“Some in Rags and Some in Jags and Some in Silken Gowns”: Textiles from Iceland’s Early Modern Period

The Danish trade monopoly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries resulted in the implementation of strict regulations and controls on textile production, the introduction of weaving workshops equipped with new horizontal looms, and a deliberate attempt to phase out the production of homespun cloth on the warp-weighted loom. What was the fate of homespun cloth in this era of introduced industrialization in Iceland? Archaeological textile collections from Iceland??s early modern period are abundant though understudied. This paper reports current research on these collections and suggests that homespun cloth did not die out in the late medieval period, but that it continued into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, declining slowly thereafter. Moreover, homespun cloth of the early modern period evolved into something that was structurally different than its earlier medieval version, possibly in response to increased climatic fluctuations during the Little Ice Age.     

Die kinder des Thyestes∗

Eclogue 6 is not odd, as alleged. Gallus fits the convention of Roman poets in Arcady. The Silenus song is generic, with various Greek antecedents. Silenus himself is drawn with humour, a neglected feature; his Lucretian tone may parody or pay tribute to that poet. Virgil is fond of singing mythological creatures. There is much linguistic‐thematic interplay with his other poetry. Eclogue 6 is studiedly pastoral, a synthesis of ingredients, beginning and ending with Virgil himself ‐ ‘Vir‐gilian’ is the appropriate label.     

Weakening processes in thrust faults: insights from the Monte Perdido thrust fault (southern Pyrenees,Spain)

The Monte Perdido thrust fault (southern Pyrenees) consists of a 6‐m‐thick interval of intensely deformed clay‐bearing rocks. The fault zone is affected by a pervasive pressure solution seam and numerous shear surfaces. Calcite extensional‐shear veins are present along the shear surfaces. The angular relationships between the two structures indicate that shear surfaces developed at a high angle (70°) to the local principal maximum stress axis σ₁. Two main stages of deformation are present. The first stage corresponds to the development of calcite shear veins by a combination of shear surface reactivation and extensional mode I rupture. The second stage of deformation corresponds to chlorite precipitation along the previously reactivated shear surfaces. The pore fluid factor λ computed for the two deformation episodes indicates high fluid pressures during the Monte Perdido thrust activity. During the first stage of deformation, the reactivation of the shear surface was facilitated by a suprahydrostatic fluid pressure with a pore fluid factor λ equal to 0.89. For the second stage, the fluid pressure remained still high (with a λ value ranging between 0.77 and 0.84) even with the presence of weak chlorite along the shear surfaces. Furthermore, evidence of hydrostatic fluid pressure during calcite cement precipitation supports that incremental shear surface reactivations are correlated with cyclic fluid pressure fluctuations consistent with a fault‐valve model.     

Gazetteer of small‐scale monuments in prehistoric Hadramawt,Yemen: a radiocarbon chronology from the RASA‐AHSD Project research 1996–2008

This paper provides a new, interpretive gazetteer and chronology of Hadramawt’s highland monuments based on results from archaeological survey and test excavations by the RASA‐AHSD (Roots of Agriculture in southern Arabia‐Arabian Human Social Dynamics) Project. With the exception of a few incidental sightings and an unpublished pipeline survey, the prehistoric record of southern Yemen’s highland plateau has been largely unknown. There are few settlements, so that understanding human landscape history must begin with the numerous small‐scale stone monuments left by mobile people. With examples representing monuments from the fifth, fourth, third and first millennia BC, the corpus of small excavations and radiocarbon dates reported here provides the first guide to the monument types of South Arabian highlands. Monument building began under more moist conditions and appears to have commemorated animal sacrifices long before commemorating mortuary rites and interment. There appears to be a temporal break of 1000 years before the widespread and varied practices of Bronze Age tomb construction, which lasted through the third millennium BC. After another break in monument construction, tombs were reused in the first millennium BC, sometimes with successive ritual visits. The data presented offer new material for the interpretation of the lives and activities of prehistoric pastoralists throughout the Holocene.     

Ancient Egyptian Pottery from the Subsurface Floodplain of the Saqqara–Memphis Area: Its Mineralogical and Geochemical Implications*

Potsherds recovered from the Saqqara–Memphis floodplain in Egypt, dated according to their typology and radiocarbon dating of the included sediments, are analysed geochemically and mineralogically to identify source materials and fabrication characteristics. Pottery layers were identified and potsherds were recovered from several settlement levels. Sherd typology was used to identify sherds from four periods (the Old and New Kingdoms, and from the Late Period to the Ptolemaic). The Pharaonic pieces were found at depths of between 8 and 12 m and the later material was between 6 and 3 m. Chemical analyses of the potsherds revealed three main source materials: local Nile silt, marl clay and mixed Nile silt–marl. Two marl clay types were recognized: marl clay from Upper Cretaceous marine sediment and another one from Late Pliocene deltaic sediments. The mineralogical composition of the pottery samples shows that the estimated firing temperature was about 850–900°C. No consistent differences in sherd mineralogy and geochemistry were found according to pottery types, so that the ancient Egyptian potters used essentially the same materials throughout the Pharaonic period. However, this initial study has revealed the existence of extensive pottery‐rich occupation sites buried within the Nile floodplain deposits between Memphis and Saqqara.     

On Neanderthal subsistence strategies and land use: A regional focus on the Rhone Valley area in southeastern France

This study of Middle Palaeolithic assemblages from the Rhone Valley, in the South-East of France, increases our understanding of Neanderthal subsistence strategies and modes of territorial organisation by comparing a wide corpus of human occupations in limited chronological and geographical frameworks. The Neanderthal occupation modes may be examined using sites located in a reduced area, linking medium-altitude territories (Massif Central and the Alpine foothills) to the Rhone corridor. Through the combined analysis of the occupation levels of ten sites, all dated to between Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 7 and the beginning of MIS 3, we identify three types of occupation durations: (1) type 1 as long-term residential camps, (2) type 2 as short-term regular hunting camps and (3) type 3 as brief stopover camps. We discuss this variability of habitat types according to various parameters: site age, technical behaviour, environmental conditions, and site localisation and occupation seasons. The aim is to discern the underlying motivations behind Neanderthal group mobility. One of the main features of the Rhone Valley area is the great homogeneity of behaviours reflected within the sequences. This homogeneity, linked to the variability of the site occupations, supports the hypothesis of Neanderthal groups anticipating their land use requirements, and furthermore suggests that another type of circulating model was used in this area.