The portormin (dunbeath) runestone

A stone with a short runic inscription was discovered on the beach at Portormin Harbour in Dunbeath, Caithness, in 1996. The find attracted some press attention at the time, but has been largely ignored by the runological com­mu­nity amid doubts over its authenticity. There has, however, been no detailed dis­cussion of the stone in a public arena. A description of the inscription is followed by discussion of several interpretations. There are good reasons for suspecting that the carvings are of modern origin, but the matter cannot be settled with certainty; the case invites comparison with the controversies sur­rounding runic inscriptions in North America

Vocalism in the Continental runic inscriptions

The goal of this thesis is the phonological analysis of a corpus of runic inscriptions in order to reconstruct the vocalic system(s) of the West Germanic dialects spoken in the Continental interior between the 5th-7th centuries A.D. The thesis presents a brief outline of the late Proto-Germanic vocalic system and of the principal sound changes involved in the development of the later dialects of the region (Old High German and Old Saxon). The main part of the thesis surveys the data retrievable from the runic inscriptions in an attempt to determine to what extent (if any) these sound changes are in evidence. In many respects, the data are consistent with the anticipated developments attested in OHG and OS; but for some of the sound changes – particularly those affecting the diphthongs – the existing models do not satisfactorily account for the data. There is also some evidence for processes not normally identified in accounts of the phonological background of the later dialects. The project endeavours to be rigorously empirical in approach; to avoid making unnecessary assumptions and prejudgements about the nature and content of the runic texts; and to resist the rejection of an interpretation unless it can be shown to be implausible. From this standpoint, we are confronted with the limited power of any conclusions based on such a small dataset, and with the more general problem of the imperfect correlation between written and spoken forms. If the makers of runic inscriptions cannot be relied on for phonological accuracy or orthographic consistency, to what extent is it possible to make inferences about spoken language from the texts which they created

Runes and commemoration in Anglo-Saxon England

Runic inscriptions are of interest not only as evidence of language and literacy in early medieval England, but also of the cultural functions of the objects on which they appear. In this paper, we present three case studies to examine the ways in which runic writing was used to commemorate the dead in Anglo-Saxon England: a cremation urn from Loveden Hill, Lincolnshire; the wooden coffin of Saint Cuthbert; and a carved memorial stone from Great Urswick, Cumbria. Our study highlights the diversity of rune-inscribed objects in their material and function, from containers for human remains to monuments on public display. In each case we discuss the linguistic problems of the text and the relationship of the inscription to the object and its find context, before turning to a broader examination of the role of inscribed objects in the act of commemoration and the question of the choice of runic over the Roman script

A model of evaluative opinion to encourage greater transparency and justification of interpretation in post-mortem forensic toxicology

Over the past decades, the calls to improve the robustness of interpretation in forensic science have increased in magnitude. Forensic toxicology has seen limited progress in this regard. In this work, we propose a transparent interpretive pathway for use in postmortem forensic toxicology cases. This process allows the selection of the interpretive methodology based on the amount of previous information that is available for the drug(s) in question. One approach is an assessment of various pharmacological and circumstantial considerations resulting in a toxicological significance score (TSS), which is particularly useful in situations where limited information about a drug is available. When there is a robust amount of case data available, then a probabilistic approach, through the evaluation of likelihood ratios by the forensic toxicologist and of prior probabilities by the fact finder, is utilized. This methodology provides a transparent means of making an interpretive decision on the role of a drug in the cause of death. This will allow the field of forensic toxicology to take a step forward in using best practice in evaluative reporting, a tool already used by many other forensic science disciplines.</p

A USCLIVAR Project to Assess and Compare the Responses of Global Climate Models to Drought-Related SST Forcing Patterns: Overview and Results

