scholarly journals Multidisciplinary investigation reveals the earliest textiles and cinnabar-coloured cloth in Iberian Peninsula

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita Gleba ◽  
M. Dolores Bretones-García ◽  
Corrado Cimarelli ◽  
Juan Carlos Vera-Rodríguez ◽  
Rafael M. Martínez-Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Copper Age ◽  
Digital Microscopy ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Fibrous Materials ◽  
Textile Production ◽  
Sierra Morena ◽  
Scanning Electron

AbstractTextile production is among the most fundamental and more complex technologies in human prehistory, but is under-investigated due to the perishable nature of fibrous materials. Here we report a discovery of five textile fragments from a prehistoric (fourth-third millennium cal BC) burial deposit located in a small cave at Peñacalera in Sierra Morena hills, near Córdoba, Southern Spain. These textiles accompanied a set of human remains as grave goods, together with other organic elements such as fragments of wood and cork, and some pottery vessels. They were characterized and dated using digital microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry. Two of the fragments described here are the oldest examples of loom-woven textiles in the Iberian Peninsula, dating from the second half of the fourth millennium cal BC. This correlates chronologically with the first appearance of loom weights in the archaeological record of this region. The more recently dated textile is the earliest preserved cloth intentionally coloured with cinnabar in the western Mediterranean. The Peñacalera finds are a key reference for understanding the development of textile technologies during the Neolithic and Copper Age in western Europe and beyond.

The earliest horse-bits of western Europe

1973 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 425-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. J. Balkwill
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
New Combinations ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Burial Rite

Within recent years, much attention has been focused on the earliest objects of harness which have long been noticed in the archaeological record. They are a matter of some importance in the perception of social structure from extant remains; Kossack (1954) presented strong arguments in favour of interpreting, in this manner, the early Hallstatt (Ha C) horse harness from Bavarian graves. Other major publications have since added to the picture of widespread, supposedly aristocratic adoption of harness and wagons in association with burial rite (northern and central Italy in the Early Iron Age, von Hase 1969; the Iberian peninsula in the same period, Schüle 1969; the Middle Danube to the Russian Steppes and to the Asian hinterland, Potratz 1966). Nor has the thesis of Gallus and Horvath (1939) been ignored, and the activities of ‘Thraco-Cimmerian’ cavalry still play a large part in the interpretation of west European horse harness. Already in 1954, however, Kossack observed the continuing elements of native, western Urnfield Europe in the entirely new combinations of grave-goods in Ha C and he indicated that the cheekpieces, while being modelled closely on the lines of preceding types found in the region of the Middle Danube, were, in fact, local variants chiefly concentrated in the graves of Bohemia and Bavaria. That western Europe had long had its own forms of cheekpiece was demonstrated by Thrane in 1963, yet the mouthpieces themselves have received no consolidated attention. This paper is an attempt to redress the balance, by gathering together the earliest metal bits in Europe west of Slovakia and Hungary, in order to see what light they throw on the problems of continuity and transition at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.

Organizing the Production of Variscite Personal Ornaments in Later Prehistoric Iberia: The Mines of Aliste and the Production Sites of Quiruelas de Vidriales (Zamora, Spain)

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Villalobos García ◽  
Carlos P. Odriozola
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Significant Shift ◽  
Copper Age ◽  
Exchange Networks ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Technical Artefact ◽  
Personal Adornment

Green objects of personal adornment were quite common among Neolithic and Copper Age groups in Western Europe, and variscite was one of the minerals that was most often used for such a purpose. This article presents the results of a series of archaeological campaigns designed to study the mines of Aliste and the ornament production loci of Quiruelas de Vidriales (both in the province of Zamora, Spain). We discovered that initially, during the fourth millennium cal BC, variscite from Aliste was seldom used and the ornaments’ production was dispersed, but that there was a significant shift during the third millennium cal BC: ornament production intensified and became concentrated in the production sites of Quiruelas. We relate this transformation to the socioeconomic processes that developed in the Iberian Peninsula and the growth of supra-regional socio-technical artefact exchange networks.

Creating a standard method of controlling digital microscopes: the microscope access protocol (map)

1995 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 16-17
Author(s):  
T. A. Dodson ◽  
E. Völkl ◽  
L. F. Allard ◽  
T. A. Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Data Storage ◽  
Storage Systems ◽  
Digital Systems ◽  
Data Networks ◽  
Digital Microscopy ◽  
Command Language ◽  
Access Protocol ◽  
Analog To Digital ◽  
Basic Physics ◽  
Scanning Electron

