Elasmosaurs (Sauropterygia,Plesiosauria) from the La Colonia Formation (Campanian–Maastrichtian), Argentina

O’Gorman, J.P., Salgado, L., Varela, J., & Parras, A., 2013. Elasmosaurs (Sauropterygia, Plesiosauria) from the La Colonia Formation (Campanian–Maastrichtian), Argentina. Alcheringa 37, 257–265. ISSN 0311-5518.

Elasmosaur postcranial remains from the La Colonia Formation (Campanian–Maastrichtian), Chubut Province, Patagonia, Argentina, are described. The new material has small dimensions and caudal vertebrae with parapophyses strongly projected laterally—characters shared with some Elasmosauridae indet. from the coeval Allen Formation, Río Negro Province, Argentina. These features reinforce the similarities between the plesiosaur faunas to the north and south of the Somún Curá Plateau. The small size of these elasmosaurs may be palaeoecologically related to the marginal marine depositional environment of the sedimentary host rocks.

José P. O’Gorman [joseogorman@fcnym.unlp.edu.ar], División Paleontología Vertebrados, Museo de La Plata, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque s/n., B1900FWA, La Plata, Argentina and [CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas)]; Leonardo Salgado [salgadoleito@yahoo.com.ar], Instituto de Investigación en Paleobiología y Geología, Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Isidro Lobo y Belgrano, 8332 General Roca, Argentina and [CONICET]; Julio Varela [julioadrianvarela@hotmail.com], and Ana Parras [aparras@exactas.unlpam.edu.ar], INCITAP (CONICET-UNLPam), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de La Pampa, Uruguay 151, 6300 Santa Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina. Received 27.7.2012; revised 19.10.2012; accepted 27.10.2012.     

Changing tides of industrial democracy: Red Clydeside and the UCS work-in as political heritage

ABSTRACT

Drawing on labour history, critical heritage studies and sociological literature on the entrepreneurial city, this article focuses on the cultural legacy of the famous 1971/72 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) work-in apropos Glasgow’s historical reputation as ‘Red Clydeside’. In doing so, the article considers the dispute’s continuing importance as a political resource for present-day debates about workers’ rights, Glasgow’s post-industrial identity, the rise of populist demagoguery and the future of Britain’s industry more generally.     

Fowling during the Gravettian: the avifauna of Pavlov I, the Czech Republic

This is the first article that describes in detail the bird remains from the Gravettian mega-site Pavlov I in the Czech Republic. More than 1000 bird bones represent at least 19 taxa, of which the most numerous are tetraonids including black grouse (Tetrao tetrix), willow grouse (Lagopus lagopus) and ptarmigan (Lagopus muta), and ravens (Corvus corax). The archaeological and biological contexts indicate that most birds were hunted by people in the vicinity of the site, possibly with the help of knotted nets made from plant fibres. We suggest that ravens were killed while feeding on carcasses and/or food remains that may have been disposed of intentionally, and feathers may have been used for arrow fletching. Human-modified bones indicate that birds were used not only for food but also as raw material for tools and decoration. Although mammals were certainly more important in the subsistence of the Gravettian people, it is clear that birds played a role in their culture. The location of Pavlov I enlarges the explanatory scope of the Broad Spectrum Revolution hypothesis to include higher latitudes north of the Mediterranean.     

Correcting temporal frequency distributions for taphonomic bias

In this paper, we expand upon a prior study [Surovell, T.A., Brantingham, P.J., 2007. A note on the use of temporal frequency distributions in studies of prehistoric demography. Journal of Archaeological Science 34, 1868–1877.] that explored the problem of taphonomic bias. Taphonomic bias refers to the tendency for younger things to be over-represented relative to older things in the archaeological record due to the operation of destructive processes like erosion and weathering. Using a database of radiocarbon dated volcanic deposits from Bryson, R.U., Bryson, R.A., Ruter, A. [2006. A calibrated radiocarbon database of late Quaternary volcanic eruptions. Earth Discussions 1, 123–124.], we develop an empirical model of taphonomic bias. In contrast to our prior study in which we modeled taphonomic bias as an exponential function wherein the likelihood of site loss remains constant through time, we argue that the probability of site destruction actually decreases with site age. We further demonstrate how this model can be used to correct temporal frequency distributions and extract demographic histories. We illustrate this approach using databases of radiocarbon dates from rockshelter and open-air sites in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA, and mammoths and humans in Siberia, Russia.     

