On Behavioral Depression in White-tailed Deer

Behavioral depression is a decline in prey availability because of enhanced alert response, movement away from areas, increased social behavior, and other responses to predators. This form of resource depression is an alternative hypothesis to be contrasted to over-exploitation that potentially explains a decrease in hunting efficiency over time should the zooarchaeologist observe a decline in the relative abundance of remains of high-rank prey. Gregarious ungulates, such as many North American cervids, may exhibit such behavioral responses under predation. The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), one of the most common high-rank prey animals from Holocene archaeological sites in eastern North America, is less gregarious, more r-selected, and exhibits greater home-range fidelity than other cervids. As a result, whitetails are less likely to exhibit behavioral depression than other North American ungulates, which may explain their common occurrence in Holocene archaeological faunas, such as that from the Eagle??s Ridge site in southeast Texas where resource depression appears to have occurred from 4,500 to 1,500?years ago. The behavioral ecology of ungulate species should be considered on a case-by-case basis to develop testable hypotheses about prehistoric human predation.     

Muslims in Britain and France

Andrew, D., Mists of Regret: Culture and Sensibility in Classic French Film (Princeton Paperbacks, 1995), xv + 409pp., £19.95, ISBN 0 691 00883 3

Barou, J., and Prado, P., Les Anglais dans nos campagnes (L'Harmattan, 1995), 238pp., 140F., ISBN 2 7384 3352 9

Blanchot, M., The Writing of the Disaster, trans. Ann Smock, new edn. (University of Nebraska Press, [1986] 1995), 153pp., £11.00, ISBN 0 8032 6120 9

Brami, J., Cottentenet‐Hage, M., and Verdaguer, P., eds., Regards sur la France des armies 1980 ‐ Le Roman (Anma Libri, 1994), 260pp., ISBN 0 915838 96 6

Brewer, M.M., Claude Simon: Narrativities Without Narrative (University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 183pp., $38.50, ISBN 0 8032 1261 5

Carroll, D., French Literary Fascism: Nationalism, Anti‐Semitism and the Ideology of Culture (Princeton University Press, 1995), 300pp., £24.95, ISBN 0 691 03723 X

Charle, C., A Social History of France in the Nineteenth Century trans. Mirian Kochan, (Berg, 1994), x + 314pp., hbk, ISBN 0 85496 906 2, pbk, ISBN 0 85496 913 6

Cordelier, S., Poisson, E. et al., L'État de la France 1995–96 (La Découverte, 1995), 635pp., 159F., ISBN 2 7071 2447 8

Crisp, C., The Classic French Cinema 1930–1960 (Indiana University Press, 1994), 485pp., £50.00, ISBN 0 2533 1550 6

Crozier, M., La Crise de l'Intelligence (Interéditions, 1995), 200pp., 110F., ISBN 2 7296 0567 3

Debré, M., Combattre Toujours: Mémoires, 1969–1993 (Albin Michel, 1994), 333pp., 150F., ISBN 2 226 07536 4

Dieudonné, P., ed., Villes reconstruites du dessin au iestin (L'Harmattan, 1994), vol. 1, 382pp., 190F., ISBN 2 7384 2605 0, vol. 2, 384pp., 190F., ISBN 2 7384 2606 9

Domenach, N., and Szarfan, M., De si bons amis (Plon, 1994), 454pp., 110F., ISBN 2 259 18018 3

Duchene, F.L., Jean Monnet: the First Statesman of Interdependence (W. W. Norton, 1994), 410pp., £22.00, ISBN 0 393 03497 6

Dutton, D., ed., Statecraft and Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century (Liverpool University Press, 1995), 180pp., £15.05, ISBN 0 85323 379 9

Eck, J.‐F., La France dans la nouvelle economic mondiale (PUF, 1994), 312pp., 150F., ISBN 2 13 046092 5

Forest, P., Histoire de Tel Quel, 1960–82 (Seuil, 1995), 655pp., 180F., ISBN 2 02 017346 8

Gardies, A., L'Espace au cinéma (Meridiens Klincksieck, 1993)

Gregg, J., Maurice Blanchot and the Literature of Transgression (Princeton University Press, 1994), 241pp., £25.00, ISBN 0 691 03329 3

Habert, P., Perrineau, P., and Ysmal, C., eds., Le Vote Sanction: Les élections législatives des 21 et 28 mars 1993 (Départment des études politiques du Figaro et Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1993), 347pp., 150F., ISBN 2 7246 0634 5

Kessler, M.‐C., Les Grands corps de l'état (Presses Universitaires de France, 1994), 128pp., 36F., ISBN 2 13 046502 1

Kramer, S.P., Does France Still Count? The French Role in the New Europe (Praeger, 1994), 113pp., £11.95, ‘Washington Papers’ series ISBN 0 275 95061 1.

