Assessing the distribution of Asian Palaeolithic sites: a predictive model of collagen degradation

Having previously shown that there is a statistically significant relationship between areas of low collagen degradation and the location of archaeological sites in Africa [K.M. Holmes, K.A. Robson Brown, W.P. Oates, M.J. Collins, Assessing the distribution of African Palaeolithic sites: a predictive model of collagen degradation, Journal of Archaeological Science 32 (2005) 157–166], we here test the applicability of the same model on Palaeolithic archaeological remains from Asia.     

Archaeological collagen: Why worry about collagen diagenesis?

DNA appears to decay by random chain scission resulting in a predictable range of fragment lengths. Collagen decay has also been modelled in this same way, although it has become increasingly evident that collagen decay does not follow this same pattern. Radiocarbon and stable isotope analysis now use ultra-filtration to isolate large fragments (>30% of original polymer length) even in Pleistocene bone. How then does collagen decay? This study contrasts experimentally degraded samples with collagen extracted from forensic, archaeological and fossil bone. In experimentally degraded bone, values for amino acid and elemental (C:N) composition, bulk δ ¹³C, δ ¹⁵N, and aspartic acid racemisation (AAR) changed very little until 99% of the collagen was lost, suggesting that the collagen triple helix and polypeptide chains remained remarkably intact. This suggestion was demonstrated directly by examining the integrity of individual polypeptide chains using cyanogen bromide (CNBr) cleavage followed by SDS-PAGE electrophoresis. In ancient samples, AAR values remain remarkably stable and the pattern of CNBr-cleavage was only replaced with a smear of smaller polypeptides in the oldest (Pleistocene) bones investigated. Smearing may reflect both modification of the methionine resides (the sites of CNBr-cleavage) and/or partial hydrolysis of the collagen molecule. The findings reveal why it is not usually necessary to worry about collagen diagenesis; it is mostly intact. However, evidence of partial deterioration of the oldest bone samples suggests that alternative purification strategies may increase yields in some samples.     

Bone diagenesis in the European Holocene I: patterns and mechanisms

Diagenetic changes in archaeological bone are known to influence the data derived from such material and have thus been the subject of numerous studies. A number of general trends have been observed, but many of the processes that occur are still not fully understood. We present here the analysis of 195 bones excavated from 32 sites in five different countries from Eurasia characterized using 10 simple diagenetic parameters. The results reveal that most European Holocene archaeological bone can be categorized by only four main diagenetic states related to three distinct trajectories that describe more than 60% of the variation in these parameters. Given the potential amount of variation in the dataset the small number of diagenetic pathways is surprising, but highlights the large importance of a few key factors that influence bone diagenesis. Mercury intrusion porosimetry is a key technique for identifying modes of degradation.     

Information Age Ireland: The Attraction,the Reality and Never Ending Geography

This paper is an attempt to probe deeper behind the well-documented success story of the Irish economy over the 1990s. Over the decade, the country experienced unparalleled levels of economic growth that saw unemployment levels plummet, inflation levels stabilize and inward investment rise at a substantial rate. Growth rates of gross national product (GNP) best surmise the Irish case, the tigerish performance brought the country from one with a per capita GNP two-thirds of the European Union (EU) average in 1987, to one which exceeded the average 10 years later. An exposition of Ireland's pursuit of a foreign direct investment (FDI) development model forms a major part of this work. Recognizing the importance of FDI in Ireland, and FDI in the software sector in particular, this paper shows how and why investors flocked into the country over the golden era of the 1990s. Exogenously, Ireland's place on the outskirts of one of the world's biggest markets made it an alluring option for outside investors. Endogenously, the rationale behind the pursuit of high-tech FDI policy, beyond employment creation was the expected spill-over effects of multinational companies (MNCs) on the local economy. Questions are asked about the nature of positive externalities both in terms of the growth of an indigenous sector alongside a foreign-owned one as well as the sustainability of this type of investment. Changes in the organizational structures of MNCs over the 1990s, through decentralization of activities and outsourcing are integral to the Irish success story. Organizational transformation resulting in networks of global production have helped Ireland, as a peripheral region, to reposition itself as an access point to the lucrative European market. The geographic alteration on the national level however, has not been recreated on the sub-national scale. Contrary to the writings of many technology determinists, Ireland's pursuit of an information economy has had a very real impact in terms of regional economic divergence within the country. The lack of coherent regional or spatial planning is to blame along with a telecommunications infrastructure that has exacerbated the regional woes of an economy with an explicit focus on high-technology industries.     

