Aerial Reconnaissance of the Fen Basin

Antiquity ◽  
1945 ◽  
Vol 19 (75) ◽  
pp. 145-153
Author(s):  
F./Lt. D. N. Riley

Aerial reconnaissance and photography are of great importance in the study of the early history of Fenland and the surrounding country, conditions often being A very suitable for this method of investigation. A vast amount of information which can be recorded easily by air-photography, would only be obtained with the greatest difficulty, if at all, by field-work on the ground. The present paper is a brief record of observations made while flying over the fen basin during the course of duty. Unfortunately photography was not practicable, but systematic notes were kept of everything observed. Further work should reveal much more.

Archaeologia ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 1-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Boon

SummaryThe excavations were undertaken by the Silchester Excavation Committee supported by donations from public and private bodies and from individuals and by permission of the Duke of Wellington, K.G., F.S.A. Their purpose was the investigation of (a) a previously unsuspected polygonal enclosure of about 85 acres, here named the Inner Earthwork, which lay partly inside and partly outside the line of the familiar Roman town wall; and (b) a western extension to the known line of the Outer Earthwork, which increased the size of this enclosure from about 213 to 233 acres. With the assistance of the Ordnance Survey, the aerial traces of these earthworks, first observed and recorded by Dr. J. K. St. Joseph, F.S.A., were confirmed and extended by field-work and excavation, and have been planned as appears on pl. I.The excavations showed that the Inner Earthwork was a defence of Gaulish ‘Fécamp’ type, and that it was erected, on the south, over an area of late pre-Roman occupation, the first clearly identified at Calleva Atrebatum, but one with strong ‘Catuvellaunian’ influences in its pottery-series. It is claimed that the Inner Earthwork was constructed by the client King Cogidubnus in or shortly after A.D. 43–4, as the defence of this, the most important settlement in the north-west of his dominions. It is further suggested that the Inner Earthwork was replaced by the Outer Earthwork also during the reign of Cogidubnus.The excursus attempts to collate with the results of excavation the earlier discoveries of pre-Conquest material. The total evidence is finally related to the Belgico-Roman topography of Silchester and its neighbourhood, within the historical framework of the century and a half which separated the arrival of the earliest Belgic immigrants in the region from the death of Cogidubnus and the consequent emergence of the Roman Civitas Atrebatum.


The study of fossil plants during the last quarter of a century has revealed a vast amount of information about the past history of many modern plant types. But while we have learned much about the Pteridophyta and Gymnosperms, singularly little information has been gained about the evolution of the plants now dominant in the vegetation of the world—the Angiosperms. In 1879 Darwin wrote the well-known lines to Hooker :—“ The rapid develop­ment, so far as we can judge, of all the higher plants within recent geological times is an abominable mystery. . . . I should like to see the whole problem solved'. Though 45 years have passed since this was written, we are still hopelessly in the dark about the origin and early evolution of this, one of the largest classes of living organisms. Interesting theories have been put forward as to the possible origin of the angiosperms, but these have been almost entirely unsupported by fossil evidence.


2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Köhler

In 1883, Polish botanist Józef Rostafiński distributed a questionnaire to Poles with knowledge of peasant culture. Rostafiński asked about the names and uses of about 130 various plants, both wild and cultivated. About 370 individuals took part in the survey, sending nearly 860 letters. Only 359, sent by 227 correspondents, are now stored at the Museum of the Jagiellonian University Botanical Garden (Kraków, Poland). These letters contain nearly 25,800 records. Despite obtaining a vast amount of information from his enquiry, Rostafiński never made full use of the data. Rostafiński's questionnaire occupies quite an early position in the history of ethnobotany. It was the most significant one at that time in regard of its size, issues included in the questions and the obtained results.


Since the completion of the Tehuacán Archaeological-Botanical Project’s field work more than a decade ago our picture of the early history of agriculture in the New World from primitive food gathering through ten millennia has been broadened, both by the acquisition of further data from Mesoamerica and other parts of the continent, and by critical consideration of the Tehuacán sequence itself as expounded in the four volumes of the final report which have so far appeared (Byers 1967 a, b ; MacNeish 1970, 1972) as outlined by Bushnell


Author(s):  
Robert M. Fisher

By 1940, a half dozen or so commercial or home-built transmission electron microscopes were in use for studies of the ultrastructure of matter. These operated at 30-60 kV and most pioneering microscopists were preoccupied with their search for electron transparent substrates to support dispersions of particulates or bacteria for TEM examination and did not contemplate studies of bulk materials. Metallurgist H. Mahl and other physical scientists, accustomed to examining etched, deformed or machined specimens by reflected light in the optical microscope, were also highly motivated to capitalize on the superior resolution of the electron microscope. Mahl originated several methods of preparing thin oxide or lacquer impressions of surfaces that were transparent in his 50 kV TEM. The utility of replication was recognized immediately and many variations on the theme, including two-step negative-positive replicas, soon appeared. Intense development of replica techniques slowed after 1955 but important advances still occur. The availability of 100 kV instruments, advent of thin film methods for metals and ceramics and microtoming of thin sections for biological specimens largely eliminated any need to resort to replicas.


1979 ◽  
Vol 115 (11) ◽  
pp. 1317-1319 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. Morgan

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Henry ◽  
David Thompson
Keyword(s):  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document