Across an Ecotone: An Analysis of Late Prehistoric Artifacts from Southern Minnesota

The transition zone between the Plains and Woodlands in Southern Minnesota is not homogenous, neither in terms of ecology or culture. The deciduous forests and oak barrens of the Eastern Woodlands present an ecological environment with a resource base much different than the tallgrass prairies of the Northeastern Plains, and the material remains left behind by peoples inhabiting both areas reflected this. Subjects such as the exchange of technology, such as one culture adopting select tools or traits from populations living on the other side of the ecotone, as well as the movement of people in general across this particular ecotone, have been the subject of study to many archeologists in the state. In order to answer inquiries such as how much technology did cross the ecotone, which environments certain populations preferred, how heavily subsistence strategies changed with the environment, whether or not specific tools were created specifically for crossing the ecotone, whether or not certain groups regularly crossed the ecotone, and the intensity of tool use between populations, the material record may hold valuable information regarding these questions. Materials recovered by archeologists from a number of counties in Southern Minnesota from a transect crossing from the Prairie region east, across the ecotone to the western banks of the Mississippi River were examined for traits such as function, style, and intensity of re-use and curation. The sites in question reflected a variety of cultures, including Late Woodland, Oneota, Plains Village, and Middle Missouri. Artifacts diagnostic of a time period and populations according to geographical areas, such as projectile points and distinctive pottery, were especially useful in determining exactly which populations were present in each section of the study area, and at what time the area was occupied. While sample sizes were too small to perform most types of statistical analysis, some general trends were apparent. Overall, the mixture of artifacts studied reflected evidence that in Late Prehistory, both Woodlands and Plains populations crossed the boundary into the ecotone, as well as into the opposite biome. However, lingering issues such as the implications of the presence of an unnamed type of High Rim pottery found in the Prairie Lakes region, whether or not specific tools were created specifically for crossing the ecotone, the disparity between the high intensity of lithic tool curation in the western counties versus less intense tool curation observed in the eastern portion of Minnesota, may still be addressed by future research

Detecting microscopic aspects of Late Pleistocene to Early/Mid Holocene lithic technology in Island Southeast Asia: Perspectives from North and Central Sulawesi

Late Pleistocene lithic assemblages from North (Leang Sarru) and Central Sulawesi (Topogaro) were subjected to multi-stage use-wear analysis. This study provides new perspectives on seemingly simple flaked tools from Island Southeast Asia (ISEA). The results indicate the production of specialised organic-based technologies and varying technological developments on different locations c. 35kya. Analysis of stone tools from Leang Sarru have micro traces indicating intensive plant working while animal bone processing was more evident in Topogaro. Furthermore, evidence of composite tool technology using amorphous flakes as hafted implements, plant processing (polish and plant residues), and deliberate tool modification to create concave notched working edges indicate a complexity that is in contrast to previous assessments of stone tool technology as being undeveloped and stagnant. Current perspectives on amorphous expedient technologies should be reassessed, particularly since microscopic use-wear analysis clearly shows the potential to address issues on the lithic technology in ISEA that might have been missed by techno-typological approach, such as multi-functionality and variability of tool use. This research complements previous studies on amorphous flake tools, provides new significant results from a functional perspective, and scrutinises established but poorly substantiated concepts such as ‘unchanging technology’, ‘bamboo technology’, and ‘smash-and-grab’ strategy in the framework of a more encompassing traceological identification of prehistoric activities

An Investigation into the Suitability and Stability of a New Pigmented Wax-Resin Formulation for Infilling and Reintegration of Losses in Paintings

Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.A new Pigmented Wax-Resin (PWR) formulation for infilling and reintegration of losses in paintings is introduced and tested for its suitability and stability. It consists of a mixture of Cosmoloid H80 microcrystalline wax and Regalrez 1126 hydrogenated hydrocarbon resin with dry pigments and/or fillers. Unlike other PWR formulations, including those sold by Gamblin Conservation Colors, it does not contain beeswax. Beeswax is reported to develop bloom and to corrode copper supports. The authors share methodologies and techniques used to characterize and assess the suitability of the new formulation in terms of its physical and optical properties, and to assess its stability to fluctuating relative humidity and temperature, particularly high temperatures. The new formulation was evaluated for its workability, opacity, and flexibility and for its compatibility with a selection of varnish coatings and inpainting media. Results showed that 1.5 parts of Cosmoloid H80 to 1 part of Regalrez 1126 (by weight), mixed with pigments and/or fillers, is a viable alternative to other infilling and inpainting media. It has good optical and working properties, a suitable degree of hardness, and remains stable during fluctuations in relative humidity and temperature, as well as to temperatures as high as 70°C.publishersversionepub_ahead_of_prin

6th International Meeting on Retouching of Cultural Heritage, RECH6

RECH Biennial Meeting is one of the largest educational and scientific events in Retouching field, an ideal venue for conservators and scientists to present their research results about retouching. The main focus will be to promote the exchange of ideas, concepts, terminology, methods, techniques and materials applied during the retouching process in different areas of conservation: mural painting, easel painting, sculpture, graphic documentation, architecture, plasterwork, photography, contemporary art, among others. This Meeting aims to address retouching by encouraging papers that contribute to a deeper understanding of this final task of the conservation and restoration intervention. The main theme embraces the concepts of retouching, the criteria and limits in the retouching process, the bad retouching impact on heritage and their technical and scientific developments.This Meeting will discuss real-life approaches on retouching, focusing on practical solutions and on sharing experiencesColomina Subiela, A.; Doménech García, B.; Bailão, A. (2023). 6th International Meeting on Retouching of Cultural Heritage, RECH6. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/RECH6.2021.1601

An examination of Late Plains period occupations as seen from FbNp-1

FbNp-1 (formerly Tipperary Creek) is a habitation site located in Wanuskewin Heritage Park, two miles north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Excavations conducted over the course of three consecutive summers from 1985 - 1987 revealed the presence of 15 cultural levels, all of which belong to the Late Plains Period. These cultural levels show 2,000 years of repeated occupation at the site. This repeated use of the site has produced projectile points from multiple levels of Late Plains Period occupations, particularly Old Women's and Mortlach, which provides an opportunity to examine new projectile point classification systems as well as approaches used in producing these typologies. In addition to the projectile points, pottery excavated from this site provides insight into some of the recent debates regarding Late Plains Period pottery typology. Overall, FbNp-1 serves as a link between earlier occupations within Wanuskewin Heritage Park and modern First Nations populations

NARRATE: A Normal Assisted Free-View Portrait Stylizer

In this work, we propose NARRATE, a novel pipeline that enables simultaneously editing portrait lighting and perspective in a photorealistic manner. As a hybrid neural-physical face model, NARRATE leverages complementary benefits of geometry-aware generative approaches and normal-assisted physical face models. In a nutshell, NARRATE first inverts the input portrait to a coarse geometry and employs neural rendering to generate images resembling the input, as well as producing convincing pose changes. However, inversion step introduces mismatch, bringing low-quality images with less facial details. As such, we further estimate portrait normal to enhance the coarse geometry, creating a high-fidelity physical face model. In particular, we fuse the neural and physical renderings to compensate for the imperfect inversion, resulting in both realistic and view-consistent novel perspective images. In relighting stage, previous works focus on single view portrait relighting but ignoring consistency between different perspectives as well, leading unstable and inconsistent lighting effects for view changes. We extend Total Relighting to fix this problem by unifying its multi-view input normal maps with the physical face model. NARRATE conducts relighting with consistent normal maps, imposing cross-view constraints and exhibiting stable and coherent illumination effects. We experimentally demonstrate that NARRATE achieves more photorealistic, reliable results over prior works. We further bridge NARRATE with animation and style transfer tools, supporting pose change, light change, facial animation, and style transfer, either separately or in combination, all at a photographic quality. We showcase vivid free-view facial animations as well as 3D-aware relightable stylization, which help facilitate various AR/VR applications like virtual cinematography, 3D video conferencing, and post-production.Comment: 14 pages,13 figures https://youtu.be/mP4FV3evmy