Pitfalls and problems in analysing and interpreting the seasonality of faunal remains

Seasonality studies are an important tool in archaeological research, as long as methods are correctly applied. This paper aims to highlight problems which arise in seasonality studies due to a lack of understanding by archaeologists of animal behaviour and biology, and from this, how erroneous archaeological interpretations are then formed. The first point will show how myths regarding animal behaviour can occur and become firmly entrenched in the literature and the minds of archaeologists. The second point will outline how false assumptions can be made concerning reasons for the exploitation of certain species. Finally, it will be demonstrated that when using scientific methods, such as analysis of incremental growth, a thorough understanding of the biology of the species in question is essential

Polymer crystal-melt interfaces and nucleation in polyethylene

Kinetic barriers cause polymers to crystallize incompletely, into nanoscale lamellae interleaved with amorphous regions. As a result, crystalline polymers are full of crystal-melt interfaces, which dominate their physical properties. The longstanding theoretical challenge to understand these interfaces has new relevance, because of accumulating evidence that polymer crystals often nucleate via a metastable, partially ordered "rotator" phase. To test this idea requires a theory of the bulk and interfacial free energies of the critical nucleus. We present a new approach to the crystal-melt interface, which represents the amorphous region as a grafted brush of loops in a self-consistent pressure field. We combine this theory with estimates of bulk free energy differences, to calculate nucleation barriers and rates via rotator versus crystal nuclei for polyethylene. We find rotator-phase nucleation is indeed favored throughout the temperature range where nucleation is observed. Our methods can be extended to other polymers