Solution Strategies for Three Problems in Empirical Fragility Curve Derivation Using the Maximum Likelihood Method

Solution strategies are presented to address three potential problems in the empirical derivation of fragility functions from empirical data using the maximum likelihood method. The first strategy addresses the case of fragility curves that cross, the second strategy incorporates demand uncertainty in fragility derivation from post-earthquake reconnaissance data, and the third strategy provides a framework for the resolution of conflict between empirical data and expert opinions. The advantages and disadvantages of the proposed solution strategies are discussed and their use is demonstrated by way of suitable illustrative examples.     

Two new species of benthic foraminifera from the Holocene of the Papuan Plateau

Two new species of benthic foraminifera have been identified from Holocene sediments of the Papuan Plateau. Spirorutilus collinsi sp. nov. (suborder Textulariina) has a rapidly tapering, agglutinated test with depressed sutures, flattened upper chamber surfaces, and a low, broad-arched aperture. The second species, Cibicorbis aspera sp. nov. (suborder Rotaliina), differs from others of the genus in having rugae on both sides of the test, as well as rugose to serrate dorsal sutures.     

Bone diagenesis in the European Holocene II: taphonomic and environmental considerations

We have applied cluster analysis to mercury intrusion porosimetry data from 219 archaeological bones (121 human and 98 animal) and soil chemistry data from 219 accompanying soil samples (1 per bone sample), to investigate the influence of soil chemistry on bone preservation. The samples chosen for the study were obtained from sites ranging in time from the pre-modern to the Mesolithic and were representative of burial environments across Europe (from the Baltic to the Mediterranean). These results represent the single largest database for archaeological bone preservation in the European Holocene to date and demonstrate the potential for large-scale diagenetic studies to help develop long term preservation strategies for our European heritage. Despite the variety of sites and environments, bones could be categorised into only four main diagenetic types. Furthermore, soil chemistry appears to significantly affect only one type of preservation, the pathway characterised by loss of mineral. In neutral to basic soils, taphonomy and in particular the differences between the treatment of human and animal remains, becomes the dominating factor in determining preservation. Using these results, strategies for heritage management of archaeological sites can be suggested; grouping sites into those requiring immediate excavation and those where in situ preservation is viable.     

Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic Research in Reunified Germany

During the past decade research into the German Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic has experienced an important revival. One clear sign of this renewed interest in the periods are the annual meetings of the Arbeitsgruppe Mesolithikum (Mesolithic Working Group) which have taken place every spring since 1992. At these meetings, which take place at changing venues, topical themes of Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic interest are presented by informal lectures and it is also possible to study regional collections (artifacts, raw materials) at first hand. Numerous contributions were subsequently published together in one volume (Conard and Kind (1998) Aktuelle Forschungen zum Mesolithikum/Current Mesolithic Research, Mo Vince, Tübingen). The present paper intends to complement that collection of papers with a synthesis of developments and perspectives and to present recent research highlights in the German Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic, together with a comprehensive bibliography, to a wider international audience.     

Post-Pleistocene Archaeology and Geomorphological Processes on the Namib Desert Coast of South Western Africa

ABSTRACT

The Namib Desert coast is rich in potential food resources, but its extreme aridity imposed severe limits on human settlement in the past. It appears that intensive use of the coast began in the Middle Holocene, although there is evidence of intermittent occupation from the Middle Pleistocene. Coastal sites were closely linked to the desert interior and movement between the two was mainly via the linear oases of ephemeral river systems. Contact was at first sporadic but regular trade with merchant vessels was established in the mid-eighteenth century AD. Coastal geomorphological processes determined the location and accessibility of marine resources used by hunter-gatherer and nomadic pastoral communities. At the same time, marine, fluvial, and aeolian processes have influenced the visibility and survival of archaeological evidence on the coast.     

Evaluating Intensity in the Processing of Guanaco (Lama Guanicoe) at the Lower Basin of the Colorado River (Argentina): Fragmentation Levels and Fracture Patterns Analysis

This article explores the levels of fragmentation and fracture patterns in archaeofaunal assemblages from the lower basin of the Colorado River (Argentina) following Outram's methodology. Remains of ungulates (guanaco) have suffered, in these assemblages, a high degree of fragmentation probably caused during the processing of the carcasses. The presence of helical debris and shaft fragments indicates that fragmentation would respond to processing tasks for the consumption of marrow and possibly bone grease. The results of the application of this methodology that were obtained from the analysis of three late Holocene sites (La Primavera, Loma Ruiz 1 and El Tigre) are presented. These results provide new evidence not only for patterns of marrow and bone grease consumption but also for dealing with the subsistence model proposed for the study area. In this sense, the intensification processes already proposed during the final late Holocene (1000–250 bp ) are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing a framework of Holocene climatic change and landscape archaeology for the lower Gulf region, southeastern Arabia

