Denna studie undersöker och diskuterar möjligheterna som finns för att tala om ett icke-verbalt visuellt identitetsspråk för kammaterial från perioden ca 700–900 e.v.t. Studien utgår från och analyserar arkeologisk forskning som utförts i olika miljöer. Syftet är att se till potentialen som finns för vidare forskning gällande kammar, råmaterial och ornamentiks delaktighet i identitetsprocesser. Genom att studera vardagliga föremål som kammar med nya metoder och teknologi ökar möjligheterna att studera subtila sociala och kulturella fenomen. Undersökningen ämnar därför att även belysa hur nya frågor kan tillkomma och ställas till äldre väl undersökt material. / The aim of this study is to discuss and explore the possibility of a non-verbal language based on visuality in comb material dating to c. 700-900 C.E. The study analyses different archaeological research done in different locales within and outside of Scandinavia. The aim is to understand the potential of further research into identity studies based on previously made associations and interpretations regarding combs, raw material and decoration. Through new technologies, the study of everyday objects of the past can be given new context and meaning. This study aims to bring forth the potential in old well documented material.

A materiality approach is developed in this thesis in order to understand social-material relationships during the south-east Scottish Iron Age. The focus is on everyday objects, traditionally lesser studied in terms of cosmological value, made of bone and antler, stone, clay/pottery and metal (copper alloy and iron) from the Broxmouth Hillfort assemblage and other excavated Iron Age sites in East Lothian. This study sets out to move away from typology to examine the connections between these materials through their sourcing, affordances (signative and pragmatic), design, manufacture, use and deposition. In addition to the archaeological evidence, a range of analytical methods are employed; including laser scanning confocal microscopy, raman spectroscopy, and residue and isotopic analysis. It becomes evident that the materials studied, despite their predominantly local availability, were invested with meaning in appropriation, making, and were deliberately curated and maintained in use, assembling rich personal biographies. Identities were tied up with making, using and depositing of materials in turn embodying beliefs of fertility, renewal and productivity which were central to Iron Age cosmology, continuing into the Roman Iron Age. These results contribute to our understanding of the construction and practice of society in the Iron Age of Britain, with implications for how we may design our own 21st Century material worlds. It is proposed that social relations in the Iron Age of south-east Scotland were heterarchical. / Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

In dieser Dissertation werden die mittelalterlichen Kämme aus Knochen und Geweih des nordostdeutschen Raumes in Bezug auf Rohstoffe, Herstellung und Gestaltung analysiert. Um Verbindungen zu angrenzenden gut erschlossenen Fundgebieten erarbeiten zu können, wurde die Materiallücke der Kammfunde in Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Brandenburg und Berlin geschlossen. Mit der hier vorgelegten systematischen Erfassung zu Formen, Verzierung, Kammtypen und Maßangaben sowie der individuellen Darstellung im Katalog sind neu gefundene Artefakte und schon anderweitig publizierte Funde direkt miteinander vergleichbar. Im Kontext mit der umfangreichen Fundaufnahme und Kartierung werden Forschungsfragen zu Handwerk und Handel zur Zeit des Mittelalters gestellt und beantwortet. Experimente zur Rohmaterialbearbeitung und Herstellungsprozessen belegen den Werkzeuggebrauch und den Aufwand, der schon im Mittelalter betrieben werden musste, um einen Kamm herzustellen. Die Erfahrungen von praktisch forschenden HandwerkerInnen des 21. Jahrhunderts flossen in diese Arbeit mit ein. In der Gesamtschau ergibt sich eine Fundverteilung von vier Kammtypen vor allem im nördlichen Bereich des Arbeitsgebietes, mit Werkstätten an nahe dem Wasser gelegenen Handelsplätzen. Chronologische Tendenzen sind erkennbar. So sind beispielsweise einreihige Dreilagenkämme eher im frühen Mittelalter in den nördlichen Siedlungen der Slawen und Wikinger zu verankern, während Langzinkenkämme breiter gestreut in den deutschen Siedlungen ab dem späten Mittelalter zu finden sind. / This dissertation analyses the medieval combs made of bone and antlers of the northeast German region in terms of raw materials, production and design. In order to be able to establish connections to neighbouring well-published sites, and to close the gap in the incomplete research in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg and Berlin, the comb finds are collectively reviewed here. With the systematic survey of shapes, decorations, comb types and measurements presented here, as well as the individual presentation in the catalogue, newly found artefacts and finds that have already been published elsewhere can be directly compared with each other. In the context of the extensive survey and mapping, research questions on crafts and trade at the time of the Middle Ages are asked and answered. Experiments on raw material processing and manufacturing processes prove the use of tools and the effort undertaken to make a comb even in the Middle Ages. The experiences of practical craftsmen of the 21st century was incorporated into this work. Overall, there is a distribution of four types of combs, especially in the northern part of the study area, with workshops at trading sites near water. Chronological tendencies are recognisable with, for example, single-row three-layer combs being more likely to be present in the northern settlements of the Slavs and Vikings in the early Middle Ages, while long-tooth combs are more widely distributed in German settlements from the late Middle Ages onwards.

