Estimating original flake mass from 3D scans of platform area

This study confirms the increased capacity to predict flake mass that arises from more accurately measuring surface area in three dimensions using a digital scanner. We also reveal the existence of significantly different relationships between platform area and flake mass for flakes with different platform types and ventral and dorsal morphologies. These different relationships between platform surface area and mass have not been previously identified, and reveal the complexity of platform/mass relationships. Using multivariate regression of 3D platform surface area and external platform angle we improve the accuracy of predictions of original flake mass. We propose a method for studying reduction intensity on retouched flakes, based on comparing predictions of the initial mass of the flake with measurements of the mass following retouching to estimate the amount of mass removed through retouching. We name this approach the Initial-/Terminal-Mass Comparison, or ITMC. Our experiments demonstrate that the capacity of the 3D platform scans to predict flake mass, and by implication the capacity of the ITMC to estimate mass loss, rivals or exceeds the capacity demonstrated for existing reduction measures.     

The Possible Advantage of Living in Turf Houses on Settlement Mounds

Abstract

Before timber and stone houses were introduced to northern regions, varieties of turf houses were the most commonly used architecture. These houses had a wooden structure encapsulated in a shell constructed of grass turf. The different ethnic groups of the north built their houses in different styles and constructions, but the general principle was the same. The Norse of North Norway and also on the North Atlantic islands had a tendency to build their houses on top of the ruins of previous houses. After a few centuries this arrangement produced a settlement mound of highly organic soil. In the research literature, both the turf architecture and the settlement mounds have been described as adaptations to and a function of marginality and lack of timber. This paper reports an effort to test the idea that turf houses on top of settlement mounds may have been a finely tuned ecological system that made use of the capacity of organic soil to produce heat.     

Magic Bullets for Mental Disorders: The Emergence of the Concept of an “Antipsychotic” Drug

When “antipsychotic” drugs were introduced into psychiatry in the 1950s, they were thought to work by inducing a state of neurological suppression, which reduced behavioral disturbance as well as psychotic symptoms. This view was reflected in the name “neuroleptic.” Within a few years, however, the idea that the drugs were a disease-specific treatment for schizophrenia or psychosis, and that they worked by modifying the underlying pathology of the condition, replaced this earlier view, and they became known as “antipsychotics.” This transformation of views about the drugs' mode of action occurred with little debate or empirical evaluation in the psychiatric literature and obscured earlier evidence about the nature of these drugs. Drug advertisements in the British Journal of Psychiatry reflect the same changes, although the nondisease-specific view persisted for longer. It is suggested that professional interests rather than scientific merit facilitated the rise of the disease-specific view of drug action. The increasing popularity of atypical antipsychotics makes it important to examine the origins of the assumptions on which modern drug treatment is based.     

Identifying wine markers in ceramics and plasters using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Experimental and archaeological materials

The identification of the organic residues preserved in archaeological materials yields good insights into understanding food production, trade and consumption. Wine is one of the most important beverages produced, traded and consumed in the Mediterranean area. Consequently, it is important to identify its presence in ancient materials. Nevertheless, the identification of wine markers is still an object of discussion. We present here the results obtained from analysing different materials using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), which allowed for the identification of tartaric acid and other markers of wine. The method was first tested on experimental and traditional materials that have been used until recently to store and/or produce wine and was then used for investigating archaeological materials. The experiments also involved the degradation of wine through cooking, drastic heating and burial for seven years. The results from the analysis of ceramic and plaster materials are discussed.     

Rock type variability and impact fracture formation: working towards a more robust macrofracture method

Investigations into the development of weapon systems are increasingly important in archaeological debates about human evolution and behavioural variability. ‘Diagnostic’ impact fractures are key, but controversial, lines of evidence commonly used in such investigations. In 2009 a series of experiments was initiated to investigate the processes associated with macrofracture formation specifically focussing on the taphonomic factors affecting the formation of ‘diagnostic’ impact fractures (DIFs). This paper adds to that experimental data set with macrofracture results from recent knapping experiments investigating rock type variability and DIF formation. These results show that rock type variation plays less of a role in DIF formation than variables related to use and lithic taphonomy. The collective results of this experimental series show that the location, co-occurrence, type and proximity to retouch on a tool are all important means of distinguishing between weapon and non-weapon related DIFs. Collectively these macrofracture patterns are more important in diagnosing weapon components than any one ‘diagnostic’ impact fracture is alone. Overall, these experimental studies are showing that background ‘noise’ in the form of non-hunting related impact fractures, exists in many macrofracture results and that much work remains in securing the analytical robusticity of the method. The paper concludes that the macrofracture method is not a stand-alone method, but when used with caution and in conjunction with other lines of evidence it is a useful, time-efficient, tool for generating assemblage-level use-trace data.     

