Pollen analytical investigations at Crosby Warren, Lincolnshire, in the Vicinity of the iron age and Romano-British settlement of Dragonby

Open-cast ironstone mining at Crosby Warren, near Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire exposed an extensive section through “cover sand” deposits. revealing buried podzol soils and peat layers. Stratigraphic studies, pollen analysis and radiocarbon dating have been carried out on three representative profiles. From these investigations it would appear that the “cover sands” in this area were stabilized under mixed oak woodland by c. 300 BC. After c. 100 BC woodland clearance and farming activities have been distinguished. Local alterations in land-use may be linked with cultural developments at the nearby Iron Age and Romano-British settlement of Dragonby. It is suggested that the impact of man upon the vegetation during Iron Age and Romano-British times probably facilitated podzolization and sand blowing.     

Account of a Roman Sepulchre at Geldestone,Norfolk

Rescue excavation between 1988 and 1990 in advance of river erosion examined a substantial part of the small medieval rural hospital of St Giles by Brompton Bridge and later post-medieval farm. Established in the latter half of the twelfth century for the infirm, including lepers, the hospital layout consisted of a detached stone chapel adjacent to the river crossing, with a timber hall to the west. This hall was destroyed by fire, and a sequence of timber buildings were then constructed in adjacent areas. By the fifteenth century these structures also included a stone building, possibly a refectory. The first small chapel was replaced in the thirteenth century by a larger structure, which went through a period of expansion and then subsequent contraction by the fifteenth century. Only in the fourteenth century were a hall, probably a guesthouse or the master's lodgings, and dovecote built adjacent to the chapel. The cemetery to the south of the chapel was partially examined. The site appears to have been a largely economically self-sufficient unit with an attached farm. The hospital was abandoned during the latter half of the fifteenth century, but the site and some of the buildings were subsequently reoccupied as a farm from the mid-seventeenth century. The farmhouse underwent conversion from a longhouse to a house of hearth-passage plan in the early eighteenth century. The former chapel was reused as a byre and additional stables constructed. The farm was moved to its present location to the south in the mid-eighteenth century and the former hospital site finally abandoned.     

Account of an Informed Bat Exclusion at the Temple of Deir el-Shelwit,Luxor, Egypt

Abstract

The conservation of the painted Roman-era reliefs in the temple of Deir el Shelwit in Luxor, Egypt, was recently initiated by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE). As a critical step in a series of preliminary preventive conservation measures undertaken at the temple, a resident bat colony was excluded to control further deterioration of the painted reliefs and stone fabric (Figure 1). In consultation with a bat biologist, a comprehensive humane, low-tech emergency exclusion programme was designed and implemented, which included roost location, behavioural surveys, species identification, sealing of building openings, bat exclusion and the design of an alternate roost site. This programme may serve as a useful example for other conservation projects in Luxor, since it provides much-needed information on the behaviour of local bats, as well as relevant insights gained from the exclusion procedure.     

A Mazandarani Account of the Babi Incident at Shaikh Tabarsi

This article transcribes and glosses a nineteenth-century Mazandarani document on Babi-state conflict at Shaikh Tabarsi. Collected in 1860 in the town of Barfurush, it was published five years later by Boris Andreevich Dorn in Perso-Arabic characters. The text is the first known prose document based on natural speech in the modern Mazandarani language. The language of the text is fundamentally the same as that spoken today in the Persian province of Mazandaran, located south of the Caspian Sea. As one expects, however, there are certain extinct traits in the text, which could be identified only by comparison with other surviving Mazandarani documents of the same period. The text will contribute to the study of the largely understudied language of Mazandaran, particularly to its development since the composition of the text. It may also serve as a supplementary historical document for the historic incident it narrates.     

Constructing Identities in Early Iron Age Thessaly: The Case of the Halos Tumuli

This paper examines the Early Iron Age tumulus–cemetery of Halos in south–eastern Thessaly, with its unique cremation pyre–cairn combination. As there are no parallels for such combination of burial practices either in Thessaly or in any other area of the Greek world, it has usually been suggested that the tumuli were erected by people foreign to Thessaly, most probably of a northern origin. This paper presents evidence suggesting a local custom closely related to the desire to create a new identity.     

川东北历代古墓葬的调查研究

本择川东北达州、巴中两地、市(1993年以前为达县地区)近20年来物普查、考古发现的历代墓葬资料，为大巴山南麓之渠江流域历代古墓葬的葬式以及所反映的化内涵，勾勒了一条粗的线索。