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The Tiber valley is a prominent feature in the landscape of ancient Rome and an important element for understanding its urban development. However, little is known about the city's original setting. Our research provides new data on the Holocene sedimentary history and human-environment interactions in the Forum Boarium, the location of the earliest harbor of the city. Since the Last Glacial Maximum, when the fluvial valley was incised to a depth of tens of meters below the present sea level, 14C and ceramic ages coupled with paleomagnetic analysis show the occurrence of three distinct aggradational phases until the establishment of a relatively stable alluvial plain at 6-8 m a.s.l. during the late 3rd century BCE. Moreover, we report evidence of a sudden and anomalous increase in sedimentation rate around 2600 yr BP, leading to the deposition of a 4-6m thick package of alluvial deposits in approximately one century. We discuss this datum in the light of possible tectonic activity along a morpho-structural lineament, revealed by the digital elevation model of this area, crossing the Forum Boarium and aligned with the Tiber Island. We formulate the hypothesis that fault displacement along this structural lineament may be responsible for the sudden collapse of the investigated area, which provided new space for the observed unusually large accumulation of sediments. We also posit that, as a consequence of the diversion of the Tiber course and the loss in capacity of transport by the river, this faulting activity triggered the origin of the Tiber Island.

Many archaeological science studies use the concept of "provenance", where the origins of cultural material can be determined through physical or chemical properties that relate back to the origins of the material. Recent studies using DNA profiling of bacteria have been used for the forensic determination of soils, towards determination of geographic origin. This manuscript presents a novel approach to the provenance of archaeological minerals and related materials through the use of 16S rRNA sequencing analysis of microbial DNA. Through the microbial DNA characterization from ochre and multivariate statistics, we have demonstrated the clear discrimination between four distinct Australian cultural ochre sites.

There are many unanswered questions about the evolution of the ancient 'Silk Roads' across Asia. This is especially the case in their mountainous stretches, where harsh terrain is seen as an impediment to travel. Considering the ecology and mobility of inner Asian mountain pastoralists, we use 'flow accumulation' modelling to calculate the annual routes of nomadic societies (from 750 m to 4,000 m elevation). Aggregating 500 iterations of the model reveals a high-resolution flow network that simulates how centuries of seasonal nomadic herding could shape discrete routes of connectivity across the mountains of Asia. We then compare the locations of known high-elevation Silk Road sites with the geography of these optimized herding flows, and find a significant correspondence in mountainous regions. Thus, we argue that highland Silk Road networks (from 750 m to 4,000 m) emerged slowly in relation to long-established mobility patterns of nomadic herders in the mountains of inner Asia.

Various physical attributes of the Earth's surface are factors that influence local topography and indirectly influence human behaviour in terms of habitation locations. The determination of geomorphological setting plays an important role in archaeological landscape research. Several landform types can be distinguished by characteristic geomorphic attributes that portray the landscape surrounding a settlement and influence its ability to sustain a population. Geomorphometric landform information, derived from digital elevation models (DEMs), such as the ASTER Global DEM, can provide useful insights into the processes shaping landscapes. This work examines the influence of landform classification on the settlement locations of Bronze Age (Minoan) Crete, focusing on the districts of Phaistos, Kavousi and Vrokastro. The landform classification was based on the topographic position index (TPI) and deviation from mean elevation (DEV) analysis to highlight slope steepness of various landform classes, characterizing the surrounding landscape environment of the settlements locations. The outcomes indicate no interrelationship between the settlement locations and topography during the Early Minoan period, but a significant interrelationship exists during the later Minoan periods with the presence of more organised societies. The landform classification can provide insights into factors favouring human habitation and can contribute to archaeological predictive modelling.