The effect of charring and burial on the biochemical composition of cereal grains: investigating the integrity of archaeological plant material

Stable isotope analysis of charred archaeobotanical cereal grains has the potential to provide direct evidence of crop growing conditions in the past and to refine palaeodietary predictions. If isotope values of archaeobotanical material are to be considered robust, it is necessary to characterise the compositional changes associated with their charring and burial. This study used a suite of analytical techniques, including FT-IR and solid state ¹³C NMR, to characterise changes in the biochemical composition of modern einkorn grains with heating at 230 °C for 2 h, 4 h, 8 h and 24 h, encompassing conditions that replicate their undistorted ancient counterparts. The biochemical composition of archaeobotanical charred einkorn grains was also investigated by FT-IR and solid state ¹³C NMR in order to assess the changes in composition which occur during burial. Results of FT-IR and solid-state ¹³C NMR show that heating of modern einkorn grains resulted in Maillard reactions between cereal proteins and starch, forming high molecular weight melanoidins, which contain both alkyl and aromatic carbon. Loss of low molecular weight carbon and nitrogen-containing volatiles resulted in a slight but non-systematic increase in the δ¹³C values and a systematic increase of 0.8‰ in the δ¹⁵N values of the charred einkorn grains. Solid-state ¹³C NMR shows that the ancient charred einkorn grains consisted entirely of aromatic carbon and retained a similar proportion of nitrogen to their modern 24 h charred counterparts, despite a significantly lower concentration of amino acids. This indicates that the amino acid nitrogen in the ancient charred grains was retained in the stable melanoidins whose polymeric structure makes them resistant to subsequent degradation.     

Explaining the monopoly in shell-bead production on the Channel Islands: drilling experiments with four lithic raw materials

Significant political and economic developments among the Chumash of southern California were catalyzed in part by the emergence of an intensive, specialist-driven shell-bead industry during the second millennium CE on the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. The production of millions of beads depended in turn on the availability of lithic microdrills of standardized form and materials. Channel Islanders quarried a particular stone type, a blocky Monterey Formation chert, from multiple outcrops situated close to the eastern shores of Santa Cruz Island. Rich archaeological assemblages document the lithic and shell byproducts of these intertwined production systems, each of which endured for several centuries (CE 1150–1819). Islanders invariably chose Island chert for making microdrills: hundreds of thousands of specimens recorded to date are of this material. Furthermore, nearly every microlith in all of Chumash territory (post CE 1150) was produced on the islands; the large populations on the mainland did not participate in microlith making or bead making after CE 1150–1200. We argue that this pattern had its roots not only in the patchiness of key resources and shifting regional social relationships, but also in the physical properties of available raw materials. Here we experimentally assess the properties of Santa Cruz Island chert alongside three important mainland raw materials—Grimes Canyon fused shale, Coso obsidian, and Vandenberg chert—that potentially could have been tapped to make microliths. We test the proposition that Island chert outperforms other lithic materials in drilling efficiency and drill use life. Our experimental results from 108 drilling trials reveal sharp distinctions in performance characteristics across the four materials. We infer that the process by which Islanders became the more-or-less exclusive manufacturers of shell-bead currency in southern California was facilitated by both the efficacy and physical properties of the Island cherts and the propitious locations of the outcrops.     

Our history is not false: perspectives from the revitalisation culture

Two dominant themes in architectural conservation doctrine are to (1) avoid the fabrication of ‘false’ histories through the clear differentiation of ‘new’ from ‘old’ building fabric; and (2) the deprecation of subjective ways in which the perception of building fabric engenders sense of place. This study explores the cultural values of a group of citizens engaged in revitalising their historic downtown through the ‘Main Street’ program in Anderson, South Carolina, United States. This ‘revitalisation culture’ values and promotes treatments to its historic environment that emphasise the conjectural fabrication of ‘historic’ elements to existing buildings and the use of historicised design for new, infill construction. Whilst these values go against the grain of conservation doctrine, the revitalisation culture is preserving a kind of authenticity that stems from socially and culturally constructed values in an effort to maintain the ability of the historic environment to engender ‘spontaneous fantasies’, which serve to emotionally attach the revitalisation culture with its historic downtown. Ultimately, the revitalisation culture is engaging in ‘unethical’ behaviour from the perspective of conservation professionals, which begs the question of whose values deserve attention and if the field of heritage conservation is able and willing to accept pluralistic concepts of how the authenticity of historic places can and should be conserved.     

The Mechanism and Kinetics of In Situ Conservation of Iron Cannon on Shipwreck Sites

Analysis of the pre‐disturbance values of the in situ corrosion parameters on historic iron shipwrecks and artefacts has established that the arithmetic product of the pH and corrosion potential is dependent on the burial environment and provides a unique insight into the objects' state of decay. The value of the product changes during in situ conservation treatment with sacrificial anodes, and reaches a minimum at which point the treatment is completed. Treatment times vary with water‐depth, being faster on shallower sites and shorter for more extensively corroded artefacts. The model was developed using data from the Duart Point wreck (1653), the Monitor‐styled warship HMVS Cerberus (1926) and a series of wrecks in Australia and the USA.