The Herbert River,Queensland, Tropical Australia: Community Perception and River Management

There is a widespread perception amongst the community of Ingham and surrounding areas that the Herbert River in tropical Queensland has aggraded since the time of European settlement. Yet this perception is not supported by such evidence as historical accounts of the river and river trade, changes at the Ingham gauging station since 1940 and comparison of channel cross-sections surveyed since 1968. No reason has been identified for this divergence, but experience elsewhere teaches us that ignoring local perception is likely to result in an incomplete understanding of environmental issues. Unless the challenge of reconciling popular perception and deductive interpretation of the evidence is met, the potential for conflict will remain. Community proposals for strategies will struggle for support from the ‘rationalists’ and the community will oppose ‘rational’ strategies if they are not seen to be addressing the ‘real’ problems.     

Aging fetal and juvenile skeletons from Roman Period Egypt using basiocciput osteometrics

This paper tests the use of basiocciput osteometrics against those of femoral diaphyseal length and dental development for aging fetal and juvenile skeletal remains. The study sample consists of 39 fetal and juvenile skeletons recovered from Kellis 2, a Roman Period cemetery in Dakhleh, Egypt. The results add to the corpus of data supporting the reliability of this method for use in both bioarchaeological and forensic contexts. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Production Networks and Consumer Choice in the Earliest Metal of Western Europe

The earliest metal objects and metal production practices appeared in Western Europe during the fourth and third millennia BC. The presence of earlier dates for copper, gold, silver, and lead, as well as arsenical copper and tin-bronze alloys in Central and Eastern Europe implies that there is no evidence for the independent invention of metallurgy in Western Europe. Instead, the acquisition of metal objects as exotica by communities appears to have led eventually to the movement of people possessing metallurgical expertise. However, the metals, production techniques and object forms used in each region reflect local standards seen in other materials. This implies a process of incorporation and innovation by the communities involved rather than a straightforward or inevitable adoption. The presence of metal may have created new networks of communication and exchange but, due to its small scale, there is no evidence for any metallurgical revolution.     

Evaluation of Fe isotope values as a provenance tool for chert artefacts from the north-eastern United States

Iron (Fe) isotope compositions of prehistoric stone tools and geological sources were compared to evaluate the robustness of this isotopic fingerprinting technique. Artefacts and source materials were collected from the Hatch site in central Pennsylvania, United States, where both veined chert (Bald Eagle chert) and stone tools coexist within several metres. Yellow artefacts (δ⁵⁶Fe = 0.38 ± 0.1, n = 7) and source materials (δ⁵⁶Fe = 0.42 ± 0.1, n = 8) isotopically matched within error. The source values also overlap yellow chert samples from three other Bald Eagle chert locations in the area. These values are different from six other chert locations in the north-eastern United States. These data suggest that the Fe isotope composition of chert artefacts reflect distinct geological sources. To enhance the mechanical characteristics of the stone tools, the chert experienced heat treatment, which induced a phase shift of the Fe oxide mineral goethite to hematite. This phase shift changes the colour of the chert to red. The red chert artefacts and source material also have overlapping Fe isotope values, but are 0.2‰ higher than the initial yellow chert. Experimental work where cherts were heated with different clays shows that Fe exchange with site soils induces the +0.2 fractionation. These data demonstrate that predictable Fe isotope fractionation occurs during heating, resulting in isotopically distinct artefacts.     

THE USE OF OXYGEN ISOTOPES IN SHEEP MOLARS TO INVESTIGATE PAST HERDING PRACTICES AT THE NEOLITHIC SETTLEMENT OF ÇATALHÖYÜK,CENTRAL ANATOLIA

This paper presents a pilot study designed to test the use of oxygen isotopes for investigating aspects of early herding practices in the Neolithic of western Asia, using the site of Çatalhöyük in central Anatolia as a case study. Time‐sequenced δ¹⁸O values in dental enamel of archaeological sheep are assessed for post‐depositional diagenetic effects and compared with seasonal δ¹⁸O meteoric water values in the region today. The evidence is used to indicate the environmental conditions in which individual sheep spent their first year, enabling management of breeding and birthing seasons, and movement to seasonal pastures, to be investigated.     

A dynamic phase transition model for spatial agglomeration processes

A nonlinear model of population migration is presented in order to provide a dynamic explanation for the formation of metropolitan areas. "In Section 2 the model is introduced in terms of the rate equations for the mean values of the regional population numbers with specifically chosen individual transition rates. Section 3 gives a survey of concepts and results for the convenience of the reader not interested in the details of the mathematical derivations. Section 4 derives the stationary solutions of the rate equations, that is, the equilibria of the system. Section 5 treats the time dependent solutions of the model equations focussing on the exact analytic solutions along so-called symmetry paths. Section 6 analyzes the dynamic stability of the symmetry path solutions and decides which stationary states are unstable and which are stable equilibrium states."