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Russian to English translations [PRO] Science - Archaeology / Palaeolithic stone technologies
Russian term or phrase:пласт
This is a tricky one. The original is in quotation marks, and is accompanied by "так называемых" - is this a borrowed term?
С 70х гг. центр внимания смещается в область выделения так называемых “пластов” - широких культурно-хронологических общностей нижнего и среднего палеолита и решения связанных с изучением данных памятников геоархеологических проблем.
Explanation: That's it. The first meaning of Russian "пласт" is layer or strata but these words can be easily confused in archaeological context.
And "так называемый" means 'so-called'.
So the text in fact says that from 1970s the focus shifted to marking out the so-called 'horizons', vast cultural and chronological uniformities of Lower and Middle Paleolithic etc.
Archaeological data from each site were organized in terms of their chronological age (determined through seriation studies or via the principle of superposition) and their geographical location (their spatial position in relation other artifacts, etc.; see Fig. 3.1). Comparisons across sites provided the means to develop a larger, more regional perspective, with cultural sequences divided into periods or phases, with these phases connected across sites in a region through their shared attributes or patterns to form culture areas called time-space grids; see Fig. 3.3). The concepts tradition and horizon were adopted to standardize the models produced using this approach, where tradition referred to cultural continuity through time, and horizon was cultural uniformity at a specific point in time (Fig. 3.3a).
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 hrs (2006-12-20 14:34:51 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Alan, the problem is that it looks like you need one word to render both Russian 'пласт' and cultural uniformity, which I agree is quite a tricky thing. Horizon is both archaelogical and cultural and IMHO fits this criterion and I doubt that 'layer', 'stratum' or 'seam' do. Wikipedia says horizon may be used in many ways. If you put it in brackets like it is in the source text then it would be a clearly different thing from 'horizon' as 'горизонт'.
A horizon involves ties and uniformity across space at a single point in time (Ashmore and Sharer 1996:41). In archeology, a horizon is a pattern characterized by widespread distribution of a complex of cultural traits that lasts a relatively short time.
http://www.wsu.edu/~anauman/Anth 230/Lectures/Lecture 18- 19...
Horizon— primarily spatial continuity represented by cultural traits and assemblages whose nature and mode of occurrence permit the assumption of a broad and rapid spread. Horizon deals with ties and uniformity across space in a relatively restricted span of time.
Мультитран:
пласт сущ.
геофиз. geologic horizon; slab; horizon (А.Череповский, словарь по прикладной геофизике, 1998 г.)
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 дн22 час (2006-12-23 10:25:48 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Just realized it, quotation marks, of course, not brackets:) Sorry for that mistake...:)
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 дн22 час (2006-12-23 10:41:06 GMT) Post-grading --------------------------------------------------
The term "горизонт" is used a lot in the text, as is "слой". I've been working on the assumption that "stratum" is more geological, whilst "layer" is more archaeological (such as occupation layer, cultural layer, etc.). I've elected to translated "многослойный" as "multilevel", adding "level" to the mix.
It's the fact that "пласт" is used in quotation marks and is "так называемый" that has led me to wonder whether a different term other than those already used should be employed here. Would "seam" work? Lingvo 11 gives "coal-seam" for "угольный пласт".
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Answers
36 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +1
layer
Explanation: .
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 38 mins (2006-12-20 12:47:18 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
... the so-called 'layers' ...
Yavor Dimitrov Bulgaria Local time: 18:15 Native speaker of: Bulgarian
The translation workplace 
peer agreement (net): +1
