Chapels and chantries in late medieval and early modern Besançon: the record book of Jean Ferreux,chaplain

During the fifteenth-century reform of the Poor Clares by St. Colette, many new convents were built in France and Flanders. Their chapels were endowed by local benefactors with perpetual chantries. Much later, a diligent chaplain in Besançon reviewed the state of the chantries entrusted to his care. His record describes their condition after a decline of over two centuries, owing to currency devaluation, the collapse of the local aristocracy, and the nuns' neglect of their duties. The chaplain's book shows that these chantries, though founded in perpetuity, maintained their original function for only a few years. After that, even as the benefactors were themselves forgotten, so their chantries slowly fell into disrepair and decline.     

晋中平原地区农村聚落扩展分析

在实地考察的基础上，章从规模、速度、形态和类型等方面分析了晋中平原地区农村聚落扩展的特点，并深入探讨了影响农村聚落扩展的因素，认为聚落扩展主要是人口增长和家庭规模变化、社会经济发展与收入增加、交通条件改善、农村地区工业化及其他因素共同作用的结果。最后指出了由于聚落扩展而带来的许多难以解决的问题。     

A regionalisation or long-distance trade? Transformations and shifts in the role of Tana in the Black Sea trade in the first half of the fifteenth century

Abstract

The Italian trading stations in Tana were important in the long-distance trade system of the Italian maritime republics Venice and Genoa. The deeds of two Venetian notaries who worked there during the 1430s, Nicolo de Varsis and Benedetto de Smeritis, are an important source for tracing the transformation of the issues and directions of Italian trade in the Black Sea region, a trade which was recovering from the crisis of the fourteenth century. Notwithstanding the Venetian-Genoese struggle and previous crisis events, this recovery made the economic conditions favourable. Although some scholars see a regionalisation of trade in fifteenth century, the source evidence challenges this interpretation. Westerners began to import Italian, Flemish and English textiles to the Eastern markets, and the local goods (fish, caviar) were widely exported to Europe – even to the markets of Flanders. Finally, the slave trade was intensive. My main argument here is that though there were considerable transformations in the Italian trade, there was no real regionalisation of trade, which retained its long-distance character.     

A medieval example of a sagittal cleft or ‘butterfly’ vertebra

A mature adult medieval male with a rare congenital anomaly, a sagittal‐cleft or butterfly vertebra, is presented. Clinical cases are frequently associated with axial as well as soft‐tissue defects. The present case, based only on skeletal evidence, appears to be an isolated finding. The aetiology of the clefting is outlined and palaeopathological evidence for the condition is included. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Settlement structures and cemetery at Wadi Shab-GAS1, Sultanate of Oman: Report on the 2002 and 2003 field seasons

Many chronological and cultural facets of Early and Middle Holocene Prehistoric Oman are still unclear. Archaeological excavations of settlements and cemeteries are adding new data to the reconstruction of a chronological and cultural framework. Wadi Shab-GAS1 is a Middle Holocene site found at the beginning of the 1980s and later destroyed by urbanisation. It is located in a rich environmental niche, on a cliff facing the sea and near a permanent freshwater source. Three years of fieldwork at this site brought to light structural remains, a cemetery and interesting material culture.     

The Italian Neolithic: A Synthesis of Research

This paper reviews the distinctive economic and social development of Neolithic Italy and its islands, from ca. 6000 B.C. until the emergence of the Copper Age ca. 3500 B.C. Through a synthesis of traditional interpretations and more recent discussions relating to early farming economies, social and technological developments, settlement, and landscape, the complex regional patterns are described. The development of archaeological studies in Italy, the biases in regional and chronological data collection, the regional patterns of cultures and landscapes, and the emergence of distinctive funerary, artistic and economic activities reveal a wealth of varied and intriguing archaeological information from a wide variety of sources that link parallel developments in the Mediterranean and Europe.     

Carrot (Daucus carota L.) in Medieval Kraków (S. Poland): a cultivated form?

A large quantity of what appear to be processed fruits of Daucus carota L. were found in Rynek G?ówny (the main market square) in Kraków in a medieval organic layer dated to the 14th century AD. The fruits possess only slight traces of spiny secondary ridges, a characteristic feature of fruits used for sowing. Comparative measurements of the fruit dimensions also show them to be significantly different to other finds of D. carota in medieval Kraków. This therefore is perhaps the first archaeobotanical evidence indicating the cultivation of carrot in medieval Poland. Unprocessed carrot fruits, wild and cultivated forms being indistinguishable, are found in Europe from the Neolithic period onwards.     

The settlement patterns of north-eastern and south-eastern Arabia in late antiquity

The east Arabian settlements in antiquity were never large urban sites. However, they were the main centres of the communities that inhabited that area, interfacing between the nomadic and sedentary societies. A study of the distribution and characteristics of these sites reveals different, complementary functions. They were organized in local networks forming the essential structure of the settlement pattern and delineating the territories of communities having their own political identity.     

A supernumerary permanent mandibular premolar of wild boar (Sus scrofa L.) from the early medieval Novgorod,Russia

The aim of this study was to investigate a unique case of polydonty in wild boar from the early medieval Novgorod (second half of 11th century AD). The only preserved distal part of the right mandibular branch shows a rotated transitional permanent extra premolar between P₃ and P₄. This abnormality has the potential to serve as a territorially‐based indicator of past wild boar populations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.