Multiscalar approaches to settlement pattern analysis

This paper has emphasized the highly reflexive approach necessary for the correct identification and interpretation of the processes behind settlement patterns. In our opinion, the key challenges are: (i) to define a sample/study area and its levels of search intensity appropriately (correcting for or exploring “edge effects” statistically where necessary); (ii) to assess and sub-divide site size, function and date range (analysing comparable features only and/or arbitrating uncertain cases statistically); (iii) to account for the resource structure of the landscape (either by only considering environmental homogenous sub-regions or by factoring resource preferences into the significance-testing stage of analysis), and (iv) to use techniques of analysis that are sensitive to detecting patterns at different spatial scales. The latter in particular is an area increasingly well-explored in other disciplines, but as yet with minimal impact on archaeological practice. There remains some value in Clark and Evan’s nearest neighbour function for identifying relationships between sites at one scale of analysis, but it may fail to detect larger-scale patterning. More critically, the dichotomy it encourages between “nucleated” and “dispersed” is at best an overly simplistic model and, at worst, bears little relationship to the reality of settlement organization, which at different scales can show both nucleated and dispersed components. In our Kytheran case study, there is obviously further work to be done, but even with the existing dataset, we have shown that using a combination of Monte Carlo testing, frequency distributions, local density mappings and Ripley’s K function allows a more sensitive assessment of multiscalar patters and therefore a more critical evaluation of the processes underlying settlement distributions

Challenges of generating qualitative data with socially excluded young people

Recent perspectives in childhood research have tended to emphasise the use of participatory techniques as a method of reducing the unequal power balance between researcher and researched. Increasingly researchers have been concerned with developing inclusive and participatory young people centred methodologies which place their voices at the centre of the research process. But is the ideal of young people?s active involvement in the research process truly achievable or desirable with socially excluded young people in practice? This paper reflects on a range of ethical, methodological and practical issues arising from a study which tracks the lives of a group of young women who have been excluded from secondary school. The paper concludes with reflections on the necessity to overcome such difficulties for the production of in-depth data on some of the most vulnerable, socially excluded young people

Modelling spatial heterogeneity and nonstationarity in artifact-rich landscapes

In this paper we consider a crucial issue for survey archaeology: how we identify and make sense of the heterogeneous and often inter-dependent behaviours and processes responsible for apparent archaeological patterns across the landscape. We apply two spatial statistical tools, kriging and geographically weighted regression, to develop a model that addresses the spatial heterogeneity and spatial nonstationarity present in the pottery distributions identified by our intensive survey of the Greek island of Antikythera. Our modelling results highlight a clear spatial structure underlying different scales of pottery density as well as locally varying relationships between pottery densities and several environmental variables. This allows us to develop further testable hypotheses about long-term settlement and land-use patterns on Antikythera, including more explicit models of community organisation, and of the relationship between the island’s geomorphological structure and its history of past human activity

NASA Space Flight Human System Standard

This viewgraph presentation describes what is involved in the NASA space flight human system standard

Collecting Biomarkers Using Trained Interviewers. Lessons Learned from a Pilot Study

This paper reports the design and outcomes of a pilot study for the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), Understanding Society, to develop and test the feasibility of collection of biomarkers by trained non-clinical interviewers. Feasibility tests performance of procedures, that they are technically satisfactory and reasonable in relation to alternatives. The dimensions reported are recruitment and training of interviewers, completeness, acceptability and time required for data collection, and quality of the biological samples. Some comparisons are made with measures conducted by nurses in wave 2 of the UK Household Longitudinal Study, Understanding Society. Biomeasures included anthropometrics, blood pressure, grip strength and the collection of saliva and dried blood spots. We implemented measurement protocols, introduced training and certification of interviewers, who then collected data from 92 participants. The study produced information about duration of collection, participation and quality of blood and saliva samples. The pilot study informs the design decisions about the biosocial component of Understanding Societ

Vegetation recolonisation of abandoned agricultural terraces on Antikythera, Greece

Antikythera is a small, relatively remote Mediterranean island, lying 35 km north-west of Crete, and its few contemporary inhabitants live mainly in the small village at the only port. However, an extensive network of terraces across the island bears witness to the past importance of farming on the island, although the intensity of use of these cultivated plots has changed according to fluctuating population levels. Most recently, the rural population and intensity of cultivation have dramatically declined. Our aim is to understand the recolonisation process of agricultural land by plants after terraces are no longer used for the cultivation of crops. The results demonstrate a relatively quick pace of vegetative recolonisation, with abandoned farm land covered by dense scrub within 20 to 60 years. The archaeological implications are that, following even relatively short periods of abandonment, the landscape would have required arduous reinvestment in the removal of scrub growth, as well as the repair and construction of stone terraces, to allow cultivation once again

Biogenic gas nanostructures as ultrasonic molecular reporters.

Ultrasound is among the most widely used non-invasive imaging modalities in biomedicine, but plays a surprisingly small role in molecular imaging due to a lack of suitable molecular reporters on the nanoscale. Here, we introduce a new class of reporters for ultrasound based on genetically encoded gas nanostructures from microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Gas vesicles are gas-filled protein-shelled compartments with typical widths of 45-250 nm and lengths of 100-600 nm that exclude water and are permeable to gas. We show that gas vesicles produce stable ultrasound contrast that is readily detected in vitro and in vivo, that their genetically encoded physical properties enable multiple modes of imaging, and that contrast enhancement through aggregation permits their use as molecular biosensors