bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The earliest occupation of Europe: a short chronology
Authors: Roebroeks Wil , Kolfschoten Thijs van
Published: February 2017

A reappraisal of the artefactual and chronological evidence for the earliest occupation of Europe — with proper attention to its limitations and its reliability — makes for a short chronology. The first solid traces of hominid activities in this part of the world are around 500,000 years old.
As a prescription to rule: the royal tomb of Mala'e Lahi and 19th-century Tongan kingship
Authors: Burley David V.
Published: February 2017

The tangled dynastic history of Tonga, celebrated kingdom of western Polynesia, offers a rare chance to study the place of monumental burial-places in a chieftains’ society. Disentangling the story, at a remove of not many centuries, is not a simple business.
Contemporaneity of Clactonian and Acheulian flint industries at Barnham, Suffolk
Authors: Ashton Nick , McNabb John , Irving Brian , Lewis Simon , Parfitt Simon
Published: February 2017

New field evidence challenges an old-established fundamental of the Lower Palaeolithic sequence in Britain.
The preservation and presentation of Great Zimbabwe
Authors: Ndoro Webber
Published: February 2017

Great Zimbabwe, most celebrated monument in the country that is named after it, is a large challenge not just in its technical conservation, but in how it is to be made alive for its country's citizens.
A visit to General Pitt-Rivers
Authors: Drower Margaret S.
Published: February 2017

The biographer of Flinders Petrie (Flinders Petrie: a life in archaeology, 1985), looking at Petrie family letters, came across this one. It comes not from exotic Egypt, but from domestic Dorset, when the Petries visited the Pitt-Rivers estate; and it offers a lively picture of Pitt-Rivers and his ménage, instructive for those whose view of the old man is perhaps a little austere.
Twelve centuries of occupation of a river-bank setting: old Sisatchanalai, northern Thailand
Authors: Bishop Paul , Hein Don , Barbetti Mike , Sutthinet Thada
Published: February 2017

The story of a city that was built close by a river must be a watery one. Here is an archaeological and geomorphological study of a medieval Thai city that experienced flooding and sedimentation throughout its life.
Forensic archaeology in Britain
Authors: Hunter J. R. , Heron C. , Janaway R. C. , Martin A. L. , Pollard A. M. , Roberts C. A.
Published: February 2017

Forensic archaeology is a relatively recent development in the UK but has already shown its worth on a number of scenes of crime; it has a particular role to play in the location and recovery of buried remains, notably in homicide investigations. This paper explores the overlap between archaeology and criminal investigation and considers areas of mutual interest, experience and potential.
Are Bayesian statistics useful to archaeological reasoning?
Authors: Reece Richard
Published: February 2017

An ANTIQUITY paper used the methods of Bayesian statistics to combine radiocarbon and stratigraphic information into a single considered view. But are they different kinds of information, more fairly kept separate?
Preclassic Maya architectural ritual at Cuello, Belize
Authors: Hammond Norman , Bauer Jeremy , Hay Sophie
Published: February 2017

The Preclassic community of Cuello, the earliest village site hitherto excavated in the Maya Lowlands, centred on Platform 34, a flat-topped eminence where investigations between 1975 and 1993 documented occupation from at least 1200 BC to c. AD 400 (Hammond 1991; Hammond et al. 1995). Between 1000 and 400 BC the locus was occupied by a courtyard which with successive rebuildings became both larger and more formally organized, domestic activities shifting to the margins and ritual, including ancestor veneration, becoming more important (Hammond & Gerhardt 1990). Around 400 BC the final Middle Preclassic structures on the north, west and south sides of the court were ceremoniously demolished, their faqades hacked off and their superstructures burned. The entire courtyard was filled with rubble prior to the construction of the broad, open Platform 34, which itself underwent successive enlargements over the ensuing seven centuries.
Direct AMS Radiocarbon dates for the Sungir mid Upper Palaeolithic burials
Authors: Pettitt P. B. , Bader N. O.
Published: February 2017

The site of Sungir (alternatively Sounghir) lies east of the town of Vladimir, about 200 km northeast of Moscow. It is a large mid Upper Palaeolithic ('Eastern Gravettian' sensu lato) cultural accumulation on the left bank of the Kliazma river, of which some 1500 sq. m was excavated in several seasons between 1957 and 1964 (Bader 1965; 1967; 1978; 1998).The single burial (Grave 1/Sungir 1) was excavated in 1964. It is that ofan adult male in extended, supine position, with his head oriented to the northeast and hands placed over his pubis (Figure 1). The second grave was discovered in 1969 and contained two adolescents — one male (Sungir 2) and one (probably) female (Sungir 3) — both extended, supine and lying head to head (Figure 2). All three burials were covered in red ochre and Sungir 1 was possibly associated with fires in a manner intriguingly similar to the DVXVI male burialat Dolní Větonice, Moravia (Svoboda et al. 1996).
Palaeoecology and the perception of prehistoric landscapes: some comments on visual approaches to phenomenology
Authors: Chapman Henry P. , Gearey Benjamin R.
Published: February 2017

