scholarly journals Two Sides of the Same Coin: A Combination of Archaeometallurgy and Environmental Archaeology to Re-Examine the Hypothesis of Yunnan as the Source of Highly Radiogenic Lead in Early Dynastic China

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruiliang Liu ◽  
A. Mark Pollard ◽  
Feiya Lv ◽  
Limin Huan ◽  
Shanjia Zhang ◽  
...  

Bronze Age Shang China is characterized by its large-scale production system and distinctive ritual world. Both are vividly materialized by a large number of bronze ritual vessels with added lead. Whilst a remarkable amount of research effort has been channeled into the trace elemental and lead isotopic analysis of these ritual vessels, and successfully revealed some important fingerprints such as highly radiogenic lead (HRL), there is as yet no consensus on the metal source(s) which supplied the entire bronze production during the Shang period. In addition to the traditional method to look for matching and mismatching between ores and objects, we propose that environmental archaeological studies can provide crucial clues to address some long-standing questions in archaeometallurgy. In the first part of the paper, we attempt to illustrate the potential and complexity of combining these two subjects together. The second part of the paper offers a case study by reviewing the debate on Yunnan as the source of HRL. Synthesis of various lines of evidence published by most recent studies on environmental archaeology, archaeometallurgy, field reports and radiocarbon dating suggests that this hypothesis appears much less likely than previously suspected.

Author(s):  
Peter S. Wells

The peoples who inhabited Europe during the two millennia before the Roman conquests had established urban centers, large-scale production of goods such as pottery and iron tools, a money economy, and elaborate rituals and ceremonies. Yet as this book argues, the visual world of these late prehistoric communities was profoundly different from those of ancient Rome's literate civilization and today's industrialized societies. Drawing on startling new research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, the book reconstructs how the peoples of pre-Roman Europe saw the world and their place in it. It sheds new light on how they communicated their thoughts, feelings, and visual perceptions through the everyday tools they shaped, the pottery and metal ornaments they decorated, and the arrangements of objects they made in their ritual places—and how these forms and patterns in turn shaped their experience. The book offers a completely new approach to the study of Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, and represents a major challenge to existing views about prehistoric cultures. It demonstrates why we cannot interpret the structures that Europe's pre-Roman inhabitants built in the landscape, the ways they arranged their settlements and burial sites, or the complex patterning of their art on the basis of what these things look like to us. Rather, we must view these objects and visual patterns as they were meant to be seen by the ancient peoples who fashioned them.


2015 ◽  
Vol 62 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 65-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dvory Namdar ◽  
Alon Amrani ◽  
Nimrod Getzov ◽  
Ianir Milevski

Several occupation levels dating to the sixth to fifth millennia BC (the Wadi Rabah and pre-Ghassulian Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures as well as the Early Bronze Age IB–II) were found in a salvage excavation conducted at Ein Zippori in the lower Galilee. Pottery vessels from the different periods were sampled for organic residue analysis study and were analyzed using gas chromatography (GC) coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Olive oil was one of the most common organic residues detected in the vessels, from the levels of the Wadi Rabah occupation and onwards (sixth to fifth millennia BC). This find throws new light on the exploitation of olives in the southern Levant as well as on the large-scale production and consumption of olive oil in the Late Pottery Neolithic and pre-Ghassulian Chalcolithic times.


Author(s):  
David R. Dalton

It has been suggested that containers made of clay (e.g., the amphora of the bronze age) were adopted for use during the thousands of years of winemaking that preceded the ability to produce suitable glass vessels. Sealing the amphora, as reported by archeologists and historians, was accomplished with clay or leaves covered with clay, rags, wax, pine resin (producing retsina), and even today’s popular choice, cork. With the exception of the latter, where only a small amount of air can leak in, it appears that too much air would enter and the flavor of the wine would change. In part, the effort to seal the amphora was futile, as the clay amphora would leak too. But waxes and resins helped seal out air and, in the process, often changed the flavor of the beverage. Again, historically, it appears from analysis of the contents remaining in the old vessels that various flavoring agents, such as berries, fruits, leaves, flowers, and even metals such as lead were intentionally added to wines to suit the tastes of the consumer. Nonetheless, oxidation and bacteria (e.g., Acetobacter aceti, known to convert ethanol [CH3CH2OH] to acetaldehyde [CH3CHO] and thence to acetic acid [CH3CH2OH]) would often make the beverage unpalatable (by today’s tastes). So, tastes were adjusted to fit the beverage available! It was also found that wines that had additional ethanol present were resistant to bacterial action, so tastes (even into the twentieth century) were developed for “fortified” wines (vide infra, Chapter 21) such as Port, Sherry, and Madeira that were to be shipped in casks. More recently shipment of the latter in glass bottles (since late in the nineteenth century) along with cork stoppers have become common. Most recently, synthetic (i.e., polymer) stoppers and aluminum screw caps have been used for all of these beverages because most wine is produced to be consumed within a few years of its bottling. This fairly recent change has arisen as an accommodation to large-scale production, long-distance shipping, and storage in commercial sales facilities, none of which encourage saving wine for aging.


