Dendrochronological Dating of Wooden Artefacts using Photography

Core sampling is normally used for dendrochronological age determination of both timber and living trees. As core sampling can seriously damage artefacts, a photographic method was tried on 29 wooden objects made of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.). These were photographed and tree‐ring sequences for dendrochronological analysis were measured on the photographs in the laboratory. Nine objects could be dated. The undatable objects had few tree‐rings or a non‐matching tree‐ring pattern. The region in Norway where the material had grown could be determined by matching against various regional chronologies.     

INVESTIGATION OF THE CONTENT OF ANCIENT TIBETAN METALLIC BUDDHA STATUES BY MEANS OF NEUTRON IMAGING METHODS

Many important cultural and religious objects from Asia consist of outer metallic shapes, usually bronze, which fully enclose inner contents made of organic materials such as wood, bark, paper, textile, plants and others. Bronze and other metallic materials, such as copper and silver, are generally more transparent to neutrons than to X‐rays. However, organic materials are less transparent to neutrons than to X‐rays and therefore organic materials, enclosed by metallic materials, can be made visible with neutrons. Therefore, neutron imaging (radiography and tomography) was found to be an ideal tool for the inspection of objects that consist of metal outside and organic materials inside. This has been successfully demonstrated here with four metallic Tibetan Buddha statues, providing archaeometry with a powerful new tool. The first successful applications of this novel technique are described in this article. Further possible and useful applications of neutron imaging of cultural objects are outlined.     

Are Teeth Better? Histological Characterization of Diagenesis in Archaeological Bone–Tooth Pairs and a Discussion of the Consequences for Archaeometric Sample Selection and Analyses

Teeth are often the preferred source material for isotopic and genetic assay involving ancient biomolecules. The assumption is that dental tissue preserves better due to its anatomically protected location, the enamel cap, and lower porosity compared to bone. However, this assumption has not been widely tested. Some similarities in diagenetic processes are to be expected due to similarities in structure and chemical composition of dentine and bone. This has led to the suggestion that bone can be used as an indicator of dental preservation, as a pre‐screening technique in the selection of suitable samples for biomolecular studies. Thus, direct testing of the correlation between bone and tooth preservation and diagenesis is needed. This paper reports the results of the histological characterization of diagenetic alterations within 25 human femur–tooth pairs, from a Medieval to modern (AD 1850) cemetery in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The results showed that teeth do indeed preserve better overall, but not always, and that this was dependent on the main diagenetic factor(s) at the burial location. Furthermore, good correlations are found between the microstructural preservation of bone and teeth; similar processes of decay were observed within bone and teeth of the same individual. Overall, the study demonstrated that histological analysis of bone is useful for the identification of degradation processes that affect biomolecular preservation in skeletal material. In this way, sample selection and analytical strategies can be optimized. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hybrid finite element–finite volume discretization of complex geologic structures and a new simulation workflow demonstrated on fractured rocks

The generation of computational meshes of complex geological objects is a challenge: their shape needs to be retained, resolution has to adapt to local detail, and variations of material properties in the objects have to be represented. Also mesh refinement and adaptation must be sufficient to resolve variations in the computed variable(s). Here, we present an unstructured hybrid finite element, node‐centred finite‐volume discretization suitable for solving fluid flow, reactive transport, and mechanical partial differential equations on a complex geometry with inhomogeneous material domains. We show that resulting meshes accurately capture free‐form material interfaces as defined by non‐uniform rational B‐spline curves and surfaces. The mesh discretization error is analysed for the elliptic pressure equation and an error metric is introduced to guide mesh refinement. Finite elements and finite volumes are represented in parametric space and integrations are conducted numerically. Subsequently, integral properties are mapped to physical space using Jacobian transformations. This method even retains its validity when the mesh is deformed. The resulting generic formulation is demonstrated for a transport calculation performed on a complex discrete fracture model.     

