Thermal and Petrographic Characterization of Herculaneum Wall Plasters

Roman plasters sampled from different houses at the archaeological site of Herculaneum, Italy, (2010–12) were studied by means of petrography, thermal analysis and X‐ray fluorescence. Herculaneum plasters are composed by preparatory layers (arriccio) with a thickness of several centimetres and are based on a calcitic binder and volcanic scoriae as aggregates, covered by a thin final layer characterized by a low granulometry. Most of the sampled plasters can be placed into two groups based on the aggregate composition and classified as marmorino or intonachino. However, a similar aggregate composition did not induce superimposable thermal behaviour, thus suggesting that the samples underwent different ageing/weathering processes, with a consequent change of the ratio among the components.     

The reflection of human activity in the sediments of Iwankowskie Lake from Subatlantic Phase (Polish Outer Carpathians)

The paper presents the analysis of organic and mineral sediments filling the depression, which developed over the landslide located at the slope (767–773 m a.s.l.) of Lubań ridge decscending to the Ochotnica river valley in the Polish Flysch Carpathians. The landslide formed in an early stage of the Subatlantic Phase (2490 ± 35 BP). The top of peat is dated at 1360 ± 50 years BP and is covered by 72 cm of clayey silts with some sandy intercalations, which indicate slopewash after deforestation. The pollen of ruderal plants and Cerealia (undiff.) reflect agricultural activity in the surroundings. The fragments of charcoal indicate the age of the forest clearance to the first half of the 17^th century. The late forest clearance at the elevated north exposed slopes followed 200–300 years later in relation to the foundation of the village at the valley floor.     

Philosophy as a cultural resource and medium of reflection for Hermann Weyl

In a talk given at Zurich in the late 1940s, Hermann Weyl discussed Ferdinand Gonseth's dialectical epistemology and considered it as being restricted too strictly to aspects of historical change. His experiences with post-Kantian dialectical philosophy, in particular Johann Gottlieb Fichte's derivation of the concept of space and matter, had been a stronger dialectical background for his own 1918 studies in purely infinitesimal geometry and the early geometrically unified field theory of matter (extending the Mie-Hilbert program). Although now Weyl distantiated himself from the speculative features of his youthful philosophizing and in particular from his earlier enthusiasm for Fichte, he again had deep doubts as to the cultural foundations of modern mathematical sciences and its role in material culture of high modernity. For Weyl, philosophical «reflection» was a cultural necessity he now turned towards Karl Jaspers' and Martin Heidegger's existentialism to find deeper grounds, similar to his turn towards Fichte's philosophy after World War I. The discussion in the late 1940s can be read as a kind of post-World-War-II «Nachtrag» to Weyl's more widely known philosophical comments on mathematics and the natural sciences published in the middle of the 1920s.     

Albert Lautman et le souci brisé du mouvement

We locate Albert Lautman's work as a sort of agent of the break of symmetry in the framework of the traditional opposition of speculative philosophy and the physico-mathematical sciences. The stakes for philosophy are, with very rare exceptions, very poorly perceived. On this level, we return to the question of Lautman's supposed «Platonism» and we confront it with its fundamental reading of Martin Heidegger. The consequences of this insertion in the heideggerian furrow are fundamental for a just restitution of this thought and this philosophy into what they retain in current thought. On the other side, that of Lautmanian entries in the field of mathematical physics, we insist on the extreme prospective alacrity of his gaze, his philosophic power which comes to reinforce this strange sensibility toward what constituted the essential part of theoretical mathematics and physics in his time. In this sense, his position occupies actually one of the nodal points of the «surrationalistic» landscape.     

Présence de Ferdinand Gonseth dans la pensée de Gaston Bachelard

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of Ferdinand Gonseth's epistemological and philosophical reflection on Gaston Bachelard. This will be done on at least two levels: on the one hand, on the level of direct quotations of Gonseth's texts and notions made by Bachelard; on the other, on the level of an agreement between the two conceptions concerning some central issues— agreement that lets one suppose an influence of Gonseth on Bachelard or an identity between their views. One concludes recalling the notion of «subjectivité quelconque», suggested to Bachelard by the gonsethean idea of «logique comme physique de l'objet quelconque», and seeking to grasp the differences between Bachelard's notion of «sujet quelconque», and Gonseth's one ofhomo phenomenologicus. One could define Bachelard's and Gonseth's epistemologies as two phenomenologies of the man of science: this is their main common feature.     

