Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica

Abstract Vor achtzehn Jahren hat John K. Stille in der Angewandten Chemie über eine neuartige Kupplung von Organostannanen mit organischen Elektrophilen berichtet, die schließlich unter seinem Namen bekannt wurde. Seither hat sich diese Methode zu einem vielseitigen und facettenreichen Gebiet voller versteckter Möglichkeiten zum Forschen, Entdecken und Genießen entwickelt. Die neuesten Modifizierungen lassen Syntheseziele in greifbare Nähe rücken, von denen man vor einigen Jahren nur zu träumen wagte. Auch beim Verständnis der mechanistischen Details der Umsetzungen wurden große Fortschritte erzielt. Daher sollte einer gezielten Anwendung dieser wichtigen Reaktion und ihrer neuen Varianten, die sich auf mehr als nur empirische Befunde stützt, nichts mehr im Wege stehen. Dieser Aufsatz legt über diese Fortschritte kritisch Rechenschaft ab.

Because the media influences society's perceptions of reality, the treatment of mental illness in the news can have an effect on the societal stigma related to it. This study aimed to analyze the content and form of news items related to mental illness in Spanish newspapers in order to understand their role in propagating or attenuating stereotypes, prejudices, and stigma. The authors conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study on the basis of a review of news items related to mental illness appearing in the Spanish print media. A sample was taken from articles published on the subject in the 20 Spanish newspapers with the widest circulations over the course of the year 2010. Formal elements and content were analyzed by means of a structured evaluation system. The authors analyzed 695 news items. The content of 47.9% (n = 333) of the articles was not strictly related to mental illness, but rather clinical or psychiatric terms were used metaphorically, and frequently in a pejorative sense. The remaining 52.1% (n = 362) consisted of news items related specifically to mental illness. Of these, news items linking mental illness to danger were the most common (178 texts, 49.2%), specifically those associating mental illness with violent crime (130 texts, 35.9%) or a danger to others (126 texts, 34.8%). The results confirm the hypothesis that the press treats mental illness in a manner that encourages stigmatization. The authors appeal to the press's responsibility to society and advocate an active role in reducing the stigma towards mental illness.

Abstract Horses revolutionized human history with fast mobility 1 . However, the timeline between their domestication and their widespread integration as a means of transport remains contentious 2–4 . Here we assemble a collection of 475 ancient horse genomes to assess the period when these animals were first reshaped by human agency in Eurasia. We find that reproductive control of the modern domestic lineage emerged around 2200 bce , through close-kin mating and shortened generation times. Reproductive control emerged following a severe domestication bottleneck starting no earlier than approximately 2700 bce , and coincided with a sudden expansion across Eurasia that ultimately resulted in the replacement of nearly every local horse lineage. This expansion marked the rise of widespread horse-based mobility in human history, which refutes the commonly held narrative of large horse herds accompanying the massive migration of steppe peoples across Europe around 3000 bce and earlier 3,5 . Finally, we detect significantly shortened generation times at Botai around 3500 bce , a settlement from central Asia associated with corrals and a subsistence economy centred on horses 6,7 . This supports local horse husbandry before the rise of modern domestic bloodlines.

Nous présentons l’analyse pollinique de la séquence sédimentaire de la tourbière de Bosc dels Estanyons (2180 m, Pyrénées orientales, Andorre). Sept dates 14C, l’analyse des macro-charbons, des stomates et l’utilisation des influx polliniques permettent de préciser et de dater la dynamique des communautés végétales depuis la fin du Tardiglaciaire. Menée à haute résolution, cette étude constitue une contribution inédite, dans ce secteur, à la compréhension des rythmes d’anthropisation depuis la transition Mésolithique–Néolithique ancien.

Little is known about the Eastern Maghreb in the second and first millennia BC, except for the very last centuries when classical sources provide some information about the Numidian kingdoms. The survey and excavation of Althiburos and its surroundings have provided valuable data related to the first millennium BC. Occupation of the site dates back to the ninth or tenth century cal BC and continues into Roman times. Archaeobiological data — particularly the evidence of grape, a crop that only provides a return after several years, but thereafter produces fruit for a considerable period — suggest that the population was sedentary from the beginning, and that it probably grew throughout occupation. Iron slag is also present from the eight or tenth century cal BC. The construction of a Punic-type cistern and an impressive defensive wall indicate that the site developed into a city-like settlement by the mid-first millennium BC. While relations with Carthage may have played an important role in this process, we suggest that population growth was the main cause for sedentariness and, later, for the development of cities and the Numidian states. Other important aspects of the project include the typology and dating of pottery, the discovery of small pre-Roman habitation sites, and the dating of a small dolmen and one of the funerary mounds in the city’s surroundings.

