El Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte finaliza la restauración de los bienes intervenidos tras el terremoto. Comienza la restauración del Monasterio de Santa María de las Huertas
Hoy se ha celebrado la reunión de la Comisión de Seguimiento del Plan Director de recuperación del patrimonio de Lorca, donde el Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte ha informado de la finalización de las obras de consolidación y restauración de la Torre del Espolón y de las murallas del Castillo de Lorca. La intervención, que se inició inmediatamente tras el terremoto, ha sido llevada a cabo por el Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España y ha supuesto una inversión de 1.087.000 euros.
La Comisión ha avanzado en la planificación y programación de las siguientes actuaciones de conservación y restauración. La prioridad son las obras de emergencia en la iglesia del Monasterio de Santa María de las Huertas que en los próximos días va a iniciar el Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España, por valor de 526.000 euros. El objetivo es asegurar la estabilidad del inmueble y consolidar sus elementos arquitectónicos y de sus valiosas pinturas murales.
Trabajos realizados
Como consecuencia de los movimientos sísmicos registrados el 11 de mayo de 2011, la Torre del Espolón sufrió importantes desprendimientos y pérdidas de volumen en la totalidad de su coronación, con la aparición de grietas en los muros, en los paramentos y bóvedas del interior. En ese sentido, se han consolidados los muros, rellenando las grietas aparecidas sin intentar desplazar los paramentos a su posición original. También se ha rehecho el forjado de coronación y se han rellenado los senos de las bóvedas, con el fin de aumentar la estabilidad del conjunto.
En las murallas del recinto del Castillo se registraron derrumbes de lienzos, grietas en las fábricas de mampostería y desprendimientos. Las obras han consolidado y restaurado las estructuras que habían sufrido daños y han asegurado la estabilidad de los elementos no afectados por el terremoto, aun manteniendo sus huellas. Actualmente se está redactando un proyecto para terminar de consolidar y asegurar las restantes zonas del recinto del Castillo.
También se ha terminado la restauración de 152 piezas, la mayor parte de cerámica, del Museo Arqueológico Municipal de Lorca. El proyecto ha supuesto una inversión de 54.000 euros.
Todas estas intervenciones se desarrollan en el marco del Plan Director de Recuperación del Patrimonio Cultural de Lorca, instrumento de gestión y coordinación entre las administraciones públicas para la planificación y programación de actuaciones de conservación y restauración tras el terremoto.
http://www.murcia.com
jueves, 31 de mayo de 2012
Álava ejemplifica su recuperación del patrimonio arqueológico
El Bibat recorre hasta octubre nueve de las 104 actuaciones hechas en el territorio entre 2010 y 2011
Carlos González- Jueves, 31
A través de una serie de paneles y de ejemplos de lo descubierto, el museo se acerca al Convento de San Pedro de las Clarisas de Salvatierra, la urbanización del Casco Histórico de Salina de Añana, la renovación de infraestructuras en el Casco Histórico y en el entorno de la Iglesia de San Esteban en Korres, la cueva Askana 5 en Marquínez (Bernedo), el Castillo de Valdefrailes en el Elciego, el número 18 de la calle San Roque de Labraza, el sector cuarto de la muralla de Vitoria, una parcela en Arkaia, y la ermita de la Asunción de Ocio.
Estos nueves lugares son los "botones" elegidos por la Diputación para ofrecer "un resumen aleatorio" de un trabajo "en el que no siempre se hacen grandes descubrimientos que copan la atención de los medios" pero que tienen su importancia para el conocimiento del pasado, según describió ayer Javier Fernández Bordegarai, técnico del Servicio foral de Patrimonio Histórico-Artístico y Arqueológico en la presentación de la exposición, acto en el que estuvo acompañado tanto por la diputada de Cultura, Iciar Lamarain, como por un buen número de compañeros de profesión y actividad.
http://www.noticiasdealava.com/2012/05/31/ocio-y-cultura/cultura/alava-ejemplifica-su-recuperacion-del-patrimonio-arqueologico
La muralla del Castillo de Gauzón se erigió en el siglo IX
Excavar más y consolidar lo ya recuperado, objetivos de la sexta temporada arqueológica que comienza mañana
Las pruebas de Carbono 14 han confirmado que el muro que protegía el antiguo Castillo de Gauzón, en lo alto del Peñón de Raíces, fue construido a finales del siglo VIII-principios del IX, en pleno auge del Reino Astur. Y no era una muralla cualquiera. Construida a base de piedra y mortero de cal y con una anchura que oscilaba entre los 2,5 y los 3,2 metros, «es la muralla de mayor envergadura de la época de la que se tiene constancia en Asturias», manifestó Iván Muñiz, codirector, junto con Alejandro García, del equipo de arqueólogos que hace cinco años comenzó a desvelar los secretos que oculta el Peñón de Raíces.
La sexta campaña comienza mañana con un doble objetivo: excavar, para seguir dando respuestas a las muchas preguntas que plantea el alto medievo asturiano, y consolidar lo que ya ha salido a la luz, con el fin de dejarlo todo dispuesto para una futura musealización de la zona. Los trabajos se prolongarán durante cinco meses, a cargo de un equipo de diez personas (cinco arqueólogos y cinco operarios).
El presupuesto, 133.000 euros, absorbe toda la partida municipal destinada a inversión. Según explicó la concejala de Patrimonio y Hacienda, Yasmina Triguero, «ese dinero sólo se puede destinar a inversiones con carácter patrimonial, y la importancia del enclave y de los descubrimientos justifica que se destine al Peñón de Raíces».
Hay que retroceder otros cien años en el tiempo, hasta finales del siglo VII-principios del VIII, para alcanzar los orígenes del Castillo de Gauzón. La posterior construcción de las murallas «ratifica que era un símbolo de poder y ostentación asociado a los reyes Astures y que a mediados del siglo IX, estaba a pleno ocupación», manifestó Iván Muñiz. El enclave dominaba los accesos a la ría de Avilés y las rutas de navegación costera, y advertía a posibles hordas hostiles que en el caso de desembarcar, se les iba a presentar batalla.
Entonces reinaba Alfonso II El Casto, «que posiblemente visitaba con frecuencia el enclave», añadió Muñiz. La zona regia se situaba en lo alto del peñón, y estaba claramente separada del asentamiento, mucho más modesto, situado un poco más abajo, cuyos restos también son objeto de investigación. Quién vivía allí aún no está claro. «Podía ser personal al servicio de la nobleza o los propios obreros que levantaron la muralla», puntualiza García.
De la muralla perimetral, que protegía una superficie de unos 1.500 metros cuadrados, queda un tramo de unos diez metros de longitud, que se recrecerá en altura «hasta donde se pueda», utilizando la piedra original que todavía queda allí.
La sexta campaña de excavaciones arqueológicas intentar desenterrar nuevos tramos y ahondará en las dependencias regias, una estancia con baño y firme de mosaico. «El objetivo es que el visitante pueda hacerse una idea de cómo era el Castillo de Gauzón», concluyó Muñiz.
http://www.elcomercio.es/v/20120531/castrillon/muralla-castillo-gauzon-erigio-20120531.html
Discovery of Historical Photos Sheds Light On Greenland Ice Loss
ScienceDaily (May 29, 2012) — A chance discovery of 80-year-old photo plates in a Danish basement is providing new insight into how Greenland glaciers are melting today.
Researchers at the National Survey and Cadastre of Denmark -- that country's federal agency responsible for surveys and mapping -- had been storing the glass plates since explorer Knud Rasmussen's expedition to the southeast coast of Greenland in the early 1930s.
In this week's online edition of Nature Geoscience, Ohio State University researchers and colleagues in Denmark describe how they analyzed ice loss in the region by comparing the images on the plates to aerial photographs and satellite images taken from World War II to today.
Taken together, the imagery shows that glaciers in the region were melting even faster in the 1930s than they are today, said Jason Box, associate professor of geography and researcher at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State. A brief cooling period starting in the mid-20th century allowed new ice to form, and then the melting began to accelerate again in the 2000s.
"Because of this study, we now have a detailed historical analogue for more recent glacier loss," Box said. "And we've confirmed that glaciers are very sensitive indicators of climate."
Pre-satellite observations of Greenland glaciers are rare. Anders Anker Bjørk, doctoral fellow at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and lead author of the study, is trying to compile all such imagery. He found a clue in the archives of The Arctic Institute in Copenhagen in 2011.
"We found flight journals for some old planes, and in them was a reference to National Survey and Cadastre of Denmark," Bjørk said.
As it happens, researchers at the National Survey had already contacted Bjørk about a find of their own.
"They were cleaning up in the basement and had found some old glass plates with glaciers on them. The reason the plates were forgotten was that they were recorded for mapping, and once the map was produced they didn't have much value."
Those plates turned out to be documentation of Rasmussen's 7th Thule Expedition to Greenland. They contained aerial photographs of land, sea and glaciers in the southeast region of the country, along with travel photos of Rasmussen's team.
The researchers digitized all the old images and used software to look for differences in the shape of the southeast Greenland coastline where the ice meets the Atlantic Ocean. Then they calculated the distance the ice front moved in each time period.
Over the 80 years, two events stand out: glacial retreats from 1933-1934 and 2000-2010. In the 1930s, fewer glaciers were melting than are today, and most of those that were melting were land-terminating glaciers, meaning that they did not contact the sea.
Those that were melting retreated an average of 20 meters per year -- the fastest retreating at 374 meters per year. Fifty-five percent of the glaciers in the study had similar or higher retreat rates during the 1930s than they do today.
Still, more glaciers in southeast Greenland are retreating today, and the average ice loss is 50 meters per year. That's because a few glaciers with very fast melting rates -- including one retreating at 887 meters per year -- boost the overall average.
But to Box, the most interesting part of the study is what happened between the two melting events.
From 1943-1972, southeast Greenland cooled -- probably due to sulfur pollution, which reflects sunlight away from Earth.
Sulfur dioxide is a poisonous gas produced by volcanoes and industrial processes. It has been tied to serious health problems and death, and is also the main ingredient in acid rain. Its presence in the atmosphere peaked just after the Clean Air Act was established in 1963. As it was removed from the atmosphere, the earlier warming resumed.
The important point is not that deadly pollution caused the climate to cool, but rather that the brief cooling allowed researchers to see how Greenland ice responded to the changing climate.
The glaciers responded to the cooling more rapidly than researchers had seen in earlier studies. Sixty percent of the glaciers advanced during that time, while 12 percent were stationary. And now that the warming has resumed, the glacial retreat is dominated by marine-terminating outlet glaciers, the melting of which contributes to sea level rise.
"From these images, we see that the mid-century cooling stabilized the glaciers," Box said. "That suggests that if we want to stabilize today's accelerating ice loss, we need to see a little cooling of our own."
Southeast Greenland is a good place to study the effects of climate change, he explained, because the region is closely tied to air and water circulation patterns in the North Atlantic.
"By far, more storms pass through this region -- transporting heat into the Arctic -- than anywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere. Climate change brings changes in snowfall and air temperature that compete for influence on a glacier's net behavior," he said.
Co-authors on the study include Kurt H. Kjær, Niels J. Korsgaard, Kristian K. Kjeldsen, and Svend Funder at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen; Shfaqat A. Khan of the National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark; Camilla S. Andresen of the Department of Marine Geology and Glaciology at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland; and Nicolaj K. Larsen of the Department of Geoscience at Aarhus University.
Photos, satellite images and other data for the study were provided by the National Survey and Cadastre; The Scott Polar Research Institute in the United Kingdom; the Arctic Institute in Denmark; researchers Bea Csatho and Sudhagar Nagarajan of the Geology Department at the University at Buffalo; and the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center at the USGS/Earth Resources Observation and Science Center of Sioux Falls, S.D. Andreas Pedersen of the Danish company MapWork wrote the script for the software used in the study.
This work is a part of the RinkProject funded by the Danish Research Council and the Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120529144339.htm
Researchers at the National Survey and Cadastre of Denmark -- that country's federal agency responsible for surveys and mapping -- had been storing the glass plates since explorer Knud Rasmussen's expedition to the southeast coast of Greenland in the early 1930s.
In this week's online edition of Nature Geoscience, Ohio State University researchers and colleagues in Denmark describe how they analyzed ice loss in the region by comparing the images on the plates to aerial photographs and satellite images taken from World War II to today.
Taken together, the imagery shows that glaciers in the region were melting even faster in the 1930s than they are today, said Jason Box, associate professor of geography and researcher at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State. A brief cooling period starting in the mid-20th century allowed new ice to form, and then the melting began to accelerate again in the 2000s.
"Because of this study, we now have a detailed historical analogue for more recent glacier loss," Box said. "And we've confirmed that glaciers are very sensitive indicators of climate."
