Conclusions: a maritime biography

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Van de Noort
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Creation ◽  
A Minor

The purpose of writing this book was to explore aspects of human behaviour that have been, to varying extents, disregarded, overlooked, or ignored in terrestrial-dominated archaeology to date. Recognizing that the sea ‘is good to think’, it was envisaged that an exploration of North Sea archaeologies could launch something of a ‘maritime turn’. This final chapter considers the broad themes of the human past that have been enlightened through this study, and questions if and how these can be reproduced in land-based research. Five interrelated themes are presented here: the essence of nature–society interrelationships, the attribution of forms of agency to inanimate objects, deviant spaces, the essence of travelling long distances—including the skills and knowledge required for this—and finally, how the sea contributes to shaping social identities. The relationship that people had with their environment, or nature–society interrelationships, is fundamental to archaeological research on land and at sea. Explicitly or implicitly, terrestrial archaeology presents us with something of an irreversible progression towards ‘encultured’ landscapes—narratives wherein the land becomes increasingly less natural and more cultural (see chapter 2). In much of Europe, the ‘enculturation’ of the world started back in the Post-glacial. It continued throughout the Mesolithic, with the creation of paths through, and clearances within, otherwise natural landscapes. In the Neolithic, ‘enculturation’ took place through deforestation, and through the apportioning of symbolic significance to natural features and the construction of monuments relating to these. By the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, large tracts of land were being accommodated to the needs of humans through the creation of field systems and settlements, producing ‘cultural landscapes’. From the middle Bronze Age onwards, according to accepted land-based archaeological thinking, it would appear that nature played at best a minor role, limited to the impact of climate and weather on the crops being cultivated. The study of the North Sea has fundamentally challenged the nature–culture dichotomy. The concept of ‘enculturation’ places Homo sapiens centre stage in a changing world, but underestimates the role played by the sea and rivers, as well as animals, trees, and plants, as important co-constructors of landscape.

scholarly journals Diet among oil-workers on off-shore oil installations in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea

1992 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Oshaug ◽  
L. I. Østgård ◽  
K. U. Trygg
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Heart Diseases ◽  
Daily Intake ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Coronary Heart Diseases ◽  
Average Daily Intake ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Oil Workers ◽  
A Minor

Dietary studies based on 24 h recalls were carried out on four oil installations in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. Two hundred and three persons were interviewed about what they had eaten the previous 24 h. Food purchased for the installations in the previous 5 months was recorded. Results based on 24 h recalls showed that average daily intake of energy was 12.2 MJ of which 17% came from protein, 44% from fat and 39% from carbohydrate, including 8% from sugar. Meat, vegetables, fresh fruits, seafood (shellfish), french fries, eggs, cream and ice-cream were important components of the diet, while bread, fish and cereals played a minor role. Average daily intake (mg) of nutrients were: calcium 1244, iron 15, vitamin A 1049 μg, vitamin D 4.1 μg, thiamin 1.6, riboflavin 2.2, nicotinic acid 22, ascorbic acid 143. Dietary fibre intake, estimated as unavailable carbohydrate, was on average 19 g, and the average daily intake of cholesterol was 755 mg. Intakes were compared with the Norwegian recommended dietary allowance. Most of the employees chose a diet which when eaten over a longer period of time may contribute to the development of coronary heart diseases (CHD) and thereby increase the morbidity and mortality from CHD in the oil industry.

scholarly journals Analysis of Bacterial Communities on North Sea Macroalgae and Characterization of the Isolated Planctomycetes Adhaeretor mobilis gen. nov., sp. nov., Roseimaritima multifibrata sp. nov., Rosistilla ulvae sp. nov. and Rubripirellula lacrimiformis sp. nov.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1494
Author(s):  
Sandra Wiegand ◽  
Patrick Rast ◽  
Nicolai Kallscheuer ◽  
Mareike Jogler ◽  
Anja Heuer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Bacterial Communities ◽  
Aquatic Environments ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Epiphytic Communities ◽  
Different Strains ◽  
A Minor ◽  
The Phylum Planctomycetes

