Qadhat—a comparative study of ancient and new lime mortar from the Marib province/Yemen

Qadhat is the name for a lime mortar in Southern Arabia. Its usage has a long tradition. This work describes physical and mineralogical properties of ancient, historical and new samples, which seem to have been produced the same way. XRD, thin sections and SEM analyses show the similarity of the material. It consists of aggregates of volcanic material that are rich in volcanic glass and lime as binder. The production process includes several hours of crushing the material, which produces fine-grained splinters of aggregates in the binder matrix and gives the mortar a high stability. A weathering test with sodium sulphate on different samples confirms that the stability of this mortar is the result of the production process.     

Forests for cotton: Institutions and organizations in Brazil's mid-twentieth-century cotton boom

The western region of São Paulo state, Brazil, became one of several sites of global cotton production during the first half of the twentieth century in response to increased global demand and fears of cotton shortages. The cotton boom tapped a ‘forest rent’ that helped Brazil rise to become the largest producer in Latin America, providing both export revenue and critical raw material to a growing industrial economy that would become the largest in South America. This paper uses an organizational and institutional perspective to analyze causes and effects of the mid-century cotton boom that centered on São Paulo state. Organizations and institutions relating to cotton production are considered using oral histories, judicial documents, agronomic texts, and the sediment record in small catchments as empirical evidence. The state dramatically reformed some organizations to provide the key inputs to cotton production, while most contemporary observers ignored institutions, such as sharecropping and tenant farming, that supported cotton. São Paulo's institutions and organizations were characterized by the borrowing and adaptation of existing labor institutions, the creation of new state organizations that subsidized elite producers, and the weak development of institutions or organizations in response to soil fertility issues and labor supply.     

The Eulau eulogy: Bioarchaeological interpretation of lethal violence in Corded Ware multiple burials from Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

The Corded Ware is one of the major archaeological traditions of Late Neolithic Europe. Its burial customs are characterized by single graves but multiple burials also occur. We present a detailed study of antemortem and perimortem trauma in a group of Corded Ware skeletons from four multiple graves and give the most probable interpretation of the site, based upon all available bioarchaeological evidence. The pattern of observed injuries in male, female, and subadult skeletons, including cranial trauma, arrow wounds, and fractures of the forearm and hands points towards a violent event that resulted in the death of all individuals, most probably a raid. In contrast to comparable Neolithic raid sites, there was no complete extermination of the local population and no use of mass graves. The burials have been arranged with care and detailed knowledge about biological kinship ties [Haak, W., Brandt, G., de Jong, H.N., Meyer, C., Ganslmeier, R., Heyd, V., Hawkesworth, C., Pike, A.W.G., Meller, H., Alt, K.W., 2008. Ancient DNA, strontium isotopes, and osteological analyses shed light on social and kinship organization of the Later Stone Age. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105, 18226–18231]. The combination of clear causes of death and the proven biological relationships among some of the individuals, including a nuclear family, provides new and important insights into Corded Ware mortuary customs and the reasons why and how multiple graves have been utilised.     

Towards the application of desorption electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) to the analysis of ancient proteins from artefacts

The detection and identification of protein residues from archaeological artefacts has been the subject of considerable controversy over the past two decades, this controversy spurring the application of a range of different analytical methods. Part of the debate surrounds the ability of the methods to uniquely identify original proteins. Another is the apparent contradiction between the ease of extraction in the laboratory of residues that have managed to survive in sediment over millennia; some studies use simple solvents including water, whilst others claim that efficient extraction requires the destruction of the artefact.Desorption electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) offers the potential to directly analyse proteins bound to the surface of artefacts. The method permits desorption of analytes under ambient conditions directly from a wide range of surfaces with little or no sample preparation. This has already led to its application in a range of areas, including forensic analysis of trace levels of narcotic drugs. It does not require destruction of the artefact (e.g. by drilling or dissolution) and can work in concert with other methods (for instance it could be used as a screening tool prior to lipid extraction).Here we report the construction of a DESI-MS interface and consider the potential of the method to contribute to the debate surrounding the preservation of proteins on artefacts. The DESI-MS interface was fitted to a conventional ion trap mass spectrometer and tested using peptides and proteins artificially applied to the surface of flint flakes and potsherd samples. A range of intact proteins was analysed; the DESI interface identified test proteins up to a maximum molecular weight of approximately 20 kDa. Peptides generated from these and larger proteins could be detected using DESI-MS following tryptic digestion in situ. The collected data allowed identification of the originating proteins. The potential applications to archaeological science of this new analytical tool are discussed.     

