New compositional data on ancient mortars from Hagia Sophia (Istanbul,Turkey)

This study shows the results of a multidisciplinary collaboration between the University of Calabria (Italy) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), about the compositional characterization of some mortars taken from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (Turkey), one of the most important buildings in antiquity. Twenty samples of joint mortars were analysed by micro-chemical analyses (SEM-EDS), X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), optical microscopy (OM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The compositional study allowed us to define, with more detail, the construction phases of the fifth, sixth and tenth century. The petrographic analysis in thin section by optical microscopy showed four typologies of sands, used as aggregate, with specific compositional features. SEM-EDS analyses and TEM observations of the binder around the ceramic fragments of the aggregate showed the presence of different morphologies of single C-S-H compounds.     

The Landscape Archaeology of Southwest Sardinia Project: New Data and Method from the Insular Mediterranean

Sardinia has played a vital integrative role in the Holocene Mediterranean, most notably—although not only—as a key locus in emergent maritime “Mediterraneanization” and as an object of contestation among mainland polities over the last three millennia. Yet, despite the florescence of Mediterranean survey archaeology, this standard method has only been sparsely employed in Sardinia, with a pronounced focus on large, urban, coastal sites. Accordingly, we have little understanding of the ebb and flow of human settlement in the Sardinian interior. This represents a significant lacuna in the study of Mediterranean archaeology and history. Here, we report data from the first two seasons of the Landscape Archaeology of Southwest Sardinia (LASS) Project, a multidisciplinary project designed to correct this bias and to investigate how episodic integration into—but also disintegration from—larger economic and political structures drove sociocultural and socioeconomic change in southwestern Sardinia over the Mid-Late Holocene.     

Finding a Relatively Flat Archaeological Site with Minimal Ceramics: A Case Study from Iraqi Kurdistan

ABSTRACT

We present a new technique to detect flat archaeological sites with minimal ceramics using an unmanned aerial vehicle that maps surface stone concentrations. Methods deployed include point pattern analysis of stone concentrations and a machine-learning technique using unsupervised classification of visible stone signature qualities, which are used in simple linear regressions to compare with geophysical and ceramic surface survey results of a site in Iraqi Kurdistan. There is a stronger fit (r^2?=?0.77) between surface stone concentrations and architecture identified by geophysical measurement, while surveyed ceramics show a weaker fit to defined architecture (r^2?=?0.31). Surface stone concentrations are potentially a better proxy than ceramics for determining the presence of past settlement in regions where stone was commonly used, sites are relatively flat, and ceramics are found in low concentrations. The methods advanced here can be scaled to wider areas, particularly in mountainous regions, where surface stone features are present.     

Experimental protocols for the study of battered stone anvils from Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)

Percussive activities are highly relevant in the economy of modern hunter-gatherer societies and other primates, and are likely to have been equally important during the Palaeolithic. Despite the potential relevance of percussive activities in the Early Stone Age, attempts to study battered artefacts are still rare. In order to establish protocols of analysis of battered tools, this paper pursues an interdisciplinary approach combining techno-typological, refit, use-wear and GIS studies of experimental anvils from Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). The main aim is to classify types of damage on battered artefacts according to the percussive task performed, and hence identify patterns that can be used to interpret the Oldowan and Acheulean evidence. Our results indicate that abrasion marks on anvil surfaces are typical of nut cracking, while bone breaking leaves characteristic scars and abrasion marks on the edges of anvils. Pounding of soft materials such as meat and plants also causes battering of anvils, producing morphological and spatial patterns that can be discerned from the heavy breakage of anvils during bipolar flaking. By integrating macroscopic, microscopic and spatial analyses of experimental stone tools, this paper contributes to create a referential framework in which Early Stone Age battered artefacts can be interpreted.     

Subterranean transport and deposition of quartz by ants in sandy sites relevant to age overestimation in optical luminescence dating

An artificial layered sandy site was created using a combination of native sand and colored sand (3 parts native uncolored quartz, 1 part colored quartz) in Apalachicola National Forest near Tallahassee, Florida. Twelve layers of sand, each 1 by 1 m in horizontal extent by 10 cm in thickness were emplaced to a depth of 2 m followed by implantation at the surface of a Florida harvester ant (Pogonomymrex badius) colony (the lower two layers were 50 cm thick). The colony excavated a nest, and after 7 months, the sand layers were excavated to the base to test the hypothesis that sand grains were moved upward within the ant nest without reaching the surface. The ants penetrated 11 of the 12 colored layers reaching a depth of 130 cm. Thirty nine sticky-acetate peels of ant chamber floors were collected and colored sand grains were counted under a microscope. More than 16,000 grains were identified in layers that did not originally host them. Of these, more than 80% were unambiguously moved upward. This means that possibly as many as 54,000 upwardly mobile grains were present (ratio of 3:1 uncolored to colored). In relation to optical luminescence (OSL) dating, this means that grains that would not have been optically zeroed by transport to the surface (defined here as subterranean-transported) were present in abundance, and that if the site was ancient, there would have been found many grains that were older than the layers they presently reside in, even if only one colony of harvester ants had disturbed the layers. This is in addition to the fact that backfilling of chambers and tunnels may contribute even more significantly to the presence of a subterranean-transported component of an OSL sample. We conclude that ants can significantly affect the age distributions in sandy archaeological sites. Multiple examples of such disturbances have been documented in the literature. Most relevant to our results are recent studies of the OSL chronology of Pre-Clovis-age and Palaeoindian age archaeological sites in sandy environments in North America that may have been compromised by ant bioturbation of quartz sand grains. Here we have examined in detail the potential effects of one episode of ant nest-building on the age overestimation of affected sediments. From this we found that as few as 12 episodes of bioturbation involving backfilling of chambers in the same volume of sand could lead to the presence of 1 contaminant grain per 50 grains of sample.     

Palaeontology of the Cerros Bayos section,Roca Formation (Danian), La Pampa Province,Argentina

Palynofloras from an outlier of Tertiary sediments in the One Tree Hill area north of Adelaide are nonmarine and correlate with similar assemblages from Middle Eocene North Maslin Sands from Maslin Bay and Golden Grove. Although there are similarities with time-equivalent Lower Nothofagidites asperus Zone palynofloras in the Gippsland Basin, a number of species in the South Australian palynofloras do not extend below the Late Eocene in the Gippsland sequences. This indicates earlier appearances for these species in southcentral Australia. The sediments overlie a highly weathered bedrock palaeosurface, indicating that a phase of significant weathering occurred prior to the Middle Eocene. A number of selected taxa are illustrated and their distribution in the palynofloras is discussed. Two new species, Proteacidites mildenhallii and Proteacidites parrawirrensis, are described and one species, Rhoipites byfieldensis, is emended.