Preservation of DNA in ancient Egyptian mummies

The presence of DNA has been demonstrated in the cell nuclei of an ancient Egyptian mummy fragment. When extracted, this DNA proved to be degraded to a considerable extent and chemically modified. However, the preservation of nucleic acids in this specimen suggests that applying recombinant DNA techniques to the study of ancient mummified tissues might prove to be a fruitful future area of research.     

Mining sick: Creatively unsettling normative narratives about industry,environment, extraction,and the health geographies of rural,remote, northern,and Indigenous communities in British Columbia

Rural, remote, northern, and Indigenous communities on Turtle Island are routinely—as Cree Elder Willie Ermine says—pathologized. Social science and health scholarship, including scholarship by geographers, often constructs Indigenous human and physical geographies as unhealthy, diseased, vulnerable, and undergoing extraction. These constructions are not inaccurate: peoples and places beyond urban metropoles on Turtle Island live with higher burdens of poor health; Indigenous peoples face systemic violence and racism in colonial landscapes; rural, remote, northern, and Indigenous geographies are sites of industrial incursions; and many rural and remote geographies remain challenging for diverse Indigenous peoples. What, however, are the consequences of imagining and constructing people and places as “sick”? Constructions of “sick” geographies fulfill and extend settler (often European white) colonial narratives about othered geographies. Rural, remote, northern, and Indigenous geographies are discursively “mined” for narratives of sickness. This mining upholds a sense of health and wellness in southern, urban, Euro‐white‐settler imaginations. Drawing from multi‐year, relationship‐based, cross‐disciplinary qualitative community‐informed experiences, and anchored in feminist, anti‐colonial, and anti‐racist methodologies that guided creative and humanities‐informed stories, this paper concludes with different stories. It unsettles settler‐colonial powers reliant on constructing narratives about sickness in others and consequently reframes conversations about Indigenous well‐being and the environment.     

广州榄园岭遗址先民祭祀遗迹的炭屑和植硅体分析

祭祀是先民生活的重要组成部分之一。尽管贵族祭祀活动的研究较多,但平民祭祀遗迹却由于发现较少而难以深入分析。广州榄园岭遗址春秋时期墓葬群中发现了越文化中常见的碎物祭祀坑。本研究对若干墓葬和相关祭祀坑中的填土开展了炭屑和植硅体分析。结果表明,先民在祭祀坑中有意燃烧过植物类祭品;用作祭品的植物种类较杂,包含扇型、棒型、方型或刺球型等植硅体。结合其他遗址中出现的类似现象,榄园岭先民的祭祀活动,应是在因地制宜、就地取材的基础上,吸收了苗蛮文化的因素,同时影响了其他地区。这一发现为探索先秦古人的祭祀行为提供了丰富信息;此外,炭屑和植硅体分析为确定祭祀遗迹提供了新的研究范式。     

Identifying activity areas in archaeological soils from a colonial Virginia house lot using phytolith analysis and soil chemistry

Environmental archaeology methods can uncover both house lot organization and economic adaptation practices when applied systematically in conjunction with traditional archaeological research. This is the first study to employ both phytolith analysis and soil chemistry to interpret activity areas on an archaeological site. The patterning in the phytolith and soil chemistry analyses from the site of Rich Neck Plantation, Williamsburg, Virginia, reveals a set of six activity areas in and around the 17th century house lot, demonstrating a degree of economic diversification generally attributed only to 18th century colonial economic and social transformations.     