Lallement, M., ed., Travail et emploi: le temps de métamorphoses (L'Harmattan, 1995), 283pp., 150F., ISBN 2 7384 2559 3

Le Crom, J.‐P., Syndicate nous voilal Vichy et le corporatisme (Les Editions Ouvrières, 1995), 410pp., 190F., ISBN 2 7082 3123 5

Lefait, P., Quatre Ministres etpuis s'en vont (Editions de l'Atelier, 1995), 310pp., 120F., ISBN 2 7082 3105 7

Lepetit, B. et al., Atlas de la Révolution française, vol. 8, Population (Editions EHESS, 1995), 92pp., 120F., ISBN 2 7132 1189 1

Manent, P., An Intellectual History of Liberalism, trans. Rebecca Balinski (Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 128, £16.95, ISBN 0 691 03437 0

Martelli, R., Le rouge et le bleu. Essai sur le communisme français (Editions de l'Atelier, 1995), 286pp., 120F., ISBN 2 7082 3119 7

Mélenchon, J.‐L., Rocard, le rendezvous manqué (Ramsay, 1994), 237pp., 110F..ISBN2 84114 053 9

Minc, A., La France ie l'an 2000 (Odile Jacob/Documentation Française), 321pp., 60F., ISBN 2 7381 0281 6

Osen, J., Royalist Political Thought during the French Revolution (Greenwood Press, 1995), 154pp., £49.50, ISBN 0 313 29441 0

Outram, D., The Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 141pp., £27.95 hbk, ISBN 0 521 41522 5, £9.96 pbk, ISBN 0 521 42534

Phillips, P., Republican France: Divided Loyalties (Greenwood, 1993), xxiii + 168pp., $49.95, ISBN 0 313 27503 3

Platten, D., Djian: 37° 2 le matin (University of Glasgow French &; German Publications, 1995), 92pp., £3.95, ISBN 085261 368 7

Proudhon, P.‐J., What is Property? (CUP, 1994), 227pp., £55 hbk, £12.95 pbk.

Roberts, M., Civilization Without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France 1917–1927 (University of Chicago Press, 1994), 337pp., £15.25, ISBN 0 226 72122 1

Rosanvallon, P., La nouvelle question sociale (Seuil, 1995), 223pp., 95F., ISBN 2 02 022030

Royal, S., Pays, paysans, pay sages. La reconciliation est‐elle possible? (Laffont, 1993), 228pp., 89F., ISBN 2 221 07046 1

Suleiman, E., Les Ressorts cachés de la réussite française (Seuil, 1995), 377pp., 130F., ISBN 2 02 021841 0

Tindall, G., Célestine. Voices from a French Village (Sinclair‐Stevenson, 1995), ix + 286pp., £17.99, ISBN 1 85619 534 1

Tricot, B., Mémoires (Quai Voltaire, 1994), 503pp., 148F., ISBN 2 87653 209 3

Veillon, D., Vivre et Survivre en France 1939–1947 (Editions Payot, 1995), 371pp., 145F., ISBN 2 228 88875 3

Vigato, J.‐C., L‘Architecture Régionalize. France 1890–1950 (Norma, 1994), 392pp., 160F., ISBN 2 9092832 11 9

Wagstaff, P., ed., Regionalism in Europe (Intellect, 1994), 120pp., £14.95, ISBN 1 871516 84 6

Walker, D.H., Outrage and Insight: Modern French Writers and the ’Fait Divers’ (Berg, 1995), 281pp., £39.95, ISBN 0 85946 780 X

Wilson, H.S., African Decolonisation (Edward Arnold, 1994), 222pp., £12.99, ISBN 0 340 55929 2     

Life Is Beautiful : four riddles,three answers

Four riddles occur in the dialogue of Roberto Benigni's 1998 film, La vita è bella ( Life Is Beautiful ). Solutions to the first three are provided almost as soon as they are uttered, but a fourth riddle, spoken at the film's climax, remains unanswered. Exploring possible meanings of the fourth riddle illuminates the film's meaning. Although the riddles may seem to be relatively unimportant bantering between two of the major characters (Guido, the Italian Jew, and Captain Lessing, a German Nazi officer and physician), they are critical to the unfolding of the plot and significant in the portrayal of the two characters who employ them. Most importantly, they act as condensed expressions of the film's themes, complementing and giving deep texture to its narrative expression of the same ideas. Through the riddles and other folk and children's genres - such as game and folktale - La vita è bella asserts not only that art helps us survive, but that the humblest art is the daily weapon against the most formidable attacks on the human spirit.     

