Setting people in their environment: plant and animal remains from Anglo-Scandinavian York

INTRODUCTION: For the past millennium, the inhabitants of the centre of York have, whether hey knew it or not, been living on top of a compost heap in which are preserved all kinds of remains of Anglo-Scandinavian and early post-conquest life. The preservation of this mass of organic matter has come about because, for reasons which are not fully understood, the deposits show anoxic waterlogging - in other words they have remained moist, and decay has been inhibited by lack of free oxygen. Later citizens must often have encountered these 'peaty' deposits and wondered about some of the more recognisable biological remains, as well as the numerous artefacts, surviving in them. However, it was not until the early 20th century that the value of all this material in investigating the past started to be appreciated

Evidence for tanning from plant and insect remains

[FIRST PARAGRAPH] It is suggested elsewhere (Hall and Kenward forthcoming) that a bioarchaeological 'indicator group' (sensa Kenward and Hall 1997) for tanning may be recognisable. The material giving rise to this hypothesis was discovered during assessment of samples from Anglo-Scandinavian and early post- Conquest riverside deposits at Layerthorpe Bridge, York (Carrott et al. 1997). Here, large quantities of bark fragments (and the sclereids -small clumps of lignified cells characteristic of certain trees, notably oak- left when bark decays) were recorded in many samples. These gave the suspicion that the bark was being employed for some purpose, since there was usually very little wood present with it. Much the most likely process to have required bark in bulk is tanning (taken here to represent the steeping of hides in pits or vats with tree bark). Support for this came from a somewhat surprising direction. The beetle Trox scaber was unusually abundant (it was found in 30 of the samples, at a frequency of 3-6 per sample when present; five samples contained 'several' individuals and one 'many’, on the semi-quantitative scale used for recording). This contrasts with the evidence from Anglo-Scandinavian Coppergate, where it was present in a large proportion (242) of the samples but was never abundant. There were only eight cases where three or four individuals were noted, the rest being ones or twos, and the mean number of individuals per sample where the beetle was present was 1.2 (AY 14/7; Kenward, unpublished database). Thus T. scaber was significantly more abundant at the Layerthorpe Bridge site than at Coppergate

Actively decaying or just poorly preserved? Can we tell when plant and invertebrate remains in urban archaeological deposits decayed?

We have recendy argued that poorly preserved delicate macrofossil remains of plants and invertebrates in near-surface deposits in York are in active decay, rather than being preserved in stasis, part-way down the decay trajectory. Observations of both archaeological and modern deposits suggest empirically that remains either survive for a long period (if conditions are conducive) or decay rapidly (if they are not). The hypothesis that very gradual decay has led to large numbers of deposits containing remains in a similar state appears illogical. It is more likely that, where poorly preserved biological remains are found, they either decayed in the past and then were stabilised when ground conditions became anoxic, or are currently in decay. Long-term patterns of decay cannot easily be investigated experimentally, but arguments concerning patterns and rates of decay can be. Apart from the question of in-ground preservation, understanding patterns of decay will allow us to address a range of taphonomic problems fundamental to drawing archaeological information from these remains

The bioarchaeology of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire: present and future perspectives

The Anglo-Saxon period in Yorkshire - in terms of our knowledge of those questions which bioarchaeological studies are conventionally used to address - remains very much an unknown quantity, We can hardly claim even to know whether these questions are indeed appropriate in the Anglo-Saxon period. To some extent this reflects the nature of the Anglo-Saxon deposits so far encountered, in which preservation of the less durable organic remains has been very limited. The nature of Anglo-Saxon occupation, with a bias towards rural settlements of a kind whicb have generally left only faint traces in the ground, means that there are no deeply stratified richly organic deposits of the kind revealed in some Roman and Viking Age phases in major urban centres, of which only York is weIl known in the region. The Anglo-Saxon period thus presents exceptional challenges to the environmental archaeologist, and ones which closely parallel those for the Iron Age. It is a period for which the kind of assemblages traditionally provided by bioarchaeologica1 studies are most urgently needed, to define environment and land use, resource exploitation, living conditions, trade and exchange, as well as aspects of craft-working and industrial activities. In addition, the period in Yorkshire presents special problems concerning the status of individual rural or ecclesiastical settlements, particularly the nature of York as a possible wic. For the purposes of this paper (and in view of the complexities of the archaeology of the 5th to 11th centuries), we have elected to discuss only such biological material as .falls after the end of the Roman period (as generally accepted) and before the first significant waves of Scandinavian invasion in the mid 9th century

