Integrated remote sensing to assess disease control: evidence from Flat Island quarantine station, Mauritius

This article presents an integrated approach used in archaeology and heritage studies to examine health and disease management during the colonial period in the Indian Ocean. Longdistance labor migrations had dire health consequences to both immigrants and host populations. Focusing on the quarantine station on Flat Island, Mauritius, this study analyzes a historical social setting and natural environment that were radically altered due to the implementation of health management. Using aerial and satellite imagery, digital elevation models, RTK and total station raw data, 3D modeling, and GIS mapping, we reconstructed the spatial organization and the built landscape of this institution to assess the gap between the benefits claimed by European colonizers and the actual effects on immigrant health conditions through the promotion of public health practices

A multi-proxy, diachronic and spatial perspective on the urban activities within an indigenous community in medieval Riga, Latvia

The research presented here represents thefirst urban medieval context in Latvia where an integrated, multi-proxy environmental sampling strategy has been applied. The establishment of Riga, the modern capital of Latvia, is synonymous with the Livonian Crusade, and the foundation of the medieval town is examined here. This study uses an intra-site comparison of environmental datasets from several buildings to provide a unique, high resolution, diachronic analysis of the daily life of the inhabitants within the pre-Hansa town, and specifically of the indigenous ‘Liv’ population during the period of the Livonian crusades, 1198e1291. The integrated zooarchaeological, archaebotanical, and geochemical datasets from two successive phases of buildings show a pattern of tradition and continuity in indigenous practices within the ‘Liv District’. Despite being located within Riga with access to wide trade networks, the environmental results from ‘Liv district’ show the self-contained, insular nature of the diet and craft activities of the inhabitants who exploited a range of open grassland, wetland and forest edge environments around the town