Human-induced prehistoric soil buried in the flood plain of Svratka River, Czech Republic

The Holocene ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lenka Vejrostová ◽  
Lenka Lisá ◽  
David Parma ◽  
Aleš Bajer ◽  
Mária Hajnalová ◽  
...  

The natural setting and prehistoric human activity on Holocene floodplains in Central Europe is a compelling issue from several points of view. This environment presents an important sedimentary archive reflecting past human behaviour in interactions with climate change. Two sedimentary sections recorded in the alluvial zone of Svratka River (Moravia) with a buried soil dated to the time span between the Neolithic and Late Bronze Age, and comprising one paleo-catena, were investigated using a multiproxy approach. The buried paleo-catena presents evidence of long-term (ancient) soil development, and the use of the site for human settlement and farming ca. 4500 BC until 1000 BC. Buried soil horizons indicate (climate) stability, which according to archaeological evidence lasted for at least 3500 years, until at least 1000 BC. The architecture and the lithology of the river floodplain changes approximately 0 AD. Anthropogenic settlement activity was not detected at the site in the subsequent period, and this is very likely to be associated with increased sedimentation rates and less optimal conditions for human settlement.

Author(s):  
Дмитрий Валериевич Судаков ◽  
Олег Валериевич Судаков ◽  
Людмила Валентиновна Кретинина ◽  
Наталья Владимировна Якушева ◽  
Артём Николаевич Шевцов

Статья посвящена построению прогноза эффективности реконструктивных вмешательств на магистральных нервах предплечья в зависимости от протяженности дефекта нервной ткани и особенностей последующего периода реабилитации пациентов. Данная тематика является весьма актуальной, так как с каждым годом во всем мире наблюдается определенный рост случаев травм различного генеза магистральных нервных стволов, которые затем нередко приводят к временной нетрудоспособности и даже инвалидности пациентов. Реконструктивная микрохирургия многие десятилетия пытается решить целый ряд проблем аутотрансплантации нервных стволов и повысить ее общую эффективность. Но из-за определенных проблем связанных с финансированием, некоторые вопросы трансплантологии и реабилитации остаются нерешенными и в настоящий момент. Все это придает представленной работе важное значение не только медицинского, но и социально - экономического плана. Целью работы стала попытка построения прогноза восстановительных операций на нервной ткани, с учетом объема пораженных структур и периода реабилитации. Объектами исследования стало 180 больных, которым по той или иной причине, осуществлялась реконструктивная операция на одном из магистральных нервов предплечья. Все пациенты были разделены на 3 группы по 60 человек, в зависимости от протяженности дефекта магистрального нерва: до 4 см, от 4 до 8 см и от 8 до 12 см. Последующее разделение внутри каждой группы на подгруппы производилось в зависимости от определенного поврежденного нерва (лучевой, локтевой, срединный). В работе изучалось течение раннего послеоперационного воспалительного процесса, с определением бактериальной микрофлоры в ране. Изучались и отдаленные последствия оперативного вмешательства. Своеобразной новизной для данной тематики в целом, стало выявление последующего установления инвалидности пациентов. Кроме того, важные данные были получены и по срокам реабилитации и частичного или полного восстановления утраченных функций по срокам в зависимости от размеров восстанавливаемого дефекта и от наличия или отсутствия необходимой реабилитации. Полученные в работе данные могут представлять интерес не только для врачей хирургов и травматологов, но и для организаторов здравоохранения, позволяя производить прогнозы по выздоровлению пациентов в каждой определенной клинической ситуации The article is devoted to the construction of a forecast of the effectiveness of reconstructive interventions on the main nerves of the forearm, depending on the length of the defect in the nervous tissue and the characteristics of the subsequent period of rehabilitation of patients. This topic is very relevant, since every year all over the world there is a certain increase in cases of injuries of various origins of the main nerve trunks, which then often lead to temporary disability and even disability of patients. For many decades, reconstructive microsurgery has been trying to solve a number of problems of autotransplantation of nerve trunks and improve its overall efficiency. But due to certain problems associated with funding, some issues of transplantation and rehabilitation remain unresolved at the moment. All this gives the presented work important not only medical, but also socio - economic importance. The aim of this work was to attempt to predict restorative operations on the nervous tissue, taking into account the volume of the affected structures and the period of rehabilitation. The objects of the study were 180 patients who, for one reason or another, underwent a reconstructive operation on one of the main nerves of the forearm. All patients were divided into 3 groups of 60 people, depending on the length of the main nerve defect: up to 4 cm, from 4 to 8 cm, and from 8 to 12 cm. Subsequent division within each group into subgroups was performed depending on the specific damaged nerve ( radial, ulnar, median). The work studied the course of the early postoperative inflammatory process, with the determination of bacterial microflora in the wound. The long-term consequences of surgery were also studied. A peculiar novelty for this topic as a whole was the identification of the subsequent establishment of disability in patients. In addition, important data were obtained on the timing of rehabilitation and partial or complete restoration of lost functions in terms of timing, depending on the size of the restored defect and on the presence or absence of the necessary rehabilitation. The data obtained in this work may be of interest not only for surgeons and traumatologists, but also for healthcare organizers, allowing them to make predictions about the recovery of patients in each specific clinical situation