Planctomycetes are bacteria that were long thought to be unculturable, of low abundance, and therefore neglectable in the environment. This view changed in recent years, after it was shown that members of the phylum Planctomycetes can be abundant in many aquatic environments, e.g., in the epiphytic communities on macroalgae surfaces. Here, we analyzed three different macroalgae from the North Sea and show that Planctomycetes is the most abundant bacterial phylum on the alga Fucus sp., while it represents a minor fraction of the surface-associated bacterial community of Ulva sp. and Laminaria sp. Especially dominant within the phylum Planctomycetes were Blastopirellula sp., followed by Rhodopirellula sp., Rubripirellula sp., as well as other Pirellulaceae and Lacipirellulaceae, but also members of the OM190 lineage. Motivated by the observed abundance, we isolated four novel planctomycetal strains to expand the collection of species available as axenic cultures since access to different strains is a prerequisite to investigate the success of planctomycetes in marine environments. The isolated strains constitute four novel species belonging to one novel and three previously described genera in the order Pirellulales, class Planctomycetia, phylum Planctomycetes.

scholarly journals A laboratory experiment of intact polar lipid degradation in sandy sediments

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 2547-2560 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Logemann ◽  
J. Graue ◽  
J. Köster ◽  
B. Engelen ◽  
J. Rullkötter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Membrane Lipids ◽  
Intact Cells ◽  
The North ◽  
Head Groups ◽  
Acyl Lipids ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Intact Polar Lipids ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Sandy Sediments

Abstract. Intact polar lipids (IPLs) are considered biomarkers for living biomass. Their degradation in marine sediments, however, is poorly understood and complicates interpretation of their occurrence in geological samples. To investigate the turnover of IPLs, a degradation experiment with anoxic sandy sediments from the North Sea was conducted. Intact cells of two organisms that do not naturally occur in North Sea sediments were chosen as IPL sources: (i) Saccharomyces cerevisiae, representative for ester-bound acyl lipids that also occur in Bacteria, and (ii) the archaeon Haloferax volcanii, representative for ether-bound isoprenoid lipids. Surprisingly, IPLs with phosphoester-bound head groups showed approximately the same degradation rate as IPLs with glycosidic head groups. Furthermore, the results indicate a relatively fast degradation of S. cerevisiae IPLs with ester-bound moieties (analogs of bacterial membrane lipids) and no significant degradation of archaeal IPLs with ether-bound moieties. Pore water and 16S rRNA-based DGGE analysis showed only a minor influence of the IPL source on microbial metabolism and community profiles. Due to our results, the IPL-based quantification of Archaea and Bacteria should be interpreted with caution.

scholarly journals A laboratory experiment of intact polar lipid degradation in sandy sediments

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 3289-3321 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Logemann ◽  
J. Graue ◽  
J. Köster ◽  
B. Engelen ◽  
J. Rullkötter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Membrane Lipids ◽  
Intact Cells ◽  
The North ◽  
Head Groups ◽  
Acyl Lipids ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Intact Polar Lipids ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Sandy Sediments

Abstract. Intact polar lipids (IPLs) are considered biomarkers for living biomass. Their degradation in marine sediments, however, is poorly understood and complicates interpretation of their occurrence in geological samples. To investigate the turnover of IPLs, a degradation experiment with anoxic sandy sediments from the North Sea was conducted. Intact cells of two organisms that do not naturally occur in North Sea sediments were chosen as IPL sources: (i) Saccharomyces cerevisiae, representative for ester-bound acyl lipids that also occur in Bacteria, and (ii) the archaeon Haloferax volcanii, representative for ether-bound isoprenoid lipids. Surprisingly, IPLs with phosphoester-bound head groups showed approximately the same degradation rate as IPLs with glycosidic head groups. Furthermore, the results indicate a relatively fast degradation of S. cerevisiae IPLs with ester-bound moieties (analogs of bacterial membrane lipids) and no significant degradation of archaeal IPLs with ether-bound moieties. Pore water and 16S rRNA-based DGGE analysis showed only a minor influence of the IPL source on microbial metabolism and community profiles. Due to our results, the IPL-based quantification of Archaea and Bacteria should be interpreted with caution.

scholarly journals The Northwest Belgian Bronze Age Barrow in Context: A Review of the 14C Chronology from the Late Neolithic to Bronze Age

Radiocarbon ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (02) ◽  
pp. 479-488
Author(s):  
Jeroen De Reu
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Sudden Appearance ◽  
Bell Beaker ◽  
Building Practice ◽  
The Bronze Age

To formulate a solid chronology of the northwest Belgian Bronze Age barrow phenomenon, a critical review of the available radiocarbon dates was necessary. The resulting14C chronology of the barrows was compared with the14C chronologies of the Late Neolithic Bell Beaker graves, the Bronze Age metalwork depositions, the evidence of barrow reuse, and the Bronze Age longhouses. This research revealed interesting patterns concerning the appearance and disappearance of the barrow phenomenon. The earliest14C-dated barrows are dated during the Late Neolithic and coincide with the presence of the Bell Beaker culture in the region. The peak of the barrow-building practice occurred between 1700 and 1500/1400 cal BC, a period of flourishing trade networks in the regions along the North Sea basin. The period around 1500 cal BC is characterized by the disappearance of barrow-building practices and the sudden appearance of ritual depositional practices, reflecting changes in society.