The 7th century ship-burial at Sutton Hoo is famous for the spectacular treasure discovered when it was first excavated in 1939. The finds include gold and garnet jewellery, silverware, coins and ceremonial armour of broad geographical provenance which make a vital contribution to understanding the political landscape of early medieval Northern Europe. Fragments of black organic material found scattered within the burial were originally identified as 'Stockholm Tar' and linked to waterproofing and maintenance of the ship. Here we present new scientific analyses undertaken to re-evaluate the nature and origin of these materials, leading to the identification of a previously unrecognised prestige material among the treasure: bitumen from the Middle East. Whether the bitumen was gifted as diplomatic gesture or acquired through trading links, its presence in the burial attests to the far-reaching network within which the elite of the region operated at this time. If the bitumen was worked into objects, either alone or in composite with other materials, then their significance within the burial would certainly have been strongly linked to their form or purpose. But the novelty of the material itself may have added to the exotic appeal. Archaeological finds of bitumen from this and earlier periods in Britain are extremely rare, despite the abundance of natural sources of bitumen within Great Britain. This find provides the first material evidence indicating that the extensively exploited Middle Eastern bitumen sources were traded northward beyond the Mediterranean to reach northern Europe and the British Isles., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Franchthi Cave in southern Greece preserves one of the most remarkable records of socioeconomic change of the Late Pleistocene through early Holocene. Located on the southern end of the Argolid Peninsula, the area around the site was greatly affected by climate variation and marine transgression. This study examines the complex interplay of site formation processes (material deposition rates), climate-driven landscape change, and human hunting systems during the Upper Paleolithic through Mesolithic at Franchthi Cave based on the H1B faunal series. Building on earlier work, we establish the full spectrum of the meat diet using taphonomic evidence, and we analyze these data for trends in socioeconomic reorganization. Foraging patterns during the Aurignacian and "Gravettoid" occupations at Franchthi were terrestrial and already rather diversified in comparison to Middle Paleolithic diets in southern Greece. Hunting shifted abruptly to a mixed marine-terrestrial pattern during the Final Paleolithic, and fishing activities intensified though the Mesolithic. The zooarchaeological data indicate two consecutive trends of increasing dietary breadth, the first within an exclusively terrestrial context, and the second as marine habitats came into use through the end of the Mesolithic. The intensity of the human occupations at this site increased in tandem with intensified use of animal and plants. Comparison to the inland site of Klissoura Cave 1 indicates that the trend toward broader diets was regional as well as local., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Previous excavations at Mata Menge and Boa Lesa in the Soa Basin of Flores, Indonesia, recovered stone artefacts in association with fossilized remains of the large-bodied Stegodon florensis florensis. Zircon fission-track ages from these sites indicated that hominins had colonized the island by 0.88 +/- 0.07 million years (Myr) ago. Here we describe the contents, context and age of Wolo Sege, a recently discovered archaeological site in the Soa Basin that has in situ stone artefacts and that lies stratigraphically below Mata Menge and immediately above the basement breccias of the basin. We show using (40)Ar/(39)Ar dating that an ignimbrite overlying the artefact layers at Wolo Sege was erupted 1.02 +/- 0.02 Myr ago, providing a new minimum age for hominins on Flores. This predates the disappearance from the Soa Basin of 'pygmy' Stegodon sondaari and Geochelone spp. (giant tortoise), as evident at the nearby site of Tangi Talo, which has been dated to 0.90 +/- 0.07 Myr ago. It now seems that this extirpation or possible extinction event and the associated faunal turnover were the result of natural processes rather than the arrival of hominins. It also appears that the volcanic and fluvio-lacustrine deposits infilling the Soa Basin may not be old enough to register the initial arrival of hominins on the island.

To reassess domestication events in the Near East, accessions of Triticum urartu from a well-described sampling were combined with a representative sample covering the Karacadağ Einkorn wheat domestication. The observed DNA separation between the two wheat species accounts for the main differentiation, but geographic variation within T. urartu is evident and so is the domestication scenario among wild, feral, and domesticated Einkorn. In contrast to the clear DNA differences, it is difficult to separate living T. urartu from wild Einkorn based on morphology. With archaeobotanical material a distinction of carbonized remains of these two wheats is considered to be impossible. We reviewed the differences concerning morphology and maturity and combined these observations with information about archaeological sites in the Near East. In conclusion, the excavation sites in the middle Euphrates may contain T. urartu rather than Einkorn wheat and T. urartu may underlie the reported occurrence of the extinct 2-grained domesticated "Einkorn" wheat. The first Einkorn wheat domestication sensu stricto seems to have happened around the Karacadağ, as reported earlier. The human dimension shown by the excavation of Göbekli Tepe can explain why domesticated phenotypes might have spread quickly.

