ESR dose response of Al center measured in quartz samples from the Yellow River (China): Implications for the dating of Upper Pleistocene sediment

The ESR dating method requires to describe the evolution of the ESR signal intensities vs. increasing gamma doses, then to extrapolate the equivalent dose of radiation received by the sample since its deposition using mathematical fitting. The function classically used to describe the growth curves of ESR aluminium signal in quartz was recently discussed and challenged for Lower Pleistocene sediments. In the present work, some alluvial sediments sampled in Upper Pleistocene fluvial terraces of the Yellow River system (China) permit us to test the application of another extrapolation function (linear + exponential) recently proposed for Lower Pleistocene sediments. The equivalent doses obtained here for the recent deposits of the Yellow River system and the corresponding ages are promising and indicate the potential of ESR to date quartz deposits from Upper Pleistocene times.     

L’impossible Incarnation D’une Monarchie Une Crise de la Régence du Dernier Habsbourg d’Espagne (1668–1669)

Through the crisis of the regency of the last Habsburg, which triggered a “conflict of legitimation”, this article analyses the notion of legitimacy from the viewpoint of the action and from the viewpoint of the ideas that underlie the action. Our investigation shows the interactionist nature of the practices of legitimation and emphasises the limit of an explanation based on rhetoric. In a conflict that cannot be equated to the mere physics of confrontations, the key question is that of the incarnation of the sociopolitical body.     

Remarques sur l'emploi de l'ablatif et du génitif de qualité chez Tacite

Suetonius' Life of Augustus 52 emphasises Augustus' restraint with regard to divine honours and may have been written with the intention of contradicting Tacitus (Annales 1.10). Suetonius' statement that it was common for temples to be offered to proconsuls in the Republican period is not supported by the archaeological and epigraphical evidence. Two passages from Cicero's letters (ad Q.Fr. 1.1.26; ad Att. 5.21.7) have been seen as supporting evidence. They do not, however, necessarily provide evidence for the existence of temples to proconsuls, although it is possible that they may have been the source for Suetonius' statement.     

Virgil's Fourth Eclogue and the Eleusinian Mysteries 1

This article argues that Virgil's Fourth Eclogue can in part be understood in light of the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries on Roman religion. In particular, it argues that the child can be compared with Ploutos and that the return of the Virgo reflects the myth of Persephone. The myths of Demeter at Eleusis are assimilated to the Roman myth of a golden age under the rule of Saturnus. The return of Persephone from the Underworld and the birth of the child signify an end to war. The possible significance of the poem to Augustan propaganda is also discussed.     

Rhetoric and communication in Joseph Conrad

Early modern natural philosophers such as Francis Bacon are frequently seen as providing a legitimating ideology for British imperial expansion. Although this has been challenged by one recent study, much of Bacon's work on English colonisation remains unexplored. This article argues that far from being an ideological apologist for English colonisation, Bacon had two sets of colonial anxieties. The first derived from a tradition of civic humanism which concerned the moral corruption, dispossession of indigenous people and the greed involved in the British colonization of Ireland and America. Bacon's second anxiety was not moral but epistemological, and stemmed from his natural philosophy. For Bacon, colonies were not simply new commonwealths, they were places which potentially produced the natural knowledge vital for the recreation of man's original, epistemic empire over the world. Consequently, Bacon was not only interested in the morality of colonising, but also whether the knowledge produced in colonies was reliable. An exploration of Bacon's views on colonisation also offers us a point of entry into the scholarly debate about the relationship between Bacon's natural philosophy and his political thought.     

Roman marble from Lusitania: petrographic and geochemical characterisation

This paper reports the results of an archaeometric study of the marble from the Estremoz Anticline, Portugal. Thirty-four samples from eleven different locations were analysed petrographically. In addition, ten samples were selected for trace element and strontium isotopic analysis. The sampling was aimed at obtaining material from known ancient quarries and at establishing the overall petrographic and geochemical variation of the marble from the Estremoz Anticline. The main type of marble in Estremoz is a white(-veined), calcitic marble with an average maximum grain size between 0.81 and 3.50 mm. ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values of marble leachates range from 0.70850 to 0.70891 and are similar to the results for other Palaeozoic marbles of the Iberian Peninsula.     

Miocene molluscs and barnacles from Mont Rond,Kerguelen Islands

A sedimentary deposit discovered at Kerguelen Islands in 1988 is interbedded in the Cape MacLear cliffs, near Mont Rond (Ronarc'h Peninsula). The age of this oceanic deposit is considered to be lower to middle Miocene as indicated by isotopic dating of both the underlying and overlying basalts. This deposit yields a fauna essentially consisting of molluscs (bivalves, gastropods) and crustaceans (cirripedes). This fauna exhibits some similarities to Miocene to Recent austral faunas (New Zealand, Argentina) as a result of the establishment of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. However, it has no species in common with the extant Kerguelen fauna. The Mont Rond fossil assemblage is best compared with either of two types of extant communities developed on a bare sandy sea floor where infaunal species are dominant, but most likely to an opportunistic one in depths from approximately 10 to 80 m.