吐鲁番洋海墓地植物遗存与古洋海人及环境之间的关系

古民族植物学（Paleoethnobotany）在我国尚属一个比较年轻的学科，其主要研究对象是先民们所栽培或利用过的植物遗存（Plant remains），目的在于揭示古代人们对食物的选择，栽培植物的起源，早期农业的出现以及居址周围的自然与生态环境。吐鲁番地区降水稀少。干燥的环境，使得考古遗址中的植物遗存得以完好的保存。本论文首次对吐鲁番洋海墓地（2500 B. P. ）的包括木材、果实、种子、茎杆、叶片等在内的植物遗存进行了系统的研究，依此分析了当时的植被及环境，并对与当时的土著居民密切相关的植物类群进行了详细研究。 研究表明，吐鲁番洋海墓地植物群包括木材、禾本科粮食作物、杂草及其它植物共18 种。其中我们详细研究了14 种，隶属于7 科14 属，它们分别为禾本科黍属中的黍（Panicum miliaceum），大麦属中的青稞（Hordeum vulgare var. nudum），小麦属中的普通小麦（Triticum aestivum），芦苇属的芦苇（Phragmites australis），虎尾草属的虎尾草（Chloris virgata），小獐毛属的小獐毛（Aeluropus pungens var. pungens），稗属的稗子（Echinochloa crusgali），大麻科大麻属中的大麻（Cannabis sativa），紫草科紫草属中的小花紫草（Lithospermum officinale）， 豆科槐属中的苦豆子（Sophora alopecuroides var. alopecuroides），茄科枸杞属中的黑果枸杞（Lycium ruthenicum），松科云杉属中的云杉属未定种（Picea sp.）， 杨柳科杨属的胡杨（Popules euphratica）及柳属未定种（Salix sp.）。研究表明，这些植物遗存渗透到古洋海人生活的方方面面。其中，粮食作物为可能以黍为主，以普通小麦及青稞为辅;用以作装饰的为小花紫草的小坚果;可能与其原始宗教及医药相关的为大麻;与建筑相关的植物有芦苇、黑果枸杞、云杉（Picea sp.）、胡杨及柳（Salix sp.）等;与当地居民意义不大的杂草有稗子、苦豆子、小獐毛、虎尾草等。其中，大麻及小花紫草遗存的出土意味着当时的土著居民对当地的植物已经有了很高的认识水平;黍、青稞及普通小麦的出土意味着他们可能与东西方文化均有接触，为东西方文明的交融起了桥梁作用;所出土的部份植物如小獐毛、小花紫草、柳、苦豆子，尤其是稗子、芦苇及香蒲属植物等都属于喜湿植物。这说明，在当时的洋海墓地周边环境与今天相似，亦为一块植被丰富的绿洲，其中可能有大面积的湿地。

Badania grobów okresu post-meroickiego na przykładzie cmentarzyska Haraz

Wydział Historyczny: Instytut Prahistorii

Vegetation history at the multi-period prehistoric complex at Ballynahatty, Co. Down, Northern Ireland.

Palaeoecological methods can provide an environmental context for archaeological sites, enabling the nature of past human activity to be explored from an indirect but alternative perspective. Through a palynological study of a small fen wetland located within the catchment of a multi-period prehistoric complex at Ballynahatty, Co. Down, Northern Ireland, we reconstruct the vegetation history of the area during the early prehistoric period. The pollen record reveals tentative evidence for Mesolithic activity in the area at 6410-6220 cal. BC, with woodland disturbance identified during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transitional period ca. 4430-3890 cal. BC. A more significant impact on the landscape is observed in the Early Neolithic from 3944-3702 cal. BC, with an opening up of the forests and the establishment of a mixed agricultural economy. This activity precedes and continues to be evident during the Mid-Neolithic during which megalithic tombs and related burial sites were constructed at Ballynahatty. Due to chronological uncertainties and a possible hiatus in peat accumulation in the fen, the contemporary environment of the Ballynahatty timber circle complex (constructed and used ca. 3080-2490 cal. BC) and henge (dating to the third millennium cal. BC) cannot certainly be established. Nevertheless, the pollen record suggests that the landscape remained open through to the Bronze Age, implying a long continuity of human activity in the area. These findings support the idea that the Ballynahatty prehistoric complex was the product of a gradual and repeated restructuring of the ritual and ceremonial landscape whose significance continued to be recognised throughout the early prehistoric period.

'It's Almost Like Talking to a Person': Student Discolsure to Pedagogical Agents in Sensitive Setting

Online chatbots (also known as pedagogical agents or virtual assistants) are becoming embedded into the fabric of technology, both in educational and commercial settings. Yet understanding of these technologies is inchoate and often untheorised, influenced by individuals’ willingness to trust technologies, aesthetic appearance of the chatbot and technical literacy, among other factors. This paper draws upon data from two research studies that evaluated students’ experiences of using pedagogical agents in education using responsive evaluation. The findings suggest that emotional connections with pedagogical agents were intrinsic to the user’s sense of trust and therefore likely to affect levels of truthfulness and engagement. They also indicate that the topic of the pedagogical agent-student interaction is key to the student’s experience. The implications of these studies are that truthfulness, personalisation and emotional engagement are all vital components in using pedagogical agents to enhance online learning.

