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Journal article
The origins of decorated ostrich eggs in the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East
Decorated ostrich eggs were traded around the Mediterranean during the Bronze and Iron Ages. Research on their origins has focused primarily on decorative techniques and iconography to characterise the producers, workshops and trade routes, thereby equating decorative styles with cultural identities and geographic locations. This is problematic, as craftspeople were...Mediterranean; Middle East; North Africa; Bronze Age; Iron Age; stable isotopes; ostrich eggs
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Journal article
The curation and display of Lindow Man
Lindow Man is one of the best-preserved Iron Age bog bodies from Europe. Since his discovery in August 1984, he has been on almost permanent display to the public and the subject of close scientific scrutiny. This article focuses on the life of Lindow Man since his discovery, charting how...Joy, Jody ; Farley, Julia
display, ethics, preservation, wetlands, museum, curation, human remains, and Bog body
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Wang, Helen
China, sinology, and numismatics
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Journal article
Enlightenment architectures: the reconstruction of Sir Hans Sloane’s cabinets of ‘Miscellanies’
Focusing on Sir Hans Sloane’s catalogue of ‘Miscellanies’, now in the British Museum, this paper asks firstly how Sloane described objects and secondly whether the original contents of the cabinets can be reconstructed from his catalogue. Drawing on a sustained, digitally augmented analysis – the first of its kind –...Sloan, Kim ; Nyhan, Julianne
British Museum, digitization, collections, cabinets, Sir Hans Sloane, catalogues, and digital humanities
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Journal article
Bitumen from the Dead Sea in Early Iron Age Nubia
Bitumen has been identified for the first time in Egyptian occupied Nubia, from within the town of Amara West, occupied from around 1300 to 1050 BC. The bitumen can be sourced to the Dead Sea using biomarkers, evidencing a trade in this material from the eastern Mediterranean to Nubia in...Fulcher, Kate ; Stacey, Rebecca ; Spencer, Neal
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Journal article
Datura quids at Pinwheel Cave, California, provide unambiguous confirmation of the ingestion of hallucinogens at a rock art site
Proponents of the altered states of consciousness (ASC) model have argued that hallucinogens have influenced the prehistoric making of images in caves and rock shelters. However, the lack of direct evidence for the consumption of hallucinogens at any global rock art site has undermined the ASC model. We present the... -
Journal article
Investigating Asian colourants in Chinese textiles from Dunhuang (7th-10th century AD) by high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry – towards the creation of a mass spectra database
A broad palette of natural dyes is often mentioned with reference to dyed textiles from ancient China. However, few scientific works address the problem of correctly identifying these dyes, often referring simply to unidentified sources. The aim of this work was the creation of a database of mass spectra of...Tmaburini, Diego
HPLC-MS, Tandem mass spectra, Asian dyes, Chinese textiles, Dunhuang Silk Road
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Journal article
The morphological affinity of the Early Pleistocene footprints from Happisburgh, England, with other footprints of Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene age
Fossil hominin footprints provide a direct source of evidence of locomotor behavior and allow inference of other biological data such as anthropometrics. Many recent comparative analyses of hominin footprints have used 3D analytical methods to assess their morphological affinities, comparing tracks from different locations and/or time periods. However, environmental conditions...Hominins; fossilized footprints; geometric morphometrics; foot anatomy; functional morphology
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Journal article
The WEAP method: a new age in the analysis of the Acheulean handaxes
This paper presents a unified methodology to describe critical features in lithic assemblages, in order to better interpret the Middle Pleistocene hominin occupation of western Europe, in the context of the Western European Acheulean Project (WEAP). This project aims to characterise the Acheulean technology of the western side of Europe...Middle Pleistocene; Acheulean handaxes; typology; chaîne opératoire; geometric; morphometrics
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Journal article
Early Levallois core technology between Marine Isotope Stage 12 and 9 in Western Europe
Early Levallois core technology is usually dated in Europe to the end of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 9 and particularly from the beginning of MIS 8 to MIS 6. This technology is considered as one of the markers of the transition from lower to Middle Paleolithic or from Mode 2... -
Journal article
Ethnobotany of Hawaiian figure sculpture
Anecdotal theories about traditional uses of Polynesian woods in relation to social and religious practices were tested using comparative wood identification. The woods used to make 135 figure carvings from the Hawaiian archipelago were identified and compared with 23 figure carvings from elsewhere in Polynesia (especially Tahiti and the Marquesas)....Rudall, Paula J. ; Cartwright, Caroline
