The First Century Historians of Roman Britain

The 'stratigraphy' of literary sources is a matter that archaeologists need to bear in mind if or when they attempt to employ them in supplementing or interpreting archaeological material. The work of earlier historians is 'redeposited' in that of later writers in a great variety of ways and in a variable state of completeness. This can be seen in the different treatments by Tacitus and Dio Cassius of the Boudican rebellion, and their use of earlier material revealed in this comparison should alert us to the need for extreme care in assessing events for which only one literary source exists such as the Roman invasion of Britain in AD43.     

Stable isotopic analysis of human and animal diets from two pre-Aksumite/Proto-Aksumite archaeological sites in northern Ethiopia

Carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis was undertaken on well-preserved human and animal skeletal remains from two sites in northern Ethiopia, both of which span the pre-Aksumite and Proto-Aksumite periods. The human remains constitute one individual collected at the site of Etchmare East which was directly radiocarbon dated to 2290 ± 50 BP. In addition 28 animal bone samples were excavated from the nearby site of Mezber, occupied from 2960 ± 60 to 1980 ± 50 BP. These results are consistent with those obtained in palaeoethnobotanical studies, which suggest that some members of pre/Proto-Aksumite society in the Horn of Africa had a diet that favoured the consumption of Near Eastern domesticates over indigenous crops.     

Occipitalization of the atlas with reference to its embryological development

A skull is described from the St Bride's collection in which the atlas is fused to the occiput. The mechanism of occipitalization or assimilation is described in the light of the embryological development of the upper axial skeleton.