NON‐DESTRUCTIVE PORTABLE GAMMA RAY SPECTROMETRY USED IN PROVENANCING ROMAN GRANITOID COLUMNS FROM LEPTIS MAGNA,NORTH AFRICA*

Portable gamma ray spectrometry (PGRS) provides a non destructive means to analyst quantitatively large artefacts, such as building stones, for the radioelements K. U and Th. Nine Raman granitoid columns at the Leptis Magna Ruins in Windsor Great Park, London, were measured in situ by PGRS. Corrections for the environmental background contribution to the gamma ray flux measured, and for the shape and size of the columns, are described Comparison of the PGRS data with a radioelement data base for Roman granite sources indicates that most of the columns originated in the Troad area of Turkey. Two columns could not be unambiguously provenanced using PGRS alone because there is insufficient difference between radioelement concentrations in certain sources. However, non‐destructive measurements of magnetic susceptibility, used in conjunction with PGRS data, suggest that these two columns originated in the Kozak Daǧ, also in Turkey.     

Darwinian Evolutionism Is Applicable to Historical Archaeology

Over the past decade or so, an increasing number of archaeologists have begun to show interest in employing Darwinian evolutionary theory to explain variations in the material record. Epistemological and methodological issues surrounding the implementation of Darwinian evolutionism in archaeology are numerous, the most basic of which is that Darwinism embodies a materialist perspective, whereas archaeology traditionally has maintained an essentialist outlook. Stemming from this dichotomy are fundamental differences in such things as how units are created and how they are used to measure change. As archaeologists grapple with these issues, specific examples of how Darwinian evolutionism can be used to build historical narratives and create historical explanations are appearing with more frequency, but with few exceptions, proponents have focused specifically on the prehistoric record. This gives the impression that Darwinian evolutionism is not applicable to the more-recent material record, which is decidedly not the case. The kind of evolutionism proposed here transcends the age of the record under investigation.     

On Disciplinary History and Textbooks: or Where Has Spatial Analysis Gone?

Change within the academic discipline of geography comes about as a result of internal struggles for disciplinary hegemony, for its ‘heart and soul’ and for resources. One approach to the study of these struggles is through examination of textbooks, authoritative statements of the discipline's contemporary condition. Analysis of a small number of recent texts shows that they reflect a current contest within human geography between two groups, stereotyped as ‘spatial analysts’ and ‘social theorists’. The former are being ‘written out’ of disciplinary history, despite their continued vitality. Reasons for the continued presence of, and investment in, spatial analysis within human geography are rehearsed.     

An Early Permian brachiopod fauna of Gondwanan affinity from the Baoshan block,western Yunnan,China

The present paper describes and illustrates an Early Permian brachiopod fauna collected from two localities from the upper part of the type Dingjiazhai Formation near Youwang, 30 km south of Baoshan in the Baoshan block, western Yunnan, China. The brachiopod fauna is dominated by Stenoscisma sp. and Elivina yunnanensis sp. nov. and exhibits strong generic and some specific links with faunas from the Bisnain assemblage of Timor and the Callytharra Formation of Western Australia and, to a lesser extent, faunas from the Jilong Formation of southern Tibet, the Tashkazyk Formation of southeastern Pamir, the lower Toinlungkongba Formation of northwestern Tibet, the upper Pondo Group of central Tibet, and the Jimba Jimba Calcarenite of the Carnarvon Basin, Western Australia. Based on these correlations, a Late Sakmarian (Sterlitamakian) age is preferred for the Dingjiazhai brachiopod fauna. Two new species are proposed: Globiella youwangensis sp. nov. and Elivina yunnanensis sp. nov.