Repeat silica extraction: a simple technique for the removal of PCR inhibitors from DNA extracts

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) inhibitors are often co-extracted with ancient DNA (aDNA) and when present make the analysis of aDNA difficult, if not impossible. In this study we review previous research on PCR inhibitors and techniques that address their co-extraction with DNA from sub-optimal samples. Additionally, we introduce a simple extraction technique, “repeat silica extraction,” that effectively removed PCR inhibitors from extracts of 7000–8000-year-old human skeletal remains from the Windover archaeological site in Florida and 700–2000-year-old human coprolites excavated from Fish Slough Cave in southern California. A series of tests on these same samples demonstrates that N-phenacylthiazolium bromide is largely ineffective, despite previously reported success using this compound as part of the DNA extraction process. We also describe a method for demonstrating the presence as well as successful removal of PCR inhibitors by use of a “positive aDNA control,” a test necessary to conclude that negative PCR amplification is the result of the absence of preserved DNA.     

Early Cotswold woodland

Many “wold” names are derived from the OE wald, meaning “woodland”. In a recent paper Everitt examined the evidence for Kent and suggested that areas of wold downland had been wooded in the Anglo-Saxon period. They had also been territorially linked to river-estates as areas of outlying wood-pasture. The present paper examines the evidence for the Cotswolds. Here the name “wold” is applied to an area which was largely open pasture by the medieval period and the use of the term in its later sense of “high, open country” would not have been out of place. Yet the evidence from early place-names and pre-Conquest charters suggests that a great deal of woodland was present in the Anglo-Saxon period, especially in the valleys dissecting the escarpment and along the scarp face. Although this was a watershed area, divided between adjacent valley-based estates, as in Kent, there is little direct evidence here of an early interest in woodland-pasture. The importance of the area seems to have arisen in the middle and later Anglo-Saxon period as a result of an increased use of the upland for sheep pasture. Nevertheless, the term “wold” seems to date from an earlier period when woodland was indeed extensive.     

Droughts as random events in the Maya lowlands

Because the values of most of the parameters controlling the occurrence and severity of a drought in a given location are unknown, and no periodicity has been observed, droughts can be considered random events. Running a random number generator within the limits of the annual rainfall variability relevant to the Maya lowlands, and defining a “Lean Year”, it is observed that strings of lean years occur quite frequently. Defining “Severe Drought”, “Disaster”, and “Catastrophe” based on the length of these strings, it is observed that a severe drought occurs on average every 32 years, a disaster occurs on average every 130 years, and a catastrophe on average every 500 years. These values fit the measured variability of the Yucatan climate, as observed in lake core sediments and in the post conquest written records. It also fits the average occurrence of “megadroughts” in the US Great Plains.The fit between the random occurrence model and the actual, “measured” occurrence of droughts supports the notion that for all practical purposes, droughts had been random events in the Maya region and could not be predicted. The lack of evident periodicity could be one of the reasons why means for long-term storage of food products were not developed there. It may also have affected the relationship between the priesthood and the general populace in that region.Since the method described here can be applied to any climatic region once the rainfall variability and the sensitivity of the local agriculture are known or can be estimated, if similar results are found they may probably have affected other regions with other ancient cultures in a similar way.     

A system for classification and description of the horn cores of cattle from archaeological sites

A system is proposed for the classification and sexing of the horn cores of cattle recovered from archaeological sites. The cores are first divided into four groups depending on their length. The terms “small”, “short”, “medium” and “long horned” are given to these groups but bear no relation to the names used for modern breeds of cattle. After differentiation according to length, the sex of the core is designated by visual appraisal of the shape, curvature and angle of attachment of the cores to the frontal bones. It is not claimed that the sex of individual horn cores can always be established but from the sample of 80 cores that we tested by statistical analysis (presented in an appendix) it was evident that the categories based on length and assessment of sex did separate out as expected.     

A comparison of the treatment of errors in radiocarbon dating calibration methods

The application of radiocarbon dating to archaeological samples generally requires calibration of ¹⁴C dates to calendar ages and interpretation of dating errors. In this paper, four recent methods of age calibration are assessed, particularly with regard to their quality of error treatment. Recent experimental research has suggested that commonly quoted errors on “raw” ¹⁴C dates may require enlargement to more realistic levels, which, when incorporated in the calibration schemes, produce a considerable increase in the size of the typical calibrated interval. A general decrease in the sensitivity of ¹⁴C dating using single, “normal precision” dates is implied. Thus typical calibrated age intervals range from 300 to 1300 years (approximate 95% confidence level), with little improvement resulting if “high precision” calibration systems are used to correct “normal precision” dates. Of the four methods considered here, that proposed by Neftel is found to provide the most objective, flexible, comprehensive and “easy to use” scheme. This method is particularly recommended for its treatment of errors both on the dates to be calibrated and on the calibration curve itself.     

