La Espiral Cave (Cuba): Guano and signs of Plant Substances Used as Paint Ingredients

At La Espiral cave, located in Bahia Honda municipality (Artemisa province, Cuba), there are several pictographs, including two of particular importance due to the design used: one of concentric circles and another of a spiral. We analyzed the pigments and binders used in one of these pictographs. The chemical ingredients of the paint are considered in this article, as well as the use of bat guano as a major pigment compound. The apparent presence of ellagic acid, ellagitannin, or anthocyanins would strengthen the hypothesis that artists used vegetable protein as a paint binder or solvent.     

The Classic-period pictographs at Juliq’ Cave,Alta Verapaz,Guatemala: an interdisciplinary approach to cave art as organizing principle

The Cave of Juliq’ in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala contains an impressive corpus of ancient Maya rock art. Unlike other examples of rock art in this area, the Juliq’ pictographs are simply rendered, generally consisting of lines, handprints, and other basic shapes. We thus focus on context rather than on iconographic content in order to access the meaning of these ancient pictographs. We argue that they were used to record human presence in and movement through the alien cave environment in specific ways, demarcating procession routes, points of transition, moments of physical prowess, and places charged with sacred power. These circuits within Juliq’ reflect attempts to order the Underworld landscape and link it to the surface world through ritual movement akin to aboveground ritual processions.     

How old are Australia's pictographs? A review of rock art dating

Australia contains some of the world's richest and apparently longest traditions of rock pictographs. Dating this art, however, has been problematic, with few ‘direct’ and reliable dates of Pleistocene or early Holocene age having been obtained from visible, representational imagery. This paper critically reviews the evidence for the antiquity of pigment rock art in Australia by examining the various dating techniques employed. The accurate and reliable dating of rock art worldwide is crucial to understanding the evolution of modern human symbolism and whether cognitive modernism came about after, rather than with, the first signs of full biological modernism; understanding the pitfalls and devising proper methods are crucial prerequisites. Towards these ends, this paper reviews the results and techniques that have been employed to date the apparently earliest known pictographs in Australia.     

Socioreligious context and rock art in east-central California

Interpretations of rock art typically focus on the symbolic meaning of the art, treating the paintings and engravings implicitly as passive iconographic texts. Rock art, however, is the product of active ritual and ceremony. As such it played an important role in the socioreligious lives of its creators and users. Here I provide a study of the socioreligious contexts of the pictographs and petroglyphs of eastern California, North America, emphasizing the painted art of the Tubatulabal and Coso Shoshone territories and the petroglyphs of the Coso region and using only archaeological data. This requires, first, establishing the chronological placement of this art. Based on a variety of lines of evidence the pictographs and some of the petroglyphs are argued to be historic in age. An ethnography of communications model is then used to provide a conceptual basis for investigating socioreligious contexts and ritual functions of the art. Message content is studied using a factor analysis of painted motif types and an examination of the distribution of sites predominated by certain factors. Two motif complexes, or message content groups, are identified: a Tubatulabal ritual community, employing geometric designs, and a Coso Shoshone community, exhibiting a predominance of representational pictographs. Analysis of message form, channels, settings, and inferred ritual participants suggests that Tubatulabal art resulted from community rituals, in which all the inhabitants of a hamlet would have directly or indirectly participated. Knowledge of the rules for creating and interpreting the parietal art would have been common to all in the community. In contrast, pictographs of the Coso Shoshone were the result of private rituals, with limited numbers of participants and witnesses. The message communicated in the ritual and the painted art would have necessarily been arcane, and few in the community at large may have even known of the creation of this rock art. The Coso petroglyphs, also created by the Coso Shoshone but apparently by a different ritual community within the population, had a different set of rules for ritual actions and symbolic interpretation. The ceremonies creating the engravings were commonplace, yet logically were conducted in private or with few participants, suggesting that the knowledge concerning the means for undertaking and interpreting this type of ritual was widely known throughout the population.     

Calcium oxalate AMS C dating and chronology of post-Palaeolithic rock paintings in the Iberian Peninsula. Two dates from Abrigo de los Oculados (Henarejos,Cuenca, Spain)

Since 2005 we have been utilizing accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) ¹⁴C dating in research on calcium oxalate crusts associated with open air rock art of the Iberian Peninsula. In this paper we present two dates linked with three eye-idol pictographs at Abrigo de los Oculados (Henarejos, Cuenca, Spain). Radiocarbon ages for these motifs agree with the expected iconography-based archaeological chronology. Such oxalate dates could provide an independent basis for evaluating chronological theories for post-Palaeolithic sites, designated in the UNESCO World Heritage List as Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula.     

