devensian lateglacial environmental changes in britain a multi proxy environmental record from llanilid south wales uk abstract a multi proxy environmental record for the devensian weichselian lateglacial and early holocene periods which includes pollen plant macrofossil coleopteran geochemical and stable isotope data is described from a site at llanilid south wales uk the geochronology of the sequence is derived from two age depth models which show a broad measure of agreement over much of the profile this data set provides the basis for a detailed reconstruction of changing environmental conditions in western britain during the transition from the last cold stage to the present holocene interglacial ca 15 000 10 000 cal yr bp two marked cooling episodes are recorded during the course of the lateglacial interstadial greenland interstadial 1 with mean july temperatures falling by more than 5 c from a maximum of around 20 c during the early interstadial and by a further 4 5 c around 13 100 cal yr bp the initial drop in temperature led to a reduction in juniperus scrub while the second and more abrupt temperature decline resulted in a significant contraction in areas of betula woodland a relatively slight and short lived warming during the later interstadial enabled tree birch to expand once again mean july temperatures of 10 11 c characterised the loch lomond younger dryas stadial greenland stadial 1 between ca 12 600 and 11 400 cal yr bp during which time a scrub tundra with betula salix and a range of open habitat taxa became established locally the onset of the holocene interglacial at ca 11 400 cal yr bp is marked by an abrupt temperature rise of the order of 9 c and by the rapid expansion of betula woodland the llanilid palaeoclimate record is similar to that from the gransmoor site in northeast england and also to the climatic sequence inferred from the grip ice core particularly during the later part of the lateglacial interstadial ca 14 000 12 600 cal yr bp during the loch lomond younger dryas stadial and in the early holocene the llanilid chronology is less secure during the early part of the lateglacial interstadial pre 14 000 cal yr bp but it is possible that warming may have begun earlier in this part of western britain than in greenland

between warm and cold impact of the younger dryas on human behavior in central europe abstract following a thorough review of high resolution environmental archives this paper aims at discriminating the factors determining the heterogeneous repercussion of the lateglacial younger dryas in central europe when examining the archaeological implications of human adaptation to the subsequent changes in the natural environment two divergent biotic regions are of special interest the north european plain and adjacent areas and the alpine foothills and surrounding mountain ranges in these regions two different archaeological technocomplexes traditions are found the tanged point complex and the curve backed point groups considering the distribution of the archaeological sites witnessing changes in the material culture and subsistence pattern the intensity of the environmental changes caused by the younger dryas is a decisive element settlement discontinuity during the younger dryas is questioned moreover the potential existence of established social networks between the two regions expressed by comparable developments such as microlithization is considered finally the authors assess whether the younger dryas acted as an accelerator or a brake in the process of regional diversification prior to the early mesolithic

mineral stimulation of subsurface microorganisms release of limiting nutrients from silicates abstract microorganisms play an important role in the weathering of silicate minerals in many subsurface environments but an unanswered question is whether the mineral plays an important role in the microbial ecology silicate minerals often contain nutrients necessary for microbial growth but whether the microbial community benefits from their release during weathering is unclear in this study we used field and laboratory approaches to investigate microbial interactions with minerals and glasses containing beneficial nutrients and metals field experiments from a petroleum contaminated aquifer where silicate weathering is substantially accelerated in the contaminated zone revealed that phosphorus p and iron fe bearing silicate glasses were preferentially colonized and weathered while glasses without these elements were typically barren of colonizing microorganisms corroborating previous studies using feldspars in laboratory studies we investigated microbial weathering of silicates and the release of nutrients using a model ligand promoted pathway a metal chelating organic ligand 3 4 dihydroxybenzoic acid 3 4 dhba was used as a source of chelated ferric iron and a carbon source to investigate mineral weathering rate and microbial metabolism in the investigated aquifer we hypothesize that microbes produce organic ligands to chelate metals particularly fe for metabolic processes and also form stable complexes with al and occasionally with si further the concentration of these ligands is apparently sufficient near an attached microorganism to destroy the silicate framework while releasing the nutrient of interest in microcosms containing silicates and glasses with trace phosphate mineral inclusions microbial biomass increased indicating that the microbial community can use silicate bound phosphate inclusions the addition of a native microbial consortium to microcosms containing silicates or glasses with iron oxide inclusions correlated to accelerated weathering and release of si into solution as well as the accelerated degradation of the model substrate 3 4 dhba we propose that silicate bound p and fe inclusions are bioavailable and microorganisms may use organic ligands to dissolve the silicate matrix and access these otherwise limiting nutrients

