Island bioarchaeology and ritual knowledge transfer at Biniadrís cave (Menorca, Spain): a longue durée perspective

Trochanteric entry femoral nailing in immature patients is controversial. Although it has become increasingly accepted in pediatric patients aged 8 years and older, complications related to physeal violation have been reported. To date, the appropriate minimum age for safe antegrade nailing in skeletally immature patients remains to be unknown. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the degree of trochanteric bony and cartilage growth with increasing age to provide normative growth values. A total of 408 serial digitized radiographs of the left hip in 45 healthy children (n=26 female individuals, n=19 male individuals) between the ages of 6 and 14 were retrospectively reviewed by 2 independent authors. Radiographs were examined to measure the changing height of the bony greater trochanter with increasing age. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 55 (n=29 male individuals, n=26 female individuals) contemporary children between the ages of 6 and 14 were evaluated to measure bony greater trochanteric and the overlying cartilage cap height. Intraclass correlation coefficient values for both radiographic and MRI measurements were excellent. Longitudinal radiographs demonstrated that the bony growth was largely complete by age 11 in male and female individuals. MRI measurements demonstrated that bony trochanteric and overlying cartilage cap height was maximal by age 7 in female individuals and age 8 in male individuals, while no significant difference in bony and cartilage height was appreciated with increasing age in male, female individuals or male+female individuals. Combined bony and cartilaginous trochanteric growth is largely complete by age 7 in female individuals and age 8 in male individuals, with increases in the height of the trochanter beyond this age likely coming from ossification of the cartilaginous portions. As such, antegrade intramedullary nailing for closed femoral shaft fractures is reasonable in male and female individuals aged 8 years and older. Level II-retrospective study.

Objectives: Since the late 1970s, when the first human skeletal remains from a pit (V1141) located within the Late Bronze Age hillfort at Stillfried an der March, Austria, were discovered, their deviation from the predominant burial rite of cremation became the subject-matter of a variety of archaeological and bioanthropological studies. Through continuous archaeological excavations, further settlement pits with unusual human inhumation burials or depositions of isolated skeletal remains became apparent and posed the question of their possible non-local origin. The human samples in this study come from the Pits V841 and V1133, furthermore we re-investigate two individuals from V1141. The aim is to get a better understanding of Stillfried’s population structure and to enrich the debate about the mortuary practices of the Urnfield culture. Material and Methods: Here we present and discuss the radiogenic Sr isotope ratios determined in the enamel of eleven individuals from three settlement pits: eight individuals from Pit V841 and one individual, represented by a skull without mandible (calvarium) of a 12–13-year-old child from Pit V1133; two individuals were taken from Pit V1141 and re-investigated for comparative reasons. We compared all data to signals of the local environment derived from modern environmental samples and to the autochthonous signal of the Late Bronze Age derived from archaeological faunal remains (incl. mussels) and archaeological plants. Further, we investigated and discussed the potential of a mathematical approach to access biogenic Sr isotopic information from diagenetically altered dentine. Results: It has been shown that both supposedly autochthonous and allochthonous (non-local) individuals are buried within the settlement pits of Stillfried, which shows that burial practices do not relate to the individual’s origins. In particular, the n(87Sr)/n(86Sr) isotopic values of six individuals match the supposedly autochthonous Sr signature, while the other five individuals represent allochthonous individuals. Three of the latter showed n(87Sr)/n(86Sr) values that were higher and two that were lower compared to the autochthonous Sr range, thereby indicating at least two different homelands. Despite the small sample size which constrains the validity of the data, the diversity of the inhabitants’ provenance reflects a high mobility. This may support the interpretation of Stillfried as a ‘central site’ – a finding which is also important in the wider context of the European Late Bronze Age.

Materials with exceptional nonlinear optical properties are critical to the continuing development of photonic and electro-optical devices, such as those used in optical communications, networking, optical computation for signal processing and data storage equipments. Currently, there exists a wide range of inorganic non-linear optical materials with varied wavelengths, damage thresholds and optical characteristics. Most technologies are based on inorganic materials with the appropriate optical properties. Using inorganic materials has some major drawbacks. Primarily, inorganic materials used in optical systems are difficult and expensive to process. In addition, inorganic materials have a high dielectric constant, requiring larger poling voltages and often suffering from changes in the material’s refractive index. Finally, inorganic materials have a low electro-optic coefficient, which is less suitable for electro-optic modulation. The present best practice in Photonics technology is the usage of organic materials/dyes that exhibit exceptional nonlinear optical properties. These organic materials/dyes are easy to prepare in solution or solid form. The resulting organic material has a low dielectric constant, eliminating the need for poling while maintaining the refractive index. However, these organic materials have few of the drawbacks inherent in the processing of comparable inorganic materials like of intense light induced degradation or bleaching and aggregation at higher dye concentration. In order to overcome these drawbacks and for effective use of highly nonlinear dyes, the strategic idea for the next practice is doping the dye molecules in polymer matrix. This idea of dye-doped polymer material matrix may increase the concentration of absorptive or fluorescence centers as well as the opto-chemical and opto-physical stability. In this paper we have discussed the strategic advantages of dye-doped polymer nonlinear materials in comparison with organic and inorganic nonlinear materials for future photonics technology by considering an example of an organic dye 4-[4-(Dimethylamino)styryl]-1- docosyl pyridinium bromide, doped in a polymer matrix Polymethyl methacrylate methacrylic acid (PMMA-MA).

