Cleft Lip Case in a Middle Bronze Age Young Man from Altai,Russia

Oral cleft (OC) is a common congenital anomaly in humans, which occurs in approximately one per 700 live births. However, cleft skulls are found relatively seldom in archaeological specimens, especially for the bc period. Mortality of infants with OC was apparently high because of breastfeeding difficulties and culturally sanctioned rejection of them in the past. This paper presents one of the most ancient cases of OC in Eurasia. The finding comes from the Middle Bronze Age pastoralists' cemetery in Altai, Russia. The skeletal remains have been radiocarbon dated to 1883–1665 cal bc . Cranial and dental measurements, computed tomography and radiography have been used to examine this malformation. The facial sculpting reconstruction has been performed to visualise the ante mortem appearance of the cleft face. Besides, δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N isotope analysis was used for a comparative study of the diet of the cleft individual. It has been established that a young man from Altai was affected by complete bilateral cleft lip and alveolus, which is a very rare form of typical OC. This defect is associated with dental anomalies such as hypodontia, microdontia, and ectopia as well as with dysmorphology of the facial complex outside the cleft area, including mild hypertelorism, hypoplasia of nasal bones and antheroposterior maxillary deficiency. Furthermore, aplasia of the frontal sinuses and the sacral spina bifida occulta have been observed. These findings are consistent with clinical data indicating strong correlation between development of a major defect and multiple minor anomalies. The results of the study also suggest that there was tolerant attitude towards the facial deformities among the ancient Altai pastoralists. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Bioarchaeological and Biogeochemical Study of Warfare and Mobility in Andahuaylas,Peru (ca. ad 1160–1260)

Warfare impacts how people and populations can move about the landscape. Ethnographers have posited that internal warfare, conflict that takes place within a single society, is strongly associated with female abduction. In contrast, external warfare, combat between different societies, is often accompanied by the in‐migration of men for purposes of defence. To test this assertion, we evaluate human remains from one of the most violent eras in Andean prehistory, the Late Intermediate Period (ad 1000–1400). In the south‐central highlands of Andahuaylas, Peru, this era witnessed the coalescence of two formidable polities, the Chanka and the Quichua. Ethnohistoric accounts describe internal warfare among the Chanka and external warfare between the Quichua and their neighbours. In this study, bioarchaeological and biogeochemical methods are marshalled to elucidate ancient patterns of violence and mobility with greater nuance. We employ strontium isotope analysis of tooth enamel apatite to inform on residential origin, and we reconstruct patterns of violent conflict through analysis of cranial trauma. In all, 265 crania were excavated from 17 cave ossuaries at two Chanka sites and one Quichua site. Data were collected on age, sex and cranial modification—an indicator of social identity and cranial trauma. A representative subsample of molars from 34 individuals subjected to strontium isotope analysis demonstrates that among the Chanka, violence was significantly directed towards social groups within society, marked by modified crania. The presence of two nonlocal women with signs of increased morbidity and mistreatment points to possible mobility‐by‐abduction. In contrast, among the Quichua, men have significantly more trauma, and wounds are concentrated on the anterior. Trauma on women is lower, nonlethal, and concentrated on the posterior. This divergent pattern is commonly observed in external warfare (raids and community defence), where men face attackers and women escape them. The presence of two nonlocal men supports a mobility model of strategic in‐migration. In sum, osteological and isotopic data sets are shown to reveal divergent life‐course experiences not captured by the archaeological data or historic records alone. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multispectral documentation and image processing analysis of the papyrus of tomb II at Daphne,Greece

