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showing 10 items of 23513 documents
The history and impacts of farming activities in south Greenland: an insight from lake deposits.
2013
International audience; Agriculture in southern Greenland has a two-phase history: with the Norse, who first settled and farmed the region between 985ad and circa 1450ad, and with the recent reintroduction of sheep farming (1920ad to the present). The agricultural sector in Greenland is expected to grow over the next century as anticipated climate warming extends the length of the growing season and increases productivity. This article presents a synthesis of results from a well-dated 1500-year lake sediment record from Lake Igaliku, south Greenland (61°00′N, 45°26′W, 15m asl) that demonstrates the relative impacts of modern and Norse agricultural activities. Pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs…
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…
Early Holocene ritual complexity in South America: the archaeological record of Lapa do Santo (east-central Brazil)
2016
Early Archaic human skeletal remains found in a burial context in Lapa do Santo in east-central Brazil provide a rare glimpse into the lives of hunter-gatherer communities in South America, including their rituals for dealing with the dead. These included the reduction of the body by means of mutilation, defleshing, tooth removal, exposure to fire and possibly cannibalism, followed by the secondary burial of the remains according to strict rules. In a later period, pits were filled with disarticulated bones of a single individual without signs of body manipulation, demonstrating that the region was inhabited by dynamic groups in constant transformation over a period of centuries.
El yacimiento calcolítico de Karea en el contexto de las cuevas sepulcrales de Gipuzkoa (País Vasco)
2018
En el yacimiento arqueológico de Karea (Aia, Gipuzkoa), integrado por las cavidades contiguas de Karea-A y Karea-B, se recuperaron numerosos restos cerámicos y faunísticos (Karea-A) y vestigios de una inhumación calcolítica (Karea-B). El presente trabajo se ha vertebrado en dos ejes. En primer lugar, el estudio de ambos depósitos mediante diferentes disciplinas: (1) estudio antropológico; (2) estudio del ajuar, compuesto por restos cerámicos y faunísticos; (3) identificación antracológica de los restos leñosos recuperados en el depósito funerario y por último, (4) estudios isotópicos que nos han permitido obtener datos de la alimentación (δ13C y δ15N) y procedencia (87Sr/86Sr) del sujeto in…
Dead wood gathering among Neanderthal groups: Charcoal evidence from Abric del Pastor and El Salt (Eastern Iberia)
2017
International audience; We present here a new approach combining the microscopic characterization of fungal decay features and the fragmentation degree of the charcoal remains from Middle Palaeolithic combustion structures: features H4 and H11 from Abric del Pastor, unit IV (>75 ka BP) and features H50 and H57 from El Salt, unit Xb (ca. 52 ka BP), Eastern Iberia. The observation of wood degradation patterns that occurred prior to charring followed by their quantitative analysis according to previous experimental studies revealed differences between the alteration degrees of the firewood used in the hearths, highlighting the existence of firewood acquisition criteria based on dead wood gathe…
Transient metazoan reefs in the aftermath of the end-Permian mass extinction
2011
5 pages; International audience; Recovery from the devastating Permian-Triassic mass extinction about 252 million years ago is usually assumed to have spanned the entire 5 million years of the Early Triassic epoch1,2. The post-crisis interval was characterized by large-scale fluctuations of the global carbon cycle and harsh marine conditions, including a combination of ocean acidification, euxinia, and fluctuating productivity3. During this interval, metazoan-dominated reefs are thought to have been replaced by microbial deposits that are considered the hallmark of the Early Triassic4-7. Here we use field and microscopic investigations to document Early Triassic bioaccumulations and reefs f…
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…
Translating taxonomy into the evolution of conodont feeding ecology
2016
Conodont research has long been divided between utilitarian applications to solve geological problems versus analysis of their palaeobiology. However recent advances in conodont functional analysis allow these independent stands of research to be unified, decoding the functional implications of their morphological variation. We demonstrate this using synchrotron tomography and Finite Element Analysis, informed by occlusal and microwear analyses, to analyze functionally the classic evolutionary sequence of the genus Polygnathus. Our study shows that the evolution of the platform in Polygnathus occurred to accommodate and dissipate the stress accumulation derived from the tooth-like function …
Calcareous nannofossil palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and preservation in sapropel S1 at the Eratosthenes Seamount (Eastern Mediterranean)
2019
Abstract The most recent organic carbon-enriched layer (sapropel S1) deposited at the Eratosthenes Seamount has unique features, such as an early lithological interruption, fine light silt laminae and an exceptional vertical extent that is over 25 cm thick. Here we investigate calcareous nannofossil assemblages to reconstruct very high-resolution palaeoenvironmental and palaeoceanographic variations recorded before, during and after the perturbation episode that involved the eastern Mediterranean Sea, due to the massive freshwater discharge via Nile River. Our results show that the deep chlorophyll maximum development, observed in all micropalaeontological groups from previous studies, is a…
Isotopic seawater temperatures in the Albian Gault Clay of the Boulonnais (Paris Basin): Palaeoenvironmental implications
2016
13 pages; International audience; Oxygen isotopes were measured on several types of fossil hardparts from the Gault Clay Formation including benthic and planktonic foraminifera, belemnite guards, and fish small-teeth. Belemnites δ18O values indicate low temperatures (13.5–19.3 °C) with an increase from the Middle to Late Albian. Foraminifera provide variable δ18O values, some too low to be relevant in terms of temperature (until 42 °C). These low values probably result from a diagenetic alteration of the foraminiferal tests even though SEM observations revealed well-preserved microstructures. However, higher foraminiferal δ18O values recorded in some levels indicate temperatures in the rang…