dating human occupation and adaptation in the southern european last glacial refuge the chronostratigraphy of grotta del romito italy grotta del romito has been the subject of numerous archaeological chronological and palaeoenvironmental investigations for more than a decade during the upper palaeolithic period the site contains evidence of human occupation through the gravettian and epigravettian periods multiple human burials changes in the pattern of human occupation and faunal isotopic and sedimentological evidence for local environmental change in spite of this rich record the chronological control is insufficient to resolve shifts in subsistence and mobility patterns at sufficiently high resolution to match the abrupt climate fluctuations at this time to resolve this we present new radiocarbon and tephrostratigraphic dates in combination with existing radiocarbon dates and develop a bayesian age model framework for the site this improved chronology reveals that local environmental conditions reflect abrupt and long term changes in climate and that these also directly influence changing patterns of human occupation of the site in particular we show that the environmental record for the site based on small mammal habitat preferences is chronologically in phase with the main changes in climate and environment seen in key regional archives from italy and greenland we also calculate the timing of the transitions between different cultural phases and their spans we also show that the intensification in occupation of the site is chronologically coincident with a rapid rise in mesic woody taxa seen in key regional pollen records and is associated with the late epigravettian occupation of the site this change in the record of grotta del romito is also closely associated stratigraphically with a new tephra the rom d30 tephra which may act as a critical marker in environmental records of the region

isotope and faunal evidence for high levels of freshwater fish consumption by late glacial humans at the late upper palaeolithic site of sandalja ii istria croatia abstract here we report on isotope and faunal evidence for intensive use of freshwater resources by late upper palaeolithic humans from the sandalja ii site in croatia carbon and nitrogen bone collagen isotopic analysis of humans and fauna from the site indicate that the main protein source in human diets at this time was freshwater fish which is in contrast to the vertebrate remains that show a high abundance of large terrestrial herbivores from the late upper palaeolithic levels at the site these data add to the growing body of research that shows an increasing intensification in the use of aquatic resources in europe towards the end of the pleistocene

fractionation of rare earth elements in plants during experimental growth in varied clay substrates abstract the distribution and content of rare earth elements rees were determined in two radish species the cultivated raphanus sativus and the wild raphanus raphanistrum that were grown under laboratory controlled conditions in three substrates consisting of illite for one and two smectite substrates for the others with the two smectite substrates being characterised by different porosities the plants were split into leaves and stems roots for analysis the results indicate that both species take up systematically higher amounts of rees when grown in the illite substrate even considering that the smectite equivalent contains about three times more rees the ree uptake is also more plant species than mineral composition dependent r raphanistrum takes up 3 5 6 7 times more rees than r sativus depending on the substrate its porosity and the considered plant segments increased substrate porosity favours the take up of the rees but no specific uptake is observed in leaves relative to that in the combined stems and roots the transfer of the rees from minerals to plant organs does not appear to induce systematically identical patterns 1 in the case of r sativus a positive eu anomaly is visible in all patterns from both segment groups grown in both substrates when grown in illite the heavy rees are also enriched in the stems and roots which has not been observed in any other organ or in the other substrate and 2 in the case of r raphanistrum a very significant positive gd anomaly which is not expected to fractionate relative to the other rees as do ce and eu is observed in all segments of the plants grown in both substrates a slight negative ce anomaly is also visible in some of the ree patterns suggesting some changes in the oxidation reduction conditions in the substrates near the roots during plant growth the comparison of the ree patterns from leaves relative to those of the roots stems shows that those of r raphanistrum grown in illite provide a spectrum that is very specific with significant deficits in la ce gd tm yb and lu in the leaves in the other cases the patterns do not outline significant differences except for r sativus grown in illite in which the leaves are enriched in light and medium rees from la to gd relative to the stems roots

bayesian tools for tephrochronology it is suggested that bayesian statistical methods for radiocarbon data interpretation already widely used in archaeology also have potential to improve the dating of tephra layers and hence enhance their use for tephrochronology by re analysing data from a recently published paper in which the authors sought to identify the calendar date of the eruption of fourteenth century ad kaharoa tephra a key marker in new zealand prehistory it is shown that bayesian methods can be used to draw together a coherent collection of radiocarbon data undertake formal outlier detection and include prior information regardless of the calibration curve adopted the distribution of likely dates for the kaharoa eruption is multimodal by including prior information from wiggle matched dendrochronology the uncertainty on the estimate of the calendar date is reduced from a range of about 100 years to about 25 years i e 648 623 cal bp with modes at 638 and 632 cal bp using sensitivity analysis however it is shown that such estimates are affected by the quality and nature of the prior information available as a result we urge tephrochronologists to seek fastidiously both high quality radiocarbon data and reliable stratigraphic sequences that might inform future geochronological model building

