A first note on the excavations at UAQ38, a new Neolithic site in the Emirate of Umm al-Quwain

At the end of 2018, the first season of excavation was carried out at the shell midden site of UAQ38. The site occupies the top of a sand dune not far from UAQ36 and UAQ2, two other recently investigated Neolithic shell middens. Several well-stratified anthropogenic levels were excavated at UAQ38, which can be dated mainly to the 5th millennium BC, although the recorded artefacts suggest a possible older date for the lowest levels. Food waste, post-holes, fireplaces, and burnt shell dumpings attest to human activities that took place at the site over a rather long period of time. Here the stratigraphic sequence will be presented, together with a first overview of the artefactual assemblage. The collected data will be concisely discussed in order to fit the site within the typology of Neolithic settlements that can be proposed for the area. UAQ38 is so far the only Neolithic site along the northeastern coast of the UAE for which stratified charcoal is available for dating.     

The sound of music heritage: curating popular music in music museums and exhibitions

A significant amount of previous academic research into popular music museums centres on critiques of the content, design and layout of predominantly authorised institutions. Throughout much of this research, authors consistently criticise the use, or rather, the perceived misuse, of music played within music museums, arguing that the music itself, rather than artefacts, constitutes the most significant part of popular music exhibition. This article seeks to counter this trend by exploring the challenges of incorporating recorded sound into popular music exhibits as understood by curators and exhibit designers. Utilising interviews conducted within 14 authorised and DIY museums devoted to popular music, the researchers demonstrate a distinct contrast between current academic critiques of music use in these museums and the attitudes of the people who create them. The result is a varied discussion surrounding sound in the museal space, including issues of sound bleed, technology and the creation of balance between artefacts and sound. This account draws attention to curators’ intentions of telling the story of popular music history by engaging with both the visual and aural memories of museum patrons, and suggests a new understanding of the purpose underpinning popular music museums in modern contexts.     

谈我国纸质文物保护的科技需求

我国纸质文物数量众多而保护难度较大。纸质文物因其特殊的本体材料、性能,病害原因多样、易于损毁,特别是民国纸质文物损坏现象严重。纸质文物保护需要建立完善的文物数据库和检测体系,以现代科学方法展开劣化机理研究,结合不同地区气候条件,以本国传统产纸技术、修复体系为根基,引入国际先进技术,达到长期、稳定保存纸质文物的目的。     

Evaluating inputs to models of hominin raw material selection: map resolution and path choices

Selection of an appropriate scale is an important decision in study design in many branches of science, since perceived patterns often change with the scales of spatial extent or resolution of an analysis. In previously published work, we created a resource selection model to determine the importance of several independent variables for the selection of lithic materials by hominins at a Middle Palaeolithic site in southern France. Two of these independent variables (calories exerted and difficulty of the terrain covered in travel from source to site) were calculated using elevation data extracted from maps. In the present paper, we examine the differences in model performance when the variables ‘Calories’ and ‘Difficulty’ are calculated using 1) three base maps for elevation that differed in map resolution (from finest to coarsest: a 1:25,000 topographic base map, SPOT DEM, and SRTM DEM), and 2) two different methods for determining the route from source to site (straight-line route and least-cost route; both methods exclude areas with slopes >60% from travel). Our best model was the one that used data calculated using the topographic base map; however, the SRTM DEM-based data produced models of essentially equal quality. Regardless of map scale, models that used data calculated using a straight-line route always outperformed models that used data calculated using a least-cost route. This supports our previous finding that a straight-line route is a more appropriate measure for the path from lithic source to site than a least-cost route. We conclude that the map resolution of each of the base maps used here is appropriate for analyses involving spatial data pertaining to Neandertal activity because this type of data is essentially always coarse-grained.     

Long-term clay raw material selection and use in the region of Classical/Hellenistic to Early Byzantine Sagalassos (SW Turkey)

A provenance study was carried out on coarse ceramics from the Classical/Hellenistic to Mid-Byzantine city of Sagalassos, SW Turkey. The ceramics were sampled from the excavations of the city, and clay raw materials were sampled throughout its ancient territory. Used techniques were optical microscopy and electron microprobe analysis on thin sections, geochemical analysis (fusion ICP/MS and mineralogical analysis (X-ray diffraction). The geochemical/mineralogical diversity in the ceramics is not as wide as for the clay raw materials. It seems that even at the restricted scale of this study, the resources were limited to the area around the ancient site. The differences between the ceramics are likely due to the use of different ophiolitic clay bodies being exploited for their production.     

ANALYSIS OF PORE PRESSURE GENERATION AND DISSIPATION IN COHESIONLESS MATERIALS DURING SEISMIC LOADING

The earthquake loading of a shallow foundation resting on top of a cohesionless layer creates cyclic variations in the shear force and overturning moment acting on the supporting soil. These loads induce a tendency for volume change which, in turn, depending on the drainage conditions and material permeability, may cause in addition to a cyclic pore pressure variation a progressive pore pressure buildup. The paper develops an efficient and elegant way, based on a multiple time scale analysis, of solving this fully coupled problem. The theoretical solution is implemented in a finite element code and is applied to predict the pore pressure development and dissipation under a bridge pier foundation for which it was essential to limit the pore pressure increase.     

A Blaze in the Northern Sky: Black Metal and Crimes Against Culture

Abstract

This paper focuses on an act that can be seen to typify what heritage organizations might con?dently describe as a ‘crime against culture’: the deliberate destruction by ?re of a twelfth-century wooden stave church at Fantoft in Norway in 1992. This paper uses the case study of Fantoft to challenge the ways in which heritage organizations (in this case Norway’s Directorate of Cultural Heritage) establish and protect mono-cultural narratives and push interpretative agendas predicated on an uncritical concept of universal ‘value’ and its equation with material authenticity. It also examines how distinct minority communities construct new meanings, values, and traditions without reference to institutional narratives, a process that, whilst arguably initiating a more meaningful dialogue with the past, brings in train a new set of problems.     

Exploitation of Lithic Raw Material in The Northwestern Caucasus Upper Paleolithic

Sources of lithic raw material discovered by the authors are described with special regard to methods of transporting stone to Upper Paleolithic sites in the northwestern Caucasus. The analysis of obsidian artifacts suggests that materials were imported from remote regions such as the central and South Caucasus, evidencing mobility patterns in the Upper Paleolithic.