Rapid Intensity Decrease During the Second Half of the First Millennium BCE in Central Asia and Global Implications

Recent paleomagnetic studies have shown that important short-lived intensity fluctuations occurred during the first millennium BCE. However, the knowledge of the spatial and temporal extension of these features is still limited by the scarce availability of robust data. In this study we focus on the study of the intensity decrease that took place in Central Asia during the second half of the 1st millennium BCE after the high intensities that characterized the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly. Since previous archeointensities available for this period and region were obtained without accomplishing modern standards of quality, we present here new archeointensities that are derived from classical Thellier and Thellier experiments, including partial thermoremanent magnetization (pTRM) checks, thermoremanent magnetization (TRM) anisotropy and cooling rate corrections at the specimen level. The new 51 archeointensities, together with previous archeointensities, have been used to present a new local paleosecular variation curve for Central Asia. The results confirm the existence of an important geomagnetic field intensity decrease in South Uzbekistan from the 4th century BCE to the end of the 1st century BCE associated with rates of changes up to −15 μT/century. A critical analysis of the archeointensity global database indicates that this feature was present at continental scale, from Western Europe to Central Asia. However, this trend is not identified in other regions such as Japan or Mexico. Finally, the comparison with the dipole moment derived from recent global geomagnetic field reconstructions suggests a strong influence of non-dipolar sources upon this continental intensity feature.Financial support was given by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation thorough the projects CERAC (HAR2016-75133-C3-1-P), CONCERAC (HAR2016-75133-C3-3-P), SPYKE (CGL2017-87015-P), SÚMATE (PID2020-113316GB-I00) and PULSES 5.K (PID2020-117105RB-I00). R. Bonilla-Alba thanks the FPI fellowship (PRE2018-085949) associated with the SPYKE project. This study has been also funded by the Ramón y Cajal program (contracts of M. Gómez-Paccard and V. Martínez-Ferreras, refs. RYC-2013-14405 and RYC-2014-15789). The authors wish to acknowledge the professional support of the CSIC Interdisciplinary Thematic Platform Open Heritage: Research and Society (PTI-PAIS). E. Beamud thanks the Geomodels Research Institute (UB) and the Grup de Geodinàmica i Anàlisi de Conques-2017SGR596 (Generalitat de Catalunya). A. Palencia-Ortas thanks the PTA contract of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation

Rapid Intensity Decrease During the Second Half of the First Millennium BCE in Central Asia and Global Implications

Recent paleomagnetic studies have shown that important short-lived intensity fluctuations occurred during the first millennium BCE. However, the knowledge of the spatial and temporal extension of these features is still limited by the scarce availability of robust data. In this study we focus on the study of the intensity decrease that took place in Central Asia during the second half of the 1st millennium BCE after the high intensities that characterized the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly. Since previous archeointensities available for this period and region were obtained without accomplishing modern standards of quality, we present here new archeointensities that are derived from classical Thellier and Thellier experiments, including partial thermoremanent magnetization (pTRM) checks, thermoremanent magnetization (TRM) anisotropy and cooling rate corrections at the specimen level. The new 51 archeointensities, together with previous archeointensities, have been used to present a new local paleosecular variation curve for Central Asia. The results confirm the existence of an important geomagnetic field intensity decrease in South Uzbekistan from the 4th century BCE to the end of the 1st century BCE associated with rates of changes up to -15 mu T/century. A critical analysis of the archeointensity global database indicates that this feature was present at continental scale, from Western Europe to Central Asia. However, this trend is not identified in other regions such as Japan or Mexico. Finally, the comparison with the dipole moment derived from recent global geomagnetic field reconstructions suggests a strong influence of non-dipolar sources upon this continental intensity feature

Perception of space in Late Antique urban planning: Evolutional characteristics of the Hispanic case study

[EN ]Roman urbanism experimented, in Late Antiquity, a fundamental transformation of its structural principles and organisation of space. However, the process – the context in which it took place and its phases – is currently imprecise and its guidelines remain difficult to determine. Taking the Iberian Peninsula as a case study, this article analyses the variants of these transformations, which seemed to be partially perceived by contemporary citizens. Moreover, and following our investigation of Hispanic urban centres, the article outlines the elements that define the characteristics of the Late Antique city and its projection onto the social imaginary: first, a different assessment of urban space, and secondly, a new conception of the horizontal and vertical lines of the construction project of cities

Preliminary archeointensity results from well-dated ceramics from ancient Bactria (Uzbekistán, Central Asia).

