Chemical analyses of the earliest pigment residues from the uttermost part of the planet (Beagle Channel region,Tierra del Fuego,Southern South America)

This paper presents the results of chemical analyses of the organic and inorganic fractions of pigment residues found in three archaeological sites located in the Beagle Channel region, Tierra del Fuego, Southern South America. Twenty-one archaeological samples have been analysed through XRD, SEM–EDX, FT-IR and GC–MS in order to characterise their inorganic colouring components and to search for the presence of organic substances used as binders. Lipids found in some samples are considered as potential binders. These organic components are compared to those found in archaeological sediment samples from the same layers where the pigments have been found, in order to search for potential taphonomic contaminations of the latter by the former. Results show that such contaminations are unlikely, hence the lipid contents are deemed of anthropic origin. The pigment sample results are also compared to data from analyses of natural sediment samples collected in several localities of the Beagle Channel in order to search for potential natural pigment sources. Results show that organic and inorganic components of these sediments are not the same than those present in the archaeological pigment samples, hence the pigment raw material sources have not been yet located. All these data provide for the first time evidence of the existence of ancient activities of pigment sourcing and paint preparation with organic binders which range from 6000 BP to 1900 BP in the southernmost region of the planet.     

Electric and magnetic tomographic approach for the geophysical investigation of an unexplored area in the archaeological site of Pompeii (Southern Italy)

The joint application of electric and magnetic techniques for near-surface exploration represents a very useful tool for archaeological investigation and can provide a quantitative contribution to describe the spatial distribution of buried objects. In this work we show a new advanced tomographic approach, based on the parallel inversion of magnetic and electric observed data, aimed at the reconstruction of the subsoil of a still unexplored area of the archaeological site of Pompeii (Southern Italy). The survey was performed in collaboration with Pompeii's Archaeological Commission. The comparison between the results obtained from the tomographic inversions of both electrical and magnetic data was carried out in terms of the data inversions, which allowed us to obtain information about the location of the buried geophysical sources in the investigated subsoil. The results obtained seem to be in a good agreement, both for the position of the geophysical sources and for their dimensions.     

Introduction: Italy and the Euro–Mediterranean ‘migrant crisis’: national reception,lived experiences,E.U. pressures

The introduction discusses the origins of this themed section of the Journal of Modern Italian Studies, based on a 2017 interdisciplinary conference about migration and the migrant experience in Italy. The co-editors recognized early on that the U.S. media was paying inadequate attention to migrant landings in Italy during the so-called refugee crisis around 2015–16, and engaged scholars active in Italy, the U.K. and the U.S. to provide further nuance to this particular migratory flow, and in particular to question how the term ‘crisis’ was used in describing it. In response to a public debate increasingly prone to alarmism, the articles produced after the conference investigate the contradictions of the Italian reception system of migrants and refugees; the often glossed-over labour, race, and gender aspects of the flows; and the critical conditions of the Mediterranean crossing as represented in film and theatre. The contributions specifically bring forward the migrants’ voices to challenge the exclusionary practices adopted in Italy and Europe in favour of structured legal channels, and to reveal the growing crisis of E.U. democratic principles.     

Testing recipes: an experimental approach to paint production processes in Levantine rock art (Spain)

Over more than a century, several proposals have been made on the composition and technical features of the pictorial recipes used by Levantine prehistoric painters. In this paper all these proposals are surveyed and tested through systematic experiments to determine the technical affordance of pigments and binders in different pictorial recipes. Experimental results were then used as independent analytical parameters employed as diagnostic criteria to systematically study an archaeological sample of nine sites located in the Maestrazgo region (Spain) and their surroundings. Results reveal that out of 112 experimental recipes, only 16 afforded the production of paintings technically similar to Levantine rock art.     

From crisis to creative critique: the early twenty-first century Mediterranean crossing on stage and screen in works by Teatro delle Albe and Andrea Segre

The article analyses the 2010 play Rumore di Acque [Noise in the Waters] by the Teatro delle Albe and Andrea Segre’s 2014 docufilm Come il peso dell’acqua [Like the Weight of Water] as creative responses to the Mediterranean migrant crisis. In challenging the frozen representation and rhetoric of public reporting and discourse, characterized by recurring images of boats accompanied by the number of arriving or dead migrants, both works propose a critical reading of the migration phenomenon through a focus on individual stories. As the play and the docufilm themselves cross a sea of genres and expressive tools, they also place the migrant at the centre of an interrogation of national paradigms and Western societies. They ultimately call into question the exclusionary politics and policies of the contemporary world and identify in the empathy towards the human quest for freedom and recognition a lively engine of the early twenty-first-century global community, so profoundly marked by movement and displacement.     