Geomorphological and geoarchaeological studies from the lower Gulf region of southeastern Arabia are increasing our knowledge of hydrological, ecological, and aeolian changes during the Holocene. Preliminary analyses of sediment records from two palaeolakes in the United Arab Emirates are presented, highlighting the potential of these sediment sources for providing high-resolution decadal studies of climate change and landscape evolution over the past 10,000 years. In order to study the society-environment relationship in this marginal region, a framework of environmental change is being developed against which the archaeology of the region can be set.     

Siberia at the Last Glacial Maximum: Environment and Archaeology

This article focuses on the presence of humans in Siberia and the Russian Far East at the coldest time of the Late Pleistocene, called the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and dated to c. 20,000–18,000 rcbp. Reconstruction of the LGM environment of Siberia, based on the latest models and compilations, provides a background for human existence in this region. Most of Siberia and the Russian Far East at c. 20,000–18,000 rcbp was covered by tundra and cool steppe, with some forest formations in the river valleys. Climate was much colder and drier than it is today. Eighteen Upper Paleolithic sites in Siberia are radiocarbon dated strictly to the LGM, and at least six of them, located in southern parts of western and eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, have solid evidence of occupation during that time span. It seems clear that southern Siberia was populated by humans even at the height of the LGM, and that there was no dramatic decline or complete disappearance of humans in Siberia at that time. The degree of human adaptation to periglacial landscapes in the mid-Upper Paleolithic of northern Eurasia was quite high; humans coped with the cold and dry environmental conditions using microblade technology, artificial shelters, tailored clothes, and megafaunal bones as fuel. An erratum to this article can be found at     

The charophyte Lamprothamnium succinctum as an environmental indicator: a Holocene example from Tom Thumbs Lagoon,eastern Australia

The palaeobiota from a middle to late Holocene succession in Tom Thumbs Lagoon, N.S.W., Australia, reflects a range of environmental conditions caused by sea-level changes and active estuarine sedimentation. At the base of the succession (～ ?0.4 m AHD) a thin bed, containing molluscs dated at 6.7 ka B.P. by radiocarbon and amino acid racemisation, and foraminifers is indicative of open estuarine conditions. From +0.35 m AHD towards the top of the sequence the charophyte Lamprothamnium succinctum occurs in subrecent deposits. This species is characterised here by statistical measurements, and new characters are described and illustrated. The charophytes record a drop in sea level and the establishment of a lower salinity artificial wetland. The investigation has also established that decalcification in charophytes can be related to acidification produced by the release of organic acids, aggravated after 1928 by anthropogenic pollution.     

HISTORY AND POLITICS AS IF WE STILL LIVED IN THE HOLOCENE

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021), by David Graeber and David Wengrow, is a monumental, boldly revisionist study of the human past from the last ice age to the present. It is geared explicitly toward the present in political terms and seeks to explain how primordial forms of human freedom were lost in ways that resulted in our current structures of violence and domination. The authors explore a vast range of prehistoric, ancient, and non-Western peoples to undermine (neo)evolutionist, stadial theories of long-term human development, particularly any that imply determinism, inevitability, or teleology. If so many peoples in the past were so much freer than we are today, how is it that we got stuck? And are we really as stuck as we think? Graeber and Wengrow successfully undermine the social scientific template of stage-based human development from hunter-gatherers to modern capitalist nation-states, but their book suffers from two major omissions. First, they ignore almost entirely the Anthropocene epoch and show no grasp of its implications for their analysis of the present or prospects for the future. Second, their “new history of humanity” ignores the history that is most relevant to answering their own questions about how we have arrived globally in our current structures of violence and domination: the early modern and modern history of expansionist, colonialist, capitalist, belligerent, imperialist Western European nations and their extensions since the fifteenth century. These two omissions are connected: it is disproportionately the history of the (early) modern West before and after the Industrial Revolution that explains how the planet arrived in the Anthropocene with the “Great Acceleration” around the mid-twentieth century. But heeding this history and its consequences would have undermined the authors’ upbeat political vision about our prospects for the future—essentially, a recycled Enlightenment vision about human self-determination and individual freedom that depends on environmental exploitation as if we still lived in the Holocene. For all its undoubted achievement, The Dawn of Everything neglects the history that is most salient to answering the main questions its own authors pose. What matters most about that history is not that it was inevitable but that it was actual—and that its cumulative consequences remain with us.