environmental biogeochemical characteristics of rare earth elements in soil and soil grown plants of the hetai goldfield guangdong province china very few studies deal with the biogeochemical behaviors of rare earth elements rees in goldfields this paper presents the geochemical and biogeochemical characteristics of rees within the soil plant system in the hetai goldfield guangdong china the samples from the goldfield region show anomalies in distribution patterns and behavioral characteristics of rees as compared with those from the background areas the rees in rocks soils and plants prove to be much higher than those in the surrounding regions the distribution patterns of rees are characterized by lree enrichment and hree depletion with the ree concentrations in layer a being the highest differentiations between lrees and hrees may lead to some extent of negative eu anomaly in the soils research results demonstrate that the rees in a soil profile can be transferred and accumulated during the mineral formation and supergenic geochemical processes and the anomalies are obviously related to the geological settings for the ree bearing ore forming processes and to the geochemical characteristics of the habitats for the ree bearing plants for dicranopteris dichotoma the total amount of rees in the tissues shows an order of leaf root stem while for pinus massoniana the order becomes root leaf stem the distribution patterns of rees in pinus massoniana leaves are similar to those in soils where the plants grow up in the mineralization area however in the background areas the ree distribution patterns for pinus massoniana stems are similar to those for soils where the plants grow up parameters such as biological absorption coefficients and biological transfer coefficients show the differences in ree absorption features among plants and indicate that rees can be transferred among plant organs the two coefficients can reveal the different survival mechanisms for the two plant species which are subject to long term ree affected stress conditions in the gold mineralization zone

reassessing the diet of upper palaeolithic humans from gough s cave and sun hole cheddar gorge somerset uk richards et al 2000 reconstructed the diet of the human remains found in gough s and sun hole cave through isotope analysis they concluded that these people consumed an entirely terrestrial based diet their reconstruction was based upon comparison of the results from human bones with those from a very small number of associated animals the diets of the gough s and sun hole cave human were different from the other six upper palaeolithic humans from the british isles for which dietary information has been obtained through isotope analysis the work of richards et al 2000 suggests that they were the only ones for whom marine or freshwater resources did not play a significant role in their diets we test this through further analyses of faunal remains from gough s cave sun hole and other contemporary sites kent s cavern aveline s hole kendrick s cave despite the limited faunal sample the original palaeodietary reconstruction is broadly consistent with our findings the isotope values of the main protein sources consumed by the humans from both sites are consistent with those of red deer and bovines and for a single individual with that of horse and red deer reindeer was postulated in the original reconstruction as a potential food source but this seems very unlikely based on our isotope reconstruction and the archaeological remains

radiocarbon dating the devensian lateglacial in britain new evidence from llanilid south wales radiocarbon dates are described from a section through lateglacial and early flandrian sediments at llanilid mid glamorgan south wales comparisons between age determinations on the alkali soluble humic and alkali insoluble humin organic fractions from 12 biostratigraphic horizons reveal the extent of contamination by both older and younger carbon residues the llanilid time scale suggests that for the lateglacial the earliest organic sediments date from around 13 200 yr bp the early interstadial juniperus maximum occurred at ca 12 400 12 500 yr bp with a marked decline some 200 years later the main betula phase lasted only from ca 11 700 to 11 400 yr bp and the end of the interstadial occurred around 11 100 yr bp the beginning of the flandrian dates from ca 10 000 yr bp the juniperus maximum occurred approximately 200 years later the expansion of birch woodland began around 9600 yr bp while the first hazel arrived in the area at ca 9300 yr bp these age determinations are discussed in the context of radiocarbon dates from comparable biostratigraphic horizons in western britain and the dating of lateglacial events in the ocean core records from the north atlantic

the chronology of abrupt climate change and late upper palaeolithic human adaptation in europe abstract this paper addresses the possible connections between the onset of human expansionineuropefollowingthelastglacialmaximum andthetimingofabruptclimatewarmingattheonsetof thelateglacial bo lling allerod interstadial thereare opposing views as towhether ornot humanpopulations and activities were directly forced by climate change based on different comparisonsbetween archaeological and environmental data we review the geochronological assumptions andapproaches on which data comparisons have been attempted in the past and argue that theuncertainties presently associated with age models based on calibrated radiocarbon dates precluderobust testing of the competing models particularly when comparing the data to non radiocarbon basedtimescalessuchasthegreenlandicecorerecords thepaperconcludeswithsomesuggestionsastothestepsthatwillbenecessaryifmorerobusttestsofthemodelsaretobedevelopedinthefuture copyright 2006 john wiley sons ltd keywords lateglacial radiocarbon calibration intcal04 lake suigetsu palaeotemperature reconstruction human adaptation tephrochronology

