Terrestrial hermit crabs (Anomura: Coenobitidae) as taphonomic agents in circum-tropical coastal sites

Hermit crabs are ever alert for more suitable shells to inhabit, but what this may mean for coastal shell middens has rarely been considered. Here, the impact of the most landward-based of hermit crab families, the tropical Coenobitidae, upon archaeological shell-bearing deposits is assessed using a case study: the Neolithic Ugaga site from Fiji. At Ugaga, hermit crabs were found to have removed the majority of shells from the midden and had deposited their old, worn shells in return. The behavioural ecology of genus Coenobita suggests a mutualistic interaction whereby humans make available shell and food resources to hermit crabs, which in turn provide a site cleaning service by consuming human and domestic waste. Diagnostic indicators of terrestrial hermit crab wear patterns on gastropod shells are outlined and the conditions under which extensive ‘hermitting’ of shell midden deposits may occur are investigated. The ability to recognise hermit crab modification of shells is considered not only important for archaeomalacologists analysing tropical shell deposits, but also for field archaeologists wishing to select suitable shell samples for radiocarbon dating.     

Permian brachiopods from the Tupe Formation,San Juan Province,Precordillera, Argentina

The brachiopod fauna from the Tupe Formation at La Herradura Creek, located on the west flank of Perico Hill, San Juan Province, Argentina, palaeogeographically belongs to the western sector of the Paganzo basin (‘Guandacol embayment’). The stratigraphical section of the Tupe Formation at La Herradura Creek is the stratotype of the Tivertonia jachalensis-Streptorhynchus inaequiornatus biozone, was previously regarded as being of Late Carboniferous age but here is assigned to the earliest Permian (Asselian). We describe and review the biozone assemblage, which consists of Streptorhynchus inaequiornatus, Tivertonia jachalensis, Kochiproductus sp., Costatumulus sp., Coronalosia argentinensis, Tupelosia paganzoensis, Trigonotreta pericoensis, Septosyringothyris sp. aff. Septosyringothyris jaguelensis and Crurithyris? sp. This brachiopod assemblage is related to Indian and Australian Early Permian faunas and its presence in the La Herradura Creek section provides new evidence in support of an Asselian (Early Permian) age for the Tivertonia jachalensis-Streptorhynchus inaequiornatus biozone. This assemblage is also important for intra- and inter-basinal correlation because several of its characteristic species have been identified from other sections of the Paganzo basin and the Río Blanco basin. The proposed age for this biozone is consistent with the age of palynological data from slightly above the marine faunas from the stratotype locality.     

Liberal Violence and the Racial Borders of the European Union

This paper examines how racial violence underpins the European Union’s border regime. Drawing on two case studies, in northern France and the Balkans, we explore how border violence manifests in divergent ways: from the direct physical violence which is routine in Croatia, to more subtle forms of violence evident in the governance of migrants and refugees living informally in Calais, closer to Europe’s geopolitical centre. The use of violence against people on the move sits uncomfortably with the liberal, post-racial self-image of the European Union. Drawing upon the work of postcolonial scholars and theories of violence, we argue that the various violent technologies used by EU states against migrants embodies the inherent logics of liberal governance, whilst also reproducing liberalism’s tendency to overlook its racial limitations. By interrogating how and why border violence manifests we draw critical attention to the racialised ideologies within which it is predicated. This paper characterises the EU border regime as a form of “liberal violence” that seeks to elide both its violent nature and its racial underpinnings.     

Ordinary Geographies: Care,Violence, and Agrarian Extractivism in “Post-Conflict” Colombia

In Colombia’s agrarian spaces, war and extractivism are deeply entangled. Almost four years after the peace accords signed between the national government and the FARC guerrilla, post-conflict geographies are best characterised by the ongoing dispossession of local populations related to the entrenchment of extractivism. Drawing from ethnographic work carried out in the Colombian Caribbean on the ordinary practices and spaces of social reproduction, the ordinary geographies, this article explores gendered practices of care and their role in both sustaining and disrupting paramilitary violence and agrarian extractivism. The focus not just on the gendered effects of war and extractivism, but on gender’s constitutive role in the configuration of these processes and dynamics, allows us to contribute to recent literature on extractivism, dispossession and violence from a feminist standpoint.     

Identifying Functional Urban Areas in Ecuador Using a Varying Travel Time Approach

Identifying integrated urban areas is an important issue for urban analysis and policy evaluation. In this article, we provide a set of FUAs suitable for monitoring urbanization in Ecuador, a less developed country without commuting data. We do so substituting such socioeconomic flows by available information on road structure, which allow us to work with accessibility based on a varying travel time. In order to build Ecuadorean FUAs, we calibrate our methodology considering Colombian data. We perform several sensitivity analysis and robustness checks to Ecuador with alternative sources of socioeconomic flows. We conclude that the use of GIS data and the calibrated thresholds provide a set of FUAs similar to the ones that would result of using commuting information.     

Holocene marine ingressions in the coastal zone of the pomeranian bay based on radiocarbon assays

In recent years, a team at the Geology and Paleogeography Unit, Marine Sciences Institute, University of Szczecin, has been performing geological, geochronological and paleogeographic surveys in (i) the Szczecin Lagoon and Świna Gate Sandbar and (ii) the estuary section of the Rega river valley near Mrzeżyno. These studies have helped to examine and identify not only the distribution of fossil marine sediments but also their lithological and sedimentological characteristics. The age of marine ingressions and regressions in the coastal zone of the Pomeranian Bay were determined using approximately 170 radiocarbon assays.     

Traditional post-harvest processing to make quinoa grains (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Chenopodium quinoa</Emphasis> var. <Emphasis Type="Italic">quinoa</Emphasis>) apt for consumption in Northern Lipez (Potosí, Bolivia): ethnoarchaeological and archaeobotanical analyses

The aim of this paper is to generate information to assist in the archaeobotanical recognition of post-harvest processing activities related with different enhancement and consumption patterns of quinoa in the Central Andes. Enhancement of the grains involves what local people call “mejorado de los granos”. Their main purpose is to reduce as far as possible the presence of saponins, a toxic metabolite, in the grain. Ethnobotanical data were recorded in the village of Villa Candelaria (Southern Bolivian highlands) through the application of standard ethnographic techniques. The types of grain enhancement vary depending on the meal that people want to prepare. We registered three different quinoa enhancements based on intended consumption, (1) as a whole seed, (2) in soups or (3) as pitu (a kind of toasted refined flour). Laboratory analysis aimed at identifying distinctive features of grains in different processing stages, as well as evaluating the effects of charring. For both desiccated and charred remains, quinoa processed for pitu can be distinguished from that for whole seed/soup. As a case study, archaeological grains of the pre-Inka site of Churupata, located 3 km from Villa Candelaria, were interpreted as quinoa prepared for consumption as whole seed/soup.