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This article reviews the potential of archives of historic aerial photographs for European archaeology. Their roles in primary site discovery, in monitoring condition and material change, and in understanding landscape development with particular reference to the implementation of the European Landscape Convention are discussed. The major sources are briefly described and their characteristics outlined. The impacts that differing national and regional research traditions and heritage policy have on the use of these archival collections is discussed in the framework of issues of variable accessibility and approaches to ensuring appropriate uses, including identifying limitations.
In 1904, a Viking Age ship was found and excavated in Oseberg, on the west side of the Oslo Fjord, south of Oslo, Norway. The skeletal remnants of two females buried onboard were anthropologically examined during the inter-war years. Questions surrounding their identities have prompted much speculation, and many people like to believe that one of the women could be Queen Åsa, the grandmother of Norway's first king. When the skeletons were reburied in 1948, a few smaller pieces were held back and stored in the Anatomical Institute at the University of Oslo. Those fragments have now been radiocarbon dated at 1220±40 and 1230±40 BP. Their similar δ13 = −21.6‰/−21.0‰ indicates that they both were nourished by a diet consisting primarily of terrestrial food and only to a lesser degree by fish. To answer the question of whether the two women were related, Dr Tom Gilbert at the Panum Institute in Copenhagen managed to obtain a DNA profile from the younger of the two, which profile indicates that her sample falls into the haplogroup U7. This finding is interesting, as this haplogroup is nearly absent in modern Europeans but is common in Iranians. Perhaps this could mean that the young lady's ancestors came from the district around the Black Sea, as Snorri Sturlusson notes in his Saga. Unfortunately, the bones from the older woman were too contaminated to provide a clear profile. Because there is reason to fear that the reburied skeletal material will slowly disintegrate in the coffins, some scholars desired that the mound be reopened in order to save the remains and to determine whether it is possible to obtain another DNA profile before such an opportunity is lost.
Chronology remains a problematic area in prehistoric archaeology but the increasing number and precision of radiometric dates begin to suggest patterns that can be resolved down to the scale of individual lifetimes. The study of megalithic monuments has benefited from these developments but remains hampered by the indirect relationship between the materials that are dated and the structures themselves. Drawing on evidence from France, Scandinavia, and Iberia, it is nonetheless arguable that available patterns of dates suggest an event-like tempo to the construction of megalithic monuments, with large numbers being built within relatively short periods of time. This has implications for typological models and for the social context in which such monuments were designed and built.
We present data on the chemical and lead isotope composition of copper and bronze objects from Nuragic Sardinia. The sample suite comprises, inter alia, objects from the hoard finds at Arzachena (21 objects), Bonnanaro (10), Ittireddu (34), and Pattada (20), all in northern Sardinia. With one exception, all ingot fragments (49) consist of unalloyed copper; the exception comes from Ittireddu and contains 11 per cent tin. In contradistinction, all implements (21) are made from standard bronze with a mean tin content of 10.8 per cent. A dozen sword fragments from the Arzachena hoard, all of fairly uniform small size, are pieces of a large number of different swords. The low tin content of only about 1 per cent would have made for poor weapons, confirming the archaeological identification of the fragments as pieces of votive swords. Scrap metal from Arzachena is remarkable for its wide range of trace element contents and lead isotope abundance ratios. It is dissimilar to all other metal samples investigated, possibly representing metal from local smelting experiments using a variety of different copper ores. Lead isotope data and trace element patterns, alone or in conjunction, do not allow us to tell oxhide ingots from plano-convex (bun) ingots. Most ingot fragments have a lead isotope signature similar to those of Cypriot copper ores but there are also a number of ingots whose lead isotope fingerprints are fully compatible with them being local products. Of the bronzes, none has lead with an isotopic composition characteristic of copper ingots from Cyprus. All contain local lead, suggesting the bronze implements were manufactured locally. Isotopically-fitting lead is found in copper and lead ore deposits from the Iglesiente-Sulcis district in south-west Sardinia and from Funtana Raminosa in central Sardinia.
This paper details a new approach to the study of the Scythian burial mounds—the ‘planigraphy’ (or spatial analysis) of the mound and its burials, which follows two lines of enquiry that have so far been largely overlooked. Firstly, the statistics concerning the depth of all types of graves, such as primary and secondary burials, servants’ and horse graves, have been closely examined and compared because this parameter is an important mark of the social status and hierarchy of the deceased and their burials in Scythian funeral ceremonies. Secondly, grave locations within the mounds have been analysed with regard to their arrangement in relation to the ideal latitudinal and meridian axis of the Scythian mound. This analysis has led to the discovery of new facts concerning the planigraphy of the Scythian burial mound, which contribute to a more detailed understanding of the spatial representation of kinship and family hierarchy in Scythian society. The new evidence also sheds light on their system of geographical orientation in terms of cardinal points.