历史街区的基本特性及其保护原则

论文首先分析了历史街区的三个基本特性:风貌的完整性和典型性、遗存的真实性和空间的功能性,并据此提出和阐述了历史街区保护应遵循的原则:全面保护原则、真实性保护原则、完善功能保护原则和渐进更新保护原则,以期对历史街区的保护实践有所裨益。     

Conquest,ceramics, continuity and change. Beyond representational approaches to continuity and change in early medieval England: a case study from Anglo‐Norman Southampton

Studies of Anglo‐Norman material culture, and pottery in particular, have struggled to see how processes of change are reflected in the material record. In this paper I propose a new approach to the analysis of this material. By reconstructing how people interacted with objects, we can see how the agency to create Anglo‐Norman England was distributed through interactions between people and their surroundings. Furthermore, rather than being reflected in such interactions, continuity and change flowed through engagements with objects, generating unique meanings and experiences. This approach therefore challenges the existing ontology that underlies our understanding of the period and its political developments and ethnic identities.     

Differentiation of archaeological ivory and bone materials by micro-PIXE/PIGE with emphasis on two Upper Palaeolithic key sites: Abri Pataud and Isturitz,France

The exact identification of the raw material used for ancient bone objects is the basis to understand the manner in which humans in ancient times chose the medium for the manufacture of objects. The material identification is not trivial in the case of highly modified surfaces – worked by man or degraded by diagenesis. Even if bone materials are morphologically quite different, they show in general a very similar chemical composition. Nevertheless, slight differences can be observed in their chemical composition on minor and trace level. These variations may be used as a marker of their exact nature, when other means such as morphological observations are limited. A large data base was built up by analysing different modern and archaeological osseous materials in order to define chemical markers for the identification of the raw materials used to manufacture objects.Micro-Proton Induced X-ray and Gamma-ray Emission (micro-PIXE/PIGE) was chosen to analyse the different bone materials as a non-invasive method is generally required for the study of ancient worked osseous objects. These analyses were performed at the particle accelerator AGLAE installed at the laboratory of the C2RMF, Paris.This paper presents the results obtained on about 150 objects made of different bone materials dating from the Palaeolithic to today and coming from various archaeological sites, mainly in France. Some chemical markers seem to be characteristic, such as the magnesium to calcium ratio for well preserved ivory on one hand and the fluorine content versus strontium to calcium ratio for bones of marine mammals on the other hand. The limits of this approach and the different parameters to consider for an identification of ancient bone and ivory material based on this method are particularly discussed in the case of Palaeolithic material from Abri Pataud and Isturitz, France.     

布达拉宫壁画的保护研究

布达拉宫是一处世界文化遗产,保存了大量的反映西藏政治、经济、文化、社会生活、佛教等题材的壁画,具有极高的历史价值、艺术价值和科学价值。受自然和人为因素的影响,壁画不同程度的产生了空鼓、起甲等病害,严重影响了文物的保存。本文针对壁画的最严重的空鼓病害,通过室内实验和现场试验研究,筛选出了vRPS为主剂,粉煤灰（F）加阿嘎土（A）为填料的无机灌浆材料并辅以锚杆补强加固空鼓壁画的修复材料和修复工艺,取得了良好的效果。同时对内窥镜检测壁画空鼓状况以及探地雷达检测空鼓加固后的效果也做了尝试性的试验研究。     

Documenting Archaeological Mortuary Features using High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging

This technical note presents a refined technique for photo‐documenting archaeological mortuary features using High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. Mortuary features in archaeological context can be complex and delicate given the wide variability in grave constructions and preservation of human skeletal remains. It is therefore critical to obtain the greatest detail possible when photo‐documenting these features. HDR techniques represent more contrast in photographs and provide greater detail across the DR of illumination within mortuary features—where complex arrangements of human remains can obscure or darken other elements or associated funerary objects, making them difficult to identify in traditional photographs. HDR can be employed with most standard digital single lens reflex cameras used for archaeological field projects, is easy to learn and employ (as described here), can be processed and produced with commonly used photo editing programs, and is ideal for use in unpredictable conditions that are often encountered with archaeological mortuary features and in field conditions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

