Invention, innovation and inspiration: optimisation and resolving technological change in the Sri Lankan archaeological record

Reproduced with permission of the publisher. Details of the publication are available at: http://www.archetype.co.uk/publication-details.php?id=174Abstract not availableThe project was supported by the British Government (Overseas Development Agency) and the Japanese (Kumagi-Hazima-Kagima) and British (Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners, and Balfour Beatty) developers of the Samanalawewa Hydro-Electric scheme. Logistical and financial support were also given by the British Council and the British High Commission, Colombo

Geochemical survey and metalworking: a case study from Exmoor, southwest Britain

Reproduced with permission of the publisher.A series of geochemical surveys were undertaken on Exmoor as part of a multilayered investigation into the rich ironworking history of this landscape. Exmoor was created by semi-metamorphosed sedimentary lithologies, which contain a range of iron ore sources. The Romano-British iron smelting site at Sherracombe Ford was one of several production complexes to exploit these ores and excavation demonstrated evidence of iron smelting and primary iron smithing. Site investigation strategies utilised a range of techniques including geochemical survey, gradiometer survey and excavation. This paper describes one geochemical survey applied at an intra-site level to investigate a large compacted smithing floor and a multiple-use furnace location. Discussion is given to how geochemical survey can be conducted on sites with archaeometallurgical remains and how such data can be analysed and interpreted. Significantly, geochemical and gradiometer surveys are compared and the datasets integrated, the resulting plot indicating a significant potential for the application of these technologies on ironworking sites.English Heritag

Pioneering Metallurgy: The origins of iron and steel making in the Southern Indian subcontinent Telangana Field Survey Interim Report 2011

A chapter from this report ("From the macroscopic to the microscopic: some scientific insights") is in ORE: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/17744British Council UKIER

Early iron objects of southwest China: a case study of iron objects excavated from Qiaogoutou cemetery site, Sichuan Province

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer Verlag via the DOI in this record.Iron objects excavated from the Qiaogoutou cemetery site provides an opportunity to study iron-making technology during the late Warring States period and the early Western Han dynasty in southwest China. Five metallographic samples were prepared and analysed. The results are discussed in relation to other studies of iron objects discovered in southwest China

Review : Capripoxvirus Diseases: Current Status and Opportunities for Control

Lumpy skin disease, sheeppox and goatpox are high-impact diseases of domestic ruminants with a devastating effect on cattle, sheep and goat farming industries in endemic regions. In this article, we review the current geographical distribution, economic impact of an outbreak, epidemiology, transmission and immunity of capripoxvirus. The special focus of the article is to scrutinize the use of currently available vaccines to investigate the resource needs and challenges that will have to be overcome to improve disease control and eradication, and progress on the development of safer and more effective vaccines. In addition, field evaluation of the efficacy of the vaccines and the genomic database available for poxviruses are discussed.Peer reviewe

Differential persistence of foot-and-mouth disease virus in African buffalo is related to virus virulence

Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) circulates as multiple serotypes and strains in many endemic regions. In particular the three Southern African Territories (SAT) serotypes are maintained effectively in their wildlife reservoir, the African buffalo, and individuals may harbour multiple SAT-serotypes for extended periods in the pharyngeal region. However the exact site and mechanism for persistence remain unclear. FMD in buffaloes offers a unique opportunity to study FMDV-persistence, as transmission from carrier ruminants has only convincingly been demonstrated for this species. Following co-infection of naïve African buffaloes with three SAT-serotypes isolated from field buffaloes; palatine tonsil swabs were the sample of choice for recovering infectious FMDV up to 400 days post infection (dpi). Post-mortem examination identified infectious virus for up to 185 dpi and viral genome up to 400 dpi in lymphoid tissue of the head and neck, mainly focussed in germinal centres. Interestingly viral persistence in vivo was not homogenous and the SAT-1 isolate persisted for longer than SAT-2 and SAT-3. Co-infection and passage of these SAT isolates in goat and buffalo cell lines demonstrated a direct correlation between persistence and cell killing capacity. These data suggest FMDV persistence occurs in the germinal centres of lymphoid tissue but the duration of persistence is related to virus replication and cell killing capacity.NJ was funded as a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellow and funding is acknowledged from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBS/E/I/00001523 and BBS/E/I/00001717).http://jvi.asm.org2016-11-30hb2016Microbiology and Plant Patholog

Crucible steel at Hattota Amune, Sri Lanka, in the first millennium AD: archaeology and contextualisation

Published as chapter in Srinivasan S, Ranganathan S, Giumlia-Mair A (eds) Metals and Civilizations: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on the Beginnings of the Use of Metals and Alloys (BUMA VII), Bangalore: National Institute of Advanced Studies, 2015, pp. 78-86The discovery of a crucible steel manufacturing site and iron smelting sites of the first millennium AD during the survey of an area bordering the Knuckles range of hills in central Sri Lanka is described. The nature of the evidence for both smelting and crucible steel technologies is discussed and comparisons made with earlier published fieldwork at Samanalawewa. The excavation of the crucible steel site is presented along with a discussion of the interpretations drawn from the field evidence

Early iron and steel in Sri Lanka A study of the Samanalawewa area

In 2 vols.SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN025033 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Heritage and decoloniality: Reflections from Sri Lanka - a conversation

This is the author accepted manuscript.We see from other contributions to this collection how issues of colonialism and decoloniality in different societies and regions of the world shape and reshape heritage meanings and the role that is played by differing levels of knowledge and authority—local, communal, institutional, legal, and national—in directing and redirecting perceptions of heritage. Many of the contributions share the backdrop of settler colonialism in the Americas and find solidarity at the intersection of heritage, land rights, and (dis)possession. In South Asia, it is external, or exogenous, colonialism; the exploitation of local people; and extraction of resources by an outside power for the wealth and privilege of the colonizers (Tuck and Yang, 2012) that characterize society and heritage. Here we deal specifically with Sri Lanka, an island with a long, rich, and multifaceted history that has in the last half-century experienced a brutal civil war and now lives in an uneasy and unresolved peace. Taking inspiration from conversations that emerged during the meeting in Geneva, we have here recorded a three-way conversation that developed its own trajectories as we explored our own places in the heritage-coloniality dynamic of Sri Lanka and then the places where we found the contentions of heritage-coloniality impinging on the state of the island and its communities today. It is interesting that our conversation also alighted on the perception of a new Chinese colonialism, unknowingly picking up threads from the contribution of Florence Graezer Bideau and Pascale Bugnon in this special section. To retain the spontaneity and authenticity of our conversation in December 2022, the text is largely unedited. For anyone familiar with Sri Lanka today, the conversation as an event is as valuable as what is being said, and we hope this opens doors to more cross-community conversations

Computational simulation of air flows through a Sri Lankan wind-driven furnace

Research carried out in the early 1990s in Sri Lanka, combining field survey, ethno-archaeology and excavation, revealed an extensive iron producing industry dating to the second half of the first millennium AD. The field evidence indicated that this industry was based on a shallow, wind-powered furnace design that represented a radical departure from the accepted bellows-driven, shaft furnace model which has been the epitome of successful pre-industrial iron smelting. Subsequent experimental reconstructions of the process carried out in Sri Lanka established that the furnaces were wind-powered and also that they were capable of producing high quality, hypereutectoid steels. The objective of the current work is to use modern techniques in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to investigate the airflow through and around these furnaces in order to verify the theoretical model of their operation. It also demonstrates the potential application of CFD to the modelling and interpretation of pre-modern pyrotechnologie