Pre-satellite observations of Greenland glaciers are rare. Anders Anker Bjørk, doctoral fellow at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and lead author of the study, is trying to compile all such imagery. He found a clue in the archives of The Arctic Institute in Copenhagen in 2011.
"We found flight journals for some old planes, and in them was a reference to National Survey and Cadastre of Denmark," Bjørk said.
As it happens, researchers at the National Survey had already contacted Bjørk about a find of their own.
"They were cleaning up in the basement and had found some old glass plates with glaciers on them. The reason the plates were forgotten was that they were recorded for mapping, and once the map was produced they didn't have much value."
Those plates turned out to be documentation of Rasmussen's 7th Thule Expedition to Greenland. They contained aerial photographs of land, sea and glaciers in the southeast region of the country, along with travel photos of Rasmussen's team.
The researchers digitized all the old images and used software to look for differences in the shape of the southeast Greenland coastline where the ice meets the Atlantic Ocean. Then they calculated the distance the ice front moved in each time period.
Over the 80 years, two events stand out: glacial retreats from 1933-1934 and 2000-2010. In the 1930s, fewer glaciers were melting than are today, and most of those that were melting were land-terminating glaciers, meaning that they did not contact the sea.
Those that were melting retreated an average of 20 meters per year -- the fastest retreating at 374 meters per year. Fifty-five percent of the glaciers in the study had similar or higher retreat rates during the 1930s than they do today.
Still, more glaciers in southeast Greenland are retreating today, and the average ice loss is 50 meters per year. That's because a few glaciers with very fast melting rates -- including one retreating at 887 meters per year -- boost the overall average.
But to Box, the most interesting part of the study is what happened between the two melting events.
From 1943-1972, southeast Greenland cooled -- probably due to sulfur pollution, which reflects sunlight away from Earth.
Sulfur dioxide is a poisonous gas produced by volcanoes and industrial processes. It has been tied to serious health problems and death, and is also the main ingredient in acid rain. Its presence in the atmosphere peaked just after the Clean Air Act was established in 1963. As it was removed from the atmosphere, the earlier warming resumed.
The important point is not that deadly pollution caused the climate to cool, but rather that the brief cooling allowed researchers to see how Greenland ice responded to the changing climate.
The glaciers responded to the cooling more rapidly than researchers had seen in earlier studies. Sixty percent of the glaciers advanced during that time, while 12 percent were stationary. And now that the warming has resumed, the glacial retreat is dominated by marine-terminating outlet glaciers, the melting of which contributes to sea level rise.
"From these images, we see that the mid-century cooling stabilized the glaciers," Box said. "That suggests that if we want to stabilize today's accelerating ice loss, we need to see a little cooling of our own."
Southeast Greenland is a good place to study the effects of climate change, he explained, because the region is closely tied to air and water circulation patterns in the North Atlantic.
"By far, more storms pass through this region -- transporting heat into the Arctic -- than anywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere. Climate change brings changes in snowfall and air temperature that compete for influence on a glacier's net behavior," he said.
Co-authors on the study include Kurt H. Kjær, Niels J. Korsgaard, Kristian K. Kjeldsen, and Svend Funder at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen; Shfaqat A. Khan of the National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark; Camilla S. Andresen of the Department of Marine Geology and Glaciology at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland; and Nicolaj K. Larsen of the Department of Geoscience at Aarhus University.
Photos, satellite images and other data for the study were provided by the National Survey and Cadastre; The Scott Polar Research Institute in the United Kingdom; the Arctic Institute in Denmark; researchers Bea Csatho and Sudhagar Nagarajan of the Geology Department at the University at Buffalo; and the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center at the USGS/Earth Resources Observation and Science Center of Sioux Falls, S.D. Andreas Pedersen of the Danish company MapWork wrote the script for the software used in the study.
This work is a part of the RinkProject funded by the Danish Research Council and the Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland.
First Prehistoric Twins Discovered in Iberian Peninsula
ScienceDaily (May 30, 2012) — Researchers
at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) have discovered the
remains of newborn twin girls in the archaeological site of Olèrdola in
Barcelona. They date back to between the middle of the 4th century B.C.
to the beginning of the 2nd century B.C. The findings are the first bone
remains of twins to be recorded in the Iberian Peninsula
"This is the first documented case in the Iberian Peninsula. There has been much talk of possible twins but never has sufficient data been gathered in the field to determine whether findings belong to the same chronological moment in time, nor has data ever been found on the same stratigraphic level to guarantee with such certainty like in this instance," as explained by Eulalia Subira, researcher at the UAB and coauthor of the study published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.
The remains were found in the archaeological site of Sant Miquel d'Olèrdola in Catalonia and it is expected that they belong to two girls between 38 and 40 weeks of gestation who were buried at the same time in the same grave with their legs entwined.
According to the study, "none of the bone remains show pathological evidence of the cause of death but it could have been a consequence of difficult pregnancy or childbirth. Lack of sufficient hygiene could have lead to infant and maternal mortality in Prehistoric times."
In order to test this finding, scientists used forensic anthropology methods, first determining the age and sex. "The specialist carrying out such assessment was 'blind'. In other words, she was not told at any time that both individuals were found next to each other or that they could be twins."
The age of the twins was estimated by taking the tooth germs, the length of the bones and the state of ossification. In addition, experts used photographs of the site to see whether they had been buried at the same time or not, they spoke with archaeologists, who indicated that the two remains had been found in the same grave, and they studied the planimetries.
Subirà points out that "they also carried out DNA analysis but it was not possible to obtain DNA data on one of the individuals despite repeating sampling taking and analysis."
Children buried near to their mothers
This discovery offers new information to the numerous documented cases of child burials during the Iberian Age, when perinatal children were not buried in cemeteries.
"The Olèrdola archaeological site is itself very interesting. It has always been said that throughout the Iberian Age newly born children were not buried in cemeteries. In this case, they were found in a skin tanning and dying area: in other words, a space dedicated to work," points out Subirà.
For the researcher, finding newly born children buried in a work area could indicate that it was where the mothers used to work. This provides information on society and the attachment relationship that parents had with deceased newly born children.
"Recognition of this type of burial will be of great assistance in the future when it comes to interpreting the socio-cultural impact of the arrival of twins in a pre or proto-historic population, their treatment and their life expectancy. We are currently working in the same archaeological site but on more recent remains," as the researcher concludes
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120530133624.htm
"This is the first documented case in the Iberian Peninsula. There has been much talk of possible twins but never has sufficient data been gathered in the field to determine whether findings belong to the same chronological moment in time, nor has data ever been found on the same stratigraphic level to guarantee with such certainty like in this instance," as explained by Eulalia Subira, researcher at the UAB and coauthor of the study published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.
The remains were found in the archaeological site of Sant Miquel d'Olèrdola in Catalonia and it is expected that they belong to two girls between 38 and 40 weeks of gestation who were buried at the same time in the same grave with their legs entwined.
According to the study, "none of the bone remains show pathological evidence of the cause of death but it could have been a consequence of difficult pregnancy or childbirth. Lack of sufficient hygiene could have lead to infant and maternal mortality in Prehistoric times."
In order to test this finding, scientists used forensic anthropology methods, first determining the age and sex. "The specialist carrying out such assessment was 'blind'. In other words, she was not told at any time that both individuals were found next to each other or that they could be twins."
The age of the twins was estimated by taking the tooth germs, the length of the bones and the state of ossification. In addition, experts used photographs of the site to see whether they had been buried at the same time or not, they spoke with archaeologists, who indicated that the two remains had been found in the same grave, and they studied the planimetries.
Subirà points out that "they also carried out DNA analysis but it was not possible to obtain DNA data on one of the individuals despite repeating sampling taking and analysis."
Children buried near to their mothers
This discovery offers new information to the numerous documented cases of child burials during the Iberian Age, when perinatal children were not buried in cemeteries.
"The Olèrdola archaeological site is itself very interesting. It has always been said that throughout the Iberian Age newly born children were not buried in cemeteries. In this case, they were found in a skin tanning and dying area: in other words, a space dedicated to work," points out Subirà.
For the researcher, finding newly born children buried in a work area could indicate that it was where the mothers used to work. This provides information on society and the attachment relationship that parents had with deceased newly born children.
"Recognition of this type of burial will be of great assistance in the future when it comes to interpreting the socio-cultural impact of the arrival of twins in a pre or proto-historic population, their treatment and their life expectancy. We are currently working in the same archaeological site but on more recent remains," as the researcher concludes
Stronger protection to Welsh cave art site after vandalism
An ancient cave which proves the existence of human life in Wales more than
12,000 years ago is set to receive greater protection from heritage body Cadw
after vandals destroyed 70% of its archeological secrets. The Gower site is home
to Britain's oldest recorded Palaeolithic cave art - but much of it has been
destroyed in what has been described as a 'mindless attack'. The site's
importance means its exact location is a closely guarded secret, but protection
work is set to commence to preserve what is left.
A Welsh Government spokesman said: "Since the discovery of the rock art in 2010 and the distressing deliberate damage to it, Cadw has been in discussion with the Forestry Commission, National Museum Wales, the Countryside Council for Wales and the finder of the art to agree how best to protect the site. The site has been scheduled and works to safeguard it are due to commence shortly."
Dr George Nash, an archaeology lecturer at Bristol University and consultant employed at SLR Consulting in Shrewsbury, discovered the engraving while undertaking field work in 2010. "This is a site of huge international importance, and research by a team of specialists has dated the paintings as being 12,572 years old, plus or minus 600 years. At that time this area of Wales experienced summers of -10°C and we know there was a huge ice sheet just four or five kilometres north of the cave," said Dr Nash. "It's not only the oldest rock art ever found in the UK but, until a few years ago, history books would have told you that human beings could not have survived here in such severe conditions, clearly now this is not the case. This evidence proves that they could, and did," he added.
Dr Nash also said: "We've also been incredibly lucky at this site because you can only date engravings like this if something overlies them such as flowstone (stalagmite). For some reason, and by complete coincidence, the person who engraved this art over 12,000 years ago did so on a piece of rock where a flowstone later grew over it, which is the only reason we could work out its history."
Archeologist Karl-James Langford called for better protection of such sites. He said: "No effort has been made to present the work to the public, or even to protect it. Here in Wales, we make very little effort to protect much of our past, when there is a large amount of money available to protect it elsewhere in Great Britain. On a visit only last week with one of my students, we examined the cave, and found various amounts of rubbish in it, and the Palaeolithic cave art discovered two-and-a-half years ago of a reindeer has been smeared over with mud."
Dr Nash said: "From a scientific point of view we can treat these vandals with utter contempt because we managed to get all the recorded data that we needed before the site was damaged. But from a historic point of view it really is a tragedy for the people of Wales because this was a significant part of our past, and an amazing site." He added: "The good news is that steps are being carried out to stop vandals getting back in there and what remains will be protected for many, many more years."
http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/004785.html
A Welsh Government spokesman said: "Since the discovery of the rock art in 2010 and the distressing deliberate damage to it, Cadw has been in discussion with the Forestry Commission, National Museum Wales, the Countryside Council for Wales and the finder of the art to agree how best to protect the site. The site has been scheduled and works to safeguard it are due to commence shortly."
Dr George Nash, an archaeology lecturer at Bristol University and consultant employed at SLR Consulting in Shrewsbury, discovered the engraving while undertaking field work in 2010. "This is a site of huge international importance, and research by a team of specialists has dated the paintings as being 12,572 years old, plus or minus 600 years. At that time this area of Wales experienced summers of -10°C and we know there was a huge ice sheet just four or five kilometres north of the cave," said Dr Nash. "It's not only the oldest rock art ever found in the UK but, until a few years ago, history books would have told you that human beings could not have survived here in such severe conditions, clearly now this is not the case. This evidence proves that they could, and did," he added.
Dr Nash also said: "We've also been incredibly lucky at this site because you can only date engravings like this if something overlies them such as flowstone (stalagmite). For some reason, and by complete coincidence, the person who engraved this art over 12,000 years ago did so on a piece of rock where a flowstone later grew over it, which is the only reason we could work out its history."
Archeologist Karl-James Langford called for better protection of such sites. He said: "No effort has been made to present the work to the public, or even to protect it. Here in Wales, we make very little effort to protect much of our past, when there is a large amount of money available to protect it elsewhere in Great Britain. On a visit only last week with one of my students, we examined the cave, and found various amounts of rubbish in it, and the Palaeolithic cave art discovered two-and-a-half years ago of a reindeer has been smeared over with mud."