Moving across the North Sea

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Van de Noort
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Prestige Goods ◽  
The North ◽  
Southern Scandinavia ◽  
The Social ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Bronze Age

Movements between different lands around the North Sea have always been taking place. While the North Sea was evolving gradually, over the millennia, following the melting of the Devensian ice sheet, close contacts across what remained of the North Sea Plain never ceased, as evidenced by near-parallel developments of the Maglemosian-type tools in southern Scandinavia and Britain (Clark 1936), and by particular practices such as the deliberate deposition of barbed points (see chapter 3). Connections across the North Sea throughout the Mesolithic and the beginning of the Neolithic would have been made easier because of the number of islands surviving within the rising sea. The polished axes from Dogger Bank and Brown Bank either represent human presence on these islands in the early Neolithic or else indicate that the existence of these islands sometime in the pre-Neolithic past was embedded in the social memory of later periods. Both possibilities emphasize the fact that the North Sea was a knowable and visited place. Movements across the North Sea took various forms: as exchange between elites from different regions of exotic or ‘prestige’ goods, and possibly of marriage partners; as trade in both luxury and bulk commodities; and in the transfer of people, in some cases as individuals such as pilgrims and missionaries, and in other cases as groups of pirates or as part of larger-scale migrations. Over time, connectedness across the North Sea changed both in nature and in intensity; this was due in no small part to changes in the nature of the craft available. An outline of the movement of goods from the Neolithic through to the end of the Middle Ages illustrates this. Contacts across the North Sea for the Neolithic and the Bronze Age are demonstrated in the long-distance exchange of exotic objects and artefacts, including Beaker pottery, jewellery, or other adornments of gold, amber, faience, jet, and tin; also copper and bronze weapons and tools, and flint daggers, arrowheads, and wrist guards (e.g. Butler, 1963; O’Connor, 1980; Bradley 1984; Clarke, Cowie, and Foxon 1985).

scholarly journals The Northwest Belgian Bronze Age Barrow in Context: A Review of the 14C Chronology from the Late Neolithic to Bronze Age

Radiocarbon ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 479-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen De Reu
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Sudden Appearance ◽  
Bell Beaker ◽  
Building Practice ◽  
The Bronze Age

To formulate a solid chronology of the northwest Belgian Bronze Age barrow phenomenon, a critical review of the available radiocarbon dates was necessary. The resulting 14C chronology of the barrows was compared with the 14C chronologies of the Late Neolithic Bell Beaker graves, the Bronze Age metalwork depositions, the evidence of barrow reuse, and the Bronze Age longhouses. This research revealed interesting patterns concerning the appearance and disappearance of the barrow phenomenon. The earliest 14C-dated barrows are dated during the Late Neolithic and coincide with the presence of the Bell Beaker culture in the region. The peak of the barrow-building practice occurred between 1700 and 1500/1400 cal BC, a period of flourishing trade networks in the regions along the North Sea basin. The period around 1500 cal BC is characterized by the disappearance of barrow-building practices and the sudden appearance of ritual depositional practices, reflecting changes in society.

Socializing coastal landscapes

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Van de Noort
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Sand Dunes ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The North ◽  
Coastal Landscapes ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Landscape Research ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Sea Coast

For many decades, archaeologists have studied the ways in which past people have made the landscapes they inhabited their own, through the construction of paths and roads, monuments, settlements, and field systems, leading to what has been termed ‘cultural landscapes’. Such approaches have great validity on land. Archaeologists’ interest in constructed monuments, for example, enables the analysis of social structures and social changes over centuries, and nowhere is this approach more vigorously pursued than for the monument-rich Wessex region in the Neolithic and Bronze Age (e.g. Renfrew 1973; Barrett 1997). In order to achieve such a social analysis of monuments, understanding the sequences of construction, alteration, modification, and sometimes conversion is a long-standing theme in archaeological landscape research (e.g. Bradley 1998). The notion that ‘one type of monument could only be read and understood in relation to the others’ (Tilley 1994: 203) is broadly accepted. Most archaeologists have taken it for granted that man-made features and monuments survive for centuries, and much human activity in the landscape, including the construction of new monuments, is believed to have been guided by the presence of these monuments of the ancestors. A century is a short time in the lifespan of a monument. On the coast, however, few constructed monuments survive for so long. A recent example may help to illustrate the short-lived nature of monuments in coastal settings. On the North Sea coast of Jutland, between the villages of Lønstrop and Nørre Rubjerg, stands the Rubjerg Kunde lighthouse. Inaugurated in 1900, this 23 m-high lighthouse was taken out of commission in 1968, but the outbuildings were converted into a cafeteria and a museum. These were abandoned in 2002 as the sand dunes covered the outhouses, leaving only the upper part of the lighthouse prey to the dunes. Some of the nearby dunes stand higher than the top of the lighthouse. The site now attracts unprecedented numbers of visitors, who come to see the interplay between human creation and natural forces at work. On the coast, the landscape is changing constantly.