Interpretation of archaeological landscapes has developed within two main disciplines. Social theory has provided a foundation for understanding cultural landscapes, and palaeoecology has provided techniques for understanding physical landscapes. Despite their potentially complementary nature, the two approaches remain polarized, and as described here, result in the incomplete studies of past landscapes.
An ivory cache from Botswana
Authors: Reid Andrew , Segobye Alinah K.
Published: February 2017

Research at Mosu I. northern Botswana, has discovered a 10th-century AD ivory cache. Although small, this is one of the largest single concentrations of ivory recovered from southern Africa. Consideration of other occurrences suggests that ivory was prepared throughout the area and traded as finished bangles.
Raw material selection and evidence for rhinoceros tooth tools at Dadong Cave, southern China
Authors: Miller-Antonio S. , Schepartz L. A. , Bakken D.
Published: February 2017

Research in Dadong Cave, southern China, has revealed evidence suggesting that nonlithic materials were used in the tool kits of the Chinese Lower Palaeolithic.
Elite commemoration in Early Modern England: reading funerary monuments
Authors: Wilson Jean
Published: February 2017

Research into the iconography and symbolism of early modern funerary monuments provides an important new approach to this unexploited source. Here the remarkable monuments to Sir Henry Savile are explored.
Flake production at the Lower Palaeolithic site of Holon (Israel): implications for the origin of the Levallois method
Authors: Chazan Michael
Published: February 2017

The analysis of flake production at the late Lower Palaeolithic site of Holon (Israel) suggests that the introduction of the Levallois method was an abrupt event related to a shift in the design of tools.
Hunter–gatherer subsistence at the end of the Pleistocene: preliminary results from Picareiro Cave, Central Portugal
Authors: Bicho Nuno Ferreira , Hockett Bryan , Haws Jonathan , Belcher William
Published: February 2017

Excavation at the site of Picareiro Cave in Portugal provides an important and rare sample of animal remains. Preliminary study shows that late Pleistocene hunter–gatherers hunted rabbits, deer and a wide variety of fauna, perhaps during seasonal occupation of the cave.
The Vijayan colonization and the archaeology of identity in Sri Lanka
Authors: Coningham Robin , Lewer Nick
Published: February 2017

In my tours throughout the interior, I found ancient monuments, apparently defying decay, of which no one could tell the date or the founder; and temples and cities in ruins, whose destroyers were equally unknown. SIR JAMES EMERSON TENNANT(1859: xxv).

There are competing, yet interlinked, identities in Sri Lanka through which people ‘establish, maintain, and protect a sense of self-meaning, predictability, and purpose’ (Northrup 1989: 55). These have become established over hundreds of years, and communities are attributed labels including Sinhala, Tamil, Vadda, Buddhist and Hindu (Coningham & Lewer 1999: 857). Sri Lanka is now experiencing what Azar (1990) has called a ‘protracted social conflict’, wherein a section of the Tamil communities led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are engaged in a struggle to establish a Tamil honieland or Eelam. International links, especially with south India, have had important implications on the formation of identities in Sri Lanka. Here we will focus on a key influence which has deep archaeological and political implications, whose interpretation has informed and distorted the present understanding of the concept and evolution of identities. This theme, the Vijayan colonization of the island, illustrates the formulation of identities, especially as derived from a historical chronicle, the Mahavamsa, which was ‘rediscovered’ by colonial officials in AD 1826 and has played a major role in determining the dynamics of this conflict.
Flaking properties, petrology and use of Polish flint
Authors: Domański Marian , Webb John A.
Published: February 2017

The technical and aesthetic qualities of the many varieties of Polish flint utilized from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age are analysed and assessed, and show how different flints were selected for different purposes.
Handaxes: products of sexual selection?
Authors: Kohn Marek , Mithen Steven
Published: February 2017

Why were handaxes made and why was their shape symmetrical and regular? These and many other questions are considered here, in a paper tackling hominid social behaviour and sexual selection.
Who were the ancestors? The origins of Chinese ancestral cult and racial myths
Authors: Liu Li
Published: February 2017

Ancestor worship has been a dominant religious form in ancient as well as modern China. It has shaped thought and behaviour for millennia, and has been used by élites as propaganda legitimizing their political positions. Ancestors can be created and modified, so the nature of the ancestral cult has changed through time. Using archaeological data from China, this article first enables an exploration of the earliest manifestations and the development of ancestor-worship ritual in the Neolithic period; secondly, demonstrates that lineage/tribal ancestors became state deities in the Shang dynasty (c. 1600-1100 BC); and, thirdly, investigates the process in modern history by which a legendary sage, the Yellow Emperor, was first transformed into the progenitor of the Han Chinese, and then into the common ancestor of all Chinese people.
Intensive agriculture and socio-political development in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico
Authors: Fisher Christopher T. , Pollard Helen P. , Frederick Charles
Published: February 2017

Intensive agriculture played a pivotal role in the development of archaic states, but there is considerable debate concerning its relationship to population growth, climatic variability, and centralization.
The oldest ever brush hut plant remains from Ohalo II, Jordan Valley, Israel (19,000 BP)
Authors: Nadel Dani , Werker Ella
Published: February 2017

Detailed excavation and analysis of a brush hut from Ohalo II, Jordan Valley, Israel, provides an extraordinary view of camp construction 19,000 years ago. This report offers an important contribution to studies of Palaeolithic camp sites.
Flint and pyrite: making fire in the Stone Age
Authors: Stapert Dick , Johansen Lykke
Published: February 2017