Computational techniques comparing co-occurrences of city names in texts allow the relative longitudes and latitudes of cities to be estimated algorithmically. However, these techniques have not been applied to estimate the provenance of artifacts with unknown origins. Here, we estimate the geographic origin of artifacts from the Indus Valley Civilization, applying methods commonly used in cognitive science to the Indus script. We show that these methods can accurately predict the relative locations of archeological sites on the basis of artifacts of known provenance, and we further apply these techniques to determine the most probable excavation sites of four sealings of unknown provenance. These findings suggest that inscription statistics reflect historical interactions among locations in the Indus Valley region, and they illustrate how computational methods can help localize inscribed archeological artifacts of unknown origin. The success of this method offers opportunities for the cognitive sciences in general and for computational anthropology specifically.

Quality in education at the tertiary level is constantly questioned, and increasingly "professional standards" are offered as the solution to the perceived decline in quality. Foucauldian archaeological analysis of teacher graduate and geography graduate standards in Australia is conducted, revealing tensions between the different document sets. Teacher graduate standards reflect two discourses (one of knowledge and understanding, and one of skills) that are anti-intellectual and based on jargon and formulaic prescriptions. In contrast, disciplinary standards give primacy to geography as an intellectual inquiry such that its knowledge and understanding, skills, and concepts lead to progressively higher order thinking in graduates.

Peru's prehistory, climate, and terrain are the landscape upon which one of humankind's longest migrations occurred. When the glacial period ended, a geographic and cultural transition began when the meltwaters carved river valleys across the South American continent. Culture-rich communities of fishers, miners, artisans, and morticians populated the Peruvian coastal plain long before the first Inca. Enriching the geography and history curricula with recent pre-Incan archeological finds, this article provides new information from the Ice Age climate's Paleo-Indians to the last millennium before the Inca, combining recent genetic and new archeological and paleo-climatic findings adding to understandings of pre-Incan Peru. While most North Americans are aware of the Incan empire, few realize that its duration lasted less than a century: the century that ended with Spanish conquest and colonization in 1535. (Contains 19 figures and 2 notes.)

This article seeks to present a continuing bibliography of research on Southern California Indians from the past 20 years, and sometimes beyond. The coverage reaches outside the variably defined bounds of Southern California so that it includes peripheral groups such as the Timbisha Shoshone of Death Valley and one or more groups in the Owens Valley. The bibliography is organized in a somewhat arbitrary yet useful form. Subsumed under general headings are subheadings by subject, tribe, or place. The main headings are: (1) General Works: Bibliographies, Collections, Encyclopedias, Indexes, and Symposia; (2) Archaeology and Prehistory; (3) Ethnology and Ethnohistory; (4) Indian/White Historical Relations and Indian Affairs; (5) Land Tenure, Land Claims, Sacred Places, and Land Restoration; (6) Law, Jurisdiction, Planning, Federal Acknowledgment, Gaming, and Self-Determination; (7) Geography, Ecology, and Environmental Management; (8) Biology, Demography, Health, and Physical Anthropology; (9) Indians and Urbanization; (10) Arts, Crafts, Music, and Film; (11) Literature, Languages, Journalism, Oral Tradition, and Poetry; (12) Useful Indian and Indian-Related Web Sites; and (13) Law Cases. (Contains 13 notes.)

