The 2017 election: Scotland re-enters British politics?

Scotland has long seemed politically apart from England and Wales. That trend reached its apogee with the SNP landslide in 2015. Yet now it is a country that is full of marginal seats whose outcome can potentially be decisive in the Britain-wide battle between Labour and the Conservatives. The roots of this development are traced as a product of an increasingly evenly spread SNP vote, the increased fragmentation of the unionist vote, and the impact of Brexit on the parties’ fortunes. The result is a highly unstable political map.     

Crop Fertility Conditions in North-Eastern Gaul During the La Tène and Roman Periods: A Combined Stable Isotope Analysis of Archaeobotanical and Archaeozoological Remains

ABSTRACT

Considerable archaeobotanical datasets describe cereal cultivation in north-eastern France, from the Iron Age to the Roman period. This study aims to complement these by using stable isotope analysis on charred cereal grains. Soil fertility was investigated through δ¹⁵N and δ¹³C analyses of 1480 charred cereal grains, dated from the Late La Tène to the Late Antiquity periods. In the Île-de-France, charred grain Δ¹³C values suggested good hydric conditions, with drier episodes in the 1st and 3rd century AD; while in Champagne, the lower Δ¹³C values for spelt reflect the lower water holding capacity of the chalky soils. A wide range of cereal δ¹⁵N values (0.8–8.7‰) implies a wide range of soil fertility conditions. Jouars-Pontchartrain and Palaiseau (Île-de-France) yielded the highest cereal δ¹⁵N values, whereas Acy-Romance (Champagne) delivered among the lowest. From these three sites, the δ¹⁵N values of red deer bone collagen were used to estimate the reference δ¹⁵N values for unmanured plants. Unlike in Acy-Romance, there were significant differences in Palaiseau and Jouars-Pontchartrain, indicating that the cultivated cereals inherited their high δ¹⁵N values from manured soil. At Jouars-Pontchartrain, the δ¹⁵N value (almost 9‰) suggested a high trophic level manuring source, possibly from pig and/or human faeces.     

Seismic performance of historical vaulted adobe constructions: a numerical case study from Yazd,Iran

Past earthquakes have demonstrated that historical vaulted adobe buildings are highly vulnerable to seismic actions. Hence, it is crucial for such building typologies to be evaluated in terms of seismic capacity. To this end, this article deals with the seismic performance of historical vaulted adobe houses from the city of Yazd, Iran as one of the seismically active areas of the world and possessing a very rich adobe heritage. Thus, and based on a detailed geometrical survey, a representative sample of adobe houses from Yazd was studied using a simplified in-plane analysis based on three geometric indexes. Concerning the out-of-plane behavior, a deeper assessment was conducted by performing a numerical study, where the main influential parameters on the seismic behavior of vaulted adobe buildings were considered. The numerical analyses were carried out by adopting the limit analysis theory implemented in the Block2D software. The results obtained indicate the safe in-plane behavior of most of the houses and the safe out-of-plane response of the sample under gravitational loads. However, the sample out-of-plane safety under earthquake-induced loads seems to be a matter of concern.     

Archaeological Survey of the Ex-USS <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bugara</Emphasis> (SS/AGSS331)

In August 2017, a multidisciplinary team conducted the first archaeological survey of the deep water (242 m) wreck of the ex-USS Bugara (SS/AGSS331) using the remotely operated vehicles Argus and Hercules. The survey provided 8 h of direct observation with video and still camera documentation of the wreck, which previously had been identified by sonar and a brief ROV survey of portions of the hull in 2001. The 2017 assessment added considerably to an understanding of changes to Bugara after it sank while under tow in 1971. Bugara, a World War II-era submarine, served at the end of that conflict and through the Cold War. The submarine reflects a series of modifications to “modernize” it within the context of the Cold War. The examination of the wreck, along with additional archival research, offers more details not only on the probable cause of the sinking but also on subsequent site formation processes. The characterization of the wreck resulted in a reassessment of the site as more than an obsolete vessel accidentally lost when relegated to target practice. The archival record, now declassified, shows that Bugara’s loss also reflects its ultimate use, within the context of the Cold War, as a target for the Mark 48 torpedo, a newly developed “sub and ship killing” weapon designed in the late 1960s and tested through 1971 to take out Soviet deep-diving nuclear submarines and high-performance surface ships.     