Geographies of Hardy's Wessex

The novels of Thomas Hardy represent a number of different “geographies”—the means by which their various characters and narrators explore places and come to know them. The “geographies” of the characters and narrators in Tess of the d'Urbervilles and The return of the native are examined in this essay. It shows that the “primal” geography of the youthful Tess, and of those who live on Egdon Heath, is represented as circular, and is constructed by more senses than the visual, while that of the reader is linear and wholly visual in its preoccupations with geology, cartography and the picturesque; and it examines the destruction of the “primal” geography in Tess, as she becomes an itinerant labourer. The task of the narrators, in their attempt to mediate between the two geographies, is considered, and it is suggested that this attempt is bound to fail, because the division between them is founded in an idea of history, as of a moment of primal unity and its subsequent differentiation, which is not perceived as open to question.     

Hunter-gatherer economic complexity and “population pressure”: A cross-cultural analysis

This paper examines the relaionship between “population pressure” and socioeconomic complexity among hunter-gatherers. Population pressure is defined as the ratio between population density and the density of available resources. Socioeconomic complexity is measured by means of several correlated variables: storage-dependence, sedentism, social inequality, and use of a medium of exchange. Correlations between these variables are calculated from an ethnographic sample of 94 hunter-gatherer groups. The correlations between population pressure and socioeconomic complexity are found to be extremely high. Two major types of hunter-gatherers exist which are distinguished by a number of variables and may be termed “simple” and “complex.” Transitional groups between these two types are quite rare. It is also noted that population pressure does not arise in continental climates where famine mortality is common because of high-amplitude changes in productivity from year to year. It is argued that population pressure is a necessary and sufficient condition for and the efficient cause of socioeconomic complexity. The widespread disavowal by archaeologists of population pressure as a possible explanation for the prehistoric development of complex hunter-gatherers has no basis in ethnographic fact.     

Long cycle theory and the hegemonic powers' basing networks

One recent focus of research in international relations theory is that of “long cycle theory,” associated primarily with George Modelski and William Thompson, which posits serial cycles of hegemonic dominance — Venice, Portugal, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the United States — lasting approximately for one century. These hegemonic cycles are highly correlated with, or underpinned by, maritime and commercial dominance. Some aspects of long cycle theory have been contested by the rival “world systems” theory, that has fewer cycles and a disinclination to separate the military and economic dimensions of hegemony. Heretofore, naval power, as reflected in capital ship construction and orders of battle, has been used to measure maritime dominance. This research suggests that data for rival and successive global basing access networks could be used to inform and query the basis of long cycle theory; i.e., to provide a measure of “global reach”. There are additionally, interesting conceptual questions about the basis for basing access, as it has evolved historically; specifically, from a basis in conquest to one dependent upon diplomacy and various quid pro quo. The article suggests the need for more historical data collection on bases.     

Max Stirner, Hegel and the Young Hegelians: A reassessment

Max Stirner is generally considered a nihilist, anarchist, precursor to Nietzsche, existentialism and even post-structuralism. Few are the scholars who try to analyse his stands from within its Young Hegelian context without, however, taking all his references to Hegel and the Young Hegelians as expressions of his own alleged Hegelianism. This article argues in favour of a radically different reading of Stirner considering his magnum opus “Der Einzige und sein Eigentum” as in part a carefully constructed parody of Hegelianism deliberately exposing its outwornness as a system of thought. Stirner's alleged Hegelianism becomes intelligible when we consider it as a formal element in his criticism of Bauer's philosophy of self-consciousness. From within this framework it becomes quite clear what Stirner meant with such notions as “ownness” and “egoism”. They were part of his radical criticism of the implicit teleology of Hegelian dialectics as it found according to him its highmark in Bauer. In short, this article puts the literature on Stirner into question and tries for the first time in 30 years to dismantle Stirner's entire undertaking in “Der Einzige und sein Eigentum” by considering it first and foremost a radical criticism of Hegelianism and eventually the whole of philosophy while fully engaged in the debates of his time.     

FOCUS: The Scapula Representation could be the Key: A Further Contribution to the ‘Klasies Pattern’ Debate

Past discussion on the unusual skeletal part representations at Klasies River Mouth is briefly summarized. Recent discussion in this journal, regarding the “Klasies Pattern”, has focused upon the differential destruction of small and large bovid bone epiphyses by carnivore ravaging and density-mediated attrition. Bartram & Marean (1999) argue, from ethnoarchaeological study and consideration of other archaeological sites, that, unless shaft fragments are painstakingly identified, the upper limb bone epiphyses of large bovids will be seriously under-represented. They therefore suggest that the “Klasies Pattern” is likely to be artefact of taphonomic and analytical processes. Klein, Cruz-Uribe & Milo (1999) replied with a defence of the analytical procedures employed during the original Klasies River Mouth analysis. They also state that there was very little evidence of carnivore ravaging at Klasies River Mouth. In this paper, it is pointed out that Bartram & Marean's (1999) study only considered the humerus, radius, femur, tibia and metapodia. However, in the “Klasies Pattern” it is the scapula that is most notably abundant in the small bovid classes and most notably scarce in the large bovid classes. It is argued that, from the study of bone mineral densities and Brain's (1981) carnivore ravaging experiment, there is no reason to expect a differentially greater taphonomic destruction of large bovid scapulae. In fact, exactly the reverse may be true. It is therefore argued that at least this aspect of the “Klasies Pattern” must be considered to represent human differential bone transport, rather than an artefact of taphonomic processes.     

