The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2013: the seventh season of excavations in the Haua Fteah cave

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 163-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Farr ◽  
Ross Lane ◽  
Fadl Abdulazeez ◽  
Paul Bennett ◽  
James Holman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Marine Isotope Stage ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
Southern Side ◽  
Short Season ◽  
Objective Being ◽  
Mis 5 ◽  
Deep Sounding ◽  
Cultural Data

AbstractThe paper reports the preliminary results from the short season of fieldwork that the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project was able to undertake with a small Anglo-Libyan team in September 2013. The work concentrated on continuing the excavation of Trench M down the southern side of the Middle Trench and of Trench D on the southern side of the Deep Sounding below it, the eventual objective being to link these so as to provide a high quality dataset of sedimentary and cultural data from the top to the bottom of the Pleistocene occupation deposit (some 12 m). The ~1 m of sediments investigated in Trench M in the 2013 fieldwork includes carbonate crusts possibly formed in oscillating sub-humid to arid climatic pulses, perhaps likely during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 4, around 60,000–70,000 years ago. One of these crusts formed the base on which a hearth-like structure had been built. In Trench D evidence for human occupation appears to decline moving up the profile, coinciding with sedimentary evidence of more frequent disruptive climatic events possibly associated with latter stages of MIS 5.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2012: the fifth season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 115-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Barker ◽  
Paul Bennett ◽  
Lucy Farr ◽  
Evan Hill ◽  
Chris Hunt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
South Wall ◽  
Southern Side ◽  
Worked Bone ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Deep Sounding

AbstractThe paper reports on the fifth (2012) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project. The primary focus of the season was the continuation of the excavation of the prehistoric occupation layers in the Haua Fteah cave. A small trench (Trench U) was cut into Holocene (Neolithic) sediments exposed on the south wall of Charles McBurney's Upper Trench. Below this, the excavation of Trench M was continued, on the southern side of McBurney's Middle Trench. In previous seasons we had excavated Oranian ‘Epipalaeolithic’ layers dating toc.18,000–10,000 BP (years before the present). In 2012 the excavation continued downwards through Dabban ‘Upper Palaeolithic’ occupation layers, one of which was associated with a post-built structure and likely hearths. There are indications of an occupational hiatus separating the oldest Dabban from the youngest Levallois-Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic or Middle Stone Age) lithic material. The Deep Sounding excavated by Charles McBurney in 1955 was cleared of backfill to its base, and its south-facing wall was recorded in detail and sampled extensively for materials for dating and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. McBurney believed that he had reached bedrock at the base of the Deep Sounding, but a small sounding (Trench S) cut into the sediments below this level found further, albeit sparse, evidence for human occupation. Whilst the antiquity of ‘Pre-Aurignacian’ human occupation at the site still needs to be resolved, it seems likely to reach back at least to Marine Isotope Stage 5e, the beginning of the last interglacial (c.130,000–115,000 BP). Important finds from the 2012 excavations in terms of the behavioural complexity of the human groups using the cave include a possible worked bone point from a Pre-Aurignacian layer and a granite rubbing stone in a Dabban layer from a source over 600 km from the cave.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2012: the sixth season of excavations in the Haua Fteah cave

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 113-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Rabett ◽  
Lucy Farr ◽  
Evan Hill ◽  
Chris Hunt ◽  
Ross Lane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Seismic Event ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Climatic Regime ◽  
Molluscan Fauna ◽  
Trench Area ◽  
Mis 5 ◽  
Deep Sounding

AbstractThe paper reports on the sixth season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project (CPP) undertaken in September 2012. As in the spring 2012 season, work focussed on the Haua Fteah cave and on studies of materials excavated in previous seasons, with no fieldwork undertaken elsewhere in the Gebel Akhdar. An important discovery, in a sounding excavated below the base of McBurney's 1955 Deep Sounding (Trench S), is of a rockfall or roof collapse conceivably dating to the cold climatic regime of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 (globally dated to c. 190–130 ka) but more likely the result of a seismic event within MIS 5 (globally dated to c. 130–80 ka). The sediments and associated molluscan fauna in Trench S and in Trench D, a trench being cut down the side of the Deep Sounding, indicate that this part of the cave was at least seasonally waterlogged during the accumulation, probably during MIS 5, of the ~6.5 m of sediment cut through by the Deep Sounding. Evidence for human frequentation of the cave in this period is more or less visible depending on how close the trench area was to standing water as it fluctuated through time. Trench M, the trench being cut down the side of McBurney's Middle Trench, has now reached the depth of the latest Middle Stone Age or Middle Palaeolithic (Levalloiso-Mousterian) industries. The preliminary indications from its excavation are that the transition from the Levalloiso-Mousterian to the blade-based Upper Palaeolithic or Late Stone Age Dabban industry was complex and perhaps protracted, at a time when the climate was oscillating between warm-stage stable environmental conditions and colder and more arid environments. The estimated age of the sediments, c. 50–40 ka, places these oscillations within the earlier part of MIS 3 (globally dated to 60–24 ka), when global climates experienced rapid fluctuations as part of an overall trend to increasing aridity and cold.