Inhabiting Remote Tropical Seashores at 1500–1100 b.c.: Water,Practicalities, and Rituals in the Mariana Islands

When people first inhabited the Remote Oceanic region of the world at 1500 b.c., they generated archaeological sites attesting to their practical coastal adaptations in tandem with their ceremonial traditions, wherein water figured vitally in daily living and ritual performance. Of eight known first-settlement sites in the Mariana Islands, Ritidian in Guam uniquely incorporates one residential habitation plus two caves related to water collection, pictographs, consumption of unusual foods, and use of exceptionally decorative objects. The inter-connected findings clarify what was “special” about the special-use caves, in total articulating a fuller sense of cultural life and landscape than otherwise could be possible.     

Stable Isotope and Radiocarbon Analyses of a Black Deposit Associated with Pictographs at Little Lost River Cave,Idaho

A glossy, black deposit covers much of the ceiling and walls of Little Lost River Cave No. 1, Idaho. This site is of particular interest because of the red, orange, and yellow pictographs underlying the coating. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis has allowed us to better understand the nature and origin of the deposit. With a δ¹³C value of −20·1‰, δ¹⁵N value of +14‰, and a C/N ratio of 5·6 after removal of inorganic carbon from the sample matrix, the deposit appears to have been derived from animal tissue, not plant. Plasma chemical extraction of carbon from the organic material in another sample of the deposit, followed by accelerator mass spectrometric analysis, yielded a minimum uncalibrated radiocarbon age of 2990±50 bp for the paintings. This preliminary evidence suggests that the deposit may be a cooking residue.     

Elemental Analysis of Ochre Outcrops in Southern British Columbia,Canada

Ochre is a red mineral pigment that was a key element of social and ceremonial practices among cultures of the Pacific Northwest Coast. It is recovered routinely from archaeological excavations, is visible as pigment for pictographs, and is described in the historical record as a trade item and component of ceremonial practices. Despite its ubiquity in the archaeological record, it is difficult to interpret its significance without first understanding the nature of its procurement and distribution. As a step towards identifying procurement practices, trade and resource use, it is necessary to thoroughly characterize ochre outcrops with regard to their intra‐source and regional variability. We analysed ochre from three outcrops using INAA to determine their elemental chemistry. The purpose of this study is threefold: to provide an example of the range of elemental variability within and between outcrops, to illustrate the effect of scale and geomorphological processes on elemental compositions and statistical interpretation, and to create a database of known deposits in southern British Columbia. The results demonstrate that ochre deposits may be differentiated on the basis of their chemistry, and that conservative statistical interpretation needs to be employed to assess true elemental variability within and between ochre deposits and regions.     

New light on the prehistoric Purrón Dam Complex: Small corporate group collaboration in the Tehuacán Valley,Puebla, México

Abstract

The 2003 and 2004 surveys at the Purrón Dam Complex (PDC) demonstrate the value of resurveying previously studied areas. Additional habitation sites, water management features, a cave with pictographs, and a major canal were discovered, increasing the number of recorded sites from eight to 57. From this survey, the collected ceramics and a synthesis of 12 chronometric dates suggest that water management was initiated in the complex by Early Formative times at ca. 1050–1100 b.c., and that the Purrón Dam was completed by the Middle Formative Period (ca. 650–450 b.c.), when settlements were small and decentralized. This challenges previous interpretations that place the PDC florescence during the Early Classic Period (ca. 150 b.c.–a.d.250), a period with larger aggregated communities displaying social ranking. The results of our survey have implications for understanding the links between political complexity and agricultural intensification, and support recent ethnographic and archaeological research discrediting the argument that increasing social complexity necessarily leads to the construction of large water management systems.     

