The Small Animals of Maasai Settlements: Ethnoarchaeological Investigations of the Commensalism Model

This research was designed to test Tchernov\u27s model of commensalism and the idea that remains of commensal species that today coexist with humans in settlement environments could be used to detect early sedentism in the archaeological record. The validity of the model has been questioned due to the lack of empirical knowledge on commensalism in a wide range of settlement environments including sedentary and more mobile ones. This study examined the commensalism model by focusing on seasonally occupied settlements of Maasai pastoralists in East Africa. Methods from ecology, ethnography, and archaeology were used to document the impact of Maasai settlements on associated communities of small rodents and shrews: micromammals), to measure the intensity of human occupation in settlements, and to relate settlement intensity to micromammalian communities. Taphonomic approaches were also used to evaluate the potential for accumulation and preservation of evidence on commensalism in the substrate of the settlements. The results of the study showed that, in contrast to what we might expect in highly sedentary settings, Maasai settlements increased rather than decreased the biological diversity of local micromammalian communities. Along a gradient of increasing duration of human occupation, but continued seasonal use of settlements, there was no manifest increase in the population of any single species that would amount to pronounced commensalism. This supports the commensalism/sedentism linkage but also suggests more broadly that it should be possible to demarcate distinct contexts of commensalism and related levels of biological diversity in relation to varying intensities of site occupation. These results call for greater investment in systematic fine-recovery and study of variability of micromammalian assemblages at archaeological excavations

The urban ecology of Iron Age Tel Megiddo: using microvertebrate remains as ancient bio-indicators

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Re-Illustrating Multimodal Texts as Translation: Hebrew Comic Books 'Uri Cadduri' and 'Mr. Fibber, the Storyteller'

This article deals with two Hebrew comic books, Uri Cadduri and Mar Guzmai ha-Badai [Mr. Fibber, the Storyteller], originally created by the poet Leah Goldberg and the illustrator Arie Navon, and published in the children’s magazine Davar li-Yeladim in the 1930s and 1940s. They were re-illustrated by Rutu Modan and Yirmi Pinkus, respectively, and published in book format in 2013. Focusing on these books, the article studies the translation of multimodal texts, in which the replacement of one component—the illustrations, in this case—affects the entire work. By replacing the illustrations, Modan and Pinkus created a whole new set of relations: between the new versions and their originals, between the illustrations and the verbal text, between the works under discussion and other works. The article applies the concepts of translational equivalence and translational shifts to their work. These two books differ both in their artistic style and in the nature of the relations involved: Modan, who acknowledges her debt to Navon, distances herself from his work and establishes substantial intertextual relations with classical European and American artists, whereas Pinkus’s work is characterised by a non-attributed relationship with Navon's art, on the one hand, and intratextual relations (between elements in his own work) on the other. This leads to the conclusion that the actual relationship between texts does not necessarily correspond to the acknowledgement of the act of translation. Rather, the article exposes the full complexity of the intra- and intertextual relations in these multimodal texts where non-verbal components undergo a process of translation

Developing sustainable business experimentation capability - A case study

This research paper shows how a firm pursues innovation activities for economic, social and environmental value creation in the context of time sensitivity. We make a conceptual link between lean startup thinking, triple bottom line value creation, and organizational capabilities. The case study firm uses a novel experimentation approach to pursue the goal of diverting all of its sold clothing from landfill through a two-year project. This requires substantial changes to the current business practice because in 2012, the clothing retailer recovered 1% of all garments sold. The fibre input value for all garments sold in 2012 exceeded $7m. We found that despite a stated need for fast learning through project experiments, the experiments were not executed quickly. (1) The desire to plan project activities and the lack of lean startup approach expertise across the whole project team hampered fast action. This led to the extension of the project timeline. However, project team confidence about learning by doing increased through privately executed experiments. (2) Some project experiments were not fit to meet the triple bottom value creation project goal and were dropped from the project. Overall, the corporate mindset of economic value creation still dominated

Ancient Urban Ecology Reconstructed from Archaeozoological Remains of Small Mammals in the Near East