evolution of the subseafloor hydrothermal system associated with the ming vms deposit newfoundland appalachians and its controls on base and precious metal distribution the 487 ma ming volcanogenic massive sulfide vms deposit consists of four subparallel elongated semi massive to massive sulfides lenses the 1807 1806 ming north and ming south zones hosted in rhyodacite of the rambler rhyolite formation newfoundland appalachians a discordant cu rich lower footwall zone underlies the semi massive to massive sulfide lenses alteration associated with mineralization can be divided into nine facies that formed in three paragenetic stages 1 weak quartz calcite spessartine quartz sericite and quartz sericite chlorite alteration stage 1 2 quartz chlorite quartz chlorite sulfide and quartz chlorite sericite assemblages stage 2 and 3 quartz sericite sulfide and localized mn rich carbonate assemblages stage 3 a thin syngenetic silica rich layer immediately overlies part of the vms deposit and likely formed during the early stages the volcanic architecture and synvolcanic faults controlled the lateral distribution of extrusive rocks and hydrothermal alteration precipitation of the high temperature discordant to semi conformable cu rich chloritic assemblages stockwork was laterally restricted to one of these synvolcanic faults and the transition from coherent to volcaniclastic dominated lithofacies lower temperature sericitic assemblages stages 1 and 3 are controlled by the distribution of volcaniclastic rocks and generally form the immediate footwall to the semi massive to massive sulfide lenses lithogeochemical mass balance calculations illustrate the alteration minerals and mineralization chlorite rich assemblages gains in sio2 fe2o3t mgo cr ni and cu and losses in na2o mno and cao and sericite rich assemblages gains in k2o zn and ag and losses in mno mgo cao na2o and y calcium and magnesium rich alteration assemblages are restricted to the northwest fringe of the deposit distal to the main chloritic and sericitic alteration and have elemental gains in p2o5 y and losses in k2o the late stage 3 quartz sericite sulfide assemblage overprints most assemblages hosts sphalerite galena sulfosalt ag au rich veins and is spatially associated with coherent volcanic rocks the less permeable nature of these rocks is interpreted to have acted as a physical barrier for ascending metal rich hydrothermal fluids results from the detailed reconstruction of the hydrothermal architecture and paragenetic evolution of the ming deposit suggest that precious metals were introduced during the waning stage of the hydrothermal system associated with decreases in temperature and ph of the hydrothermal fluids

alkaline earth metal and rare earth element incorporation control by ionic radius and growth rate on a stalagmite from the chauvet cave southeastern france abstract a multi element study involving major alkaline earth cations mg ca sr ba and trace elements like na u mn y and rare earth elements ree in calcite of a stalagmite from the chauvet cave se of france was carried out using icp qms analysis this study focused on the chau stm6 stalagmite which displays a record of the last deglaciation until the end of the younger dryas with ages ranging from 33 kyr to 11 5 kyr bp in this study profiles of the alkaline earth elements sr and ba show concentrations increasing sharply at the beginning of the deglaciation while mg and u show a decreasing trend rey ree y concentrations decrease sharply during early deglaciation the clear record of the onset of the younger dryas by stable isotopes is not well marked by these elements the absence of a significant correlation between rey and mn suggests that ree were here not strongly bound to particulate colloidal phases but were mainly controlled by limestone groundwater interaction shale normalized ree patterns in stalagmite characterized by a negative ce anomaly and hree enrichment compared to lree is thought to mainly arise from the dissolution of bedrock since chau stm6 patterns are similar to those of the bedrock chau stm6 rey patterns are even more depleted in lree than those of the bedrock showing that part of the lree were removed from groundwater upstream from the stalagmite some particular rey pattern changes were observed for the different climatic conditions 1 glacial samples often display a more marked negative ce anomaly 0 3 and a high y ho ratio 0 6 2 bolling allerod and younger dryas samples display a variable and less pronounced anomaly 0 5 0 8 and a lower y ho ratio 0 35 0 55 climatic changes modified the rate of the stalagmite growth which likely caused a change in the properties of element incorporation in the calcite lattice consequently the concentration variations of mg ca sr ba u and rey would be directly controlled by ionic radii of each element

short term impact of de vegetation on organic inorganic interactions and cation transfers in uppermost soil horizons abstract the soil solutions of a natural soil covered by grass and of the same soil after grass removal were collected and analyzed after each rainfall and percolation through the two soils during a fifteen month experiment to identify and quantify the water mineral plant interactions during this period of time plastic tubes containing calcite and smectite particles were inserted into the two soils some powder of both being recovered after three and fifteen months water leached and the leachates analyzed the contents of various elements including the rare earth elements were measured in the soil solutions and the water leachates to identify the extent of the interactions and evaluate the contribution of the plants the immediate impact of de vegetation was recorded in the soil solutions that exported systematically more si and ca and often more mg from de vegetated soil the supplement of exported si was probably released by altering microorganisms as a response to de vegetation whereas that of mg resulted probably from dissolution of oxy hydroxides and that of ca from partial dissolution of the calcite reference mineral the removed elements were about 50 times higher in the soil solutions than in the plain rainwater before percolation through the soils the contents of the dissolved organic carbon and ammonia of the soil solutions from de vegetated soil were about one third higher than in those of the vegetated soil on the basis of the elemental contents of the soil solutions that percolated through the two soils removal of plants did not significantly affect adsorption of the nutrient k on the inserted smectite and calcite during the initial three months however less k was adsorbed on smectite and calcite of the de vegetated soil than on the same minerals of the same soil covered with grass during the following twelve months indicating in turn that more k was removed from de vegetated soil within a one year time

