Geoarchaeology of Ancient Aulis (Boeotia,Central Greece): human occupation and Holocene landscape changes

This article presents the results of a coring operation which brought to light new evidence for the evolution of the coastal plain of Aulis (Boeotia, Central Greece) in the Holocene. Thanks to Homer, Aulis is best known as the gathering point of the Achaean fleet before it sailed to Troy and a sanctuary of the goddess Artemis. Ancient sources and archaeological evidence suggest the presence of an ancient marine bay, potentially used as a harbor. In the course of investigation, we drilled two cores, to a maximum depth of 4.20 m in the marshy lowlands and performed mollusc and micro-paleontological identifications, laser grain size analyses, and magnetic susceptibility measurements in order to reveal the facies evolution of the area. We obtained a chronostratigraphy sequence through a series of seven AMS ¹⁴C radiocarbon dates. Our study shows that the area was affected by a shallow marine incursion from the first half of the 6th millennium BC and gradually turned into a succession of shallow marine/lagoon environments from ca. 5000 cal. BC to the 2nd Century AD, and into a confined lagoon environment during the Roman and Byzantine periods.     

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.     

Constructing and Enforcing the “Medicine Line”: A Comparative Analysis of Indian Policy on the North American Frontier

The national self-images of the United States and Canada have been shaped, in part, by their contrasting histories and mythologies of westward expansion and nation-building. Those narratives are most distinct with regard to government policies toward aboriginal peoples on either side of the 49th parallel, what Indians called “the medicine line.” The purpose of this article is two fold: (1) to specify and develop a three-part conceptual framework (consisting of the Turnerian discourse, the Lipset Thesis, and Borderlands Studies) for examining the history of the North American frontier and (2) utilizing a wide range of scholarly literature, to apply that framework in a comparative analysis of national policies toward Indians and First Nations in the post–Civil War/post–Confederation period on the Great Plains and Prairies. Several explanatory factors for cross-national difference will be identified and examined, including variance in geography and geology; demography, demographic trends, and political pressures in each country; the types of national political institutions and their impact on policymaking; and the types of forces deployed in the West (the Mounties and the US Army).     

Archaeomagnetic versus luminescence methods: the case of an Early Byzantine ceramic workshop in Thessaloniki,Greece

In this contribution, we present a combined archaeomagnetic and luminescence study of archaeologically dated structures. The investigated area is a ceramic workshop comprising several Early Byzantine kilns. Based on (a) the archaeological–anthropogenic stratigraphy of the site, (b) the structural characteristics of the kilns and (c) the few ceramic findings revealed within their context, the operation of this brick and tile factory is approximately dated between the middle of the fifth century until the first decades of the sixth century AD. Three of the well-preserved workshop kilns have been studied archaeomagnetically. The full vector of the geomagnetic field, accompanied by rock magnetic analyses of the studied material, has been defined. The archaeomagnetic study revealed similar directions among the three kilns indicating and confirming their contemporary use. Additionally, several luminescence measurements were obtained on material from the same kilns. The dating of the site was performed with both methods. The archaeomagnetic dating is convergent with the archaeological estimation only when its upper limit is considered. Concerning the luminescence dating, the calculated ages (corrected for anomalous fading and for the ⁴⁰K content) with their standard deviations are convergent with the archaeological estimations for the first kiln, while for the other two, the results seem to be incompatible. The possible factors that provoked this divergence are thoroughly discussed.     

Multi-method (TL and OSL), multi-material (quartz and flint) dating of the Mousterian site of Roc de Marsal (Dordogne,France): correlating Neanderthal occupations with the climatic variability of MIS 5–3

Roc de Marsal has yielded numerous remains of Mousterian occupations, including lithics, fauna and combustion features. It was made famous by the discovery of the skeleton of a Neanderthal child. Given the need to date the sequence, TL and OSL were applied on heated flints and quartz, and OSL on unheated quartz. Chronological results combined with palaeoenvironmental data – faunal remains and micromorphological features in the sediments from the cave, pollen proxies and faunal remains from the region – allowed us to place climate variations in southwest France on a numerical time scale. Denticulate Mousterian occupations were dated to the middle of MIS 4 (65–70 ka) and Quina layers either to the very end of MIS 4 or to MIS 3. Interestingly, a faunal pattern showing a mix of red deer, roe deer and reindeer was found to have occurred during MIS 4, which was shown to be consistent with data from other similar sites in southwest France.