This paper refers to the study of an ancient papyrus, dated ca. 420/430 BC, found in 1981 during an excavation at Daphne, Athens, Greece, using multispectral imaging combined with image processing analysis. It was assumed that the papyrus contained ancient Greek musical notation but the condition of the object hindered the drawing of any conclusion based only on visual examination. This fact, combined with the significance of the object itself, as it is the oldest papyrus which carries Greek text, pointed to the application of non-invasive techniques to enhance its readability. The multispectral imaging carried out in the range of 420–1000 nm enabled the detection of more letters on surface layers, at various places and orientations. False colour imaging proved to yield better results in distinguishing the letters compared to single wavelength recording. In some cases, letters from several layers underneath are revealed in the infrared. The letters present different greylevels according to the layer they belong. An interesting result coming from a simple subtraction of the infrared image at 1000 nm from the visible one at 660 nm is that different layers of the papyrus can be distinguished. The Application of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed that the best results, as far as the extraction of the letters from the background is concerned, are obtained when the second and the third images are merged. The automatic extraction of the letters is feasible to some extent but there is a certain amount of noise with similar characteristics that cannot be removed.     

Amelogenesis imperfecta in an early 20th century population from central Portugal

This paper details the differential diagnosis of an unusual tooth morphology observed in two adult males from the identified osteological collections held at the Museum of Anthropology of the University of Coimbra, Portugal. The differential diagnosis is based on the morphological and radiographic analysis of the teeth of these individuals, and gives rise to several possible pathological conditions, namely: regurgitation erosion, mottled enamel due to fluorosis, dentinogenesis imperfecta, amelogenesis imperfecta, and osteogenesis imperfecta. Of these, amelogenesis imperfecta remains the most probable cause for one individual, and although dentinogenesis imperfecta was considered for the other based on the morphological features, the final diagnosis was changed to the former based on accurate radiological evidence. Since there are only a few reported cases of these conditions in the osteoarchaeological literature, we find it to be interesting and important to report these two cases. The scarcity of reports in the palaeopathological literature, compared with the prevalence of these tooth structure anomalies in living populations, lead us to consider amelogenesis imperfecta and dentinogenesis imperfecta to be probably misdiagnosed, and hence under‐reported. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘I call the people.’ Church bells in fourteenth-century Catalunya

Bells were an inescapable part of fourteenth-century urban life. They signalled the hours of the day and times for prayers; they warned of tempests and enemy armies; they heralded masses, funerals, and deaths. The pealing of bells brought men, women, and children together, choreographing communal behaviour in time and space. Bells echoed the vox Domini, calling out the deaths of holy men and women, celebrating the working of miracles. The ubiquitous presence of bells reflected the omnipresence of God in the medieval world. Their echoes transformed private moments into collective experiences, elevating the mundane into the miraculous. Scholars have rarely examined the religious aspects of bells, looking instead at their more practical side, especially their utilisation as markers of time and the allegedly concurrent rise of mercantile culture. This article approaches bells from the viewpoints of those men and women who heard them and wanted them rung. Focusing on sources from Christian clerics, we see that medieval men rang the bells with clear, but many possible, purposes in mind. By marking time and prayers, Christian church bells helped to create and facilitate communities within dioceses, spurring and choreographing their actions. During funerals, bells broadcast private moments, giving them communal significance. The transformative, creative function of bells is clearest in their role in miracles. In Manresa, the vision experienced by a few became a community affair when the church bells gathered the people; the bells transformed an ordinary day into one where the people, as a community, received divine favour. Finally, with the deaths of holy persons, the tolling of bells transformed private, even anonymous deaths, into moments of wonder as God’s hand touched the world.The pealing of bells defined Christian communities in the Mediterranean and, at the same time as rulers and elites throughout the region were seeking to control minority groups, those same groups were seeking to exercise control over the sounds within their own communities. Through the pealing of bells, churchmen across Catalunya sought to direct the thoughts and prayers of their listeners. When the Christian clerics of Catalunya rang their churches’ bells, they had specific aims in mind, yet, as the evidence demonstrates, the pealing of the bells never meant just one thing. This article demonstrates that there is much more to understanding medieval bells than knowing ‘for whom the bell tolls’; we have to look at the listeners as much as the ringers in order to understand their cultural significance in medieval Europe. This article is a first step in how such a study could be begun.     

