Hasil untuk "Ancient history"

E. Tylor

Eric Hobsbawm, Terence Ranger

J. Diamond

M. Malin, K. Edgett

Michael S. Kimmel

R. Müller, M. Sdrolias, C. Gaina et al.

Mandev S. Gill, P. Lemey, N. Faria et al.

E. Kalokairinou

In this paper I undertake to examine Ruth Macklin’s claim that dignity is a useless concept. I explain her contention by the fact that dignity, as a concept, has a long history and has been presented differently at different times. I shed some light on certain different conceptions of dignity in ancient times and in our contemporary era. And I end up with the suggestion that the term “dignified”, like “good”, is a primarily evaluative term, unlike what some philosophers have thought.

N. Chen, Yudong Cai, Qiuming Chen et al.

Cattle domestication and the complex histories of East Asian cattle breeds warrant further investigation. Through analysing the genomes of 49 modern breeds and eight East Asian ancient samples, worldwide cattle are consistently classified into five continental groups based on Y-chromosome haplotypes and autosomal variants. We find that East Asian cattle populations are mainly composed of three distinct ancestries, including an earlier East Asian taurine ancestry that reached China at least ~3.9 kya, a later introduced Eurasian taurine ancestry, and a novel Chinese indicine ancestry that diverged from Indian indicine approximately 36.6–49.6 kya. We also report historic introgression events that helped domestic cattle from southern China and the Tibetan Plateau achieve rapid adaptation by acquiring ~2.93% and ~1.22% of their genomes from banteng and yak, respectively. Our findings provide new insights into the evolutionary history of cattle and the importance of introgression in adaptation of cattle to new environmental challenges in East Asia.There are various indigenous cattle breeds in East Asia which have a complex history. Here, the authors analyse the genomes of 49 modern breeds and eight ancient samples and identify three distinct ancestries and multiple adaptive introgressions from other bovine species.

Gregory W. Stull, K. Pham, P. Soltis et al.

Hybridization has long been recognized as a fundamental evolutionary process in plants, but our understanding of its phylogenetic distribution and biological significance across deep evolutionary scales has been largely obscure-until recently. Over the past decade, genomic and phylogenomic datasets have revealed, perhaps not surprisingly, that hybridization, often associated with polyploidy, has been common throughout the evolutionary history of plants, particularly in various lineages of flowering plants. However, phylogenomic studies have also highlighted the challenges of disentangling signals of ancient hybridization from other sources of genomic conflict (in particular, incomplete lineage sorting). Here we provide a critical review of ancient hybridization in vascular plants, outlining well-documented cases of ancient hybridization across plant phylogeny as well as the challenges unique to documenting ancient vs. recent hybridization. We provide a definition for ancient hybridization, which, to our knowledge, has not been explicitly attempted before. Further documenting the extent of deep reticulation in plants should remain an important research focus, especially since published examples likely represent the tip of the iceberg in terms of the total extent of ancient hybridization. However, future research should increasingly explore the macroevolutionary significance of this process, in terms of its impact on evolutionary trajectories (e.g., how does hybridization influence trait evolution or the generation of biodiversity over long time scales?), as well as how life history and ecological factors shape, or have shaped, the frequency of hybridization across geologic time and plant phylogeny. Finally, we consider the implications of ubiquitous ancient hybridization for how we conceptualize, analyze, and classify plant phylogeny. Networks, as opposed to bifurcating trees, represent more accurate representations of evolutionary history in many cases, but our ability to infer, visualize, and use networks for comparative analyses is highly limited. Developing improved methods for the generation, visualization, and use of networks represents a critical future direction for plant biology. Current classification systems also do not generally allow for the recognition of reticulate lineages, and our classifications themselves are largely based on evidence from the chloroplast genome. Updating plant classification to better reflect nuclear phylogenies, as well as considering whether and how to recognize hybridization in classification systems, will represent an important challenge for the plant systematics community.

