The Landes de Gascogne (southwest France): periglacial desert and cultural frontier during the Palaeolithic

During the last glacial period, a large part of the Aquitaine basin (southwest France) was a periglacial desert comprising coversands with low-relief dune fields surrounded by loess accumulations. OSL and radiocarbon dates show that the phase of maximum sand deposition coincides with Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2. Peats and gleyic palaeosoils intercalated within the sands at some sites indicate that vegetation cover was able to develop locally during short events, possibly D–O interstadials, due to raised groundwater levels in interdunal depressions. Few Palaeolithic sites have been discovered in the coversand area in contrast to the peripheral loess region. Systematic survey along a future highway corridor demonstrates that this paucity of sites is not the result of insufficient survey nor deep site burial, but rather reflects an archaeological reality. This strongly suggests that the sand area was not attractive for hunter–gatherer populations due to its reduced levels of water resources, and available vegetation and animal biomass. The distribution of cultural markers such as art items and projectile points also shows that the coversand area probably acted as a barrier separating two different cultural sub-areas, one in the Pyrenees and Cantabria, the other in the Périgord. As a consequence, the commonly accepted view that southwest France, as a whole, served as a refugia during the cold and arid phases of the Pleistocene should be replaced by a more complex one that reflects the fact that a large part of the territory was almost unoccupied and that human populations were concentrated along alluvial valleys.     

Solifluction-induced modifications of archaeological levels: simulation based on experimental data from a modern periglacial slope and application to French Palaeolithic sites

The taphonomic study of Petit-Bost, Croix-de-Canard and Cantalouette II, three Palaeolithic sites that were recently discovered near Périgueux and Bergerac (Dordogne, France) in a colluvial context, has enlightened the difficulty of adequately appreciating the relative role of cultural and natural processes in site spatial patterning. Periglacial solifluction was thought to have played a significant role in site formation. Because the nature of the modifications induced by solifluction was still poorly understood, a simulation was made using data of soil movement recorded at La Mortice (French Southern Alps, 3100 m in elevation) in a modern periglacial environment. The results show that, for a knapping location, the first steps of deformation are typified both by a downslope translation of the location center and by an anisotropic diffusion of the artifacts. The knapping spot becomes elongated along the slope, with a dense relic concentration of artifacts in the upslope portion. This type of pattern has been obtained after 100–200 years of simulated displacement according to the climatic and soil conditions that characterise the La Mortice site. The ultimate stages of deformation show that the artifact distribution tends to homogenise on larger surfaces and resemble a random distribution. The ability of the simulated patterns to closely fit those observed in archaeological contexts is evaluated at three sites from Southwestern France. At Petit-Bost, the hypothesis of limited solifluction explains accurately the association of both cultural (artifact concentrations) and natural (artifact preferred orientation) features. At Croix-de-Canard, long-term solifluction can be proposed. By contrast, the simulated patterns do not describe the structures observed on the steeper slopes at Cantalouette II, where the knapping spot transforms into distinct solifluction lobes.     

Notices—notes de lecture

Inventing the barbarian. Greek self‐definition through tragedy, Edith HALL, Oxford, 1989, paperback 1991, 277 + xvi pages ISBN 0–19–314895‐X

Mithra et le mithriacisme, Robert TURCAN, Paris, Les Belles Lettres Histoire, 1993, 100 FF.

Les Exempla médiévaux. Introduction à la recherche suivie des tables critiques de l'Index exemplorum de Frederic C. Tubach, Jacques BERUOZ et Marie Anne POLO DE BEAUUEU éds, Carcassonne, 1993. Avant‐propos de Claude BREMOND, Jacques LE COFF. et Jean‐Claude SCHMITT

La Royauté sacrée dans le monde chrétien, Alain BOUREAU et Claudio Sergio INCERFLOM éds, Paris (Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), 1992, 165 pages avec illustrations, 230 FF (collection “L'Histoire et ses représentations”, 3) ISBN 2–7132–0973–0

Court and Culture. Dutch Literature 1350–1450, Frits Pieter VAN'OOSTROM, University of California Press, Berkeley and Oxford, 1992, ISBN 0–520–06777–0

Het hof van Gelre. Cultuur ten tijde van de hertogen uit het Gulikse en Egmondse huis (1371–1473), Gerard NIJSTEN, Kok Agora, Kampen 1992. 503 p., ill, Zusammenfassung, ISBN 90–391–00578. fl.89,‐

Richelieu and his Age, Joseph BERG1N et Laurence BROCKUSS éds, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992, xvii + 288 p.