Ce projet combine l’archéologie expérimentale, l’analyse morphométrique et la comparaison des résultats à l’assemblage archéologique de l’Abri Cellier (Dordogne, France) (N = 12) dans le but de quantifier l’apport du réaffûtage à la variabilité des formes et des dimensions des pointes de projectile aurignaciennes en bois de cervidé. La relecture morphofonctionnelle de la série expérimentale de Knecht (N = 79) couplée à une reproduction expérimentale récente (N = 9) démontre que la nature des dommages infligés au fût des pointes dépend (1) de la force du tir, (2) de la nature de la cible impactée et, (3) des propriétés biomécaniques du matériau employé. Pour sa part, le réaffûtage dépend (1) de l’expérience du réaffûteur et, (2) de la séquence technique employée. Ce comportement est standardisé et demeure indépendant du type de pointe de même que du type de dommage du fût. Les changements morphométriques associés à ce comportement se résument (1) à un déplacement progressif de l’épaule de la base vers le fût de la pointe, (2) à une tendance à l’accroissement de l’angle du fût et, (3) à une localisation des traces de réaffûtage sur le tiers distal de la partie distale de la pointe. Puisque l’utilisation et le réaffûtage sont deux processus impossible à départager sur les artefacts, nous proposons l’adoption d’une mesure, le ratio proximo-distal (RP/D) afin de traduire l’intensité de ces processus convergents et faciliter la comparaison entre les assemblages archéologiques. / This project combines experimental archaeology and morphometric analysis with a comparison with the archaeological assemblage from Abri Cellier (Dordogne, France) (N = 12) to quantify the contribution of resharpening to morphometric variability of Aurignacian projectile points made of antler. A morpho-functional re-analysis was performed on the experimental series produced by Knecht (N = 79), and combined with a recent experiment (N = 9) which showed that tip damage depends on (1) the projectile velocity, (2) the nature of the impacted target and, (3) the raw material’s biomechanical properties. On the other hand, resharpening depends on (1) the curator’s experience and, (2) the employed technical sequence. Also, resharpening is considered a standardized behaviour that remains independent of the point or tip damage type. Morphometric changes incurred by this behaviour can be summarized by (1) a gradual shift of the point’s shoulder from the base to the tip of the point, (2) a tendency of the tip to become more obtuse, and (3) a concentration of the curation stigmata at the distal third of the tip. Since use and resharpening are two processes that can’t be distinguished metrically on archaeological specimens, we propose a new metric the Proximo-Distal Ratio (RP/D), which translates the intensity of these two converging processes and allows inter-assemblage comparison.

The main aim was to investigate the provenance of Viking age antler material findings of moose and red deer from Sigtuna and from three sites on the island of Gotland in the Baltic sea. This was done by analysis of the stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur. Thre were never any living population of these mammals on Gotland during the Viking age. δ34S-values of sulphur from this study was compared with earlier research and by studying maps of the Swedish bedrock. The δ34S-values were more like the δ34S-value for bedrock other than European granite. These bedrocks are found in the south-east of Sweden along the coast towards Gotland. The provenance of the Sigtuna antlers could be three different areas and the material from Gotnald could come from two differente regions. A student-t test between Fröjel and Sigtuna showed no significant correlation between the two populations. A comparison within the Sigtuna material showed a possible difference between two different dated phases. This could mean that an import of antlers from other areas was made when antlers in the Sigtuna region was less available.

No description available.

The tectonic significance and age of carbonatite intrusions in the western Foreland Belt of the Canadian Cordillera are poorly constrained. Recent 1:5,000 scale field mapping of one of these carbonatite intrusions, the Aley carbonatite (NTS 94 B/5), has demonstrated that it was emplaced as a syn-kinematic sill, coeval with a major nappe-forming tectonic event. Determining the age of the Aley carbonatite therefore provides a means of directly dating tectonism related to carbonatite magmatism. A U-Pb titanite age of 365.9 +/- 2.1 Ma was obtained from the Ospika pipe, an ultramafic diatreme spatially and genetically related to the carbonatite. We interpret the Late Devonian age of the Ospika pipe to be the minimum possible age of the carbonatite and syn-magmatic nappe-forming tectonic event. The maximum possible age of the carbonatite is constrained by the Early Devonian age of the Road River Group (ca. 410 Ma), the youngest strata intruded by carbonatite dykes and involved in the nappe forming event. Our dating results for the Aley carbonatite closely correlate with U-Pb zircon and perovskite ages obtained for the Ice River carbonatite complex in the western Foreland Belt of the southern Canadian Cordillera, and support the interpretation of carbonatite intrusions of the western Foreland Belt as genetically linked components of an alkaline-carbonatitic magmatic province. Structural, stratigraphic, and geochronological data from the Aley area indicate that deformation was similar in style to, and coeval with, structures attributable to the Antler Orogeny, and are consistent with the Antler orogen having extended the length of Cordilleran margin from the southern United States to Alaska. Deformed alkaline-carbonatite intrusions that characterize continental suture zones in Africa and Tibet may provide an analogue for the Aley carbonatite and correlative alkaline-carbonatite complexes in the western Foreland Belt. / Graduate / 0372 / mcleish@uvic.ca

This thesis is focused on the material known as the Mesolithic portable art. Earlier research have interpreted the material as representative art relating to ideology, mythology, prestige, ritual practices,and tribalism. Such interpretations are based on theoretical frameworks that build on hylomorphism and Cartesian metaphysics. By a change of theoretical framework, to a new animistic perspective based on a combination of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s rhizome theory, Tim Ingold’s meshwork and Giordano Bruno’s theory of bonds in general, followed by the use of ChantalConneller’s method rhizomatic chaîne opératoire, I conclude that the motifs on the tools and pendants are communications to the animated subjects that make up and inhabit the environment. Furthermore, I conclude that the binary positions of function and ritual cannot be applied when studying the formgenerating process of this material, as the tools and pendants along with their applied motifs are a result of what is in between these binary positions.