The Madriu–Perafita–Claror valleys (MPCV) (Eastern Pyrenees, Andorra) were the focus of a multidisciplinary microregional landscape research project that aimed to study the long term shaping of this UNESCO World Heritage Site in the category of cultural landscape. The study area is situated on a glacial modelled high mountain environment ranging from 1250 to 2800 m.a.s.l. Multidisciplinary approaches integrating archaeology and palaeoenvironment have been directed towards the unravelling of the long-term human–landscape relationships, which ultimately resulted in the MPCV cultural landscape. The development of high-resolution temporal and spatial studies could successfully correlate archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data. This study leads to the location of more than 400 archaeological structures, 55 of which were excavated, and the multiproxy study of 7 palaeoenvironmental sequences. The combination and analysis of all these data have permitted developing a history of human–environment interactions from the Mesolithic to the 20th century. In this paper, data gathered in the MPCV corresponding to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods are presented for the first time. During the Early Neolithic small groups are documented with a diversified economy in which grazing, hunting, fishing, gathering and an incipient cereal agriculture activities are well represented. These groups seem to follow highly mobile occupation patterns with continuous high mountain seasonal grazing exploitations that lasted one or two centuries. They appear to frequent diverse altitudinal belts in order to take advantage of different resources. A strong pastoral orientation is related to the exploitation of high mountain areas. During the Middle/late Neolithic human groups show a higher degree of sedentism. Hunting and gathering are still important activities although agriculture and animal husbandry increase in importance. During this period an augmentation in the pastoral pressure in the MPCV is also documented, linked to the first use of fires to create grazing areas. Symbolic landscape appropriation practices are also firstly documented during this period. During the Chalcolithic, human landscape use becomes intensive enough to cause permanent landscape changes. The upper parts of the MPCV are deforested by the action of fire while intensive agriculture takes place at the lower valleys. The evidence presented by the MPCV project demonstrates that it was during the Neolithic when this high mountain cultural landscape was firstly formed. This process is probably related to an increase in the population and progressive sedentism, which required a more intensive and organised use of resources and, eventually, the adoption of landscape management practices.

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the effectiveness of an experimental intervention based on standard diet recommendations plus free Smartphone application (app) and wearable device for weight loss, compared with the standard diet intervention alone, in primary care patients aged 18 years or older who are overweight or obese. METHODS/DESIGN: Multicentre randomized, controlled clinical trial. LOCATION: Primary health care centres in the city of Tarragona and surrounding areas. SUBJECTS: 70 primary care patients, aged 18 years or older, with body mass index of 25 g/m2 or greater who wish to lose weight. Description of the intervention: 12 months of standard diet recommendations without (n = 35) or with (n = 35) assistance of a free Smartphone app that allows the participant to maintain a record of dietary intake and a bracelet monitor that records physical activity. The outcomes will be weight loss at 12 months (primary outcome), changes in physical activity and cardiometabolic risk factors, frequency of app use, and participant satisfaction after 12 months. DISCUSSION: The results of our study will offer evidence of the effectiveness of an intervention using one of the most popular free apps and wearable devices in achieving weight loss among patients who are overweight or obese. If these new technologies are proven effective in our population, they could be readily incorporated into primary care interventions promoting healthy weight. The open design and study characteristics make it impossible for the participants and researchers to be blinded to study group assignment. Researchers responsible for data analysis will be blinded to participant allocation. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinical Register: NCT02417623. Registered 26 March 2015.

Summary A wide‐ranging study based on compositional and isotopic analyses of minerals and manufactured objects from the north‐eastern Iberian Peninsula and their respective archaeological and cultural contexts demonstrates significant lead mineral exploitation in the El Priorat area (Tarragona province) linked to Phoenician trade (seventh–sixth centuries BC). This exploitation continued, despite losing intensity, until the Romanization of the territory. Our project also aims to determine the nature and origin of the lead and silver supply in the northern Iberian territory surrounding the Phocaean enclave of Emporion, especially with regard to the demands of the colonial mint. The behaviour pattern of the circulation of lead, silver and copper in Catalonia in the period studied indicates a plurality of contemporary supply sources, although, at least from the fifth century BC onward, minerals and metals from the south‐eastern Iberian Peninsula take on considerable importance.

The authors' research project in the Pyrenees mountains has located and excavated Roman kilns for producing pitch from pine resin. Their investigations reveal a whole sustainable industry, integrated into the local environmental cycle, supplying pitch to the Roman network and charcoal as a spin-off to the local iron extractors. The paper makes a strong case for applying combined archaeological and palaeoenvironmental investigations in upland areas, showing mountain industries to have been not so much marginal and pastoral as key players in the economy of the Roman period and beyond it into the seventh century AD.

