La Grotte de la Porte Aïve, située dans la commune de Hotton (prov. du Luxembourg, B) fit l'objet de deux campagnes de fouilles, respectivement en 1907 par le Baron A. de Loë et dans les années 1950 par L. Dierick. Notre étude porte sur les vestiges exhumés par A. de Loë et conservés aux Musées royaux d'Art et d'Histoire car ceux découverts par L. Dierick ont malheureusement disparu. Trois datations 14C réalisées sur les restes humains permettent d’ancrer cette sépulture collective dans le Néolithique Final. Le mobilier funéraire montre son appartenance à la culture Seine-Oise-Marne. Notre recherche montre que le nombre minimum d'individus s’élevait à 10 (8 adultes et 2 immatures). Sur base de l’étude de quatre crânes, nous avons montré la présence de 3 femmes décédées jeunes et d’un homme d'âge moyen. Nous avons relevé plusieurs pathologies (arthrose, cribra orbitalia et crani, fracture de la clavicule, traumatisme cranio-facial pouvant résulter d’un acte de violence interpersonnel,…) et particularités (troisième trochanter, platycnémie et enthésopathie en relation avec des gestes de lancer). Samenvatting De grot van de Porte Aïve, op de gemeente Hotton (prov. Luxemburg, B) werd twee maal archeologisch onderzocht, door Baron A. de Loë in 1907 en door L. Dierick in de jaren ’50. Onze studie betreft alleen het materiaal blootgelegd door A. de Loë, bewaard in de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis, omdat hetgeen gevonden werd door L. Dierick blijkbaar verloren ging. Drie 14C datering op de menselijke resten laten toe deze in het Late Neolithicum te plaatsen. Het archeologisch materiaal lijkt typologisch te passen in de « Seine-Oise-Marne »-kultuur. Het onderzoek wees uit dat we met minimum acht individuën te maken hebben (8 volwassenen en twee onvolwassenen). Op basis van de studie van vier schedels kon de aanwezigheid van vier jong gestorven vrouwen en een man van middelbare leeftijd vastgesteld worden. Verschillende pathologieën werden geïdentificeerd (arthrosis, cribra orbitalia en crani, een sleutelbeenbreuk, alsook een trauma ter hoogte van het aangezicht dat mogelijk op inter-menselijk geweld zou kunnen wijzen. Er werden ook verschillende bijzonderheden geobserveerd (een derde trochanter, platycnemie en enthesopathie, beide waarschijnlijk in verband te brengen met een werp-beweging).
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We review progress made during the last 25 years in our understanding of the Protopityales, Early Carboniferous plants belonging to the extinct group of the progymnosperms. Recent studies support previous observations that the only genus of this order, Protopitys, included large arborescent plant with trunks up to 1 m in diameter. All branch orders had an oval eustele, secondary xylem with small rays and tracheid pitting ranging from circular bordered to scalariform bordered, and vascular traces to lateral appendages emitted in an alternate to subopposite distichous arrangement. Leaf morphology remains unknown. New material also confirms that fertile organs of Protopitys consist of branching systems bearing elongated sporangia terminally. Spores have a perispore and range in two size groups, which has been interpreted as a primitive stage of heterospory. The dense wood and fertile parts of Protopitys are comparable to those of the aneurophytalean progymnosperms of the Devonian, but Protopitys is distinct by its eustelic primary vascular system, and its affinities are still uncertain. The genus is now documented from at least nine localities in Europe, North America and Australia. Recent discoveries also indicate that it was present through the whole Mississippian, from the middle Tournaisian to the Serpukhovian.
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A new taxon with stenokolealean affinities, Brabantophyton runcariense gen. et sp. nov., is described from seven pyrite permineralized axes collected from the mid Givetian to earliest Frasnian (late Middle to earliest Upper Devonian) locality of Ronquières (Belgium). The specimens include stems and lateral organs. The stems are characterized by a protostele dissected into three primary ribs, each of them dividing into two secondary ribs. The protostele shows a central protoxylem strand and numerous strands distributed along the midplanes of the ribs. The vascular supply to lateral organ is composed of two pairs of traces, produced at the same time by the two ribs issued from a single primary rib of the protostele. Within each pair, the shape and the size of the traces are unequal: one is T-shaped and the other is oval to reniform. The T-shaped traces of each pair face each other. The inner cortex of the lateral organs is parenchymatous and the outer cortex is sparganum-like. The specimens of Brabantophyton runcariense show many similarities with the stenokolealean genus Crossia virginiana Beck and Stein, but the vascular supply of lateral organs of the latter consists of a more symmetrical and distinctively simpler pair of traces. Brabantophyton represents the first report of the Stenokoleales in southeastern Laurussia. The characteristics of the Brabantophyton protostele compare better with the anatomy of the radiatopses, and, within the latter, particularly with basal seed plants.
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