Jonah F Messinger, Florian Metzler, Huw Price

One of the most public episodes of gatekeeping in modern science was the case of so-called 'cold fusion'. At a news conference in 1989 the electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced that they had found evidence of nuclear fusion in palladium electrodes loaded with deuterium. There was worldwide interest. Many groups sought to reproduce the results, most unsuccessfully. Within months, the prevailing view became strongly negative. The claims of Fleischmann and Pons came to be regarded as disreputable, as well as false. As the Caltech physicist David Goldstein put it, cold fusion became 'a pariah field, cast out by the scientific establishment' (Goldstein 1994). The case would already be interesting for students of gatekeeping if the story had ended at that point. Even more interestingly, however, the field survived and persisted. It has been enjoying a modest renaissance, with recent government funding both in the US and the EU. This piece offers an opinionated introduction to cold fusion as a case study of scientific gatekeeping, discussing both its early and recent history

Francesca Uccheddu, Umair Shafqat Malik, Emanuela Massa et al.

Research into the polychromy of Greek and Roman sculptures has surged to explore the hypothesis that ancient sculptures were originally not pristine white but adorned with colors. Multispectral and multimodal imaging techniques have been crucial in studying painted surfaces, revealing polychromies even in traces. In fact, imaging techniques, such as reflectance and fluorescence, can identify different materials and map inhomogeneities, guiding further investigations such as Raman, XRays Fluorescence, and Fourier Transform InfraRed Spectroscopy (FTIR) to investigate residual colors. However, this approach may underestimate the original polychromies' extent over the complex articulation of a sculptured surface. This study proposes a methodology to analyze the original appearance of ancient sculptures using reality-based 3D models with textures not limited to those visible to the naked eye. We employ Visible Reflected Imaging (VIS) and Ultraviolet-induced Fluorescence Imaging (UVF). From the UVF and VIS datasets, the underlying 3D model is built by means of photogrammetry. Through raw data processing, images taken with different illuminating sources are successfully aligned and processed, creating a single 3D model with multiple textures mapped onto the same bi-dimensional space. The pixel-to-pixel correspondence of different textures allows for the implementation of a classification algorithm that can directly map its outcome onto the 3D model surface. This enables conservators to deepen their understanding of artifact preservation, observe mate-rial distribution in detail, and correlate this with 3D geometrical data. In this study, we experiment with this approach on an ancient Roman sculpture of Artemis, conserved at the Archeological and Art Museum of Maremma (MAAM) in Grosseto, Italy.

Boliang He, Yongheng Zhao

Ancient China recorded a wealth of astronomical observations, notably distinguished by the inclusion of empirical measurements of stellar observations. However, determining the precise observational epochs for these datasets poses a formidable challenge. This study employs the Generalized Hough Transform methodology to analyze two distinct sets of observational data originating from the Song and Yuan dynasties, allowing accurate estimation of the epochs of these stellar observations. This research introduces a novel and systematic approach, offering a scholarly perspective for the analysis of additional datasets within the domain of ancient astronomical catalogs in future investigations.

Alberto Lombo Montañés

Deimatism is a behaviour that has had special relevance in our evolutionary history. In this article we analyse ocular deimatism in relation to prehistoric graphies. We will analyse the expressions of fear in Palaeolithic facial graphies, the 'ocellated' spots of the 'Licorne' of Lascaux, the dangerous attributes in feline graphies, the gaze of the 'sorcerer' of Trois-Frères and the hidden 'idols', under a new biological and neurological perspective. We will also discuss the use of ter-minology in order to better understand the graphic repertoire bequeathed by our ancestors.

Aya Al-Masri, Mira Abdulsalam, Nadine Hashaykeh et al.

Bio-mimicry is the imitation of the way nature solves problems. Architects and designers can utilize the ways nature follows to solve and address design problems. This science has helped humans in all life’s aspects, especially in the field of architecture. From the dawn of history, people constructed special buildings to suit their needs. At first, the building process was hard, and the structure was simple and rigid with rough details and they kept repeating the same form. Therefore, architects have been searching for answers for their building complexes, and they found that nature was the best source of solutions. The structures then took different forms, were decorated with deep and graceful ornaments, the walls became thinner, more openings were constructed and the buildings became more beautiful and had more dignity. So, nature imitation has become the best approach for architects to deliver bold ideas to their surroundings. We can still see how the ancient unique buildings are standing still until this time, as in some Egyptian temples, Greek and Roman columns, and Byzantine ornaments. Imitation of nature in buildings is either through aesthetic, structural, or sustainability aspects. In this research, we are exploring the potential of Bio-mimicry to support sustainability, using a number of case studies throughout history, classifying and analyzing them.

