Potters and pigments: preliminary technological assessment of pigment recipes of American majolica by synchrotron radiation micro-X-ray diffraction (Sr-μXRD)

This paper assesses the impact of European ceramics on preexisting American potting technologies. Specifically we investigate the technological features of pigments used for production of colonial American majolica. In order to achieve this goal, majolica sherds from Puebla (4), and Oaxaca (2), both in Mexico, from Antigua (Guatemala) (2), from Panama (1), and from Mission San Luis (Florida) (5) were analyzed by synchrotron micro-X-ray diffraction (μ-XRD). Eleven out of these fourteen samples were also analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The combination of micro-chemical and micro-structural techniques provides a cross sectional profile of the constituent minerals present ultimately providing information about the nature and distribution of the pigments used in their decorations, their dissolution in the glassy matrix, and the formation of crystalline compounds. Our results reveal significant differences among productions.     

Testing recipes: an experimental approach to paint production processes in Levantine rock art (Spain)

Over more than a century, several proposals have been made on the composition and technical features of the pictorial recipes used by Levantine prehistoric painters. In this paper all these proposals are surveyed and tested through systematic experiments to determine the technical affordance of pigments and binders in different pictorial recipes. Experimental results were then used as independent analytical parameters employed as diagnostic criteria to systematically study an archaeological sample of nine sites located in the Maestrazgo region (Spain) and their surroundings. Results reveal that out of 112 experimental recipes, only 16 afforded the production of paintings technically similar to Levantine rock art.     

Enrique Díaz Retg and El Diluvio: reportage from the Italian frontline (1916)

In the year 1916 Enrique Díaz Retg, a staff journalist working for the Spanish newspaper El Diluvio, extremely popular among Barcelona’s working class readers, was assigned to report from the Italian front. Following an invitation from the Italian Foreign Office, he was granted permission to visit war zones under the control of the Italian army. During this journey, which began on 5 September and concluded in Rome on the 22nd, he traveled with two other famous Spanish reporters, Ramón Pérez de Ayala and Eduardo Gómez de Baquero. Comparing the articles produced by the three journalists allows us to perceive the main distinctive features of Enrique Díaz Retg’s work. From an ideological point of view, his articles reveal a bias in favor of the Latin race and in them he calls for Mediterranean nations to unite, openly inviting the Spanish authorities to enter into war against the barbaric German enemy. In doing so, he contributed to widening the social gap that in the years to come would increasingly alienate the working class from the institution of monarchy and the Catalan elites.     

Ancestral memories and early medieval landscapes: the case of Sierra de Ávila (Spain)

This paper focuses on early medieval funerary practices from a landscape perspective in central Iberia. Rock‐dug graves constitute the most conspicuous remains in this region, but their informative potential has not yet been realized. The preliminary outcomes of an ongoing research project are presented here. This aims to contextualize such funerary cases by examining a mid‐altitude mountain study‐area. Through the use of intensive archaeological surveying and geographic information systems, the paper characterizes two basic funerary types: isolated graves and rural disordered cemeteries, which responded to two social strategies led by local households. By recalling ancestorship, they constituted effective mnemonic resources, contributing to claiming rights and forging identities among these dispersed and predominantly small‐scale herding communities.     

New Excavations at Border Cave,KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

New excavations at Border Cave use high-resolution techniques, including FT-IR, for sediment samples and thin sections of micromorphology blocks from stratigraphy. These show that sediments have different moisture regimes, both spatially and chronologically. The site preserves desiccated grass bedding in multiple layers and they, along with seeds, rhizomes, and charcoal, provide a profile of palaeo-vegetation through time. A bushveld vegetation community is implied before 100,000 years ago. The density of lithics varies considerably through time, with high frequencies occurring before 100,000 years ago where a putative MSA 1/Pietersburg Industry was recovered. The highest percentage frequencies of blades and blade fragments were found here. In Members 1 BS and 1 WA, called Early Later Stone Age by Beaumont, we recovered large flakes from multifacial cores. Local rhyolite was the most common rock used for making stone tools, but siliceous minerals were popular in the upper members.     