光学传感器辅助氧气消耗法监测文物保存状况的研究进展

通过测量氧气消耗量可以完全无损地检查考古文物的稳定性,氧气的快速消耗说明样品状态不稳定。本工作综述了光学传感器辅助氧气消耗法的基本原理、影响因素、应用范围和适用对象。利用氧气的荧光猝灭性实现光学传感法监测氧气浓度。依靠光学传感的氧气消耗法可以快速、有效、准确地测量出文物样品的氧气消耗速率,对评估文物保存状态有重要意义。其监测系统会受相对湿度、温度、压力、光照等环境因素的影响。该方法根据文物样品的大小和形貌选择合适的监测体系,可以实现对所有氧气消耗反应的监测,具备更好的便携性和普适性。因此光学传感器辅助氧气消耗法可用于评估保护材料和保护手段的有效性。     

Age‐at‐Death Estimates from a Disarticulated,Fragmented and Commingled Archaeological Battlefield Assemblage

Estimation of age‐at‐death is an important and challenging part of any investigation of human remains. Extensive research has been undertaken on this subject as demographic information contributes much to bioarchaeological and forensic work. Disarticulated, fragmentary and commingled human remains occur from a wide range of spatial and temporal contexts, and estimation of age‐at‐death can be particularly challenging in these collections. This study evaluated the impact of preservation on techniques that might be applied and their relative utility, using human remains from the site of the Smith's Knoll associated with the Battle of Stoney Creek, a War of 1812 collection from Ontario Canada with some supporting documentary evidence on age‐at‐death. Features assessed were the pubic symphysis, auricular surface and epiphyseal fusion in the innominate. An age‐at‐death estimate was produced for 16 out of 19 individuals considered; the highest minimum number of individuals (MNI) was 24 (right radius) from 2701 identifiable fragments. The pubic symphysis made no contribution to construction of a demographic profile, but as has been suggested previously epiphyseal fusion was useful in this respect. Results demonstrate that previous statements regarding preservation of the auricular surface and its utility in fragmented and poorly preserved collections need to be carefully evaluated. Although 129 fragments of innominate were recorded just one had an auricular surface and post auricular area that could be fully assessed. Transition Analysis was easier to apply than techniques developed previously, and findings from this study suggest that use of the forensic prior distribution could assist in assessment of battlefield assemblages. These results raise some valuable points that need to be considered in any future attempts to improve age‐at‐death estimates using the auricular surface, and important questions regarding expectations for estimation of age‐at‐death in disarticulated, fragmented and commingled collections of human bone. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pick the Right Pocket. Sub‐sampling of Bone Sections to Investigate Diagenesis and DNA Preservation

Many archaeological bones display a heterogeneous degradation pattern. Highly degraded bones could contain pockets of well‐preserved bone, harbouring good quality DNA. This dichotomy may explain why the relationships between global bone preservation parameters such as histological integrity, bone mineral crystallinity or collagen yield, and bulk DNA preservation/amplification success rate have been found to be at best, weak to moderate. In this pilot study, we explore whether or not a more localised approach will highlight a stronger relationship between diagenetic parameters and DNA preservation. This study includes a detailed histological characterisation of bone diagenesis in sub‐areas of three bone samples. Regions of the same bone, which displayed differential degrees of preservation or type of diagenesis were sampled for further analysis and both genetic (small scale Illumina MiSeq sequencing) and chemical (Fourier‐transform infrared spectrometric analysis) analyses were performed. The aim was to investigate how bone diagenetic processes relate to DNA preservation at a higher resolution than in previous studies. This is key in order to improve DNA analytical success rates. The expected relationship between bone and DNA preservation (retrieved endogenous DNA) was observed and the results corroborate previous work that DNA preservation is linked to the integrity of bone collagen and mineral. The results further suggest that non‐biological diagenetic alterations such as etching and the presence of mineral infiltrations and inclusions have a negative effect on DNA preservation/extraction. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

