Related Research Articles
Isotope analysis is the identification of isotopic signature, abundance of certain stable isotopes of chemical elements within organic and inorganic compounds. Isotopic analysis can be used to understand the flow of energy through a food web, to reconstruct past environmental and climatic conditions, to investigate human and animal diets, for food authentification, and a variety of other physical, geological, palaeontological and chemical processes. Stable isotope ratios are measured using mass spectrometry, which separates the different isotopes of an element on the basis of their mass-to-charge ratio.
Wilton is a term archaeologists use to generalize archaeological sites and cultures that share similar stone and non-stone technology dating from 8,000-4,000 years ago. Archaeologists often refer to Wilton as a technocomplex, or Industry. Technological industries are defined by a common tradition of stone tool assemblages, but these technological industries extend to common cultural behaviors. As such, archaeologists use these industries to define a discrete cultural taxonomy. However, technological industries have the potential to generalize different cultures and communities at regional scales that, in more local settings, are distinguishable in both technology and cultural behaviors.
Carmel Schrire is a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University whose research focuses on historical archaeology, particularly in South Africa and Europe.
Bioarchaeology in Europe describes the study of biological remains from archaeological sites. In the United States it is the scientific study of human remains from archaeological sites.
Carbon (6C) has 14 known isotopes, from 8
C
to 20
C
as well as 22
C
, of which 12
C
and 13
C
are stable. The longest-lived radioisotope is 14
C
, with a half-life of 5.70(3)×103 years. This is also the only carbon radioisotope found in nature, as trace quantities are formed cosmogenically by the reaction 14
N
+
n
→ 14
C
+ 1
H
. The most stable artificial radioisotope is 11
C
, which has a half-life of 20.3402(53) min. All other radioisotopes have half-lives under 20 seconds, most less than 200 milliseconds. The least stable isotope is 8
C
, with a half-life of 3.5(1.4)×10−21 s. Light isotopes tend to decay into isotopes of boron and heavy ones tend to decay into isotopes of nitrogen.
An isotopic signature is a ratio of non-radiogenic 'stable isotopes', stable radiogenic isotopes, or unstable radioactive isotopes of particular elements in an investigated material. The ratios of isotopes in a sample material are measured by isotope-ratio mass spectrometry against an isotopic reference material. This process is called isotope analysis.
Blombos Cave is an archaeological site located in Blombos Private Nature Reserve, about 300 km east of Cape Town on the Southern Cape coastline, South Africa. The cave contains Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits currently dated at between c. 100,000 and 70,000 years Before Present (BP), and a Late Stone Age sequence dated at between 2000 and 300 years BP. The cave site was first excavated in 1991 and field work has been conducted there on a regular basis since 1997, and is ongoing.
A carbon-to-nitrogen ratio is a ratio of the mass of carbon to the mass of nitrogen in organic residues. It can, amongst other things, be used in analysing sediments and soil including soil organic matter and soil amendments such as compost.
Parapapio is a genus of prehistoric baboons closely resembling the forest-dwelling mangabeys. Parapapio is distinguished from other Papio by the lack of an anteorbital drop, thin browridges, absence of maxillary fossae or a sagittal crest and only slight sexual dimorphism.
The Baikal Archaeology Project (BAP) is an international team of scholars investigating Middle Holocene (about 9000 to 3000 years before present) hunter-gatherers of the Lake Baikal region of Siberia, Russia. The Project focuses on long-term patterns of culture change in the context of dynamic interactions with the environment. The Baikal Archaeology Project is based at the University of Alberta with Irkutsk State University being its main research partner on the Russian side. Other institutional collaborators of the project have included the University of Calgary, University of Saskatchewan, Grant MacEwan University, British Columbia Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, University of California-Davis, Cambridge University, Oxford University, University College London, University of Aberdeen, and Institutes of Geochemistry and Earth’s Crust, Russian Academy of Sciences in Irkutsk and Irkutsk State Technical University in Russia. The Baikal Archaeology Project has been extensively funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Nelson Bay Cave also known as Wagenaar's Cave is a Stone Age archaeological site located in the Robberg Nature Reserve on the Robberg Peninsula and facing Nelson's Bay near Plettenberg Bay in South Africa, and showing evidence of human occupation as far back as 125,000 years ago.
Medieval bioarchaeology is the study of human remains recovered from medieval archaeological sites. Bioarchaeology aims to understand populations through the analysis of human skeletal remains and this application of bioarchaeology specifically aims to understand medieval populations. There is an interest in the Medieval Period when it comes to bioarchaeology, because of how differently people lived back then as opposed to now, in regards to not only their everyday life, but during times of war and famine as well. The biology and behavior of those that lived in the Medieval Period can be analyzed by understanding their health and lifestyle choices.
Rengaswamy Ramesh (1956–2018) was an Indian climatologist, oceanographer, a former Prof. Satish Dhawan Professor at the Physical Research Laboratory and a senior professor at the National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar. He was known for paleo-climatic and paleo-oceanographic studies and was an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences, India as well as of The World Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 1998.
Julia Anne Lee-Thorp, is a South African archaeologist and academic. She is Head of the Stable Light Isotope Laboratory and Professor of Archaeological Science and Bioarchaeology at the University of Oxford. Lee-Thorp is most well known for her work on dietary ecology and human origins, using stable isotope chemistry to study fossil bones and teeth.
Christopher Stuart Henshilwood is a South African archaeologist. He has been Professor of African Archaeology at the University of Bergen since 2007 and, since 2008, Professor at the Chair of "The Origins of Modern Human Behaviour" at the University of the Witwatersrand. Henshilwood became internationally known due to his excavations in the Blombos Cave, where - according to his study published in 2002 - the oldest known works of humanity had been discovered. Henshilwood and his work have been featured on National Geographic and CNN Inside Africa.
Richard Evershed is a Professor of Biogeochemistry and Fellow of the Royal Society.
Michael Phillip Richards is an archaeological scientist, researcher and an academic. He is an archaeology Professor at Simon Fraser University and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Archaeological Science, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (London) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Richards has published more than 300 research articles. His research focuses on studying the diets diet evolution and migrations of past humans and animals using various techniques such as isotope analysis and radiocarbon dating. His work is highly cited and has gathered media coverage.
Judith Ann McKenzie was an American biogeochemist known for her research on past climate change, chemical cycles in sediments, and geobiology.
Isotope analysis has many applications in archaeology, from dating sites and artefacts, determination of past diets and migration patterns and for environmental reconstruction.
A rock hyrax midden is a stratified accumulation of fecal pellets and a brown amber-like a urinary product known as hyraceum excreted by the rock hyrax and closely related species.
References
- ↑ "Judith Sealy | Department of Archaeology". www.archaeology.uct.ac.za. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
