Aproximaciones arqueométricas al estudio de los morteros de la antigüedad. Presupuestos metodológicos y ensayo de aplicación a la construcción romana del valle del Guadalquivir

Archaeometry today is a fully developed and well established discipline. In the case of mortars, however, perhaps its development has traditionally been more closely linked to the problems associated with the intervention and conservation of Cultural Assets. In any case, we should take advantage of that experience to explore in greater depth aspects of considerable importance for the characterisation of ancient construction processes and technological development; methods that, in the final analysis, inform us of socioeconomic structures and historical junctures at different moments and in different territories. The project, which has been developed around the architecture and construction of the Roman towns in the Guadalquivir Valley, has been an excellent laboratory in which to initiate research into areas of common interest in the fields of materials science and archaeology.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad HAR2012-36963-C05-0

Climatic and geographic effects on the spatial genetic pattern of a landbird species (Alectoris rufa) on the Iberian Peninsula

Understanding the spatial pattern of genetic diversity may be pivotal to adaptive conservation management of a given taxon. The red-legged partridge (Alectorisrufa, Linnaeus 1758) is naturally widely distributed from the Mediterranean to humid temperate zones. According to a recent study, the genetic structure of this species comprises five clusters, three of which are in the Iberian Peninsula (glacial refugia). Partridge demographic expansion events and climatic shifts during Pleistocene glaciations have been used to test the hypotheses concerning Iberian red-legged partridge distribution. We tested the existence of climatic and geographic relationships on genetic diversity/distances. We employed markers from two different genetic systems, such as part of the mitochondrial DNA control region (n = 113) and 20 species-specific microsatellite DNA loci (n = 377), including climatic and geographic factors from the 14 Iberian localities where A. rufa populations were sampled. Our results showed a mitochondrial genetic diversity pattern associated with a thermic gradient, and a decrease of genetic diversity in peripheral populations that concurred with the ‘abundant centre’ hypothesis. Overall, current climatic variables reliably described genetic variation and differentiation in the red-legged partridge, which may be a result of local species adaptation.Throughout the course of this study, M.E.F. was supported by Pre-Doctoral Fellowships from the Junta de Comunidades de Castilla La Mancha and the European Social Fund; J.A.B.- A. was supported by Fundaçao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia with a Post-Doctoral Fellowship (SFRH/BPD/65464/2009).Peer Reviewe

Pictavia Aurea

Este volumen, titulado Pictavia aurea, reúne 131 estudios que constituyen una granada muestra de los debates y las presentaciones en torno a la cultura hispánica del Siglo de Oro que entre los días 11 y 15 de julio de 2011 se dieron en la ciudad de Poitiers (Francia) en el marco del IX congreso de la Asociación Internacional “Siglo de Oro”. Auspiciada por la Universidad de Poitiers, a través del Centro de Estudios de la Literatura española de Entre Siglos (siglos xvii-xviii) (CELES XVII-XVIII) y el laboratorio «Formes et Représentations en Linguistique et Littérature» (FoReLL), la convocatoria reunió en la ciudad francesa a 276 participantes y a un centenar de asistentes en la novena edición del Congreso de la Asociación, que celebró entonces la efeméride del 450o aniversario del nacimiento de Luis de Góngora.A Isaías Lerner, maestro de la filología hispánic