A (Digital) Future for Saharan Rock Art?

First visited by westerners in the mid-nineteenth century, Saharan rock art has since received a great deal of attention. The richness and diversity of this region is recognised by the inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage list of three properties: Tassili-n-Ajjer in Algeria, Tadrart Acacus in Libya, and Ennedi in Chad. The situation in many North African countries now makes this vast region very difficult to access: safety in the field is not guaranteed and few research funds are available. Today, a new generation of African and foreign scientists has no access to rock art sites in the north of the continent and the lack of fieldwork may entail a lack of safeguard and awareness. The growth of digital technologies over the last 15 years has revolutionised methods for recording rock art sites. Digital technologies are also used to mitigate the gap between artworks and accessibility in those countries where turmoil and social instability make fieldwork impossible. However, much of the documentation and most digital recordings of artworks currently available on the Internet lack an archaeological context. Equally, many of these websites barely mention methodological and theoretical aspects. It is also difficult to understand the extent of awareness among local communities in remote areas—sometimes suffering a digital and linguistic divide—and if (and how) they are genuinely able to exploit these digital resources. Here, I collate some examples from different parts of the Sahara illustrating that the recording, management and dissemination of rock art still present highs and lows. I argue that we should share theories and methods within the digital scientific community, with a view to adopting a shared nomenclature and a public thesaurus, making our cataloguing criteria explicit and, finally, developing an ethical code of conduct involving local communities.     

Beauty,Bath and Beyond: Framing Bathsheba as a Royal Fantasy in 2 Sam 11,1-5

This paper investigates the function of beauty in David and Bathsheba’s encounter in 2 Sam 11,1-5. It argues that the female bather’s pleasant appearance, rather than simply kindling king David’s desire, focalizes the woman as sexually available (and vulnerable) and wraps the whole episode in a royal fantasy of shared intimacy. The focus on Bathsheba’s beautiful body—her wash, her motion towards the king, her self-sanctification and her pregnancy—frames the episode in a very erotic way, suggesting adultery. It conceals the sexual violence committed by the king who sends, takes and sleeps with the woman. David’s violent entitlement to Bathsheba reveals the beauty politics at play in his royal House.     

An analysis of the Spanish ceramic tile industry research contracts and patents

In this work, we apply a systemic approach to the analysis of a particular geographic territory, the industrial district. We are particularly interested in analysing the interaction between the productive-technological environment and the scientific environment by an examination of research contracts and patents. Our analysis shows that R&D activity in the Spanish ceramic tile District Innovation System was mainly conducted by suppliers. Final producers’ innovation efforts were related to non-technological aspects and differentiation.     

Internal borders and external factors in outermost island regions. The case of the Canary Islands

The defining element of island regions is their isolation, the separation of the islands from the mainland; there is an inherent notion of natural border. This condition has preserved ecosystems and protected against outside threats, stimulating ‘coevolution’ between man and the environment, a fundamental ingredient of sustainability. But insularity also means the evident added costs of access to markets which, together with territorial limits and the scarcity of basic resources, especially on small islands, hinders their socioeconomic development. These costs are even greater in the case of outlying islands, which suffer from a ‘double insularity’ in the form of both external and internal borders. For this reason, it is common for governments to establish various forms of support, from tax exemptions to the creation of permanent aid funds, like those implemented by the European Union for the outermost regions. This article discusses these aspects in the case of the Canary Islands, an example of a European outermost island region. The findings show that the support measures have not always been favourable for all the islands.     

Improving land readjustment practice. Application of management models to Portugal

Whilst the advantages of the application of Land Readjustment (LR) are well known, there are nevertheless numerous countries in which application of LR is difficult or has not been successful. In its analysis of land readjustment constraints, conditions and the international practice, this paper contributes to improving the implementation of an LR system, particularly with respect to the management process. At the international level, management models in seven countries were studied: Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Sweden. In Portugal, three case studies in the municipalities of Almada, Coimbra and Lisbon were selected, with semi-structured interviews being conducted with the respective managing entities. The management models are distinguished by the type of initiative and leadership processes, relations among stakeholders, managing entities and operating rules. It can be concluded that the role of the public authority as the process facilitator from the very initial stages, the existence of a managing entity and a board of specialists, and the legal conditions governing expropriation are key factors for the improvement of land readjustment management.     