The process of moving to a fully digital microscopy laboratory requires changes in instrumentation, computing hardware, computing software, data storage systems, and data networks, as well as in the operating procedures of each facility. Moving from analog to digital systems in the microscopy laboratory is similar to the instrumentation projects being undertaken in many scientific labs. A central problem of any of these projects is to create the best combination of hardware and software to effectively control the parameters of data collection and then to actually acquire data from the instrument. This problem is particularly acute for the microscopist who wishes to "digitize" the operation of a transmission or scanning electron microscope. Although the basic physics of each type of instrument and the type of data (images & spectra) generated by each are very similar, each manufacturer approaches automation differently. The communications interfaces vary as well as the command language used to control the instrument.

scholarly journals Direct dating reveals the early history of opium poppy in western Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurélie Salavert ◽  
Antoine Zazzo ◽  
Lucie Martin ◽  
Ferran Antolín ◽  
Caroline Gauthier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Western Alps ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Opium Poppy ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Macrobotanical Remains ◽  
History Of ◽  
Temperate Europe ◽  
Radiocarbon Chronology ◽  
Botanical Remains

AbstractThis paper aims to define the first chrono-cultural framework on the domestication and early diffusion of the opium poppy using small-sized botanical remains from archaeological sites, opening the way to directly date minute short-lived botanical samples. We produced the initial set of radiocarbon dates directly from the opium poppy remains of eleven Neolithic sites (5900–3500 cal BCE) in the central and western Mediterranean, northwestern temperate Europe, and the western Alps. When possible, we also dated the macrobotanical remains originating from the same sediment sample. In total, 22 samples were taken into account, including 12 dates directly obtained from opium poppy remains. The radiocarbon chronology ranges from 5622 to 4050 cal BCE. The results show that opium poppy is present from at least the middle of the sixth millennium in the Mediterranean, where it possibly grew naturally and was cultivated by pioneer Neolithic communities. Its dispersal outside of its native area was early, being found west of the Rhine in 5300–5200 cal BCE. It was introduced to the western Alps around 5000–4800 cal BCE, becoming widespread from the second half of the fifth millennium. This research evidences different rhythms in the introduction of opium poppy in western Europe.

Charlemagne’s Defeat in the Pyrenees

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xabier Irujo
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Internal Structure ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Chanson De Roland ◽  
The One ◽  
Epic Poems

The Battle of Rencesvals is the one of the most dramatic historical event of the entire eighth century, not only in Vasconia but in Western Europe. This monograph examines the battle as more than a single military encounter, but instead as part of a complex military and political conquest that began after the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 and culminated with the creation of the Kingdom of Pamplona in 824. The battle had major (and largely underappreciated) consequences for the internal structure of the Carolingian Empire. It also enjoyed a remarkable legacy as the topic of one of the oldest European epic poems, La Chanson de Roland. The events that took place in the Pyrenean pass of Rencesvals (Errozabal) on 15 August 778 defined the development of the Carolingian world, and lie at the heart of the early medieval contribution to the later medieval period.

scholarly journals Redefining the role of metal production during the Bronze Age of south-eastern Iberia. The mines of eastern Sierra Morena

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 138-153
Author(s):  
Luis Arboledas-Martínez ◽  
Eva Alarcón-García
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
New Mineral ◽  
Metal Production ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Sierra Morena ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Metallurgical Activities

Researchers have traditionally paid little attention to mining by Bronze Age communities in the south-east of the Iberian Peninsula. This has changed recently due to the identification of new mineral exploitations from this period during the archaeo-mining surveys carried out in the Rumblar and Jándula valleys in the Sierra Morena Mountains between 2009-2014, as well as the excavation of the José Martín Palacios mine (Baños de la Encina, Jaén). The analysis of the archaeological evidence and the archaeometric results reveal the importance of mining and metallurgical activities undertaken by the communities that inhabited the region between 2200 and 900 cal. BC, when it became one of the most important copper and silver production centers during the Late Prehistory of south-eastern Iberia.

Post-glacial colonization of Western Europe brown bears from a cryptic Atlantic refugium out of the Iberian Peninsula

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 618-630 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana García-Vázquez ◽  
Ana Cristina Pinto Llona ◽  
Aurora Grandal-d’Anglade
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Brown Bears

First record of the Levantine species Scoloplos haasi (Orbiniidae: Scolecida: Annelida) from the Mediterranean coast of Spain

2009 ◽  
Vol 90 (5) ◽  
pp. 1051-1054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo López
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
British Museum ◽  
First Record ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Mediterranean Coast ◽  
Geographical Range ◽  
Polychaete Species ◽  
The Mediterranean

During an investigation devoted to characterize all the Orbiniidae polychaete species present in the Iberian Peninsula, several individuals previously identified as Scoloplos armiger showed to actually belong to Scoloplos haasi, a species to date considered endemic from Israel. The comparison with the holotype deposited in the British Museum of Natural History confirmed the identification. This record of S. haasi is not only a new one for the western Mediterranean but also the first one out of its original locality, extending largely westwards the geographical range of the species.

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