Excavations at the Sculptor's Cave (north-east Scotland) during the 1930s and 1970s yielded evidence for activity in the Late Bronze Age, Late Iron Age, and early medieval periods, including a substantial human skeletal assemblage with apparent evidence for the removal, curation, and display of human heads. The present project, combining osteological analysis and a programme of AMS dating, aimed to place the surviving human remains from the site into their appropriate chronological context and to relate them to the broader sequence of human activity in the cave. A series of AMS determinations has demonstrated that the human remains fall into two distinct chronological groups separated by a millennium or more: one from the Mid-Late Bronze Age and one from the Late Iron Age. Osteological analysis suggests that while the Bronze Age group may, as previously suggested, include the remains of the heads of juveniles formerly displayed at the cave entrance, this was not the sole mechanism by which human remains arrived in the cave at this time. The Late Iron Age group provides evidence for decapitation and other violent treatments within the cave itself.

Multiple clinical and inflammatory risk factors for asthma attacks have been identified, including attack history, comorbidities, blood eosinophil count (BEC), and exhaled nitric oxide (Feno). However, the impact of sex on their prognostic value is unclear. Does sex modify prognostic values of clinical characteristics, BEC, and Feno for severe asthma attacks? We conducted a patient-level meta-analysis of the control arms of 22 randomized asthma trials (Oxford Asthma Attack Risk Scale Meta-Analysis [ORACLE2], N = 6,510). Annualized severe asthma attack rates and (adjusted) rate ratios (aRRs) (95% CI) were estimated with sex-specific multivariable negative binomial models, adjusting for baseline demographics, clinical characteristics, and type 2 biomarkers (BEC and Feno). Interaction tests evaluated the influence of sex on other prognostic factors. Among 4,140 female and 2,370 male patients, crude attack rates were higher in female patients than in male patients (0.90 vs 0.74 attacks/patient-year). Prior asthma attacks were the strongest predictor of future attacks in both sexes but with a higher aRR in male individuals (aRR [95%CI], 2.76 [1.97-3.88]) than in female individuals (1.66 [1.33-2.06]; interaction P = .03). In contrast, the prognostic utility of treatment intensity, BMI, lung function, smoking status, comorbidities, and type 2 biomarkers was similar in male and female individuals. The highest risk was seen in the combined high-BEC/high- Feno groups for both sexes. To our knowledge, this study is the first patient-level meta-analysis of prospectively collected clinical trial data to evaluate sex as a modifier of prognostic factors for asthma attacks. The overall annualized asthma attack rate was higher in female than male individuals. Prior attack history had stronger prognostic value for future attacks in male individuals, whereas other clinical risk factors and type 2 biomarkers (blood eosinophils and Feno) showed no major sex differences. These findings highlight that female individuals without prior attacks may face increased risk, and they have important implications for clinical research and practice.

Over several decades, human skeletal remains from at least twelve individuals (males, females, children and infants) were recovered from a small area (ca. 10 x 10 m) on the eastern shore of Table Bay, Cape Town, near the mouth of the Diep River where it empties into the sea. Two groups, each comprising four individuals, appear to have been buried in single graves. Unusually for this region, several skeletons were interred with large numbers of ostrich eggshell (OES) beads. In some cases, careful excavation enabled recovery of segments of beadwork. One collective burial held items including an ostrich egg-shell flask, a tortoise carapace bowl, a fragmentary bone point or linkshaft and various lithic artefacts. This group appears to have died together and been buried expediently. A mid-adult woman from this group sustained perimortem blunt-force trauma to her skull, very likely the cause of her death. This case adds to the developing picture of interpersonal violence associated with a period of subsistence intensification among late Holocene foragers. Radiocarbon dates obtained for nine skeletons may overlap but given the uncertainties associated with marine carbon input, we cannot constrain the date range more tightly than 1900–1340 calBP (at 2 sigma). The locale appears to have been used by a community as a burial ground, perhaps regularly for several generations, or on a single catastrophic occasion, or some combination thereof. The evidence documents regional and temporal variation in burial practices among late Holocene foragers of the south-western Cape.