Dr Nash said: "From a scientific point of view we can treat these vandals with utter contempt because we managed to get all the recorded data that we needed before the site was damaged. But from a historic point of view it really is a tragedy for the people of Wales because this was a significant part of our past, and an amazing site." He added: "The good news is that steps are being carried out to stop vandals getting back in there and what remains will be protected for many, many more years."
http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/004785.html
miércoles, 30 de mayo de 2012
El primer caso de gemelas prehistóricas sale a la luz
Los esqueletos de las recién nacidas, que estaban entrelazados, han sido descubiertos en el yacimiento de Olèrdola, en Barcelona
sinc / madrid
sinc / madrid
Hace doce años, un grupo de arqueólogos encontró los restos de dos esqueletos infantiles en la misma tumba y con sus extremidades entrelazadas en el yacimiento barcelonés de Sant Miquel d'Olèrdola. Ahora, especialistas en antropología forense de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona han podido confirmar que estos restos pertenecieron a dos hermanas gemelas recién nacidas que datan de mediados del siglo IV aC a principios del siglo II aC
“Es el primer caso documentado en la Península. Se habla muchas veces de posibles gemelos, pero nunca ha habido los suficientes datos recogidos en el campo como para decir que pertenecían al mismo momento cronológico, ni se habían encontrado en el mismo nivel estratigráfico para garantizar con esa certeza como en esta ocasión”, explica Eulàlia Subirà, investigadora de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB) y coautora del estudio que publica el International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.
Se estima que las dos niñas tenían una edad aproximada de 38 a 40 semanas de gestación. “Ninguno de los restos óseos mostró evidencia patológica de la causa de la muerte por lo que es posible que sea consecuencia de un embarazo difícil o del parto. La falta de higiene también podía conducir a altas tasas de mortalidad infantil y materna en la prehistoria”, explica el estudio.
Los investigadores emplearon métodos de antropología forense y establecieron primero la edad y el sexo. “La especialista que hizo estas valoraciones ‘iba a ciegas’, es decir, en ningún momento se le indicó que estos dos individuos estaban juntos en el yacimiento y que se podía tratar de gemelos”.
La estimación de la edad se estableció a partir de los gérmenes dentarios, la longitud de los huesos y el estado de osificación. Del hueso coxal y la mandíbula dedujeron el sexo de las niñas.
Además, ‘jugaron’ con las fotografías de campo para ver si habían sido enterradas en un mismo momento o no, hablaron con los arqueólogos –que les indicaron que los dos restos se localizaron era una única fosa – y estudiaron las planimetrías.
“También se intentaron análisis de ADN. Sin embargo, de una de ellas no se consiguió extraer este dato a pesar de reiterar la toma de muestras y los análisis”, apunta Subirà.
Enterradas cerca de su madre
Este descubrimiento proporciona nueva información a los numerosos casos documentados de entierros infantiles de la época ibérica, cuando los niños recién nacidos no eran enterrados en las necrópolis.
“Las gemelas se han encontrado en una zona de curtimiento de piel y tintes del poblado, es decir, un área dedicada al trabajo”, apunta Subirà. Según la investigadora, podría tratarse del lugar donde trabajaban las madres, lo que aportaría información sobre la sociedad y la relación de apego de la progenitora con sus hijas fallecidas.
“El reconocimiento de este tipo de entierros será de gran ayuda en el futuro para interpretar el impacto sociocultural de la llegada de los gemelos en una población pre o protohistórica, su tratamiento y la expectativa de vida. Ahora estamos trabajando en este mismo yacimiento pero en restos más recientes”, concluye.
http://www.abc.es/20120530/ciencia/abci-primer-caso-gemelas-prehistoricas-201205301101.html#.T8ZDIgKJl65.twitter
Class system began 7,000 years ago, archaeologists find
By JENNY FYALL
THE idea of the “haves” and the “have-nots” may seem like a largely modern concept – but in reality social inequality dates back to the Stone Age, archaeologists have discovered.
By analysing 300 human skeletons from the early Neolithic era, scientists from three British universities have discovered that social inequality began more than 7,000 years ago.
It is the earliest evidence yet found of members of society having unequal access to land and possessions, and suggests that the concept of inherited wealth started with Neolithic man.
And they also found that, for Stone Age women, it was the norm to leave their families and move in with the families of their new husbands – a social structure known as patrilocality.
The archaeologists, from the universities of Bristol, Cardiff and Oxford, discovered that farmers buried with tools had access to better land than those buried without.
Isotope analysis was carried out on the skeletons to work out their place of origin. Those men buried with stone tools for smoothing or carving wood, known as adzes, had access to close, and probably better, land than those buried without.
Professor Alex Bentley, professor of archaeology and anthropology at the University of Bristol, said: “The men buried with adzes appear to have lived on food grown in areas of loess, the fertile and productive soil favoured by early farmers. This indicates they had consistent access to preferred farming areas.”
The strontium isotope analysis also revealed that early Neolithic women were more likely than men to have originated from areas outside those where their bodies were found. The scientists say this is a strong indication of “patrilocality” – a social system where women move to live in the location of their husband when they marry.
The strontium isotope ratios in teeth stay constant from childhood, and can be matched to the geology where they grew up, giving an insight into the location of their birth.
The evidence is backed up by other archaeological, genetic, anthropological and linguistic evidence for patrilocality in Neolithic Europe. The study authors believe the new research has implications for genetic modelling of how human populations expanded – and they believe status differences are crucial for this modelling.
Prof Bentley said: “Our results, along with archaeobotanical studies that indicate the earliest farmers of Neolithic Germany had a system of land tenure, suggest the origins of differential access to land can be traced back to an early part of the Neolithic era, rather than only to later prehistory when inequality and intergenerational wealth transfers are more clearly evidenced in burials and material culture.
“It seems the Neolithic era introduced heritable property – land and livestock – into Europe, and that wealth inequality got underway when this happened. After that there was no looking back: through the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Industrial era, wealth inequality increased but the ‘seeds’ of inequality were sown way back in the Neolithic.”
The research is published in the journal PNAS.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/class-system-began-7-000-years-ago-archaeologists-find-1-2324082
THE idea of the “haves” and the “have-nots” may seem like a largely modern concept – but in reality social inequality dates back to the Stone Age, archaeologists have discovered.
By analysing 300 human skeletons from the early Neolithic era, scientists from three British universities have discovered that social inequality began more than 7,000 years ago.
It is the earliest evidence yet found of members of society having unequal access to land and possessions, and suggests that the concept of inherited wealth started with Neolithic man.
And they also found that, for Stone Age women, it was the norm to leave their families and move in with the families of their new husbands – a social structure known as patrilocality.
The archaeologists, from the universities of Bristol, Cardiff and Oxford, discovered that farmers buried with tools had access to better land than those buried without.
Isotope analysis was carried out on the skeletons to work out their place of origin. Those men buried with stone tools for smoothing or carving wood, known as adzes, had access to close, and probably better, land than those buried without.
Professor Alex Bentley, professor of archaeology and anthropology at the University of Bristol, said: “The men buried with adzes appear to have lived on food grown in areas of loess, the fertile and productive soil favoured by early farmers. This indicates they had consistent access to preferred farming areas.”
The strontium isotope analysis also revealed that early Neolithic women were more likely than men to have originated from areas outside those where their bodies were found. The scientists say this is a strong indication of “patrilocality” – a social system where women move to live in the location of their husband when they marry.
The strontium isotope ratios in teeth stay constant from childhood, and can be matched to the geology where they grew up, giving an insight into the location of their birth.
The evidence is backed up by other archaeological, genetic, anthropological and linguistic evidence for patrilocality in Neolithic Europe. The study authors believe the new research has implications for genetic modelling of how human populations expanded – and they believe status differences are crucial for this modelling.
Prof Bentley said: “Our results, along with archaeobotanical studies that indicate the earliest farmers of Neolithic Germany had a system of land tenure, suggest the origins of differential access to land can be traced back to an early part of the Neolithic era, rather than only to later prehistory when inequality and intergenerational wealth transfers are more clearly evidenced in burials and material culture.
“It seems the Neolithic era introduced heritable property – land and livestock – into Europe, and that wealth inequality got underway when this happened. After that there was no looking back: through the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Industrial era, wealth inequality increased but the ‘seeds’ of inequality were sown way back in the Neolithic.”
The research is published in the journal PNAS.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/class-system-began-7-000-years-ago-archaeologists-find-1-2324082
Roman-era shipwrecks found in deep waters off Greece
Two Roman-era shipwrecks have been found in deep waters off Greece's western coast, challenging the theory that ancient mariners stuck close to coastal routes for safety.
Greece's culture ministry says two second-century wrecks were found earlier this month in waters over a half-mile deep off the islands of Corfu and Paxoi.
A ministry statement says the wreckage was found in an area where a Greek-Italian gas pipeline is to be located, the Associated Press reports.
A Greek oceanographic vessel using side-scan radar and robot submarines took footage of scattered pottery, ballast stones and what could be remains of the wooden ships, the AP reports.
The team also raised samples of pottery and marble artifacts
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/05/roman-era-ships-founds-in-deep-waters-off-greece/1#.T8UG-mvF98F
Greece's culture ministry says two second-century wrecks were found earlier this month in waters over a half-mile deep off the islands of Corfu and Paxoi.
A ministry statement says the wreckage was found in an area where a Greek-Italian gas pipeline is to be located, the Associated Press reports.
A Greek oceanographic vessel using side-scan radar and robot submarines took footage of scattered pottery, ballast stones and what could be remains of the wooden ships, the AP reports.
The team also raised samples of pottery and marble artifacts
Kourion excavation hoping for Cyprus first
By Bejay Browne
A team of archaeologists from a Texas theological seminary and the University of Cyprus is hoping to reveal the ordinary domestic lives of Cyprus’ early Christians in a new dig at Kourion (Curium) which was destroyed by a series of earthquakes around 365 AD.
A long-cherished hope of team leader Professor Thomas Davis is that excavations will also uncover the island’s first ever “house-church”, a private home where early believers met to worship at a time when fear of persecution prevented the erection of churches.
“We are trying to explore something which doesn’t really get looked at in Cypriot archaeology, and that’s the common people,” said Davis, a professor of Archaeology and Biblical Backgrounds at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at Fort Worth Texas and previously a director of CAARI (Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute).
“Secretly, I would love to find the first house church found on Cyprus. There was a large community here and we know there were Christian believers before the quakes.”
Kourion, which archaeologists believe numbered up to 10,000 people, is situated in an area steeped in mostly Roman history whose famous remains include a large theatre, a market place, public baths and mosaics. Close by is the Sanctuary of Apollon Ylatis.
“We are catching the window of transition, when Cyprus is becoming Christian, the earthquakes mark the major division,” said Davis, who has spent many years excavating in Cyprus and throughout the Middle East.
His last dig at Kourion was 28 years ago as a graduate student and he said it was “wonderful to be back” for the dig which is called the Curium Urban Space Project (CUSP).
Just three days into the dig this week, and after digging only 20 cms down, the team had already uncovered what could be the wall of a previously uncovered house. They intend to dig down for up to a further two metres.
“Currently, we’ve opened up an area of 27 m2 and we will expand it to about 70m2. We have found what I think it could be the wall of a house. It’s plastered, which means it’s not something solely utilitarian. The wall has been smoothed nicely; we will see with further investigations,” Davis said.
He explained that prior to the quakes from 365 to 370 AD, pagan temples in Kourion were still active, and there were no churches. Although the history of Christianity in Cyprus dates back to the historic visit of Saint Paul and Barnabas in around 45 AD, and although a Paphos proconsul was to become the first official Roman governor to embrace the religion, the spread of Christianity in Cyprus was patchy at first.
In Kourion this meant Christian worship remained secretive - hence the significance of the house-church - and it was not until after the earthquakes that churches replaced temples as places of worship.
“This change is obvious in the lives of the common people. In the earthquake debris from 25 years ago, we found a Christian ring with a Chi-Rho symbol, [the Monogram of Christ].
We also found Christian lamps. These people were partially pagan and some were Christian. This is the same type of evidence that the late Danielle Parks found in her Amathus gate cemetery excavation,” he said.
The professor noted that the mosaics in Kato Paphos are beautiful and well known, but added that his team is looking for the remains of people who were living normal lives.
“We are not looking for evidence of the elite but people like us. The people who were just trying to get by and were hit by the earthquake in 365; we’re trying to capture that moment and see what that looks like. It’s an important moment in time.”
The team has already found tessera fragments - pieces of mosaics - a considerable amount of pottery, some glass, and groundstone. No metal items have been found yet, but the team expects to uncover some.
“The pottery all fits the sort of window of the earthquakes, so it may be third century to fifth century. What really gives us the tight dates though are the coins and we haven’t found any yet, but we will.”
Davis also expects to find artefacts consisting of glass and metal, lamps and lamp stands, pictures, pottery platters, large storage jars and other storage items as well as cooking items used in daily life.
“I’m sure we will also find the high end stuff you bring out when your mother in law comes to visit, as well as the normal things you use every day,” he said.
“We want to find more of these types of things, to see the change, to discover these families, who are they, how they express their new faith, or if they hang onto their old faith. We want to see how Christianity is beginning to grow and expand.
