Search results for "milieu"
showing 10 items of 19813 documents
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…
Charcoal-painted images from the French Neolithic Villevenard hypogea: an experimental protocol for radiocarbon dating of conserved and in situ carbo…
2020
A conserved painting removed from a Neolithic collective grave in Marne, France, provided an opportunity for radiocarbon dating to place Les Ronces Hypogeum 21 (Villevenard) into the chronology of that region. Chemical analysis with direct analysis in real time (DART) mass spectrometry, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) of samples from the painting revealed the presence of two kinds of wax (beeswax and paraffin or microcrystalline wax) that likely were added during the conservation, a drying oil like linseed oil, as well as markers of pine resin that may arise from turpentine or colophony. A new pretreatment protocol of chlorofor…
Captación y selección de materias primas en la primera metalurgia del Sureste de la península ibérica
2020
The authors are grateful for the technical and human support provided by SGIker of UPV/EHU and European funding (ERDF and ESF). We are also in debt with Eduardo Galán, Ruth Maicas and Carmen Cacho, curators of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Madrid) for facilitating the sampling and study of metal objects as well as with Ignacio Soriano Llopis for his help on the selection and sampling of the Palmela points, with Massimo Chiaradia who performed the analyses of the Palmela points at the Department of Earth Sciences (University of Geneva, Switzerland) and with Óscar García Vuelta for his pictures of some assemblages. We also appreciate and the careful work of editing and style of the TP edit…
High-resolution sclerochronological analysis of the bivalve mollusk Saxidomus gigantea from Alaska and British Columbia: techniques for revealing env…
2009
Abstract The butter clam, Saxidomus gigantea , is one of the most commonly recovered bivalves from archaeological shell middens on the Pacific Coast of North America. This study presents the results of the sclerochronology of modern specimens of S. gigantea , collected monthly from Pender Island (British Columbia), and additional modern specimens from the Dundas Islands (BC) and Mink and Little Takli Islands (Alaska). The methods presented can be used as a template to interpret local environmental conditions and increase the precision of seasonality estimates in shellfish using sclerochronology and oxygen isotope analysis. This method can also identify, with a high degree of accuracy, the d…
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…
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…
Pottery techniques as exchange indicators: a preliminary analysis in the Upper Rhine Valley at the dawn of the Iron Age (9th century BC)
2015
International audience; Technological analysis of 236 pots from the Upper Rhine Valley, dating from the Late Bronze Age, reveals a shared technical background, but also brings to light original forming sequences in the Kaiserstuhl micro-region. These behaviours throw light on local socio-economic networks at the dawn of the Iron Age.; L'étude technologique de 236 poteries du Bronze final IIIb issues de 12 sites de la vallée du Rhin supérieur démontre un fondement technique commun, ainsi que des séquences de façonnage originales dans la micro-région du Kaiserstuhl. Ces pratiques sont révélatrices des réseaux socio-économiques de proximité à la veille du premier âge du Fer.
Comment on the letter of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) dated April 21, 2020 regarding “Fossils from conflict zones and reproducibility…
2020
Motivation for this comment Recently, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) has sent around a letter, dated 21st April, 2020 to more than 300 palaeontological journals, signed by the President, Vice President and a former President of the society (Rayfield et al. 2020). The signatories of this letter request significant changes to the common practices in palaeontology. With our present, multi-authored comment, we aim to argue why these suggestions will not lead to improvement of both practice and ethics of palaeontological research but, conversely, hamper its further development. Although we disagree with most contents of the SVP letter, we appreciate this initiative to discuss scien…
Diagenesis of clay minerals and K-bentonites in Late Permian/Early Triassic sediments of the Sichuan Basin (Chaotian section, Central China).
2014
10 pages; International audience; Detailed clay mineralogical analyses were carried out on Late Permian/Early Triassic carbonate sediments exposed on the Chaotian section (Sichuan Basin, Central China). The clay assemblages are dominantly composed of illite in platform carbonates and clay seams, and illite-smectite mixed-layers (I/S) in tuff layers (K-bentonites) intercalated in the carbonate succession. Detrital and authigenic volcanogenic clay minerals have been partially replaced through illitisation processes during burial, raising questions about diagenetic effects. The precise determination of I/S occurring in K-bentonites shows that the sediments reached a temperature of about 180 °C…
Cultural evolution and environmental change in Central Europe between 40 and 15 ka
2020
The role of environmental change in the evolution of cultural traits is a topic of long-standing scientific debate with strongly contrasting views. Major obstacles for assessing environmental impacts on the evolution of material culture are the fragmentary nature of archaeological and – to a somewhat lesser extent – geoscientific archives and the insufficient chronological resolution of these archives and related proxy data. Together these aspects are causing difficulties in data synchronization. By no means does this paper attempt to solve these issues, but rather aims at shifting the focus from demonstrating strict chains of causes and events to describing roughly contemporaneous developm…