the effect of land plants on weathering rates of silicate minerals abstract land plants and their associated microbiota directly affect silicate mineral weathering in several ways by generation of chelating ligands by modifying ph through production of co2 or organic acids and by altering the physical properties of a soil particularly the exposed surface areas of minerals and the residence time of water in laboratory experiments far from equilibrium 1 mm oxalate a strong chelator of al has a negligible effect on the dissolution rate of alkali feldspars but some effect on calcic feldspars and olivine by analogy to oxalate the overall effect of organic ligands on the weathering rate of silicate minerals in nature is likely to be small except perhaps in microenvironments adjacent to roots and fungal hyphae the effect of ph on silicate mineral dissolution rate depends on ph below ph 4 5 the rate increases with decreasing ph in the circumneutral region the rate is ph independent and at ph values above around 8 the rate increases with increasing ph vegetation should thus cause an increase in weathering rate through the ph effect only where the ph is below 4 5 as an overall generalization the effect of plants on weathering rate through changes in soil solution chemistry is probably small for granitic rocks it may be greater for more mafic rocks it is the release of ca and mg from mafic rocks that has the greatest influence on the global co2 budget the effect of changes in soil physical properties on weathering rate can be major by binding fine particles plants can greatly increase weathering rates in areas of high physical erosion where erosion rates are lower the effect of plants is less clear on long timescales plants may decrease chemical weathering by binding secondary products and isolating unweathered minerals from meteoric water a major unknown in estimating the effect of the advent of land plants on weathering rates is the nature thickness particle size distribution permeability of the regolith on the pre silurian continents the indirect effect of vegetation through changing the regional distribution of precipitation may be as important as the direct effects

ams radiocarbon dating of middle and upper palaeolithic bone in the british isles improved reliability using ultrafiltration recent research at the oxford radiocarbon accelerator unit orau has shown that ultrafiltration of gelatin from archaeological bone can in many instances remove low molecular weight contaminants these can sometimes be of a different radiocarbon age and unless removed may severely influence results particularly when dating bones greater than two to three half lives of 14c in this study this methodology is applied to samples of late middle and early upper palaeolithic age from the british isles in many instances the results of redating invite serious reconsideration of the chronology for these periods copyright 2006 john wiley sons ltd

mineralogy bulk and rare earth element geochemistry of massive sulphide associated hydrothermal sediments of the brunswick horizon bathurst mining camp new brunswick massive sulphides are spatially and temporally associated with iron formation if and other hydrothermal sedimentary rocks in the vicinity of the brunswick no 12 brunswick no 6 and austin brook deposits bathurst mining camp sulphide carbonate oxide and silicate predominant if is present carbonate predominant if is best developed in and around the brunswick no 12 deposit whereas hematite bearing if is absent here but prominent in the austin brook brunswick no 6 area the if is composed dominantly of si co2 fe mn and ca minor constituents include mg p ti al and s statistically significant interelement correlations between eu fe mn pb zn cd au ca sr ba p co2 and s indicate that these elements were precipitated from hydrothermal fluids vented onto the seafloor positive interelement correlations between si ti al mg k zr rare earth elements ree s except eu se v y yb co ni and cr reflect the presence of detrital clastic mafic and aluminosilicate minerals and

the greenland ice core chronology 2005 15 42 ka part 2 comparison to other records a new greenland ice core chronology gicc05 based on multi parameter counting of annual layers has been obtained for the last 42 ka here we compare the glacial part of the new time scale which is based entirely on records from the northgrip ice core to existing time scales and reference horizons covering the same period these include the grip and northgrip modelled time scales the meese sowers gisp2 counted time scale the shackleton fairbanks grip time scale sfcp04 based on 14c calibration of a marine core the hulu cave record three volcanic reference horizons and the laschamp geomagnetic excursion event occurring around greenland interstadial 10 gicc05 is generally in good long term agreement with the existing greenland ice core chronologies and with the hulu cave record but on shorter time scales there are significant discrepancies around the last glacial maximum there is a more than 1 ka age difference between gicc05 and sfcp04 and a more than 0 5 ka discrepancy in the same direction between gicc05 and the age of a recently identified tephra layer in the northgrip ice core both sfcp04 and the tephra age are based on 14c dated marine cores and fixed marine reservoir ages for the laschamp event gicc05 agrees with a recent independent dating within the uncertainties

geochemical investigation of the lower cambrian mineralised black shales of south china and the late devonian nick deposit canada abstract lower cambrian tommotian black shales of the niutitang formation south china host a thin accumulation 5 20 cm of ni mo platinum group elements pge au ni as zn cu v and rare earth elements ree of all known deposits the late devonian ni mo pge sulphide horizon in black shales of the nick deposit selwyn basin in canadian yukon presents the strongest similarity with the niutitang formation polymetallic layer in the present study samples of the mineralised layer and host shales in south china from two mine sites zunyi and sancha were investigated in order to further characterise the prevailing redox conditions and mechanisms involved in the metal concentration process at both sites additional comparison with the nick deposit mineralised layer was also undertaken bulk geochemical analysis including pge analysis were conducted on all samples along with m scale investigation of metal distributions and associations by x ray fluorescence xrf mapping and synchrotron xrf mapping the comparison of the two sites from south china highlights strong similarities in metal enrichment factors pge and ree distribution patterns are also highly similar and suggest a source from seawater strong variations in elemental distributions at m scale were observed at both sites most likely related to intense variations in redox conditions in the sediment the comparison with the nick deposit highlights a stronger enrichment in ni and zn in the nick deposit and a greater variety of minerals in the niutitang shales the pge and ree distributions of both the nick deposit and the niutitang shales however present highly similar patterns and support an origin from seawater the present study provides further insight into mineralisation style and processes in these mineralised black shales highlighting the importance of redox conditions and re emphasizing the role of organic matter in the formation of these mineralised layers