There are strong interactions between an economic system and its ecological context. In this sense, livestock have been an integral part of human economies since the Neolithic, contributing significantly to the creation and maintenance of agricultural anthropized landscapes. For this reason, in the frame of the ERC-StG project 'ZooMWest' we collected and analyzed thousands of zooarchaeological data from NE Iberia. By considering these data in comparison with ecological indicators (archaeobotanical remains) and archaeological evidence (settlement characteristics and their distribution) this paper seeks to characterize changes in animal production and the relationship between people, livestock, and their environment. These methods allow for an investigation of the topic at different scales (site, zone, territory) with a broad diachronic perspective, and for consideration of orography and cultural traditions alongside climatic factors. Through this integration of various streams of evidence, we aim to better understand the structure of ancient economic systems and the way they conditioned human decision-making on animal production. Results show a shifting relationship with the territory between the Bronze Age and Late Antiquity, in which market requirements and an economic model with a higher degree of integration increasingly influenced husbandry strategies. These processes are reflected in changes in land use and forms of territorial occupation, although along different rhythms and trajectories.

The C ova dels X aragalls is a small open karst system, located in the municipality of V imbodí‐Poblet ( T arragona, C atalonia, NE S pain). It is an important H olocene archaeological site that was inspected in the 1970s but from which little has been published. New excavations starting in 2008 have exposed a deep L ate P leistocene stratigraphical sequence. In this paper, we present for the first time palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic reconstructions of this L ate P leistocene succession on the basis of both the small‐vertebrate assemblages and the charcoals. Results from the small‐vertebrate associations along the sequence indicate that the landscape had open‐woodland habitats in the vicinity of the C ova del X aragalls, with wet points in the surrounding area. W oodland habitats were dominant throughout the sequence, as evidenced by the abundance of the species A podemus sylvaticus , but were better developed during warm periods (layers C5 and C8 ), whereas during cold periods (layers C4 and C3 ) the environment was slightly more humid in response to higher mean annual precipitation and the opening of the landscape. The charcoal analysis indicates that the woodland surrounding the cave was composed mainly of P inus (more than 90% was identified as P inus ), but that during the cold period ( C3 – C4 ) it incorporated some Q uercus ilex / coccifera and Angiosperm indet., probably linked with greater precipitation. Comparisons are made with other long palaeoenvironmental sequences from the northeastern I berian P eninsula and with global marine isotopic curves, providing a scenario for the palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental changes that occurred during the L ate P leistocene in the woodland areas surrounding the C ova dels X aragalls.

Quantitative cathodoluminescence (CL) has rarely been applied for the archaeometric studies concerning marble provenance, despite its potential. This paper develops the method and provides a new database of the parameters obtained from the main marble quarries used in antiquity. With a total number of 473 marble samples from ten districts of the central and eastern Mediterranean, it is the first database on quantitative CL, with the additional advantage of being the same samples that have already characterized by other conventional techniques and that are available in the literature. Focused on the measurements of the intensity peaks at the UV and visible spectra, registered by a spectrometer coupled to a scanning electron microscope (CL-SEM), the representative values are plotted on different useful diagrams to be applied in the identification of marble provenance studies, as a complementary tool of other analyses.

Branched chain amino acids (BCAA) are essential elements of the human diet, which display increased plasma levels in obesity and regained particular interest as potential biomarkers for development of diabetes. To define determinants of insulin resistance (IR) we investigated 73 genes involved in BCAA metabolism or regulation by fine-scale haplotype mapping in two European populations with metabolic syndrome. French and Romanians (n = 465) were genotyped for SNPs (Affymetrix) and enriched by imputation (BEAGLE 4.1) at 1000 genome project density. Initial association hits detected by sliding window were refined (HAPLOVIEW 3.1 and PHASE 2.1) and correlated to homeostasis model assessment (HOMAIR) index, in vivo insulin sensitivity (SI) and BCAA plasma levels (ANOVA). Four genomic regions were associated with IR located downstream of MUT, AACS, SLC6A15 and PRKCA genes (P between 9.3 and 3.7 x 10-5). Inferred haplotypes up to 13 SNPs length were associated with IR (e.g. MUT gene with P < 4.9 x 10-5; Bonferroni 1.3 x 10-3) and synergistic to HOMAIR. SNPs in the same regions were also associated with one order of magnitude lower P values (e.g. rs20167284 in the MUT gene with P < 1.27 x 10-4) and replicated in Mediterranean samples (n = 832). In French, influential haplotypes (OR > 2.0) were correlated with in vivo insulin sensitivity (1/SI) except for SLC6A15 gene. Association of these genes with BCAA levels was variable, but influential haplotypes confirmed implication of MUT from BCAA metabolism as well as a role of regulatory genes (AACS and PRKCA) and suggested potential changes in transcriptional activity. These data drive attention towards new regulatory regions involved in IR in relation with BCAA and show the ability of haplotypes in phased DNA to detect signals complimentary to SNPs, which may be useful in designing genetic markers for clinical applications in ethnic populations.

