No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

With the extension of the Nchwaning Mine shaft complex in the Northern Cape Province, various geological and geotechnical complications needed to be identified in order to ensure correct use of tunnelling methods and support techniques. An understanding of the geological history of the area and the resulting geotechnical nature was important in defining the rock mass quality ahead of shaft development. A total of 12 geotechnical boreholes were drilled, and an additional 18 old boreholes revisited to accurately detennine the stratigraphy, geological structure and associated weathering effects. Various soils and rock testing helped quantify the materials encountered. Sands of the Gordonia Fonnation form the surface cover of this area, and together with the weathered calcrete, calc-arenite, conglomerate and clay, they form part of the Cenozoic Kalahari Group. The 30m thick basal unit of red clay is common throughout this region. This silty clay material is problematic in that it is expansive and hygroscopic. The clay unit rests unconformably on folded, faulted and highly weathered shale of the Proterozoic Lucknow and Mapedi Formations of the Olifantshoek Supergroup. Unconformably below this sequence lies the manganiferous ore deposits of the Hotazel Member, which is contained within the Voelwater Formation of the Griqualand West Supergroup. For the development of the decline shaft through the Gordonia Formation a box cut was excavated to a depth of 25m. The anticipated poor geotechnical conditions for a further 125m below the Gordonia sands called for high quality permanent tunnel support in the upper weathered horizons. Barton's Q-analysis was adopted as a recognized tunnelling quality index to predict and quantify the rock mass characteristics ahead of the shaft. The highly variable and generally low Q-values from borehole core analysis indicated that precast tunnel lining be used for 800m (at 11.5°) through the entire weathered Cenozoic sequence and into the weathered shales immediately below the Red Clay. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Several twentieth century archaeological expeditions to Lower Nubia recovered the skeletal and cultural remains of C-Group populations mainly from cemetery sites between Shellal and the Second Cataract. Along with the remains of the more or less contemporary Pangrave and Kerma peoples, the C-Group archaeological sequence was assigned to the Middle Nubian Period which lasted from the Sixth to the Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasties and is dated from ca. 2200 B.C. to ca. 1500 B.C. Conflicting interpretations of C-Group socioeconomic conditions are inevitable since no systematic analysis of the data resulting from the excavations of Middle Nubian cemeteries has ever been undertaken. In an attempt to assess the extent of C-Group economic contact with the Egyptians and to resolve the issue of possible growing social differentiation within the C-Group community, a quantitative analysis of the mortuary remains from fifteen C-Group cemeteries was undertaken. The results indicate that the flow of a small number of Egyptian artefacts into Lower Nubia was relatively constant and that contact between Lower Nubians and Egyptians was probably quite limited. Egyptian portrayals of constant fluctuation in Egyptian-Nubian political relations do not correspond with the evidence from the Nubian archaeological record. The analysis also indicated that economic inequality amongst the Middle Nubian population was present in each date category and tended to increase over time. Socioeconomic differences were greatest during the middle of the Second Intermediate Period. These findings indicate that the Middle Nubian socioeconomic system tolerated increasingly conspicuous differences amongst its members. They are not consistent with the hypothesis that no increase in differential access to burial resources occurred between ca. 2100 and ca. 1550 B.C. and that C-Group social and economic conditions remained virtually unchanged throughout their 800-year history.

Recent archaeological surveys of portions of Fox Island County Park near Fort Wayne, Indiana, revealed the locations of 16 archaeological sites. This study was undertaken to explore the factors affecting site selection and to analyze the artifacts and investigate lithic procurement and reduction strategies as reflected by them. Further, an attempt was made to understand Fox Island's role in the prehistoric subsistence-settlement system. The sites appear to have been selected because of the environmental setting of Fox Island, a wooded sand dune complex surrounded by wet prairie and marsh with upland decidious forests within a mile. The variety of habitats concentraved a wealth of food resources within an easily exploitable area. Analysis of the artifacts from the sites revealed a primary reliance on lithic raw material from near Huntington and an occupational sequence spanning approximately 8,000 years from the Early Archaic through historic aboriginal occupation of the area. Cultural affiliation of the Late Woodland occupation was with the southeastern Michigan Younge Tradition. Although somewhat contradictory, subsistence-settlement pattern models from surrounding areas suggested that Fox Island should have been primarily occupied during spring and summer in conjunction with the seasons of' greatest carrying capacity of the wet prairie and marsh. This was consistent with the few food remains encountered.

The purpose of this study was to determine if the histomorphometric analysis of age could be used to determine the age at death of subadults from the Commissary Archaeological Site. The histomorphometric analysis was used because of the fragmented condition of the bones. Sections from the left femur were obtained and processed for light and electron microscopy. Using the regression formula of Ahlqvist and Damsten and Ubelaker, age was estimated from the percentage of Haversian canals per 1 mm unit of bone. Results show the subadult population ranged in age from 0.9- 16.7 years. The correlation between the thickness of compact bone, the midshaft width, and the marrow cavity width to that of the assigned age supports the validity of the regression formula. The study demonstrates that the histomorphometric analysis can be applied to estimate age in subadult skeletons. This study further provides the first scientific analysis of age for the subadult skeletons of the Commissary site, an Early Late Woodland Native American population. / Department of Anthropology

Despite the recent resurgence of interest in the Chaco system, it continues to be readily apparent that the implications of the tiered-hierarchical organization of the Chaco system cannot be indiscriminately applied to the Chacoan interaction sphere. In the Limekiln Canyon locality of the Mt. Taylor District a plausible explanation for settlement and use of the landscape during the Pueblo period has been that population organization and cultural affinity were that of a late-surviving population of Archaic-like peoples who apparently only become completely absorbed into the far-reaching exchange network of the Chaco system after abandonment of the locality. This assumption is tested informally against two hypotheses that challenge such commonly accepted explanations as resource depletion for abandonment and reorganization within the Chaco region. The result is a narrative of the culture history of the locality that demonstrates the benefit of using an eclectic theoretical approach combining elements of culture history, cultural evolution and postprocessual theory. / Department of Anthropology

This is a general regional research design for the prehistoric archaeological resources of the Upper White River Drainage region of east-central Indiana. Following the example of McGinsey, Davis, and Griffin (1968), this design consists primarily of research problems, questions, and hypotheses suggested by the current state of the regional data base and the pertinent literature. These research problems are organized into three basic groups which represent the goals of the discipline of archaeology (that is, the study of culture history, extinct lifeways, and culture process). These groups are themselves expressed as a hierarchy to demonstrate the relative significance of the problems expressed in each. When used as part of a greater research design process (including more specific designs) this design has the potential to contribute to the scientific rigor as well as the efficiency of archaeological research carried out in this region.

The Turner Farm site (located on North Haven Island, Penobscot Bay, on the central Maine coast), excavated under the direction of Dr. Bruce Bourque of the Maine State Museum, has revealed occupations from 3300 B.C. to European contact.Zoological material has been collected, identified and analyzed with artifactual data. The faunal remains of this site has been compared with existing archaeological and zoological data from coastal Maine. Conclusions have been presented about the subsistence of the site and the central Maine area in general.