human choices and environmental constraints deciphering the variability of large game procurement from mousterian to aurignacian times mis 5 3 in southwestern france abstract the evolution in the selection of prey made by past humans especially the neandertals and the first anatomically modern humans has been widely debated between marine isotope stages mis 5 and 3 the accuracy of absolute dating is still insufficient to precisely correlate paleoclimatic and archaeological data it is often difficult therefore to estimate to what extent changes in species procurement are correlated with either climate fluctuations or deliberate cultural choices in terms of subsistence behavior here the full development of archeostratigraphy and bayesian statistical analysis of absolute dates allows the archeological and paleoclimatic chronologies to be compared the variability in hunted fauna is investigated using multivariate statistical analysis of quantitative faunal lists of 148 assemblages from 39 archeological sequences from mis 5 through mis 3 despite significant intra technocomplex variability it is possible to identify major shifts in the human diet during these stages the integration of archeological data paleoclimatic proxies and the ecological characteristics of the different species of prey shows that the shifts in large game hunting can be explained by an adaptation of the human groups to climatic fluctuations however even if middle and early upper paleolithic men adapted to changes in their environment and to contrasting landscapes they ultimately belonged to the ecosystems of the past and were limited by environmental constraints

calibration of radiocarbon results pertaining to related archaeological events with the advent of the high precision radiocarbon calibration curve there is an increasing demand from archaeologists for results previously reported on the radiocarbon scale to be expressed on the calendar scale furthermore there is a general realization within the archaeological community that much more information can be derived from radiocarbon dating if the samples are taken from coherent well chosen contexts and if any available substantive archaeological information is included in the data analysis this paper describes how the bayesian approach to statistical data analysis can be used for the calibration of groups of radiocarbon results in situations where archaeological information is available a priori about the relationships between the contexts being dated recent innovations in the implementation of the bayesian paradigm are used and the methodology is illustrated by the analysis of data arising from two archaeological excavations

the early lateglacial re colonization of britain new radiocarbon evidence from gough s cave southwest england abstract gough s cave is still britain s most significant later upper palaeolithic site new ultrafiltered radiocarbon determinations on bone change our understanding of its occupation by demonstrating that this lasted for only a very short span of time at the beginning of the lateglacial interstadial greenland interstadial 1 gi 1 bolling and allerod the application of bayesian modelling to the radiocarbon dates from this and other sites from the period in southwest england suggests that re colonization after the last glacial maximum took place only after 14 700 cal bp and is therefore more recent than that of the paris basin and the belgian ardennes on their own the radiocarbon determinations cannot tell us whether re colonization was synchronous with just prior to or after lateglacial warming isotopic studies of humanly modified mammalian tooth enamel may be one way forward

europium redox equilibria in aqueous solution thermochemical data and recent advances in theoretical aqueous solution chemistry enable prediction of the relative stabilities of aqueous eu2 and eu3 over a wide range of temperatures and pressures at low temperatures near earth surface conditions the aqueous geochemistry of europium should be dominated by the trivalent state except possibly in the most reducing alkaline pore waters of anoxic marine sediments however at temperatures greater than about 250 c and elevated pressures divalent europium should predominate even with significant amounts of complexing trivalent europium is not stable at elevated temperatures and pressures consequently under most hydrothermal and metamorphic conditions europium in aqueous solution should be divalent at intermediate temperatures around 100 c significant activities of both eu2 and eu3 and related complexes can occur in aqueous solutions depending on the oxidation state and the ph of the solutions and the activities of potential ligands such as sulfate carbonate and chloride the predicted stability of divalent europium in aqueous solution at elevated temperatures is consistent with the large positive europium anomalies in rare earth element patterns of high temperature barites of hydrothermal and metamorphic origin reported by guichard et al 5 and with the observed depletion of europium as a result of high temperature sericitization of feldspar bearing assemblages discovered by alderton et al 1 it is suggested that significant fractionation of europium relative to the other rare earth elements may take place during high temperature hydrothermal alteration processes such as in the mid oceanic ridge systems because of the expected stability of divalent europium during these processes