Flint implements with rounded ends, excavated at several Upper Palaeolithic sites in Denmark and Holland, are interpreted as strike-a-lights used in combination with pyrites. Experimental flints employed in this way show use-wear traces similar to those on the prehistoric specimens. It is suggested that the pyrite technique for fire production pre-dates wood-on-wood techniques, at least in Europe and in Greenland.
Imaging and imagining the Neanderthal: the role of technical drawings in archaeology
Authors: Van Reybrouck David
Published: February 2017

Reconstruction drawings intended to illustrate the realities of prehistoric life can be famously revealing of preconceptions in the minds of the modern illustrator and of the researcher who briefs the illustrator. But are the less interpretative drawings whose purpose is to record the material evidence more neutral in their look? Nineteenth-century technical illustrations of the Neanderthal skull are unintentionally revealing of attitude.
Why study a Greek vase-painter?–a response to Whitley's ‘Beazley as theorist’
Authors: Oakley John H.
Published: February 2017

John Oakley defends the legacy of Beazley in response to James Whitley's recent analysis of Beazley and his followers (ANTIQUITY 72: 40–47). The debate demonstrates how influential some past figures of archaeological methodology still are, and how diverse are the approaches of modern scholars in interpreting and using their legacy.
Size counts: the miniature archaeology of childhood in Inuit societies
Authors: Park Robert W.
Published: February 2017

The role and place of children is frequently overlooked in archaeology. Here Robert Park presents an intriguing analysis of the toys of childhood found in Inuit societies in Canada and Greenland, and assesses how such objects inform on the role of children in Arctic societies.
Excavations at Dun Vulan: a reinterpretation of the reappraised Iron Age
Authors: Gilmour Simon , Cook Murray
Published: February 2017

Recent excavation of Scottish Iron Age Brochs and wheelhouses enables new discussion of the development, dating and economic interpretation of these impressive structures. Here, Gilmour & Cook assess the work at Dun Vulan, South Uist, in the Western Isles.
Genetics, linguistics, and prehistory: thinking big and thinking straight
Authors: Sims-Williams Patrick
Published: February 2017

Many claims have been made linking ancient languages with genetically identified prehistoric and modern populations. There is much new ‘evidence’ and intense debate on the validity and appropriateness of such interdisciplinary work. Here Patrick Sims-Williams provides a timely comment on linguistics and the quest for ancient populations.
Ancient past, imperial present: the British Empire in T.J. Dunbabin's The western Greeks
Authors: Angelis Franco De
Published: February 2017

T.J. Dunbabin's book The western Greeks was published 50 years ago. In it he modelled the development of the Greek cities of Italy on the British Empire of the 1930s. Here Franco De Angelis explores the problem of faulty and distorting analogies.
Sir Thomas Spencer's Chinese seal
Authors: Hammond Norman , Xiao-Hui Wang
Published: February 2017

The discovery of an ancient Chinese seal in an Oxfordshire garden three centuries ago still provokes interest. This note examines how the seal came to be published by Dr Robert Plot, and what it might have represented.
Clarke in Mediterranean archaeology
Authors: Guidi Alessandro
Published: February 2017

When ANTIQUITY published the historical article by Clarke, I was a 20-year-old student, deeply engaged in field activities and substantially torn away from the ‘theoretical’ debate.

My archaeological loss of innocence happened only in the early 1980s, when I discovered (thanks to people like Maurizio Tosi and Anna Maria Bietti Sestieri) the enormous explanatory potential of processual theories.

It would be absurd to label the whole of Italian archaeology as ‘atheoretical’; as a matter of fact, a powerful theoretical machine, the Marxist theory, had operated from the late 1960s, thanks to the group of Dialoghi di Archeologia. The problem was in the idealistic roots of our (academic) culture, characterized by a programmatic divorce between humanistic and scientific studies and from a substantial lack of interest for the anthropological theories.
Hindsight and foresight: preserving the past for the future
Authors: Sherratt Andrew
Published: February 2017

ANTIQUITY asked Andrew Sherratt, who had been a student of David Clarke at peterhouse, Cambridge in the late 1960s and early '70s, to give his reaction to the foregoing papers, in the light of his recollections of the time.
Cosmogenic radiation nuclides in archaeology: a response to Phillips et al.
Authors: Bednarik Robert G.
Published: February 2017

Various methods have been employed in the attempt to date rock-art. Here Robert Bednarik offers a critique of the cosmogenic radiation nuclides method, and its application to the Côa petroglyphs.
Illicit antiquities and international litigation–the Turkish experience
Authors: Blake Janet
Published: February 2017

In March, we discussed the founding of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre (IARC) at the McDonald Institute in Cambridge (ANTIQUITY72: 4–5). Here we publish a contribution towards the debate on the theft of antiquities from Turkey and their acquisition by museums in the USA. Turkey has long had an active policy in fighting cases for restitution of its heritage, and Janet Blake describes their success.
Stonehenge:isthe medium the message?
Authors: Barrett John C. , Fewster Kathryn J.
Published: February 2017

