Late Weichselian deglaciation and sea level history of St Jonsfjorden,Spitsbergen: A contribution to ice sheet reconstruction

The elevation and age of surveyed shorelines in St Jonsfjorden, western Spitsbergen, provide a chronology for Late Weichselian deglaciation and a proxy for former ice thickness. Support is provided for previous reports of two sets of shorelines on NW Spitsbergen, the oldest (at 60 m in St Jonsfjorden) dating to a pre‐late Weichselian glaciation and the youngest documenting postglacial rebound. The remarkable survival of the older shorelines suggests that a large area of NW Spitsbergen was either covered by protective, cold‐based ice or was subject to only local glaciation during the late Weichselian even though glacier ice extended to the shelf edge in the Isfjorden Trough. A marine limit of 46 m at the mouth of St Jonsfjorden is compatible with the regional late Weichselian marine limit (LWML) dated to ～13 ka BP. A partial relative sea level curve and equidistant shoreline diagram are produced for St Jonsfjorden and used in conjunction with relative sea level curves based on data from previous studies to produce an isobase map for 9 ka BP. The curves indicate that western sites were subject to initial slow emergence followed by rapid emergence between 10 ka and 8.2 ka BP, trends characteristic of areas affected by a full glacial sea or at least subject to early break up of a thin or discontinuous glacier ice cover. A step in the 9 ka BP shoreline long profile over the western end of the peninsula separating Isfjorden and van Mijenfjorden suggests that Holocene neotectonics may have produced anomalously high rebound rates in that area.     

Survey,Shovel Probes,and Population Estimates: Studying Regional Demography in the Intermediate Area Using Subsurface Sherd Deposits

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory - Shovel probes are a common form of archaeological data collection in densely vegetated landscapes. They were once the subject of critical analyses that...     

The girl with the chariot medallion: a well-furnished,Late Iron Age Durotrigian burial from Langton Herring,Dorset

A well-furnished, Late Iron Age Durotrigian burial was found in 2010 by a metal-detectorist at Langton Herring in Dorset. This report examines all aspects of the discovery, paying particular attention to the skeletal remains, a female aged 19–24, providing the most complete, osteobiographical study of an individual buried with a mirror assemblage from the European Iron Age. A combination of artefacts and radiocarbon dating gives a range for the burial of c.AD 25 – cal AD 53. The grave goods themselves are of exceptional interest, representing an accumulation of artefacts acquired from diverse sources, deposited at a time of major cultural and societal change in southern Britain. The results of a geophysical survey are also presented, together with a discussion of additional well-furnished burials in the Durotrigian tribal tradition, which place the burial deposit within a wider social and landscape framework.     

Reimagining the City of Fire and Iron: A landscape archaeology of the Angkor-Period Industrial Complex of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay,Cambodia (ca. 9th to 13th centuries A.D.)

In the archaeological literature regional centers often receive far less attention than capital regions and the medieval Khmer Empire (ca. 9th to 15th centuries a.d.) is a classic case in point. At its height, the Khmer Empire stretched across much of mainland Southeast Asia, and it remains the most extensive dominion in the history of the region. To date, however, relatively little archaeological work has been completed outside of the capital of Angkor, and we have a limited understanding of the broader dynamics of the Empire. In this paper we begin to address this lacuna at the remote monumental complex of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, the largest of all the Angkor-period regional centers. We describe the use of remote sensing and ground survey methods to produce the first comprehensive archaeological map of the site. The map data are used to evaluate conventional interpretations of the site as a major industrial complex, urban center and military outpost. The findings have implications for our understanding of early urbanism, industrial production and imperial expansion in the region.     

The oldest root-eating beetle from the Middle Jurassic of China (Coleoptera,Monotomidae)

Cai, C.-Y., ?lipiński, A. & Huang, D.-Y., 31.3.2015. The oldest root-eating beetle from the Middle Jurassic of China (Coleoptera, Monotomidae). Alcheringa 39,488–493. ISSN 0311-5518.

Jurorhizophagus alienus gen. et sp. nov., a new fossil root-eating beetle, is described and figured based on an exceptionally well-preserved impression fossil from the Middle Jurassic Daohugou beds (ca 165 Ma), Inner Mongolia, northeastern China. It represents the earliest fossil Monotomidae known to date. Jurorhizophagus can not be assigned to either of two subfamilies Monotominae or Rhizophaginae based on the unique combination of many unusual characters, including an 11-segmented antenna with a 3-segmented club, the presence of a distinct frontoclypeal suture and transverse pronotum with a median longitudinal groove. The discovery of a new genus from the Middle Jurassic highlights the antiquity of Monotomidae and provides new information about the phylogenetic relationships between Monotomidae and its allied families.

Chen-Yang Cai [caichenyang1988@163.com], Di-Ying Huang [dyhuang@nigpas.ac.cn] (corresponding author), State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, PR China; Adam ?lipiński [adam.slipinski@csiro.au], Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO National Collections Australia, GPO Box 1700, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia.