Search results for "USE"
showing 10 items of 21926 documents
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…
Climate, environment and human behaviour in the Middle Palaeolithic of Abrigo de la Quebrada (Valencia, Spain): The evidence from charred plant and m…
2019
Abstract The Abrigo de la Quebrada rock shelter was occupied by Neanderthal groups during the early Upper Pleistocene, yielding evidence for their subsistence practices and local resource exploitation. This paper focuses on the plant macroremains and the micromammals, which provide information about occupation patterns, the surrounding landscape, the use of resources, and the environment. Mountain pine forests and permanent grass formations containing humid zones and open spaces that would have harboured an eurythermal microfauna were the dominant landscape type. Cold-climate pines provided most of the firewood. The data are consistent with a recurrent, seasonal occupation pattern, in which…
Micro-lithic production at Abric Romaní levels L and Ob: Exploring economic and evolutionary implications for Neanderthal societies
2020
Abstract The phenomenon of microlithism continues to be one of the most interesting topics in the prehistoric archaeology of the Middle Palaeolithic period because it is key to understanding the technology and cultural and economic organisation of Neanderthal societies. The aim of this research is to characterise small-flake industries based on two archaeological levels from the Abric Romani which present different occupation patterns. Level L is characterised by a shorter and more opportunistic occupational pattern, while the occupations found at archaeolevel Ob were longer and more complex, indicating a greater degree of planning involved in subsistence activities. The analysis was conduc…
Prehistoric palaeodemographics and regional land cover change in eastern Iberia
2019
Much attention has been placed on the drivers of vegetation change on the Iberian Peninsula. While climate plays a key role in determining the species pools within different regions and exerts a strong influence on broad vegetation patterning, the role of humans, particularly during prehistory, is less clear. The aim of this paper is to assess the influence of prehistoric population change on shaping vegetation patterns in eastern Iberia and the Balearic Islands between the start of the Neolithic and the late Bronze Age. In all, 3385 radiocarbon dates have been compiled across the study area to provide a palaeodemographic proxy (radiocarbon summed probability distributions (SPDs)). Modelled…
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…
Patch-based survey methods for studying prehistoric human land-use in agriculturally modified landscapes: A case study from the Canal de Navarrés, ea…
2018
Abstract In landscapes whose surface has been modified by terracing and other agricultural land-use, the spatial and temporal patterning of prehistoric settlement can be difficult to detect using traditional, site-orientated archaeological survey methods, especially for small-scale societies. In these contexts, methods that can reveal occupational patterns at landscape scales, without the need to pinpoint specific sites of human occupation, can be especially useful. We employ a stratified, randomly selected patch-based survey strategy to examine socio-ecological dynamics from the Middle Paleolithic through Bell Beaker (Chalcolithic) periods within the Canal de Navarres, eastern Spain. We di…
Ammonoids and quantitative biochronology - A unitary association perspective
2015
Ammonoid evolutionary changes have long been recognized to be excellent time markers. They are the major macrofossil group to date and correlate Paleozoic and Mesozoic marine strata. Originations and extinctions of ammonoid species are commonly used to define GSSPs and build high resolution biozonations. Biochronology is now an advanced field with the recent development of computerized, quantitative methods yielding robust biochronological schemes. It has been demonstrated that such quantitative biochronological methods are very efficient to resolve (often complex) biostratigraphic contradictions and produce accurate and high resolution biozonations, thus enabling precise dating and correla…
Community replacement of neritic carbonate organisms during the late Valanginian platform demise: a new record from the Provence Platform.
2012
24 pages; International audience; The Valanginian is marked by amajor platform demise inducing a hiatus in the northern Tethyan neritic carbonate record from the top of the lower Valanginian to the lower Hauterivian. New biostratigraphic and chemostratigraphic data from the Ollioules section (Provence Platform, southern France) are presented here, demonstrating that a large part of the upper Valanginian is preserved in an inner platform environment. The thick, upper Valanginian, aggrading carbonate succession is observed in an aborted rift domain, implying relatively low subsidence. In this context, a relatively long-term sea-level rise was required to sustain a keep-up style of carbonate p…
Marine Early Triassic Actinopterygii from Elko County (Nevada, USA): implications for the Smithian equatorial vertebrate eclipse
2017
AbstractThe Early Triassic vertebrate record from low paleolatitudes is spotty, which led to the notion of an ‘equatorial vertebrate eclipse’ during the Smithian. Here we present articulated ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii), collected from the marine Lower Triassic Thaynes Group at three new localities in Elko County (Nevada, USA), which were deposited within the equatorial zone. From the Smithian of the Winecup Ranch, we describe two partial skulls of the predatory actinopterygianBirgeria(Birgeriidae), attributed toB.americananew species andBirgeriasp.Birgeria americanan. sp. is distinguished from other species by a less reduced operculogular series. With an estimated total length of 1.7…