Archaeology of the San Augustin Plains, a Preliminary Report

1949 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 172-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley R. Hurt ◽  
Daniel McKnight

The San Augustin Plains of south central New Mexico contain several pluvial lake basins, on the terraces of which are numerous blowout sites with remains of Early Man. The major portion of the Plains lies to the south of U.S. Highway 60, between Magdalena and Datil, New Mexico. This is the area of the basin of extinct Lake San Augustin. The small portion of the Plains to the north of the highway contains the basins of White Lake and North Lake. The Plains consist of a large basin some 60 miles long from northeast to southwest, varying in width from 20 miles at the northeast end to about 6 miles at the southwest. On three sides of the Plains are a series of mountain ranges, while on the west are the ranges that form the continental divide (Fig. 41).

Author(s):  
Peter Mitchell

Taking in the Andean cordillera, the Pampas grasslands of Argentina and Uruguay, the desert steppes of southern Patagonia, and the temperate lowlands of south-central Chile (Araucanía), this chapter explores the horse’s arrival and impact in South America’s Southern Cone. Convention divides the Cone along the spine of the mountains between Chile and Argentina. To their east it contrasts the Pampas in the north with Patagonia in the south. I follow most recent scholarship in stressing the historical connections that such boundaries obscure. Similarly, I emphasize not only the acquisition of horses, but also the significance of hunting, taking, and trading feral livestock and the adoption of elements of food production. Both developments formed part of the inclusion of ‘free’ Native Americans within broader international political and commercial systems. At the same time, the work of anthropologists and the comments of contemporary European observers make the Southern Cone one of the most richly documented regions of all for studying the emergence of Horse Nations post-1492. The Southern Cone is environmentally far more complex than a simple tripartite classification into Araucanía, Patagonia, and Pampas suggests. In the north the Pampas reach to the Paraná and Salado drainages, to the south as far as the Río Colorado and its tributaries. They extend east to include Uruguay and the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul and in the west reach the Andean foothills. A basic division follows the 500 mm isohyet: to its west the Dry Pampa is increasingly water-deficient, while to the east the Humid Pampa ultimately benefits from as much as 800 mm of rain a year (Plate 23). The Uruguayan Savannah forms a third ecological subdivision that includes areas with palms and some forest enclaves. Generally, the Pampas comprise a gently sloping plain covered by extensive grasslands, but drier-adapted shrub occurs in the west and a wedge of forest penetrates their centre from the north. The Sierra de Tandilia and Sierra de la Ventana south of Buenos Aires are rare areas of higher relief. Climate is temperate, but surface water is often scarce, stone for tool-making rare, game dispersed.


1956 ◽  
Vol 22 (2Part1) ◽  
pp. 180-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward B. Danson ◽  
Roberts M. Wallace

Gila Polychrome pottery has been recognized since the time of the earliest archaeological work in the Southwest. Cushing, in 1887–88, recognized in the polychromes at Los Muertos and other Classic period sites of the Hohokam area the pottery type we now call Gila Polychrome. As more of the Southwest became known this type (W. and H. S. Gladwin 1930: 6) was found to be one of the most widespread, with a range extending from the Mogollon Rim on the north into northern Chihuahua and Sonora on the south and sporadically from Texas on the east through New Mexico to Gila Bend, Arizona, on the west (Haury 1945: 63).


1975 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 167-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. da Veiga Ferreira ◽  
G. Zbyszewski ◽  
M. Leitao ◽  
C. T. North ◽  
H. Reynolds de Sousa

The megalithic tomb of Pedra Branca lies at Montum, on the west coast of Portugal about 140 kilometers south of Lisbon by road (fig. 1). The tomb is the first in Portugal to have yielded Beaker graves overlying earlier burials; prior to its discovery, no Beaker remains had ever been noted further south than Palmela, in the estuary of the Sado river, approximately 40 kilometers from Lisbon. The tomb is situated on the top of a small hillock 100 m above sea level, separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a fertile undulating plain about 5 km in width. The Lake of Melides lies to the north and, to the east, the hills of Grandola rise steeply to an altitude of 300 m; an expanse of rough terrain stretches to the south, ravined by various small streams which flow into the Lake of Santo André on the coast.When the tomb was discovered by surveyors of the Geological Services of Portugal, it was already very badly damaged; all the orthostats had been broken for use in local construction and part of the circular covering mound had already been ploughed under. The Services therefore, decided that a salvage campaign was called for, and a team made up of the authors, was invited to carry it out with funds granted by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.


