Urbs e civitas: a formação dos espaços e territórios urbanos nas minas setecentistas

O presente artigo procura situar a evolução das abordagens acerca da cidade colonial mineira dentro da perspectiva mais ampla dos estudos sobre o urbanismo colonial português. A análise privilegia os trabalhos que, em vez de se aterem aos aspectos ligados à estética urbana, procuraram relacioná-los às questões fundiárias e à constituição das redes e hierarquias urbanas.This article seeks to situate the evolution of approaches to the study of the colonial towns of Minas Gerais placing them in the broader perspective of studies on the Portuguese colonial urbanism. Instead of restricting our approach to questions of urban aesthetics, the analysis focuses on the works that tried to relate these questions to aspects of land ownership and to the establishment of networks and urban hierarchies

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved