ALTERATION PROCESSES OF POTTERY IN LAGOON‐LIKE ENVIRONMENTS

Post‐depositional processes in pottery can give rise to chemical and mineralogical alterations, the extent of which is closely related not only to the microstructure and composition of the potsherds, but also to the chemical–physical conditions of the burial environment. The present paper describes the characterization of post‐depositional alterations and identification of processes involving pottery buried in lagoon‐like environments. A set of various types of Roman transport amphorae and African Red Slip ware (ARS), collected from two archaeological sites characterized by a lagoon‐like depositional environment and showing evident changes in the original colours, was analysed by a combination of microstructural, mineralogical and microchemical approaches. The formation of pyrite after hematite, jarosite after pyrite and microstructural substitution features are interpreted here in terms of the chemico‐physical conditions of the burial environment and their evolution in time.     

Is X-ray diffraction able to distinguish between animal and human bones?

The possibility of determining the human or animal origin of bones from the lattice parameters of their inorganic bioapatite phase, when subjected to a high temperature treatment using the powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique, has been explored on a wide number of specimens. Forty-two animal bones were treated in a furnace at 1100 °C for 36 min and compared to 53 cremated human bones from a range of ancient necropolises. The X-ray diffraction patterns of bioapatite were simulated using both monoclinic P21/b and hexagonal P63/m structures to verify any occurrence of phase transformation and any difference in the lattice parameters due to the model. It was determined that the differences between the a-axis and c-axis of the monoclinic and hexagonal lattice were unimportant. Some outlying values were revealed to be caused by the presence of chlorine ions diffused into the apatite structure increasing its average unit cell values. Nevertheless, our results clearly show that in terms of lattice parameters the variability of human specimens are completely overlapped by the non-human variability making the use of XRD in order to distinguish animal from human bones questionable.     

The Denticulate Mousterian as a supposedly distinct facies in Western Central Asia

The Middle Paleolithic industry of Kulbulak – a key stratified site in Uzbekistan – has been described as the Denticulate Mousterian. Our findings suggest that this definition is problematic because the principal diagnostic feature of this facies – the denticulate outline of tools – has resulted from natural processes. Accordingly, in our view, no such facies exists either at Kulbulak or in Western Central Asia at large.     

Neolithic cremation in south‐east Arabia: archaeological and anthropological observations at FAY‐NE10 in the Emirate of Sharjah (UAE)

Small fragments of cremated human bone, clearly representing numerous individuals, were found in a stratified Neolithic context in a small cave at Jebel Faya in the Central Region of the Emirate of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. With radiocarbon dates between 6500 and 5800 cal BC, they are among the earliest well‐documented cases of cremations in south‐west Asia. Taxonomic identification of the small burned bone fragments is based on morphological and histological analysis. The deposits are to date the oldest human remains found in south‐east Arabia and represent a phase during the Middle Neolithic for which no other types of burials have yet been documented.     

Origins of Molecular Neurobiology: The Role of the Physicists

The revolution in the foundations of physics at the beginning of the twentieth century suggested to several of its most prominent workers that biology was ripe for something similar. In consequence, a number of physicists moved into biology. They were highly influential in initiating a molecular biology in the 1950s. Two decades later it seemed to several of these migrants, and those they had influenced, that the major problems in molecular biology had been solved, and that it was time to move on to what seemed to them the final problem: the nervous system, consciousness, and the age-old mind-body problem. This paper reviews this “double migration” and shows how the hopes of the first generation of physicist-biologists were both realized and dashed. No new physical principles were discovered at work in the foundations of biology or neuroscience. On the other hand, the mind-set of those trained in physics proved immensely valuable in analyzing fundamental issues in both biology and neuroscience. It has been argued that the outcome of the molecular biology of the 1950s was a change in the concept of the gene from that of “a mysterious entity into that of a real molecular object” (Watson, 1965 Watson, JD. 1965. The Molecular Biology of the Gene, New York: Benjamin.  [Google Scholar], p.6); the gates and channels which play such crucial roles in the functioning of nervous systems have been transformed in a similar way. Studies on highly simplified systems have also opened the prospect of finding the neural correlatives of numerous behaviors and neuropathologies. This increasing understanding at the molecular level is invaluable not only in devising rational therapies but also, by defining the material substrate of consciousness, in bringing the mind-body problem into sharper focus.     

CROSSING BOUNDARIES: MAKING CONNECTIONS Presidential address to the ISHN,Lausanne, 1999

This Presidential address to the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences was given at Lausanne in September 1999. It reviews some of the contributions given at that conference and provides a brief overview of the history of the mind-brain problem in Western neuroscientific thought.     

350th Anniversary of Les Passions de l'Ame

1999 marks the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Descartes' final work: Les Passions de l'Ame. This short paper commemorates that event and discusses the circumstances contributing to its origin and the questions which it still raises for neuropsychology three hundred and fifty years later.     

Differentiation of ceramic chemical element composition and vessel morphology at a pottery production center in Roman Galilee

Cooking pots and bowls from two production locations ca. 200 m from each other at the rural settlement of Kefar Hananya in Roman Galilee were compared employing chemical element composition and vessel-shape analyses. Splits of each pulverized sample, all of which were taken from ceramic wasters, were analyzed by both instrumental neutron activation and high-precision X-ray fluorescence analyses, and computerized vessel-shape analysis was employed for morphological analysis of the same vessel forms from each location. Several statistical techniques (bivariate plots, principal component analysis, cluster analysis and discriminant analysis) were used for analyzing the resultant data. It was found that both the cooking pots and bowls made at each location could be distinguished by employing either chemical composition or morphological analysis. The implications of this work, with regard to investigating both production and consumption sites, and for pottery provenance studies, are discussed. The findings suggest that these analytical techniques can be useful as an aid for chronological differentiations of archaeological pottery.