The USCLI VAR working group on drought recently initiated a series of global climate model simulations forced with idealized SST anomaly patterns, designed to address a number of uncertainties regarding the impact of SST forcing and the role of land-atmosphere feedbacks on regional drought. Specific questions that the runs are designed to address include: What are the mechanisms that maintain drought across the seasonal cycle and from one year to the next? What is the role of the leading patterns of SST variability, and what are the physical mechanisms linking the remote SST forcing to regional drought, including the role of land-atmosphere coupling? The runs were carried out with five different atmospheric general circulation models (AGCM5), and one coupled atmosphere-ocean model in which the model was continuously nudged to the imposed SST forcing. This paper provides an overview of the experiments and some initial results focusing on the responses to the leading patterns of annual mean SST variability consisting of a Pacific El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-like pattern, a pattern that resembles the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), and a global trend pattern. One of the key findings is that all the AGCMs produce broadly similar (though different in detail) precipitation responses to the Pacific forcing pattern, with a cold Pacific leading to reduced precipitation and a warm Pacific leading to enhanced precipitation over most of the United States. While the response to the Atlantic pattern is less robust, there is general agreement among the models that the largest precipitation response over the U.S. tends to occur when the two oceans have anomalies of opposite sign. That is, a cold Pacific and warm Atlantic tend to produce the largest precipitation reductions, whereas a warm Pacific and cold Atlantic tend to produce the greatest precipitation enhancements. Further analysis of the response over the U.S. to the Pacific forcing highlights a number of noteworthy and to some extent unexpected results. These include a seasonal dependence of the precipitation response that is characterized by signal-to-noise ratios that peak in spring, and surface temperature signal-to-noise ratios that are both lower and show less agreement among the models than those found for the precipitation response. Another interesting result concerns what appears to be a substantially different character in the surface temperature response over the U.S. to the Pacific forcing by the only model examined here that was developed for use in numerical weather prediction. The response to the positive SST trend forcing pattern is an overall surface warming over the world's land areas with substantial regional variations that are in part reproduced in runs forced with a globally uniform SST trend forcing. The precipitation response to the trend forcing is weak in all the models

Corpus Editions of English and Frisian Runic Inscriptions

The inscriptions of England and Frisia attest to the expansion of the older rune-row, chiefly with a set of additional vowel runes. Further developments in Eng­land from the later 600s suggest a systematic reform of the writing system. The extant corpus of English epigraphical inscriptions contains over 100 objects, although the large number of coins with runic legends raises problems for any attempt to collate all the material. While a number of handlists or catalogues have been produced over the years, there has been no fully detailed corpus edition until the forthcoming volumes produced by Gaby Waxenberger. The corpus of inscriptions associated with Frisia or (Pre-)Old Frisian language is much smaller, comprising up to twenty-four objects. The status of this material as a distinctly “Frisian” corpus in contrast to the English one has been chal­lenged. Like the English inscriptions, the Frisian ones have been described and studied as a group in many publications, but a dedicated corpus edition has only recently been published by Livia Kaiser. The present article includes a his­tor­ical overview of the published work on these corpora leading up to the recent corpus editions, and discusses some of the methodological difficulties in defining the corpus. It concludes with a summary of the arguments for studying them as a single corpus defined at least in part by innovations in writ­ing practice around the North Sea.https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-491879</p

Corpus Editions of English and Frisian Runic Inscriptions

The inscriptions of England and Frisia attest to the expansion of the older rune-row, chiefly with a set of additional vowel runes. Further developments in Eng­land from the later 600s suggest a systematic reform of the writing system. The extant corpus of English epigraphical inscriptions contains over 100 objects, although the large number of coins with runic legends raises problems for any attempt to collate all the material. While a number of handlists or catalogues have been produced over the years, there has been no fully detailed corpus edition until the forthcoming volumes produced by Gaby Waxenberger. The corpus of inscriptions associated with Frisia or (Pre-)Old Frisian language is much smaller, comprising up to twenty-four objects. The status of this material as a distinctly “Frisian” corpus in contrast to the English one has been chal­lenged. Like the English inscriptions, the Frisian ones have been described and studied as a group in many publications, but a dedicated corpus edition has only recently been published by Livia Kaiser. The present article includes a his­tor­ical overview of the published work on these corpora leading up to the recent corpus editions, and discusses some of the methodological difficulties in defining the corpus. It concludes with a summary of the arguments for studying them as a single corpus defined at least in part by innovations in writ­ing practice around the North Sea.https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-491879</p