20世纪80年代以来我国区域旅游合作研究综述

本文对1980年以来我国有关区域旅游合作专题的研究进行了综述。其中,根据研究内容的相对一致性,将该项研究20年来的进展划分为起源、起步、发展、提升发展四个阶段,阐述了各阶段的研究特征;并对该项研究的主要研究内容从基本理论研究、热点问题研究、个案研究三个方面进行了综述。基本理论研究的综述主要涉及到区域、区域旅游、区域旅游合作机制、旅游区划的有关研究。热点问题研究的综述主要涉及"大旅游"的发展理念、旅游联合促销、区域旅游联合发展的空间组织形式的有关研究。个案研究的综述主要涉及上海的大旅游网络、武汉大旅游圈、环太湖旅游带旅游业的联合发展、澜沧江-湄公河次区域旅游合作、珠江三角洲共同旅游市场的建设等案例的有关研究;最后,本文对该项研究的发展趋向进行了展望。     

邢台南小汪周代遗址西周遗存的发掘

<正> 南小汪遗址位于邢台市市区西北部。这是一处范围很大的周代遗址,经初步调查,大致在今京广铁路以西,小黄河以北,达活泉以南,因南小汪村位于遗址北部而得名(图一)。 南小汪遗址南与曹演庄、南大郭等殷商遗址相连,西北与南大汪战国墓区相望。五十年代调查试掘的西关外西周遗址,实际上即是南小汪遗址的一部分。近年来,邢台市市政建设发展迅速,南小汪遗址绝大部分已被建筑所压。在施工过程中,时有周代遗物出土,如在郭守敬大街左右两侧的市一中附近、中华路宿舍区、团结路南侧等地,均曾发现大量的周代陶器鬲、盆、豆、罐等,有的地方还发现马坑和小型墓葬等。这些都表明南小汪遗址是一处规模较大、埋藏丰富的周代遗址。     

新文化地理学视角下景观研究综述与展望

景观意义一方面要对其符号化的表征元素进行解读,另一方面也要关注其不可表征的意义。本研究梳理了国外新文化地理学视角下的景观研究,发现： ①表征视角下,一方面景观既被看作文化的产物,又是不同时期文化的再生;另一方面景观在权力博弈中曲折发展并推动其象征性意义的演变。②非表征视角主要关注日常生活行为、情感等方面所反应的社会变迁以及所感知的多元、复杂与不稳定的景观意义。国内新文化地理学视角的景观研究在西方思潮的影响下,对一些具体案例进行了尝试性研究,取得了一定的成果。本研究有助于中国学者结合转型期中国政治、经济、文化背景,构建具有中国特色的新文化地理学景观理论体系,推动新文化地理学在中国的良性发展。     

陕北地区城市化驱动力研究

随着陕北地区能源资源的大规模开发与利用,陕北地区城市化战略取得了一定成绩,城市化水平大幅提高。本文基于对于城市化驱动力理论与实例的分析与总结,首先指出了陕北地区城市化发展中的问题,指出城镇化发展速度快,中心城镇辐射带动作用小,城镇密度小,城市基础设施滞后、生态环境退化等问题;其次提出了陕北地区城市化的驱动力主要分为动力机制与约束力机制两个方面。动力机制有经济发展、城乡人口迁移、产业结构调整、产业带动、大型项目建设、基础设施建设等;约束力主要表现在制度约束、生态环境约束及水资源约束等三方面。     

旅游民俗文化空间的筛选与旅游价值分析——以陕西为例

民俗旅游作为一种典型的文化体验旅游,已经成为新的旅游消费时尚。作为民俗旅游的基础,民俗文化密集地区个性化空间的筛选就成为指导这种旅游方式健康发展的核心问题。目前,在旅游民俗文化空间选择的原则、标准、价值等方面,学术界尚未进行深入研究,这造成我国许多民俗旅游资源发达地区在开发过程中缺乏理论的指导,出现了盲目性开发的严重问题。本文在依托相关文化空间理论和2005年以来对陕西民俗旅游资源深度研究的基础上,提出了旅游民俗文化空间筛选的原则与标准,并据此对陕西旅游民俗文化空间进行类型划分。     

基于新人本主义理念的城市社区生活空间公正结构探讨

本文以城市各阶层日常生活行为的工作(上学)、家务、购物、闲暇活动完成的区位空间结构为议题,运用行为地理学的人本主义研究方法,以社区为基本研究尺度,探讨微观领域社会空间公正体系的结构与模式。得出城市社会空间体系发育阶段,影响城市社区生活空间结构的基本因子为城市资源、社区资源、社区类型-体系与场所体系,社区资源与城市资源在城市内部空间的布局呈"点-轴"结合模式,城市资源的线性空间体系格局与社区资源与场所的点状空间镶嵌映射了市场经济规律下城市社区生活空间结构的"集聚-碎化"倾向,缺失空间公正。最后,尝试性提出了人本、公平理念下的城市社区生活空间公正结构。     

