The Arade 1 Shipwreck: Preliminary Results of the 2004 and 2005 Field Seasons

Lost after partial destruction by dredging in 1970, Arade 1 was a priority for the Centro Nacional de Arqueologia Náutica e Subaquática (CNANS). The upper part of the hull, lying over a 7-m-long area of the bed of the Arade river, was fully observed and recorded during the first two seasons (2001 and 2002) and dismantled in a third phase (2003). The 2004 and 2005 seasons aimed at the excavation, full recording and dismantling of the lower hull, briefly observed at the end of 2002. This second, detached, portion of the hull, was buried in the sediment and corresponds to midships.
© 2008 The Authors     

Potters and pigments: preliminary technological assessment of pigment recipes of American majolica by synchrotron radiation micro-X-ray diffraction (Sr-μXRD)

This paper assesses the impact of European ceramics on preexisting American potting technologies. Specifically we investigate the technological features of pigments used for production of colonial American majolica. In order to achieve this goal, majolica sherds from Puebla (4), and Oaxaca (2), both in Mexico, from Antigua (Guatemala) (2), from Panama (1), and from Mission San Luis (Florida) (5) were analyzed by synchrotron micro-X-ray diffraction (μ-XRD). Eleven out of these fourteen samples were also analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The combination of micro-chemical and micro-structural techniques provides a cross sectional profile of the constituent minerals present ultimately providing information about the nature and distribution of the pigments used in their decorations, their dissolution in the glassy matrix, and the formation of crystalline compounds. Our results reveal significant differences among productions.     

Testing recipes: an experimental approach to paint production processes in Levantine rock art (Spain)

Over more than a century, several proposals have been made on the composition and technical features of the pictorial recipes used by Levantine prehistoric painters. In this paper all these proposals are surveyed and tested through systematic experiments to determine the technical affordance of pigments and binders in different pictorial recipes. Experimental results were then used as independent analytical parameters employed as diagnostic criteria to systematically study an archaeological sample of nine sites located in the Maestrazgo region (Spain) and their surroundings. Results reveal that out of 112 experimental recipes, only 16 afforded the production of paintings technically similar to Levantine rock art.     

Milling Cereals/Legumes and Stamping Bread in Mauretanian Tamuda (Morocco): An Interdisciplinary Study

African Archaeological Review - Recent archaeological excavations (2016–2019) in the city of Tamuda (northern Morocco) yielded evidence of commercial milling and bread-making facilities dated...     

Experimental Research with Salt Crystallization in Historical Portuguese Azulejos

The most serious form of degradation of historical azulejos is the spall of the glaze and it is widely accepted that the crystallization of salts dissolved in water circulating in the masonry is its main cause. This article reports the results of an accelerated aging test aimed at studying the physical deterioration of azulejos caused by cycles of dissolution and re-crystallization of sodium chloride (NaCl). Experiments were carried out on 26 Portuguese azulejos from the 17th–19th century, some of which with original manufacturing defects or with varying degrees of previous decay.

The results of 75 cycles over 18 months did not verify that the action of NaCl could trigger an accelerated loss of glaze in a healthy azulejo. Furthermore, the results lead to the induction that there must be other, eventually concurring, causes for the spall of glaze than a simple challenge with salts that crystallize by evaporation.     

Design and Analysis of Cross Vaults Along History

The history of cross vaults began almost 2,000 years ago with a widespread use during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, becoming nowadays one of the most diffused and fascinating structural typologies of the European building cultural heritage. However, conversely to the undeniable excellence achieved by the ancient masons, the structural behavior of these elements is still at the center of the scientific debate. In this regard, with the aim of reviewing the knowledge on this subject as a concise and valuable support for researchers involved in conservation of historical buildings, with a focus on design rules and structural analysis, the present study firstly introduces the cross vaults from a historical perspective, by describing the evolution of the main geometrical shapes together with basic practical rules used to size them. Then, the article deals with the subsequent advancements in structural analysis methods of vaults, until the development of modern limit analysis.     

Enrique Díaz Retg and El Diluvio: reportage from the Italian frontline (1916)

In the year 1916 Enrique Díaz Retg, a staff journalist working for the Spanish newspaper El Diluvio, extremely popular among Barcelona’s working class readers, was assigned to report from the Italian front. Following an invitation from the Italian Foreign Office, he was granted permission to visit war zones under the control of the Italian army. During this journey, which began on 5 September and concluded in Rome on the 22nd, he traveled with two other famous Spanish reporters, Ramón Pérez de Ayala and Eduardo Gómez de Baquero. Comparing the articles produced by the three journalists allows us to perceive the main distinctive features of Enrique Díaz Retg’s work. From an ideological point of view, his articles reveal a bias in favor of the Latin race and in them he calls for Mediterranean nations to unite, openly inviting the Spanish authorities to enter into war against the barbaric German enemy. In doing so, he contributed to widening the social gap that in the years to come would increasingly alienate the working class from the institution of monarchy and the Catalan elites.     

Ancestral memories and early medieval landscapes: the case of Sierra de Ávila (Spain)

This paper focuses on early medieval funerary practices from a landscape perspective in central Iberia. Rock‐dug graves constitute the most conspicuous remains in this region, but their informative potential has not yet been realized. The preliminary outcomes of an ongoing research project are presented here. This aims to contextualize such funerary cases by examining a mid‐altitude mountain study‐area. Through the use of intensive archaeological surveying and geographic information systems, the paper characterizes two basic funerary types: isolated graves and rural disordered cemeteries, which responded to two social strategies led by local households. By recalling ancestorship, they constituted effective mnemonic resources, contributing to claiming rights and forging identities among these dispersed and predominantly small‐scale herding communities.     

Translocational Irish identities in Edna O’Brien’s memoir Country Girl (2012)

A rural-urban exodus subsequently followed by overseas migration has characterised geographical movement in Ireland. While Irish women have outnumbered men in their diaspora, physical and symbolic identification with Ireland has been decisive to the polemic of Irish female migration. This article explores how real and symbolic contradictions in Irish women experiencing displacement are reflected in Edna O’Brien’s memoir Country Girl (2012). Using translocational positionality as an intersectional research framework, the article reveals the importance of spatiality in the ‘life writings’ of a particular situational subject and its major role in identity construction processes. Furthermore, this article relates the individual biography to the collective and complex construction of identity of Irish women abroad in the second half of the twentieth century. The analysis sheds light on many unvoiced experiences shared by female migrants and discloses key aspects of Irish migration that result in a problematic gendered relation with the land still unresolved.     

The spatial dimension of internal labor markets

We integrate into a unified framework the spatial and the employment dimensions of worker mobility, tracing workers across firms, across establishments, and across regions. Drawing upon the spatial dimension of internal labor markets in firms with multiple establishments in multiple locations, our results indicate that the contemporaneous wage premium to migration is around 3 percentage points. For the case of job switchers, we find that the return to regional migration is due to access to better jobs at the destination. We also document the existence of an urban premium for same‐employer migrants but for employer changes this premium is driven by selection.