This paper looks at spatial and social discontinuities in burial practice and in the intensity with which burial places became contested spaces in Bronze Age Cyprus. Early and Middle Bronze Age cemeteries are typically viewed as communal landscapes associated with ancestral claims to place and community, a process that involved varied levels of social negotiation and posturing linked at some sites with ritual and material culture elaboration and the likely use of some tombs as mortuary shrines. In the Late Bronze Age there was a shift, in some settlements, to intramural burial. This 'privatisation' of mortuary space has been linked with the rise of more rigid political and economic structures and the development of an 'urban mindset'. The public/private dichotomy across the Middle to Late Bronze Age transition, however, appears to have been overstated. While earlier, relatively fluid associations did give way to more structured relationships, likely reducing the need for community-wide strategies of affiliation, this did not happen evenly across the island and at many settlements it did not happen at all. The boundary between intraand extramural burial, furthermore, was never absolute and the inclusive egalitarian village cemetery may never have been a reality, with the dead perhaps always viewed as belonging to lineage groups rather than to a wider ancestral community. Variations in the place value of burial are visible throughout the Bronze Age and the apparent shift to intramural burial is likely to have been determined by historically contingent circumstances rather than changes in ideology or emerging notions of privacy or hierarchy.

Central European Early Bronze Age (EBA) society is distinguished by its greater variety of burial practices. Along with common grave burials in cemeteries, there is a significant increase in storage pit burials (PBs). PBs are assumed to be a minor deviation from common EBA burial practices. Based on archaeological and skeletal evidence found in contemporaneous pit and grave burials (GBs) within EBA settlements and cemeteries in Moravia, Czech Republic, we present an alternative view that PBs are a social innovation and evidence increasing cultural complexity and gender differentiation. Multidimensional scaling was used to visualise the degree of similarity of the archaeological data, and the relationship of health status to burial location was determined through cross-tabulation. Binary logistic regression was used to predict the odds of being buried in PBs or GBs. Our analyses indicate that in the Moravian EBA community, here are at least two archaeologically visible burial practices, each with different gender treatments. We posit that increased variation in burial practice evidences increasing social differentiation of males from females.

This study aimed to examine radiographs of Thoroughbred horse and compare radiometric and geometrical features between male and female individuals. To this end, dorso-palmar images of the carpal joint of 34 (17 female, 17 male) clinically healthy two-year-old Thoroughbred horses were analyzed. In total, 15 lengths and two angles were analyzed radiometrically, while geometric morphometrics was applied on 20 landmarks. In 7 radiometric measurements, the difference between female and male individuals was found to be statistically significant. All length measurements of males were found to be higher than of females. The statistically most important difference between the sexes was the measurement of the greatest breadth of proximal end of basis metacarpalia II-III-IV (p <0.001). There was no difference between the sexes for angle values. It was seen that the geometric morphometric analysis made with the Landmarks used in the study was not determinative between males and females. Thanks to the developing technology,the number of three-dimensional modeling technique and radiometric measurement studies is also increasing. In this study, the differences between the sexes were revealed using radiographs of horses of the same age, and obtained values will be the references for future radiometric and clinical studies.

Zinc

Galls are remarkable parasite–plant interactions that develop in different organs. They are induced by various organisms which manipulate or reprogram plant development. Galls in dioecious species and their effects on the host plant are seldom described in the literature. This paper presents a novel study of galls in a dioecious plant of the neotropical region. Our study aimed to analyze gall development and describe morphological and metabolic changes in galled leaves caused by Cecidomyiidae (Diptera) in Clusia fluminensis (Clusiaceae), a dioecious plant from Brazilian restinga. We investigated male and female individuals to detect different responses and sex-biased interactions. The non-galled leaves of female and male individuals of C. fluminensis exhibited similar anatomical structures. Nevertheless, galls developed only in male individuals. The activity of the Cecidomyiidae led to several morphological and anatomical changes, such as the hypertrophy of the leaf blade, especially the chlorenchyma. Our results indicated an interesting exception for the pattern of storage of lipids and starch in Cecidomyiidae galls, and sex-biased development in a dioecious plant, with the variation of metabolic compounds, especially phenolics and flavonoids, which may inhibit gall development in female individuals.

Determination of nitrate and nitrite levels in enteral nutrition formula marketed in Turkey: A risk assessment study.

