The Political Economy of Exile in the Great Dismal Swamp

The Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina and Virginia has a history of profound significance to scholars and historians of North American diasporas. Between 1630 and 1865, thousands of maroons, enslaved canal company laborers, and disenfranchised Native Americans lived within this morass and formed communities that were connected through a dynamic swamp-wide political economy. The Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study has been initiated to explore the archaeological landscapes of these Diasporans. This essay discusses several aspects of the theoretico-analytical research model that has guided this ongoing project. Also, included are brief explications on the methods and results of the first season of archaeological survey in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.     

Evolutionary Foraging Models in Zooarchaeological Analysis: Recent Applications and Future Challenges

The last few decades have witnessed a rapid rise in the use of foraging models derived from behavioral ecology to explain and predict temporal and spatial differences in faunal assemblages. Although these models build on conventional ideas about utility firmly embedded in zooarchaeological analyses, when cast in an evolutionary framework these ideas produce some of the most sophisticated and elegant interpretations of archaeofaunas to date. In this article I review the methodological and practical strengths and weaknesses of current zooarchaeological applications of foraging models. Recent applications of foraging models to the zooarchaeological record reveal important variability in human-prey interactions across time and space. Case-specific applications generate theoretical and methodological advances that augment and are complementary to model building in allied fields. Recent applications also identify shortcomings in the underlying assumptions and rationale of some foraging models that mirror past and on-going discussions in anthropology and biology. I discuss how these shortcomings can fruitfully direct future applications and research in foraging economics.     

Lapis lazuli usage for blue decoration of polychrome painted glazed pottery: a recurrent technology during the Middle Ages in Apulia (Southern Italy)

Seven fragments of atypical proto-majolica from the archaeological site of Siponto (Manfredonia, Foggia) were analysed by chemical and physical methods. All fragments have blue, brown and yellow painted decorations. Raman microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy–Energy Dispersed Spectroscopy (SEM–EDS) investigations identified the blue pigment to lapis lazuli. We previously identified this mineral in the blue coloration of the tin–lead glaze of proto-majolica finds at other Medieval sites in Apulia (Castel Fiorentino and Lucera). The discovery of the fragments from Siponto, in spite of their peculiar technological-decorative features, proves that the use of lapis lazuli as a ceramic pigment was not an isolated occurrence, but was quite common in the Middle Ages in the production of typologically heterogeneous ceramics in Southern Italy.     

Stable isotopes as indicators of change in the food procurement and food preference of Viking Age and Early Christian populations on Gotland (Sweden)

Archaeological samples of human and faunal remains dating from the Viking (9–11th century AD) and Early Christian (11–12th century AD) periods of Gotland, Sweden were assayed through stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis in order to investigate whether changes in subsistence occurred between these periods, particularly regarding the importance of seafood. The study was concerned with how the dietary regime of the Baltic trading port and farming settlement at Ridanäs, Gotland was affected by the widespread environmental and sociocultural transformations that characterized the end of the Viking Age. More generally, the research considers how changes in both food procurement and preference may account for observed differences in the dietary regimes of individuals from the Viking Age and the Early Christian period.     

The Statistical Style of Reasoning and the Invention of Bose‐Einstein Statistics

This paper is a preliminary exploration of the connections between the statistical style of reasoning and the research practices of statistical mechanics in the early period of the long quantum revolution. It suggests that before 1925 the instantiations of the statistical style in physics went through two phases. The first phase consisted of the formulation of the Maxwell‐Boltzmann statistics on the basis of the population‐gas analogy. The second phase was characterized by the generalization of the Maxwell‐Boltzmann statistics through analogies between ideal gas molecules and other microphysical entities, analogies that shaped and were shaped by the rise of quantum theory. Einstein's invention of the Bose‐Einstein statistics started a third phase and created the conditions of possibility for a new classification of microphysical entities according to their different statistics.     

A simple Bayesian approach to tree‐ring dating

Tree‐ring dating involves matching sequences of ring widths from undated timbers to dated sequences known as ‘master’ chronologies. Conventionally, the undated timbers (from a building or woodland) are sequentially matched against one another, using t‐tests to identify the relative offsets with the ‘best’ match, thus producing a ’site’ chronology. A date estimate is obtained when this is matched to a local master chronology of known calendar age. Many tree‐ring sequences in the UK produce rather low t‐values and are thus declared not to have a ‘best’ match to a master chronology. Motivated by this and the routine use of Bayesian statistical methods to provide a probabilistic approach to radiocarbon dating, this paper investigates the practicality of Bayesian dendrochronology. We explore a previously published model for the relationship between ring widths and the underlying climatic signal, implementing it within the Bayesian framework via a simulation‐based approach. Probabilities for a match at each offset are produced, removing the need to identify a single ‘best’ match. The Bayesian model proves successful at matching in both simulated and real examples.     