Building a tephrostratigraphic framework for the Paleolithic of Central Anatolia,Turkey

The Central Anatolian Volcanic Province (CAVP) in Turkey preserves widespread deposits of Quaternary tephra, presently associated with a small but growing number of Paleolithic archaeological sites. We use multivariate analyses of the abundances of a suite of nine major and minor element oxides determined by electron probe microanalysis. From these data, we construct a classificatory model for correlating distal tephra to one of five volcanic edifices or eruptive phases within the CAVP. Application of this model to distal deposits of primary tephra-fall and reworked tuffaceous sediments from the archaeological sites of Körkuyu and Kaletepe Deresi 3 indicates Late to possibly Early Pleistocene ages for the artifact assemblages there, and provides a fundamental tephrostratigraphic framework to examine spatial and temporal variation in hominin behavior comparable to that of other regions, such as eastern Africa.     

On the Territoriality of Cross-Border Cooperation: “Institutional Mapping” in a Multi-Level Context

Territoriality is mostly discussed as the political competence to exert control on a certain space, in particular with regard to the nation state. Globalization and European Integration have initiated some debate on this understanding, but cross-cross-border cooperation has rarely been linked to this debate. In these areas enormous political changes have been seen during the recent years. Still, the territorial dimension cannot be addressed, as territoriality as known from nation states is challenging politics. However, the territorial implications are manifold and are increasing throughout Europe. Against this backdrop is conceptual reflection. This paper starts with a brief overview of discussions and the empirical implementation of the territoriality debate. Based on this, the paper attempts to catch up with the political changes – the reflection of cross-border territorialities in a two-fold way. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this field.

First, we propose a methodological approach to study the essential aspects. We study from a conceptual point of view, the dimensions of territoriality in cross-border contexts. These are explored as well as the political-juridical background of cross-border cooperation. Based on this, a C-B-IM-tool (Cross-Border Institutional Mapping) has been introduced, involving three steps: (a) (a1) multi-level mapping of cross-border institutions, (b) (a2) mapping of policy arenas and (c) (a3) mapping of the political topography in the sense of going beyond formalized and codified governance patterns. Secondly, with the example of the Greater Region around Luxembourg, the empirical and conceptual findings on cross-border territoriality are illustrated. We can state an establishing cross-border territoriality that does not replace domestic, state-centric territorialities but that inserts new and complex elements of a multi-level territoriality system.     

Regeneration and mobility: the spatial dynamics of industries in wartime Shanghai

During the three-month long Sino-Japanese hostilities in the summer of 1937, Shanghai industries suffered the heaviest loss ever sustained during any previous military conflict in the city. Yet as has been shown in a previous study, local industries seem to have recovered fairly quickly. All statistics point to a return to pre-war levels of production in most sectors by the end of 1938 in some cases and during 1939 for most industrial branches. The purpose of this paper is to try to highlight the spatial dynamics at work in this recovery process. It relies not just on original sources, but on the unique capabilities GIS offers in processing large amounts of historical data and exploring connected issues in land use, demography, and urban life. The paper argues that Shanghai industries went through a thorough phase of relocation and migration within the city, but also of inbound migration from the surrounding regions. This study is based on a particular set of documents produced by the Shanghai Municipal Council, the largely independent body that administered the International Settlement. In this study, therefore, I shall argue that what happened in the territory of the International Settlement mirrored what happened next door and possibly in other parts of the Chinese-administered/Japanese-occupied areas. Beyond the issue of industrial movement, this paper also examines connected issues in land use, demography, and urban life.     

Measuring use-related fracture velocity in lithic armatures to identify spears,javelins, darts,and arrows

This study employs a brittle fracture-mechanics-based approach to explore the relationship between lithic fracture velocity and precursory loading rate in fine-grained lithic armatures. The data demonstrate that only high-speed dart and arrow armatures are subject to dynamic loading events, whereas spear and javelin armatures are limited to rapid (and quasi-static) loading. The data presented were derived from controlled experiments employing spears, javelins, spearthrower darts, and arrows. Armatures associated with both bow and spearthrower technologies are reliably identified and distinguished from those of low-speed technologies such as spears and javelins. Javelin armatures may also sustain higher velocity fractures than spear armatures, thus permitting the further differentiation of these technologies. The methodology offers a quantitative, non-subjective means to identify the delivery technology associated with a lithic armature.