Between political emancipation and creole hegemony: Viscardo’s Letter to the Spanish Americans (c. 1791)

Viscardo’s Letter to the Spanish Americans inaugurates a tradition of nonconformist political writing against Spanish colonial rule during the second half of the eighteenth century, a period characterized by the Crown’s attempt to reorganize several aspects of the colonial administration. As an ex-Jesuit living in exile after the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from all Spanish territories in 1767, Viscardo had a political as much as a personal motive in designing a project that would cut the colonial ties between Spain and the New World. His plans for emancipation included the instauration of a monarchical form of government, but his design was out of touch with reality and would have hardly been taken seriously by the inhabitants had a British-backed expeditionary force reached the coasts of Chile and Peru, as he had planned. While Viscardo’s Letter may have stirred a sense of creole patriotism some years after his death, the political scruples of the ancien regime based on social privileges and racial distinctions were too strong to be dismantled by mere ideals of freedom, justice and equality. Thus, effective political participation was restricted to the creole elite, whom Viscardo saw as the legitimate guarantor of social order and economic prosperity.     

Skeleton decay of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Cervus elaphus hispanicus</Emphasis> carcasses in Mediterranean ecosystems: biostratinomy at Sierra Norte of Seville natural park (SW Spain)

Taphonomic studies of faunal assemblages from archaeological and palaeontological sites need biostratinomy research to endorse their results. Many papers have studied the relationship between the differential conservation of anatomical parts and the animal responsible for the deposits. In this paper, we present the biostratinomy results from 18 Cervus elaphus hispanicus carcasses (Hilzheimer 1909) in a Mediterranean ecosystem (the Sierra Norte Mountains in Seville Natural Park). We also describe the skeleton decay related to scavenger community, where Sus scrofa (Linnaeus, 1758) is maybe the most important bone scavenger in our study area. These results of this research were compared to those obtained from a similar study carried out in Doñana National Park (Huelva) and confirmed that post-mortem tendencies are similar in both ecosystems.     

The chert from the Castelltallat Formation (south-central Pyrenees): archaeometric characterisation and archaeological implications

Chert from the limestones and marly limestones of Castelltallat Formation (Ebro Basin) was widely used throughout prehistoric times in north-eastern Iberia to produce stone tools due to its properties and accessibility. A rough estimate indicates that this rock—either as raw material or as lithic products—was distributed mainly to the north of the outcrops, over an area of 6000–8000 km². However, other rocks in the area have similar characteristics which can lead to confusion in the interpretation of its prehistoric use and distribution. In order to establish useful archaeometric criteria for differentiating this chert from other similar, the Castelltallat chert is characterised in petrographic, mineralogical and geochemical terms. The chert nodules are found to be homogenous at the macroscopic and microscopic level, with a significant presence of bioclasts, thus indicating they might be formed in a freshwater lake environment by the early diagenetic replacement of carbonates in shallow waters. The mineralogical composition is homogeneously uniform and of a flint type, characterised by an almost exclusive predominance of quartz, without any opaline phases, and a variable proportion of moganite. The iron oxide content is very low, whereas its chemical composition is unusually high in uranium which correlates positively with carbonate content and negatively with silica. Archaeometrical parameters are provided to reach a proper identification of tools knapped with this chert. This way, chert from Castelltallat Formation turns out to be a valuable lithological marker to evaluate the range of mobility of the human groups who lived in the north-eastern Iberia and their contacts with neighbouring areas.     

The Servilia tomb: an architecturally and pictorially important Roman building

One hundred and eleven samples from the important Servilia Roman tomb have been analysed for the first time by Raman spectroscopy, resulting in a complete characterisation of the pigment palette used for its remarkable wall paintings: 73 different pigment mixtures have been identified for the composition of its 11 colours and their tonalities. Dyer’s weld, an ancient organic yellow pigment, which was described by Vitruvius, has been identified and characterised for the first time in Roman wall paintings. Distinctive Raman spectroscopic signals which differentiate between haematite and caput mortuum (a violet colour from haematite which has been subjected to thermal treatment) are also reported. The use of the very expensive lazurite for a balance relates the importance of this otherwise ordinary instrument with psychostasia (the human soul weighing process) and is not found elsewhere in the tomb. The distribution of white minerals alone or in admixture is not related to any particular colouring pigment or figure; this possibly indicates that there was no specific use for each white mineral and that several craftsmen worked on the paintings, perhaps in different periods, or that the frescoes have been subjected to unrecorded restoration. We conclude that Raman spectroscopy is a valuable analytical technique for the unambiguous identification of mixtures of both organic and inorganic compounds, to study the degree of mineral crystallinity and for identifying treatment. These data are relevant for the holistic interpretation of the artwork in its historical, economical and social context.