From Pre‐Roman Bailo To Roman Baelo: Long‐Term Landscape Dynamics In The Straits Of Gibraltar

The Straits of Gibraltar have been historically an important maritime axis of connection between the Mediterranean and Atlantic areas of the Iberian Peninsula. For this reason, most of the archaeological research has focused on the coastal settlements, but its broader archaeological landscape remains mostly unknown. In this paper, we present recent intensive surveys in which a wide range of sites was detected, dating from the eighth century BC to the fourteenth AD. The ancient landscape is thus reconstructed over a long‐term perspective. Prior to the Roman expansion, the earlier Bailo‐La Silla del Papa was an urban central place that supported a dense network of subordinate settlements. Later on, the central settlement was transported from inland to the coastal town of Baelo Claudia, but the territorial structure remained based on a similar pattern.This study has been carried out as part of the Franco-German (Agence Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) project – ARCHEOSTRAITS. Espaces protohistoriques du détroit de Gibraltar: les territoires de la Silla del Papa et de Los Castillejos de Alcorrín (IXe – Ier siècle av. J.-C.) – led by D.Marzoli and P.Moret. In this article we have presented the analysis of the Atlantic sector, drawing on a study included in a Junta de Andalucía General Research Project led by P. Moret – La Silla del Papa (Tarifa, Cádiz): oppidum, necropolis and territory (2014-2019)

Young and Intermediate-age Distance Indicators

Distance measurements beyond geometrical and semi-geometrical methods, rely mainly on standard candles. As the name suggests, these objects have known luminosities by virtue of their intrinsic proprieties and play a major role in our understanding of modern cosmology. The main caveats associated with standard candles are their absolute calibration, contamination of the sample from other sources and systematic uncertainties. The absolute calibration mainly depends on their chemical composition and age. To understand the impact of these effects on the distance scale, it is essential to develop methods based on different sample of standard candles. Here we review the fundamental properties of young and intermediate-age distance indicators such as Cepheids, Mira variables and Red Clump stars and the recent developments in their application as distance indicators.Comment: Review article, 63 pages (28 figures), Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews (Chapter 3 of a special collection resulting from the May 2016 ISSI-BJ workshop on Astronomical Distance Determination in the Space Age

Horizontal Branch Stars: The Interplay between Observations and Theory, and Insights into the Formation of the Galaxy

We review HB stars in a broad astrophysical context, including both variable and non-variable stars. A reassessment of the Oosterhoff dichotomy is presented, which provides unprecedented detail regarding its origin and systematics. We show that the Oosterhoff dichotomy and the distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the HB morphology-metallicity plane both exclude, with high statistical significance, the possibility that the Galactic halo may have formed from the accretion of dwarf galaxies resembling present-day Milky Way satellites such as Fornax, Sagittarius, and the LMC. A rediscussion of the second-parameter problem is presented. A technique is proposed to estimate the HB types of extragalactic GCs on the basis of integrated far-UV photometry. The relationship between the absolute V magnitude of the HB at the RR Lyrae level and metallicity, as obtained on the basis of trigonometric parallax measurements for the star RR Lyrae, is also revisited, giving a distance modulus to the LMC of (m-M)_0 = 18.44+/-0.11. RR Lyrae period change rates are studied. Finally, the conductive opacities used in evolutionary calculations of low-mass stars are investigated. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 56 pages, 22 figures. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Scienc