Campgrounds as service hubs for the marginally housed

The service hub concept is strongly associated with deprived areas of North American inner cities, where agglomerations of low‐cost housing and service providers form a space of survival for marginalised populations. In this paper, we contend that service hubs can take other forms, including as small‐scale sites of housing and service provision, informally networked across an urban region. We develop this argument with reference to suburban campgrounds in Auckland, New Zealand—a city experiencing a severe housing affordability crisis. Both individually and collectively, campgrounds enable vulnerable households, as well as tourists, to inhabit an increasingly exclusionary urban environment. Drawing on interviews with 24 resident campers and eight managers, we highlight the role of campgrounds in supporting residents through the provision of informal housing and on‐site services. This provision also benefits the facilities' owners and managers, by creating a year‐round rental income stream. We find that campgrounds are critically important for those whose lives are rendered precarious by the housing market.     

Enclosing difference and disruption: assemblage,heterotopia and the cruise ship

The cruise ship is as much a process as an object. Indeed, while the ship appears stable in its material and affective form, this state is maintained only through the interventions of a vast array of human and non-human agencies. The cascading affects flowing from these interactions allow for alternative sociomaterial orders to be established through the suspension and splintering of fixed notions of time and space. This paper brings the theories of heterotopia and assemblage together, through a speculative realist ontology, to explore these temporal and spatial discontinuities, and the way they can create a sense of enclosure amongst passengers on-board. This theoretical approach is utilized to examine articulations of the cruise ship in the self-solicited blog entries of passengers that demonstrate both the mutable and emergent qualities of the ship and the way in which its seeming enclosure is subject to constant disruption. Rather than a static reading of the ship as a heterotopic ‘other space’, we propose that these spatial configurations are vulnerable to entropic forces and unruly agencies that frame the cruise ship as an emerging, rather than realized object, affording it the potential to enact alternative sociomaterial orders.     

Engaging with risk (or not): shared responsibility for biosecurity surveillance and the role of community gardens

Governance of risks to native flora and fauna and agriculture from disease and pests increasingly emphasises the importance of a ‘shared responsibility’ for biosecurity. Few studies, however, have examined factors that influence stakeholders' engagement with such risks and responsibilities, particularly in community, rather than agricultural, settings. In this paper, we focus on a group of stakeholders in a context of heightened regional biosecurity activity, in northern Queensland, Australia. We explore the role that community garden actors may or may not play in biosecurity surveillance. Through interviews with 16 community garden group leaders and local government representatives, we unpack external social factors that contributed to stakeholders' engagement, unengagement, or disengagement with and from biosecurity risks. These factors included institutional characteristics such as land tenure and the presence or absence of management policies and guidelines. However, we found that less formal institutional characteristics such as social networks played a greater role in shaping stakeholder engagement. Unengaged stakeholders were typically unaware of risks posed by plant pests and diseases and had limited network connections to relevant government agencies but expressed an interest in learning and participating in biosecurity surveillance networks. Disengaged stakeholders were more knowledgeable of biosecurity risks and had established network connections but expressed a low interest in or willingness to report a potential biosecurity threat. This case study provides insights into important social dimensions of governing risk among stakeholders and offers recommendations to improve stakeholder engagement within biosecurity surveillance networks.     

The Use of Small‐Angle X‐Ray Diffraction Studies for the Analysis of Structural Features in Archaeological Samples

X‐ray diffraction or scattering analysis provides a powerful non‐destructive technique capable of providing important information about the state of archaeological samples in the nanometer length scale. Small‐angle diffraction facilities are usually found at synchrotron sources, although the potential of a laboratory source is also described. Specific examples of analysis using X‐ray diffraction of historic parchment, archaeological bone, a Central Mexico style pictograph and microdiffraction of calcified tissues are used to show the scope and versatility of the technique. Diffraction data is capable of giving fundamental structural information as well as quantifying the remodelling of structures influenced by environmental factors.