The use of predictive modelling to target Neolithic settlement and occupation activity in mainland Scotland

A central aim of Neolithic studies in Europe is to understand settlement or domestic activity of the first agriculturalists. In Scotland, the continued absence of unambiguous Neolithic settlement or domestic occupation activities on the mainland remains an unresolved issue. It is proposed that areas attractive for settlement and occupation activities may be identified by constructing GIS-based models of sites believed to be related to settlement or occupation activities, including chambered cairns, timber halls, and sites containing pit-digging episodes. Statistical analyses undertaken in this process suggest new insights into the locations of the chambered cairns, timber halls, and pits. Finalised models are constructed and desktop assessments are conducted to examine model performance. Research priorities for improving significant environmental variables driving the current models are identified.     

The Imperial Visual Archive: Images,Evidence, and Knowledge in the Early Modern Hispanic World

This article examines the role of images as evidence and sources of knowledge in the early modern Hispanic world, arguing for the continued importance of visual epistemology as a technique for producing and circulating knowledge from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Visual materials played a central role in the production of knowledge, scientific and imperial, and served as key instruments for addressing the considerable challenges of distance and place posed by the geographical expanse of the empire. Historiographically, the article highlights the active generation of scientific knowledge in the Hispanic world and connects it to imperial and administrative practices; it highlights trans-regional channels of circulation, demonstrating the connected histories of the viceroyalties and peninsula and the multidirectional trajectories in which information and knowledge moved; and it points out deep connections between earlier and later colonial periods. Methodologically, the essay explores the potential of images as historical sources, suggesting that the high status of images in the early modern Hispanic world led to the creation of an enormous pictorial archive that deserves the same level of scholarly attention and rigor that has been lavished on the textual archive.     

Emigration,return migration and surprise homecomings in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland

This article explores the cultural and ideological management of mass migration in twenty-first-century Ireland, arguing that narratives of return have come to dominate representations of emigration. The almost universal focus on the moment or experience of return distinguishes the current era from other periods of high emigration in Ireland. The phenomenon of the surprise homecoming video is scrutinised alongside recent cinematic releases, newspaper articles, blogs and cultural events including The Gathering (2013) and the Marriage Equality Referendum (2015). By drawing these sources together, the article exposes how cultural representations of emigration have been shaped to fit with official narratives of a business-friendly nation in recovery. By repeatedly showcasing the emotional pleasures of return these popular culture forms support a fantasy of easy return and mask the real economic and social problems driving the latest wave of emigration.     

Site maintenance practices and settlement social organization in Iron Age Karnataka, India: Inferring settlement places and landscape from surface distributions of ceramic assemblage attributes

This paper investigates the spatial organization of social relations in settlement contexts through a quantitative and distributional analysis of surface ceramic attributes from Iron Age Period (1200–300 BC) archaeological sites in Southern India. The results discern variation in depositional contexts across each site, from which I infer a variety of basic settlement activity structures (e.g., site maintenance, trash disposal, residence, animal husbandry, metallurgy, ritual). I use these results, together with further analyses of artifact and feature distributions, to infer a basic suite of places, place-making practices and some of the social relations and organizational structures that produced these historically unique Iron Age settlement landscapes.     

Chiefdoms and states in the Yuncheng Basin and the Chifeng region: A comparative analysis of settlement systems in North China

Regional settlement datasets for the Yuncheng Basin and the Chifeng region are re-analyzed for comparison so as to reconstruct differing patterns of community development at local and supra-local scales. A methodological implication of this reanalysis is that comparing settlement areas and surface artifact densities between projects requires special attention to how the data were recorded so as to put them on the same measurement scale. The analytical approaches originally taken to reconstructing community organization in the two regions, while differing in several respects, are shown to produce highly compatible results, permitting a comparison of the two trajectories with a sound empirical foundation. Neolithic settlement began much earlier in Chifeng, but rates of demographic and community growth were extremely slow. In Yuncheng, early village growth was much more dramatic. Multiple chiefly districts of modest size emerged in both regions, but those of Yuncheng, despite their shorter developmental trajectory, had substantially larger populations. Their central settlements, in particular, grew to be much larger than those in Chifeng and the special activities carried out at these centers differed between the two regions. A poorly understood, but not contemporaneous, demographic disruption punctuated both sequences. It was followed by the emergence of political integration on a much larger scale in the Yuncheng Basin, focused on a single settlement an order of magnitude larger than its predecessors. In Chifeng, regional population soared far beyond previous levels, but political integration remained persistently small in scale.     