“Of course by the fifth century - Christianity becomes what a Cypriot is, it’s part of the Cypriot identity.”
The professor was approached by the Department of Antiquities last year to undertake the current excavation and was granted a permit by the government allocating the specific area of the dig.
He explained that before deciding on a likely area there are certain questions to answer. For instance, why are certain areas flat? Normally, this means that there has been an intervention by people to flatten it, so as to build there. In the area the team has chosen it is quite breezy, so this may be somewhere where housing is. There is also a well. “You primarily look for surface indications then mull over the evidence and with 30 years of experience you decide which spot to start digging in,” he said.
Trey Thames, a member of the archaeology team is a PhD student of Davis, explained what moves are taken to prepare a site.
“First we must clear the site of all the shrubs and weeds so that the surface is clearly visible. This helps us to do a visual survey - to look at the area you’ve chosen and identify any specific visual IDs. After that we mark out our grid area and we start digging about 10 cm or so down,” he said.
“You start digging and pulling back the soil a little at the time .Once we get to an area where we think we’re going to find something, we stop using the big picks and switch to hand picks. You have to be very slow about it, and start sifting, looking for small finds that might be missed when you’re pulling the dirt out. It’s exciting. “
A mason’s trowel with a flat sharp edge is also used which allows the archaeologists to follow a surface by feeling it. This is especially useful in bright sunlight, such as the team is experiencing in Cyprus, when the light
at times is blinding.
“When you have enough experience you can ‘ride the surface’ with a trowel. That was how we picked up the wall; initially we didn’t see it, we felt it,” said Davis.
“Archaeologists like to study transition and change because it tells us so much about ourselves as we all go through change. When you understand the past you understand yourself much better.”
The team will be digging at the site in Kourion until June 22.
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/kourion/kourion-excavation-hoping-cyprus-first/20120527
A team of archaeologists from a Texas theological seminary and the University of Cyprus is hoping to reveal the ordinary domestic lives of Cyprus’ early Christians in a new dig at Kourion (Curium) which was destroyed by a series of earthquakes around 365 AD.
A long-cherished hope of team leader Professor Thomas Davis is that excavations will also uncover the island’s first ever “house-church”, a private home where early believers met to worship at a time when fear of persecution prevented the erection of churches.
“We are trying to explore something which doesn’t really get looked at in Cypriot archaeology, and that’s the common people,” said Davis, a professor of Archaeology and Biblical Backgrounds at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at Fort Worth Texas and previously a director of CAARI (Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute).
“Secretly, I would love to find the first house church found on Cyprus. There was a large community here and we know there were Christian believers before the quakes.”
Kourion, which archaeologists believe numbered up to 10,000 people, is situated in an area steeped in mostly Roman history whose famous remains include a large theatre, a market place, public baths and mosaics. Close by is the Sanctuary of Apollon Ylatis.
“We are catching the window of transition, when Cyprus is becoming Christian, the earthquakes mark the major division,” said Davis, who has spent many years excavating in Cyprus and throughout the Middle East.
His last dig at Kourion was 28 years ago as a graduate student and he said it was “wonderful to be back” for the dig which is called the Curium Urban Space Project (CUSP).
Just three days into the dig this week, and after digging only 20 cms down, the team had already uncovered what could be the wall of a previously uncovered house. They intend to dig down for up to a further two metres.
“Currently, we’ve opened up an area of 27 m2 and we will expand it to about 70m2. We have found what I think it could be the wall of a house. It’s plastered, which means it’s not something solely utilitarian. The wall has been smoothed nicely; we will see with further investigations,” Davis said.
He explained that prior to the quakes from 365 to 370 AD, pagan temples in Kourion were still active, and there were no churches. Although the history of Christianity in Cyprus dates back to the historic visit of Saint Paul and Barnabas in around 45 AD, and although a Paphos proconsul was to become the first official Roman governor to embrace the religion, the spread of Christianity in Cyprus was patchy at first.
In Kourion this meant Christian worship remained secretive - hence the significance of the house-church - and it was not until after the earthquakes that churches replaced temples as places of worship.
“This change is obvious in the lives of the common people. In the earthquake debris from 25 years ago, we found a Christian ring with a Chi-Rho symbol, [the Monogram of Christ].
We also found Christian lamps. These people were partially pagan and some were Christian. This is the same type of evidence that the late Danielle Parks found in her Amathus gate cemetery excavation,” he said.
The professor noted that the mosaics in Kato Paphos are beautiful and well known, but added that his team is looking for the remains of people who were living normal lives.
“We are not looking for evidence of the elite but people like us. The people who were just trying to get by and were hit by the earthquake in 365; we’re trying to capture that moment and see what that looks like. It’s an important moment in time.”
The team has already found tessera fragments - pieces of mosaics - a considerable amount of pottery, some glass, and groundstone. No metal items have been found yet, but the team expects to uncover some.
“The pottery all fits the sort of window of the earthquakes, so it may be third century to fifth century. What really gives us the tight dates though are the coins and we haven’t found any yet, but we will.”
Davis also expects to find artefacts consisting of glass and metal, lamps and lamp stands, pictures, pottery platters, large storage jars and other storage items as well as cooking items used in daily life.
“I’m sure we will also find the high end stuff you bring out when your mother in law comes to visit, as well as the normal things you use every day,” he said.
“We want to find more of these types of things, to see the change, to discover these families, who are they, how they express their new faith, or if they hang onto their old faith. We want to see how Christianity is beginning to grow and expand.
“Of course by the fifth century - Christianity becomes what a Cypriot is, it’s part of the Cypriot identity.”
He explained that before deciding on a likely area there are certain questions to answer. For instance, why are certain areas flat? Normally, this means that there has been an intervention by people to flatten it, so as to build there. In the area the team has chosen it is quite breezy, so this may be somewhere where housing is. There is also a well. “You primarily look for surface indications then mull over the evidence and with 30 years of experience you decide which spot to start digging in,” he said.
Trey Thames, a member of the archaeology team is a PhD student of Davis, explained what moves are taken to prepare a site.
“First we must clear the site of all the shrubs and weeds so that the surface is clearly visible. This helps us to do a visual survey - to look at the area you’ve chosen and identify any specific visual IDs. After that we mark out our grid area and we start digging about 10 cm or so down,” he said.
“You start digging and pulling back the soil a little at the time .Once we get to an area where we think we’re going to find something, we stop using the big picks and switch to hand picks. You have to be very slow about it, and start sifting, looking for small finds that might be missed when you’re pulling the dirt out. It’s exciting. “
A mason’s trowel with a flat sharp edge is also used which allows the archaeologists to follow a surface by feeling it. This is especially useful in bright sunlight, such as the team is experiencing in Cyprus, when the light
at times is blinding.
“When you have enough experience you can ‘ride the surface’ with a trowel. That was how we picked up the wall; initially we didn’t see it, we felt it,” said Davis.
“Archaeologists like to study transition and change because it tells us so much about ourselves as we all go through change. When you understand the past you understand yourself much better.”
The team will be digging at the site in Kourion until June 22.
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/kourion/kourion-excavation-hoping-cyprus-first/20120527
Zooarchaeological study indicating hominids already practiced sophisticated hunting techniques in East Asia
More than ten thousands of bone fragments were recovered from the Lingjing site, Henan Province during 2005 and 2006. By taking statistical analyses of the skeletal elements of the two predominant species in this assemblage, aurochs (Bos primigenius) and horse (Equus caballus), scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, found that hominids at this site have already practiced sophisticated hunting techniques and subsistence strategies and may be quite familiar with the ecological and anatomical characteristics and nutritional values of the large-sized prey animals and can accordingly take different processing and handling strategies at the hunting site, as reported in the journal of Science China Earth Sciences, 2012, 55 (2).
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Researchers assessed the differential influences and weights of a variety of taphonomic agencies in the formation of the assemblage, and found hominid hunting and the subsequent disarticulation, slaughtering, and their transport of the bone elements of the prey species are the main factors accounting for the formation of the present assemblage.
After observing the distributional patterns of cut marks on the long bones of animals from the site, researchers found that most cut marks were on the midshaft portions of the bone (185 pieces, 98.45%), whereas only two pieces of distal epiphysis and one piece of proximal epiphysis (1.06% and 0.53%) were cut-marked. And of all the cut-marked long bones, 34% and 41% specimens belong to the upper and middle limbs of herbivores respectively, whereas only 25% belong to the lower limbs. This data suggests that hominids at the Lingjing site first accessed the animal resources prior to the carnivores and cut off the meat on the long bones.
Mortality patterns for two dominant species of the Lingjing site indicate that both animals have the mortality profiles of prime-adults dominated and accompanied by a small proportion of juvenile individuals, implying that hominids there already had relatively mature and systematical living strategies and social organizations in this period.
The distributions of the long bone circumferences and bone lengths could partially reflect the differential modifications of the hominids and carnivores on archaeofauna. The long bone circumferences of most specimens of the Lingjing assemblage is less than 25%, which is identical to that of hominid sites, but much different from that of the carnivore lairs. The lengths of 1300 pieces of long bones measured, are mostly distributed in the area of 3–6 or 6–9 cm, clearly displaying hominids’ influences on the archaeofauna at the Lingjing site.
The taphonomic study of the Lingjing site shows that this fauna is not a consequence of a large-scale hunting activity, instead it is just a final synthesis of several episodes of small-scale hunting events. For homonids with limited resources, perhaps the most sensible choice is to move those skeletal elements which still have much nutritional contents adhered, back to the base-camp, where they not only have enough time, but also have technology and capacity to extract nutrition thoroughly from those bones.
“The study of skeletal element profiles is an essential tool to reconstruct hominid behaviors, their social activities or the functions of archaeological sites”, said study lead author Dr. ZHANG Shuangquan of the IVPP, “This study initiatively identifies hominid’s differential treatment of the bones of aurochs and horse in the Paleolithic record of East Asia”.
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-prehistoric-cold-case-links-humans.html
Prehistoric cold case links humans to Tasmanian megafauna extinctions
A team of Australian and New Zealand researchers have discovered fresh evidence that could finally unravel the mystery of what killed Tasmania's giant marsupials over 40,000 years ago.
Analysis carried out at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) on the skeletal remains of extinct megafauna is providing substantial proof that for about 2,000 years they infact shared the island with early humans before suddenly disappearing some time before the last ice age.
The findings challenge for the first real time history's version of events and by now placing our ancestors in Tasmania at the same time as large prehistoric animals, like the Protemnodon anak (a giant wallaby), raises the chances we were involved in their extinction.
The climate change debate
Popular belief has centred on three likely scenarios for the mass extinction of the megafauna in the region: environmental causes related to climate change, which was considered the key cause of their extinction. Hyper-disease and human hunting have been a distant second in the debate.
Geological work on sea level change suggests humans could not have crossed Bass Strait until around 43,000 years ago when the island was temporarily connected by a land bridge to Australia. The vanishing of megafauna was thought to have occurred thousands of years preceding human arrival, clearing them from any involvement
That is, of course, until now.
Closing the gap between humans and megafauna
Using a technique called radiocarbon dating and a rethink on what samples are used, scientists carrying out the investigative work at Lucas Heights came up with a new set of theories.
Radiocarbon dating uses the amount of Carbon 14 available in living creatures as a measuring stick. Comparing the amount of C14 in a dead organism to available levels in the atmosphere, produces an estimate of when that organism died.
For this analysis, the team decided to carbon date protein samples found in the bones of their subjects, which were prehistoric relatives of the kangaroo, wombat and Tasmanian Devil, using the STAR and ANTARES research accelerators located at ANSTO
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-prehistoric-cold-case-links-humans.html
Analysis carried out at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) on the skeletal remains of extinct megafauna is providing substantial proof that for about 2,000 years they infact shared the island with early humans before suddenly disappearing some time before the last ice age.
The findings challenge for the first real time history's version of events and by now placing our ancestors in Tasmania at the same time as large prehistoric animals, like the Protemnodon anak (a giant wallaby), raises the chances we were involved in their extinction.
The climate change debate
Popular belief has centred on three likely scenarios for the mass extinction of the megafauna in the region: environmental causes related to climate change, which was considered the key cause of their extinction. Hyper-disease and human hunting have been a distant second in the debate.
Geological work on sea level change suggests humans could not have crossed Bass Strait until around 43,000 years ago when the island was temporarily connected by a land bridge to Australia. The vanishing of megafauna was thought to have occurred thousands of years preceding human arrival, clearing them from any involvement
That is, of course, until now.
Closing the gap between humans and megafauna
Using a technique called radiocarbon dating and a rethink on what samples are used, scientists carrying out the investigative work at Lucas Heights came up with a new set of theories.
Radiocarbon dating uses the amount of Carbon 14 available in living creatures as a measuring stick. Comparing the amount of C14 in a dead organism to available levels in the atmosphere, produces an estimate of when that organism died.