technological evolution of hunting implements among pleistocene hunter gatherers osseous projectile points in the middle and upper magdalenian 19 14 ka cal bp abstract the middle and upper magdalenian have yielded rich and diverse assemblages of osseous hunting technology including projectile points barbed or not foreshafts and spearthrowers within the magdatis project the evolution of this technology at french sites was reassessed by building an extensive dataset of 14c dates on magdalenian hunting implements selecting assemblages with good archeological homogeneity and taking into account questions of manufacture hafting and use a finer four stage chronology was established in coordination with lithic studies a steady evolution was identified marked by the intensification of antler exploitation and the increasing diversity and complexity of osseous armatures this evolution is the continuation of a long term trend that began in the badegoulian and lower magdalenian and that culminated in the late middle early upper magdalenian showing a special emphasis on composite projectile tips and evidence of the long distance circulation of osseous materials and objects a simplification process then takes place with much of the technical innovation now centered on barbed implements to the detriment of the rest of the weapon kit a trait that may announce the azilian

a formal mammalian biostratigraphy for the late pleistocene of britain abstract a series of distinctive mammalian assemblages spanning much of the british late pleistocene is defined on the basis of type localities and a formal biozonation proposed the joint mitnor cave mammal assemblage zone includes the famous hippopotamus fauna of the early part of the last interglacial complex oxygen isotope substage 5e this is succeeded by the bacon hole mammal assemblage zone in which hippopotamus is no longer present and species like mammoth roe deer and northern vole re enter the british region this assemblage zone appears to represent the later substages of ois 5 a faunal grouping dominated by bison and reindeer is named the banwell bone cave mammal assemblage zone and is believed to correlate closely with the early devensian ois 4 the pin hole mammal assemblage zone includes the familiar mammoth steppe faunas of the middle devensian ois 3 dominated by horse woolly rhinoceros and mammoth the lateglacial interstadial is characterized by the gough s cave mammal assemblage zone in which horse red deer and humans are well represented part of ois 2 no definitive evidence for human activity can be found for a period spanning the last interglacial complex ois 5 and the early devensian ois 4 human populations return to britain with the pin hole mammal assemblage zone fauna during the middle devensian ois 3 and reappear after the dimlington stadial during the late devensian ois 2 but in a different faunal association

the british final magdalenian society settlement and raw material movements revealed through la icp ms trace element analysis of diagnostic artefacts abstract raw material movements and group mobility in the british final magdalenian is poorly understood following a review of the british final magdalenian creswellian this paper presents preliminary results of a major la icp ms trace elemental characterization of british bedrock flint regions and compare to these characterizations of artefacts from three assemblages from the first half of the late glacial interstadial the meiendorf classed as final magdalenian the results successfully distinguish between major bedrock flint regions and artefacts can be linked to these with confidence the results reveal the importance of east anglia the lincolnshire wolds and the salisbury plain as lithic sources for artefacts from farndon fields nottinghamshire bradgate park leicestershire and wey manor farm surrey to which some flints were transported over distances ranging from the local to 200 km the results are reviewed in the context of continental raw material movements

revised radiocarbon ages on woolly rhinoceros coelodonta antiquitatis from western central scotland significance for timing the extinction of woolly rhinoceros in britain and the onset of the lgm in central scotland woolly rhinoceros bones from a number of sites in britain have been ams radiocarbon dated following ultrafiltration pre treatment these determinations give a coherent set of ages between 50 and c 35 cal ka bp the youngest 35 864 34 765 cal bp come from the area around bishopbriggs in western central scotland and are derived from glaciofluvial sand and gravel overlain by till both deposited during the last glacial maximum lgm glaciation a previous radiocarbon date from the site suggested that woolly rhinoceros lived c 27 14c ka bp and the region was ice free at the time this date has had significant influence on the timing of extinction of woolly rhinoceros and the onset of glaciation over britain during the lgm the new dates revise this earlier determination and confirm that woolly rhinoceros became extinct in britain after c 35 cal ka bp that central scotland was ice free at this time and glaciation extended across this region sometime after 35 cal ka bp

the greenland ice core chronology 2005 15 42 ka part 1 constructing the time scale the greenland ice core chronology 2005 gicc05 is extended back to 42 ka b2k before 2000 ad i e to the end of greenland stadial 11 the chronology is based on independent multi parameter counting of annual layers using comprehensive high resolution measurements available from the north greenland ice core project ngrip these are measurements of visual stratigraphy conductivity of the solid ice electrolytical melt water conductivity and the concentration of na c a 2 s o 4 n o 3 n h 4 a n uncertainty estimate of the time scale is obtained from identification of uncertain annual layers which are counted as 0 570 5 years the sum of the uncertain annual layers the so called maximum counting error of the presented chronology ranges from 4 in the warm interstadial periods to 7 in the cold stadials the annual accumulation rates of the stadials and interstadials are on average one third and half of the present day values respectively and the onset of the greenland interstadials 2 3 and 8 based on 20 year averaged d 18 o