Improving geomagnetic field reconstructions clearly poses a high-priority challenge in Earth Sciences today. A better characterization of the variation of the geomagnetic field strength at centennial to millennial time scales is particularly crucial to disentangle the long-term evolution of the Earth´s dipole moment, a global characteristic of our planet. Here we present new high-quality archeointensities for Central Asia, a vast and rather poorly known region in terms of geomagnetic field intensity fluctuations. These new data are obtained from the study of 26 pottery fragments from Termez, a great urban and Buddhist religious center in ancient Bactria (south Uzbekistan) during the Kushan period. The samples have been collected in several sectors related to different stages of the occupation as demonstrated by 14C analysis: 1) two sectors in the alluvial plain (AC2 and AC1), dated to the Greco-Bactrian (from the 3rd to the 1st centuries BC) and the nomadic Yuezhi (≈1st century AD) periods respectively; 2) sector RC at the Tchingiz Tepe fortress, dated to the Kushan and Kushano-Sassanian periods (from the 2nd to the 4th centuries AD). The classical Thellier method including regular partial thermoremanent magnetization (pTRM) checks and TRM anisotropy and cooling rate corrections has been used for archeointensity determination. The new data obtained shed new light on the past fluctuation of geomagnetic field strength in Central Asia. In addition, a critical revision of archeointensity data from Central Asia is presented. Selected high-quality archeointensities are finally compared with regional and global geomagnetic field reconstructions.Peer Reviewe

Fast geomagnetic field intensity variation between 600 BC and 250 AC. New archeointensity data from Uzbekistan

Reunión MAGIBER XI Portugal ,Condeixa a Nova (4 al 6 de septiembre de 2019)The geomagnetic field is a global feature with an important regional character. Its temporal and spatial variation can be observed from direct measurements such as satellites and logbook available since the 17th century. In order to know the behaviour of the geomagnetic field further in the past indirect measurements are needed. These indirect measurements (called paleo or archeomagnetic data) are based on the study of the remanent magnetization acquired by the iron oxides present in certain rocks and archaeological materials when heated at high temperatures (Néel, 1955).This work was supported by two R&D&I projects, CERAC (HAR2016-75133-C3-1-P) led by V. Martínez and J.M. Gurt, and CONCERAC (HAR2016-75133-C3-3-P) led by E. Ariño, all funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. V. Martínez worked on this paper through the post-doctoral research contract Ramón y Cajal (RYC-2014-15789). M. Gómez-Paccard thanks to RYC-2013-14405. This congress was funded by Red de trabajo y laboratorios MAGIBERII (CGL2017-90632-REDT)

Fast Geomagnetic Field Intensity Decrease Between 500 BC and 250 AD. New Archeointensity Data From South Uzbekistan.

