Levallois Technique - Paleolithic Stone Tool Working

Levallois Technique - Paleolithic Stone Tool Working Levallois, or more precisely the Levallois prepared-core technique, is the name archaeologists have given to a distinctive style of flint knapping, which makes up part of the Middle Paleolithic Acheulean and Mousterian artifact assemblages. In his 1969 Paleolithic stone tool taxonomy (still widely used today), Grahame Clark defined Levallois as Mode 3, flake tools struck from prepared cores. Levallois technology is thought to have been an outgrowth of the Acheulean handaxe. The technique was reckoned a leap forward in stone technology and behavioral modernity: the production method is in stages  and requires forethought and planning. The stone tool-making Levallois technique involves preparing a raw block of stone by striking pieces off the edges until it is shaped something like a turtle shell: flat on the bottom and humped on the top. That shape permits the knapper to control the results of using applied force: by striking the top edges of the prepared core, the knapper can pop off a series of similarly sized flattish, sharp stone flakes which can then be used as tools. The presence of the Levallois technique is commonly used to define the beginning of the Middle Paleolithic. Dating the Levallois The Levallois technique was traditionally thought to have been invented by archaic humans in Africa beginning about 300,000 years ago, and then moved into Europe and perfected during the Mousterian of 100,000 years ago. However, there are numerous sites in Europe and Asia which contain Levallois or proto-Levallois artifacts dated between Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 8 and 9 (~330,000-300,000 years bp), and a handful as early as MIS 11 or 12 (~400,000-430,000 bp): although most are controversial or not well-dated. The site of Nor Geghi in Armenia was the first firmly dated site found to contain a Levallois assemblage in MIS9e: Adler and colleagues argue that the presence of Levallois in Armenia and other places in conjunction with Acheulean biface technology suggest that the transition to Levallois technology occurred independently several times before becoming widespread. Levallois, they argue, was part of a logical progression from a lithic biface technology, rather than a replacement by movement of archaic humans out of Africa. Scholars today believe that the long, long range of time in which the technique is recognized in lithic assemblages masks a high degree of variability, including differences in surface preparation, orientation of flake removal, and adjustments for raw source material. A range of tools made on Levallois flakes are also recognized, including the Levallois point. Some Recent Levallois Studies Archaeologists believe the purpose was to produce a single preferential Levallois flake, a nearly circular flake mimicking the original contours of the core. Eren, Bradley, and Sampson (2011) conducted some experimental archaeology, attempting to achieve that implied goal. They discovered that to create a perfect Levallois flake requires a level of skill that can only be identified under very specific circumstances: single knapper, all pieces of the production process present and refitted. Sisk and Shea (2009) suggest that Levallois points - stone projectile points formed on Levallois flakes - might have been used as arrowheads. After fifty years or so, Clarks stone tool taxonomy has lost some of its usefulness: so much has been learned that the five-mode stage of technology is far too simple. Shea (2013) proposes a new taxonomy for stone tools with nine modes, based on variations and innovations not known when Clark published his seminal paper. In his intriguing paper, Shea defines Levallois as Mode F, bifacial hierarchical cores, which more specifically embraces the technological variations. Sources Adler DS, Wilkinson KN, Blockley SM, Mark DF, Pinhasi R, Schmidt-Magee BA, Nahapetyan S, Mallol c, Berna F, Glauberman PJ et al. 2014. Early Levallois technology and the Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition in the southern Caucasus. Science 345(6204):1609-1613. doi: 10.1126/science.1256484 Binford LR, and Binford SR. 1966. A preliminary analysis of functional variability in the Mousterian of Levallois facies. American Anthropologist 68:238-295. Clark, G. 1969. World Prehistory: A New Synthesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brantingham PJ, and Kuhn SL. 2001. Constraints on Levallois Core Technology: A Mathematical Model. Journal of Archaeological Science 28(7):747-761. doi: 10.1006/jasc.2000.0594 Eren MI, Bradley BA, and Sampson CG. 2011. Middle Paleolithic Skill Level and the Individual Knapper: An Experiment. American Antiquity 71(2):229-251. Shea JJ. 2013. Lithic Modes A–I: A New Framework for Describing Global-Scale Variation in Stone Tool Technology Illustrated with Evidence from the East Mediterranean Levant. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 20(1):151-186. doi: 10.1007/s10816-012-9128-5 Sisk ML, and Shea JJ. 2009. Experimental use and quantitative performance analysis of triangular flakes (Levallois points) used as arrowheads. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(9):2039-2047. doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2009.05.023 Villa P. 2009. Discussion 3: The Lower to Middle Paleolithic Transition. In: Camps M, and Chauhan P, editors. Sourcebook of Paleolithic Transitions. New York: Springer. p 265-270. doi: 10.1007/978-0-387-76487-0_17 Wynn T, and Coolidge FL. 2004. The expert Neandertal mind. Journal of Human Evolution 46:467-487.

