Homo erectus was the first human lineage to disperse widely throughout the Old World, the only hominin in Asia through much of the Pleistocene, and was likely ancestral to H. sapiens. The demise of this taxon remains obscure because of uncertainties regarding the geological age of its youngest populations. In 1996, some of us co-published electron spin resonance (ESR) and uranium series (U-seri...

The Vale do Forno archaeological sites (Alpiarça, central Portugal) document the earliest human occupation in the Lower Tejo River, well established in geomorphological and environmental terms, within the Middle Pleistocene. In a staircase of six fluvial terraces, the Palaeolithic sites were found on the T4 terrace (þ24 m, above river bed) which is made of a basal Lower Gravels unit (LG) and an...

This paper presents an approach to analyzing the reduction intensity of handaxes with the aid of 3D scanning technology. Two quantitative reduction indices, the Scar Density Index (SDI) and the Flaked Area Index (FAI), are applied to handaxes from the third terrace of the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region (DRR), central China, dated to the Middle Pleistocene. The results show that most of the DRR ha...

The microstructure of a mechanically finished calcium fluoride (CaF2) was studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The (111) oriented surfaces of high-purity CaF2 single crystals were finished to a flat surface by ultra-precision mechanical polishing. A float polishing method—with 7-nm-diameter silicon dioxide powder, pure water, and a tin lap—was employed for the finishing. Prior to ...

The knowledge of the partition function, Z, of a system of particles adsorbed on a surface is all that is required to determine the occupational characteristics of the adsorbates and the thermodynamic properties of the system. The surface considered is a terrace or a nanotube of arbitrary periodic lattice geometry, L atomic sites in length, and M' sites in the width of the terrace or in the nor...

We develop and analyze 1ϩ1-and 2ϩ1-dimensional ͑d͒ models for multilayer homoepitaxial growth of metal films at low temperatures (T), where intralayer terrace diffusion is inoperative. This work is motivated by recent variable-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy studies of Ag/Ag͑100͒ homoepitaxy down to 50 K. Adsorption sites are bridge sites in our 1ϩ1d models, and fourfold hollow sites in o...

We compare CO’s response to electric fields at edge and terrace sites on the stepped Pt~335! surface. The comparison is made at zero frequency and at the frequency of the C–O stretch vibration. Atop-bonded CO is observed with reflection–absorption ir spectroscopy ~RAIRS!, electroreflectance vibrational spectroscopy ~EVS!, and high-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy ~HREELS!. Coadsorbe...