Acknowledgments We especially thank the many archaeologists who collaborated closely with our project and invested pioneering efforts in intensive fine-scale retrieval of the archaeozoological samples that provided the basis for this study: Shai Bar, Amnon Ben-Tor, Amit Dagan, Yosef Garfinkel, Ayelet Gilboa, Zvi Greenhut, Amihai Mazar, Stefan Munger, Ronny Reich, Itzhaq Shai, Ilan Sharon, Joe Uziel, Sharon Zuckerman, and additional key excavation personnel who were instrumental in collection of the samples or in assisting the work including: Shimrit Bechar, Jacob Dunn, Norma Franklin, Egon Lass and Yiftah Shalev. Funding:The research was funded by a post-doctoral grant awarded to L.W. from the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007e2013)/ERC grant agreement number 229418. The laboratory work was also supported by funding by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 52/10). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Low-temperature thermochronology of francolite: Insights into timing of Dead Sea Transform motion

Cambrian siliciclastic sequences along the Dead Sea Transform (DST) margin in southern Israel and southern Jordan host both detrital fluorapatite [D‐apatite] and U‐rich authigenic carbonate‐fluorapatite (francolite) [A‐apatite]. D‐apatite and underlying Neoproterozoic basement apatite yield fission track (FT) data reflecting Paleozoic‐Mesozoic sedimentary cycles and epeirogenic events, and dispersed (U‐Th‐Sm)/He (AHe) ages. A‐apatite, which may partially or completely replace D‐apatite, yields an early Miocene FT age suggesting formation by fracturing, hydrothermal fluid ascent and intra‐strata recrystallisation, linked to early DST motion. The DST, separating the African and Arabian plates, records ~105 km of sinistral strike‐slip displacement, but became more transtensional post‐5 Ma. Helium diffusion measurements on A‐apatite are consistent with thermally activated volume diffusion, indicating Tc ~52‐56±10°C (cooling rate 10°C/Myr). A‐apatite AHe data record Pliocene cooling (~35‐40°C) during the transtensional phase of movement. This suggests that timing of important milestones in DST motion can be discerned using A‐apatite low‐temperature thermochronology data alone

Slowing resource loops in the Circular Economy: an experimentation approach in fashion retail

The Circular Economy is viewed as an important driver for resolving resource issues and tackling sustainability issues more broadly. The fashion industry operates in a largely linear way and suffers from various environmental, societal and economic challenges. In a Circular Economy, first and foremost, products need to be retained at the highest level, thus slowing resource loops. Slowing resource loops goes against current fast fashion trends and therefore appears the most difficult approach to pursue. This paper investigates how a large established retailer aims to slow resource loops as part of a broader project targeted to significantly reduce textile waste to landfill. The retailer collaborated with a university partner to pursue circular business model experiments. This paper reports on the approach for a slowing resource loops experiment around building sewing capabilities. Suggestions for future research and practice on circular business model experimentation are included

Low-temperature thermochronology of francolite: Insights into timing of Dead Sea Transform motion

Cambrian siliciclastic sequences along the Dead Sea Transform (DST) margin in southern Israel and southern Jordan host both detrital fluorapatite [D‐apatite] and U‐rich authigenic carbonate‐fluorapatite (francolite) [A‐apatite]. D‐apatite and underlying Neoproterozoic basement apatite yield fission track (FT) data reflecting Paleozoic‐Mesozoic sedimentary cycles and epeirogenic events, and dispersed (U‐Th‐Sm)/He (AHe) ages. A‐apatite, which may partially or completely replace D‐apatite, yields an early Miocene FT age suggesting formation by fracturing, hydrothermal fluid ascent and intra‐strata recrystallisation, linked to early DST motion. The DST, separating the African and Arabian plates, records ~105 km of sinistral strike‐slip displacement, but became more transtensional post‐5 Ma. Helium diffusion measurements on A‐apatite are consistent with thermally activated volume diffusion, indicating Tc ~52‐56±10°C (cooling rate 10°C/Myr). A‐apatite AHe data record Pliocene cooling (~35‐40°C) during the transtensional phase of movement. This suggests that timing of important milestones in DST motion can be discerned using A‐apatite low‐temperature thermochronology data alone