Narrating urban assemblages—Chris Ware and Building Stories

This article takes up the recent interest in assemblage theory in urban geography and considers the potential for art to contribute to our narrations of urban assemblages. In particular, it uses Chris Ware's recent magnum opus, Building Stories, as not only an account of the urban as an assemblage, but to indicate more broadly the way in which comics might be used to narrate urban assemblages in ways that highlight their multiplicity and plurivocality. The article draws out three themes in its analysis of Building Stories: more-than-human subjects, the various temporalities of the city, and the way memory and narrative are emergent from urban assemblages.     

青海喇家遗址出土人骨的现场保护

为保护青海省民和县喇家村史前灾难遗址现场,对4座房址中出土的21具人骨进行了原地的加固和保护。根据人骨的保存状况及其埋藏环境的调查情况,在加固材料对比实验的基础上,选取三甲树脂的二甲苯和丙酮(溶剂体积比6：4)的混合溶液,采用多次缓慢滴注的办法进行加固处理。结果表明,滴渗法对脆弱的骨头具有良好的加固效果。     

说花园庄东地甲骨卜辞的“丁”——附:释“速”

最近公布的殷墟花园庄东地甲骨卜辞中,多次出现一位当时还活着的、称为“丁”的人物,从卜辞内容可以看出其地位甚高。本文主要通过指出这批卜辞中与历组一类占卜同事的一组卜辞,肯定了“丁”就是当时的商王武丁。以“丁”称呼时王武丁,究竟应该如何解释尚待进一步研究。同时,也可以进一步推定这批卜辞的时代,当为武丁晚期而非整理者认为的“武丁前期”。此外,这批卜辞中多次出现的一个整理者隶定作“”的字,应释为“速”,意为“召”、“召请”。旧有殷墟卜辞中一个或释读为“眚”、“软”、“喘”等的字,应释为“” ,读为咳嗽之“嗽”。     

Stone Age fishhooks – how were they dimensioned? Morphology,strength test,and breakage pattern of Neolithic bone fishhooks from Ajvide,Gotland, Sweden

The late Stone Age Pitted Ware site at Ajvide, Gotland, in the Baltic Sea, Sweden, has revealed a large deposit of fishbone and approximately 400 bone fishhooks, complete and incomplete. Cod (Gadus morhua), which is one of the most abundant fish species in the bone assemblage, was probably caught with hook and line fishing. To investigate the fishhooks' field of application, a morphological and morphometric study was performed on 384 available hooks. Two sets of replicas made of four selected original fishhooks were submitted to a strength test. A breakage study of the incomplete hooks in comparison with the strength-tested hooks was carried out in order to distinguish fresh breaks from dry breaks. It seems that a certain morphology for fishhooks was preferred at Ajvide, indicating they were produced by skilled craftsmen for special usage. The strength test showed that the hooks had a weight bearing capacity more than the average size of cod caught at Ajvide. Using results of these tests, we predicted that the mean breaking strength of 46 intact Ajvide hooks was 96.6 ± 26.1 (s.d.) Newtons (equivalent to 9.85 ± 2.7 kg). The design of fishhooks changed somewhat over time, being slightly larger in the oldest layers of the site. The breakage patterns of the hooks show that the bow was the most common area of breakage. The design and weight bearing capacity of the hooks point to a specialized cod fishery from boats in deep water.     

殷卜辞月食资料的整理与研究

本文对二十世纪有关殷卜辞月食资料的研究背景、资料整理及所取得的成果做了认真分析,尤其注重鉴别研究方法的得失。     

Induced metal-ion exchange in excavated human bone

Excavated human bone was exposed to aqueous solutions containing high concentrations of a single added metal ion in order to examine the extent of introduction of contaminating materials during burial. Variables included pH, temperature, ion concentration, state of bone (whole or crushed), structure of buffer, and counterion. Calcium and sodium showed little increase, and even a decrease in some cases. Strontium, zinc, lead, and magnesium showed large increases probably through heteroionic replacement of calcium. Manganese, aluminum, and potassium showed increases, particularly under neutral conditions, probably through infiltration into voids and defects.     

Bone frequencies: differential transport, in situ destruction,and the MGUI

Human transport of bones with high food values, and destruction of bones with low density values are the traditionally invoked explanations of the frequencies of bones in archeological contexts. The manner in which these two explanations have been used suggests archaeologists assume the explanations to be independent of one another. The transport explanation is operationalized as the modified general utility index (MGUI) of Binford, and the destruction explanation is operationalized with measures of bone density. Statistical correlation of the MGUI with bone density, while weak, indicates that many high utility bones have low density values while many low utility bones have high density values. Because low density bones tend to be destroyed more readily than high density bones, inferences of human utility strategies derived from bone frequencies and based on the MGUI may be inaccurate. The utility strategies suggested by three archaeofaunas are compared to bone density, and two of these faunas are shown to potentially be the result of differential destruction and not human transport as measured by the MGUI.     

试论殷墟花园庄东地卜辞的行款

殷墟花园庄东地卜辞的行款表面上看较为复杂,但实际上仍遵循着一定的规律。这种规律表现为:卜辞基本守兆,在卜兆上方由内向外契刻,至兆干后再沿兆干外侧下行。由于卜辞字数不同,有的未至兆干即止,有的刻至兆干下方后再内行或外行。此外,相关卜兆的数量与排列方式、卜甲上卜辞条数的多寡、卜甲上可供刻字的空间等因素也会影响到卜辞的行款。了解、掌握花园庄东地卜辞行款与卜兆之间的密切关系,将有助于进一步认识王卜辞与其它非王卜辞的行款规律,对深入探讨商代后期的占卜制度也有裨益。     

Sorting the butchered from the boiled

Is it possible to identify cooked, rather than burnt, bone? Mild heating (≤100 °C,1 h) – typical of cooking – does not lead to detectable changes in any biochemical parameter of bone yet measured. If it is only possible to detect charred bone, how is it possible to detect cooking in the archaeological record? In a previous paper (Koon et al., 2003, J. Arch. Sci.), we used a Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) based approach to investigate changes in the organization of the bone protein, collagen, as it is heated, using bone from heating experiments and short term burials. The work revealed that mineralized collagen, despite requiring aggressive treatment to gelatinise the protein (e.g. 90 °C, 240+ h), readily accumulates minor damage. We believe that the presence of mineral matrix stabilises the collagen enabling the damage to accumulate, but preventing it from causing immediate gelatinisation. Once the mineral is removed, the damage can be observed using appropriate visualization methods.     

Specialization of ceramic production: A sherd assemblage based analytic perspective

One expectation of emergent complexity is that as ceramic craft specialization increases it is reflected by increasingly homogeneous products due to the modified organization of craft production by specialists. This question has most often been addressed by analysis of sub-sets of larger ceramic assemblages consisting of intact vessels from idiosyncratic contexts. However, excavations often do not yield appropriate whole vessel sub-sets. In order to evaluate the changing context of the organization of ceramic production, we engage a robust methodological approach to the analysis of ceramic sherd assemblages, rather than intact vessels, rooted in cluster analysis but which we rigorously evaluate by other means. We successfully employ this method to assess changes in the organization of ceramic production through a 1000 year sequence leading to the emergence of the Tarascan state, and conclude in this case that no significant reorganization of ceramic production occurred with Tarascan state formation.