Discussion of Likelihood Inference for Models with Unobservables: Another View

Discussion of "Likelihood Inference for Models with Unobservables: Another View" by Youngjo Lee and John A. Nelder [arXiv:1010.0303]Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-STS277A the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Frome catchment, Purbeck district, United Kingdom

A map for valuing ecosystem services in the 480 km2 Frome catchment, to investigate scenarios of change in land use, was internet crowd-sourced. Scouts mapped deer habitats in 15% of the 30 km2 Arne Parish, while 143 residents volunteered data on deer sightings in the 5-year community survey

Assessment of the Effectiveness of Artificial Structure in a Recovering Urban Lake

The use of artificial structure as a tool to enhance habitat availability for fish is commonly used in both marine and freshwater systems. Two hypotheses are used to explain how artificial structure affects biota. While the attraction hypothesis states that fish are simply attracted to structure, the production hypothesis suggests that structure also leads to an increase in overall fish abundance by providing an increased availability for foraging, protection from predators, and suitable nesting habitat. Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, New York, is an EPA Superfund Site that has experienced more than a century of degradation. Restoration efforts of this system have included extensive dredging and capping with sand and activated carbon, followed by the establishment of an upper habitat layer consisting of hundreds of artificial structures, including log cribs, downed trees, cobble bars, and concrete reef balls. Reef balls are a structure commonly used in marine environments rather than freshwater. In 2019, visual surveys at these four structure types found that fish are more attracted to sites with structure than sites without, and that fish attraction was highest at woody structures. Numerous discrete behavioral observations of fish were observed at these structures, including schooling, territoriality, and feeding on structure surfaces, indicating that these structures are providing both an increase in forage habitat and protection from predators. Quantification of increased fish abundance in response to the implementation of artificial structure was outside the scope of this study. However, annual trends in centrarchid nest distribution suggest that modification of the substrate following capping coupled with the introduction of artificial structures has led to a broader distribution of centrarchid nests in the littoral zone of the lake by providing diversified substrate and habitat, offering further support for the production hypothesis in freshwater systems

The Impact of Fine Scale Drivers on Upwelling Processes

Ionospheric upwelling and outflow are large-scale processes which affect the dynamics of the greater magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere system. Though these terms historically refer to the propensity of ions to increase in scale height and escape Earth\u27s gravity due to a the collective effect of energization processes; that same behaviour is frequently observed to occur with neutral species within the cusp regions of the ionosphere. Although many different driving mechanisms have been identified which contribute to the energization and increase in scale height of the ionosphere, the relative energy budget of these individual drivers is debated. In this dissertation, data from the Rocket Experiment for Neutral Upwelling 2 (RENU2) will be presented as a case study of these energization processes. In particular, sub-kilometer scale features are examined to demonstrate that a significant portion of energy flux into the ionosphere is carried by fine-scale structures which have an integrated effect to cause the large-scale upwelling. An additional study is presented on the ability of pulsating aurora to drive upwelling. Pulsating aurora are spatially confined regions of periodic brightening driven by electron precipitation (on the order of 10s of keV) embedded in a diffuse aurora background (on the order of a few keV). Though these two studies are unrelated, both are linked by the idea of that large-scale responses of the ionosphere may be driven by fine-scale structures. Additionally, a section is presented on the development and first flight of an ejectable instrument to measure electron temperatures in a distributed array from a single sounding rocket. The ability to perform multi point measurements from a single rocket platform is paramount to understanding the fine scale coupling of the ionosphere to large scale phenomenon