PUTTING THE WORLD INTO A BOX: A GEOGRAPHY OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY 'TRAVELLING LANDSCAPES'

Materiality, performance and mobility have recently attracted increasing interdisciplinary interest and called for new approaches to landscape. In most cases, however, these remain limited to the first meaning of landscape, as a complex of material/ visual forms in a given geographic area. By contrast, the second meaning of landscape, as a representation on different media, has remained out of such a debate. This article proposes a reconcep‐tualization of landscape representations as travelling objects at once visual and material. It does so through the example of nineteenth‐century panoramas. Part of a broader history of performative representation, these are approached on the one hand as optical devices participating in the construction of a ‘new kind of observer’, and on the other as material objects travelling across space and time, through different cultural contexts and changing accordingly. In their various manifestations, panoramas and other optical devices paralleled and complemented formal geographical education, but they also constituted terminals in the nineteenth‐century geographical web of perception comparable to the TV, the internet or video cell‐phones in our contemporary world.     

Magdalenian Children: Projectile Points,Portable Art and Playthings

Children, no doubt, were a significant component of Upper Palaeolithic societies. Despite this fact, however, serious identification and consideration of material culture which may have belonged to children – at least at one time during their use‐life – have not been undertaken. This situation extends to the best represented and most intensively studied of the European Palaeolithic techno‐complexes, the Magdalenian (c.21,000–14,000 cal BP), and consequently, we know very little about the children of this enigmatic people. As play, including object play, is a ‘true cultural universal’, we can be certain that Magdalenian children integrated objects into their games, with these playthings later incorporated into the archaeological record. Through examining ethnographic accounts of recent hunter‐gatherer children and reconsidering archaeological assemblages in light of these data, this paper suggests that Magdalenian playthings probably included full‐sized adult weapon tips and – more significantly – pieces of what archaeologists term ‘art mobilier’.     

The Use of Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) in Taphonomy: The Case of Middle Helladic Asine,Greece

The goal of this paper is to investigate whether multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), a multivariate statistical technique, is a useful dimensionality‐reduction tool in zooarchaeological and taphonomic studies. For this purpose, the focus is to detect and discuss traces of waste management. Animal bones from waste‐related contexts at the Bronze Age site Asine, Greece, are investigated. The data consist of bone fragments dating to the Middle Helladic from this site. Unidentified fragments were categorised in size classes, where possible. Information on taxa, skeletal parts and the presence or absence of several taphonomic markers is included in the data set. The MCA reveals several correlations of zooarchaeological interest. For example, the association between indeterminate fragments and calcined bone points to issues concerning identification and preservation. Floors are characterised by weathered long‐bone fragments from medium‐sized mammals. Additionally, the results of MCA indicate that the material might have suffered from density‐mediated attrition, based on the abundance of axial fragments, which did not differ between different contexts and taxa. The results show that MCA can be used to detect zooarchaeological and taphonomic patterns. This multivariate technique is useful when investigating large data sets, as is often the case with large zooarchaeological assemblages. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SYNCHROTRON FTIR MICRO‐SPECTROSCOPY APPLIED TO THE STUDY OF POLISHED SERPENTINITE ARTEFACTS: A NON‐DESTRUCTIVE ANALYTICAL APPROACH

In prehistory, serpentinite was one of the most frequently used raw materials to produce polished stone artefacts. Several conventional analytical techniques can be applied to identify the serpentine minerals, but their application generally requires a powdered sample. This implies that the artefacts to be analysed must be damaged, and the possibility of analysing a mixture of different serpentine polytypes is high. The use of spatially resolved techniques is therefore a necessity to overcome this problem. Several thin sections of serpentinitic rocks and prehistoric axes have been analysed by synchrotron radiation Fourier transform infrared micro‐spectroscopy. The spectra were acquired directly on specific points of polished stone artefacts and this allowed the recognition of the different polytypes of serpentine minerals without causing any damage to the objects. The results show the infrared micro‐spectroscopy technique to be a useful tool for the characterization of archaeological lithic material.     

