Missing the Point: Identifying Perishable Projectiles in the Archaeological Record from Bone Damage

For decades, archaeologists have used replicative studies to develop a better understanding of prehistoric technology. Many replicative studies have focused on the manufacture and use of stone projectiles, resulting in a detailed understanding of the design of hunting weapons in relation to various features of the environment and, in turn, elegant explanations for technological change over time. Yet if ethnographic accounts are any indication, lithic technology was only one (perhaps minor) part of many prehistoric technological systems. It is likely, then, that the technological changes archaeologists commonly document through their morphometric analysis of stone projectile points occurred against a backdrop of perishable technologies often not represented in the archaeological record. Here, I report on a replicative experiment designed to investigate whether archaeologists and see perishable projectiles in the archaeological record based on the damage they inflict on animal bones. Specifically, I examine if wood-tipped, fire-hardened, and stone-tipped arrows produce distinctive damage signatures. I use the results of my study to re-examine explanations offered to account for the transition from the dart to the bow and arrow in eastern North America

Missing the Point: Identifying Perishable Projectiles in the Archaeological Record from Bone Damage

For decades, archaeologists have used replicative studies to develop a better understanding of prehistoric technology. Many replicative studies have focused on the manufacture and use of stone projectiles, resulting in a detailed understanding of the design of hunting weapons in relation to various features of the environment and, in turn, elegant explanations for technological change over time. Yet if ethnographic accounts are any indication, lithic technology was only one (perhaps minor) part of many prehistoric technological systems. It is likely, then, that the technological changes archaeologists commonly document through their morphometric analysis of stone projectile points occurred against a backdrop of perishable technologies often not represented in the archaeological record. Here, I report on a replicative experiment designed to investigate whether archaeologists and see perishable projectiles in the archaeological record based on the damage they inflict on animal bones. Specifically, I examine if wood-tipped, fire-hardened, and stone-tipped arrows produce distinctive damage signatures. I use the results of my study to re-examine explanations offered to account for the transition from the dart to the bow and arrow in eastern North America

Summary proceedings: Workshop on REDD+ and legal regimes of mangroves, peatlands and other wetlands: ASEAN and the world

This report summarises the proceedings of the workshop as interpreted by the assigned rapporteur and editors of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law, which were reviewed and approved by the presenters

Towards Buen Vivir: Brian Massumi’s The Power at the End of the Economy”

In this review of The Power at the End of the Economy, Lestón delineates the theoretical apparatus of Massumi\u27s book and its possible implications

Mapping Crisis: Participation, Datafication, and Humanitarianism in the Age of Digital Mapping

This book brings together critical perspectives on the role that mapping people, knowledges and data now plays in humanitarian work, both in cartographic terms and through data visualisations. Since the rise of Google Earth in 2005, there has been an explosion in the use of mapping tools to quantify and assess the needs of the poor, including those affected by climate change and the wider neo-liberal agenda. Yet, while there has been a huge upsurge in the data produced around these issues, the representation of people remains questionable. Some have argued that representation has diminished in humanitarian crises as people are increasingly reduced to data points. In turn, this data becomes ever more difficult to analyse without vast computing power, leading to a dependency on the old colonial powers to refine the data of the poor, before selling it back to them. These issues are not entirely new, and questions around representation, participation and humanitarianism can be traced back beyond the speeches of Truman, but the digital age throws these issues back to the fore, as machine learning, algorithms and big data centres take over the process of mapping the subjugated and subaltern. This book questions whether, as we map crises, it is the map itself that is in crisis

Proceedings of the 3rd Open Source Geospatial Research & Education Symposium OGRS 2014

The third Open Source Geospatial Research & Education Symposium (OGRS) was held in Helsinki, Finland, on 10 to 13 June 2014. The symposium was hosted and organized by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Aalto University School of Engineering, in partnership with the OGRS Community, on the Espoo campus of Aalto University. These proceedings contain the 20 papers presented at the symposium. OGRS is a meeting dedicated to exchanging ideas in and results from the development and use of open source geospatial software in both research and education.  The symposium offers several opportunities for discussing, learning, and presenting results, principles, methods and practices while supporting a primary theme: how to carry out research and educate academic students using, contributing to, and launching open source geospatial initiatives. Participating in open source initiatives can potentially boost innovation as a value creating process requiring joint collaborations between academia, foundations, associations, developer communities and industry. Additionally, open source software can improve the efficiency and impact of university education by introducing open and freely usable tools and research results to students, and encouraging them to get involved in projects. This may eventually lead to new community projects and businesses. The symposium contributes to the validation of the open source model in research and education in geoinformatics

Renewing Local Planning to Face Climate Change in the Tropics

climate vulnerability; urban resilience; climate change; adaptation; planning; environmental risk analysis; decision making; disaster risk reduction; tropical climate managemen