Seismic vulnerability assessment of historical centers at urban scale

Seismic prevention and mitigation of historical centers have gained a central position within earthquake engineering topics, particularly in areas such as Italy, Greece, and Portugal. Many historical towns in these countries have been strongly damaged, due to the high quantity of old buildings and urban structures and infrastructures. In this article, these aspects are described, modeled, and investigated in terms of structural safety, the goal being the set-up of a comprehensive strategy for seismic prevention and mitigation of a whole historical center. The proposed approach is based on two relevant parts: the first is an urban risk assessment, the second is a prioritization of retrofitting interventions so as to optimally increase urban safety.

The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is shown with reference to a complex case study, the historical center of “Montebello di Bertona”. It is initially modeled as a series/parallel system and then studied by applying seismic reliability methods. Seismic retrofitting interventions are finally prioritized.     

Mitochondrial DNA haplotypes of Devensian hyaenas from Creswell Crags,England

Spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta) remains have been recovered from British Middle and Upper Pleistocene sites at intervals within the period 700–730 ka BP. Morphological studies have suggested that hyaenas of the Last Interglacial sensu stricto (Ipswichian: Marine Isotope Stage [MIS] 5e, 130–115 ka BP) and Last Glacial (Devensian: MIS 3, 61–24 ka BP) were two distinct populations, the Ipswichian hyaenas becoming extinct in Britain during MIS 5 and the Devensian ones arriving via a subsequent migration from continental Europe. However, the apparent presence of hyaenas in later MIS 5 deposits has led to the alternative suggestion that there was a southern relict population from which the Devensian hyaenas originated. We obtained ancient DNA (aDNA) sequences from four Devensian hyaena specimens from Creswell Crags, Derbyshire, dated to around 45 ka ¹⁴C BP. Each of these four specimens belonged to the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) clade A. This clade is not thought to have been present in Europe until ~360 ka BP, after the initial arrival of hyaenas in Britain. The DNA results, therefore, suggest that there were at least two waves of hyaena dispersals into Britain. The results are consistent with the repeated dispersals into Britain of another Pleistocene social carnivore, Homo sapiens.     

Events,Social Memories,and Community in a Final Bronze Age Building’s Biography at Sant’Aniceto,Calabria, Italy

Archaeologists investigating Middle Bronze to Early Iron Age periods (1600–900 b.c.) in southern Italy often explore linkages between emerging inequality and foreign trade connections, establishing a coupled trope of “change emerges from external forces” and “waiting for civilization to arrive”. Based on excavations at the Recent/Final Bronze and Early Iron Ages (RFBA/IA, 1200–900 b.c.) site of Sant’Aniceto in Calabria, we offer an alternative narrative in which hierarchy and institutionalized inequality held little sway in this community. By employing a building biography approach, we examine the variety of ways people sustain their communities through the creation and value of difference (e.g., age, knowledge, or skill) that characterize daily life, even when political hierarchy is absent. Our research at Sant’Aniceto centers on understanding the locally-grounded experiences and lives of people by approaching social difference through the lens of the materialities of everyday life.     

Art in time. Diachronic rates of change in the decoration of bone artefacts from the Beagle Channel region (Tierra del Fuego, Southern South America)

This paper explores the differential rates of diachronic change developed by diverse features of portable art in southern Tierra del Fuego. It is argued that decorative designs and techniques, which simultaneously constitute each decorated artefact, had asynchronic rates of change throughout the archaeological sequence. Results indicate that: (I) decorated harpoon points (1) had a broader and more complex design repertoire which entailed a higher labour investment and showed a faster rate of change than beads, due to a greater individual input in their decoration, (2) were richly decorated in spite of their high risk of loss/fracture, yet their decoration was concentrated in the early period of the archaeological sequence and then decreased in time due: a) to such loss/fracture risk, which jeopardised the labour invested in their decoration, (b) to a relative decrease in pinniped hunting which might have reduced the socio-economic and symbolic value of harpoons; (II) decorated beads (1) had a simpler and more standardised design repetoire which entailed a lower labour investment and showed a slower rate of change than harpoons, due to a stricter process of teaching/learning or imitation during their production and a collective way of ornamentation during their display, (2) increased with time and have been decorated during the three periods of the archaeological sequence due to: (a) their lower risk of loss/fracture, which did not endanger the labour invested in their decoration, (b) their social function as a shared form of ornamentation; (III) decorative techniques had a slower rate of change than decorative designs throughout the archaeological sequence due to their differential instrinsic variability potentials.