For this analysis, the team decided to carbon date protein samples found in the bones of their subjects, which were prehistoric relatives of the kangaroo, wombat and Tasmanian Devil, using the STAR and ANTARES research accelerators located at ANSTO
martes, 29 de mayo de 2012
Conferencia
- La arqueóloga Myriam Seco habla de la excavación que dirige del templo funerario del faraón Tutmosis III
- Los trabajos de recuperación, en Luxor, son uno de los más importantes de la egiptología actual
los primeros hominidos fieles
Las relaciones de pareja basadas en la fidelidad surgieron hace cuatro
millones de años, el germen de la familia
N. RAMÍREZ DE CASTRO / MADRID
En el género «Ardipithecus» se dieron los primeros emparejamientos
El concepto de lo que hoy conocemos como familia o, al menos el germen, nació hace más de cuatro millones de años. En esa etapa tan precoz de la evolución humana, nuestros antepasados los «Ardipithecus», apenas unos primates que caminaban sobre dos patas, dieron el paso necesario para que surgieran los valores familiares. Lo consiguieron al abandonar la promiscuidad por la fidelidad y la relación de pareja.
El cambio no fue casual y fue fruto de una combinación de variables que hizo cambiar la estrategia de las hembras para garantizar la supervivencia de su prole y también la de los machos menos favorecidos, según una investigación del Instituto Nacional de Matemáticas y Síntesis Biológica de la Universidad de Tenessee (Estados Unidos). Los detalles se publican en la revista científica «Proceedings».
Intereses mutuos
La estrategia femenina cambió las reglas de la evolución. Ya no triunfaba ni se reproducía el más fuerte. Las hembras dejaron de elegir a los machos dominantes como pareja reproductiva por aquéllos menos importantes en la jerarquía, pero que les proporcionaban otras seguridades, desde alimento hasta protección para sus crías. A cambio, ellas se convirtieron en sus fieles compañeras.
Esta nueva investigación plantea dos asuntos interesantes, reflexiona Antonio Rosas, profesor de investigación del CSIC y del Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales. «Una es la estrategia combinada entre las hembras y los machos inferiores en la jerarquía de la dominancia. Ellos terminan llevándose el gato al agua, frente a los más fuertes. En lugar de pelearse con otros machos, utilizan su energía en ganarse a una hembra con comida y protección para las crías. Pero eso solo funciona con el requisito de la fidelidad. Si no sería una pérdida de tiempo y de energía».
Otros estudios ya habían apuntado al intercambio de sexo por comida entre nuestros antepasados. Lo original de este trabajo es el cambio de comportamiento simultáneo de machos y hembras por un interés mutuo, la acción combinada. Aunque ellas siempre marcan el paso: «Una vez que las hembras empiezan a mostrar cierto interés para que las abastezcan con comida, son ellos los que dejan de competir con otros machos por el favor femenino, explica el autor del estudio Sergey Gavrilets. En su opinión, su investigación describe «una auténtica revolución sexual».
Fórmulas de cooperación
El trabajo también deja ver en el género «Ardipithecus» los primeros rasgos de reconocimiento entre padres e hijos y el nacimiento de una nueva forma de sociedad con fórmulas de cooperación dentro del grupo.
Todo esto ocurrió hace más de 4 o 5 millones de años, «aunque sin duda no hubo una barrera nítida que marcó el cambio de comportamiento», apunta Antonio Rosas. «Si en nuestras sociedades aceptamos cierta holgura en el concepto de emparejamiento, imaginemos a unos homínidos de hace millones de años».
http://www.abcdesevilla.es/20120529/ciencia/abci-primeros-hominidos-fieles-201205282147.html
N. RAMÍREZ DE CASTRO / MADRID
En el género «Ardipithecus» se dieron los primeros emparejamientos
El concepto de lo que hoy conocemos como familia o, al menos el germen, nació hace más de cuatro millones de años. En esa etapa tan precoz de la evolución humana, nuestros antepasados los «Ardipithecus», apenas unos primates que caminaban sobre dos patas, dieron el paso necesario para que surgieran los valores familiares. Lo consiguieron al abandonar la promiscuidad por la fidelidad y la relación de pareja.
El cambio no fue casual y fue fruto de una combinación de variables que hizo cambiar la estrategia de las hembras para garantizar la supervivencia de su prole y también la de los machos menos favorecidos, según una investigación del Instituto Nacional de Matemáticas y Síntesis Biológica de la Universidad de Tenessee (Estados Unidos). Los detalles se publican en la revista científica «Proceedings».
Intereses mutuos
La estrategia femenina cambió las reglas de la evolución. Ya no triunfaba ni se reproducía el más fuerte. Las hembras dejaron de elegir a los machos dominantes como pareja reproductiva por aquéllos menos importantes en la jerarquía, pero que les proporcionaban otras seguridades, desde alimento hasta protección para sus crías. A cambio, ellas se convirtieron en sus fieles compañeras.
Esta nueva investigación plantea dos asuntos interesantes, reflexiona Antonio Rosas, profesor de investigación del CSIC y del Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales. «Una es la estrategia combinada entre las hembras y los machos inferiores en la jerarquía de la dominancia. Ellos terminan llevándose el gato al agua, frente a los más fuertes. En lugar de pelearse con otros machos, utilizan su energía en ganarse a una hembra con comida y protección para las crías. Pero eso solo funciona con el requisito de la fidelidad. Si no sería una pérdida de tiempo y de energía».
Otros estudios ya habían apuntado al intercambio de sexo por comida entre nuestros antepasados. Lo original de este trabajo es el cambio de comportamiento simultáneo de machos y hembras por un interés mutuo, la acción combinada. Aunque ellas siempre marcan el paso: «Una vez que las hembras empiezan a mostrar cierto interés para que las abastezcan con comida, son ellos los que dejan de competir con otros machos por el favor femenino, explica el autor del estudio Sergey Gavrilets. En su opinión, su investigación describe «una auténtica revolución sexual».
Fórmulas de cooperación
El trabajo también deja ver en el género «Ardipithecus» los primeros rasgos de reconocimiento entre padres e hijos y el nacimiento de una nueva forma de sociedad con fórmulas de cooperación dentro del grupo.
Todo esto ocurrió hace más de 4 o 5 millones de años, «aunque sin duda no hubo una barrera nítida que marcó el cambio de comportamiento», apunta Antonio Rosas. «Si en nuestras sociedades aceptamos cierta holgura en el concepto de emparejamiento, imaginemos a unos homínidos de hace millones de años».
http://www.abcdesevilla.es/20120529/ciencia/abci-primeros-hominidos-fieles-201205282147.html
lunes, 28 de mayo de 2012
Los Amigos de San Esteban piden que se mantenga limpio el barrio andalusí (Murcia)
Botellas y basura afean un entorno catalogado como BIC; preparan un acto para
que todos los arquitectos defiendan sus ideas ganadoras
Dos años y medio después de la paralización de las excavaciones arqueológicas, el yacimiento de San Esteban es la viva imagen de la desolación para cualquiera que transite por la zona más comercial de Murcia. En el cogollo de la ciudad, el antiguo barrio de la Arrixaca, un ejemplo del urbanismo islámico, con sus calles perfectamente trazadas pero sepultadas por grava y una capa de geotextil, es hoy un depósito de basura donde los incívicos arrojan botellas, latas, colillas y lo que les sobra, y donde esmeran malas hierbas y matorrales más propios de Terra Natura que de un sitio histórico catalogado como Bien de Interés Cultural. Eso es San Esteban, además de un quebradero de cabeza para las administraciones -Ayuntamiento y Comunidad-, obligadas a entenderse para que la puesta en valor del barrio andalusí de los siglos XII y XIII se convierta en el atractivo que Murcia precisa para estimular su casco urbano.
Por eso la Asociación de Amigos del Yacimiento de San Esteban solicita a las administraciones que no descuiden los restos arqueológicos y que, al menos, mientras deciden qué proyecto es el mejor para devolver a la ciudad un espacio público «robado», se mantenga el recinto limpio y sin maleza. Juan Bosch, presidente de la entidad, mostró ayer a 'La Verdad' el estado en el que se encuentra la zona más próxima a la calle Burruezo, donde ayer se acumulaba una docena de botellas, aunque en el interior del solar, donde los restos están aparentemente protegidos, abundan todo tipo de desechos.
La Asociación de Amigos del Yacimiento está convencida de que la recuperación del entorno arqueológico no podrá demorarse mucho en el tiempo. «Del concurso de ideas tiene que salir adelante un proyecto de los seis ganadores, consensuado por todos o el que decidan las administraciones, pero algo saldrá, porque necesitamos recuperar un espacio público que se ha quitado a la ciudadanía y hay que devolvérselo y en las mejores condiciones posibles en lo que se refiere al yacimiento», afirma Juan Bosch, quien avanza que la Asociación está organizando un acto para que los seis equipos ganadores del concurso de ideas del Colegio de Arquitectos, el Ayuntamiento y la Consejería de Cultura puedan exponer ante los murcianos los detalles de cada iniciativa. «Cualquier proyecto que se lleve a cabo tendrá un impacto muy positivo, tanto desde el punto de vista económico, porque dará trabajo a muchas empresas y creará empleo, y porque tendrá un rendimiento cultural y turístico que será para siempre», dice Bosch, «ya que todos los proyectos plantean que el yacimiento sea un lugar vivo para el estudio y conocimiento de nuestra historia»
http://www.laverdad.es
Dos años y medio después de la paralización de las excavaciones arqueológicas, el yacimiento de San Esteban es la viva imagen de la desolación para cualquiera que transite por la zona más comercial de Murcia. En el cogollo de la ciudad, el antiguo barrio de la Arrixaca, un ejemplo del urbanismo islámico, con sus calles perfectamente trazadas pero sepultadas por grava y una capa de geotextil, es hoy un depósito de basura donde los incívicos arrojan botellas, latas, colillas y lo que les sobra, y donde esmeran malas hierbas y matorrales más propios de Terra Natura que de un sitio histórico catalogado como Bien de Interés Cultural. Eso es San Esteban, además de un quebradero de cabeza para las administraciones -Ayuntamiento y Comunidad-, obligadas a entenderse para que la puesta en valor del barrio andalusí de los siglos XII y XIII se convierta en el atractivo que Murcia precisa para estimular su casco urbano.
Por eso la Asociación de Amigos del Yacimiento de San Esteban solicita a las administraciones que no descuiden los restos arqueológicos y que, al menos, mientras deciden qué proyecto es el mejor para devolver a la ciudad un espacio público «robado», se mantenga el recinto limpio y sin maleza. Juan Bosch, presidente de la entidad, mostró ayer a 'La Verdad' el estado en el que se encuentra la zona más próxima a la calle Burruezo, donde ayer se acumulaba una docena de botellas, aunque en el interior del solar, donde los restos están aparentemente protegidos, abundan todo tipo de desechos.
La Asociación de Amigos del Yacimiento está convencida de que la recuperación del entorno arqueológico no podrá demorarse mucho en el tiempo. «Del concurso de ideas tiene que salir adelante un proyecto de los seis ganadores, consensuado por todos o el que decidan las administraciones, pero algo saldrá, porque necesitamos recuperar un espacio público que se ha quitado a la ciudadanía y hay que devolvérselo y en las mejores condiciones posibles en lo que se refiere al yacimiento», afirma Juan Bosch, quien avanza que la Asociación está organizando un acto para que los seis equipos ganadores del concurso de ideas del Colegio de Arquitectos, el Ayuntamiento y la Consejería de Cultura puedan exponer ante los murcianos los detalles de cada iniciativa. «Cualquier proyecto que se lleve a cabo tendrá un impacto muy positivo, tanto desde el punto de vista económico, porque dará trabajo a muchas empresas y creará empleo, y porque tendrá un rendimiento cultural y turístico que será para siempre», dice Bosch, «ya que todos los proyectos plantean que el yacimiento sea un lugar vivo para el estudio y conocimiento de nuestra historia»
http://www.laverdad.es
El mantenimiento del patrimonio cultural corre peligro por la crisis (Tarragona
La demarcación de Tarragona cuenta con 379 BCIN (Béns
Culturals d’Interès Nacional), la mitad de ellos en un pésimo estado de conservación
Desde un castillo del siglo XII del que apenas queda un muro hasta los monumentos romanos de Tarragona declarados Patrimonio de la Humanidad pasando por el Montblanc medieval o el modernismo reusense, la demarcación de Tarragona cuenta con 379 edificios –militares, civiles o religiosos– declarados Bé Cultural d’Interès Nacional (BCIN) , la máxima protección oficial que puede tener un vestigio.
Sin embargo, la mitad de ellos se halla en un deplorable estado de conservación. Y alguno incluso ha sido objeto de proyectos ‘agresivos’ como el caso del castillo de l’Albà Vell, en Aiguamúrcia, dentro del cual se quería construir un molino eólico. El consistorio se negó y la empresa –Gerrsa (filial de Gamesa)– piensa buscar otra ubicación.