These Greco-Roman Curses Were the Best Form of Ancient Revenge

These Greco-Roman Curses Were the Best Form of Ancient Revenge Imagine youve just discovered the one you love has been cheating on you with the laundry girl from down the block. Furious, you want to get your vengeance. But youre not going to sink so low as to kill that young tart, are you? No, youre going to ask the gods to do your work for you! Instead, head to the marketplace and have a scribe write down a curse on a tiny scrap of lead. He asks the powers above - or, as well see, below  - to jinx her bowels. Bury that scrap of lead - pierced with a nail to fix its power- on which the scribe wrote somewhere sacred, and youve achieved your revenge! These mysteriously magical leaden texts were called  defixiones, or curse tablets. On a  defixio,  one would  invoke a god or psychopomp (spirits who carried the message to the underworld) in order to influence an individual, group, or animal against their wills; thus, they’re called binding spells. As noted in The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion, the focus is not on torment or destruction ... but on laming and putting out of action. In fact, the way the text in defixiones  is set up is legal in nature, a contractual agreement between the gods invoked and the supplicant. Such formulae and phrasings were used in most of the defixiones, regardless of place of origin. These tablets appeared across the Greco-Roman world- and the places it conquered and influenced, from Syria to Britainfrom the Iron Age to the first few centuries A.D. More than 1500 of them have been discovered to date. Many of them have been at  religious locations where temples stood during Greek and Roman times. For example, at Bath in Roman Britain,  defixiones  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹ were deposited in  the watery domains of Sulis Minerva, the protectress of that sanctuary; they were put there because the tablets requested for that goddess to  answer that request. The ones in Britain, especially Bath, mostly dealt with theft and were Romano-British cultural  hybridization at its finest; read more about that here. Other tablets would be placed in graves or pits, presumably because the supplicants were requesting help from infernal spirits or  powers residing in the underworld, like Persephone or Hecate; one would  imagine that, if a curse tablet requested physical harm or death on a person, a grave would be an ideal spot to put that  defixio. Perhaps most significantly, the  defixiones  proved to be some of the few examples we have of writing produced by non-elites in the Greco-Roman world.  They presented a contrast to the writings of many Roman historians that, rather than day-to-day concerns of love and life, concentrated on affairs of conquest and monumental inscriptions that only the rich could afford to set up. Just check out this insane tomb that Romes richest banker built for himself. Cursing Everyone and Everything When wishing for the gods to affect someone negatively in a  defixio, the supplicant might want any number of things, positive or negative, to happen. They could request that a rival be killed or fall sick, or that someone not fall in love with another person. As curse tablet expert Chris Faraone noted in Ancient Greek Love Magic,  these arent technically love spells, since they dont request that somebody fall head over heels for them; instead, it is designed to reduce the competition, by inhibiting the words, the actions, and even the sexual performance of a rival. Or, if a woman isnt into a guy, the supplicant requests that the beloveds movements be restricted so that shed love only him. Heres one example: Seize Euphemia and lead her to me, Theon, loving me with mad desire, and bind her with unloosable shackles, strong ones of adamantine, for the love of me, Theon, and do not allow her to eat, drink, obtain sleep, jest or laugh...Burn her limbs, live, female body, until she comes to me, and not disobeying me. If she holds another man in her embrace, let her cast him off, forget him, and  hate him; but let her feel affection for me... Another prime instance of creepy binding/erotic magic: Spirits of the underworld, I consecrate and hand over to you, if you have any power, Ticene of Carisius. Whatever she does, may it all turn out wrong. Spirits of the netherworld, I consecrate to you her limbs, her complexion, her figure, her head, her hair, her shadow, her brain, her forehead, her eyebrows, her mouth, her nose, her chin, her cheeks, her lips, her speech, her breath, her neck, her liver, her shoulders, her heart, her lungs, her intestines, her stomach, her arms, her fingers, her hands, her navel, her entrails, her thighs, her knees, her calves, her heels, her soles, her toes. Spirits of the netherworld, if I see her wasting away, I swear that I will be delighted to offer a sacrifice to you every year. People also utilized curse tablets to influence pretty much anything they wanted. In order to secure a win, a charioteer paid for inscribed tablets hat requested the gods ensure victory for their team and to destroy their enemies. Check out one that read: Bind the horses whose names and images/likeness on this implement I entrust to you: of the Red (team)... of the Blues. .. Bind their running, their power, their soul, their onrush, their speed. Take away their victory, entangle their feet, hinder them, hobble them, so that tomorrow morning in the hippodrome they are not able to run or walk about, or win or go out of the starting gates, or advance on the racecourse or track, but may they fall down with their drivers... The evidence for curse tablets isnt just archaeological. Literary sources suggest that Emperor Augustuss stepson, Germanicus, one of the most famous generals of his time, died because of poison and a curse; rumor had it that defixiones bearing his name, along evidence of other negative magics, were buried underneath his floorboards.

