Characterisation and blind testing of radiocarbon dating of cremated bone

The success of radiocarbon dating of burned or cremated bones depends on the exposed temperature during burning and the degree of re-crystallisation of the inorganic bone matrix. We present a method for characterisation of likely cremated bones by employing visual inspection, infrared spectrometry and carbon stable isotope analysis on the bio-apatite fraction. The method of radiocarbon dating of cremated bones was tested by dating paired samples of bone and associated context materials such as pitch, charcoal and a dendrochronologically dated oak coffin. The dating of these paired test samples were largely performed as blind tests and showed excellent agreement between pitch and bone. The weighted mean age difference of all test samples is observed to −9 ± 60 ¹⁴C yr. To test the indicators and the effects of the degree of burning, a Late-Neolithic human individual has been studied, as this individual exhibits the full spectrum from low temperature burning (charred) to high temperature (“cremated”) from one end of a single bone to the other. This is reflected as a marked step in numerous parameters as well as in a significant difference in ¹⁴C age between the charred and the cremated bone samples.     

The Green Frog and Desalination: A Nyungar Metaphor for the (Mis‐)Management of Water Resources,Swan Coastal Plain,Western Australia

ABSTRACT In common with Aboriginal groups around Australia, the indigenous people, or Nyungars, of Perth adopt a holistic attitude towards groundwater resources. Of cultural significance are lakes, springs, soaks and watercourses that feature in Dreamtime creation narratives. Perth is experiencing major water shortages and many Nyungars feel that the degradation of the freshwater supply is a result of mismanagement and unsustainable development by non‐Aboriginal people. Proposals for dealing with the issue are seen as equally out of balance with the natural order of things. Water regulators have much to learn from indigenous Australians about water and environmental management. Although water continues to be central to Nyungar identity, the study on which this article is based found evidence of attenuated knowledge about the Dreaming, with discontinuities evident in the way significance is increasingly being read in everyplace rather than in specific ‘story places’.     

Introduction

From the 15th to the early 18th century the Baltic Sea was not only a highway for the physical transport of basic goods, it also functioned as the channel for the import and local and regional transfer of foreign cultural artifacts, artisans, artists and a wide range of media for cultural diffusion. Established commercial transportation, especially to the Low Countries and the British Isles, of grain, timber and iron ore from Denmark, Sweden and the eastern Baltic states brought wealth to the social and political elites within the Baltic region. The economic prosperity of the higher social layers among the Baltic States allowed them as customers and patrons to import a wide range of objects of art and artifacts belonging to prestige culture. The contributors to this volume of the Scandinavian Journal of History address the cultural traffic outlined above. The volume's ten articles are revised versions of papers read at the conference Cultural Traffic and Cultural Transformation around the Baltic Sea, 1450–1720, a conference held in the Carlsberg Academy in Copenhagen in early spring 2003. The conference Cultural Traffic and Cultural Transformation around the Baltic Sea, 1450–1720 (Carlsberg Academy, Copenhagen, 21–22 March 2003,) was made possible by substantial grants from the Carlsberg Foundation (Denmark) and the Danish Research Council for the Humanities. Organizers Dr Badeloch Noldus (Instituut Pallas, Leiden University, The Netherlands) and Dr Stephen Turk Christensen (Department for History and Social Theory, Roskilde University Centre (RUC), Denmark) thank the following for their support: Dr David Gaimster (Ministry for Culture, UK), Curator Hugo Johannsen (Danish National Museum), Curator Steffen Heiberg (National Historical Museum Frederiksborg Castle), Dr Juliette Roding (Leiden University), Accounts Department (RUC), Department for History and Social Theory (RUC), the staff at Carlsberg Academy, Conference Assistant Thea Pedersen (RUC) and Dr Ole Meyer (University of Florence). The conference participants reflected upon and discussed questions relating to the nature, scope, origin, direction and impact of the cultural interaction taking place in the late medieval and Early Modern Baltic region with examples drawn especially, but not exclusively, from elite culture. For recent studies dealing with Early Modern cultural relations between mostly the Low Countries and areas within the western Baltic, see articles in J. J. van Baak, L. Honti & A. H. Huussen, eds. The Baltic. Languages and Cultures in Interaction (Proceedings NOMES-Conference, 19–20 May 1994); Tijdschrift voor Scandinavistiek, vol. 16 (1995); J. Roding & L. Heerma van Voss, eds., The North Sea and Culture (1550–1800). Proceedings of the International Conference held in Leiden, 21–22 April 1995 (Hilversum, 1996). An interesting, but uneven, treatment of the eastern Baltic within a wider context of cultural exchange can be found in M. Klinge, Östersjövälden. Et illustrerat historisk utkast (Borgå, 1985). Rather dispersed, and occasionally too categorically formulated, relevant information and contextualization concerning Baltic cultural interaction can be found in the general history of the territories of the western Baltic power states by D. Kirby, Northern Europe in the Early Modern Period. The Baltic World 1492–1772 (London & New York, 1990), especially in the section “Migrants, Aliens and the Problem of Religious Diversity”.