Use of space in a Neolithic village in Greece (Makri): phytolith analysis and comparison of phytolith assemblages from an ethnographic setting in the same area

Phytolith analyses were conducted in a Pottery Neolithic village (Makri) of Northern Greece in order to reconstruct aspects of past human activities as a function of both space and time. The analyses of phytolith assemblages were based on a reference collection of modern plant phytoliths (Tsartsidou et al., 2007), as well as an ethnographic study in an agropastoral community (Sarakini) in the same area that showed that many phytolith assemblages are characteristic of the activities carried out in different locations within and around the village (Tsartsidou et al., 2008). The same approach was used for studying the phytolith assemblages in the Neolithic village of Makri, namely measuring phytolith concentrations, diversities of phytolith assemblages relative to control samples collected from samples outside the village and detailed analysis of various phytolith morphotypes. At Makri samples from floors and various constructions (i.e. pit, platforms) were analysed, as well as sediments from an open area inside the village. The results show that Neolithic Makri was a society with a mixed agricultural and pastoral economy. Wheat and barley were cultivated for food and fodder and free-range animals were raised in a village inhabited year round. Indoor areas were not clearly differentiated from outdoor areas inside the village. The phytolith assemblages in only one series of floors produced at a specific location over an extended period of time reflected the use of that space for cereal storage or food processing. The phytolith assemblages from all the other floors examined did not reflect the local activities, but rather the constructional materials used for producing the floors.     

The contents of unusual cone-shaped vessels (cornets) from the Chalcolithic of the southern Levant

Cornets are cone-shaped ceramic vessels, characteristic of the Chalcolithic period (ca. 4700–3700 BC) in Israel and Jordan. Their contents and use are unknown. Gas chromatography with flame ionization and mass-selective detection, showed that extracts of cornets from five different sites with different related activities (domestic, habitation cave and a cultic complex) all contain the same assemblage of mainly n-alkanes adsorbed within their walls. This assemblage differs from those found in other types of ceramic vessels from the same sites, as well as from the residues found within the associated sediments. The assemblage of odd and even-numbered n-alkanes found in the cornets is almost identical to that found in the residues of beeswax heated on modern ceramic fragments, as well as in a beehive from the Iron Age IIA strata at Tel Rehov, Israel. Thus the cornets are most likely to have contained beeswax. The presence of beeswax in the cornets contributes to our understanding of the Chalcolithic period; a time when secondary products such as milk, olive oil and wine are thought to have come into use.     

Differentiating between anthropogenic calcite in plaster,ash and natural calcite using infrared spectroscopy: implications in archaeology

Infrared spectroscopy provides information not only on the type of calcium carbonate polymorph, but also on the extent of atomic order. In calcite, three major infrared absorption peaks are identified: ν₃, ν₂, and ν₄. It was shown that the ratio between ν₂ and ν₄ bands reflects the order of the calcite crystal structure. In this paper we analyse this ratio in geologically formed calcites, archaeological plasters, modern plasters and experimentally prepared plasters. For the geological calcite, the values of the ν₂/ν₄ ratio are around 3, whereas for the experimentally prepared plasters, the values are around 6.5. The ν₂/ν₄ ratio for archaeological plasters varies from 3 to 6. This shows that a high ratio is indicative of disorder in the crystal, and implies that the calcite was formed from calcium oxide at high temperatures. It also implies that this disorder can be preserved for at least 14,000 years. The ν₂/ν₄ ratio of calcite from archaeological sites can thus be used to differentiate between anthropogenic calcite, such as in plaster, mortar and wood ash, from geogenic calcite, such as in limestone. The ratio may also be used to identify plaster or ash that still retains its original crystals and therefore carbon-14 content.     