La alcaldesa de Aiguamúrcia, Fina Bartolí, constata la dificultad de dar un mantenimiento digno a ese patrimonio. «Algunos restos no están en buenas condiciones. No ha habido nunca dinero. Cuando tenemos subvenciones, se prioriza cuidar el bosque para que no haya incendios», comenta. Bartolí admite la existencia de «entornos con mucha vegetación y en mal estado».
Una asignatura pendiente
Cada resto es un mundo, con un distinto nivel de degradación. «El castillo de L’Albà Vell está en mal estado. El de Selma se conserva algo mejor, porque estuvo habitado hasta hace un tiempo, mientras que Ramonet es más bien una cuadra que un castillo. La Creu de Terme está mejor porque tiene un mantenimiento más sencillo», admite, y confirma la asignatura pendiente: «Formamos parte de la ruta de los castillos del Gaià. Nos hemos juntado algunos ayuntamientos como Querol o el Pont d’Armentera para promocionar. También el Consell Comarcal del Alt Camp ha comenzado la señalización».
Varios alcaldes confirman la necesidad de recuperar estos espacios y potenciarlos como activos turísticos, aunque en tiempos de crisis este objetivo adquiere tintes de quimera. «El monasterio de Santes Creus –otro bien cultural de Aiguamúrcia– es un polo de atracción. Sí que está bien cuidado, claro, pero el entorno no, cuando es un lugar que se ensucia diez veces más que otro por la gran afluencia de público. No tenemos ningún tipo de ayuda como compensación, en términos de limpieza o mantenimiento de los parques cercanos, por ejemplo», denuncia Bartolí.
La crisis puede empeorar la situación de los vestigios más deteriorados. Según explica Jordi Rovira, presidente de la Reial Societat Arqueològica de Tarragona, monumentos de esta índole –no tanto los de ciudades más grandes, pero sí los de municipios más pequeños– pueden acabar convirtiéndose en los grandes olvidados de la cultura: «Castillos, iglesias, espacios en abandono, incluso mal localizados, están a merced de la destrucción de desaprensivos o de, simplemente, la dejadez. Monumentos como el castell del Mongons, en el entorno de la capital, son ejemplos de abandono total. Son lugares más desamparados que nunca y algunos sin catalogar». En ciertos casos, la titularidad del espacio en cuestión –y la responsabilidad– es de un particular.
Desde la administración, las iniciativas para salvar este patrimonio son habituales aunque insuficientes, dada la gran cantidad de monumentos catalogados en máximo rango. Así, en los últimos cuatro años el Ministerio de Fomento ha invertido 12,8 millones –vía el ‘1% cultural’–en 19 actuaciones, ‘lavando’ la cara a edificios como los castillos de Solivella, Pratdip o Vallmoll o restaurando las murallas de Falset o el conjunto de Cal Cardenal (Salomó).
El agobio económico de las administraciones deja poco espacio de maniobra, aunque expertos como Rovira piden precisamente aprovechar la coyuntura: «Se le puede dar la vuelta: si no se pueden hacer grandes inversiones en obra, sí se podría hacer en catalogación, en revisión de elementos que se están perdiendo… Es una época en la que la administración debería captar fondos privados, implicar a la sociedad civil, a particulares o a fundaciones, siguiendo el modelo americano. Si un espacio no está cuidado, no será nunca un atractivo turístico, por muy bonito y romántico que sea en origen».
http://www.diaridetarragona.com/
Culturals d’Interès Nacional), la mitad de ellos en un pésimo estado de conservación
Desde un castillo del siglo XII del que apenas queda un muro hasta los monumentos romanos de Tarragona declarados Patrimonio de la Humanidad pasando por el Montblanc medieval o el modernismo reusense, la demarcación de Tarragona cuenta con 379 edificios –militares, civiles o religiosos– declarados Bé Cultural d’Interès Nacional (BCIN) , la máxima protección oficial que puede tener un vestigio.
Sin embargo, la mitad de ellos se halla en un deplorable estado de conservación. Y alguno incluso ha sido objeto de proyectos ‘agresivos’ como el caso del castillo de l’Albà Vell, en Aiguamúrcia, dentro del cual se quería construir un molino eólico. El consistorio se negó y la empresa –Gerrsa (filial de Gamesa)– piensa buscar otra ubicación.
La alcaldesa de Aiguamúrcia, Fina Bartolí, constata la dificultad de dar un mantenimiento digno a ese patrimonio. «Algunos restos no están en buenas condiciones. No ha habido nunca dinero. Cuando tenemos subvenciones, se prioriza cuidar el bosque para que no haya incendios», comenta. Bartolí admite la existencia de «entornos con mucha vegetación y en mal estado».
Una asignatura pendiente
Cada resto es un mundo, con un distinto nivel de degradación. «El castillo de L’Albà Vell está en mal estado. El de Selma se conserva algo mejor, porque estuvo habitado hasta hace un tiempo, mientras que Ramonet es más bien una cuadra que un castillo. La Creu de Terme está mejor porque tiene un mantenimiento más sencillo», admite, y confirma la asignatura pendiente: «Formamos parte de la ruta de los castillos del Gaià. Nos hemos juntado algunos ayuntamientos como Querol o el Pont d’Armentera para promocionar. También el Consell Comarcal del Alt Camp ha comenzado la señalización».
Varios alcaldes confirman la necesidad de recuperar estos espacios y potenciarlos como activos turísticos, aunque en tiempos de crisis este objetivo adquiere tintes de quimera. «El monasterio de Santes Creus –otro bien cultural de Aiguamúrcia– es un polo de atracción. Sí que está bien cuidado, claro, pero el entorno no, cuando es un lugar que se ensucia diez veces más que otro por la gran afluencia de público. No tenemos ningún tipo de ayuda como compensación, en términos de limpieza o mantenimiento de los parques cercanos, por ejemplo», denuncia Bartolí.
La crisis puede empeorar la situación de los vestigios más deteriorados. Según explica Jordi Rovira, presidente de la Reial Societat Arqueològica de Tarragona, monumentos de esta índole –no tanto los de ciudades más grandes, pero sí los de municipios más pequeños– pueden acabar convirtiéndose en los grandes olvidados de la cultura: «Castillos, iglesias, espacios en abandono, incluso mal localizados, están a merced de la destrucción de desaprensivos o de, simplemente, la dejadez. Monumentos como el castell del Mongons, en el entorno de la capital, son ejemplos de abandono total. Son lugares más desamparados que nunca y algunos sin catalogar». En ciertos casos, la titularidad del espacio en cuestión –y la responsabilidad– es de un particular.
Desde la administración, las iniciativas para salvar este patrimonio son habituales aunque insuficientes, dada la gran cantidad de monumentos catalogados en máximo rango. Así, en los últimos cuatro años el Ministerio de Fomento ha invertido 12,8 millones –vía el ‘1% cultural’–en 19 actuaciones, ‘lavando’ la cara a edificios como los castillos de Solivella, Pratdip o Vallmoll o restaurando las murallas de Falset o el conjunto de Cal Cardenal (Salomó).
El agobio económico de las administraciones deja poco espacio de maniobra, aunque expertos como Rovira piden precisamente aprovechar la coyuntura: «Se le puede dar la vuelta: si no se pueden hacer grandes inversiones en obra, sí se podría hacer en catalogación, en revisión de elementos que se están perdiendo… Es una época en la que la administración debería captar fondos privados, implicar a la sociedad civil, a particulares o a fundaciones, siguiendo el modelo americano. Si un espacio no está cuidado, no será nunca un atractivo turístico, por muy bonito y romántico que sea en origen».
http://www.diaridetarragona.com/
Arqueología inalámbrica de alta precisión y pionera en el mundo
El método de excavación riguroso exige que cada vez que aparece un fósil se realicen inmediatamente una serie de acciones, como tomar nota de sus coordenadas, para documentar bien su posicionamiento en el yacimiento, una fotografía o la realización de un dibujo.
Hasta hace poco, esta tarea se realizaba a mano en hojas de papel, pero desde hace unos años el grupo de investigación de Autoecología Humana del Cuaternario de la Universidad Rovira i Virgili (URV) de Tarragona y el Instituto Catalán de Paleoecología Humana y Evolución Social (IPHES) trabajan en la creación de un sistema informático, llamado ARCH-e system que simplifica y mejora la eficiencia de los trabajos de campo de las excavaciones arqueopaleontológicas como el de Atapuerca .
ARCH-e system es un sistema integral con una estación robótica que permite, entre otras cosas, posicionar un objeto en relación al lugar donde se ha encontrado (coordenadas) de forma automática y sin la intervención de un operario. Asimismo, la recogida de datos da la posibilidad de incluir fotografía, dibujo y registro multimedia, como vídeo o voz.
De esta manera, la nueva implementación tecnológica ayuda a mejorar la calidad de los datos obtenidos, al reducir algunos errores, ya que favorece la precisión en el posicionamiento del objeto y la automatización del proceso.
La PDA como herramienta
La nueva aplicación se basa en un sistema informático inalámbrico pionero en el mundo, que utiliza las PDA como herramienta para el registro arqueológico. Así, durante el trabajo de campo, cuando aparece un objeto, se introducen los datos básicos en una ficha que ofrece la PDA, donde fundamentalmente se hacen constar las coordenadas, sus medidas, un dibujo, un vídeo o un archivo de audio, más la informaciones pertinentes. Todo ello, y en un sistema inalámbrico, se envía a un servidor que está a pie de yacimiento.
"De esta manera, los arqueólogos podremos realizar de manera más eficaz el trabajo de campo, especialmente en cuanto al registro de datos, base documental para la investigación", destaca Antoni Canals, investigador de la URV y del IPHES y director del proyecto ARCH-e system.
"Por ejemplo, hemos integrado muchos elementos multimedia como los registros de nuestras conversaciones, que son aspectos sutiles de la excavación que tiene valor de memoria, de exposición de ideas y de desarrollo de hipótesis entre otras", añade Canals.
Convenio y transdisciplinariedad
Ahora, gracias a un convenio firmado hoy entre Francesc Xavier Grau, rector de la URV; Eudald Carbonell, director del IPHES; y Enric Navarro, director y gerente de Al -top Topografía, esta empresa podrá comercializar el nuevo producto informático. El proyecto ha contado con el asesoramiento de la Fundación URV con respecto a los asuntos relacionados con la propiedad industrial e intelectual de ARCH-e system.
Carbonell ha destacado que ARCH-e system es parte del proceso que realiza el IPHES para trabajar en el desarrollo de nuevas tecnologías que ayuden a mejorar el conocimiento sobre evolución humana: "En este sentido, ahora estamos en la fase de estudiar afinidades con otros grupos de investigación y empresas de ámbitos tan diversos como la nanotecnología, la química orgánica, etc. Es decir, preparamos unos infracampos que permitan unificar aportaciones de diferentes disciplinas. Estamos observando cuáles son las tecnologías que utilizan, qué nos pueden ir bien y qué protocolos podemos consensuar para establecer alianzas y hacer un salto a la transdisicplinarietat, como consecuencia del enorme desarrollo tecnológico que ha habido en los últimos años".
Exportarlo a todo el mundo
Por su parte, Navarro asegura que "se harán todos los esfuerzos necesarios para que esta tecnología se pueda utilizar a nivel general y en todo el mundo. Muy pronto, lo empezaremos a publicitar en nuestro portal en Internet y aprovecharemos que hemos abierto una oficina en China para darlo a conocer. Esperamos tener mucho éxito".
La Unidad de Valorización de la URV (UV-URV), mediante el Área de la Propiedad Industrial e Intelectual, ha prestado asesoramiento durante el proceso de protección de la propiedad intelectual del sistema ARCH-e system, el de inscripción en el Registro de la Propiedad Intelectual de Cataluña y el de transferencia de la tecnología en AL-TOP TOPOGRAFÍA.
El Centro de Transferencia de Tecnología e Innovación (CTTi) de la Fundación URV se convirtió en el año 2010 UV-URV, gracias al apoyo de ACC1Ó y la financiación obtenida a través del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, mediante Plan Estratégico PETRA 2010 - 2013. El modelo que sigue se basa en una unidad integrada que engloba las áreas de Transferencia de Tecnología, como actividad principal; la Propiedad Industrial e Intelectual, que gestiona la protección de los resultados derivados de la investigación de la URV; la de Iniciativa Enprendedora, apoyo a los emprendedores de la comunidad universitaria desde la idea inicial de negocio hasta la creación de la empresa, y el área de Ayudas.
http://www.agenciasinc.es/Noticias/Arqueologia-inalambrica-de-alta-precision-y-pionera-en-el-mundo
Agency: Ancient burial mounds looted, driven over
METROPOLIS, Ill. -- Ancient American Indian burial mounds in southern
Illinois have been damaged and possibly looted, prompting the state's historical
agency to call for the public's help in identifying the culprits.