In June ANTIQUITYpublished a novel contribution by Mike Parker Pearson and his Madagascan colleague Ramilisonina, which addressed the question of the significance of stone at Stonehenge(ANTIQUITY72: 308–76). They argued that stone symbolized death and the dead, and provided examples from ethnographic studies to support this notion. The paper has stimulated two replies–from John Barrett & Kathryn Fewster, and from Alasdair Whittle. We are pleased to publish these here, as part of the continuing debate on analogy in archaeology, and on Stonehenge.
People and the diverse past: two comments on ‘Stonehenge for the ancestors’
Authors: Whittle Alasdair
Published: February 2017

The richly textured paper on Stonehenge by Mike Parker Pearson & Ramilisonina (1998) develops exciting new ways of looking at Stonehenge and other stone monuments, drawing on analogies from Madagascar and elsewhere to elaborate the importance of ancestors in kinship-based societies. The presentation of practices and beliefs related to ancestors in parts of Madagascar is particularly powerful. Their Neolithic model gains extra credence by being applied not only to Stonehenge but also to the Avebury complex. In the latter case, I find their suggestion of a parallelism in layout between Avebury and the West Kennet Avenue on the one hand and West Kennet palisade enclosure 2 and Outer Radial Ditch 1 plus Structure 4 on the other, very convincing. That relationship may just have been reinforced by the recognition this year by RCHME on aerial photographs (Bob Bewley pers. comm.) ofanotherouter radial ditch leading from Palisade Enclosure 2 toanothercircular external structure, on more or less the same alignment as the first set. The recognition of a social setting for these monument complexes and traditions different to that envisaged in chiefdom models is also very welcome.
Stonehenge for the ancestors: part two
Authors: Pearson M. Parker , Ramilisonina
Published: February 2017

We have identified a structuring principle of hardening in the passage from life to ancestorhood which can be found in contemporary Madagascar, Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain and, for that matter, contemporary Britain. The use of analogy that we have preferred is not the formal ethnographic parallel, nor is it crosscultural generalization, but a relational analogy; we did not intend to apply it as a ‘universal’ but as a ‘What if … 7’ scenario — unfortunately we inadvertently gave Barrett & Fewster, and perhaps other readers, the wrong end of the stick. What is important is not the analogyper se— it ultimately tells us only that such things are possible rather than universal — but whether the archaeological evidence in question can be adequately explained in this way through detailed contextual study. The analogy merely provides the comparison; its suitability is decided by the degree of corroboration and goodness of fit with the evidence of the archaeological case-study.
The origins of rice agriculture: recent progress in East Asia
Authors: Crawford Gary W. , Shen Chen
Published: February 2017

Knowledge of rice domestication and its archaeological context has been increasing explosively of late. Nearly 20 years ago rice from the Hemudu and Luojiajiao sites (FIGURE 1) indicated that rice domestication likely began before 5000 BC (Crawford 1992; Lin 1992; Yan 1990). By the late 1980s news of rice from the south-central China Pengtoushan site a thousand years older than Hemudu began to circulate (Bellwoodet al.1992; Hunan 1990; Pei 1989). Undocumented news of sites having a median date of 11,500 BP with domesticated rice has recently made the rounds (Normile 1997). In addition, the first domesticated rice in Southeast Asia, once thought to be to be older than the first rice in China, is not as old as once thought (Glover & Higham 1996: 422; Higham 1995). Finally, wild rice (Oryza rufipogon) was reported to be growing in the Yangzi valley, well outside its purported original range, making domestication there plausible (Yan 1989; 1990; 1997). Significant progress continued to be made in the 1990s and unlike research on other major crops, the literature is generally not accessible to western scholars, with some exceptions (Ahn 1993; Crawford 1992; Glover & Higham 1996; Higham 1995; MacNeishet al. 1997; Underhill 1997).
The Middle Yangtze region in China is one place where rice was domesticated: phytolith evidence from the Diaotonghuan Cave, Northern Jiangxi
Authors: Zhijun Zhao
Published: February 2017

Rice, Oryza sativa L., is one of the most important cereal crops in the world, and its emergence as a domesticated subsistence plant drives much of the interest and research in archaeology in South and East Asia. The homeland of domesticated rice has been proposed as:

1 a specific area, such as India (Vavilov 1926; Ramiah & Ghose 1951), South China (Ding 1957), Southeast Asia (Spencer 1963) and the Yangtze valley in China (Yan 1982; 1989)

2 a biogeographic region, such as the so-called ‘belt region’ with a great diversity of Oryza species (Chang 1976), or

3 an ecological zone, such as coastal swamp habitats (Higham 1995).
Some botanical characteristics of green foxtail (Setaria viridis) and harvesting experiments on the grass
Authors: Lu Tracey L.-D.
Published: February 2017

Green foxtail (Setaria viridis) is an annual grass widely distributed over the Old World, including China, where evidence of the earliest foxtail millet domestication to date has been discovered in the Cishan assemblage, Hebei province, dated to approximately 7900–7500 BP (Institute of Archaeology CASS 1991). Isozymic analysis and interspecific cross between S. viridis and S. italica (domesticated foxtail millet) demonstrated that S. viridis is the progenitor of domesticated foxtail millet (Gao & Chen 1988; Li et al. 1945). Yet little is known about the process of millet domestication, and even less about either the botanical characteristics of S. viridis or its cultural significance regarding human domestication.
Gibraltar Neanderthals and results of recent excavations in Gorham's, Vanguard and Ibex Caves
Authors: Barton R. N. E. , Currant A. P. , Fernandez-Jalvo Y. , Finlayson J. C. , Goldberg P. , MacPhail R. , Pettitt P. B. , Stringer C. B.
Published: February 2017