The realities and fictions of Saving Private Ryan Essay

The realities and fictions of Saving Private Ryan - Essay Example The first thirty minutes of the movie depicted the carnage that happened on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. There was a real Omaha Beach were American troops made their landing and beachhead. The Higgins boat which transported the troops and landed them on the beaches were accurate. The carnage depicted used the perspective of the infantryman on the beach, which tried to approximate the brutality of the landings. Although many died on the beaches and the landing areas were pre-sighted by the Germans with their guns and artillery, it was not the real battle but merely a depiction of what happened. The character of Lt. Colonel Anderson, Commanding Officer, 2nd Ranger Battalion, who gave Capt. Miller his order to find Ryan, is fictitious. Miller himself was fictitious and there was no such officer commanding Company C of the 2nd Rangers. However, the actions which Miller performed on Omaha Beach were also documented as having been done by real-life American officers who breached the German defenses. In the same context that Anderson and Miller were fictitious characters, so to were the rest of the squad which included Sergeant Horvath, Corporal Upham, and Privates Caparzo, Mellish, Reiben, Jackson, Wade and Upham. In fact, James Ryan, Private, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Divisi

Pocahontas Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Pocahontas - Essay Example In addition, a link for the Morrisville book is provided at the homepage. Most importantly, the site provides contact information for Powhatan Renape Nation. The site depicts numerous interactive features that make it easier to access all the information contained in it. Firstly, the font used to write the information accommodates all individuals within different visibility levels. The background color make the site appear attractive and intriguing, increasing the chances that people may be concerned with the information contained in it. Furthermore, the font and the background color make the reading enjoyable by different age groups. The site menu is located at the bottom of the page. Its location is strategic to ensure that the reader can access more information to know more about the topics examined. The site successfully discusses the Pocahontas story from the beginning to the end; elaborating the origin of the Pocahontas myth. Information is arranged in a succinct manner to make the reading enjoyable. In addition, the website gives a comprehensive account of the Powhatan history. It is interesting to note that Disney produced a movie to explain the Pocahontas myth in an animated version. In addition, the site provides information about upcoming events in relation to the Rankokus Indian festivals. It would be interesting to attend the festivals and visit the American Indian museums to know more about the Powhatan

Differences and Similarities between Respiration and Photosynthesis Essay Example for Free

Differences and Similarities between Respiration and Photosynthesis Essay Cellular RespirationPhotosynthesis OrganellesMitochondriaChloroplast Organelle StructuresThe double-membraned mitochondrion can be loosely described as a large wrinkled bag packed inside of a smaller, unwrinkled bag. The two membranes create distinct compartments within the organelle, and are themselves very different in structure and in function.Two membranes contain and protect the inner parts of the chloroplast. The stroma is an area inside of the chloroplast where reactions occur and starches (sugars) are created. One thylakoid stack is called a granum. The thylakoids have chlorophyll molecules on their surface. That chlorophyll uses sunlight to create sugars. The stacks of sacs are connected by stromal lamellae. The lamellae act like the skeleton of the chloroplast, keeping all of the sacs a safe distance from each other and maximizing the efficiency of the organelle. Stages InvolvedGlycolysis, the Krebs Cycle, Electron Transport ChainPhotoexcitation, photolysis, photophosphorylation ReactantsOxygen and GlucoseCarbon Dioxide and Water