Des porte-parole protestants au chevet de l'édit de Nantes moribond

This article shows how the Edict of Nantes (1598), that had been criticized by French Protestants when it came out, progressively became the symbol of their belonging to the French nation and the acceptance of their religious particularity. But it is finally after its revocation (1685) that this Edict appears to make most sense to the Huguenot spokesmen. Thinking from a theological point of view as well as an historical, juridical and philosophical one, they consider it as a symbol of religious freedom. However, it is only by giving up their former status lost with the Revocation that they manage to develop an original thinking on the relationship between the State and individuals. In order to achieve this, they must distinguish between the subject or the citizen on one hand, and the believer on the other. But this distinction implies the renunciation of the nostalgia for aProtestant body, recognized as such in the kingdom of France.     

Continental Patterns in Stone Tools: A Technological and Biplot-Based Comparison of Early Late Pleistocene Assemblages from Northern and Southern Africa

The technology of the end products i.e. blades and points in Late Pleistocene stone artefact assemblages from Klasies River, South Africa, and the Nile Valley, Egypt, are compared. The comparison includes univariate and multivariate analysis of metrical attributes enhanced by graphical biplot displays. The end products in these assemblages are either dominantly points or blades and this is related to the core reduction strategy adopted. The MSA 11 from Klasies River and the Nubian Complex industry from the Nile Valley are point industries made in the Levallois tradition, while the MSA 1 from Klasies River and the Taramsan from the Nile Valley may be non-Levallois or adapted Levallois blade industries. Dating of the assemblages shows the changes between dominant core reduction strategies are sequential and time restricted in both South and North Africa. It is concluded that variability of the same kind occurs in Middle Stone Age and Middle Palaeolithic assemblages south and north of the Sahara in the early Late Pleistocene.Dans cet article, les technologies des produits recherchés, des lames et des pointes, pour certains ensembles lithiques de Klasies River, Afrique du Sud et la Vallée du Nil, Egypte, sont comparées. Cette comparaison implique des analyses univariées et multivariées de variables métriques biplot. Les produits recherchés sont bien des pointes que des lames, selon les stratégies dexploitation adoptées. Le MSA II de Klasies River et le Complexe nubien de la Vallée du Nil sont des industries à pointes issues de la tradition Levallois. Par contre, le MSA I de Klasies River et le Taramsien de la Vallée du Nil évoquent une technologie de production non-Levallois ou Levallois modifiée. Les éléments de datation disponibles indiquent que les changements dans la prépondérance des stratégies dexploitation senchaînent dans une séquence chronologique bien identifiable, aussibien dans lAfrique du Sud que lAfrique du Nord. On arrive à la conclusion quune variabilité du même caractère est attestée dans les ensembles du Middle Stone Age et du Paléolithique moyen au sud et au nord du Sahara, pendant le Pléistocène supérieur ancien.     

Human Technical Behavior in the African Middle Stone Age: The Lithic Assemblage of Porc-Epic Cave (Dire Dawa,Ethiopia)

The African origin of modern humans is the center of a large debate. Discoveries of anatomically modern human fossils in Sub-Saharan Africa correlated to lithic and faunal artifacts show that a “modern Behavior” is associated with the emergence of Homo sapiens. Even though the traits to define this modernity are sometimes difficult to apprehend, the study of the Middle Stone Age cultural phase is important for understanding the origin and evolution of the cognitive capacity of modern humans. Porc-Epic Cave in Ethiopia has a long sequence of Upper Pleistocene occupation. Several thousand bone and lithic artifacts were excavated during three major field excavations (1933, 1974, 1975–76). The lithic assemblage reveals that the relationship between humans and their environment is well organized and that the African terminology is sometimes difficult to apply. This paper proposes a synthesis of all the data, studies and conclusions I have made from the analysis of lithic materials from the 1933 and 1975–76 excavations in order to integrate Porc-Epic into the current debate of MSA and modern human Behavior.L'origine de l'Homme moderne en Afrique fait l'objet actuellement d'un large débat. Les décourvertes de fossiles d'Homo sapiens en Afrique sub-saharienne associés à des industries lithiques montrent que, en parallèle à l'émergence de cette nouvelle espèce humaine, un comportement dit moderne s'est développé. Le Middle Stone Age est donc une période culturelle charnière dans l'évolution comportementale de l'homme. La grotte du Porc-épic, en éthiopie, est un témoignage de cette ère avec un remplissage pléistocène supérieur contenant des dizaines de milliers de restes fauniques et lithiques. L'étude de son important assemblage lithique révèle que le rapport de l'homme à la matière et à son environnement est très organisé et que le terminologie culturelle africaine est parfois difficile à utiliser.