In December 1998, we presented a Special section on great finds and publications of 1848. The discovery of the Gibraltar skull was in that famous year. Now, 150 years later new excavations and a recent conference have once again focused interest on this, the first place where Neanderthal remains were found.
The archaeology of Dian: trends and tradition
Authors: Allard Francis
Published: February 2017

The Dian culture of eastern Yunnan in southwest China is known particularly for its fine material culture. Much new work has been done to explore the militaristic Dian, and this paper provides an up-to-date discussion of its importance and its archaeology.
Excavations at Dun Vulan: a correction
Authors: Pearson Mike Parker , Sharples Niall , Mulville Jacqui
Published: February 2017

In June 1998, we published a discussion on the interpretation of Iron Age Scottish brochs and wheelhouses. Gilmour & Cook challenged the ideas published by Parker Pearson et al. in 1996. Here, that challenge is taken up.
Ethnicity, culture and identity: French archaeologists and historians
Authors: Demoule Jean-Paul
Published: February 2017

The state of French archaeological theory has been recently covered by two French-authored papers in English (Audouze & Leroi-Gourhan 1981; Cleuziou et al. 1991). These articles emphasize the weight of national tradition and demonstrate the unique position of France between two great currents of European, indeed world, archaeology: Germanic (concerned with cultural and chronological classification) and English-speaking (more interested in general interpretative models). These two articles also ponder another phenomenon: the relative absence of French archaeology in theoretical — notably post-processual — debate.
Sea-level change and the archaeology of early Venice
Authors: Ammerman A. J. , McClennen C. E. , de Min M. , Housley R.
Published: February 2017

The threatened city of Venice, plauged by rising sea levels and subsiding ground, has been the subject of recent archaeological investigation. Studies of buried archaeological sites yield new evidence on trends in sea-level change for the Lagoon of Venice and provide important insight into how early habitation responded to such change.
The catalogues of the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Farnham, Dorset
Authors: Thomspson Michael , Renfrew Colin
Published: February 2017

The beautifully illustrated catalogues of Lieutenant General Pitt-Rivers collections at Farnham have recently been presented to the University of Cambridge — where they will be in the public domain for the first time. The background to the collections and their catalogues is an intriguing story, showing the precision and detail demanded by Pitt-Rivers for his Farnham Museum. We are pleased to present some examples here, printed in colour and showing the range of the Victorian collector par excellence.
Encoding information: unique Natufian objects from Hayonim Cave, Western Galilee, Israel
Authors: Bar-Yosef O. , Belfer-Cohen A.
Published: February 2017

New incised bone and limestone Natufian objects discovered during the 1997 season of excavations at Hayonim cave (Western Galilee, Israel), as well as a bone object found earlier in Kebara cave (Mount Carmel), indicate direct connections between the two sites. The incised pattern on the slab is interpreted as supportive evidence for emerging territoriality among Natufian communities in the Levant.
Neolithic nomads at El Multaga, Upper Nubia, Sudan
Authors: Peressinotto D. , Schmitt A. , Lecointe Y. , Pouriel R. , Geus F.
Published: February 2017

Investigations in the El Multaga area, located in Upper Nubia, brought to light Neolithic burials differing from other known local and contemporary burial sites. The skeletons lay under moundS in a very contracted positions inside pits just large enough to contain them. Grave goods are not regular and rather poor. The authors feel that such practices probably relate to local nomadic groups. The cemetery which had not been picked up by research surveys was discovered in a salvage project.
The meanings of standardisation: conical cups in the late Bronze Age Aegean
Authors: Berg Ina
Published: February 2017

Standardisation is not simply an indicator of economic factors, such as mass-production or craft specialization but can have roots which may be technical, social or political. Here the fabric, forming technique and dimensions of conical cups in the Bronze Age Aegean are studied by comparing products from the islands of Kea and Melos. While the fabric and forming technique on both islands are standardised and emulate Cretan models, the degree of standardisation of the pottery shapes varies between the two sites. This is explained by their having different social contexts of production.
Temple Sites in Kahikinui, Maui, Hawaiian Islands: their orientations decoded
Authors: Kirch Patrick V.
Published: February 2017

Hawaiian temple sites of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries have diverse orientations previously thought to be random. Using precise measurements and nineteenth-century native Hawaiian sources, the author shows that the temples cluster into groups whose orientation was deliberate and likely to relate to a particular god.
Theory and practice in the study of Mesopotamian domestic space
Authors: Brusasco Paolo
Published: February 2017

This study compares the results of space syntax analysis of houses in Babylonian Ur with similar analyses on modern households in Baghdad and among the Ashanti. The social organisations identified were then compared with the written evidence for Ur surviving on site in cuneiform tablets. This opportunity to examine spatial, ethnographic and documentary evidence together offers a deep reading of Ur society.
Three cemeteries and a Byzantine Church: a ritual landscape at Yasieleh, Jordan
Authors: Al-Shorman Abdulla
Published: February 2017