定州北庄子商墓发掘简报

<正> 定州市新建铁路货场位于定州市西北郊的北庄子村北,占地面积204亩,京广铁路正从货场南侧穿过。1991年春季,根据定州市有关部门的反映,货场正位于省级保护单位——定州市汉墓群的保护区内,并且“中山简王刘焉墓(即M150)亦当在货场占地范围内。因此,在省有关部门的支持下,由河北省文物研究所组织省、地、县专业人员对货场进行了重点考古钻探和发掘。全部考古工作从6月初至12月上旬结束,实际田野工作历时五个月。共发掘各时期墓葬80座(包括M150),其中商代墓葬42座,大致位于货场的东半部(图一)今把商墓的情况简报如下。     

中国古村镇保护利用中的悖论现象及其原因

中国的古村镇保护利用工作经过了30多年的发展取得了积极的进步,但是也出现了因保护而破坏的严重问题。本文尝试从对古村镇定义的修订切入,将古村镇作为一种文化综合体和文化生态系统进行分析,强调古村镇是由器物、行为、制度、精神四个层面构成的文化综合体,是具有自组织性的文化生态系统,对系统中任意环节的破坏都会造成保护利用的悖论现象。在此基础上,本文总结出保护环境与破坏环境、重现建筑特色与消解建筑特色等四重"中国式悖论",并进一步从社会文化环境、理念认知、管理机制以及开发模式等层面分析了中国式悖论产生的原因。     

曼葭及井陉的开通

<正> 井陉,地当太行腰冲,左控幽冀、右扼雍并,在八陉之中不仅是兵家必争的天下险塞,且是渤海湾迤西一条十分重要的冀晋孔道,自古即为山左右经济往来、文化交融的要枢之区。井陉古道何时开通?当时情况与具体走向又如何?这个问题在文献中找不出确切的记载。1989年冬,1990年春,河北省进行文物复查,笔者曾率队对井陉境内(含矿区)的文物遗存做了踏勘,所获资料或可对此问题的探讨有所裨益,因述所见,以资参考。 一、周穆王以前的“羊肠山径” 《穆天子传·卷一》:“天子北征,乃绝漳水。庚辰,至于□,觞天子於磐石。载立不舍,至于鈃山之下。癸未,雨雪,天子猎于鈃山之西阿,於是得绝鈃山之坠,北循滹沱之阳”。对此,郭沫若先生解释为:周穆王沿太行山西麓北行,渡过漳水,经山西平定县的磐石,循桃     

国内外乡愁相关研究进展及启示

对国内外已有的乡愁相关研究进行了梳理,并结合自身学科背景,从旅游地乡愁建设角度,提出几点未来研究方向。研究发现,对乡愁内涵的认识,经历了从单纯可治愈的生理病症、到复杂的心理学现象、再到对现代话反思三个阶段。国外从心理学、神经科学、经济学、社会学、消费者行为学、文学、民俗学、地理学等角度,已形成对乡愁情感本身、乡愁的触发要素、影响乡愁体验的因素、乡愁在实践中的应用的系统研究。我国乡愁研究起步较晚,早期主要集中在文学和社会学领域,2013年后,乡愁逐渐得到地理学、建筑学、民俗学等多学科的关注,目前在乡愁的概念界定、乡愁的理论化、乡愁的触发要素识别、乡愁价值开发等方面形成了初步成果。     

服务业区位论:概念、理论及研究框架

二战以来,随着世界经济服务化进程加快,国内外学者越来越关注服务业区位理论的研究,但迄今为止,国内外学术界至今没有形成完整的服务业区位理论体系。从区位论的基本概念出发,在区位过程理论的基础上,根据服务业的特性及分类,提出了由一般服务业区位理论和服务业行业区位理论构成的服务业区位理论研究框架。在服务业区位理论框架的基础上,阐述了服务业区位选择的基础理论,初步构建了由经济区位因素、空间区位因素、信息区位因素和人文区位因素构成的服务业区位因素钻石模型,并探讨了服务业区位选择及区位模式的研究思路。结合所建立的服务业区位理论体系,提出了服务业区位的实证研究框架。