similar studies in the Namu region on the central co…
Connecting Gien Castle to its Landscape: Faunal, Environmental and Buildings Analyses (Loiret, France)
2021
International audience; Gien castle is a listed monument of French architectural heritage. Today it houses the National Museum of Hunting and its collection. Organised visits to the site have traditionally lacked any clear mention of the castle’s historical background. Recently, however, archaeological excavations and building analysis in 2011–2015 produced a wealth of new knowledge about the castle’s medieval origins and history, and about its relationship to its landscape. During the ninth and tenth centuries and then in the fifteenth century the castle occupied a strategically exceptional position reflecting the connection with its environment, notably the strong connection between the c…
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…
Geoarchaeology as a tool to understand ancient navigation in the northern Persian Gulf and the harbour history of Siraf
2020
International audience; Historical texts and archaeological studies attest to the maritime and trade importance of the Persian Gulf since the Sassanid Empires. Nonetheless, there is a paucity of data regarding ancient navigation and the reasons for a shift in m aritim e trade from the western (e.g. Shatt-al-Arab) to eastern (Siraf) Persian Gulf by the Abbasid dynasty. For som e scholars, Siraf was occupied between 360 and 977 CE, after which tim e an earthquake en-trained the dem ise of the city. However, it is unclear when Siraf was founded and how natural navigation conditions changed for ocean-going vessels in harbours of the NW Persian Gulf. To address this knowledge gap, we here presen…
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 …