ethnobotany, Polynesia, and wood anatomy
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Journal article
Investigating the use of Paleolithic perforated batons: new evidence from Gough’s Cave (Somerset, UK)
Perforated batons, usually made from a segment of antler and formed of a sub-cylindrical shaft and at least one perforation, have been documented across Europe from sites throughout the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic. The function of perforated batons is still debated. We present here three Magdalenian perforated batons from the... -
Journal article
Museological approaches to the management of digital research and engagement: The African Rock Art Image Project
The African Rock Art Image Project at the British Museum has documented and disseminated c. 24,000 digital images of rock art from throughout the continent, donated by the Trust for African Rock Art (TARA). The images were registered into the British Museum’s permanent collection and treated as objects in their...Anderson, Helen ; Galvin, Elizabeth ; de Torres Rodriguez, Jorge
archaeology, Museum studies, and Africa
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Journal article
The palm tree ryal of Mary Queen of Scots revisited
An investigation of the unusual design of this coin, a tortoise climbing up a palm tree.Cook, Barrie ; Archibald, Marion
palm tree, coinage, tortoise, ryal, and Mary Queen of Scots
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Journal article
Weathering climate change in archaeology: conceptual challenges and an East African case study
Research on the social dimensions of climate change is increasingly focused on people's experiences, values and relations to the environment as a means to understand how people interpret and adapt to changes. However, a particular challenge has been making seemingly temporally and geographically distant climate change more immediate and local...Petek-Sargeant, Nik ; Lane, Paul J.
Weather, Climate change, Kenya, Environmental humanities, East Africa, and Ilchamus
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Journal article
The potential of triterpenoids as chemotaxonomic tools to identify and differentiate genuine, adulterated and archaeological balsams
Plant exudates have been extensively used in the past for different applications related to their olfactory, physical or medical properties. Their identification in archaeological samples relies, notably, on the characterisation of chemotaxonomic molecular markers but is often hampered by the severe alteration of their typical genuine molecular signature due to...Courel, Blandine ; Adam, Pierre ; Schaeffer, Philippe
Styrax, Liquidambar, Myroxylon, GC/MS, 6‑oxygenated oleanolic acid, 3-epi oleanolic acid
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Journal article
Twisted handaxes in Middle Pleistocene Britain and their implications for regional-scale cultural variation and the deep history of Acheulean hominin groups
A better understood chronological framework for the Middle Pleistocene of Britain has enabled archaeologists to detect a number of temporally-restricted assemblage-types, based not on ‘culture historical’ schemes of typological progression but on independent dating methods and secure stratigraphic frameworks, especially river-terrace sequences. This includes a consistent pattern in the timing...White, Mark ; Ashton, Nick ; Bridgland, David
ovate handaxes, social networks, Middle Pleistocene, hominin settlement, and Acheulean
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Journal article
Establishing the production chronology of the iconic Japanese woodblock print ‘Red Fuji’
First printed in 1831, ‘Red Fuji’ by Hokusai is one the most iconic Japanese woodblock prints and thousands of impressions were printed from its original set of woodblocks, often in different colour schemes and using different printing effects for different editions. The aim of our research was to systematically study...Korenberg, Capucine ; Derrick, Michele ; Pereira-Pardo, Lucía ; Matsuba, Ryoko
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Journal article
From site to museum: a critical assessment of collection history on the formation and interpretation of the British Early Palaeolithic record
The British Lower and Middle Palaeolithic record makes an important contribution to understanding the early occupation of northern Europe, in particular, through the detailed, systematic and multidisciplinary excavations of key sites. However, it is the historic collections, amassed by a large number of collectors over a 100-year period from the...Harris, Claire R.E. ; Ashton, Nick ; Lewis, Simon G.
Collecting, UK, Museum, Early Palaeolithic, and Handaxes
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Journal article
Developing a systematic approach to determine the sequence of impressions of Japanese woodblock prints: the case of Hokusai’s ‘Red Fuji’
Ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock prints were mass-produced in the Edo Period and early impressions of a given print are generally of higher quality and more sought after by connoisseurs than late impressions. The present publication presents an innovative approach that combines the classical method of examining line quality with a systematic...