Geography Action Week 2000 was fast approaching and the author was trying to decide on a way for her fourth grade class to actively participate in the theme for the year. The theme "Here Today--Here Tomorrow: A Geographic Focus on Conservation" centered on sustainable use, preservation, and restoration of our natural and cultural environment. As an elementary teacher at Sacaton Public School on the Gila River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in Sacaton, Arizona, the author always tried to use extra projects to enrich the social studies curriculum and to include the Native American perspective whenever possible. Looking at conservation of the cultural environment would be a way to do this. What began as a Geography Action Week project resulted in many connections to other areas of social studies. (Contains 8 notes.)

This article presents the first attempt to conduct a geographical analysis of every air-to-ground attack conducted by a tactical fighterbomber wing over the period 1 May-31 August 1944 in support of Operation Overlord. Ninety-five per cent of the 606 attacks made by 143 Wing Typhoons on single or multiple targets can be resolved to a map reference or place name, and their chronology and distribution reveal new insights into the Wing's operational history. Commemorative and heritage perspectives are also highlighted for attacks on targets in woodland settings where archaeological survey of bomb craters can be linked to specific raids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an approach to the worship of Allāt through the concept of the geography of religions and ritual landscape. It combines the epigraphic, archaeological and geographical evidence to present the goddess as the protectress of the borderland with a focus on the rocky deserts and drylands. For the first time it offers a study not through the “Arabic”, ethnic, approach, but through the topography of the sacred places dedicated to the goddess. The paper focuses on the emplacement of the temples of Allāt in Palmyra, Salkhad, Wadi Ramm and Hatra as well as on the location of the Northern Arabian inscriptions (Safaitic and Dadanitic) on the rocks. The paper emphasizes the role of the desert in the perception of the divine.

This paper offers an approach to the worship of Allāt through the concept of the geography of religions and ritual landscape. It combines the epigraphic, archaeological and geographical evidence to present the goddess as the protectress of the borderland with a focus on the rocky deserts and drylands. For the first time it offers a study not through the "Arabic", ethnic, approach, but through the topography of the sacred places dedicated to the goddess. The paper focuses on the emplacement of the temples of Allāt in Palmyra, Salkhad, Wadi Ramm and Hatra as well as on the location of the Northern Arabian inscriptions (Safaitic and Dadanitic) on the rocks. The paper emphasizes the role of the desert in the perception of the divine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This theoretical article explores the concept of community funds of knowledge and identity to complement the two related notions of funds of knowledge (focused on the knowledge and skills of families) and funds of identity (students' practices and lived experiences). By community funds of knowledge and identity, we mean the historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge, skills, and personal/social identifications embedded in particular geographical spaces, social institutions, or any educational resource available in any community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chivalric orders occupy a disproportionately large place in François-Roger de Gaignières’ collection. They seem to have been at the heart of many of the scholar’s decisions : his choice to select a particular place, his choice of how to deal with documentation on a particular place. They dictated his perception of certain regions, such as Anjou or Malta. Finally, they undoubtedly influenced the spatial organisation of his cabinet and the intellectual foundations of his geography.

The objective of the research is to document this information in systematic and scientific pattern. Previously no any archaeologists study in this tomb. Researcher selects this tomb decided to archaeological record. Sindh is the second largest province of Pakistan which is fertile and rich in cultural heritage both tangible and intangible in which Cultural archaeological sites and architectural remains as old shrines, mosques temples forts palaces and necropolises grave yards as Makli, Sonda in Thatta, Choukundi in Karachi. Sindh is called the land of saints and religious sect. There are shrines of Sufis as Lal Shahbaz Qalander (Dadu), Shah Abdul latif Bhitai (Matiari) and the Sachal Sarmast (Khairpur). The tomb of Pir Sarhandi is one of them it is located north of the Matiari city just left side of the present motorway. For this research, both quantitative and qualitative research are used and also focus the idea / thought are used for the construction the tomb and try to decipher the Arabic and Persian inscription depicted inside the panel form on the four sided walls and the proper conservation work if there is required. The tomb is totally different in their architecture style as reported in the district. The style of architecture its design, form are same as Seraiki style of architecture of Multan in its plan Inside decorated floral motifs painted panels with Quranic inscription and Persian poetry are also depicted. This research provides the fresh data for the youth for further research in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex estimation of skeletons is fundamental to many archaeological studies. Currently, three approaches are available to estimate sex-osteology, genomics, or proteomics, but little is known about the relative reliability of these methods in applied settings. We present matching osteological, shotgun-genomic, and proteomic data to estimate the sex of 55 individuals, each with an independent radiocarbon date between 2,440 and 100 cal BP, from two ancestral Ohlone sites in Central California. Sex estimation was possible in 100% of this burial sample using proteomics, in 91% using genomics, and in 51% using osteology. Agreement between the methods was high, however conflicts did occur. Genomic sex estimates were 100% consistent with proteomic and osteological estimates when DNA reads were above 100,000 total sequences. However, more than half the samples had DNA read numbers below this threshold, producing high rates of conflict with osteological and proteomic data where nine out of twenty conditional DNA sex estimates conflicted with proteomics. While the DNA signal decreased by an order of magnitude in the older burial samples, there was no decrease in proteomic signal. We conclude that proteomics provides an important complement to osteological and shotgun-genomic sex estimation.