LASER-ELECTRON PHOTON PROJECT AT SPRING-8

2003 ◽  
Vol 18 (02n06) ◽  
pp. 208-214
Author(s):  
◽  
T. NAKANO
Keyword(s):  
Compton Scattering ◽  
Maximum Energy ◽  
Photon Beam ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Hadron Physics ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
The Status ◽  
Electron Photon ◽  
New Facility

The GeV photon beam at SPring-8 is produced by backward-Compton scattering of laser photons from 8 GeV electrons. Polarization of the photon beam will be ~100% at the maximum energy with fully polarized laser photons. We report the status of the new facility and the prospect of hadron physics study with this high quality beam. Preliminary results from the first physics run are presented.

scholarly journals Early Marine Isotope Stage 3 human occupation of the Shandong Peninsula, coastal North China

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 934-944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Li ◽  
Jian Wang ◽  
Xinying Zhou ◽  
Xiaomin Wang ◽  
Hao Long ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North China ◽  
Marine Isotope Stage ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
Shandong Peninsula ◽  
Marine Isotope Stage 3

scholarly journals Obsidian from the Site of Piano dei Cardoni, Ustica (Palermo, Italy): Preliminary Results on the First Occupation of the Island

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 273-290
Author(s):  
Claudia Speciale ◽  
Kyle P. Freund ◽  
Sandro de Vita ◽  
Nunzia Larosa ◽  
Vincenza Forgia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Raw Material ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Lithic Assemblage ◽  
Material Sources ◽  
Southern Side ◽  
Ams Dating ◽  
First Time ◽  
Xrf Analyses

Abstract New investigations on Ustica (Palermo, Sicily) originated from the need to improve our knowledge of the island’s archaeological and environmental heritage. Through field surveys, particular attention was paid to human occupation in the Neolithic phases and focused on the less investigated southern side of the island. The systematic survey of the area of Piano dei Cardoni in 2018 brought to light a new Middle/Late Neolithic site, already partially documented in the literature. The island was settled for the first time during these phases, as also testified from the area of Punta Spalmatore. The presence of Serra d’Alto, incised dark burnished, and Diana styles suggests that the site and the archaeological assemblage dates from the mid to late 5th millennium BC, as confirmed by AMS dating. In addition to pottery, obsidian artifacts were also recovered, and a preliminary study of these materials is presented here. Portable XRF analyses on a sample of 41 obsidian artifacts, representing a high percentage of the lithic assemblage compared to chert tools, show that the provenance of the raw material is Gabellotto Gorge (Lipari) and Balata dei Turchi (Pantelleria). These results provide new insight into broader regional debates about obsidian technology and its exchange during the Neolithic and open an important consideration for sites that are far from the raw material sources.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2009: the third season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave and its landscape, and further results from the 2007–2008 fieldwork

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 55-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Barker ◽  
Annita Antoniadou ◽  
Huw Barton ◽  
Ian Brooks ◽  
Ian Candy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Glacial Cycle ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Stratigraphic Sequence ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Third ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Southern Side ◽  
Deep Sounding

AbstractThe paper reports on the third (2009) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project, and on further results from the analysis of materials collected in the previous (2007 and 2008) fieldwork. Sediments in a 14 m-deep core drilled beside the McBurney trench provide an invaluable overview of the overall stratigraphic sequence, including at depths reached by the 1950s Deep Sounding but not yet investigated by the present project. Sampling of newly-exposed faces of the original excavation trench for dating (14C, ESR, OSL, U-series) and palaeoenvirommental indicators continued. Excavation was begun of sediments assigned to the early Holocene Libyco-Capsian (McBurney's Layer X), and of Pre-Aurignacian layers beside the top of the Deep Sounding. The Libyco-Capsian layers are particularly prolific in lithic debris, shells, and animal bones; preliminary analysis of the lithics suggests a development from Typical to Upper Capsian within the layers excavated in 2009. Geoarchaeological survey along the littoral to the west and east of the Haua Fteah identified complex sequences spanning most of the last interglacial-glacial cycle. Geoarchaeological survey south of the Haua Fteah characterized the major landforms of the Gebel Akhdar mountain and of the pre-desert and desert-edge zones further south, with Late Stone Age (Upper Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic) material being found especially on the southern side of the Gebel Akhdar, and Middle Stone Age (Middle Palaeolithic) material in the pre-desert and desert regions. The first suite of 14C dates (from charcoal samples taken in 2007) indicates the use of the Haua Fteah by Oranian hunter-gatherers during the Last Glacial Maximum and in the succeeding millennia, but not in the Younger Dryas cold/dry phase (c. 11,000–10,000 cal. BC), with Libyco-Capsian occupation resuming soon after the beginning of the Holocene c. 9000 cal. BC, suggesting that the cave, and perhaps the Gebel Akhdar in general, have a complex history as refugia for human settlement during the Pleistocene.

An Experimental Study of the “Hot-Spots” Occurring During the Oxidational Wear of Tool Steel on Sapphire

1987 ◽  
Vol 109 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. F. J. Quinn ◽  
W. O. Winer
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Tool Steel ◽  
Electron Micrographs ◽  
Hot Spots ◽  
Size Analysis ◽  
Scanning Electron Micrographs ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
Objective Being ◽  
Scanning Electron ◽  
Sapphire Disk

This paper describes some interesting preliminary results obtained with tool steel pins sliding against a rotating sapphire disk without lubrication. It is shown (i) that mild (oxidational) wear of the pin surface can be obtained with this combination of materials, (ii) that the “hot-spots” between the pin and the disk surfaces can be seen and photographed for size analysis, and (iii) that the temperature of the hot-spots can be estimated from the photographs. Some scanning electron micrographs were also taken of the pin surfaces at the end of the experiments, the objective being to complement the optical analyses, and thereby provide information about the number, size, and temperature of the hot-spots. The revelance of these estimates to the mechanisms involved in mild (oxidational) wear is also discussed.

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