Between light and darkness: Earthsea and the name of utopia

In Le Guin's Earthsea Quartet, knowledge of the name of a thing or person guarantees control over their destiny. In a world where light and darkness co-exist and where dragons are an extension of humans, a name is the means with which one can achieve one's vision of the world. If utopia is the individual projection of a supposedly collective ideal, then knowledge of names is the vehicle for the realization of one's own utopia, which may well come into conflict with the utopias of others. However, Earthsea is not simply a series of battles between individual utopists. Earthsea itself constitutes a precarious and non-traditional utopia, where antithetical sides co-exist and neither prevails forever. As its name denotes, “earth” and “sea,” darkness and light, tombs and open seas, tiny islands and eternal journeys operate together to produce the setting for the novels and enable the chase of an ever-elusive knowledge. For as the utopists in Earthsea find out, knowledge can only be complete if it also comprises its Jungian opposite, namely ignorance. In an attempt to explore the relation between utopia, knowledge, and ignorance, this article employs psychology and linguistics, and constructs a description of a “just” world which remains necessarily utopian.

Beyond Robotic Wastelands of Time: Abandoned Pedagogical Agents and New Pedalled Pedagogies

Chatbots, known as pedagogical agents in educational settings, have a long history of use, beginning with Alan Turing’s work. Since then online chatbots have become embedded into the fabric of technology. Yet understandings of these technologies are inchoate and often untheorised. Integration of chatbots into educational settings over the past five years suggests an increase in interest in the ways in which chatbots might be adopted and adapted for teaching and learning. This article draws on historical literature and theories that to date have largely been ignored in order to (re)contextualise two studies that used responsive evaluation to examine the use of pedagogical agents in education. Findings suggest that emotional interactions with pedagogical agents are intrinsic to a user’s sense of trust, and that truthfulness, personalisation and emotional engagement are vital when using pedagogical agents to enhance online learning. Such findings need to be considered in the light of ways in which notions of learning are being redefined in the academy and the extent to which new literacies and new technologies are being pedalled as pedagogies in ways that undermine what higher education is, is for, and what learning means.

Brotherly love and filial obedience: the commemorative programme of the Avis princes at Santa Maria da Vitória, Batalha

This dissertation focuses on a rare 15th century commemorative programme that has thus far received little scholarly attention: the collective monument erected in the Founder’s Chapel, at the Monastery of Santa Maria da Vitória, Batalha, to house the remains of four Avis princes, members of what would become known as ‘the Illustrious Generation’. A patron is proposed for the commission of this erudite monument - the princes’ eldest brother, king Duarte I - arguing its integration into a broader propaganda programme to glorify the memory of the Avis dynasty founder, king João I. The dissertation then proceeds to discuss various highly innovative features of the monument, such as its pseudo-architectural character, its use of sophisticated heraldry and personal badges, the apparent absence of religious iconography on the tombs and, importantly, the collective nature of the programme, key to its interpretation. Using a semiotic approach, a discussion is also offered on the way the various formal, iconographic and conceptual novelties of the princes’ monument impacted on the 15th century monumental landscape in Portugal. Finally, the monument and the chapel housing it are looked at through the prism of the various readings that successive generations of viewers have projected onto it, from the time of its creation to the turn of the 20th century, in order to offer a more comprehensive understanding of the object as it stands today.

As Necrópoles alto-medievais do concelho de Cascais : séculos VI e VII

A presente dissertação teve como finalidade estudar os testemunhos arqueológicos respeitantes às práticas funerárias levadas a cabo no atual concelho de Cascais durante os séculos VI e VII. As necrópoles em estudo são sítios bem conhecidos pelos investigadores, uma vez que a descoberta de algumas é precoce, datando de finais do século XIX. Com este trabalho, pretendeu-se introduzir uma série de componentes que a investigação privilegia atualmente, sobretudo no que respeita às vivências nos espaços rurais entre o fim do Império Romano e o domínio muçulmano na Península Ibérica. A investigação desenvolvida baseou-se no estudo preliminar das coleções osteológicas de quatro das cinco necrópoles, bem como na prospeção e no levantamento arqueológicos. O inventário antropológico teve como objetivo apurar o número mínimo de indivíduos por necrópole e por sepultura e fazer uma caracterização básica do sexo e da idade dos inumados. A prospeção assentou na análise das fontes bibliográficas sobre os sítios. Os trabalhos de campo desenvolveram-se no sentido de apurar o estado de conservação dos vestígios, na eventual identificação de outros novos e no consequente levantamento gráfico e fotográfico dos mesmos. Foi igualmente examinado o espólio cerâmico e metálico recolhido aquando da escavação das necrópoles, de modo obter uma visão abrangente sobre os rituais funerários e a estabelecer cronologias mais precisas. Embora se trate de um estudo limitado devido à inexistência de um registo mais rigoroso dos vestígios, foi possível tirar algumas conclusões e constatar alguns padrões. Os resultados possibilitaram apontar um conjunto de condições que se repetem nos locais onde estes cemitérios se implantam, percebendo dinâmicas em relação a fatores de caráter natural e de carácter antrópico. Também se apurou que existiriam diferentes formas de organizar os espaços funerários e que estes seriam constituídos por sepulturas muito diversas do ponto de vista construtivo. Além disso, começa-se a desvelar as razões para a reutilização de sepulturas para vários enterramentos e a entender a forma como as comunidades rurais conduziam os rituais funerários, ainda muito enraizados numa antiga matriz pagã.