AGU Fall Meeting 2019 in San Francisco, 9 – 13 December 2019Recent archeomagnetic studies provide new evidences for rapid variations of the intensity of the geomagnetic field in the last millennia. In particular, during the first millennium BC, one of the biggest jerks of the geomagnetic field took place. This phenomenon has been observed in the Near East, Israel and Georgia, Germany and Western Europe. The main purpose of this work is to study the behaviour of the geomagnetic field intensity in Central Asia during the first millennium BC, a region and period of time for which very few high- quality paleointensity data are available. For this purpose, an archaeomagnetic study has been conducted over a collection of 68 ceramic fragments coming from three archaeological sites in the south of Uzbekistan: Kampyr Tepe, where samples from three different sites have been studied: the Citadel (-262 ± 113 BC), the ceramic workshop (-150 ± 50 BC) and the Lower City (-129 ± 41 BC); Kurganzol (-325 ± 75 BC); and Termez, where samples came from different stratigraphic units with ages between 350 BC and 350 AD. The Kurganzol collection has been dated by a variety of archaeological and historical constraints, while the Kampyr Tepe and Termez ceramics were dated by 8 different radiocarbon analyses. During the first stage of this work, rock magnetism experiments have been conducted on 43 samples in order to identify the principal magnetic minerals responsible for the remanent magnetization. The results show that magnetite and/or Ti-magnetite are the main magnetic carriers. In a second stage, we have conducted paleointensity experiments following the Thellier classical methodology, including the TRM and cooling rate corrections necessary to ensure the reliability of paleointensity estimations. The new results, together with prior high-quality data, confirm that the geomagnetic field underwent a steep dropout in intensity between 600 BC and 100 BC in Central Asia. Finally, the VADM values have been compared with the dipolar moment variation predicted by several global geomagnetic models. This comparison indicates that the VADM values are higher than global model estimations, which might indicate the strong influence of non-dipolar sources upon the rapid decrease observed

Descenso rápido de la intensidad del campo geomagnético: nuevos datos de arqueointensidad para el I milenio AEC en Uzbekistán

X Congreso Geológico de España, 5-7 Julio 2021, Vitoria - GasteizReciente estudios arqueomagnéticos han detectado una caída en la intensidad del campo en torno al 3000 BP (Shaar et al., 2016). Este fenómeno se ha observado en distintas partes del mundo, como en Israel, Europa, y Corea. El principal objetivo de este estudio es ampliar nuestro conocimiento acerca del comportamiento espacial y temporal de dicho evento en la región de Asia central durante el I milenio AEC. Para esto se ha utilizado el protocolo de paleointensidad de Thellier en el tratamiento de 141 fragmentos cerámicos procedentes del sur de Uzbekistán. Los experimentos de magnetismo de rocas indican que los principales portadores magnéticos de las muestras son la magnetita y la titanomagnetita. Los resultados obtenidos confirman una caída drástica de la intensidad entre el 400 y el 100 AEC en la zona de Asia central. Por último, se han comparado los valores del Momento Dipolar Virtual Axial (VADM) con el valor del momento dipolar obtenido a partir del modelo global SHA.DIF.14k (Pavon-Carrasco et al., 2014)

Rapid intensity decrease during the second half of the first millennium BCE in Central Asia and global implications

International audienceRecent paleomagnetic studies have shown that important short‐lived intensity fluctuations occurred during the first millennium BCE. However, the knowledge of the spatial and temporal extension of these features is still limited by the scarce availability of robust data. In this study we focus on the study of the intensity decrease that took place in Central Asia during the second half of the 1st millennium BCE after the high intensities that characterized the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly. Since previous archeointensities available for this period and region were obtained without accomplishing modern standards of quality, we present here new archeointensities that are derived from classical Thellier and Thellier experiments, including partial thermoremanent magnetization (pTRM) checks, thermoremanent magnetization (TRM) anisotropy and cooling rate corrections at the specimen level. The new 51 archeointensities, together with previous archeointensities, have been used to present a new local paleosecular variation curve for Central Asia. The results confirm the existence of an important geomagnetic field intensity decrease in South Uzbekistan from the 4th century BCE to the end of the 1st century BCE associated with rates of changes up to ‐15 µT/century. A critical analysis of the archeointensity global database indicates that this feature was present at continental scale, from Western Europe to Central Asia. However, this trend is not identified in other regions such as Japan or Mexico. Finally, the comparison with the dipole moment derived from recent global geomagnetic field reconstructions suggests a strong influence of non‐dipolar sources upon this continental intensity feature