Molecular evidence of bitumen in the Mousterian lithic assemblage of Hummal (Central Syria)

Evidence for bitumen use in Middle Palaeolithic sites is an exception in Pleistocene archaeology. This paper presents the discovery of three tar-bearing Levallois artefacts found in the Mousterian sequence in Hummal (Central Syria). The organic residues were submitted to geochemical study. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analyses of saturated and aromatic hydrocarbons and isotopic data show the presence of bitumen. The most likely location of natural asphalt provisioning is the Shaaf outcrop in the Bichri desert. The bitumen-bearing stone tools add further important data to the growing knowledge about bitumen processing in the Middle Palaeolithic spring sites of El Kowm. Identification of the provisioning place for natural asphalt enables a more precise assumption about the site's catchment area. From a technological point of view, the tar-bearing specimens provide information on the range of tool forms selected for hafting. Ballistic features arguably indicate that the pointed Levallois blanks seem to be spear points that were fitted to a wooden handle. In at least one case, this technical procedure was seemingly executed during a brief episode of occupation and replacement of worn out implements. This small, bracketed window of detailed insight into Mousterian technology is linked with the more general relationship between Levallois technology and stone tool hafting.     

An astrologer's map: A relic of late antiquity

Abstract

A Greek map of the world, which includes a windrose, zones, places in and around Egypt, and hell, is studied in reference to its context: an anonymous astrological miscellany. Other examples of this map have been found in a second context, among anonymous scholia to Theon of Alexandria's commentary on Ptolemy's Handy Tables (Procheiroi kanones), which were also of use to astrologers. The selection of Egyptian place‐names found on the map provides some clue to its possible origin, while the omission of the Mediterranean as well as the port of Alexandria is significant. Evidence suggests that the original map (known today only through later copies) is of an earlier date than the texts surrounding it, and that it may be one of the earliest world maps preserved from Late Antiquity.     

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN SOVIET FOREST MANAGEMENT

Exploitation of forest resources in the USSR requires choices among a set of uses which are at times mutually exclusive. Trees have predominantly been used in industry, often harvested by methods which have caused environmental damage and have not allowed for optimum utilization of the resource. It appears that increasing recognition is given to other functions of forest stands, including food supply, social recreation, and non-consumptive uses such as ecosystem preservation and environmental amelioration.     

Introduction: global perspectives on gender–water geographies

This introduction summarizes the work featured in the themed section of Gender, Place and Culture titled ‘Global geographies of gender and water’. It brings into dialogue scholars investigating a variety of gender–water relationships at different scales, including: poisoned waterscapes; fishing practices; and the implications of neoliberal water policies. The authors featured purposefully engage with the multi-faceted ways in which experiences, discourses and policies of water are gendered, and how gender is created through processes of access, use and control of water resources. In bringing these articles together, we have consciously aimed to support inclusive, feminist collaborative work and to prioritize diversity.     

Process, perception, and practice: Time perspectivism in Yosemite native demography

Multiple concepts of time apply to archaeology—from analytical time used to organize and interpret the archaeological record to the time of lived experience of those individuals responsible for creation of the archaeological record. This paper demonstrates how these disparate concepts of time can be reconciled through a perception-based approach to time perspectivism, which invokes multiple analytical scales working from the minimum scale of the average human lifespan. This approach is demonstrated through a case study of hunter–gatherer demographic change in Yosemite Valley in the central Sierra Nevada of California.