Approaches to Prehistoric Diet Breadth, Demography, and Prey Ranking Systems in Time and Space

Zooarchaeological data on small game use hold much potential for identifying and dating Paleolithic demographic pulses in time and space, such as those associated with modern human origins and the evolution of food-producing economies. Although small animals were important to human diets throughout the Middle, Upper, and Epi-Paleolithic periods in the Mediterranean Basin, the types of small prey emphasized by foragers shifted dramatically over the last 200,000 years. Slow-growing, slow-moving tortoises, and marine mollusks dominate the Middle Paleolithic record of small game exploitation. Later, agile, fast-maturing animals became increasingly important in human diets, first birds in the early Upper Paleolithic, and soon thereafter hares and rabbits. While the findings of this study are consistent with the main premise of Flannery's Broad Spectrum Revolution (BSR) hypothesis (Flannery, K. V. (1969). In Ucko, P. J., and Dimbleby, G. W. (eds.), The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, Aldine Publishing Company, Chicago, pp. 73–100), it is now clear that human diet breadth began to expand much earlier than the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. Ranking small prey in terms of work of capture (in the absence of special harvesting tools) proves far more effective in this investigation of human diet breadth than taxonomy-based diversity analyses published previously. Our analyses expose a major shift in human predator–prey dynamics involving small game animals by 50–40 KYA in the Mediterranean Basin, with earliest population growth pulses occurring in the Levant. In a separate application to the Natufian period (13–10 KYA), just prior to the rise of Neolithic societies in the Levant, great intensification is apparent from small game use. This effect is most pronounced at the onset of this short culture period, and is followed by an episode of local depopulation during the Younger Dryas, without further changes in the nature of Natufian hunting adaptations. An essential feature of the diachronic and synchronic approaches outlined here is controlling the potentially conflating effects of spatial (biogeographic) and temporal variation in the faunal data sets.     

Ungulates and the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition at Grotte XVI (Dordogne, France)

Grotte XVI (Dordogne, France) contains a rich archaeological sequence that begins during the Mousterian and continues through the Magdalenian and includes Châtelperronian and early Aurignacian assemblages. Analyses of the ungulates from this site show no significant change in skeletal part representation, butchering intensity (as measured by cut mark numbers and placement), degree of bone fragmentation, and intensity of carnivore damage across the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition. Relative taxonomic abundances of ungulates change significantly from the Mousterian to the early Aurignacian, but these changes are consistent with climatic forcing and continue throughout the sequence. Only the Magdalenian ungulate assemblage is clearly distinct from all others when examined in terms of these variables, perhaps because of altered predator/prey ratios on the local landscape. Cave bear relative abundances decline precipitously across the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition; this decline may reflect increased human residence times and/or group sizes during this interval, just as Kurtén observed many years ago.     

Bone remodelling following a lower leg fracture in the 11,000‐year‐old hunter‐gatherer from Vado all' Arancio (Italy)

The Upper Palaeolithic skeleton from Vado all'Arancio (Italy), dated to about 11,330 BP, exhibits a severe ankle fracture healed with residual deformation. Following recovery, this young hunter‐gatherer continued to walk for an extended period of time, albeit in a mechanically altered manner. While right‐left differences in external lower limb bone measurements are relatively low, biomechanical analysis of femur and tibia indicates unusually pronounced asymmetry in all cross‐sectional measures of diaphyseal strength. Asymmetry results primarily from normal side endosteal hypertrophy, and not from hypotrophy of the injured limb, suggesting that this individual resumed active life following recovery. This pattern of asymmetry underscores the role of physical activity in maintaining bone mass. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Barbed Bone Points: Tradition and Continuity in Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa

