Evidence of open-air late prehistoric occupation in the Trieste area (north-eastern Italy): dating, 3D clay plaster characterization and obsidian provenancing

Abundant clay burnt plaster remains and a few flaked tools, including an obsidian artefact, found on the ground surface not far from Trieste (north-eastern Italy) provide rare evidence of a possible prehistoric open-air occupation in the area. To confirm and detail their ancient origin, a plaster sample has been dated between 4000 and 2000 B.C. via thermoluminescence. Outer and inner structure of selected plaster samples has been characterized using several techniques, i.e. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray computed micro-tomography, obtaining information about their production technology. The last technique has allowed to image and virtually extract vegetal remains and imprints. Their 3D morphological study has contributed to collect information about the ancient environment and has provided clues to define the plaster production season. The provenance of the obsidian artefact from Lipari Island, revealed by prompt gamma activation analysis, suggests that the finding site was part of long-distance connection systems and probably worked as intermediate point between the north-eastern Adriatic coastal areas and the inner Karst plateau.     

Eine naturwissenschaftliche Forschungsbibliothek des 18. Jahrhunderts: Die Bibliothek der ‚Naturforschenden Gesellschaft’︁ zu Jena

The ?Naturforschende Gesellschaft’?, founded in 1793, proved instrumental for the development of science at the University of Jena around 1800. Its library can be considered as one of its most important facilities provided for research and for the education of students. Since this library has been preserved almost without losses, we can ask whether this library served the purpose of a research library in the newly established field of ?science’?. In consequence, the role of scientific societies and the genesis of specialised libraries in the area of science can be investigated in an exemplary case, with implications for the concept of scientific research around 1800.     

Polished Stone Axes in Caput Adriae from the Neolithic to the Copper Age

This paper reports the results of a long-term project on the stone axes from Caput Adriae. Available data show that jade axes originating in the western Alps reached the Neolithic groups of Friuli Venezia Giulia and coastal Istria as early as the second half of the 6th millennium BC, during the Danilo/Vla?ka culture. The exchange of this and other classes of lithic artefacts testifies that in this period this area was fully integrated into long-distance exchange systems that used mainly coastal routes. These systems would have continued in the 5th millennium BC, as indicated by a few oversized jade axe blades and other materials. Far from the coast, jade axes entered central Slovenia, probably reaching sites of the Sava Group of the Lengyel culture in the first half of the 5th millennium BC. In roughly the same period, shaft-hole axes made of Bohemian metabasites (BM) spread over central and southeastern Europe, crossed the Alps and reached Italy. According to different Neolithic traditions, during the 5th millennium BC Europe appears to be divided into a jade-using western area and a central-eastern BM-using one. During the 4th millennium BC, the exchange networks of Caput Adriae are increasingly influenced by the eastern Alpine and Balkan world, where the raw material sources of the main groups of shaft-hole axes are located. The association of the rocks used for axe production and copper ore suggests that the changes in raw material exploitation strategies during the Copper Age were probably related to the development of the first metallurgy.     

Italian Jews and their ‘political’ reactions to the fascist regime’s anti-Semitic campaign*

ABSTRACT

The article intends to emphasize the political redefinition of Italian Jews in reaction to the fascist aggression and its different answers ‘organized’. Since 1934 there arose strong divisions within Italian Judaism: the real issue of contention, however, did not reside in the attitude towards fascism, but in the judgement on Zionism and postponed a long-standing dynamics. A group of Jews, called ‘bandieristi’ from a magazine called La Nostra Bandiera, on the basis of a ‘fascist’ programme and anti-Zionism, tried to replace the official establishment of the Jewish representatives, the Union Community of Italian Jewish, as a reference to the fascist authorities. The Union was accused by the ‘bandieristi’ of being complicit with international Jewry and Zionism. The confrontation with fascism exasperated the Italian Judaism internal contradictions, putting in long-term dynamic light that preceded fascism and survived the early post-war years.     

Transitions in Social Organization: A Predictive Model from Southwestern Archaeology

A number of studies from experimental psychology suggest the existence of information-processing constraints that place limits on the number of people with which an individual may simultaneously interact. The existence of such constraints means that increases in the size of a human group will push that population toward “scalar thresholds,” at which point a transformation of the social order must take place to reorganize patterns of group interaction. The model developed here incorporates ethnographic data into the scalar theory of social change in an attempt to refine the precision with which scalar thresholds may be predicted. This scalar model contributes to an understanding of social change in small- to midsized sedentary populations and provides insight into processes by which social differentiation can emerge in these societies.