出土青铜酒器残留物分析的尝试

利用快速溶剂萃取法,从出土青铜酒器内的土壤中提取有机残留物．对其作高效液相色谱定性分析,发现其中含有酒石酸,表明这些青铜酒器在下葬时可能盛着酒。快速溶剂萃取法的萃取剂为1％磷酸（体积比）溶液,较之传统有机溶剂,操作时更为方便和安全。此方法可推广于陶器中残留物的分析．具有较为广泛的应用前景。     

Shepherds and plants in the Alps: multi-proxy archaeobotanical analysis of neolithic dung from “La Grande Rivoire” (Isère,France)

The analysis of phytoliths, pollen, charcoal and other macroremains was carried out in the neolithic shelter of “La Grande Rivoire”, Vercors massif (French Alps). The results show the predominance of tree species, in the form of phytoliths, clustered pollen, stomata, small branches charcoal, needles, bark, buds… The practice of leaf fodder is already known in the alpine and circum-alpine area from archaeological and historical sources. The analyses of the neolithic dung levels of “La Grande Rivoire” illustrate the use of leafy and flowering tree branches as fodder. The results also suggest that some species were used for special purpose in relation with the tending of livestock (litter, dietary supplement, veterinary practices).     

Ancient DNA in human bones from Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in Greece and Crete

Attempts were made to detect ancient DNA (aDNA) in samples of 88 human skeletons from eight Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in Greece and Crete. Ancient DNA was absent in specimens from Nea Nikomedia, Lerna, Karaviádena (Zakro), Antron Grave Circle A and Mycenae Grave Circle A. For each of three skeletons from Antron Grave Circle B that were sampled, polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) gave products for nuclear but not mitochondrial DNA, but amplicon yield was low and inconsistent with replicate PCRs failing to give reproducible results. With specimens from Mycenae Grave Circle B, evidence for mitochondrial aDNA was obtained for four of the 22 skeletons that were studied, and at Kouphovouno evidence for mitochondrial and/or nuclear aDNA was obtained with eight of the 20 skeletons that were examined. We conclude that, although aDNA might be present in some Eastern Mediterranean skeletons from later centuries of the Bronze Age, it is not commonly found in material from this period and is likely to be absent from older material.     

试论温峤

温峤墓是迄今为止南京地区发现的墓主身份明确、地位最高的东晋勋臣墓葬。本依据考古发现及献资料,对温峤家世、事迹和葬地进行比较全面的考察。     

The fish of Lake Titicaca: implications for archaeology and changing ecology through stable isotope analysis

Research on past human diets in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin has directed us to investigate the carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes of an important dietary element, fish. By completing a range of analyses on modern and archaeological fish remains, we contribute to two related issues regarding the application of stable isotope analysis of archaeological fish remains and in turn their place within human diet. The first issue is the potential carbon and nitrogen isotope values of prehistoric fish (and how these would impact human dietary isotopic data), and the second is the observed changes in the fish isotopes through time. Out of this work we provide quantitative isotope relationships between fish tissues with and without lipid extraction, and a qualitative analysis of the isotopic relationships between fish tissues, allowing archaeologists to understand these relationships and how these values can be applied in future research. We test a mathematical lipid normalization equation to examine whether future researchers will need to perform lipid extraction procedures for Lake Titicaca fish. We also analyze a number of aquatic plants to better understand the range of isotopic signatures of the Lake Titicaca ecosystem. We use these data to better understand prehistoric human diet and the role that fish may have played in the past as well as potential changes in local lake ecology through time.     

Subsistence practices and pottery use in Neolithic Jordan: molecular and isotopic evidence

This paper presents direct evidence of subsistence practices and pottery use at a Late Neolithic site at al-Basatîn, northern Jordan. Measurable concentrations of C_16:0 and C_18:0 were recovered from 8 of 10 archaeological pottery fragments through use of a microwave-assisted silica gel and aminopropyl solvent protocol developed for the isolation and concentration of free fatty acids in marine sediments. Subsequent isotopic analysis of the surviving C_16:0 and C_18:0 saturated fatty acids revealed ∂¹³C ratios consistent with those of adipose fats of ruminant and non-ruminant animals pastured on lands adjacent to the Jordan Valley. The high recovery of diagnostic compounds from the al-Basatîn material is discussed in context of a wider examination of the initial development and use of pottery in the Fertile Crescent, and the emerging debate concerning the efficacy of stable carbon isotope values in characterizing organic residues embedded in pottery fragments recovered from the earliest ceramic horizons in the Middle East and Europe.