1999 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
pp. 437-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. B. Waywell ◽  
J. J. Wilkes

Exacavations and study at the ancient theatre of Sparta in the area of the stage building and the west parodos have revealed new evidence for the original stage arrangements of the theatre as built under G. Julius Eurykles,c. 30-20 BC. A new trench laid across the west parodos, and the reopening of trials made by H. Bulle in 1935, have confirmed beyond doubt the existence of a scenery store building (skanotheke), from which three trackways, at least two of which were certainly fitted with continuous grooved blocks, allowed a moveable stage structure to be rolled out roughly into the position later occupied by the existing second phase stage building. Within the west parodos three contiguous channelled blocks have been revealed for the north line, the middle line and two poros bedding blocks for the south line. These indicate a gauge between the outer lines ofc. 6 m, within a skanotheke 9 m in width and 36 m long, the walls of which have been confirmed on the north, south and west. Bulle's 1937 hypothesis concerning a rolling stage for Sparta, which was challenged by Buckler in 1986, is therefore largely confirmed. Numerous fragments of a marble Doric columned order reused within the walls and foundations of the Flavian stage building suggest that a colonnaded façade may have fronted the moving stage area, and possibly also enclosed it at the rear.


Author(s):  
Esraa Aladdin Noori ◽  
Nasser Zain AlAbidine Ahmed

The Russian-American relations have undergone many stages of conflict and competition over cooperation that have left their mark on the international balance of power in the Middle East. The Iraqi and Syrian crises are a detailed development in the Middle East region. The Middle East region has allowed some regional and international conflicts to intensify, with the expansion of the geopolitical circle, which, if applied strategically to the Middle East region, covers the area between Afghanistan and East Asia, From the north to the Maghreb to the west and to the Sudan and the Greater Sahara to the south, its strategic importance will seem clear. It is the main lifeline of the Western world.


2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 283-329
Author(s):  
Marieke Dechesne ◽  
Jim Cole ◽  
Christopher Martin

This two-day field trip provides an overview of the geologic history of the North Park–Middle Park area and its past and recent drilling activity. Stops highlight basin formation and the consequences of geologic configuration on oil and gas plays and development. The trip focuses on work from ongoing U.S. Geological Survey research in this area (currently part of the Cenozoic Landscape Evolution of the Southern Rocky Mountains Project funded by the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program). Surface mapping is integrated with perspective from petroleum exploration within the basin. The starting point is the west flank of the Denver Basin to compare and contrast the latest Cretaceous through Eocene basin fill on both flanks of the Front Range. The next stop continues on the south end of the North Park–Middle Park area, about 60 miles [95km] west from the first stop. A general clockwise loop is described by following U.S. Highway 40 from Frasier via Granby and Kremmling to Muddy Pass after which CO Highway 14 is followed to Walden for an overnight stay. On the second day after a loop north of Walden, the Continental Divide is crossed at Willow Creek Pass for a return to Granby via Highway 125. The single structural basin that underlies both physiographic depressions of North Park and Middle Park originated during the latest Cretaceous to Eocene Laramide orogeny (Tweto, 1957, 1975; Dickinson et al., 1988). It largely filled with Paleocene to Eocene sediments and is bordered on the east by the Front Range, on the west by the Park Range and Gore Range, on the north by Independence Mountain and to the south by the Williams Fork and Vasquez Mountains (Figure 1). This larger Paleocene-Eocene structural basin is continuous underneath the Continental Divide, which dissects the basin in two approximately equal physiographic depressions, the ‘Parks.’ Therefore Cole et al. (2010) proposed the name ‘Colorado Headwaters Basin’ or ‘CHB,’ rather than North Park–Middle Park basin (Tweto 1957), to eliminate any confusion between the underlying larger Paleocene-Eocene basin and the two younger depressions that developed after the middle Oligocene. The name was derived from the headwaters of the Colorado, North Platte, Laramie, Cache La Poudre, and Big Thompson Rivers which are all within or near the study area. In this field guide, we will use the name Colorado Headwaters Basin (CHB) over North Park–Middle Park basin. Several workers have described the geology in the basin starting with reports from Marvine who was part of the Hayden Survey and wrote about Middle Park in 1874, Hague and Emmons reported on North Park as part of the King Survey in 1877, Cross on Middle Park (1892), and Beekly surveyed the coal resources of North Park in 1915. Further reconnaissance geologic mapping was performed by Hail (1965 and 1968) and Kinney (1970) in the North Park area and by Izett (1968, 1975), and Izett and Barclay (1973) in Middle Park. Most research has focused on coal resources (Madden, 1977; Stands, 1992; Roberts and Rossi, 1999), and oil and gas potential (1957, all papers in the RMAG guidebook to North Park; subsurface structural geologic analysis of both Middle Park and North Park (the CHB) by oil and gas geologist Wellborn (1977a)). A more comprehensive overview of all previous geologic research in the basin can be found in Cole et al. (2010). Oil and gas exploration started in 1925 when Continental Oil's Sherman A-1 was drilled in the McCallum field in the northeast part of the CHB. It produced mostly CO2 from the Dakota Sandstone and was dubbed the ‘Snow cone’ well. Later wells were more successful finding oil and/or gas, and exploration and production in the area is ongoing, most notably in the unconventional Niobrara play in the Coalmont-Hebron area.


