Southeast Asia’s First Isotopically-Defined Prehistoric Copper Production System: When Did Extractive Metallurgy Begin in the Khao Wong Prachan Valley of Central Thailand?
by Oliver Pryce
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123374218/PDFSTART
Southeast Asian metallurgical developments have been a focus of international academic interest since Solheim (1968)... more
Southeast Asian metallurgical developments have been a focus of international academic interest since Solheim (1968) and Bayard (1972) first published bronze artefacts in claimed early/middle third millennium BCE contexts from northeastern Thailand, igniting a regional ‘origins’ of metallurgy debate that has smouldered for 40 years (e.g., White and Hamilton 2009, Higham in press). In this paper, we present the results of a lead isotope pilot study centred on the Khao Wong Prachan Valley of central Thailand—currently Southeast Asia’s only documented prehistoric copper smelting locale. These preliminary data indicate that our ongoing regional metal exchange research programme may be able to elucidate interaction networks between copper-producing and -consuming societies within and beyond Southeast Asia from c. 2000 BCE to c. 500 CE. Furthermore, we are able to offer tentative evidence relevant to White and Hamilton’s (2009) ‘Rapid Eurasian Technological Expansion Model’ for the Sino-Siberian derivation of regional metal technologies around the turn of the third/second
millennium BCE.
Download (.pdf) Carbon and nitrogen isotopes on wheat from Córdoba Province, Argentina: implications for provenance studies
Ernesto Gallegos1, Héctor A. Ostera2, Mariana C. Cagnoni1, Daniel Wunderlin3& Pilar Peral
García4
1- Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas – Instituto de Geocronología y Geología
Isotópica. ernesto@ingeis.uba.ar
2 Departamento de Ciencias Geológicas – Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales – Universidad de
Buenos Aires ostera@ingeis uba ar & DTP Laboratorios haostera@dtplaboratorios com
INTRODUCTION
The current international food market and consumers demand new and reliable tools,
independent... more
INTRODUCTION
The current international food market and consumers demand new and reliable tools,
independent of custody chains or documentation, for the characterization and origin
certification of food commodities. These new tools aim to provide consumers the
security they require with regard to quality and safety of the food they consume and
contribute to the protection of producers against potential frauds. The same concerning
appears when a commodities-exporting country, like Argentina in this case, has
different producing areas with large differences in the quality of those goods.
The evolving field of investigation known as Food Forensics use geochemical tools
(both elemental and isotopic) to achieve a fingerprint for food commodities that
represent the provenance of them.
In this short paper the authors seek to achieve preliminary isotopic fingerprint
identification for the wheat from Córdoba Province. Most samples come from Totoral
Department, in Córdoba Province, although some also come from the departments of
Río Primero and Colón. In these locations the wheat production is much extended. In
terms of the environmental variables that control the growth of this crop, annual
precipitations in the area are 600 to 700 mm and mean annual temperature is 17° C. The
underlying rocks are predominantly magmatic-acid. The geographic location of all 18
samples is detailed in Figure 1.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Eighteen samples of wheat were analyzed. Geographic position of the samples was
loaded into a Geographic Information System in order to establish the spatial
relationship between them. A Soxhlet distillation apparatus was used for the extraction
of defatted dry matter fractions from the beef samples, following SOPs Trace Project
procedures. Stable carbon, nitrogen and sulfur stable isotopes of dry defatted beef were
determined by conventional methods using elemental analyzer/isotope ratio mass
spectrometry (EA/IRMS). The usual δ notation versus the international standard:
Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite (V-PDB) for carbon (δ13C) and Air for nitrogen (δ15N).was
used to present the isotopic compositions. The analytical error in the isotopic
composition was smaller than ±0.2‰ in both cases.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The stable isotope values obtained for carbon and nitrogen in the 18 analyzed samples
are displayed on Table 1. Statistically, the δ13C mean is -24.0‰, with a standard
deviation of 0.7 and a variance of 0.6. The δ15N mean is 2.7‰, with a standard
deviation of 0.8 and a variance of 0.7. The δ13C results mainly reflect the typical C3
metabolic pathway for carbon fixation in photosynthesis of wheat (Ambrose and Norr
1993), but are also a consequence of the local, unique, environmental, geographic and
ecological conditions. The δ15N values around 2.7 ‰ reflect fertilizer techniques, with
minor contributions of environmental, geographic and ecological conditions. The
comparison with the results from different geographic origins (Branch et al. 2002) is
displayed in Figure 2. In both scatter plot and box plots the difference on the isotopic
fingerprint from Argentina, North America (Canada & USA) and Europe is evident. As
a consequence, and independent of the common C fixation pathways for wheat it is
possible to distinguish samples of different continents, with the use of carbon and
nitrogen isotopes.
CONCLUSIONS
The analyzed defatted wheat samples from Córdoba Province, Argentina, present a
tight range of δ13C (mean value -24. ‰) and δ15N (2.7‰). The comparison with wheat
data from the Northern hemisphere, suggest that provenance identification using stable
isotope data between both regions is possible. Despite the common C3 fixation
pathway, the differences reflect local environmental conditions. Agriculture practices
control the differences on nitrogen isotopes (use of synthetic fertilizers). These results
will be combined with other isotope and trace element data in order to achieve a unique
fingerprint that will allow distinguishing wheat from different provenances from
Argentina and other countries.