Archaeological Survey of the Ex-USS <Emphasis Type="Italic">Independence</Emphasis> (CVL22)

In August 2016, a multidisciplinary team conducted the first archaeological survey of the deep-water (829 m) wreck of the ex-USS Independence (CVL22) using the remotely operated vehicles Argus and Hercules. The survey provided 34 h of direct observation with video and still camera documentation of the wreck, which the previous year had been initially identified with a limited three-dimensional sonar survey of the site. The 2016 assessment added considerably to an understanding of changes to Independence after its use as a target vessel for the 1946 atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, as a radiological laboratory, training facility, and finally as a receptacle for “nuclear waste” prior to its scuttling off California in January 1951. The location and detailed examination of the wreck, along with additional archival research, offers a more nuanced definition of the carrier’s role within the context of the Cold War between the USSR, its adversaries and the race to establish nuclear supremacy, as well as site formation processes and ongoing biological colonization of the wreck site. As well, no evidence of residual radiological contamination was noted during the mission.     

USS <Emphasis Type="Italic">Independence’s</Emphasis> Aircraft

Submerged aircraft are a newly emerging area of study in underwater archaeology. In August 2016, a multidisciplinary team conducted the first archaeological survey of the deep water (829 m) wreck of the ex-USS Independence (CVL22), a WWII era light carrier scuttled off San Francisco after its use as an atomic bomb test target and subsequently as a floating radiological laboratory and training facility. Using the remotely operated vehicles Argus and Hercules, the expedition documented and studied Independence including assessment of a sonar target thought to be an aircraft resting inside the sunken carrier’s forward elevator pit. The survey confirmed the presence of a plane, but previous assumptions as to the type and identity of this aircraft, based on archival records, proved erroneous. As well, the remains of a second, and possibly a third, aircraft were also encountered during the 2016 survey. These artifacts, through their context, both as naval warplanes on an aircraft carrier, and as test articles for seaborne nuclear weapons development, more precisely fit within the parameters of maritime archaeology. They join other archaeological evidence at the Independence site that helps define its significance within the context of World War II and the Cold War.     

Organization of ceramic production at a fortified Early Bronze Age settlement in Moravia (Czech Republic) inferred from minimally destructive archaeometry

This paper explores how pottery production was organized at fortified sites of central Europe at the end of the Early Bronze Age. The organization of pottery production in terms of ethnography-based models was inferred jointly by non-destructive multi-elemental analysis, micropetrography and powder X-ray diffraction. This minimally destructive approach was used to explore the mode of pottery production at the fortified central site Blu?ina (Moravia, Czech Republic). Archaeometry-based indirect evidence indicates that tableware of a specific shape was produced using a specific technology at the site or in its close vicinity and that coarse ware was brought to the site from elsewhere. The results obtained were complexly evaluated and compared with ethnography-based categorizations to reveal the features of production organization of the Early Bronze Age pottery. Multidimensional analysis classified the production as intensified household labour and work of individual retainers, or nucleated corvée, depending on its scale and intensity.     

Siberia and neighboring regions in the Last Glacial Maximum: did people occupy northern Eurasia at that time?

An updated analysis of Paleolithic sites in Siberia and the Urals ¹⁴C-dated to the coldest phase of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), with its timespan currently determined as ca. 23,000–19,000 BP (ca. 27,300–22,900 cal BP), is presented. It is demonstrated that people continuously occupied the southern and central parts of Siberia and the Russian Far East (up to 58° N latitude), and perhaps sporadically settled regions located even further north, up to 70° N, throughout the LGM. This is in accord with our previous data, but is now based on a larger dataset, and also on a paleoecological analysis of the major pre-LGM archaeological sites in Siberia and the Urals north of 58° N. It is clear that Paleolithic people in northern Eurasia were able to cope with the treeless tundra environment well in advance of the LGM, at least at ca. 34,000–26,000 BP (ca. 38,500–30,000 cal BP). Therefore, a high degree of adaptation to cold conditions allowed people to survive in Siberia during the LGM.