The Effect of Raw Material on the Identification of Knapping Skill: a Case Study from Olduvai Gorge,Tanzania

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory - The identification of Oldowan hominin knapping skill levels has been a focus of numerous studies, with apparent variation in technical abilities...     

Uncrowned kings: rituals and ritual objects in eighteenth–nineteenth century Portuguese royal acclamation ceremonies

ABSTRACT

This article examines the royal acclamation ceremonies of the Portuguese crown in order to grasp the responsiveness of the institution of the monarchy and regime to the challenges of modernity throughout the delicate watershed period of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Portuguese Catholic and absolutist monarchy of the ancien régime had a strict protocol and a set of insignia of power that acted together at the moment of the acclamation and legitimation of each new king. The purpose of this research is to assess the adaptation and reinvention of these insignia and rituals according to the revolutionary demands of social change and secularization brought about by the turbulent period of the beginning of the nineteenth century: the French military invasions (1807–11); the departure of the royal family, court and administration to Brazil (1807); the liberal constitutional revolution (1820); and the civil war pitting liberals against absolutists (1832–34). The new constitutional monarchy that came out of this revolutionary flow faced many challenges of legitimacy, including the test of its capacity to create a modern royal imaginary updated to the cultural mindset of national and secular societies, and capable of bonding rulers with their people. The authors believe that the study of the acclamation ceremonies in the Portuguese constitutional monarchy can give us an accurate perspective on the quality of the symbolic image of the crown, therefore assessing the political efficiency of rituals as one of the structural aspects for institutional legitimization.     

Book reviews

JAPAN'S ECONOMY IN WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION. By Jerome B. Cohen. With a Foreword by Sir George Sansom (Issued under the auspices of the International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations. University of Minnesota Press, 1949).

INTERNATIONAL LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS. By H. Lauterpacht, K.C., LL.D., F.B.A. (London, Stevens and Sons Limited, 1950).

EMPIRE OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. By Gerald S. Graham, University of Toronto Press, 1950. xvii+338 pp.

KOREA TO‐DAY. By George M. McCune with the collaboration of Arthur L. Grey, Jr. (I.P.R.) (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1950. pp. 372–74 (Appendices)—16 (Bibliography)—6 (Indices) $5.00).

THE MAKING OF PAKISTAN: By Richard Symonds. London: Faber & Faber, 1950, pp. 227.

IMMIGRATION INTO NEW ZEALAND. Report of a Study Group of the Dunedin Branch of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, June, 1950, p.p. 22.

SEVEN FALLEN PILLARS, The Middle East, 1915–1950, by Jon Kimche. (London, Secker & Warburg, 1950, 316 pp. Appendix, Index).     

New techniques for the recovery of small amounts of mature enamel proteins

Currently there are no non-destructive techniques to obtain protein from the dental enamel, the most mineralized tissue in mammals and most resistant to diagenesis, which provides a window to the developing period by means of incremental markings containing proteins. To recover protein, dissolution of powdered enamel is required. Here we tested whether samples obtained by micro-etching of the enamel surface were adequate for protein analysis by MALDI-TOF/TOF mass spectrometry and identification in protein databases. The micro-etch techniques were effective in generating adequate samples for mass spectrometry (from 3 to 13.4 μm superficial enamel), being also highly conservative, since they rendered masses of enamel ranging from 0.1 to 0.4 mg. Using these techniques the separation of proteins by SDS-PAGE was not necessary, and the whole procedure was easier. Results showed successful identification of specific enamel proteins after whole crown superficial etching with 11% EDTA in the case of immature porcine samples, and with 10% HCl in the case of mature human enamel. X- and Y-isoforms of amelogenin, ameloblastin, and enamelin peptides were identified. The new techniques described here allowed the successful recovery of enamel proteins, opening new avenues for the use of enamel protein information in fossil/archeological material, where sometimes little protein is left.