Assessment of Effects of Reductions of Lateral Stiffness along Height on Buildings Modeled as Elastic Cantilever Shear Beams

A simplified model useful for assessing economic losses due to moderate seismicity events in urban areas has been developed by studying the behavior of buildings before yielding their structural system, allowing for nonuniform stiffness along their height. In particular, buildings are modeled as cantilever shear beams with uniform mass and parabolic reduction of lateral stiffness. This particular stiffness distribution is relevant, as it could be expected to occur in buildings where earthquake action is a critical structural design criterion. The equation of motion governing the dynamic behavior of the proposed model is solved analytically, finding mode shapes in terms of first and second zero-order Legendre functions. The solution is verified by comparing it with results obtained from fine mesh finite element models. The effect of reducing the lateral stiffness is then studied in the first five modes of vibration. Results include modal periods, mode shapes, modal participation factors, and derivatives of mode shapes. In general, it is found that effects of reduction of lateral stiffness in mode shapes are moderate when the lateral stiffness in the free end is smaller than about seventy percent of the lateral stiffness at the fixed end, but become significant for larger reductions. Effects are particularly important for the derivative of the mode shapes, which could play a significant role in estimating interstory drift demands in buildings. Model usefulness is showcased by analyzing a test case where both acceleration and drift demands are assessed by considering uniform beams and beams with parabolic stiffness variation, finding notable improvements by considering the latter.     

Immersive Visualization and Curation of Archaeological Heritage Data: Çatalhöyük and the Dig@IT App

Advanced data capture techniques, cost-effective data processing, and visualization technologies provide viable solutions for the documentation of archaeological heritage and material culture. Work at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Çatalhöyük has demonstrated that new digital approaches for capturing, processing, analyzing, and curating stratigraphic data in 3D are now feasible. Real-time visualization engines allow us to simulate the stratigraphy of a site, the three-dimensional surfaces of ancient buildings, as well as the ever-changing morphology of cultural landscapes. Nonetheless, more work needs to be done to address methodological questions such as follows: can three-dimensional models and stratigraphic relationships, based on 3D surfaces and volumes, be used to perform archaeological interpretation? How can a 3D virtual scenario become the interface to cultural data and metadata stored in external online databases? How can we foster a sense of presence and user embodiment in the simulation of ancient cities and archaeological sites? This article aims to provide viable solutions to the methodological challenge of designing a comprehensive digital archaeological workflow from the data acquisition and interpretation in the field to a three-dimensional digital data curation based on interactive visualization, searchable 3D data, and virtual environments. This work describes the results we achieved developing the application Dig@IT, a multi-platform, scalable virtual reality tool able to foster archaeological data analysis, interpretation, and curation in a realistic and highly interactive virtual environment.     

A Cost-Based Ripley’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">K</Emphasis> Function to Assess Social Strategies in Settlement Patterning

Most quantitative approaches to distributional analysis in archaeology assume a homogeneous study surface that is amenable to easy generalisations. This framework has been widely used to describe settlement processes, disregarding the spatial heterogeneity inherent to geographic reality. In other words, researchers have often assumed that the correlation between the elements of a spatial distribution is a function of the Euclidean distance (i.e. straight line distance) between them. Other archaeological studies have tested alternative measures to Euclidean distances, such as cost-based ones, both to describe optimal routes and to assess spatial autocorrelation in a point pattern. Nevertheless, until now there has been no suitable model to introduce these measures into spatial statistical equations. In order to overcome this obstacle, we approach the implementation problem inversely by embedding the spatial pattern under study into a Euclidean frame of reference based on its cost-distance pairwise matrix. This paper describes the application of this methodology on one of the main tools used by archaeologists to assess settlement patterns: Ripley’s K function. We present two case studies, covering both macroscale and mesoscale, with significant variations in the results depending on the use of the Euclidean or cost-based approach. Data, functions and results have been R-packaged for the sake of reproducibility and reusability, allowing other researchers to build upon our methods.     

Time-Averaging Slows Down Rates of Change in the Archaeological Record

Measuring the pace of cultural change, and understanding its determinants is a fundamental goal of anthropological research. The archaeological record is the main source of information about the pace of cultural change, but it is an imperfect one, as taphonomic loss and mixing distort rate measurements. Here, I focus on the impact of time-averaging on rate measurements. Time-averaging arises when archaeological materials associated with activities and events that took place at different points in time are mixed into the same unit, whether because of depositional processes, disturbance factors, or because archaeologists lump together archaeological contexts when creating analytical units. I use analytical models to show how time-averaging can slow down the observed rates of change under two general modes of cultural change: random drift and directional change. I test this prediction using empirical rates of change from the archaeological record of North America. I show that empirical rates of change are indeed inversely correlated with the duration of time-averaging and provide a range estimate for this correlation.