a revised chronology for the adoption of agriculture in the southern levant and the role of lateglacial climatic change abstract this paper re examines the chronology and environmental context for the transition to agriculture in the southern levant seen as the likely starting point for the adoption of agriculture in europe and the near east the role in this process of abrupt late quaternary climate change has been discussed widely but limitations on the archaeological and palaeoenvironmental chronologies have led to varying interpretations here we attempt to clarify the situation by first testing the available radiocarbon database for the archaeological transitions from the natufian through to the ppna we apply internationally accepted radiocarbon quality assurance procedures and find that a significant number of the published dates fall bellow acceptable standards the cleaning process significantly clarifies and constrains the reported time ranges for the natufian late natufian and ppna we then apply the new intcal09 calibration curve and bayesian calibration methods using the archaeological phasing to constrain the data and calculate the most likely timing of the transitions between each phase we then compare the onset and duration of archaeological phases to data representing the key northern hemisphere climatic transitions using the new gicc05 greenland ice core timescale and the timing of transitions between wet and dry phases in the southern levant from published high precision isotopic analyses of speleothem data the results of this exercise present the currently best available chronology for these events and suggest that during the second part of the lateglacial interstadial drying of the southern levant may have triggered the transition to the late natufian when hunter gatherer communities resorted to a more mobile lifestyle the late natufian culture appears to have disappeared from the southern levant during the younger dryas as drying intensified there is then a gap in well dated evidence for human occupation until a reappearance of humans at the onset of the pre pottery neolithic a ppna period at the beginning of the holocene thus the onset of the holocene can be hypothesised to be the driver behind the onset of the neolithic in this region

carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis of northwest european horse bone and tooth collagen 40 000 bp present palaeoclimatic interpretations abstract carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of bone and tooth dentine collagen from 142 horses were analysed to consider the potential of isotopic analysis of faunal remains as a palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic proxy a general trend through time towards lighter 13 c values was observed but with an obvious depletion at the late glacial holocene transition horse 13 c values appear to track plant 13 c although phenomenon such as the canopy effect may influence faunal 13 c values we believe that the influence on plants of increasing atmospheric co 2 is the primary factor in the change in faunal 13 c values at the late glacial holocene transition a post glacial depletion in horse 15 n values is observed in areas proximal to glacial retreat although no data is available in these areas during the last glacial maximum horse 15 n values are presumed to reflect plant 15 n values depleted plant nitrogen may be attributed to a number of factors e g water availability temperature cycling of nitrogen in the soil soil nutrient availability especially phosphorus in the post glacial period and the type of mycorrhizal associations formed with plant these effects may be interrelated and be linked such that a positive feedback can give a non linear response to a single parameter

contextualising archaeological models with geological airborne and terrestrial lidar data the ice age landscape in farndon fields nottinghamshire uk archaeological models of past human occupation of the landscape build upon the understanding of the natural palaeo environment this cognitive process relies on the study of the sediment units at a level of spatial resolution that might not be achieved with available maps this paper presents a new approach to combine traditional ground investigation methods and new technologies to detect extract and analyse stratigraphic records with particular application to vanishing landscapes with limited exposure of the sediments the demonstration site is farndon fields an extremely rare late upper palaeolithic open air site at the southern outskirts of newark on trent in nottinghamshire uk since the early 1990s when the upgrading of the new a46 road was planned ground and archaeological investigations have been carried out the test pitting undertaken by farndon archaeological research investigations fari in the field 373a in september 2015 offered an ideal occasion for the british geological survey bgs to test the methodology a palaeo geographic understanding from regional to local scales is here proposed based on 5 m airborne light detection and ranging lidar data and multispectral aerial photographs of the site prior to the alteration due to the a46 works features of the palaeo landscape are vanishing and intrusive investigations are required to unveil the presence of the archaeological context samples were taken for particle size analysis of the sediment units to characterise the aeolian sand deposits coversands and the underlying clayey silty sandy sediments interbedded with paler laminae for the first time state of the art terrestrial lidar technology was used for stratigraphic profiling strata delineation and geological feature extraction based on the intensity return and surface roughness the combined use of point clouds 3d models and cloud intensity from terrestrial lidar provides an added level of confidence to the ability to subdivide the sediment units and discriminate them from ploughsoil internal bedding of the coversands is enhanced in the lidar elaborations this is new evidence not otherwise observed by the naked eye on the other side the classification of point clouds by roughness index seems promising for recording the grading of the sediments the experiment in farndon fields therefore demonstrates the benefit of phased technology based investigation combining archaeology and geology towards a more cost effective assessment through strategic sampling and digital recording of landscape domains

the late glacial reoccupation of the british isles and the creswellian this paper presents a review of ams radiocarbon dating evidence for human occupation of britain during the late glacial interstadial the dates are all on humanly modified materials including artefacts and on human bone the calpal program is used to test whether the earliest evidence of human presence shows any correlation with more widespread climatic events and if the british chronology differs significantly from that of neighbouring regions of northwest europe in the second part of the paper a number of well dated sites with british late upper palaeolithic creswellian technology are examined and compared with lithic assemblages from the netherlands and belgium the main conclusions of this work are that expansion of human populations into the northern edge of the upland zone just before or at the beginning of gi 1 was followed by repopulation of the british isles possibly with very little time lag the british creswellian sites offer evidence of this earliest resettlement which is mainly focused on the upland margins of western and central britain copyright 2003 john wiley sons ltd