Copyright of Ataturk Yolu Journal / Atatürk Yolu Dergisi is the property of Ataturk Yolu Journal / Ataturk Yolu Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Landscape archaeology (archaeogeography) is a multidisciplinary study used by prehistorical, classic, and historical archaeologists. Archaeogeography deals with the study of how people have shaped and used their environment throughout history. It focuses on the relationship between the material culture of a given community and the changes it introduces in its spatial environment. Traditionally search for archaeological sites is mainly carried out using surface research, i.e., observation of ploughed fields in spring and autumn. However, the percentage ratio of the area covered by forests to the total area of the countries can reach up to even several dozen per cent. This is where archaeogeography aided with modern remote sensing data and processing techniques can be most useful. In this article, the authors describe the problems occurring while searching for anthropological objects in forest areas. In this first part of the two-part series, the authors present a non-invasive method based on widely available remote sensing and historical data that can be used for remote prospection or archaeological sides. The authors also present methods of field verification and critically describe the limitations and advantages of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy / Revue Canadienne de Philosophie Continentale is the property of Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We challenge the view that our species, Homo sapiens, evolved within a single population and/or region of Africa. The chronology and physical diversity of Pleistocene human fossils suggest that morphologically varied populations pertaining to the H. sapiens clade lived throughout Africa. Similarly, the African archaeological record demonstrates the polycentric origin and persistence of regionally distinct Pleistocene material culture in a variety of paleoecological settings. Genetic studies also indicate that present-day population structure within Africa extends to deep times, paralleling a paleoenvironmental record of shifting and fractured habitable zones. We argue that these fields support an emerging view of a highly structured African prehistory that should be considered in human evolutionary inferences, prompting new interpretations, questions, and interdisciplinary research directions.

Do human societies from around the world exhibit similarities in the way that they are structured, and show commonalities in the ways that they have evolved? These are long-standing questions that have proven difficult to answer. To test between competing hypotheses, we constructed a massive repository of historical and archaeological information known as "Seshat: Global History Databank." We systematically coded data on 414 societies from 30 regions around the world spanning the last 10,000 years. We were able to capture information on 51 variables reflecting nine characteristics of human societies, such as social scale, economy, features of governance, and information systems. Our analyses revealed that these different characteristics show strong relationships with each other and that a single principal component captures around three-quarters of the observed variation. Furthermore, we found that different characteristics of social complexity are highly predictable across different world regions. These results suggest that key aspects of social organization are functionally related and do indeed coevolve in predictable ways. Our findings highlight the power of the sciences and humanities working together to rigorously test hypotheses about general rules that may have shaped human history.

Shi et al. [[9]] emphasized the significance of remote sensing reflectance as a crucial parameter in the remote sensing inversion of plateau inland water colors. Remote sensing has played a pivotal role in advancing the fields of archaeology, geography, and earth sciences, offering new perspectives and unparalleled opportunities for research, analysis, and interpretation within these disciplines. [Extracted from the article]