2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Brown ◽  
Henry Davis ◽  
Michael Schwan ◽  
Barbara Sennott

Gitksan (git) is an Interior Tsimshianic language spoken in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is closely related to Nisga'a, and more distantly related to Coast Tsimshian and Southern Tsimshian. The specific dialect of Gitksan presented here is what can be called Eastern Gitksan, spoken in the villages of Kispiox (Ansbayaxw), Glen Vowell (Sigit'ox), and Hazelton (Git-an'maaxs), which contrasts with the Western dialects, spoken in the villages of Kitwanga (Gitwingax), Gitanyow (Git-anyaaw), and Kitseguecla (Gijigyukwhla). The primary phonological differences between the dialects are a lexical shift in vowels and the presence of stop lenition in the Eastern dialects. While there exists a dialect continuum, the primary cultural and political distinction drawn is between Eastern and Western Gitksan. For reference, Gitksan is bordered on the west by Nisga'a, in the south by Coast Tsimshian and Witsuwit'en, in the east by Dakelh and Sekani, and in the north by Tahltan (the latter four of these being Athabaskan languages).


Antiquity ◽  
1949 ◽  
Vol 23 (91) ◽  
pp. 129-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. G. Childe

Till 1948 the coherent record of farming in Northern Europe began with the neolithic culture represented in the Danish dysser (‘dolmens’) and most readily defined by the funnel-necked beakers, collared flasks and ‘amphorae’ found therein. As early as 1910 Gustav Kossinna had remarked that these distinctive ceramic types, and accordingly the culture they defined, were not confined to the West Baltic coastlands, but recurred in the valleys of the Upper Vistula and Oder to the east, to the south as far as the Upper Elbe and in northwest Germany and Holland too. He saw in this distribution evidence for the first expansion of Urindogermanen from their cradle in the Cimbrian peninsula. In the sequel Åberg filled in the documentation of this expansion with fresh spots on the distribution map and Kossinna himself distinguished typologically four main provinces or geographical groups—the Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western. Finally Jazdrzewski gave a standard account of the whole content of what had come to be called Kultura puharów lejkowatych, Trichterbecherkultur, or Tragtbaegerkulturen. As ‘Funnel-necked-beaker culture’ is a clumsy expression and English terminology is already overloaded with ‘beakers’, I shall use the term ‘First Northern’.The orgin of this vigorous and expansive group of cultivators and herdsmen has always been an enigma. Not even Kossinna imagined that the savages of the Ertebølle shell-mounds spontaneously began cultivating cereals and breeding sheep in Denmark. As dysser were regarded as megalithic tombs and as megaliths are Atlantic phenomena, he supposed that the bases of the neolithic economy were introduced from the West together with the ‘megalithic idea’. But the First Northern Farmers of the South and East groups did not build megalithic tombs. Moreover, in the last ten years an extension of the North group across southern Sweden as far as Södermannland has come to light, and these farmers too, though they used collared flasks and funnel-necked beakers, built no dolmens either. In any case there was nothing Western about the pottery from the Danish dysser, and Western types of arrow-head are conspicuously rare in Denmark.


1963 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 99-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. J. Wainwright

The distribution of Mesolithic sites in Wales is controlled to a great extent by the terrain, for physiographically, Wales is a highland block defined on three sides by the sea and for the greater part of the fourth side by a sharp break of slope. Geologically the Principality is composed almost entirely of Palaeozoic rocks, of which the 600-foot contour encloses more than three quarters of the total area. There are extensive regions above 1,500 feet and 2,000 feet and in the north the peaks of Snowdonia and Cader Idris rise to 3,560 feet and 2,929 feet respectively. Indeed North Wales consists of an inhospitable highland massif, skirted by a lowland plateau and cut deeply by river valleys, providing only limited areas for settlement. The hills and mountains of Snowdonia with their extension at lower altitudes into the Lleyn Peninsula, and the ranges of Moelwyn, Manod Mawr, Arenig Fach and Cader Idris, are discouraging obstacles to penetration, save for a short distance along the river valleys. To the east of these peaks are extensive tracts of upland plateau dissected by rivers, bounded on the west by the vale of the river Conway and cleft by the Vale of Clwyd. To the east of this valley lies the Clwydian Range and further again to the east these uplands descend with milder contours to the Cheshire and Shropshire plains.To the south the district merges into the uplands of Central Wales, which are continuous until they are replaced by the lowland belt of South Wales.


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