ARAMAIC BASALT STATUES FROM TELL HALAF,SYRIA: LOCATING THE ANCIENT QUARRIES

Tell Halaf is the locality of the ancient Aramaic city of Guzāna (c. 1000–800 bc ) in Syria. The statues of Tell Halaf were made from monolithic basalt blocks, comprising massive as well as amygdaloidal types. However, the exact location of the original quarries was as yet unknown. Reconnaissance mapping and sampling concentrated on the four basaltic centres in the vicinity of Tell Halaf, covering both south‐eastern Turkey and north‐eastern Syria. In addition, basaltic artefacts from the two archaeological sites of Tell Beydar (c. 2700–2300 bc ) and Djebelet el Beda (c. 2600–2350 bc ) were investigated. All basalt samples were analysed for their bulk rock major and trace element compositions by X‐ray fluorescence, ICP–MS analysis and the mineral chemistry of individual minerals by combined electron microprobe analysis and laser‐ablation ICP–MS. The data show that basalt works of art from all three archaeological sites were derived from the Syrian basalt plateau of Ard esh‐Sheikh, approximately 57 km south of Tell Halaf. Accordingly, this basalt quarry was actively exploited over a considerable time span of c. 1900 years. This study demonstrates that petrographic and geochemical investigations of basalt, combined with electron microprobe and laser‐ablation ICP–MS analysis of minerals, are powerful tools to discriminate between possible sources of raw materials, especially if isotopic data yield unsatisfying results.     

A new approach to recording and monitoring wet-preserved archaeological wood using three-dimensional laser scanning

The analysis and preservation of organic materials preserved within wetland environments represents one of the most costly parts of any post-excavation strategy. This paper outlines the application of high-resolution terrestrial laser scanning to one class of preserved material, worked archaeological wood. Scanning allowed the recording of the artefacts in three dimensions and the identification of features such as toolmarks. Features can be measured and volumetrically modelled within the digital environment, which may not always be possible for these often fragile materials using conventional techniques. Repeat scanning of the artefacts provided an opportunity to use comparative analysis software to investigate changes in the morphology of artefacts under contrasting conditions of short-term storage. The results suggest that immersion in water results in the least deterioration, whereas both freezing and air-drying caused distortion and degradation. This paper demonstrates that laser scanning provides a viable alternative post-excavation method for the recording, analysis and long-term ‘virtual archiving’ of organic archaeological materials, which may be more cost-effective in some instances than other methods of preservation.     

The effects of neutral winds on the propagation of medium-scale atmospheric gravity waves at mid-latitudes

The influence of neutral winds on the propagation of medium-scale atmospheric gravity waves at mid-latitudes is investigated. A 3-dimensional neutral wind model is developed and used together with an atmospheric model in a gravity-wave ray-tracing analysis. It is demonstrated that the thermospheric wind can act as a filter for waves travelling at unfavorable angles to the mean flow, via the mechanisms of reflection and critical coupling. This wind filtering action rotates clockwise diurnally through 360° in the northern hemisphere. Observational evidence is presented which supports these predictions. Extensive modelling indicates that (a) faster and longer period waves are least affected by the neutral winds and (b) fixed-height (e.g. HF Doppler) observations of medium scale gravity waves is only likely to be possible for waves generated locally (within 500–1000 km). Waves generated at greater distances are probably dissipated before reaching the observation region.     

Explaining Supreme Court Policymaking in Civil Rights: The Influence of the Solicitor General, 1953–2002

What factors explain Supreme Court policymaking in civil rights cases? Despite the importance of this question of law and policy, few empirical studies have explored the problem on the area of racial and ethnic discrimination. This study seeks to fill this gap by assessing the importance of the solicitor general, the federal government's representative before the Supreme Court, as a litigant and in the filings of amicus curiae briefs. The findings confirm that the solicitor general's presence in civil rights cases does matter when explaining whether the Supreme Court reaches a liberal or conservative outcome. This research demonstrates the significance of executive‐judicial interaction in explaining Supreme Court policymaking in civil rights cases.     

