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Isabelle Parsons, Is Niche Construction Theory Relevant to the Proposed Adoption of Domesticates by Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Africa? African Archaeological Review 32 (2015), 35–47.
Potential mechanisms by which domestic animals came to be herded by stone-tool users in southern Africa after 2 ka include demic and/or cultural diffusion. Neither theory is unproblematic, but robust archaeological evidence for immigrant stone-tool-using herders in the region continues to be sought. In the meantime, it seems useful to consider how cultural diffusion, or the adoption of herding practices by local hunter-gatherers, might have occurred in theory. It has been suggested that the domestication of plant and animal species by human societies represents prime archaeological evidence of humans enhancing their environment through integrated strategies of ecosystem engineering, or niche construction. This paper suggests that niche construction theory may also shed light on the proposed adoption of domestic species by southern African hunter-gatherers. To do so, it considers evidence for other niche construction activities in the local archaeological and ethnographic records. These activities include the deliberate and controlled burning of vegetation, and landscape modification strategies that limit or control a particular species’ movement.
Keywords: Niche construction | Southern Africa | Domestic animals | Ceramic final Later Stone Age
Ewen Callaway, Delta Coronavirus Variant, Scientists brace for impact. nature 595 (2021), 17–18.
The rapid rise of the highly transmissible strain in the United Kingdom has put other countries on watch.
Thibaut Devièse et al., Direct radiocarbon dating and ancient genomic analysis reveal the true age of the Neanderthals at Spy Cave, Reply to van Peer. PNAS 118 (2021), e2107116118.
The attribution of the remains to Spy I or Spy II is not the subject of our article.
Given the high level of uncertainty for assigning the bones to any individual, it is not reasonable to raise any stratigraphic argument for Spy I and Spy II. The only data we have, so far, to discuss their contemporaneity are the dates obtained on collagen extracted from teeth of each individual (Spy 92b and Spy 94a). These dates suggest the contemporaneity of both individuals.
The discovery of more recent Neanderthal fossils may indeed, in the future, challenge the conclusions of our study.
Thibaut Devièse, Grégory Abrams, Mateja Hajdinjak, Stéphane Pirson, Isabelle de Groote, Kévin di Modica, Michel Toussaint, Valentin Fischer, Dan Comeskey, Luke Spindler, Matthias Meyer, Patrick Semal & Tom Higham
Deleted coronavirus sequences trigger scientific intrigue. nature 595 (2021), 13.
This adds to a growing body of evidence that the first human cases of COVID-19 were not associated with the Huanan Seafood Market. It remains unclear why the sequences were removed from the SRA.
Philip van Peer, The stratigraphic context of Spy Cave and the timing of Neanderthal disappearance in Northwest Europe. PNAS 118 (2021), e2106335118.
Spy II is likely an in situ burial dug in from the base of FBL2, a layer which contains a palimpsest of Lincombian–Ranisian–Jerzmanowician and Aurignacian occupations. Spy I may have originally been in the same stratigraphic position but more probably in FBL3, in which case it is older than Spy II. In any case, its context is far less secure and, therefore, it does not merit the status as a last Meuse Valley Neanderthal.
Noah J. Silverstein & Jeremy Luban, Lessons from a local effort to screen for SARS-CoV-2. PNAS 118 (2021), e2108044118. <DOI:10.1073/pnas.2108044118>.
It is not possible to determine from this study whether individuals with the highest viral loads are outliers or whether most people infected with SARS-CoV-2 pass through a narrow window of high virus production. However, it is clear that, at any particular point in time, only a minority of individuals within a population of infected people are likely to have sufficiently high viral titer to transmit the virus. This asymmetry in virus distribution within the infected population accounts for why a minority of SARS-CoV-2–infected individuals are responsible for the majority of transmission events.
Ann Gibbons, ‘Dragon Man’ may be an elusive Denisovan. science 373 (2021), 11–12.
Paleoanthropologists are both excited and puzzled by “wonderful skull” from China.
Nicola Jones, Fossils expand human family tree, But questions remain. nature 595 (2021), 20.
Bones found in Israel and China could belong to new types of ancient human.
Johannes Krause, Die Reise unserer Gene, Eine Geschichte über uns und unsere Vorfahren. (Berlin 2020).
