广西越州故城遗址玻璃珠饰的科学研究

本研究利用能量色散型X射线荧光光谱分析、共聚焦激光拉曼光谱分析、光学相干层析成像、超景深光学显微观测等多种方法对广西越州故城遗址出土的印度-太平洋玻璃珠饰进行科技分析,获取了玻璃珠的化学成分、物相结构、内部物理结构、表面显微形貌等综合物理化学信息,确定了玻璃珠的玻璃体系、制作工艺(着色工艺、成形工艺)和产地来源,探讨了以丝绸之路为主线的国内发现魏晋南北朝时期印度-太平洋玻璃珠可能的输入路线。广西越州故城遗址发现的印度-太平洋玻璃珠为中外文明交流提供了新实物证据,对深入研究我国南北朝时期中外文明交流具有十分重要的学术价值和研究意义。     

四川渠县南宋《礼义城图》的拼合与考释

2015年11月,四川省文物考古研究院等在对四川渠县礼义城的考古调查中发现了《礼义城图》残片9块,通过对图中各要素的分析,成功将现存残片进行复原性拼合。《礼义城图》直观地刻画了南宋时期渠县礼义城的山形水势、道路房屋、城防设施和大量军事武器等。它不仅是国内发现的第3块宋代城池图碑刻,更是目前所见的唯一一幅描述南宋时期四川地区山城防御体系的城池攻防图。该图展现的是一幅四面围城、多点对战的战争场面,利用多种视角呈现了礼义城的地理空间和历史图景,真实再现了山城防御体系中的攻防场景。     

金元时期晋东南地区寺院间互动——以高平金峰寺为例

山西晋城市高平市金峰寺保存的元代碑刻为我们揭示了金元时期这一地区寺院间的互动情况。金峰寺的始建和位于高平城内的崇果院有关,后两寺互为甲乙,成为上下院。因修习同一法门,可从碑文"法眷"寺院的记载中得知金峰、崇果二寺和当地其它寺院的交往。又因助缘寺院修建、撰写碑记等事,二寺还与另一些寺院有联系,这些存在关联的寺院之间直线距离多不超过20千米。寺院互动主要由僧人建立、维系和发展,是金元时期寺僧人际网络和活动范围的反映,也有因地方官员和村民的疏请而建立的联系。     

Maps,Mapping, Modernity: Art and Cartography in the Twentieth Century

While the history of cartography has freed itself from debilitating debates over the scientific and artistic status of maps, considerations of the relationship between art and cartography have continued to focus largely on pre‐modern maps, avoiding critical examination of twentieth‐century art and science in cartography and leaving intact the impression that these followed distinct paths in the modern period. In this paper, however, I have drawn on theoretical work in Science Studies and taken account of modern art's separation from aesthetics to suggest that an examination of art and cartography in the twentieth century should focus on mapping practices rather than on maps as such. A summary overview of modern‐art movements and selected works indicates a continued, if critical, engagement of avant‐garde artists with cartography, and the examination of more popular newspaper artwork produced in the context of the intensely modern visual culture of mid‐twentieth century Los Angeles indicates a similarly close connection between modernity, art and cartography.     

Radiographic evidence for changing patterns of animal exploitation in the Southern levant

Radiographs were taken of sheep (Ovis aries) and goat (Capra hircus) metacarpals from archaeological sites in Israel dating from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) to recent times. From these radiographs the combined cortical thickness (CCT) of the bones was measured, and used to estimate sample variation in bone mass. The samples were compared by species and period, and further compared with CCT values obtained for a recent sample of ibex (Capra ibex nubiana) from the same region. For all periods studied, CCT values in goats were comparable with those of recent ibex. A significant reduction in CCT values of both sheep and goats was found in the Early Bronze to recent samples as compared with the Chalcolithic and PPNB samples. It is proposed that this reduction in CCT values is associated with the presence of older, female animals in the later samples studied, and may be indicative of an emphasis on milk herds.     

Archaeometric Study of Volcanic Lithic Objects from The Longola (Poggiomarino) Protohistoric Site,Southern Italy: Regional Versus Extra‐Regional Provenance

The Longola protohistoric village (spanning from the late Middle Bronze Age to the sixth century bc ) is a perifluvial settlement located in the Sarno River floodplain to the north‐east of Pompeii (southern Italy) and east of the Somma‐Vesuvius volcano. A great abundance of artefacts have been found at Longola and in the neighbouring areas, including a variety of volcanic stone objects, mainly related to building and to the manufacture of ordinary tools and instruments. The aim of our work is to characterize lithic objects (lava pebbles and millstones) and to understand their geological provenance by petrographic and geochemical studies. Compositions of millstone samples (porphyritic phonolitic tephrites) and of a set of pebbles (mainly phonolitic tephrites, leucite–shoshonites and trachytes) are compatible with the Somma‐Vesuvius magmas erupted before 8 ka bp . For the trachyte lithics, an additional source from the Accademia lava dome (Phlegrean Fields) cannot be ruled out. Among the pebble samples, a rhyolite and a poorly evolved trachyte clearly lie outside the compositional variation of the Somma‐Vesuvius and other volcanoes of the Naples area (e.g., Ischia and the Phlegrean Fields) and emphasize an extra‐regional provenance. Ponza Island is the best candidate for the provenance of the above two outlier samples.     

