Induced metal-ion exchange in excavated human bone

Excavated human bone was exposed to aqueous solutions containing high concentrations of a single added metal ion in order to examine the extent of introduction of contaminating materials during burial. Variables included pH, temperature, ion concentration, state of bone (whole or crushed), structure of buffer, and counterion. Calcium and sodium showed little increase, and even a decrease in some cases. Strontium, zinc, lead, and magnesium showed large increases probably through heteroionic replacement of calcium. Manganese, aluminum, and potassium showed increases, particularly under neutral conditions, probably through infiltration into voids and defects.     

Rapid Transit and Community Power: West Oakland Residents Confront BART

Regional transportation planning shaped minority activism in the mid-1960s. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system encouraged West Oakland activists to create a strong local identity. BART supporters valued regional mobility and blamed ghetto poverty on the inaccessibility of suburban jobs. Minority activists blamed BART for harming the ghetto poor by encouraging job migration to the suburbs, and for displacing residents. As compensation, they demanded that BART hire minority workers and increase relocation payments. While West Oakland activists largely failed to influence BART, the newly unified community did gain local control of schools and urban poverty programs.     

Palaeoenvironments and Cultural Sequence of the Florisbad Middle Stone Age Hominid Site, South Africa

Florisbad, an open-air spring site with 7 m of strata, has yielded the type assemblage of Middle Stone Age (MSA) fauna, the cranium of an archaic hominid in 1932 and an extensive sequence of MSA artefacts in the 1980s. The cultural assemblages include an early MSA dated broadly to 279,000±47,000 years, a highly retouched form of MSA at 157,000±21,000 years and a minimally retouched, expedient MSA assemblage from a series of occupation horizons at 121,000±6000 years. The latter represents multiple brief visits to a hunting and butchery site on the edge of an active spring pool, where periodic sedimentation gently buried occupation debris in a near-pristine context. Periods of lower spring discharge are represented by organic horizons as swampy vegetation encroached on the springs, while periods of higher spring discharge created pools. Overall the spring sequence indicates low-energy subaqueous environments similar to lakes, ponds or backwater sites. The sequence is characterized by fine sands, silts and clays responsible for the good archaeological preservation.     

Of Sheep and Scribbling: Women and Writing in (Mostly) Early Modern England

Books reviewed in this article: Kevin Pask, The Emergence of the English Author: Scripting the Life of the Poet in Early Modern England Carol Barash, English Women’s Poetry 1649-1714: Politics, Community and Linguistic Authority Anna Battigelli, Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind Helen Wilcox (ed.), Women and Literature in Britain 1500-1700 Jeni Williams, Interpreting Nightingales: Gender, Class and Histories