A processual study of Inka state formation

Traditional interpretations of how the Inka empire developed emphasize the disjunctive transformation of a village-level society through the agency of a single charismatic ruler. New evidence from the Inka heartland indicates that it was in fact the formation of a centralized state in the Cusco Valley of highland Peru that enabled the rapid campaigns of Inka territorial expansion during the 15th and 16th centuries. By using archaeological data and ethnohistoric documents to develop independent lines of evidence, it is possible to describe Inka state formation processes anthropologically. Settlement and excavation data from the Vilcanota Valley provide several indicators of the development of a centralized Inka state during the Killke Period (c. A.D. 1000–1400), while multiple accounts of the Inka past describe the transformation of Inka society over a period of several generations leading up to the first campaigns of imperial conquest. Both lines of evidence are consistent with the kinds of changes described for other known cases of state formation. The formation of the Inka state and its expansion in the Cusco region created conditions in which the agency of Inka rulers could direct the expansion of a mighty empire in only a few generations of conquest.     

Moses' Cushite Wife echoes Hosea's Woman of Harlotries: Exposure of Unfaithfulness in the Wilderness

ABSTRACT

This paper suggests that Numbers 12 implies that the Cushite woman whom Moses marries is an immoral woman and that Moses' marriage with her is based on an implicit divine command which echoes the one God gives Hosea when exhorting him to marry a woman of harlotries. In both cases God wants the prophetic protagonist to experience infidelity, thus enabling him to experience what God feels like when Israel acts unfaithfully to Him. However, after experiencing the unfaithfulness of the Israelites in the narrative of the scouts Moses himself demonstrates unfaithfulness in Meribah. Moses' inability to respond appropriately to Israel's unfaithfulness at Baal-peor, an incident mentioned in Hos 9,10, reflects his inability to contend with the Israelites in the manner of Hosea.     

Raised relief on nephrite jade artifacts: observations,explanations and implications

Mineralogical analyses of nephrite jade artifacts have been used to identify likely causes of alterations in which some specimens exhibit raised relief above the original polished surfaces. In all of the specimens examined, the raised areas consist of either large diopside ± large tremolite crystals, or, in a few cases, only fibrous tremolite, within a non-raised matrix of nephrite (fibrous tremolite). Apparent relief may be cause by a number of different effects, either mechanical (abrasive), chemical (e.g., dissolution), or a combination (mineralogical alteration leading to formation of relief). The most enigmatic examples occur where the relief formed after the object was polished and can not be easily attributed to chemical dissolution or mechanical abrasion. One possible explanation for these is that minor amounts of secondary growth of hydrous minerals, such as clays along grain boundaries, produced a volume increase which caused the crystals to rise. Carbon-14 analysis on one vessel that displays raised relief has produced an age of 3010 ± 30 years before present for organic material that coated the alteration.     

OPENING UP THE "BLACK BOX" IN EVALUATING NEIGHBORHOOD PROBLEMS: THE IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS IN ISRAEL'S PROJECT RENEWAL

How successful is a particular neighborhood program? This question poses a special challenge for evaluation research. This paper demonstrates how implementation analysis can be utilized to reinforce the evaluation endeavor. Israel's Project Renewal is the laboratory. As a large-scale national program that encompasses most towns in Israel, it provides what few programs can: the possibility of studying a large enough sample of neighborhoods to cover diversity, yet in the context of a small, unitary-system country that provides the canopy of shared national policy, institutional structure and administrative norms.     

A medieval example of a sagittal cleft or ‘butterfly’ vertebra

A mature adult medieval male with a rare congenital anomaly, a sagittal‐cleft or butterfly vertebra, is presented. Clinical cases are frequently associated with axial as well as soft‐tissue defects. The present case, based only on skeletal evidence, appears to be an isolated finding. The aetiology of the clefting is outlined and palaeopathological evidence for the condition is included. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lead isotope and chemical signature of copper from Oman and its occurrence in Mesopotamia and sites on the Arabian Gulf coast