Carbon, nitrogen and sulfur stable isotope on beef from three Argentine regions: origin and dietary history
Ernesto Gallegos1, 2 & Héctor A. Ostera 2
1 Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas – Instituto de Geocronología y Geología Isotópica. ernesto@ingeis.uba.ar
2 Departamento de Ciencias Geológicas – Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales – Universidad de Buenos Aires. ostera@ingeis.uba.ar
The current international food market as well as consumers around the world demand new and reliable tools, independent... more
The current international food market as well as consumers around the world demand new and reliable tools, independent of custody chains or documentation, for the characterization and origin certification of food commodities. These new tools aim to provide consumers the security they require with regard to quality and safety of the food they consume and contribute to the protection of producers against potential frauds.
The aim of this paper is to give an evaluation of the effectiveness of C, N and S stable isotopes as a method for geographical origin and animal feeding characterization on beef in three different Argentine regions, located respectively in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos and Córdoba.
Beef samples (500g) were processed according to the Trace SOP´s procedures. They were taken preferably from long dorsal muscles, but also samples of neck muscles were used. All samples were taken immediately or very soon after the death of the animals. Excess fat was removed with ceramic knife before storage. The samples were maintained at low temperature (2 - 4 ºC) during the first 24 hours and then stored, vacuum packed, at -20 º C and taken away from light. Geographic position of the samples was loaded into a Geographic Information System in order to establish the spatial relationship between them. A Soxhlet distillation apparatus was used for the extraction of defatted dry matter fractions from the beef samples. Stable carbon, nitrogen and sulfur stable isotopes of beef defatted dry matter were determined by conventional methods using elemental analyzer/isotope ratio mass spectrometry (EA/IRMS).
The results of stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur led to distinguish samples from Córdoba, Entre Ríos and Buenos Aires, showing the most striking difference in the values of δ13C from Córdoba and Buenos Aires. This difference in 13C values cannot be justified by the geographical origin alone, and should be a reflection of a different diet due to the two most important feeding techniques used for cattle in Argentina: grazing and feedlot.
About 20% of animals slaughtered annually in Argentina come from a feedlot fattening cattle system based on cereal grains and/or corn silage. The high availability of cereal grains and protein supplements allows achieving low-cost optimal weight gain and high profitability without any other dietary supplement.
If we consider the average δ13C values for C3 and C4 terrestrial plants, and the fact that those values are reflected in the cattle beef protein with a 5 ‰ decrease, it can be inferred that the Buenos Aires cattle are feed predominantly with C3 terrestrial plants (grazing) and on the opposite, that the Córdoba cattle show a major input of C4 in their diet (feedlot technique).
The lower δ15N values are from Córdoba, and Entre Ríos show the highest values. The pattern showed by the Entre Ríos samples cannot be explained by geographical or environmental differences and could be explained by other feeding technique variation, but this hypothesis has to be tested.
The sulfur isotopes present the major variations between Buenos Aires and Cordoba beef, with higher values for the first. Some overlapping occurs between Entre Rios and Cordoba data.
In summary, the combined use of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur isotopes alone provide enough information to determine the geographic origin of the beef and give additional information on feeding techniques.
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by Adam Doskey
Catalog of an exhibition co-curated with Rebecca J. Bott in Summer 2009.
Nd-Isotope Study of Provenance Patterns across the British Sector of the Iapetus Suture.
by Jane Evans
Stone, P. and Evans, J. A., 1995. Geological Magazine 132, 571-580.
Modelling Provenance of DBpedia Resources Using Wikipedia Contributions
Fabrizio Orlandi and Alexandre Passant, Journal of Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web (In Press, Corrected Proof), 2011.
DBpedia is one of the largest datasets in the linked Open Data cloud. Its centrality and its cross-domain nature makes... more
DBpedia is one of the largest datasets in the linked Open Data cloud. Its centrality and its cross-domain nature makes it one of the most important and most referred to knowledge bases on the Web of Data, generally used as a reference for data interlinking. Yet, in spite of its authoritative aspect, there is no work so far tackling the provenance aspect of DBpedia statements. By being extracted from Wikipedia, an open and collaborative encyclopedia, delivering provenance information about it would help to ensure trustworthiness of its data, a major need for people using DBpedia data for building applications. To overcome this problem, we propose an approach for modelling and managing provenance on DBpedia using Wikipedia edits, and making this information available on the Web of Data.
In this paper, we describe the framework that we implemented to do so, consisting in (1) a lightweight modelling solution to semantically represent provenance of both DBpedia resources and Wikipedia content, along with mappings to popular ontologies such as the W7 - what, when, where, how, who, which, and why - and OPM - open provenance model - models, (2) an information extraction process and a provenance-computation system combining Wikipedia articles' history with DBpedia information, (3) a set of scripts to make provenance information about DBpedia statements directly available when browsing this source, as well as being publicly exposed in RDF for letting software agents consume it.