徐州北洞山楚王墓墓主考

北洞山楚王墓未见标准四铢半两铜钱,故其年代下限早于铸行四铢半两的文帝五年;该墓出土印章非楚故县官员在葬礼中的赗赙,据地名为景帝前元三年(公元前154年)前楚国所属判断,该墓早于此年。根据对狮子山、驼篮山的墓主及楚国世系考察,推测北洞山楚王墓墓主为楚元王刘交,墓葬建于刘交受封之后,刘交去世后下葬。     

北白鹅墓地出土席状编织物的鉴别与研究

墓葬中出土的植物编织物属于有机质文物,通常保存状况极为不佳,通过有机残留物分析确定其材质是后续保护与价值认知的基础。本研究以北白鹅墓地M1020青铜簋上附着的席状编织物为对象,通过纤维显微观察、植硅体分析、液相色谱质谱联用分析等三种方法进行检测分析,结果表明考古样品的生物来源为芦苇。将其与《礼记·丧大记》和《仪礼·既夕礼》等历史文献相对应,并与考古发掘现场的实际情况相结合,推断出该考古样品的性质是用于丧葬场合的苇席,代表着墓主人“士”阶级的身份,且处于椁盖板下棺盖板上作抵御尘土的抗席之用,在整个下葬过程中扮演过重要角色。研究结果提供了春秋早期丧葬用席的实物证据,有助于了解当时的丧葬制度,也为周王朝东迁后社会景观的复原提供了一个切入点。     

汉铜漏壶的保护修复及相关问题探讨

为配合西安航天工业园区的建设,2008年陕西省考古研究院凤栖原考古队对园区的汉墓群进行清理时,在K4陪葬坑发现了一件铜漏壶。通过对漏壶的保护修复及表面附着物的显微观察,不但有效地控制了粉状锈,而且还发现了铜漏壶上携带的大量实物信息,这些遗留物到底为何物,与漏壶之间又有怎样的关系,漏壶本身是如何计时的?本研究围绕这些问题展开分析和讨论,为研究西汉当时的生活习俗、社会礼制、丧葬制度及计时水平等提供了重要的参考资料。     

玉泉铁塔表面腐蚀机制及腐蚀演变过程的初探

全国重点文物保护单位玉泉铁塔表面腐蚀严重,探究其腐蚀机制与腐蚀演变过程,可为其后续的保护提供技术支撑。通过分析现代铸铁室外1 300 d内和铁塔963年后大气腐蚀的表面腐蚀样成分与含量,探究了两者腐蚀层结构的分布,推导出了一个适合铸铁长周期(963年)的腐蚀模型(铁塔腐蚀模型)。采用测重与数码拍照,SEM、XRD、激光拉曼仪等测试方法,分析了铸铁和铁塔样品表面腐蚀产物形貌、成分、结构,并结合电化学阻抗谱测试两者腐蚀产物的耐蚀性。结果表明:腐蚀失重与时间符合幂指数函数;两者腐蚀产物均由Fe₃O₄、γ-FeO(OH)、α-FeO(OH)、α-Fe₂O₃组成,且前期腐蚀主要在薄水膜中分散进行,后期腐蚀产物则呈现多层分布;随腐蚀时间的延长,可衡量腐蚀层保护能力的α/γ数值逐渐增大,腐蚀层的耐蚀性逐渐增强,而γ-FeO(OH)及Fe₃O₄含量下降,α-FeO(OH)含量上升是铸铁和铁塔腐蚀层结构转变的主要原因。     

Settlement patterns,social complexity and agricultural strategies during the Chalcolithic period in the Northern Negev,Israel

Previous studies have reported a Chalcolithic site distribution pattern in the Northern Negev as clustered, exhibiting a number of characteristics that imply a chiefdom level of organization. However, a recent spatial analysis suggests that in some areas of the Northern Negev, settlement patterns were essentially random and that there is no evidence for regional chiefdom organization. We examine this controversy by closely inspecting the methods of spatial analyses employed by previous researchers, by introducing an additional multiscalar spatial technique, namely Ripley's K-function, and by using updated and modified data. Our results indicate that settlement distributions were essentially clustered, even in small areas along the wadis. Examining the relation between these spatial-dependent distributions and the landscape surroundings revealed that particular physiographic characteristics of the wadis contribute to increscent in site clusters. Furthermore, a general linear model analysis suggests that the distribution of Chalcolithic sites is determined primarily by environmental factors rather than factors related to political organization.