Monuments, Memory and Marginalisation in Adelaide's Prince Henry Gardens

Social and cultural dominance is (re)produced in the landscape by the exclusion or marginalisation of subordinate and minority groups. This paper illustrates the long-standing and ongoing exclusion of representations of indigeneity in and around Prince Henry Gardens, part of one of the most significant cultural and memorial sites in South Australia. Prince Henry Gardens is home to a large number of monuments and memorials that commemorate almost solely non-indigenous people and events. This is a selective and deliberate landscape of the dominant culture. It confirms a legacy of indigenous dispossession and is symbolic of ongoing marginalisation. While there have been recent compensatory initiatives by state and city agencies to create landscapes of reconciliation through symbolic gestures such as renaming parkland areas, these are argued to be contentious. They associate indigeneity with the city's margins, with violent places and public drunkenness, and perpetuate problematic associations between ‘real’ indigeneity and nature. The paper concludes with some ideas for new memorial landscapes intended to help construct a postcolonial Australian city.     

Metriorhynchid crocodylomorphs from the lower Kimmeridgian of Southern Germany: evidence for a new large-bodied geosaurin lineage in Europe

Abstract

Over the last two centuries, numerous exquisitely preserved thalattosuchian crocodylomorph skeletons have been found in the Jurassic strata of Southern Germany. While the majority of these specimens occur in Toarcian and upper Kimmeridgian–lower Tithonian deposits, thalattosuchian remains are otherwise rare in strata representing different stages of the Jurassic. Here, we describe skeletal elements from two large-bodied thalattosuchians attributable to the family Metriorhynchidae – these were recovered from lower Kimmeridgian sediments in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, respectively. These new metriorhynchid fossils are closely comparable in both stratigraphic age and dental morphology, and thus may be congeneric. Furthermore, our phylogenetic analysis suggests affinity with metriorhynchid remains from France, Switzerland, and the UK. We interpret these taxa as members of an as-yet unnamed geosaurine metriorhynchid lineage (herein termed the ‘E-clade’) from the Kimmeridgian and Tithonian of Europe, which appears to be related to species of Torvoneustes from England and Mexico, and Purranisaurus potens from Argentina, collectively contributing to ‘Subclade T’ of the tribe Geosaurini. Finally, the metriorhynchid material described herein suggests preservation as a ‘bloat and float’ carcass that underwent diagenetic dispersal within a limestone-marl-alternation deposited in an off-shore epicontinental marine environment.

Pascal Abel [pascal.abel@senckenberg.de], Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Sigwartstraße 10, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Sven Sachs [sachs.pal@gmail.com], Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld, Abteilung Geowissenschaften, Adenauerplatz 2, 33602 Bielefeld, Germany; Mark T. Young [marktyoung1984@gmail.com], School of GeoSciences, Grant Institute, University of Edinburgh, James Hutton Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3FE, UK.     

Confirmation of the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex‐specific DNA in three archaeological specimens

This journal published the first reported identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTB) DNA in ancient human remains but concerns were raised about the article two years after publication. These were based on methodology which, in the field of ancient DNA, was still developing. Here we present a re‐examination of the 1993 research conducted on three specimens which exhibited palaeopathologies indicative of tuberculosis. The specimens were: an ulna from pre‐European‐contact Borneo, a spine from Byzantine Turkey, and a lumbar‐sacral spine from 17th century Scotland. There was insufficient material to permit re‐examination of all of the original samples. The earlier results were confirmed in two independent laboratories using different methodologies. MTB DNA complex‐specific DNA amplicons were obtained, and sequenced in both laboratories, in a re‐analysis of samples which supported the earlier findings. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rare animals at a Mississippian chiefly compound: the Irene Mound site (9CH1), Georgia,USA

ABSTRACT

The Irene Mound site (9CH1) was a Middle and Late Mississippian site (ca. AD 1150–1450) situated on a bluff overlooking the lower Savannah River, Georgia (USA), a few kilometers upstream from the Atlantic Ocean. The 2.4 ha site consisted of a sequence of superimposed layers referred to as temple mounds, as well as a burial mound, a rotunda, a few residences, and other structures. It is interpreted as the residence of a chiefly lineage. The presence of animals rare or absent in other precolonial coastal assemblages distinguishes the Irene assemblage from others along the coast. Some of the animals exhibit atypical, even dangerous, behavior, others have elaborate feathers or fine fur, and many are notable coastal fishers. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) specimens in the assemblage are dominated by portions from the body. Irene may provide a zooarchaeological standard for assessing evidence of site functions and status in other coastal assemblages.