Author(s):  
Finn Fuglestad

The small Slave Coast between the river Volta and Lagos, and especially its central part around Ouidah, was the epicentre of the slave trade in West Africa. But it was also an inhospitable, surf-ridden coastline, subject to crashing breakers and devoid of permanent human settlement. Nor was it easily accessible from the interior due to a lagoon which ran parallel to the coast. The local inhabitants were not only sheltered against incursions from the sea, but were also locked off from it. Yet, paradoxically, this small coastline witnessed a thriving long-term commercial relationship between Europeans and Africans, based on the trans-Atlantic slave trade. How did it come about? How was it all organized? Dahomey is usually cited as the Slave Coast's archetypical slave raiding and slave trading polity. An originally inland realm, it was a latecomer to the slave trade, and simply incorporated a pre-existing system by dint of military prowess, which ultimately was to prove radically counterproductive. Dahomey, which never controlled more than half of the region we call the Slave Coast, represented an anomaly in the local setting, an anomaly the author seeks to define and to explain.


Author(s):  
Christophe Sand

New Caledonia is the southern-most archipelago of Melanesia. Its unique geological diversity, as part of the old Gondwana plate, has led to specific pedological and floral environments that have, since first human settlement, influenced the ways Pacific Islanders have occupied and used the landscape. This essay presents some of the key periods of the nearly 3,000 years of pre-colonial human settlement. After having presented a short history of archaeological research in New Caledonia, the essay focuses first on the Lapita foundation, which raises questions of long-term contacts and cultural change. The second part details the unique specificities developed during the “Traditional Kanak Cultural Complex,” during the millennium predating first European contact, as well as highlighting the massive changes brought by the introduction of new diseases, in the decades before the colonial settlement era. This leads to questions about archaeological history and the role of archaeology in the present decolonizing context.


1997 ◽  
Vol 506 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.W. Dormuth ◽  
P.A. Gillespie ◽  
S.H. Whitaker

ABSTRACTA federal Environmental Assessment Panel has completed public hearings on the proposed concept for geological disposal of Canada's nuclear fuel waste. The Panel will make recommendations to assist the governments of Canada and Ontario in reaching decisions on the acceptability of the proposed concept and on the steps that must be taken to ensure the safe long-term management of nuclear fuel waste in Canada. It is instructive to review the background to the public hearings, to consider the issues that have been important in the public review, and to reflect on the opposing points of view presented at the hearings.


2013 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 220-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Renson ◽  
A. Martínez-Cortizas ◽  
N. Mattielli ◽  
J. Coenaerts ◽  
C. Sauvage ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Maia Bellingham

<p>Understanding how active mountain landscapes contribute to carbon dioxide cycling and influences on long-term climate stability requires measurement of weathering fluxes from these landscapes. The few measured chemical weathering rates in the Southern Alps are an order of magnitude greater than in the rest of the world. Rapid tectonic uplift coupled with extreme orographic precipitation is driving exceptionally fast chemical and physical denudation. These rates suggest that weathering in landscapes such as the Southern Alps could play a significant role in carbon dioxide cycling. However, the relative importance of climate and tectonics driving these fast rates remains poorly understood.   To address this gap, in situ ¹⁰Be derived catchment-averaged denudation rates were measured in the Ōhau catchment, Canterbury, New Zealand. Denudation rates in the Dobson Valley within the Ōhau catchment, varied from 474 – 7,570 m Myr⁻¹, aside from one sub-catchment in the upper Dobson Valley that had a denudation rate of 12,142 m Myr⁻¹. The Dobson and Hopkins Rivers had denudation rates of 1,660 and 4,400 m Myr⁻¹ respectively, in these catchments. Dobson Valley denudation rates show a moderate correlation with mean annual precipitation (R²=0.459). This correlation supports a similar trend identified at local and regional scales, and at high rates of precipitation this may be an important driver of erosion and weathering.   Sampling of four grain sizes (0.125 to > 8 mm) at one site in the Dobson Valley resulted in variability in ¹⁰Be concentrations up to a factor of 2.5, which may be a result of each grain size recording different erosional processes. These observations demonstrate the importance of assessing potential variability and the need to sample consistent grain sizes across catchments.   Chemical depletion fractions measured within soil pits in the upper Dobson Valley indicate chemical weathering contributes 30% of total denudation, and that physical erosion is driving rapid total denudation. Chemical weathering appears to surpass any proposed weathering speed limit and suggests total weathering may not be limited by weathering kinetics. This research adds to the paucity of research in New Zealand, and for the first time presents ¹⁰Be derived denudation rates from the eastern Southern Alps, with estimates of the long-term weathering flux. High weathering fluxes in the Southern Alps uphold the hypothesis that mountain landscapes play an important role in carbon dioxide cycling and long-term climate stability.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 182-192
Author(s):  
Viktor Alekseevich Zakh

