Mette Løvschal

Fencing bodes a rapid collapse of the unique Greater Mara ecosystem

With land privatization and fencing of thousands of hectares of communal grazing areas, East Africa is struggling with one of the most radical cultural and environmental changes in its history. The 668,500-hectare Greater Mara is of crucial importance for the great migrations of large mammals and for Maasai pastoralist culture. However, the magnitude and pace of these fencing processes in this area are almost completely unknown. We provide new evidence that fencing is appropriating land in this area at an unprecedented and accelerating speed and scale. By means of a mapped series of multispectral satellite imagery (1985–2016), we found that in the conservancies with the most fences, areal cover of fenced areas has increased with >20% since 2010. This has resulted in a situation where fencing is rapidly increasing across the Greater Mara, threatening to lead to the collapse of the entire ecosystem in the near future. Our results suggest that fencing is currently instantiating itself as a new permanent self-reinforcing process and is about to reach a critical point after which it is likely to amplify at an even quicker pace, incompatible with the region’s role in the great wildebeest migration, wildlife generally, as well as traditional Maasai pastoralism.

Repeating boundaries – repertoires of landscape regulations in southern Scandinavia in the Late Bronze Age and Pre-Roman Iron Age

Towards the end of the Late Bronze Age, linear boundaries such as enclosed farmsteads, field divisions, and pit zone alignments emerged and gradually permeated the landscapes of southern Scandinavia on multiple scales. This article suggests the concept of a ‘repertoire’ as a way of approaching this phenomenon. The repertoire consisted of different topological operations (e.g. plot definition, demarcation, and enclosure), constructed by different materials (e.g. fences, pit zones, and earthen banks) on different scales (e.g. farmstead, settlement, and landscape). Such linear boundaries were applied as technological solutions to the new social and economic problems that occurred at this time in prehistory. A number of chronological and regional preferences can be demonstrated within this repertoire, and during the Late Bronze Age and Pre-Roman Iron Age, a range of new applications and combinations were developed in a creative exploration of the repertoire of linear boundaries.

Direct evidence of a large Northern European Roman period martial event and postbattle corpse manipulation

Significance Here we present direct archaeological evidence in the form of human remains of a large-scale battle in Northern Europe in the first century AD, in the wake of the northern expansion of the Roman Empire. The deposited population is estimated to 380 individuals. The relative absence of traces of healed sharp force trauma suggests that they had relatively little previous battle experience. Evidence of the systematic treatment of the human corpses, including stripping of bodies, disarticulation of bones, crushing of crania, and arrangement of body parts, points to a new form of postbattle activities, with implications for the interpretation of contemporary battlefields and later ritual traditions with regard to depositions of the spoils of war. New archaeological excavations at Alken Enge, Jutland, Denmark, have revealed a comprehensive assemblage of disarticulated human remains within a 75-ha wetland area. A minimum of 82 individuals have been uncovered. Based on the distribution, the total population is estimated to be greater than 380 individuals, exclusively male and predominantly adult. The chronological radiocarbon evidence of the human bones indicates that they belong to a single, large event in the early first century AD. The bones show a high frequency of unhealed trauma from sharp-edged weapons, which, together with finds of military equipment, suggests that the find is of martial character. Taphonomic traces indicate that the bones were exposed to animal gnawing for a period of between 6 mo and 1 y before being deposited in the lake. Furthermore, the find situations, including collections of bones, ossa coxae threaded onto a stick, and cuts and scraping marks, provide evidence of the systematic treatment of the human corpses after the time of exposure. The finds are interpreted as the remains of an organized and possibly ritually embedded clearing of a battlefield, including the physical manipulation of the partly skeletonized bones of the deceased fighters and subsequent deposition in the lake. The date places the finds in the context of the Germanic region at the peak of the Roman expansion northward and provides the earliest direct archaeological evidence of large-scale conflict among the Germanic populations and a demonstration of hitherto unrecognized postbattle practices.

Directionality and axiality in the Bronze Age: cross-regional landscape perspectives on ‘fire pit lines’ and other pitted connections

ABSTRACT A fireplace represents one of the most fundamental and time-transgressive gathering points for humans. However, when situated in pits that are organized in lines running sometimes hundreds of metres, fire pits represent a significant challenge in terms of interpretation, and may evidence a particular perception of space. This paper argues that in a Bronze Age context, pits associated with fire remains marked out directionality and axiality in the landscape as part of ceremonial events of a temporary nature. Adopting a landscape approach and going beyond regional and chronological borders, the authors argue that in northwestern Europe such events took place in relation to unbounded barrow landscapes in open spaces and could often be linked to the orchestration of funerary events. In some regions, the depositional activities evident in relation to these aligned pits have added significance. Furthermore, the authors argue that the aligning of fire pits is incompatible with divided or parcelled landscapes, thus challenging interpretations of pitted lines as territorial and field boundaries.

Borum Eshøj Revisited – Bronze Age monumental burial traditions in eastern Jutland, Denmark

ABSTRACT Borum Eshøj is one of the internationally most famous monuments from the Nordic Bronze Age, key to understanding burial customs, social identities and societies. Its uniqueness is reflected in its extraordinarily well-preserved oak log coffin burials, its landscape setting in a distinct barrow group and its complex monumental architecture. Since 1988, new investigations have been conducted at the barrow group, and in 2011, the remains of the classic Borum Eshøj were investigated. The new investigation reveals a monument with an extraordinarily long and complex use-life. It demonstrates a consecutive construction procedure with basic building principles which provide a basis for reinterpreting the barrow and suggesting an initial burial ground compounded beneath one large barrow construction phase. The kerbstones were constructed before the barrow was finished, and the barrow partly covers the kerbstone construction. In a larger perspective, the new investigations indicate that Borum Eshøj, with its construction, use history and kerbstones, stands apart from the investigated local barrows on the Eshøj plateau, and closer parallels barrows situated at much larger distance such as Hohøj in Mariager Fjord.

Boes Skov prøveudgravningsrapport (trial excavation report)

Formalet med den arkaeologiske forundersogelse pa matrikel 2n var at tilvejebringe viden om, hvorvidt der var bevarede spor af bronze- jernalderbebyggelse, som kunne saettes i forbindelse med de registrerede oldtidsagre i Boes Skov, om en lokal forhojning var rester af en nedplojet gravhoj, samt i hvilket omfang disse spor er truet af dyrkning. Pa sigt er det meningen at lokaliteten kunne anvendes til uddannelsesudgravning for studerende ved Aarhus Universitet.

Richard Bradley, Colin Haselgrove, Marc Vander Linden and Leo Webley (eds): The Later Prehistory of North-West Europe: The Evidence of Development-Led Fieldwork

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