Morals and Intelligence :: essays research papers fc

MORALS AND INTELLIGENCE The United States must maintain the highest standard of morals during intelligence missions. There are many ways that information from intelligence missions can be compromised, and far to many ways that the members of the mission teams can be exploited. Due to the risk of allowing one’s self or the mission to be compromised, a high moral professional and personal standard should be ever present when accomplishing intelligence missions. The first issue dealing with morals and intelligence is finding the right person(s) to conduct a mission. There must be a level of unquestionable integrity present if a person is to successfully complete missions without jeopardizing the information collected. The Mossad (Israeli Intelligence) has made a practice of finding and exploiting personnel that work around classified information as well as those in the position to observe the behavior of said personnel (Thomas 33). Intelligence agencies around the world look for behavioral patterns in an individual’s character. For instance, if a person drinks too much, desires expensive things, or is a sexual deviant there is a possibility that, with the proper motivation, the information they have been entrusted with could be revealed. Another problem when dealing with intelligence operations is that during an operation the agent is not allowed to collect, analyze, or disseminate any information that may be incidentally collected on a United States citizen. When the United States Marine Corps collects intelligence for operations on military bases with aerial photography, there must be expressed written permission by neighboring communities that may be photographed in conjunction with the collection methods (OpsO VMU-1). There are times when intelligence is collected while in training areas that bordering communities may be depicted as well. These individual families or businesses must each approve of being possibly viewed during surveillance, as long as they are not the actual target of the intelligence gathering operation. The same rules of engagement apply while in combat situations. The morality of secret operations has been questioned since intelligence first began. The President of the United States must decide at the highest level which secret operations should be conducted and which are not ethical. The problem that has happened in the past is that the President has looked at the Director of Central Intelligence as his â€Å"personal advisor† when it comes to advising on intelligence affairs (Johnson 292). President Kennedy looked to his brother Bobby when making decisions of national security, and President Reagan set up his personal friend, Walter Clark, as his National Security Advisor.

Discuss Issues of Equality and Diversity and Ways to Promote Inclusion with Your Learners Essay

A teacher must have the ability to promote inclusion, equality and diversity into all of his or her sessions. Thus acknowledging and respecting individuals learning needs and giving support and assistance where and when necessary. A student is entitled to be part of the learning cycle without being treat differently to other learners, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability or sexual orientation. A student should feel that they are being treat equally to other learners within the classroom setting and are an integral part of the group. However, a teacher should continually monitor students and be able to identify the diverse needs of individuals and offer support without favouritism. They should be aware of any learners that seem isolated or may be feeling they are being treat differently whether it be by the teacher or other learners. If this situation occurs, the tutor should be approachable so the student can address any issues regarding equality or if necessary be able to refer the situation on to a higher position such as course leader. There are key pieces of legislation that a teacher needs to be aware of that are relevant, such as the Disability Discrimination Act (2005), Race Relations Act (1976) and Sex Discrimination Act (1975). These are to ensure that non of the groups mention are treat unfavourably or differently from others. A teacher needs to take the lead in promoting equal opportunities and needs to examine their own manner and behaviour and make sure they are non-discriminatory. This will encourage learners to act accordingly and where necessary challenge students who do not and their behaviour adversely affects others within the group. A teacher needs to promote inclusivity, ‘†¦involving all learners in relevant activities rather than excluding them for any reason either directly or indirectly. ’ (Gravells, 2008). There are certain factors that need to be taken into account to promote inclusivity, such as the physical environment to ensure those with physical disabilities can access the area where learning takes place. When teaching students with learning difficulties it may be necessary to rely on more visual aids for them to understand the material and cut the session into shorter chunks to accommodate their reduced attention span. When there are issues with challenging behaviour within the classroom, it is essential that ground rules are set early on in the course which allows students to take ownership and teachers should give positive reinforcement when they are adhered to, to encourage good behaviour. Positive reinforcement also works well when trying to boost a student’s confidence, group work may also help those with lack of confidence instead of individual work. A teacher also needs to be aware of the diverse individual needs of his or her students, being able to support them in their learning. This can help the student feel included within the classroom setting as they are not falling behind in their work and are equal to the abilities of their peers. This can be offered by one-to-one tutorial sessions or suggesting a mentor for the student to help with their work. There are many issues that need to be taken into account when ensuring that all students will have an effective learning experience. A teacher needs to ensure that the learning needs of all students are met to encourage learning.