Robert Bruegmann

A. A. Watson

A brief history of the development of surface detectors for the study of the high-energy cosmic rays is presented. The paper is based on an invited talk given at UHECR2022 held in LAquila, October 2022. In a complementary talk, P Sokolsky discussed the development of the fluorescence technique for air-shower detection.

Konrad Graczyk

W artykule zaprezentowano stan badań nad działalnością Sądu Specjalnego w Piotrkowie oraz podstawę źródłową. Omówiono moment utworzenia sądu specjalnego – pierwotnie w Wieluniu – oraz przeniesienie siedziby do Piotrkowa. Przedstawiono jego organizację i zmiany w formalnym usytuowaniu. Przedstawiono obsadę kadrową sądu, aktualizując dane prezentowane w literaturze przez J. Górala i M. Uzdowskiego. W podobny sposób, w oparciu o nową podstawę źródłową, zaprezentowano statystykę oskarżonych i skazanych przez Sąd Specjalny w Piotrkowie. Na podstawie danych z literatury, nieznanych wcześniej akt spraw karnych z Archiwum Federalnego w Berlinie oraz prasy GG obliczono minimalną liczbę osób skazanych na karę śmierci. Opisano kilka najciekawszych przypadków praktyki sądowej, w tym przede wszystkim sprawy o udzielanie pomocy Żydom.

Anna Pankowská

Rekonstrukce prostředí hrobu představuje klíčový prvek v interpretaci pohřebního ritu. Metody terénní antropologie a histotafonomie mohou pomoci lépe poznat mikro-prostředí, ve kterém došlo k dekompozici mrtvého těla. Cílem studie je na příkladu pěti hrobů z období kultury se šňůrovou keramikou zjistit, v jakých podmínkách se těla mrtvých nacházela či jak byla posmrtně upravena. Kosterní pozůstatky čtyř jedinců nesly stopy po uložení do dutého prostoru. Na základě histologické analýzy bylo zjištěno, že dekompozice měkkých tkání u těchto jedinců musela být zastavena nebo naopak velmi urychlena, protože kostní mikrostruktura nebyla poškozena mikroorganismy. K urychlení dekompozice mohlo dojít rozkladem těla v otevřeném prostoru, jakým mohl být částečně zahloubený hrob s konstrukcí. Naopak k zastavení dekompozice mohlo dojít v důsledku působení vyšších teplot v podobě ohně nebo kouře, ale také vlivem opakovaně podmáčeného prostředí. Pro všechny možnosti existují na kosterních pozůstatcích konkrétní stopy. Komplexní tafonomická analýza kosterních pozůstatků přináší nové detailnější informace o okolnostech pohřbu, čímž výrazně rozšiřuje možnosti intepretace pojetí smrti v minulosti.

António José Gonçalves de Freitas, Roxana Flammini

The Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean were geographical and sociopolitical scenarios with fluent and constant connectivity from the earliest times in history. Prestige goods and raw materials found their way from one side to another through extensive networks even before the emergence of the state in Egypt and Mesopotamia, integrating movements not only of goods but also of people, technologies, cultural practices, gods, languages, and ideas (Wilkinson et al.  2011; Warburton 2020). In this volume, we named them “interconnections” to precisely emphasize the relevance of exchange in the adoption, modification, or re-adaptation of foreign traces. The influence of incoming technologies and the shaping of identities in such a dynamic world, always moving, is also considered. Naturally, many diverse theoretical approaches were proposed over time to explain those interconnections, contributing to completing the never-ending panorama of relationships (e.g. Warburton 2020: 1-21). At the same time, nowadays a comprehensive amount of evidence is usually considered in explaining those interconnections, mainly material remains, textual registers, and iconography.