• Open Access close
• Closed Access close
• Restricted close
• Publications close
• Research data close
• Other research products close
• CZ close
• Digital Library University of West ... close
• Digital Humanities and Cultural Her... close

projektem OP VK PVBV – Popularizace vědy a badatelsky orientované výuky, reg. č. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/45.000

In every human society, the role of history in determining the level of development cannot be ignored. History is not just an academic discipline, but also the totality of changes humanity has undergone as well as the interactions man enters into with his fellow man on the one hand and the environment on the other since the evolution of the human society. It is therefore, the sum total of these that brings about the development in the society. The history of Africa before colonial conquest is full of various attempts by the people to develop their various areas using indigenous technology, which in some cases are considered very advanced. However, over the years especially after independence, this idea seems to have completely disappeared, which in the view of the paper is due to the neglect of study and knowledge of history. This paper therefore examines the role of the neglect of history in the reality and causes of contemporary economic woes in present day African setting Data obtained from primary and secondary sources were deployed to carry out the study with an analytical and narrative historical method. Findings indicate that the neglect of man in Africa to learn from the lessons of history (both the study and interaction) is responsible for the seemingly gloomy future which the continent is presently faced with as reflected in massive brain-drain, import dependency economy, raw material production industries, and incessant strife among others. The paper concludes that a genuine sense of history, a fidelity to its revelations, courageous acceptance of its judgments and workings and its implications for both the present and future, are necessary steps in the formation of the basic architecture for building a viable Africa. The paper cannot, claim to present the entire history of the continent over the period covered from a uniform perspective. It deal with some selected developments and, in this way, aim to contribute to the presentation of a more multifaceted view especially as it relates to the socio-economic stagnation and decline of indigenous technology of the African continent from a historical point of view.

The aim of this study has been to broaden our knowledge of the early medieval settlement in the early Pilsen region on the basis of finds from early medieval burial sites and foremostly the revision of these finds. Seventy-two sites with evidence for burials were documented (50 cemeteries and 25 sites with finds of s-shaped earrings, beads and ceramic vessels). The sites can be divided according to their location in the landscape (A–C). The oldest evidence for burials in the region can be dated to the 8th–9th century, but the majority of burial sites falls into the 10th–11th century. The analysis of the burial offerings was focuses mainly on the most numerous group of artefacts represented by the s-shaped earrings (groups M1–VŠ; analysis RFA).

Significance We report the remarkable discovery of an early Aurignacian occupation, ∼5,000 years older than any Upper Paleolithic site in westernmost Eurasia. The archaeological and radiocarbon data provide definitive evidence that modern humans were in western Iberia at a time when, if present at all, Neanderthal populations would have been extremely sparse. This discovery has important ramifications for our understanding of the process of modern human dispersal and replacement of Neanderthal populations. The results support a very rapid, unimpeded dispersal of modern humans across western Eurasia and support the notion that climate and environmental change played a significant role in this process.

Caves represent portions of past landscapes that were, for a long time, used by humans and their ancestors for various purposes and therefore, they have been a focus of researchers for more than two hundred years. Accumulated artifacts, ecofacts, and sediments can be used to reconstruct the environments and lives of the past. Here, we describe current methods applied to excavations of cave sites with emphasis put on their interdisciplinary nature. The case of systematic interdisciplinary research is documented with regard to the Lapa do Picareiro limestone cave, located in central Portugal, approximately 100 km north of Lisbon. The cave sediments have been dated to between 45 and 8 kya BP. A wide range of evidence from the cave (artifacts, faunal and floral remains, sediments, etc.) is used to reconstruct past natural environments (e.g., Bicho et al. 2011; Haws 2012), including fauna (Haws and Valente 2006; Hockett and Haws 2009; Valente 2004), human diet (Hockett and Haws 2009) and socio-natural interactions (Haws 2012). The interdisciplinarity is a key to understanding a whole series of phenomena which would not otherwise be understood. The current scientific demand for high quality, complex research and publication is mirrored in an increasing trend of incorporating specialists from other fields in research design and management.

AbstractThe aim of this study is to demonstrate the applicability of selected methods of the so-called distant reading from the area of digital humanities for the interpretation of early Christian texts, specifically for approaching similarities and differences between the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John. We use the term “distant reading” for the methods that allow us to explore, analyze, and visualize digitized textual data while using the tools from the area of data mining, natural language processing, or corpus linguistics. We want to explore whether methods from the field of digital humanities can allow for a sophisticated, quantifiable, and replicable comparison of the corpora of early Christian movements and thereby help to uncover the basic features of their theology and thus be a suitable complement to traditional exegesis and interpretation achieved by close reading.