Last month, someone dug several holes in a portion of Kincaid Mounds State Historic Site, a town and religious center of the Mississippian culture of 1,000 years ago in what is now rural Massac and Pope counties, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency said Friday.
The culprits were probably searching for "grave goods" that Native Americans buried with their dead, although it's unclear if any artifacts or human remains were taken, the agency said. More damage was done to the site recently when an all-terrain vehicle or truck was driven on one of the mounds, where "No Trespassing" signs are posted and ATVs are prohibited, the agency said.
"The criminal disturbance of these human burials in Kincaid Mounds is unconscionable," said Amy Martin, the agency's director. "We hope to apprehend those who are responsible, which will serve as a deterrent to others who may be considering the desecration of our state's heritage."
The site, about 170 miles southeast of St. Louis, has been targeted before. In 2008, three holes several feet wide and deep appeared in the side of one of the nine mounds, with two of the holes in spots looters had struck the previous year.
The disturbance of archaeological sites or skeletal remains on state-owned
property can be a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail, a $10,000
fine, reparations and forfeiture of any vehicles or equipment used in the
misdeed. Unsettling of burial sites on public land also may be a felony carrying
a three-year prison term and $25,000 fine.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Kincaid Mounds is significant as one of two major political centers of the Mississippian period in the lower Ohio River Valley and was one of the first areas in southern Illinois where intensive, large-scale agriculture was developed.
"These mounds are a unique, irreplaceable part of our heritage, and to destroy them for the sake of amusement or profit is a despicable act," Martin said.
Such cases have produced federal charges. In 2010, Leslie Jones pleaded guilty to excavation, removal or damage of archaeological resources without a permit after investigators found more than 13,000 artifacts from southern Illinois' Cypress Creek National Wildlife Refuge at his home in Creal Springs, Ill. The collection included pottery, clay figures, stone weapons, tools and more than 200 pieces of human skeletal remains dating from roughly 6000 B.C. to 400 A.D.
Jones was sentenced to a month in jail, five years of probation, 500 hours of community service and ordered to pay more than $150,000 in restitution. He had faced up to two years in prison and a $20,000 fine.
Jones admitted he had sold some of the artifacts he unearthed at the refuge from 2004 through February 2007, having done extensive research that enabled him to identify pieces of artifacts and their time periods.
chicagobreaking@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-agency-ancient-burial-mounds-looted-driven-over-20120525,0,4673057.story
Last month, someone dug several holes in a portion of Kincaid Mounds State Historic Site, a town and religious center of the Mississippian culture of 1,000 years ago in what is now rural Massac and Pope counties, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency said Friday.
The culprits were probably searching for "grave goods" that Native Americans buried with their dead, although it's unclear if any artifacts or human remains were taken, the agency said. More damage was done to the site recently when an all-terrain vehicle or truck was driven on one of the mounds, where "No Trespassing" signs are posted and ATVs are prohibited, the agency said.
"The criminal disturbance of these human burials in Kincaid Mounds is unconscionable," said Amy Martin, the agency's director. "We hope to apprehend those who are responsible, which will serve as a deterrent to others who may be considering the desecration of our state's heritage."
The site, about 170 miles southeast of St. Louis, has been targeted before. In 2008, three holes several feet wide and deep appeared in the side of one of the nine mounds, with two of the holes in spots looters had struck the previous year.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Kincaid Mounds is significant as one of two major political centers of the Mississippian period in the lower Ohio River Valley and was one of the first areas in southern Illinois where intensive, large-scale agriculture was developed.
"These mounds are a unique, irreplaceable part of our heritage, and to destroy them for the sake of amusement or profit is a despicable act," Martin said.
Such cases have produced federal charges. In 2010, Leslie Jones pleaded guilty to excavation, removal or damage of archaeological resources without a permit after investigators found more than 13,000 artifacts from southern Illinois' Cypress Creek National Wildlife Refuge at his home in Creal Springs, Ill. The collection included pottery, clay figures, stone weapons, tools and more than 200 pieces of human skeletal remains dating from roughly 6000 B.C. to 400 A.D.
Jones was sentenced to a month in jail, five years of probation, 500 hours of community service and ordered to pay more than $150,000 in restitution. He had faced up to two years in prison and a $20,000 fine.
Jones admitted he had sold some of the artifacts he unearthed at the refuge from 2004 through February 2007, having done extensive research that enabled him to identify pieces of artifacts and their time periods.
chicagobreaking@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-agency-ancient-burial-mounds-looted-driven-over-20120525,0,4673057.story
domingo, 27 de mayo de 2012
Las Huelgas (Burgos). El monasterio independiente
MADRID- En plena Edad Media, el rey Alfonso VIII decidió crear un panteón único dedicado a la realeza situado al oeste de la ciudad de Burgos. Aquel recóndito lugar recibió el nombre de Monasterio de Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas. El territorio fue elegido por el rey y su esposa Leonor de Plantagenet para levantar un monasterio cisterciense femenino que se fundó en junio de 1187. Fue la reina quien puso mayor empeño en conseguir esta fundación con el fin de que las mujeres pudieran alcanzar los mismos niveles de mando y responsabilidad que los hombres, al menos dentro de la vida monástica.
Tras siglos de historia, Telefónica se ha encargado de desvelar este recóndito lugar en su compromiso firme con la difusión de la cultura de una forma original y sobre todo sorprendente de este monumento histórico. Un auténtico regalo para sus clientes que tendrán la oportunidad de internarse durante la noche en esta gran fortaleza monástica y acercarse a unos espacios vedados durante siglos, donde religiosas procedentes de la Familia Real y de la más alta nobleza se dedicaron a la oración y a la administración de los bienes y posesiones de la orden. Mediante una simple inscripción en su página web, www.telefonica.es/cultura, hasta el día 5 de junio los clientes podrán formar parte de esta experiencia en la que los afortunados conocerán en primera persona un mundo autónomo y cerrado, ajeno a los azares y vaivenes del exterior típico de las ordenes religiosas de la Edad Media.
Esta edificación fue evolucionando gracias en parte a la independencia casi total de la que disponían las primeras abadesas en sus decisiones, de tal manera que su poder tan sólo dependía del papado, situación que se mantuvo hasta el siglo XIX. En todo este tiempo la comunidad enriqueció el primitivo monasterio añadiendo claustros y dependencias, y así a la arquitectura románica se unió la gótica y se incorporaron elementos de decoración hispano-musulmana.
Durante los días 20 y 21 de junio, el programa «Viaje al Interior de la Cultura» se traslada a este Monasterio inmerso en una oscuridad plena en la que las linternas de unos pocos afortunados iluminarán las estancias que las hermanas han guardado durante siglos a buen recaudo. Se trata de una iniciativa conjunta con más de 17 instituciones españolas que de la mano de Telefónica han desarrollado actividades abiertas a sus clientes, a los que ofrece una visión diferente y más profunda de la cultura.
Una aventura que es tradición
La apertura al público de los espacios emblemáticos de museos, teatros y bibliotecas con un gran interés artístico, histórico y cultural es una tendencia convertida casi en tradición desde 2009, momento en el que comenzó esta aventura y que se repite ahora para trasladar a los elegidos al interior de los imponentes muros del centenario monasterio, que guarda un laberinto de apariencia insondable con todos los elementos de una ciudad medieval conservada de puro milagro. Una experiencia que los llevará de Burgos al cielo.
El papel de la abadesa
La abadesa, como mujer, no podía confesar, decir misa ni predicar, pero era ella quien daba las licencias para que los sacerdotes hicieran estos trabajos. La concesión era dada en nombre de Dios y de la Sede Apostólica.
http://www.larazon.es/noticia/6747-el-monasterio-independiente
Tras siglos de historia, Telefónica se ha encargado de desvelar este recóndito lugar en su compromiso firme con la difusión de la cultura de una forma original y sobre todo sorprendente de este monumento histórico. Un auténtico regalo para sus clientes que tendrán la oportunidad de internarse durante la noche en esta gran fortaleza monástica y acercarse a unos espacios vedados durante siglos, donde religiosas procedentes de la Familia Real y de la más alta nobleza se dedicaron a la oración y a la administración de los bienes y posesiones de la orden. Mediante una simple inscripción en su página web, www.telefonica.es/cultura, hasta el día 5 de junio los clientes podrán formar parte de esta experiencia en la que los afortunados conocerán en primera persona un mundo autónomo y cerrado, ajeno a los azares y vaivenes del exterior típico de las ordenes religiosas de la Edad Media.
Esta edificación fue evolucionando gracias en parte a la independencia casi total de la que disponían las primeras abadesas en sus decisiones, de tal manera que su poder tan sólo dependía del papado, situación que se mantuvo hasta el siglo XIX. En todo este tiempo la comunidad enriqueció el primitivo monasterio añadiendo claustros y dependencias, y así a la arquitectura románica se unió la gótica y se incorporaron elementos de decoración hispano-musulmana.
Durante los días 20 y 21 de junio, el programa «Viaje al Interior de la Cultura» se traslada a este Monasterio inmerso en una oscuridad plena en la que las linternas de unos pocos afortunados iluminarán las estancias que las hermanas han guardado durante siglos a buen recaudo. Se trata de una iniciativa conjunta con más de 17 instituciones españolas que de la mano de Telefónica han desarrollado actividades abiertas a sus clientes, a los que ofrece una visión diferente y más profunda de la cultura.
Una aventura que es tradición
La apertura al público de los espacios emblemáticos de museos, teatros y bibliotecas con un gran interés artístico, histórico y cultural es una tendencia convertida casi en tradición desde 2009, momento en el que comenzó esta aventura y que se repite ahora para trasladar a los elegidos al interior de los imponentes muros del centenario monasterio, que guarda un laberinto de apariencia insondable con todos los elementos de una ciudad medieval conservada de puro milagro. Una experiencia que los llevará de Burgos al cielo.
El papel de la abadesa
La abadesa, como mujer, no podía confesar, decir misa ni predicar, pero era ella quien daba las licencias para que los sacerdotes hicieran estos trabajos. La concesión era dada en nombre de Dios y de la Sede Apostólica.
Aracena saca a la luz en la zona del Castillo su pasado almohade (Huelva)
Aracena tuvo un importante pasado almohade. Los primeros trabajos arqueológicos en la zona del Alcázar, dentro del recinto fortificado del Castillo de Aracena, han dilucidado que aproximadamente entre el siglo XI y XII la ciudad tuvo un asentamiento de época almohade y confirma la leyenda extendida entre la población de que Aracena fue una ciudad importante en el mundo islámico.
Así lo demuestran las primeras excavaciones realizadas en tres puntos concretos de la zona del Alcázar para comprobar el nacimiento de la muralla, sacando a la luz estructuras de edificaciones, una clara trama urbana y canalizaciones.
Todo ello antes de la reconquista cristiana de esta zona que arrasó con todo lo anterior, pero que dejó en el subsuelo un poblado cuyo estado de conservación ha sorprendido al amplio equipo de trabajo. Participan en estas labores técnicos de la Diputación de Huelva y expertos como Timoteo Rivera y el arqueólogo Eduardo Romero.
Unas actuaciones que siguen su curso previsto en la primera fase y que han recibido la visita, una vez más, del actual delegado de cultura en funciones de la provincia de Huelva, el serrano Ángel Romero, en compañía del alcalde del municipio, Manuel Guerra.
Ambos han mostrado su ilusión y el propósito a seguir trabajando pese a los recortes.
Hasta ahora, los hallazgos y excavaciones se han estado llevando con discreción. La actuación, tanto en el recinto fortificado para recuperar parte del conjunto histórico de la muralla - fortaleza y adaptarlo a un uso ciudadano e incluso turístico, como convertir el cerro en un parque periurbano se contempla dentro de un plan director donde han trabajado las consejerías de Cultura y Medio Ambiente junto al Ayuntamiento de Aracena.
En la actualidad existe un proyecto básico y se han necesitado estos primeros trabajos para ahora recabar la máxima información posible, dentro de un duro trabajo de investigación, y así completar el proyecto definitivo de ejecución.
Un plan director marca las directrices a seguir en una intervención que durará varios años y que en esta primera fase tiene un presupuesto en torno a los 400.000 euros. Incluso sirve de bandera para conmemorar el I Centenario de la apertura al turismo de la Gruta de las Maravillas en 2014. Motivo por el cual se ha aprovechado la ocasión para hacer un estudio arduo y completo, realizado por la Universidad de Granada, de toda la zona periférica para conocer la corteza terrestre de la cueva y saber así qué actuaciones se pueden realizar en un futuro. Una de las más cercanas será el levantamiento de algunos lienzos de la muralla y en otros casos el reforzamiento de zonas de muralla que corren el peligro de derrumbe.