Examination of African barbed bone points recovered from Holocene sites provides a context to interpret three Late Pleistocene occurrences from Katanda and Ishango, Zaire, and White Paintings Shelter, Botswana. In sites dated to ca. 10,000 BP and younger, such artifacts are found widely distributed across the Sahara Desert, the Sahel, the Nile, and the East African Lakes. They are present in both ceramic and aceramic contexts, sometimes associated with domesticates. The almost-universal presence of fish remains indicates a subsistence adaptation which incorporates a riverine/lacustrine component. Typologically these points exhibit sufficient similarity in form and method of manufacture to be subsumed within a single African tradition. They are absent at Fayum, where a distinct Natufian form occurs. Specimens dating to ca. 20,000 BP at Ishango, possibly a similar age at White Paintings Shelter, and up to 90,000 BP at Katanda clearly fall within this same African tradition and thus indicate a very long-term continuity which crosses traditionally conceived sub-Saharan cultural boundaries. L'étude des pointes barbelées en os del' Holocène africaine fournit un contexte à l'interprétation de trois gisements du Pleistocene superieure, notamment, Katanda et Ishango (en République Démocratique du Congo, ex-Zaire), et White Paintings Shelter au Botswana. Cettes pointes ont une distribution étendue à travers le Sahara, le Sahel, le Nil et les grands lacs du rift d'Afrique orientale, notamment sur certains sites datant de 10,000 ans avant notre ère. Ces pointes sont associées avec des types d'industries céramiques ou acéramiques, avec ou sans squelettes de faune domestiques, mais toujours avec des squelettes de poisson, indiquent une subsistence comportant des ressources lacustres ou riveraines. Sur le plan typologique, cettes pointes présentent une telle ressemblance, soit de forme, soit de manufacture, qu'elles constituent une tradition unique africaine. Au Fayum en Egypte, les formes des pointes rappellent, par contre, plutôt les series Natufiennes du Levant. Les pointes barbelées d'Ishango, datant de 20,000 ans environ, celles de White Paintings Shelter, datant probablement de la même époque, et celles de Katanda datant au maximum de 90,000 ans BP, appartiennent à la même tradition africaine, ce qu montre ainsi l'existence d'une continuité de très longue durée àtravers les frontières culturelles traditionelles.     

The Upper Paleolithic of the Russian steppe zone

The vast steppe area North of the Black Sea has been populated since the early Middle Paleolithic. The number of known sites dating to the Upper Paleolithic is increasing as research progresses, and today about 150 Upper Paleolithic sites have received some (although varied) degree of study. For a long time, the steppe zone was considered to have had a separate cultural-economic adaptation that differed drastically from that found in the periglacial province farther north. The difference was expressed in the specialization in bison hunting and in the very high mobility of the population. More recent archaeological research, described briefly in this article, presents a different picture: Subsistence was more varied, hunting was not limited to bison, and the settlement system indicates long periods of occupation of the sites. There were many local archaeological cultures, and study of the material remains indicates numerous contacts between the people of the steppe zone and those in Central Europe and the Caucasus and, by way of the Caucasus, with Western Asia.     

The Upper Paleolithic of Northern Asia: Achievements,problems, and perspectives. III. Northeastern Siberia and the Russian Far East

Research into the Upper Paleolithic of northeastern Asia began in the 1940s. Recent work has led to the discovery of numbers of sites, some of them more than 30,000 years old, which are assigned to the D'uktai culture. The material recovered from these sites indicates relationships between the D'uktai culture and other cultures in Europe, Japan, Korea, China, and North America. For the most part, however, these similarities do not result from a spread of cultural traits from Europe into Asia. Instead, most of them reflect local development of the Upper Paleolithic, within both Asia and Europe, out of local Middle Paleolithic industries, which were themselves originally similar in technology and typology.