HILL-FORTS FROM THE LATE BRONZE AGE AND THE EARLY IRON AGE IN POMERANIA: AN OVERLOOKED PROBLEM

Although hill-forts from the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age associated with Lusatian culture appear in vast areas of modern Poland, they are absent in Pomerania beside the Lower Oder region. This scarcity is surprising, especially taking into account the relatively numerous appearances of hill-forts in Greater Poland, the region directly neighbouring Pomerania to the south. On the other hand, investigations conducted in the 1960s and 1970s to verify Pomeranian hill-forts described as originating from the Early Medieval and Medieval periods resulted in the detection of at least a dozen sites with material from the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. The aim of this paper is to present the problem of the supposed presence of Lusatian culture hill-forts in the central part of Polish Pomerania. It is highly probable that this kind of settlement played an important role in interregional contacts between eastern and western parts of Pomerania, together with Greater Poland and probably also Nordic Bronze Age zones. In a wider perspective, their role in the course and working of the Amber Road at the end of the Bronze Age should also be taken into account and investigated. It seems that new tools available for archaeologists, like Lidar data, modern geophysics and aerial photography, may provide new openings and new perspectives on research into this case study.Key words: Central Pomerania, Lusatian culture, Late Bronze Age, Early Iron Age, hill-forts, fortified settlements, trade/exchange routes, archaeological cartography.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15181/ab.v24i0.156

Alleged burial mounds from the late Roman Period at leśnictwo Sacharewo site 3, Białowieża Primeval Forest

The article presents results of excavations carried out at an alleged barrow cemetery located in the western part of the Białowieża Primeval Forest, Poland. The site, discovered in 1996 and verified in 2016, consists of 10 mounds. In 2017, the first excavations were carried out when the mound no. 3, with a diameter of c. 9 m and a relative height of c. 0.7 m, located on the northern edge of the site, was chosen for research. In the mound 39 potsherds were found. The scarcity of ceramic material and the high degree of its fragmentation make the stylistic analysis difficult. The technological and stylistic features of the discussed pottery are typical for ceramics from a wide timespan, ranging from the Pre-Roman Period to the Late Roman Period. Their precise dating and cultural affiliation are difficult to determine due not only to the small size of the collection but also to the lack of well-dated comparative materials from the Białowieża Forest and its surroundings. A 14C analysis of charcoal obtained from the embankment of the mound yielded an approximation which fits between the second half of the 3rd century and the early 6th century. The cul- tural situation of north-eastern Poland in the Pre-Roman and Roman periods remains insufficiently recognised. Excavations carried out over the past dozen years have revealed many settlements related to the local culture group of the Hatched Pottery Culture and the Wielbark Culture, with some influences flowing from the postZarubintsy circle. In the course of the excavations, no human bones were found which would unambiguously confirm the sepulchral function of the mound. The Sacharewo mound is a part of a wider category of objects known from throughout the Białowieża Forest in which no bones were discovered but only fragments of clay vessels or charcoal layers

Photochemical Printing of Plasmonically Active Silver Nanostructures

In this paper, we demonstrate plasmonic substrates prepared on demand, using a straightforward technique, based on laser-induced photochemical reduction of silver compounds on a glass substrate. Importantly, the presented technique does not impose any restrictions regarding the shape and length of the metallic pattern. Plasmonic interactions have been probed using both Stokes and anti-Stokes types of emitters that served as photoluminescence probes. For both cases, we observed a pronounced increase of the photoluminescence intensity for emitters deposited on silver patterns. By studying the absorption and emission dynamics, we identified the mechanisms responsible for emission enhancement and the position of the plasmonic resonance

Real-Time Fluorescence Imaging of His-Tag-Driven Conjugation of mCherry Proteins to Silver Nanowires

In this work, we aimed to apply fluorescence microscopy to image protein conjugation to Ni-NTA modified silver nanowires in real time via the His-tag attachment. First, a set of experiments was designed and performed for the mixtures of proteins and silver nanowires in order to demonstrate plasmon enhancement of mCherry protein fluorescence as well as the ability to image fluorescence of single molecules. The results indicated strong enhancement of single-protein fluorescence emission upon coupling with silver nanowires. This conclusion was supported by a decrease in the fluorescence decay time of mCherry proteins. Real-time imaging was carried out for a structure created by dropping protein solution onto a glass substrate with functionalized silver nanowires. We observed specific attachment of mCherry proteins to the nanowires, with the recognition time being much longer than in the case of streptavidin–biotin conjugation. This result indicated that it is possible to design a universal and efficient real-time sensing platform with plasmonically active functionalized silver nanowires

Fluorescence enhancement of photosynthetic complexes separated from nanoparticles by a reduced graphene oxide layer

We observe that introducing a layer of reduced graphene oxide between electrochemically deposited gold nanoparticles and natural photosynthetic Fenna–Matthews–Olson (FMO) complex from green sulfur bacteria, results in an increase of the fluorescence emission of the FMO. This increase is not accompanied with any substantial change of the fluorescence dynamics. Our findings indicate that incorporating graphene-based materials in hybrid assemblies yields better performance of such structures, thus holds promise for designing biosensing and optoelectronic devices

State of the Art in Paleoenvironment Mapping for Modeling Applications in Archeology—Summary, Conclusions, and Future Directions from the PaleoMaps Workshop

In this report, we present the contributions, outcomes, ideas, discussions and conclusions obtained at the PaleoMaps Workshop 2019, that took place at the Institute of Geography of the University of Cologne on 23 and 24 September 2019. The twofold aim of the workshop was: (1) to provide an overview of approaches and methods that are presently used to incorporate paleoenvironmental information in human–environment interaction modeling applications, and building thereon; (2) to devise new approaches and solutions that might be used to enhance the reconstruction of past human–environmental interconnections. This report first outlines the presented papers, and then provides a joint protocol of the often extensive discussions that came up following the presentations or else during the refreshment intervals. It concludes by adressing the open points to be resolved in future research avenues, e.g., implementation of open science practices, new procedures for reviewing of publications, and future concepts for quality assurance of the often complex paleoenvironmental data. This report may serve as an overview of the state of the art in paleoenvironment mapping and modeling. It includes an extensive compilation of the basic literature, as provided by the workshop attendants, which will itself facilitate the necessary future research