1993 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-131
Author(s):  
Naureen Talha

The literature on female labour in Third World countries has become quite extensive. India, being comparatively more advanced industrially, and in view of its size and population, presents a pictures of multiplicity of problems which face the female labour market. However, the author has also included Mexico in this analytical study. It is interesting to see the characteristics of developing industrialisation in two different societies: the Indian society, which is conservative, and the Mexican society, which is progressive. In the first chapter of the book, the author explains that he is not concerned with the process of industrialisation and female labour employed at different levels of work, but that he is interested in forms of production and women's employment in large-scale production, petty commodity production, marginal small production, and self-employment in the informal sector. It is only by analysis of these forms that the picture of females having a lower status is understood in its social and political setting.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 572-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ponnusamy Kannan ◽  
Samuel I.D. Presley ◽  
Pallikondaperumal Shanmugasundaram ◽  
Nagapillai Prakash ◽  
Deivanayagam Easwaramoorthy

Aim and Objective: Itopride is a prokinetic agent used for treating conditions like non-ulcer dyspepsia. Itopride is administered as its hydrochloride salt. Trimethobenzamide is used for treating nausea and vomiting and administered as its hydrochloride salt. The aim is to develop a novel and environmental friendly method for large-scale production of itopride and trimethobenzamide. Materials and Methods: Itopride and trimethobenzamide can be prepared from a common intermediate 4- (dimethylaminoethoxy) benzyl amine. The intermediate is prepared from one pot synthesis using Phyrdroxybenzaldehye and zinc dust and further reaction of the intermediate with substituted methoxy benzoic acid along with boric acid and PEG gives itopride and trimethobenzamide. Results: The intermediate 4-(dimethylaminoethoxy) benzylamine is prepared by treating p-hydroxybenzaldehyde and 2-dimethylaminoethyl chloride. The aldehyde formed is treated with hydroxylamine hydrochloride. The intermediate is confirmed by NMR and the purity is analysed by HPLC. Conclusion: Both itopride and trimethobenzamide were successfully synthesized by this method. The developed method is environmental friendly, economical for large-scale production with good yield and purity.


Marine Drugs ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 241
Author(s):  
Shaden A. M. Khalifa ◽  
Eslam S. Shedid ◽  
Essa M. Saied ◽  
Amir Reza Jassbi ◽  
Fatemeh H. Jamebozorgi ◽  
...  

Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotic organisms which represent a significant source of novel, bioactive, secondary metabolites, and they are also considered an abundant source of bioactive compounds/drugs, such as dolastatin, cryptophycin 1, curacin toyocamycin, phytoalexin, cyanovirin-N and phycocyanin. Some of these compounds have displayed promising results in successful Phase I, II, III and IV clinical trials. Additionally, the cyanobacterial compounds applied to medical research have demonstrated an exciting future with great potential to be developed into new medicines. Most of these compounds have exhibited strong pharmacological activities, including neurotoxicity, cytotoxicity and antiviral activity against HCMV, HSV-1, HHV-6 and HIV-1, so these metabolites could be promising candidates for COVID-19 treatment. Therefore, the effective large-scale production of natural marine products through synthesis is important for resolving the existing issues associated with chemical isolation, including small yields, and may be necessary to better investigate their biological activities. Herein, we highlight the total synthesized and stereochemical determinations of the cyanobacterial bioactive compounds. Furthermore, this review primarily focuses on the biotechnological applications of cyanobacteria, including applications as cosmetics, food supplements, and the nanobiotechnological applications of cyanobacterial bioactive compounds in potential medicinal applications for various human diseases are discussed.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 1940
Author(s):  
Muhammad Usman Naseer ◽  
Ants Kallaste ◽  
Bilal Asad ◽  
Toomas Vaimann ◽  
Anton Rassõlkin

This paper presents current research trends and prospects of utilizing additive manufacturing (AM) techniques to manufacture electrical machines. Modern-day machine applications require extraordinary performance parameters such as high power-density, integrated functionalities, improved thermal, mechanical & electromagnetic properties. AM offers a higher degree of design flexibility to achieve these performance parameters, which is impossible to realize through conventional manufacturing techniques. AM has a lot to offer in every aspect of machine fabrication, such that from size/weight reduction to the realization of complex geometric designs. However, some practical limitations of existing AM techniques restrict their utilization in large scale production industry. The introduction of three-dimensional asymmetry in machine design is an aspect that can be exploited most with the prevalent level of research in AM. In order to take one step further towards the enablement of large-scale production of AM-built electrical machines, this paper also discusses some machine types which can best utilize existing developments in the field of AM.


Author(s):  
Yuting Luo ◽  
Zhiyuan Zhang ◽  
Fengning Yang ◽  
Jiong Li ◽  
Zhibo Liu ◽  
...  

Large-scale production of green hydrogen by electrochemical water splitting is considered as a promising technology to address critical energy challenges caused by the extensive use of fossil fuels. Although nonprecious...


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rozina Rashid ◽  
Muhammad Sohail

AbstractThe capacity of different Bacillus species to produce large amounts of extracellular enzymes and ability to ferment various substrates at a wide range of pH and temperature has placed them among the most promising hosts for the industrial production of many improved and novel products. The global interest in prebiotics, for example, xylooligosaccharides (XOs) is ever increasing, rousing the quest for various forms with expanded productivity. This article provides an overview of xylanase producing bacilli, with more emphasis on their capacity to be used in the production of the XOs, followed by the purification strategies, characteristics and application of XOs from bacilli. The large-scale production of XOs is carried out from a number of xylan-rich lignocellulosic materials by chemical or enzymatic hydrolysis followed by purification through chromatography, vacuum evaporation, solvent extraction or membrane separation methods. Utilization of XOs in the production of functional products as food ingredients brings well-being to individuals by improving defense system and eliminating pathogens. In addition to the effects related to health, a variety of other biological impacts have also been discussed.


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