Recent verleden. De geschiedenis van Nederland in de twintigste eeuw, J.J. WOLTJER, Amsterdam, Balans. 1992, 568 pp., fl. 59,50. ISBN 90–5018–152‐X.

Past and Present—Special ‘Europe’ Edition, No. 137. November 1992, edited by Joanna INNES and Paul SLACK.     

Asynchronous,Iterative, and Parallel Procedures for Solving the Weighted-Region Least Cost Path Problem

A family of local, asynchronous, iterative, and parallel procedures (LAIPPs) are described. These procedures are designed to find least cost paths (LCPs) in bounded regions of the plane that have been partitioned into triangular subregions. The unit cost of traversing a given subregion is uniform within the subregion, but varies between subregions. In the case of one-dimensional chains of triangles, the procedures are guaranteed to converge to a global LCP. Although the procedures are guaranteed to terminate, we have so far been unable to prove, in the general case of a two-dimensional triangulation, that the procedures always terminate in admissible paths. Extensive experimental investigations, however, have revealed convergence to admissible paths in all cases examined. While counterexamples are constructed to prove that the procedures may converge to the local rather than global LCPs, convergence to the global LCP was found to occur in nearly all of our experimental investigations. The computational complexity of the procedures, as measured by the number of iterations required for convergence, was found experimentally to be independent of the size of the domain in which the paths lay, and to be slightly greater than linear in the Euclidian length of the paths. The complexity was also found to depend on the cost structure of the domain. Such LAIPPs appear to be promising procedures for both application and further investigation. In particular, the question of convergence is an interesting problem.     

Microstructural,chemical and isotopic evidence for the origin of late neolithic leather recovered from an ice field in the Swiss Alps

Archaeological leather samples recovered from the ice field at the Schnidejoch Pass (altitude 2756 m amsl) in the western Swiss Alps were studied using optical, chemical molecular and isotopic (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N of the bulk leather, and compound-specific δ¹³C analyses of the organic-solvent extracted fatty acids) methods to obtain insight into the origin of the leather and ancient tanning procedures. For comparison, leathers from modern native animals in alpine environment (red deer, goat, sheep, chamois, and calf/cow) were analyzed using the same approach. Optical and electron microscopically comparisons of Schnidejoch and modern leathers showed that the gross structure (pattern of collagen fibrils and intra-fibrils material) of archaeological leather had survived essentially intact for five millennia. The SEM studies of the hairs from the most important archaeological find, a Neolithic leather legging, show a wave structure of the hair cuticle, which is a diagnostic feature for goatskins. The variations of the bulk δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values, and δ¹³C values of the main fatty acids are within the range expected for pre-industrial temperate C₃ environment. The archaeological leather samples contain a mixture of indigenous (from the animal) and exogenous plant/animal lipids. An important amount of waxy n-alkanes, n-alkan-1-ols and phytosterols (β-sitosterol, sitostanol) in all samples, and abundant biomarker of conifers (nonacosan-10-ol) in the legging leathers clearly indicate that the Neolithic people were active in a subalpine coniferous forest, and that they used an aqueous extract of diverse plant material for tanning leather.     

Borderless sport? Imagining and organising bicycle racing in Belgium, 1869–1914: between transnational dynamics and national aspirations

From the 1860s onwards, the new sport of bicycle racing engendered transnational flows of ideas, practices and performers. However, national actors and sensitivities always remained present. In interaction with these transnational flows they shaped national identity in this sport, as the Belgian case shows. Belgium was a site of cross-border interaction for racing from early on. Nevertheless, actors like the Belgian cycling press or national cycling union also continuously tried to construct a ‘national’ racing culture. French and British influences were especially crucial here, as Belgian actors were continuously torn between both in determining their position in the amateur–professional question or in the International Cycling Association. France and Britain thus functioned as ‘significant others’ in the shaping of ‘national’ Belgian racing, a process often complicated by the transnational activities of other, commercially motivated actors like cycling tracks or racers themselves. In competition, too, the discourses of the Belgian press on racers Hubert Houben and Robert Protin celebrated their ‘small nation’ and its success against and differences from its bigger neighbours. The Belgian orientation on French racing eventually became dominant, and proved to be crucial to the resurrection of the sport in Belgium after a period of crisis around 1900.