The archaeology of radiocarbon accelerator dating

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) allows radiocarbon dating to be carried out by direct counting of¹⁴C atoms, rather than the conventional counting of radioactive disintegrations. The result is that samples up to 1000 times smaller can be handled. The approach was tested in principle by 1977 and for archaeological operation by 1983. More than 2000 samples per year are now being dated worldwide. The machines can now operate to about ± 80 years or better. Dates older than 40,000 years have not yet been achieved, but the ability to use small samples has already had considerable impact on dating the period 10,000–30,000 years ago. Bone is an ideal material for the new technique, since amino acids can normally be isolated and purified from gram-size samples. Studies of the origins of domestication are aided by the dating of individual grains and seeds. Because small samples can be mobile in the soil, careful sample selection strategies and procedures are required. The full impact of the technique can be assessed only through the rapid and comprehensive publication of archaeological results.     

Results of micrometallographic analysis of metalworking tools in graves of metallurgists in Moravia/Czech Republic

The number of finds relating to metalworking, without evidence of mining and processing facilities, is very limited. In Final Eneolith graves of specialized metallurgists that have occurred, they contain a metal-founding or metalsmithing toolkit, whose origins were from eastern Europe (the Maykop, Yamnaya Culture). Such metallurgical tools may have reached central Europe as part of the so-called Yamnaya Package before the onset of the Bee Beaker Culture (BBC); and unlike the Pontic region, these two types of metallurgy separated here. There are found an accumulation of metallurgists' graves in Moravia, where the complete metalworking toolkit is deposited in a predefined place in richly furnished male graves with a distinctive funerary architecture that exhibit a clear relationship to the grave goods. EDX-analysis detected a high content of metals (Cu, Ag, Au, Au–Ag alloy) on all working surfaces of stone tools, grinders, and boar tusks used for the final treatment of their metal products. This makes us believe that the used artefacts were laid as symbolical objects in the graves of these craftsmen who perfectly knew these advanced technologies. Due to their knowledge, their social significance gradually rose and finally reached the level of social elites, who were usually buried in a spectacular manner, including the quantity of grave goods (Überausstattung) and the pars pro toto deposition in one part of the finds.     

大众传媒与日本当代文学——以梦枕貘的《阴阳师》系列为中心

后工业社会中的大众传媒,尤其是电子传媒极大地影响着文学的生产、传播和消费.文学传媒化、商业化、大众化的趋势使人们不得不重新思考文学的走向与未来.大众传媒不仅是文学的工具,它也是文学本身不可分割的一部分.本文通过对梦枕貘<阴阳师>系列的个案分析,阐明日本当代文学和大众传媒之间的互动关系.     

江苏淮安财富广场南北朝墓群发掘报告

江苏淮安财富广场南北朝家族墓是一处典型的家族墓地,墓葬排列有序,随葬器物较为丰富精美,时代特征明显,文化因素较为复杂,对研究南北朝时期丧葬礼俗及淮安地方历史文化具有重要的价值。     

Body Mass Estimates in Dogs and North American Gray Wolves Using Limb Element Dimensions

Body mass is a key biometric that is useful in interpreting many aspects of an animal's life history. For many species, including dogs and wolves, methods for estimating body mass are not well developed. This paper assesses the utility of using limb dimensions to predict body mass in dogs and North American wolves. Regression analyses are utilized here to explore the correlations between limb dimensions and body masses of modern dogs and wolves, all of known body mass at death. These analyses reveal that a number of limb end dimensions are correlated with body mass in both dogs and wolves. Regression formulae generated through the analyses appear to allow body masses to be predicted with relatively small margins of error, often less than 10%. Formulae are calculated for groups with and without juveniles. In some cases, the dimensions of the juvenile specimens plot distinctly from those of adults, indicating that regression formulae specifically for juvenile canids may be needed. The strength of the limb dimension correlations is then compared with that of regression formulae for dog and wolf cranio‐mandibular dimensions. For the dogs, the cranio‐mandibular dimensions appear to slightly out‐perform the limb element dimensions in predicting body mass. The wolf limb dimensions, however, always appear to provide better predictions of body mass than do the skull dimensions. The newly developed regression formulae are applied to several Middle Holocene dog skeletons from Siberia for which previous body mass estimates are available, the latter based on cranial dimensions. These two sets of estimates are then compared. The overall results of our study indicate the need for further research, particularly with larger sample sizes, including more juvenile specimens. We also argue that work on body size estimation in single dog breeds may be warranted in some cases. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Osteoarthritis and body mass

Osteoarthritis is the second most common pathology found in anthropological collections. Although a great deal is known about osteoarthritis, it is not yet known whether in skeletal populations there is a correlation between osteoarthritis and body mass. In this study, lower limb and spinal osteoarthritis scores were taken to determine whether body mass and femoral length correlate with osteoarthritis on weight bearing joints. Osteoarthritis was measured using a four-point ordinal scale on a sample of 114 adult prehistoric Californian Amerinds. Body mass was calculated from femoral head breadth; femoral length was measured using standard procedures; and age and sex were determined through standard osteological procedures. Using Spearman correlations, body mass and femoral length did not correlate significantly with any of the osteoarthritis variables. Age correlated significantly with nearly all of the osteoarthritis variables (hip, r = 0.507; knee, r = 0.528; cervical, r = 0.513; thoracic, r = 0.647; lumbar, r = 0.507, P-values < 0.001); and body mass and femoral length correlated with sex (r-values = 0.835 and 0.654, P-values < 0.001). With age and sex controls, body mass negatively correlated with the hip osteoarthritis variable (r = −0.202, P < 0.05), but not with any of the other osteoarthritis variables. Results concur with previous findings in the anthropological literature and highlight complexities of osteoarthritis etiology.     