Landscapes of the Tobol-Ishim interfluve were not stable in the Holocene and varied from forests and drowned floodplains at the beginning of the V and III millennia BC to steppificated territories with a lowered water level at the beginning of the Atlantic Period and in the middle of the Subboreal Period, which determined the main types of economic activities, one of them was fishing. Changes in hydrological regime of water bodies influenced the methods of fishing, including the use of different traps. Thus, in the Neolithic, when the water level decreased, the location of settlements in the system river-creek-lake (for example, Mergen 6), a large number of fish bones, bone harpoons, fishing spears, fishing tackles for catching pike and a total absence of plummets were indicative of individual fishing for large fish and, perhaps, of stop net fishery, which was facilitated by a decrease in the width of watercourses and tombolos. Stop net (stake net) fishery led to a settled lifestyle of the population, collective activities and the emergence of long-term settlements with deep foundation pits of dwellings. When the water level in rivers and lakes increased and floods became more frequent, the life support system changed, the population began to develop coasts more widely, its mobility increased, and they started to build framed above-ground dwellings. Following those changes, biconic, cigar-shaped, and corniculate plummets emerged in the Tobol River Basin and on the adjacent western and north-western territories in the III and early II millennium BC. When the water level was high, it was efficient to fish using traps, seines and, probably, nets, although the latter could also be used in drive hunting for shedding geese and ducks. Subrectangular plummets with one or two ties for fastening, and disk-shaped plummets with a tie in the center had been prevailing since the beginning of the II millennium BC; they existed until the first third of the I millennium BC. This period, the transition time from the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, is characterized by the absence of clay plummets, while there are large accumulations of fish scales and bones in the settlement layers. We can suppose that the population of that time (local Late Bronze Age population, mixed with northern migrants who made utensils with cross ornamentation) switched from net fishing to stop net fishing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 3672
Author(s):  
Johannes H. Uhl ◽  
Stefan Leyk ◽  
Zekun Li ◽  
Weiwei Duan ◽  
Basel Shbita ◽  
...  

Spatially explicit, fine-grained datasets describing historical urban extents are rarely available prior to the era of operational remote sensing. However, such data are necessary to better understand long-term urbanization and land development processes and for the assessment of coupled nature–human systems (e.g., the dynamics of the wildland–urban interface). Herein, we propose a framework that jointly uses remote-sensing-derived human settlement data (i.e., the Global Human Settlement Layer, GHSL) and scanned, georeferenced historical maps to automatically generate historical urban extents for the early 20th century. By applying unsupervised color space segmentation to the historical maps, spatially constrained to the urban extents derived from the GHSL, our approach generates historical settlement extents for seamless integration with the multi-temporal GHSL. We apply our method to study areas in countries across four continents, and evaluate our approach against historical building density estimates from the Historical Settlement Data Compilation for the US (HISDAC-US), and against urban area estimates from the History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE). Our results achieve Area-under-the-Curve values >0.9 when comparing to HISDAC-US and are largely in agreement with model-based urban areas from the HYDE database, demonstrating that the integration of remote-sensing-derived observations and historical cartographic data sources opens up new, promising avenues for assessing urbanization and long-term land cover change in countries where historical maps are available.


Author(s):  
Joakim Goldhahn

This chapter offers a long-term perspective on rock art in northern Europe. It first provides an overview of research on the rock art traditions of northern Europe before discussing the societies and cultures that created such traditions. It then considers examples of rock art made by hunter-gatherer societies in northern Europe, focusing on the first rock art boom related to Neolithization. It also examines the second rock art boom, which was associated with social and religious changes within farming communities that took place around 1600–1400 bc. The chapter concludes by analysing the breakdown of long-distance networks in the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and its consequences for the making of rock art within the southern traditions, as well as the use of rock art sites during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, Roman Iron Age, and Migration Period.


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