Search

The place name Libzi and its related names. The place name Leipzig, first mentioned 1015-1018 as Libzi, later Libiz, Libz, Lipczk and finally Leipzig, was previously interpreted as Old Sorbian *Liṕsk(o) ‘place of the linden trees’ as well as Germanic-Old Sorbian *Lib́c or *Lib́sk(o) ‘place in an area of abundant water’. Bernd Koenitz rightly questioned this interpretation and replaced it *Lib́čky was used in addition. Place names of similar formation and meaning in Saxony and Bohemia support this explanation. The article at hand confirms and renders Bernd Koenitz’s interpretations more precisely and places them in a broader context with regard to geographical names and historical settlements. Besides such place names as *Lib́cě there are various others which verify the immigration of Slaves from Bohemia and Moravia. Two multicoloured maps illustrate the results of this research.

The study concerning the Slavic district Neletici on the Mulde River follows up on the research done on the Slavic settlement of the Leipzig Land and also of the pagus Quezici (around and to the west of Eilenburg) and is based on the same methodical principles. Taking into account relevant research done by Horst Naumann and Ernst Eichler 96 Slavic place names are again analysed in regard to etymology, formation und meaning. Accordingly, the use of two multi-colored maps aid in illustrating the area settled by the Slavs who immigrated from Bohemia. The core area of the regio Neletici is not the territory directly around Wurzen but lies to the north between the Mulde an the Lossabach. The borders of Neletici are distinctly established by the Slavic districts Chutici and Quezici in the west and northwest and by the Slavic settlements on the Elbe River. The border to the south could be determined even more precisely by analogical research.

The previous interpretations of the place name Leipzig, 1015 in urbe Libzi, as Old Sorbian *Liṕsk(o) ‘Lindenort’ (place of linden trees) and as the Germanic-Slavic compound name *Libьcь or *Libьsk(o) ‘place in an area of abundant fluvial water’ are found questionable by Bernd Koenitz and rightly so. His new explanation of the name as Old Sorbian *Lib́cě ‘settlement of the weaklings’ from the Proto-Slavic *libъ ‘weak, lean, sickly’ or as ‘settlement of the Lib́c family’ with the personal name Proto-Slavic *Libьcь is well founded. This interpretation is further supported by the Russian surnames Liba, Libov and others, additionally by the Czech place names Studce, Trubce, Chylec among others, which are more supportive of *Lib́cě ‘settlement of the weaklings’, as a nickname, rather than ‘settlement of the Lib́c´ family’.

The Slavic district Besunzane in the light of toponymy. – With the help of Slavic place-names Hans Walther was first in localizing the tribal region of the Besunzane in the area of the Neiße river between Görlitz and Ostritz. Based on this research the present article presents the previous findings with the aid of typology and stratigraphy of place-names more precisely. The quality values of the soil are thereby also taken into consideration. On the accompanying map with older and more recent Slavic place-names the region of Besunzane appears as a ca. 8 kilometer wide strip along the Neiße river, almost throughout on land with soil quality values lying over 50 points. In the west it is sharply separated by a broad unpopulated zone from the tribal region of the Milzane. By evidence of place-names, the strips of land to the east of Besunzane were sparsely populated, if at all, likewise in the south. To the north of Görlitz there are solely more recent types of place-names.

Phytoextraction makes use of trace element-accumulating plants that concentrate the pollutants in their tissues. Pollutants can be then removed by harvesting plants. The success of phytoextraction depends on trace element availability to the roots and the ability of the plant to intercept, take up, and accumulate trace elements in shoots. Current phytoextraction practises either employ hyperaccumulators or fast-growing high biomass plants; the phytoextraction process may be enhanced by soil amendments that increase trace element availability in the soil. This review will focus on the role of plant-associated bacteria to enhance trace element availability in the rhizosphere. We report on the kind of bacteria typically found in association with trace element – tolerating or – accumulating plants and discuss how they can contribute to improve trace element uptake by plants and thus the efficiency and rate of phytoextraction. This enhanced trace element uptake can be attributed to a microbial modification of the absorptive properties of the roots such as increasing the root length and surface area and numbers of root hairs, or by increasing the plant availability of trace elements in the rhizosphere and the subsequent translocation to shoots via beneficial effects on plant growth, trace element complexation and alleviation of phytotoxicity. An analysis of data from literature shows that effects of bacterial inoculation on phytoextraction efficiency are currently inconsistent. Some key processes in plant–bacteria interactions and colonization by inoculated strains still need to be unravelled more in detail to allow full-scale application of bacteria assisted phytoremediation of trace element contaminated soils.

As Thietmar of Merseburg reports in his well-known chronicle, King Henry II set up a camp iuxta Sprewam flivium in the provincia Nice during his campaign against Bolesław Chrobry of Poland in the year 1005. Up to now, historians and onomasticians have not agreed on where to locate Nice. Some see it as a Slavic settlement area around the town of Forst on the Neisse river; others, however, equate the provincia Nice with the pagus Selpoli, a Slavic tribal area on the Lubst river (Polish Lubsza) a right tributary of the lower Neisse river. A thorough analysis of the historical, onomastical und archaeological facts leads to the conclusion that in the region around Forst, especially in the south, a small Slavic settlement area extended along the left bank of the Neisse river. This is also indicated by the fact that there is a concentration not only of older Slavic place name types, but also of surnames typical only for this region. Although they developed in later times, they are a sign of an older settlement community. Moreover, archaeological finds from the middle and late Slavic periods point to a settlement region which is clearly confined by areas lacking any finds at all. Wie Thietmar von Merseburg in seiner bekannten Chronik berichtet, schlug Heinrich II. auf seinem Feldzug gegen Bolesław Chrobry von Polen im Jahre 1005 iuxta Sprewam fluvium in der provincia Nice ein Lager auf. Bis heute sind sich Historiker und Namenforscher nicht einig, wo Nice zu lokalisieren ist. Manche sehen darin ein slawisches Siedlungsgebiet um Forst an der Neiße, andere wiederum setzen Nice mit dem pagus Selpoli, einem slawischen Wohngau an der Lubst, poln. Lubsza, einem rechten Zufluß der unteren Neiße, gleich. Eine genaue Analyse der historischen, namenkundlichen und archäologischen Zusammenhänge führte zu dem Schluss, dass sich in der Gegend um Forst, besonders südlich davon, einst ein slawischer Kleingau am linken Ufer der Neiße erstreckte, denn dort konzentrieren sich nicht nur ältere slawische Ortsnamentypen, sondern es finden sich aus späterer Zeit auch nur für diesen Raum typische Zunamen, die auf eine ältere Siedlergemeinschaft hindeuten. Darüber hinaus lassen Bodenfunde aus mitt el- und spätslawischer Zeit auf eine Siedlungskammer schließen, die sich durch fundleere Räume deutlich gegen den Gau Luzici und den Gau Selpoli abgrenzt.

Oriented matroids have been introduced in [R. G. Bland and M. Las Vergnas, Orientability of Matroids, J. Combin. Theory Ser. B24 (1978), 94–123]. They can be viewed as an abstraction of matroids representable over an ordered field. Analogously, we define valuated matroids as an abstraction of matroids which are representable over some field having a non-archimedian valuation. We study projective equivalence of valuations of matroids and show that valuated matroids correspond in a one-to-one fashion to matroids with coefficients in certain coefficient domains.