Unique marine taphonomy in human skeletal material recovered from the medieval warship Mary Rose

The effect of skeletal exposure in a marine environment is an area of taphonomy that has been little investigated at the microscopic level. Understanding the peri‐mortem and subsequent post mortem history of deposition and/or redeposition is extremely important for event reconstruction and to identify deliberate or accidental redeposition. The material used for this study comes primarily from the Mary Rose shipwreck (a marine mass fatality dated AD 1545), and forensic material recovered from marine, lacustrine and terrestrial contexts is retrospectively referenced. Work presented here outlines a definitive type of marine exposure seen in temperate shallow off‐shore and intertidal marine contexts, and illustrates how it may be differentially identified from terrestrial deposition and exposure. Furthermore, the effects of rapid deposition on skeletal remains have been documented, and results indicate that marine organism fouling activity can be fully inhibited by rapid deposition of sediment. The responsible organism itself remains unidentified, but produces tunnels which are peripheral in their distribution and maintain fixed dimensions and morphology and are here associated with marine exposure. This type of microstructural change is unique and is not found in terrestrial or freshwater contexts. The study demonstrates a taphonomic microstructural change to bone and teeth which may be identified microscopically and interpreted as evidence of marine exposure. Secondarily, the history of depositional exposure between the two main Tudor layers has provided a new level of detail concerning exposure and site formation processes. The earliest Tudor layer formed rapidly over a period of months and contained no evidence of microstructural tunnelling, whereas microstructural tunnelling was seen exclusively in the second Tudor layer, formed over a period of decades, a period during which the ship's hull collapsed and a more open marine environment dominated. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quantitative analysis of COH fluids synthesized at HP–HT conditions: an optimized methodology to measure volatiles in experimental capsules

The quantitative assessment of COH fluids is crucial in modeling geological processes. The composition of fluids, and in particular their H₂O/CO₂ ratio, can influence the melting temperatures, the location of hydration or carbonation reactions, and the solute transport capability in several rock systems. In the scientific literature, COH fluids speciation has been generally assumed on the basis of thermodynamic calculations using equations of state of simple H₂O–nonpolar gas systems (e.g., H₂O–CO₂–CH₄). Only few authors dealt with the experimental determination of high‐pressure COH fluid species at different conditions, using diverse experimental and analytical approaches (e.g., piston cylinder + capsule piercing + gas chromatography/mass spectrometry; cold seal + silica glass capsules + Raman). In this contribution, we present a new methodology for the synthesis and the analysis of COH fluids in experimental capsules, which allows the quantitative determination of volatiles in the fluid by means of a capsule‐piercing device connected to a quadrupole mass spectrometer. COH fluids are synthesized starting from oxalic acid dihydrate at P = amb and T = 250°C in single capsules heated in a furnace, and at P = 1 GPa and T = 800°C using a piston‐cylinder apparatus and the double‐capsule technique to control the redox conditions employing the rhenium–rhenium oxide oxygen buffer. A quantitative analysis of H₂O, CO₂, CH₄, CO, H₂, O₂, and N₂ along with associated statistical errors is obtained by linear regression of the m/z data of the sample and of standard gas mixtures of known composition. The estimated uncertainties are typically <1% for H₂O and CO₂, and <5% for CO. Our results suggest that the COH fluid speciation is preserved during and after quench, as the experimental data closely mimic the thermodynamic model both in terms of bulk composition and fluid speciation.     

湖北巴东任家坪遗址第一、二次发掘

为配合三峡大坝工程和巴东县污水处理厂的工程建设,湖北省文物考古研究所组织考古队对任家坪遗址先后进行两次大规模考古发掘,这里报道了这两次发掘发现的商周遗存和明清墓葬。     

Chemical modification of pyroclastic rock by hot water: an experimental investigation of mass transport at the fluid–solid interface

Hydrothermal water–(pyroclastic) rock interactions were examined using flow-through experiments to deduce the effect of mass transport phenomena on the reaction process. A series of experiments were conducted over the temperature range 75–250°C, with a constant temperature for each experiment, and at saturated vapour pressure, to estimate the apparent rate constants as a function of temperature.
Based on the chemistry of analysed solutions, the water–rock interaction in the experiments was controlled by diffusion from the reaction surface and by the existence of a surface layer at the rock–fluid interface, which regulated the chemical reaction rate. The reaction progress depended to a high degree on flow velocity and temperature conditions, with element abundances in the fluid significantly affected by these factors. Mass transport coefficients for diffusion from the rock surface to the bulk solution have been estimated. Ca is selectively depleted under lower temperature conditions ( T  < 150°C), whereas Na is greatly depleted under higher temperature conditions ( T  > 150°C), and K reaction rates are increased when flow velocity increases. Using these conditions, specific alkali and alkali earth cations were selectively leached from mineral surfaces. The 'surface layer' comprised a 0.5–1.8 mm boundary film on the solution side (the thickness of this layer has no dependence on chemical character) and a reaction layer. The reaction layer was composed of a Si, Al-rich cation-leached layer, whose thickness was dependent on temperature, flow velocity and reaction length. The reaction layer varied in thickness from about 10⁻⁴ to 10⁻⁷ mm under high temperature/low fluid velocity and low temperature/high fluid velocity conditions, respectively.