Toda obra arquitectónica necesita de una proyección previa que implique la definición y justificación de sus formas y proporciones, proyección que, a menudo, viene modificada por la realidad ya existente o, en casos de periodos constructivos largos por cambios de opinión, de finalidad o, incluso de promotor. Es el caso del Concilium Provinciae Hispaniae Citerioris de Tarraco, un gran complejo monumental de más de 12 hectáreas de extensión, que necesitó un periodo de tiempo de construcción de entre 70 a 75 años. Los restos arqueológicos conservados permiten la identificación de dos proyectos arquitectónicos sobrepuestos que implican un profundo cambio de proyecto durante el proceso constructivo.

sequences were obtained for an additional eight cattle specimens from this site. Maternal lineages were assigned to the elusive R and ubiquitous African-T1 haplogroups found in two and ten Althiburos specimens, respectively. Our results can be explained by post-domestication hybridization of Althiburos cattle with local aurochs. However, we cannot rule out an independent domestication in North Africa considering the shared ancestry of Althiburos cattle with the pre-domestic Moroccan aurochs and present-day African taurine cattle.

&lt;p&gt;Las nubes de puntos son objetos con un incuestionable valor geométrico. Pero el desarrollo de determinadas metodologías de trabajo permiten extraer de ellas información que va más allá de la métrica, permitiendo análisis semánticos del objeto documentado. En este trabajo exponemos una de estas metodologías que consiente, únicamente modificando la visualización de las nubes de puntos, poner en evidencia elementos de valor semántico del objeto arquitectónico escaneado.&lt;/p&gt;

Summary. This paper is concerned with the organization of societies in north‐eastern Iberia (present‐day Catalonia) during the Iron Age, using data provided by domestic architecture and settlement organization. I offer an analysis of the social differences detected in the dwellings based on a sample of houses excavated at different types of settlement. Although many Iberian houses had simple layouts and small surface areas, some larger dwellings at the main sites are distinguished by the shape of their ground plans, their surface areas, architectural features, and central locations; these houses are believed to be the residences of the Iberian elite. Such dwellings are not found at all sites and the data suggest that there was a relationship between the category of the settlement (or its function) and the types of dwelling in it.

A partir de distintos epígrafes tarraconenses se reconoce la presencia en los suburbios de Tarraco en el siglo II d.C. de un cuartel para una unidad ecuestre de equites singulares y un campus de ejercicios anexa al mismo. También de unos castrapara residencia de dos cohortes. Se considera también el número de los officiales adscritos al gobernador de la provincia que en su caso residían de diferentes formas en el interior del espacio urbano.ResuméÀ partir des distinctes épigraphes de Tarraco on reconnaît la présence dans les faubourgs de Tarraco au IIème siècle d.C. d’un fort pour une unité équestre d’equites singulares et un campus d’exercices annexe au même. Aussi d’uns castra pour résidence de deux cohortes. Il se considère aussi le numéro des officiales assignés au gouverneur de la province qu’ils résidaient de différentes formes au milieu de l’espace urbain.Palabras clave / Des mots clefs: Tarraco, equites singulares, campus, ora maritima, cohors I et II, cohors nova tironum, officiales, stratores, praetorium consularis.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden zehn römische Bleiplomben, welche sich im Archäologischen Museum in Badajoz (Spanien) befinden, untersucht. Die Funde stammen aus den Bergbaugebieten von Castuera und Azuaga und dokumentieren die Aktivität von zwei Bergba

En aquest treball s’ofereix una panoràmica dels estudis realitzats pel Grup d’Investigació en Arqueologia del Paisatge (GIAP) als espais altimontans pirenaics orientals en els darrers 10 anys. Des d’un enfocament multidisciplinari en el marc de l’arqueologia del paisatge, els resultats obtinguts permeten trencar amb la visió tradicional d’aquestes àrees muntanyenques a l’Antiguitat, mostrant la seva intensa explotació i una forta antropització que ja comença en el període Neolític.