Drought stress variability in ancient Near Eastern agricultural systems evidenced by δ13C in barley grain.

The collapse and resilience of political systems in the ancient Near East and their relationship with agricultural development have been of wide interest in archaeology and anthropology. Despite attempts to link the archaeological evidence to local paleoclimate data, the precise role of environmental conditions in ancient agricultural production remains poorly understood. Recently, stable isotope analysis has been used for reconstructing site-specific ancient growing conditions for crop species in semiarid and arid landscapes.

An interrogation unit for passive wireless SAW sensors based on fourier transform.

The application of surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators as sensor elements for different physical parameters such as temperature, pressure, and force has been well-known for several years. The energy storage in the SAW and the direct conversion from physical parameter to a parameter of the wave, such as frequency or phase, enables the construction of a passive sensor that can be interrogated wireless. This paper presents a temperature-measurement system based on passive wireless SAW sensors.