Chemical analyses of ancient organic compounds absorbed into the pottery fabrics of imported Etruscan amphoras ( ca. 500–475 B.C.) and into a limestone pressing platform ( ca. 425–400 B.C.) at the ancient coastal port site of Lattara in southern France provide the earliest biomolecular archaeological evidence for grape wine and viniculture from this country, which is crucial to the later history of wine in Europe and the rest of the world. The data support the hypothesis that export of wine by ship from Etruria in central Italy to southern Mediterranean France fueled an ever-growing market and interest in wine there, which, in turn, as evidenced by the winepress, led to transplantation of the Eurasian grapevine and the beginning of a Celtic industry in France. Herbal and pine resin additives to the Etruscan wine point to the medicinal role of wine in antiquity, as well as a means of preserving it during marine transport.

This is the first paper of a series of reports concerning extended‐chain crystals of flexible, linear high polymers. The general conditions for crystal growth are discussed. Polymer crystallization is described as a two‐step process: nucleation of each crystallizing molecule to a folded‐chain conformation, followed by an increase in fold length in a solid‐state reorganization step. This reorganization step is enhanced in the case of polyethylene by crystallization at high temperature under elevated pressure. Mechanical deformation during crystallization is also able to produce extended‐chain crystals. The most promising method, however, is crystallization during polymerization. Previous work on crystallization of polyethylene under elevated pressure is critically reviewed.

A series of liquid-crystalline polymers has been synthesized in which the mesogenic perfluoroalkyl chains are directly linked to the hydrocarbon chains in an alternating sequence. Liquidcrystalline behavior was investigated by optical microscopy, DSC, and X-ray diffraction. The liquidcrystalline phase appears to be smectic B from X-ray data. Interesting differences in the mesophase transition temperatures are observed along the series, the polymers showing an odd-even effect in the isotropization temperatures as the length of the hydrocarbon is changed. Differences are also seen in layer spacing from X-ray data, which shows some alternation as the hydrocarbon content increases but is generally much smaller than the expected extended repeat unit length. We discuss these in relation to the lengths of the segments.

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