Karl M. Petruso

Paleoclimate Characterization and Intra-site Correlation Using Magnetic Susceptibility Measurements: An Example from Konispol Cave, Albania

Abstract Magnetic susceptibility was measured for 630 samples from Holocene sediments taken from Konispol Cave, sw Albania. Comparisons between magnetic susceptibility profiles from three trenches within the cave show distinctive variations in magnetic susceptibility magnitudes and patterns that, in turn, allow direct correlations between trenches and estimates of small-scale sedimentation rate changes. Using 14C dates in conjunction with magnetic susceptibility variations in individual trenches, we have constructed a composite susceptibility profile. Trends toward increasing magnetic susceptibility from ca. 8,000 to 4,000 years b.p. are consistent with the long-term paleoclimatic warming trends that have been reported elsewhere. Short-term fluctuations are attributed to short-term temperature changes and varying availability of moisture for pedogenesis. Lower susceptibilities indicate times of drier/cooler conditions, while high values represent moist/warm climates. We conclude that the magnetic suscepti...

Wool-evaluation at Knossos and N

In his comprehensive study of the wool industry at Knossos, J. T. Killen demonstrated the existence of a unit of weight (Linear Β ideogram no. 145, id) that is used for reckoning wool and no other commodity. This unit can be expressed easily in terms of the mass of other units in the Minoan system of weight-measurement, being equivalent to three double minas. The question then arises: why should there have been a special unit for wool, since the overall system on which wool was reckoned was connected with that used for all other commodities evaluated by weight? Why, indeed, should such a complication have been introduced? The identical question can be asked of the surviving documents from Nuzi. It will be demonstrated that, contrary to what one might expect from our understanding of weighing procedures developed in these two areas for other commodities, the manner in which wool was reckoned in Late Bronze Age Knossos and Nuzi was logical, efficient, and comprehensible in terms of the prevailing metrical systems.

Additive progression in prehistoric mathematics: A conjecture

Abstract This paper presents intriguing archaeological evidence that the practical properties of additive progression were recognized in the eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1200 b.c. ). The evidence is in the form of a set of stone balance weights excavated in the 1960s from a small cargo ship that sank off the coast of southern Turkey. It is argued that a Fibonacci-like series of integers is represented in the masses of these prehistoric items, and it is demonstrated that the manner in which the balance weights were manufactured was simple, precise, and logical.