固相微萃取-气相色谱-质谱在《江友渚等七挖书画轴》挥发性有机化合物分析中的应用

文化遗产的气味不仅反映了文物的历史信息,还对文化遗产自身产生持续性的影响,因此了解文化遗产的气味对其价值研究和当代保护都具有重要意义。本工作采用固相微萃取-气相色谱-质谱技术对中国国家博物馆藏《江友渚等七挖书画轴》天头用纸散发的气体进行了采集、分离和分析。结果表明：与纸张降解相关的标志物(如脂肪酸、醛、酮等)得到有效采集;而其他生物标记物(如沉香螺醇)的检出也反映了该书画轴的历史保存环境信息。此方法对该件书画轴的历史价值认知和科学保护具有重要作用。     

The Contribution of Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) to Understanding Pre‐Columbian Goldwork Technology

This paper highlights the contribution of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) when combined with scanning electron microscopy and energy‐dispersive X‐ray microanalysis (SEM/XEDS) to characterize objects in archaeology. The application of TEM in archaeology is not yet a common tool, but it may provide data that are significant to understanding pre‐Columbian gold metallurgy, specifically the gilding and silvering methods. Two gilded rods were studied using a combination of TEM and SEM/XEDS techniques. The objects were found at the Atacames archaeological site, in the Esmeraldas region, Ecuador, which was occupied between ad 750 and 1526 by the Atacames culture. The microchemical and structural results of the inner and the external gilded part of the artefacts support the hypothesis of a gold diffusion to the surface enhanced by chemical treatment with chloride‐rich solutions, heating and successive annealing processes. The present study reveals that microstructural investigation by TEM provides useful information with which to investigate the techniques used to modify the chemical surface composition of pre‐Columbian artefacts.     

New radiological approach for analysis and identification of foreign objects in ancient and historic mummies

Traditional x-ray images of mummies may reveal foreign objects lodged within the body or its wrappings, but can only give a vague idea of the material of which these objects consist. More precise information may be obtained by means of computed tomography which delivers not only a three-dimensional reconstruction of the object's shape, but also a measurement of radiodensity and a representation of the radiological structure.While the density values and structures of body tissues and substances are well documented in radiological publications, little data exist of material not usually found in the human body. The aim of this study is to analyse the radiological density and structure of a series of test objects, so that these may serve as a reference for comparison with potential foreign objects found in mummified remains. Value and limitations of this method are discussed and the practical application is demonstrated through four examples.     

Monitoring and Modelling Saturation as a Proxy Indicator for in situ Preservation in Wetlands—a GIS-based Approach

The unifying nature of water on the preservation of organic archaeological and palaeoenvironmental source material within wet deposits is well recognized. It is also understood that, while the preservation of such deposits is fundamental towards our understanding of the past, in many areas de-watering through agricultural drainage and water abstraction is degrading them. Within the framework of preservation in situ such environments present considerable challenges. Fundamentally, the environmental dynamics of wetlands, not least of water, mean that they must be monitored carefully in order to understand the condition of the burial environment and thereby the likely preservation potential. This paper presents an approach to monitoring the saturation of the burial environment and modelling this data using a geographical information system (GIS). It demonstrates a method aimed at modelling the conditions of current preservation, and predictively modelling the conditions for long-term, in situ preservation in order to provide a baseline for resource management. It is shown that the quantification of saturation is possible and advantageous in the management of dynamic wetland environments.