The Byzantine period in Jordan represents a dramatic change in landscape from the Roman period that preceded it. In this case study the author shows how a sixth century Byzantine church was surrounded by three cemeteries which reflected and maintained the social ranks of the congregation and their different roles in agricultural production.
Non-destructive provenancing of bluestone axe-heads in Britain
Authors: Williams-Thorpe Olwen , Potts P.J. , Jones M.C.
Published: February 2017

The authors present a new procedure for discovering where stone artefacts come from without having to cut a slice through them. The method is tested on axes of spotted dolerite bluestone from Preseli in Wales, source of monoliths at Stonehenge.
An unfinished temple at the Classic Maya centre of Aguateca, Guatemala
Authors: Inomata Takeshi , Ponciano Erick , Chinchilla Oswaldo , Román Otto , Breuil-Martínez Véronique , Santos Oscar
Published: February 2017

The authors demonstrate that a temple examined at the Classic Maya site of Aguateca, Guatemala, was still in the process of construction when it was attacked and abandoned at the beginning of the ninth century AD. Study of the ruin has provided valuable information on Maya building methods and processes, as well as guidance on how unfinished buildings may be identified.
Power and place: Agency, ecology, and history in the American Bottom, Illinois
Authors: Schroeder Sissel
Published: February 2017

Is ecology or agency the principal imperative of the formation of complex societies? Using new survey data, the author shows how both interest in the development of the riverside settlement area of the American Bottom and how the different modern histories of the northern (industrial) and the southern (agricultural) American Bottom, have affected the survival of evidence and how this in turn has favoured a different emphasis in interpretation for each.
Reassessing the chronology of Biblical Edom: new excavations and14C dates from Khirbat en-Nahas (Jordan)
Authors: Levy Thomas E. , Adams Russell B. , Najjar Mohammad , Hauptmann Andreas , Anderson James D. , Brandl Baruch , Robinson Mark A. , Higham Thomas
Published: February 2017

An international team of researchers show how high-precision radiocarbon dating is liberating us from chronological assumptions based on Biblical research. Surface and topographic mapping at the large copper-working site of Khirbat en-Nahas was followed by stratigraphic excavations at an ancient fortress and two metal processing facilities located on the site surface. The results were spectacular. Occupation begins here in the eleventh century BC and the monumental fortress is built in the tenth. If this site can be equated with the rise of the Biblical kingdom of Edom it can now be seen to: have its roots in local Iron Age societies; is considerably earlier than previous scholars assumed; and proves that complex societies existed in Edom long before the influence of Assyrian imperialism was felt in the region from the eighth – sixth centuries BC.
Microlith to macrolith: the reasons behind the transformation of production in the Irish Mesolithic
Authors: Costa Laurent J. , Sternke Farina , Woodman Peter C.
Published: February 2017

In a new study the authors explore the reasons behind the remarkable change in the procurement and choice of stone tools that occurred half way through the Irish Mesolithic. The abandonment of microliths and the adoption of a broad blade technology around 7000 BC is here attributed to a need for multi-purpose tools made from a variety of materials, serving smaller and more mobile communities.
Raw, pre-heated or ready to use: discovering specialist supply systems for flint industries in mid-Neolithic (Chassey culture) communities in southern France
Authors: Léa Vanessa
Published: February 2017

The silex blond or honey-coloured (Bédoulien) flints which originate in the Vaucluse are distributed over a wide area of the south of France and beyond. Examination of the features of cores and blades shows that a variety of supply systems were in use: in some cases the raw material was transported as blades, in others as heated preforms to make it easier to knap. Different places were targeted with different products. The paper is dedicated to Patricia Phillips who beat a path through to this more sophisticated, more diverse Neolithic world.
Core–periphery relations in the Recuay hinterlands: economic interaction at Chinchawas, Peru
Authors: Lau George F.
Published: February 2017

The author explores a changing core–periphery relationship in first millennium AD Peru, from the viewpoint of a small North Highlands village.
On the eve of Islam: archaeological evidence from Eastern Arabia
Authors: Kennet Derek
Published: February 2017

What was the archaeological context of the rise of Islam in Arabia? The author uses new work from Eastern Arabia to show that the advent of Islam coincided with the decline of the Sasanian hegemony and one of Arabia’s least affluent periods in 3500 years of history.
Buddhism,Pax Kushanaand Greco-Roman motifs: pattern and purpose in Gandharan iconography
Authors: Aldrovandi Cibele , Hirata Elaine
Published: February 2017

The authors show how the Gandharan art of early first millennium Afghanistan used Greek and Roman motifs to give an international context to Buddhist sculpture and reduce tension at home and with the neighbours.
Focus on Islam II: The rural landscape of
Jordan in the seventh-nineteenth centuries AD: the
Kerak Plateau
Authors: McQuitty Alison
Published: February 2017