Delocalization,Humanitarianism, and Human Rights: The Mediterranean Border Between Exclusion and Inclusion

By reflecting on both the exclusionary and the inclusionary role of humanitarian migration and border management in the Central Mediterranean, this paper explores the relationship of humanitarianism with the delocalization of the EU border and with human rights. First, the paper analyses the role of human rights in the institutional humanitarian discourse about migration and border management at the Mediterranean EU border. The paper then analyses the Italian operation Mare Nostrum and, more generally, Italian humanitarianized border management in the Central Mediterranean. In doing this, it shows that humanitarianism contributes to the discursive legitimation and spatial delocalization of exclusionary policies and practices. Moreover, humanitarianism contributes to a symbolically and legally subordinate inclusion of migrants in the European space. While such humanitarian inclusion can be more inclusive than what human rights would require, it is posited as an act of grace rather than an enhancement of human rights. In both its exclusionary and inclusionary dimension, humanitarianism transcends and expands territorial boundaries by outsourcing responsibilities and enhancing delocalized border management.     

The Power and Limits of Cultural Myths in Portugal's Search for a Post-Imperial Role

The central role in Portuguese political culture of the identification of Portugal as a colonizing power legitimized a massive mobilization and violent response to the perceived existential threat of decolonization in the shape of prolonged wars in its main African colonies (1961–1974). If, however, this cultural myth of a Greater Portugal overseas was so powerful, how was decolonization eventually possible? The accumulated human and economic cost of facing three simultaneous, protracted anti-colonial insurgencies eroded this overseas creed and made Catholic and Marxist strands of anti-colonialism increasingly attractive to younger, more internationally connected, Portuguese elites. What also happened, however, this article will argue, was a refashioning of the powerful cultural myth of a special connection between Portugal and tropical Africa. A colonial myth was turned into a post-colonial myth legitimizing decolonization as a mutual and fraternal liberation from the same oppressive regime without a loss of strong ‘natural’ cultural bonds. More widely, the article aims to show that we cannot ignore the importance of cultural factors in international history. Our approach in this article is pluralist and this means that while arguing strongly for taking culture seriously and focusing on it, it does consider other, including more material, dimensions of power.     

The Seasonal Mobility of Prehistoric Gazelle Herds in the Azraq Basin,Jordan: Modelling Alternative Strategies Using Stable Isotopes

The hunting of Gazella subgutturosa was a dominant practice for Epipalaeolithic and early Neolithic hunter–gatherers in the east Jordan steppe. The seasonal mobility of this taxon in the Levant is poorly understood, especially for early prehistory when herd movements would have influenced hunter-gatherer use of the steppes. This paper proposes four patterns of seasonal herd mobility for G. subgutturosa centred on Jordan’s Azraq Basin. The four patterns are modelled using oxygen, carbon and strontium stable isotopes. Seasonal environmental signatures of each are understood through carbon and strontium isotopic variation in sixty modern plant specimens collected from twelve selected locations in north Jordan, published data on oxygen isotopes in local precipitation, and the adaptive behaviour of G. subgutturosa. The integrated isotopic datasets provide clear discriminatory markers for each proposed mobility pattern. Results will be applied in future to isotopic data from archaeological gazelle teeth from the Azraq Basin.     

The Mesolithic of Southern Scandinavia

The Mesolithic of Southern Scandinavia, with comprises Denmark and Southern Sweden, has been an attractive area for research for several reasons, including the good preservation conditions at many sites. Most of the work has been concentrated on the southwestern part of Southern Scandinavia, but results from more recent investigations mean that other areas can also be analyzed. New finds in the last few years have given us a greater understanding of the Late Paleolithic settlement and of its relation of the Mesolithic. For the Early Mesolithic (10,000–8000 B.P.), interest has focused primarily on the small inland bog sites in the southern part of the area, where the coast has since been submerged. Farther north, where the land has been uplifted, evidence of coastal settlement has been documented. The Late Mesolithic (8000–6000 B.P.) is known chiefly on the basis of its large coastal settlements. In this period, there is also a larger and more varied collection of finds, which makes it possible to discern clear regional differences. There has also been considerable research on the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic.