9 research outputs found
The application of sedimentological analysis and luminescence dating to waterlain deposits from archaeological sites
Get PDFThe thesis follows an interdisciplinary approach combining sediment analysis and luminescence dating of sediments from selected archaeological sites. The work aims to assess the role of sediment analysis for luminescence dating, and the potential of TL and IRSL for dating waterlain material of Holocene age. A comparative chronology based on radiocarbon, stratigraphic and archaeological grounds is important. However, the viability of comparing different dating techniques is considered in the light of the dating results. The novel IRSL and established TL techniques were shown to successful for dating waterlain sediments, provided that a suitable light source is used for laboratory bleaching. Age comparisons between the luminescence techniques was excellent. Disparities between luminescence and C-14 ages is largely explained on a sedimentological basis. The role of sediment analysis is shown to be of great importance for luminescence dating. Certain sedimentological and luminescence characteristics are shown to be closely linked. The relationship between undated sediments affected by instability or low intensity of signals, and weathering in the strata from which the samples were taken is tested by experiment. This demonstrates that weathering of feldspars in the stratum severely affects the luminescence signals and therefore the potential for dating these samples. This represents a step towards the recognition of problematic samples in the field. In conclusion, it is shown that luminescence is suitable as an absolute dating technique for a wide variety of inorganic sedimentary material between 0-200 000 years old. This exceeds the C-14 technique both in range of material and in age limits. The main source of error is associated with variations in water content, which with the recognition of the significance of weathering, demonstrates the importance of sediment analysis in support of luminescence dating studies
Encounters with Frideswide: Adapting the lives of the saints
Get PDFThe creative part of this thesis comprises a long sequence of poems, Embertide, that engage with the many different versions of the written Lives of St Frideswide, and with the places associated with her lived life in and around Oxford. The sequence opens with the voice of Prior Robert of Cricklade, the author of a Latin version of her Life. The remainder of the text is in two voices: the saint, and an inquisitor who is looking for the saint, and trying to make
sense of the alternative readings. The poems explore the gaps and contradictions between the different versions of the written texts, the landscape around Oxford associated with the saint, her presence and appropriations in modern Oxford. It is an ironic, witty, liminal, anachronistic and complex engagement with the contradictions of historical texts, the elusive nature of faith and ultimately, what the point of a saint is. The critical analysis explores the adaptation of written saints’ Lives, focusing on the
different versions and interpretations of the life of St Frideswide of Oxford. Selected aspects of adaptation theory and related concepts form a framework to interrogate and explore the genre of hagiography, a specific approach to saints’ life-writing. The analysis is applied to medieval and modern refashionings of Frideswide’s Lives, and to other modern poetic engagements with other saints’ Lives. It distinguishes works that are adaptations of extant
texts from those that appropriate their original sources. I conclude with a proposed new category of ‘appropriated Life’ to distinguish some modern refashionings of saints’ Lives,
including my own, from others
Land water and development in the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morocco
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