Our knowledge of rural settlement in
Jordan during the Islamic periods is strongly
coloured by perceptions about the relationship
between the ‘Desert’ and the ‘Sown’, between
‘nomad’ and ‘farmer’. This has affected
interpretations regarding settlement pattern and
economy. In addition, there have been
methodological problems in collecting the data
relevant to these interpretations. An alternative
to this polarised model is suggested and used to
interpret the settlement history of Khirbat Faris,
more particularly its architecture.
Two hiatuses in human bone radiocarbon dates in Britain (17 000 to 5000 cal BP)
Authors: Blockley Stella M.
Published: February 2017

Undertaking a comprehensive review of radiocarbon dates for the 12 000 years preceding the Neolithic in Britain, the author defines two periods when human remains become hard to find. One of these (already noted by Chamberlain) lies between 7-6000 BP; the other, a new addition, runs from 13 850 to 11 000 BP. What could have caused these ‘hiatuses’? Comparison of dated human remains and dated activities associated with humans, with the climatic record from ice cores, shows that the most likely explanation was a change in burial practice, even if this was itself one of a chain of behavioural changes initiated by the rise in sea level.
Land tenure, competition and ecology in Fijian prehistory
Authors: Field Julie S.
Published: February 2017

How do prehistoric settlement patterns relate to competition for resources? The distribution of fortified and open sites provides one indication, but using an example from Fiji, the author shows that land holding recorded in historic times may also provide a fossil of earlier competition. Comparing the land parcels and the fortified sites with the ecological zones showed that it was the richer – but less reliable – lower parts of the Sigatoka valley that were most fought over, leaving a patchwork of small defended claims, while the upper areas supported larger, co-operative land units.
Wind-towers and pearl fishing: architectural signals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Arabian Gulf
Authors: Hawker Ronald , Hull Daniel , Rouhani Omid
Published: February 2017

In this exercise in early modern Islamic archaeology, the authors make an intriguing link between pearl fishing and the wind-towers which provided air-conditioning to the luxury apartments of the successful merchants.
‘Indo-European’ designates languages: not pots and not institutions
Authors: Renfrew Colin
Published: February 2017

Kristian Kristiansen, cogent critic though he may be, commits a category error of a depressingly familiar kind. It is a confusion which has led distinguished scholars such as Dumézil into error, and which, by allowing the conflation of such categories as language, ethnicity, race and institution, worked to the detriment of many groups and nations during the twentieth century, and now, no doubt, also in the twenty-first.

Nowhere does he define precisely what he imagines the term ‘Indo-European’ to mean. Following the perspective agreed by most historical linguists I take it to be a linguistic term, pertaining therefore to languages, members of the language family first recognised by Sir William Jones in 1786, and then further analysed and defined by subsequent generations of linguists. Through examination of the phonology, the morphology and the lexicon, all of which are well-defined and well-understood, it can readily be decided and demonstrated whether a specific language belongs to this family or not. So that when Hittite emerged in the early twentieth century from the archives of Hattusa, and later when documents in Tocharian were discovered and deciphered, the place of both those languages within that family could readily be agreed. Such a methodology is clearly not applicable to social institutions: it only works with words.
Problem formulation and historical context define terminology and relevance – not linguistic formalism
Authors: Kristiansen Kristian
Published: February 2017

In his response, Colin Renfrew retreats to a formalistic argument – Indo-European can only mean a language family. It has nothing to do whatsoever with institutions or religion. This statement simply writes off a whole academic discourse of Indo-European studies. Consequently Renfrew does not accept an argument that links the spread of an institution to a concomitant spread of its language or its terminology. In opposition to this I consider Indo-European languages to have a history linked to social and economic processes of change that we still know too little about. However, it implies a relationship between them, as Colin Renfrew cogently argues in his book (Renfrew 1987: chapter 6). Institutions which appear to have their origin in the Proto-Indo-European period, and which are still preserved – like language diversified – in later Indo-European religious mythology or sagas, are consequently termed Indo-European in this specific research context, as they share a common history. Often they also share a common terminology that can be demonstrated to have a Proto-Indo-European origin. In that they are interlinked in one way or another with language. It is therefore a worthy research task to consider if processes of language spread and the spread of institutions are interlinked, given that their terminology share a common origin.

From this follows that we must either abolish the term Indo-European completely, or accept that it embodies a number of social and religious traditions and institutions whose history cannot be totally separated from that of language, as their meaning is expressed in a specific Indo-European terminology. The danger of political misuse does not originate from research into this relationship; it originates from simplistic theoretical and methodological conflations of such categories with racist and chauvinistic historical constructions. The relationship between language and DNA, which Colin Renfrew has propagated, is no less subject to such manipulation. The only weapon against this is a developed theoretical and methodological strategy.
Gertrude Bell
Authors: Hill Stephen
Published: February 2017

Gertrude Bell first visited the East in 1886 when, after graduating with a First in Modern History—the first woman to do so, she went to stay with diplomatic relatives in Bucharest ‘to get rid of her Oxfordy manner’. From Bucharest she visited Constantinople. In 1892 she went to stay in Tehran: before the trip she devoted herself to learning Persian. From her observations of Persia and Turkey she wrote her first book of travel, Safar Nameh—Persian pictures, which was published ‘reluctantly and anonymously’ in 1894. She also worked on a translation, Poems from the Divan of Hafiz, which was published in 1897.
A fermented milk concentrate and a combination of short-chain galacto-oligosaccharides/long-chain fructo-oligosaccharides/pectin-derived acidic oligosaccharides protect suckling rats from rotavirus gastroenteritis
Authors: Rigo-Adrover Mar , Pérez-Berezo Teresa , Ramos-Romero Sara , van Limpt Kees , Knipping Karen , Garssen Johan , Knol Jan , Franch Àngels , Castell Margarida , Pérez-Cano Francisco J.
Published: February 2017