This paper outlays preliminary archaeological investigation on human remains exhumed at Lake Eyasi basin in Mang’ola, Arusha Tanzania. The study intended to underscore the complexities of burial practices in terms of burial styles, chronological sequences of burial cairns, human remains biological profile, pathology and morphological variations. The field excavation of burial graves was carried out at the NguvuKazi, almost three kilometers southeast of Mumba rock-shelter, on the foot of Laghangereri-Ishemjega hill. The graves were tightly clustered in an area of about 60 square meters. Each grave was covered over with sizeable angular stone slabs to the height of about 50 cm above the ground surface. Buried individuals were poorly preserved and highly fragmented from geomorphological processes and anthropogenic actions. The human remains were directly placed underneath of the stones. The graves were therefore not interred so much in the ground. Corpses were buried between 20 cm and 50 cm deep and covered with piled large gneiss slabs. Such burial practices caused severe postmortem trauma leading to the deterioration, fragmentation and crumbling of human remains. Poorly preservation conditions of collected human remains and lengthy duration from the date of burial to the date of the reburial posed severe challenges as long bones were highly fragmented. These accumulated results provide primary results that may contribute significantly to crime scene detective procedures.

La autora ensaya una nueva interpretación de los mecanismos de negociación del poder y de promoción de la identidad social a partir del análisis de unas prácticas funerarias, cuya existencia ha quedado demostrada en todos los períodos de la Edad del Bronce en el Noroeste de la Península Ibérica, y de la integración de las mismas en los diferentes contextos cronológico-culturales en los que se desenvuelven. En esta extensa área distingue dos grandes tendencias en el tipo y la distribución de las arquitecturas funerarias que asocia a los diferentes modos de interacción y percepción del mundo de las comunidades de este período. Defiende que las necrópolis de sepulturas “opacas” (cistas sin tumuli, sepulturas planas y fosas), localizadas en áreas de importante potencial agrícola y en las inmediaciones de los poblados, fueron construidas por comunidades sedentarias, muy implicadas en actividades agrícolas, con un marcado sentido de la territorialización y un dominio y conocimiento profundo del territorio. En cambio las comunidades conectadas con paisajes montañosos, eventualmente mas subordinadas a las prácticas pastoriles y con modos de vida que implicarían mayor movilidad, serían las responsables de la construcción de estructuras funerarias más visibles, como los monumentos bajo tumuli de tradición megalítica, alejados de los poblados. Defiende durante el Bronce Inicial una ocupación de nuevos territorios y la aparición tanto de una nueva forma de interacción de las comunidades con el medio como nuevos mecanismos de poder y de legitimación sobre el territorio que se materializan, parcialmente, en las prácticas funerarias. Atribuye un papel social a algunos cadáveres, aquellos que tienen ofrendas de cobre y de oro y que están presentes en lugares antiguos y nuevos. A partir del Bronce Medio asume que el cadáver pierde importancia en términos colectivos y que la muerte se vuelve más familiar, transfiriéndose los escenarios de negociación del poder y de la identidad social a otros contextos de acción más conectados con la esfera de los vivos. Pone como ejemplo los lugares de explotación de estaño y de fabricación, manipulación y deposición de artefactos en bronce, los escenarios donde se edifican y se colocan las estatuas-menhires emergentes, grabadas con armas y con nuevos símbolos, y el interior de los poblados. Durante el Bronce Final esta dinámica se acentuaría, aumentando la transformación del cadáver con la consiguiente pérdida de importancia del cuerpo físico, sobre todo en los lugares o períodos en los que los indicios de incineración parecen más usuales. Destaca la mayor relevancia adquirida por los poblados como polos dinamizadores de poder y la aparición de localizaciones en alto, de verdaderos recintos excepcionales, a veces con murallas, en donde las acciones realizadas implicaron la manipulación de varios y diversificados artefactos metálicos, además de materias primas excepcionales y de gran cantidad de recipientes cerámicos singulares. Finaliza preconizando la necesidad de estudios de contingencia que permitan confirmar o refutar estas hipótesis.

The deposition of human bodies in settlements is a phenomenon that has been continuously observed from prehistory to the Middle Ages. When dealing with human remains in settlements, it is necessary to distinguish between burials in grave pits – i.e., specialised burial features – and burials in formally distinct settlement features (so-called pit burials). However, from a terminological point of view, such pit burials are often not burials, but rather specific deposits in a settlement feature including human bodies. In Moravia, we have a good record of Bronze Age settlements and cemeteries, which allows us to track the occurrence of human remains in settlements over time and to evaluate the spatial relationship of burials in settlements to those in cemeteries. Burials in settlements, whether in settlement features or in grave pits are quite common in Moravia in the Early Bronze Age. The burials in settlement features were for many years considered such a typical element of the burial ritual at the end of the Early Bronze Age that they were in fact used as a dating criterion. From the Middle Bronze Age to the end of the Bronze Age, the occurrence of human bodies in settlement pits becomes an entirely exceptional phenomenon. The situation in Moravia is thus clearly different from the environment of the Knovíz Culture in Bohemia, where the deposition of human bodies in settlement features is quite common in the Late Bronze Age. A specific source are the sites dating to the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, where there are hundreds of human skeletons in contexts related to fortifications. Interpretations in these cases range from evidence of military conflict to long-used sacred sites.