Jeffrey P. García, Jesus and His Pilgrimage Practices. Biblical Archaeology Review 47 (2021), ii, 60–62.
Matthieu Richelle, A Very Brief History of Old Hebrew Script. Biblical Archaeology Review 47 (2021), ii, 48–55.
Christopher Rollston, The King of Judah, Jars of Wine, and the City of Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Papyrus and the forged words on it. Bible History Daily 2017 , Oct. 25.
Ultimately, the case against the Jerusalem Papyrus is pretty strong. To be sure, there are, and will continue to be, people who believe that it’s ancient. But for my money, I think that it’s of recent vintage. And the modern forger is pretty good at his craft, but not perfect.
Shelley Wachsmann, The Curious Case of Noah’s …box? Biblical Archaeology Review 47 (2021), ii, 56–59.
Frederick Reinig et al., Precise date for the Laacher See eruption synchronizes the Younger Dryas. nature 595 (2021), 66–69.
The Laacher See eruption (LSE) in Germany ranks among Europe’s largest volcanic events of the Upper Pleistocene1,2. Although tephra deposits of the LSE represent an important isochron for the synchronization of proxy archives at the Late Glacial to Early Holocene transition3, uncertainty in the age of the eruption has prevailed4. Here we present dendrochronological and radiocarbon measurements of subfossil trees that were buried by pyroclastic deposits that firmly date the LSE to 13,006 ± 9 calibrated years before present (bp; taken as ad 1950), which is more than a century earlier than previously accepted. The revised age of the LSE necessarily shifts the chronology of European varved lakes5,6 relative to the Greenland ice core record, thereby dating the onset of the Younger Dryas to 12,807 ± 12 calibrated years bp, which is around 130 years earlier than thought. Our results synchronize the onset of the Younger Dryas across the North Atlantic–European sector, preclude a direct link between the LSE and Greenland Stadial-1 cooling7, and suggest a large-scale common mechanism of a weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation under warming conditions8–10.
Frederick Reinig, Lukas Wacker, Olaf Jöris, Clive Oppenheimer, Giulia Guidobaldi, Daniel Nievergelt, Florian Adolphi, Paolo Cherubini, Stefan Engels, Jan Esper, Alexander Land, Christine Lane, Hardy Pfanz, Sabine Remmele, Michael Sigl, Adam Sookdeo & Ulf Büntgen
Olivier Toubia, Jonah Berger & Jehoshua Eliashberg, How quantifying the shape of stories predicts their success. PNAS 118 (2021), e2011695118.
pnas118-e2011695118-Supplement.pdf
Narratives, and other forms of discourse, are powerful vehicles for informing, entertaining, and making sense of the world. But while everyday language often describes discourse as moving quickly or slowly, covering a lot of ground, or going in circles, little work has actually quantified such movements or examined whether they are beneficial. To fill this gap, we use several state-of-the-art natural language-processing and machine-learning techniques to represent texts as sequences of points in a latent, high-dimensional semantic space. We construct a simple set of measures to quantify features of this semantic path, apply them to thousands of texts from a variety of domains (i.e., movies, TV shows, and academic papers), and examine whether and how they are linked to success (e.g., the number of citations a paper receives). Our results highlight some important cross-domain differences and provide a general framework that can be applied to study many types of discourse. The findings shed light on why things become popular and how natural language processing can provide insight into cultural success.
Keywords: discourse | natural language processing | cultural success | cultural analytics
Significance: Why are some narratives (e.g., movies) or other texts (e.g., academic papers) more successful than others? Narratives are often described as moving quickly, covering lots of ground, or going in circles, but little work has quantified such movements or tested whether they might explain success. We use natural language processing and machine learning to analyze the content of almost 50,000 texts, constructing a simple set of measures (i.e., speed, volume, and circuitousness) that quantify the semantic progression of discourse. While movies and TV shows that move faster are liked more, TV shows that cover more ground are liked less. Academic papers that move faster are cited less, and papers that cover more ground or are more circuitous are cited more.
Udo Tworuschka (Hrsg.), Die Weltreligionen, und wie sie sich gegenseitig sehen. (Darmstadt 2008).
Vince LiCata, When Britney Spears comes to my lab, Now that’s what I call pop culture! nature 451 (2008), 106.
The number of young people and other celebrities entering science careers will skyrocket.
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