Lead isotope data, together with an evaluation of previously published results for the chemical composition of Omani ores and copper‐base artefacts are used to define a material signature of Omani copper. Absent from our group of Bronze Age metal (Umm an Nar and Wadi Suq periods) are the signature of ores from Masirah Island and also from the vast deposits in north Oman inland from Suhar. Contemporaneous copper from Bahrain and from Tell Abraq on the Gulf coast is consistent in its material signature with Omani copper; a derivation from Omani ores of this copper is highly likely. A few exceptions at Tell Abraq point to Faynan/Timna in the southern Levant as a possible source region. Among Mesopotamian artefacts the signature of Omani copper is encountered during all cultural periods from Uruk at the end of the fourth millennium BC to Akkadian 1000 years later. Oman/Magan appears to have been particularly important during Early Dynastic III and Akkadian when about half of the copper in circulation bears the Omani signature.     

Substorm activity precursors in the dayside magnetic perturbations

Magnetic data from a meridional chain of stations in Greenland and AL-indices of magnetic activity have been used to study the relationship between magnetic perturbations in the dayside cleft region and substorm activity in the night-time auroral zone. The analysis of 14 substorms, isolated and prolonged, has shown that intensification of westward currents in the postnoon sector of the cleft precedes or accompanies substorm development in the night-time auroral zone. Westward currents appear in the northern cleft as substorm precursors even under the adverse influence of the IMF positive B_y component. These currents trend to extend in the prenoon sector. To explain the relationship between the cleft currents and auroral electrojet the connection between neutral layer currents and noon Birkeland currents is proposed. This connection can be realized by means of the source region acting just inside the daytime magnetopause owing to stationary reconnection of geomagnetic field and IMF, the source region flowing downstream to the tail magnetopause.     

Recent carbon isotope research and its implications for African archaeology

A number of new developments in the carbon isotope field are reviewed, some of these having immediate and others potential application to African archaeology. Mass spectrometric analysis of¹³C/¹²C ratios in human and animal bone collagen makes it possible to reconstruct prehistoric foodwebs and to draw conclusions about dietary adaptations. Alternatively, where dietary behaviour is known, analysis of the bone of certain animal species allows for reconstruction of past environments. Ratio mass spectrometers are widely available in research institutions, and provided that the proper techniques for sample preparation are followed, this method of analysis should be of immediate use to most Africanists. It is already making an impact on African archaeology. The development of accelerator-based or high energy mass spectrometry (HEMS) radiocarbon dating provides the potential for extending the method back to 100,000 years, particularly in the case of bone samples. Practical applications, however, are still a few years off. In the immediate future HEMS dating is likely to be applied to small samples of ages less than 50,000 years. In competition with HEMS is the use of mini-counters for conventional radiocarbon dating of small samples. This procedure is available in a few laboratories with more under development. Dating of small samples has potential applications in many areas, specifically in the direct age measurement of critical specimens as opposed to the dating of associated materials.     

Damaged Burials or <Emphasis Type="Italic">Reliquiae Cogotenses?</Emphasis> On the Accompanying Human Bones in Burial Pits Belonging to the Iberian Bronze Age

Social Sciences and Humanities are increasingly interested in the relationship between society and material culture, and archaeology can provide, among other contributions, its chronological depth and the variability and certain regularities in mortuary rituals. In this respect, archaeological literature frequently cites cases of a few human bones redeposited at mortuary sites, often burials of adults accompanied by some bones of an infant, but without a clear pattern being discernable. In contrast, research on the Bronze Age Cogotas I archaeological culture in the Iberian Peninsula (MBA and LBA, ca. 1800–1100 cal BC) has identified what seems to be an emerging pattern: primary burials of very young children accompanied by the bone of an adult, possibly female, who had died before, even long before, as the statistical analysis of the radiocarbon dates of the individuals involved appears to corroborate. This may therefore be a ritualised mortuary practice that included bone relics, but its explanation is not simple, due to the polysemic nature of such relics. The creation and maintenance of real or fictitious kinship ties, a special protection for dead infants, possible gender aspects, ideas about fertility and renewal, strengthening interpersonal relationships, legitimisation of emerging inequality, etc., are some of the possible components of this social practice which was until now unknown in the Iberian prehistory, but also little known in other areas in European prehistory.