Groundwater age,brine migration,and large‐scale solute transport in the Alberta Basin,Canada

There is a great contrast in geochemical and hydrogeologic estimates of the residence times of pore fluids in sedimentary basins. This contrast is particularly evident in the Alberta Basin, Canada, which has served as the study area for important studies of long‐term fluid flow and transport. To address these differences, we developed two‐dimensional simulations of groundwater age, constrained by both hydrogeologic and geochemical observations, to estimate the residence time of fluids and the amount and timing of flushing by meteoric waters in the Alberta Basin. Results suggest that old, residual brines have been retained in the deepest parts of the basin since their formation ca. 400 Ma, but significant dilution by younger waters has reduced the age of these pore waters to no more than approximately 200 My. Shallower formations have been flushed extensively by fresh, young waters. Loss of brines and dilution of older pore waters occurred primarily after the uplift of the Rockies with the introduction of the gravity‐driven flow regime. Despite these large changes in flow regime, solute exchange between deep saline aquifers and the overlying vigorous freshwater flow system was found to be consistent with long‐term dispersive mixing across subhorizontal concentration gradients rather than by direct flushing. Sensitivity studies using an analytic solution supported the use of 100 m for transverse dispersivity in large‐scale numerical models. These simulations confirm that the age and origin of brines are in many cases poor indicators of long‐term solute transport rates in sedimentary basins, but the geochemical indicators that are used to determine the origin of brines can provide useful constraints for calculating groundwater age and are far more commonly available than isotopic groundwater age tracers.     

Services in Russia: past,present, and future

In spite of ambitious modernization plans of the government, structural change in Russia is not proceeding in the direction of highly developed economies. Part of the lag in the tertiarization process can be explained by the fact that, as during the Soviet period, the role of services in the economy is still ignored, particularly regarding innovation. This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of the evolution of services in Russia since the mid-1990s and its future prospects by compiling data from the World Bank, the International Labor Organization, Rosstat, and the World Input–Output Database. Two complementary and novel perspectives are adopted: a production system perspective and a spatial perspective. Regarding services in the Russian production system, comparison of interindustry linkages reveals that, in addition to traditional relevant activities like wholesale/retail trade and transport and communications, business services are acquiring great importance as production process inputs. Concerning the spatial perspective, we observe a greater presence of non-market services in less densely populated federal districts, while strategic service activities are highly concentrated in the most dynamic ones. Analysis of major Russian cities confirmed the trend of business services concentrating in densely populated and highly innovative cities. In brief, services, and in particular business services, can be a means to boost innovation and growth in Russia, but more attention from political leaders is necessary for these activities. The modernization process should abandon its current “high-technology industry myopia” and take into consideration the innovative, and especially, the knowledge-diffuser role, that services can exert.     

Constructive Characteristics and Degradation Condition of Liceu Secondary Schools in Portugal

Within a full-scope modernization program of Portuguese secondary schools, technical inspections were conducted in order to: 1) identify the main degradation processes that affect different types of school buildings, and 2) provide recommendations for the rehabilitation projects. This article presents the constructive characteristics and a statistical analysis of the degradation condition of a particular type of Portuguese secondary schools, the Liceu, comprising a set of buildings with an invaluable historical and cultural importance and that is very iconic in terms of the historical period in which they were built—the Estado Novo. To that end, a database was designed in order to organize information gathered in the inspection of 15 secondary schools of Liceu typology. The aim of the database was to analyze the most frequent anomalies in this type of school buildings, taking into account the constructive solutions used and establishing statistical relationships between anomalies, probable causes and recommended rehabilitation works. Results obtained allowed concluding that the overall condition of these buildings which, in average, were 60 years old, was severe. The most frequent anomalies in both the buildings envelope and interior are mainly due to design and execution errors, water infiltration, and lack of maintenance. Although the school buildings analyzed are to some extent unique, most lessons learned from this study can be extrapolated to other countries, mostly Mediterranean, where during most of the 20th century, buildings were designed and constructed according to the same architectural and constructive principles, and were subjected to the same type of maintenance.     

Monitoring the French Panthéon: From Rondelet’s Historical Surveys to the Modern Automatic System

The damage of a historical structure can be today controlled with many sophisticated instruments. Nevertheless, this type of monitoring can give information only over a very short period of time compared with the long life of the building. This approach can be insufficient to reconstruct the whole evolution of the damage, and thus to understand the stress distribution inside the structural elements, particularly in cases for which long-term phenomena (such as viscosity or soil settlements) are present. To reach this more complex aim, an approach of historical monitoring should be applied, both looking at technical historical documents and surveying the traces of history directly on the monument itself. The case of the French Panthéon is presented in this study, showing the usefulness of this approach also for the present stability assessment. The comparison among the plentiful historical documentation (including 18th-century surveys, monitoring, and technical reports), the present surveys of deformations and the “modern” structural monitoring allowed a complete quantitative reconstruction of the main damages evolution from the construction till now, laying the base for a possible future conscious intervention.