El recinto fortificado del Castillo, al igual que la iglesia en sí y todo el entorno, ha sido siempre una zona muy querida por los cebolleros y muy visitada por turistas. Sin embargo, ha estado siempre algo abandonada por muchas vicisitudes, en especial por el paso del tiempo.
Otras intervenciones, como en la década de los 70, no dieron el resultado esperado, ya que según lo extraído a día de hoy los datos de entonces no tenían el suficiente rigor científico.
El recinto fortificado del Castillo posee un importante matiz histórico, cultural y monumental, pero desde ahora se le añade el valor turístico.
El plan director recoge que todo el recinto fortificado poseerá una especie de sendero por todo el perímetro de la zona para que la ciudadanía pueda visitar este espacio y ampliar así la oferta del turismo cultural de Aracena. Para ello no se plantea en absoluto tapar los lugares ya excavados sino ampliarlos en el subsuelo. Todo ello con el objetivo de profundizar lo máximo dentro de este plan para conocer más y mejor el pasado de Aracena, y en definitiva, de la comarca serrana de forma fehaciente.
www.huelvainformacion.es
Aparecen 23 tumbas tardo-romanas en un tramo del Metro de Granada
Granada, 26 may (EFE).- La delegación granadina de Cultura ha analizado los restos aparecidos en un tramo de las obras del Metropolitano de la capital, a la altura de la calle Recogidas, que han catalogado como 22 tumbas de la época tardo-romana, aunque el hallazgo no afectará ni a los plazos ni al trazado del metro.
Según ha informado a Efe la delegación granadina de Cultura, el equipo de arqueólogos encargado de estudiar los restos encontrados en un tramo de las obras del Metropolitano de Granada han concluido que se trata de 22 tumbas de época tardo-romana.
El delegado granadino de Cultura, Pedro Benzal, ha destacado que estos restos no están acompañados de "ninguna estructura constructiva" y que se suman a otros muchos hallazgos en el subsuelo de la capital, por lo que les ha restado valor.
Benzal ha detallado que los arqueólogos han desarrollado los trabajos de documentación y estudio de los restos de forma paralela al avance de las obras y que el hallazgo no afectará ni al trazado de la infraestructura de transporte ni al ritmo de las obras.
Los restos aparecieron durante abril en el tramo de obras comprendido en la intersección del Camino de Ronda y la calle Recogidas, aunque no presentan la envergadura suficiente para precisar medidas para su conservación o exposición al público.
El delegado de Cultura ha recalcado que los trabajos del Metropolitano ya tenían prevista la posible aparición de restos en la zona y que trabajan de manera coordinada con los arqueólogos para que sus investigaciones no afecten a la construcción del metro granadino. EFE
http://www.ideal.es/agencias/20120526/mas-actualidad/cultura/arqueologia-aparecen-tumbas-tardo-romanas-tramo_201205261329.html
Dogs, booze and bling: Northern Ireland's medieval shopping mall
By Laura Burns
Luxury goods, lots of wine
Medieval wine merchants would
have traded at Dunnyneil
According to archaeologist Dr Philip MacDonald, who led the dig on Dunnyneil,
merchants would have brought wine and other luxury products to Ireland to
exchange at emporia for furs, seal skin, slaves and famed Irish wolfhounds.
"High status members of the Dal Fiatach [the local dynasty whose royal centre was Downpatrick, County Down] and local traders, would have frequented the island," he said.
In medieval times, the king controlled trade and wealthy merchants travelled the seas to buy and sell goods. The trade in imported prestige items would have been important for the king of Dal Fiatach, to signify his status and power.
"This little speck of an island had a very high significance to the wealth of the Ulster Kingdom," explains Tom McErlean from the Centre for Maritime Archaeology.
"Dal Fiatach, or the Kingdom of Ulster, was a great maritime kingdom. It was fairly cosmopolitan with connections all around the North Sea."
The particular kind of pottery found at Dunnyneil Island is evidence that luxury goods were imported in some quantity from the continent. The coast around Strangford Lough has the highest density of this type of pottery ever discovered in Ireland, suggesting the Kingdom of Ulster was relatively wealthy.
Dunnyneil Island from the
air
• Site of an early medieval emporium.
• A long rectangular hut was built on the island around 900 AD, during the Viking invasions.
• After a period of disuse, it was re-occupied during the 13th century. A belt buckle from this period was found.
"If you sailed [to a settlement] halfway up the east coast and found that a boat had already been by with Scandinavian hides the previous week, that's a wasted stop. But at the emporia someone would probably buy the goods, quite possibly expecting to sell them on."
In short, trading emporia like Dunnyneil Island offered a ready-made market where you could usually find someone eager to buy your goods.
"They probably did offer at least some speciality goods from each area. Ireland and England were both famous on the continent for their hunting dogs, so there were things worth coming a long way for."
And it seems that, like today, the medieval trade in prestige goods wasn't exempt from dodgy rip-offs.
"One Carolingian swordsmith by the name of Ulfberht acquired such a name for his blades, which unlike most he stamped onto the metal, that they seem to have been faked, like knock-off Rolexes," said Dr Jarrett.
St Denis Fair in France: a
depiction of medieval traders at work
"A manager would identify what items will sell well in their area and work
with the markets to provide good products for consumers that will sell. It is
the mix between the prestige factor shops… which consumers want in their area,
as a matter of civic pride, mixed with a variety of good local retailers. That
mix is the Holy Grail of a successful shopping centre."
There is very little evidence left on Dunnyneil Island of its wheeler-dealer past. It's a tiny place and the emporium there was never built to last. Only tenacious archaeological investigation has revealed its role as a sort of 'pop-up' shop that could be taken down as quickly as it was put up, but sufficient to catch the passing trade for more than 200 years.
Dr Jarrett perhaps sums up the seventh century trading environment that Dunnyneil inhabited best of all:
"If one were to hear a message from the early medieval business consultancy, it would perhaps be something like: stock goods that no-one else has, cut deals with local resellers so you can sell wholesale, get shopping anywhere else outlawed, and pay the government a cut of your profits for it. Oh, and if shoppers turn up in boats with dragon prows it probably wise to come up with some really special offers!"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18199623
Excavations on Dunnyneil Island in Strangford Lough,
Northern Ireland, have revealed a seventh century trading emporium frequented by
merchants from as far afield as modern day Russia, Germany, Iceland and France.
Back in early medieval times, there was no cash economy, few buyers, and even
fewer sellers, but there are surprising parallels between these ancient trading
outposts and modern shopping centres.Luxury goods, lots of wine
Medieval wine merchants would
have traded at Dunnyneil "High status members of the Dal Fiatach [the local dynasty whose royal centre was Downpatrick, County Down] and local traders, would have frequented the island," he said.
In medieval times, the king controlled trade and wealthy merchants travelled the seas to buy and sell goods. The trade in imported prestige items would have been important for the king of Dal Fiatach, to signify his status and power.
"This little speck of an island had a very high significance to the wealth of the Ulster Kingdom," explains Tom McErlean from the Centre for Maritime Archaeology.
"Dal Fiatach, or the Kingdom of Ulster, was a great maritime kingdom. It was fairly cosmopolitan with connections all around the North Sea."
The particular kind of pottery found at Dunnyneil Island is evidence that luxury goods were imported in some quantity from the continent. The coast around Strangford Lough has the highest density of this type of pottery ever discovered in Ireland, suggesting the Kingdom of Ulster was relatively wealthy.
Dunnyneil Island from the
air Dunnyneil: a brief history
• Believed to be named for Niall of the Nine Hostages, a fifth century king of Ulster who took hostages from nine kingdoms around the UK, one of whom was St Patrick.• Site of an early medieval emporium.
• A long rectangular hut was built on the island around 900 AD, during the Viking invasions.
• After a period of disuse, it was re-occupied during the 13th century. A belt buckle from this period was found.
"Dunnyneil played a big role in creating their wealth …
[it] would have been a profitable stopping point for foreign wine merchants. The
Irish kings valued wine very much. There was a big market for wine here. It
would be very much worthwhile," said McErlean.
An eye for what sells
Much like the shopping malls of today, Dunnyneil's ancient traders would have
needed a keen eye for selling the right products to the right people, as Dr
Jonathan Jarrett, a lecturer in medieval history at Oxford University, explains.
"If you sailed [to a settlement] halfway up the east coast and found that a boat had already been by with Scandinavian hides the previous week, that's a wasted stop. But at the emporia someone would probably buy the goods, quite possibly expecting to sell them on."
In short, trading emporia like Dunnyneil Island offered a ready-made market where you could usually find someone eager to buy your goods.
"They probably did offer at least some speciality goods from each area. Ireland and England were both famous on the continent for their hunting dogs, so there were things worth coming a long way for."
And it seems that, like today, the medieval trade in prestige goods wasn't exempt from dodgy rip-offs.
"One Carolingian swordsmith by the name of Ulfberht acquired such a name for his blades, which unlike most he stamped onto the metal, that they seem to have been faked, like knock-off Rolexes," said Dr Jarrett.
Continue reading the main story
The Holy Grail of retail
“Start Quote
End Quote Mark Bourgeois Retail expertArchaeologists of the future will probably notice we're not building cathedrals any more, we're building shopping centres and music festivals ”
As managing director of a large retail investment
company, it is Mark Bourgeois' job to understand what makes a good place to buy
and sell goods. He sees similarities between medieval emporia and modern
shopping centres, particularly in the supply of the latest prestige goods.
St Denis Fair in France: a
depiction of medieval traders at work There is very little evidence left on Dunnyneil Island of its wheeler-dealer past. It's a tiny place and the emporium there was never built to last. Only tenacious archaeological investigation has revealed its role as a sort of 'pop-up' shop that could be taken down as quickly as it was put up, but sufficient to catch the passing trade for more than 200 years.
Dr Jarrett perhaps sums up the seventh century trading environment that Dunnyneil inhabited best of all:
"If one were to hear a message from the early medieval business consultancy, it would perhaps be something like: stock goods that no-one else has, cut deals with local resellers so you can sell wholesale, get shopping anywhere else outlawed, and pay the government a cut of your profits for it. Oh, and if shoppers turn up in boats with dragon prows it probably wise to come up with some really special offers!"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18199623
Oldest Jewish archaeological evidence on the Iberian Peninsula
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Sensational discovery by archaeologists of Jena University at a Portuguese excavation site
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| |   IMAGE:Archeologists of the Jena University found this marble plate with a Hebrew inscription at an excavation site in the south of Portugal. | | |
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The earliest archaeological evidence of Jewish inhabitants in the region of modern-day Portugal has so far also been a tomb slab with a Latin inscription and an image of a menorah - a seven-armed chandelier - from 482 AD. The earliest Hebrew inscriptions known until now date from the 6th or 7th Century AD.
For three years the team of the University Jena has been excavating a Roman villa in Portugal, discovered some years ago by Jorge Correia, archaeologist of the Silves council, during an archaeological survey near the village of São Bartolomeu de Messines (Silves). The project was aiming at finding out how and what the inhabitants of the hinterland of the Roman province of Lusitania lived off. While the Portuguese coast region has been explored very well, there is very little knowledge about those regions. The new discovery poses further conundrums. "We were actually hoping for a Latin inscription when we turned round the excavated tomb slab," Henning Wabersich, a member of the excavation reports. After all, no inscriptions have been found so far and nothing was known about the identity of the inhabitants of the enclosure. Only after long research the Jena Archaeologists found out which language they were exactly dealing with, as the inscription was not cut with particular care. "While we were looking for experts who could help with deciphering the inscription between Jena and Jerusalem, the crucial clue came from Spain" Dennis Graen says. "Jordi Casanovas Miró from the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona – a well-known expert for Hebrew inscriptions on the Iberian Peninsula – is sure that the Jewish name "Yehiel" can be read, - a name that is already mentioned in the Bible."
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| |  IMAGE:The place of discovery is a Roman villa near Silves. | | |
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Information about the Jewish population in the region in general was mostly passed down by scriptures. "During the ecclesiastical council in the Spanish town Elvira about 300 AD rules of conduct between Jews and Christians were issued. This indicates that at this time there must have been a relatively large number of Jews on the Iberian Peninsula already", Dennis Graen explains – but archaeological evidence had been missing so far. "We knew that there was a Jewish community in the Middle Ages not far from our excavation site in the town of Silves. It existed until the expulsion of the Jews in the year 1497."
In the summer the Jena Archaeologists will take up their work again. Until now they have excavated 160 square metres of the villa, but after checking out the ground it already became clear that the greater part of the enclosure is still covered in soil. "We eventually want to find out more about the people who lived here," Graen explains the venture. "And of course we want to solve the questions the Hebrew inscription has posed us."
###
Contact:Dr. Dennis Graenhttp://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-05/fj-oja052512.php
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