An archaeological theory of the sea

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Van de Noort
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Archaeological Theory ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
The North ◽  
The Social ◽  
The North Sea

Despite the wealth of information available on the North Sea, surprisingly few archaeologists have set out to study how people related to and connected to this sea, and other seas, in the past. In fact, we can distinguish four established traditions in archaeological research of the sea, all of which originated in the 20th century. First, many (or most) land-locked archaeologists working on any side of the North Sea have simply disregarded the sea itself, seeing it merely as the natural boundary of their study areas rather than considering its role in any significant way. At best, they are seeing the sea from the land, without genuinely engaging with it (cf. Cooney 2003: 323), although the panorama is slowly changing (e.g. cf. Bradley 1984 with Bradley 2007). Second, there are those archaeologists with an interest in long-distance exchange and exotic objects, who focused initially on the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods but have also been concerned, in more recent decades, with the early medieval period. Although these archaeologists have recognized the seas as conduits of long-distance exchange, they have rarely questioned how the practice of travel across the sea impacted on the social products of such exchange (e.g. Butler 1963, O’Connor 1980, Bradley 1984, Clarke, Cowie, and Foxon 1985, for the Neolithic and early Bronze Age; Hodges 1982, Loveluck and Tys 2006, for the early medieval period). Third, a group of archaeologists have studied the exploitation of the sea, especially for fish and salt, and the occupation and the reclamation of the edges of the sea in the Roman period and afterwards; but these studies have generally not strayed beyond the functional utilization of the sea and coast both for food and for land for food production (e.g. Clark 1961; Van den Broeke 1985; Andersen 1995, 2007; Rippon 2000; Smart 2003; Milner et al. 2004; De Kraker and Borger 2007). And fourth, maritime archaeologists’ focus has been on ships and waterside structures directly relating to shipping activities, but the development of a fuller appreciation of the significance of the sea and seafaring to past societies remains something of a distant aspiration (e.g. Ellmers 1972; McGrail 2003: 1).

Barrow Landscapes Across the Channel (2500–1600 BC)

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley ◽  
Colin Haselgrove ◽  
Marc Vander Linden ◽  
Leo Webley
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Funerary Monuments ◽  
The North ◽  
Northwest Europe ◽  
Southern Netherlands ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
State Of Affairs

It was easy to choose the title of this chapter. Over a span of almost a thousand years, which embraces the late Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and early Bronze Age periods in local chronologies, the archaeological record of northwest Europe takes a distinctive form. Round barrows are widely distributed and are found on both sides of the English Channel and the North Sea. At the same time there are few regions in which the dwellings of the living population can be identified and studied in any detail. There is good evidence for long-distance contacts illustrated by the movement of artefacts and raw materials, and analysis of human bones suggests that certain individuals travelled in the course of their lives. Even so, the best indications of these networks are provided by the contents of the graves. There is a danger of taking this state of affairs literally. Any account that summarizes the distribution of funerary monuments is subject to certain biases. Although barrows play a prominent part in the archaeology of the later third and earlier second millennia BC, there were many burials without mounds. There are also regions in which earthworks are preserved and others where they have been destroyed. For example, in lowland England major concentrations of round barrows have been documented on the chalk of Wessex and Sussex, but it has taken aerial photography, supplemented by development-led excavations, to show that they occurred in equally high densities on the Isle of Thanet which commands the entrance to the Thames estuary. On the opposite shore of the Channel there is a great concentration of round barrows in Flanders and another on the gravels of the Somme (Fig. 4.2; De Reu et al. 2011). Again they have been discovered from the air, but in this case comparatively few have been excavated and dated. There is a striking contrast with the situation across the border in the southern Netherlands where round barrows still survive. Even there research has shown that many examples were levelled in the nineteenth century (Bourgeois 2013).

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