Human milk contains bioactive compounds that confer a protective role against gastrointestinal infections. In order to find supplements for an infant formula able to mimic these benefits of breast-feeding, two different concepts were tested. The products consisted of the following: (1) aBifidobacterium breve- andStreptococcus thermophilus-fermented formula and (2) a combination of short-chain galacto-oligosaccharides/long-chain fructo-oligosaccharides with pectin-derived acidic oligosaccharides. A rotavirus infection suckling rat model was used to evaluate improvements in the infectious process and in the immune response of supplemented animals. Both nutritional concepts caused amelioration of the clinical symptoms, even though this was sometimes hidden by softer stool consistency in the supplemented groups. Both products also showed certain modulation of immune response, which seemed to be enhanced earlier and was accompanied by a faster resolution of the process. The viral shedding and thein vitroblocking assay suggest that these products are able to bind the viral particles, which can result in a milder infection. In conclusion, both concepts evaluated in this study showed interesting protective properties against rotavirus infection, which deserve to be investigated further.
SAMELSON PRODUCTS IN p-REGULAR SO(2n) AND ITS HOMOTOPY NORMALITY
Authors: KISHIMOTO DAISUKE , TSUTAYA MITSUNOBU
Published: February 2017

A Lie group is called p-regular if it has the p-local homotopy type of a product of spheres. (Non)triviality of the Samelson products of the inclusions of the factor spheres into p-regular SO(2n(p) is determined, which completes the list of (non)triviality of such Samelson products in p-regular simple Lie groups. As an application, we determine the homotopy normality of the inclusion SO(2n − 1) → SO(2n) in the sense of James at any prime p.
Extreme values of non-stationary random sequences
Authors: Hüsler Jürg
Published: February 2017

We extend some results of the extreme-value theory of stationary random sequences to non-stationary random sequences. The extremal index, defined in the stationary case, plays a similar role in the extended case. The details show that this index describes not only the behaviour of exceedances above a high level but also above a non-constant high boundary.
Parasite life-cycle studies: a plea to resurrect an old parasitological tradition
Authors: Blasco-Costa I. , Poulin R.
Published: February 2017

Many helminth taxa have complex life cycles, involving different life stages infecting different host species in a particular order to complete a single generation. Although the broad outlines of these cycles are known for any higher taxon, the details (morphology and biology of juvenile stages, specific identity of intermediate hosts) are generally unknown for particular species. In this review, we first provide quantitative evidence that although new helminth species are described annually at an increasing rate, the parallel effort to elucidate life cycles has become disproportionately smaller over time. We then review the use of morphological matching, experimental infections and genetic matching as approaches to elucidate helminth life cycles. Next we discuss the various research areas or disciplines that could benefit from a solid knowledge of particular life cycles, including integrative taxonomy, the study of parasite evolution, food-web ecology, and the management and control of parasitic diseases. Finally, we end by proposing changes to the requirements for new species descriptions and further large-scale attempts to genetically match adult and juvenile helminth stages in regional faunas, as part of a plea to parasitologists to bring parasite life-cycle studies back into mainstream research.
Napier Tercentenary Celebration, July 1914
Authors: Knott C.G.
Published: February 2017

John Napier's Logarithmorum Canonis Mirifici Descriptio was published in 1614 ; and it is proposed to celebrate the tercentenary of this great event in the history of mathematics by a Congress, to be held in Edinburgh on Friday, 24th July, 1914, and following days.

The Celebration is being held under the auspices of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, on whose invitation a General Committee has been formed, representing the Royal Society of London, the Royal Astronomical Society, the Town Council of Edinburgh, the Faculty of Actuaries, the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow, the Universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, the University College of Dundee, and many other bodies and institutions of educational importance.

The President and Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh have now the honour of giving a general invitation to mathematicians and others interested in this coming Celebration.
The Edinburgh Mathematical Colloquium
Authors: Knott C. G.
Published: February 2017

THE first Mathematical Colloquium held in Edinburgh met during the first week of August, and proved a great success. It was organised by the office-bearers of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, A. G. Burgess, M.A., F.R.S.E., and Peter Comrie, M.A., B.Sc, F.R.S.E., respectively the President and Secretary of that Society, being also President and Secretary of the Colloquium. The idea of holding such a colloquium was an outcome of Professor Whittaker’s announcement that he purposed organising, as part of the Mathematical Honours curriculum in the University of Edinburgh, a mathematical laboratory for systematic numerical discussion of functions and methods of calculation. Several correspondents had expressed the hope that vacation courses in this line of study might be established; and it was decided to make a first experiment. It was resolved, however, not to limit the colloquium to a discussion of one branch of mathematics, but to enlarge its scope by the inclusion of two other domains of mathematical thought. The broad features of the programme we owe to Professor Whittaker; and its variety was such as to appeal to all types of mathematical mind.