The mandible and dentition of the Early Cretaceous monotreme Teinolophos trusleri

Rich, T.H., Hopson, J.A., Gill, P.G., Trusler, P., Rogers-Davidson, S., Morton, S., Cifelli, R.L., Pickering, D., Kool, L., Siu, K., Burgmann, F.A., Senden, T., Evans, A.R., Wagstaff, B.E., Seegets-Villiers, D., Corfe, I.J., Flannery, T.F., Walker, K., Musser, A.M., Archer, M., Pian, R. & Vickers-Rich, P., June 2016. The mandible and dentition of the Early Cretaceous monotreme Teinolophos trusleri. Alcheringa 40, xx–xx. ISSN 0311-5518.

The monotreme Teinolophos trusleri Rich, Vickers-Rich, Constantine, Flannery, Kool & van Klaveren, 1999 Rich, T.H., Vickers-Rich, P., Constantine, A., Flannery, T.F., Kool, L. & van Klaveren, N., 1999. Early Cretaceous mammals from Flat Rocks, Victoria, Australia. Records of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery 106, 1–34. [Google Scholar] from the Early Cretaceous of Australia is redescribed and reinterpreted here in light of additional specimens of that species and compared with the exquisitely preserved Early Cretaceous mammals from Liaoning Province, China. Together, this material indicates that although T. trusleri lacked a rod of postdentary bones contacting the dentary, as occurs in non-mammalian cynodonts and basal mammaliaforms, it did not share the condition present in all living mammals, including monotremes, of having the three auditory ossicles, which directly connect the tympanic membrane to the fenestra ovalis, being freely suspended within the middle ear cavity. Rather, T. trusleri appears to have had an intermediate condition, present in some Early Cretaceous mammals from Liaoning, in which the postdentary bones cum ear ossicles retained a connection to a persisting Meckel’s cartilage although not to the dentary. Teinolophos thus indicates that the condition of freely suspended auditory ossicles was acquired independently in monotremes and therian mammals. Much of the anterior region of the lower jaw of Teinolophos is now known, along with an isolated upper ultimate premolar. The previously unknown anterior region of the jaw is elongated and delicate as in extant monotremes, but differs in having at least seven antemolar teeth, which are separated by distinct diastemata. The dental formula of the lower jaw of Teinolophos trusleri as now known is i2 c1 p4 m5. Both the deep lower jaw and the long-rooted upper premolar indicate that Teinolophos, unlike undoubted ornithorhynchids (including the extinct Obdurodon), lacked a bill.

Thomas H. Rich [trich@museum.vic.gov.au], Sally Rogers-Davidson [srogers@museum.vic.gov.au], David Pickering [dpick@museum.vic.gov.au], Timothy F. Flannery [tim.flannery@textpublishing.com.au], Ken Walker [kwalker@museum.vic.gov.au], Museum Victoria, PO Box 666, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia; James A. Hopson [jhopson@uchicago.edu], Department of Organismal Biology & Anatomy, University of Chicago,1025 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Pamela G. Gill [pam.gill@bristol.ac.uk], School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, U.K. and Earth Science Department, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK; Peter Trusler [peter@petertrusler.com.au], Lesley Kool [koollesley@gmail.com], Doris Seegets-Villiers [doris.seegets-villiers@monash.edu], Patricia Vickers-Rich [pat.rich@monash.edu], School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia; Steve Morton [steve.morton@monash.edu], Karen Siu [karen.siu@monash.edu], School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia; Richard L. Cifelli [rlc@ou.edu] Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73072, USA; Flame A. Burgmann [flame.burgmann@monash.edu], Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy, 10 Innovation Walk, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia; Tim Senden [Tim.Senden@anu.edu.au], Department of Applied Mathematics, Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia; Alistair R. Evans [alistair.evans@monash.edu], School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia; Barbara E. Wagstaff [wagstaff@unimelb.edu.au], School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia; Ian J. Corfe [ian.corfe@helsinki.fi], Institute of Biotechnology, Viikinkaari 9, 00014, University of Helsinki, Finland; Anne M. Musser [anne.musser@austmus.gov.au], Australian Museum, 1 College Street, Sydney NSW 2010 Australia; Michael Archer [m.archer@unsw.edu.au], School of Biological, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia; Rebecca Pian [rpian@amnh.org], Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024-5192, USA. Received 7.4.2016; accepted 14.4.2016.