Dating of modified femora of extinct dwarf Hippopotamus from Southern Madagascar: Implications for constraining human colonization and vertebrate extinction events

Two significant events in the late Holocene history of Madagascar were (a) the arrival of people, and (b) the loss of nearly two dozen species of land vertebrates in the socalled “subfossil extinctions”. The consensus is that the faunal losses occurred shortly subsequent to human arrival, but the timing of these events is poorly constrained. The minimum age for initial human presence on the island may now be set at approximately 2000 bp, on the basis of AMS ¹⁴C dates for human-modified femora of extinct dwarf hippos from SW Madagascar. Assuming that this date also marks the beginning of deleterious human interactions with the subfossil fauna, and assuming that this fauna became completely extinct by 900 bp, the width of the anthropogenic “extinction window” may have been as long as c. 1000 a. This estimate, nearly twice the length of previous ones, is close to the unadjusted minimum for the duration of the terminal Pleistocene extinction event in the Americas. Whether or not this length of time comports with theoretical expectations of a “blitzkrieg” pattern of losses is uncertain, but greater refinement in dating the end of the subfossil extinctions is unlikely to produce radically shorter estimates of duration.     

Comments on Graf, Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 2009 “ “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”: evaluating the radiocarbon chronology of the middle and late Upper Paleolithic in the Enisei River valley, south-central Siberia”

Here I present a critical evaluation of the analysis conducted by Graf [Graf, K.E., 2009. “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”: Evaluating the radiocarbon chronology of the middle and late Upper Paleolithic in the Enisei River valley, south-central Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 694–707] of the Paleolithic radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dataset for the Upper Paleolithic sites in the Yenisei River basin of Central Siberia. Graf applied a rating system to the corpus of existing ¹⁴C data for the region, and announced some new ¹⁴C dates. The results obtained, however, are highly biased due to several factors, including prejudice concerning the higher accuracy of the AMS technique in ¹⁴C dating and that ¹⁴C dates from the same cultural component should overlap with plus–minus two sigmas; ambiguities with the subdivision of the Lateglacial period; artificially high sample selection criteria; incomplete factual material; and unjustifiable and misleading statements on the ¹⁴C dating of fossil bones and the issue of Last Glacial Maximum human presence in Siberia. As a result, the conclusions made by Graf [Graf, K.E., 2009. “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”: Evaluating the radiocarbon chronology of the middle and late Upper Paleolithic in the Enisei River valley, south-central Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 694–707] are unconvincing. New analysis is necessary in order to improve the quality of treatment of the original data for the Upper Paleolithic ¹⁴C chronology in the Yenisei River basin.     

Warrior geopolitics: Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and The Kingdom Of Heaven

The “war on terror” and remilitarization of political anxiety in the aftermath of September 11th in the West, is both facilitated and challenged by representations of geopolitical danger and the supposed necessity for warriors to fight wars in distant lands. Ridley Scott's three movies, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and most recently The Kingdom of Heaven explore the morality and identity of warriors. They do so in exotic landscapes and settings that emphasize the confrontation with danger as external and frequently unknowable; political violence is presented as something that has both simple and very complicated geographies. The public discussion of the necessity for warfare and “intervention” in Western states is enmeshed in discourses of moralities, rights and “just war”. The professional Western warrior, whether a special forces operative or garrison soldier in peacekeeping mode, is a key figure of the post September 11th era, physically securing the West, and simultaneously securing its identity as the repository of virtue against barbaric threats to civilization. These themes are key to Ridley Scott's work. Analyzing them in terms of the warrior, empire and the particular geographies of combat adds a specifically military dimension to the critical geopolitical literature on war and representation.     

Rationales in Old World Base Glass Compositions

It is long known that most Egyptian and Roman base glass compositions show a remarkably small scatter in their chemical composition. By plotting appropriately reduced base glass compositions in ternary phase diagrams it is demonstrated that the compositional fields defined by the compositional scatter are closely related to eutectic regions within the relevant phase diagrams. This is interpreted as to be due to an eutectic melting regime, i.e. partial melting in the presence of a crystalline buffer or residuum, and not primarily a result of strict recipe and raw material control. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that possibly two independent melting temperature indicators are correlated, suggesting a factual relationship between melting temperature and melt composition. This evidence is taken to develop a “partial batch melting model” for these early glasses, as opposed to the “total batch melting model” of Mediaeval and early modern glasses. Some archaeological implications of this model are briefly discussed.     

An evaluation of Keeley's microwear approach

Lawrence Keeley has developed a microwear approach to lithic use-wear analysis which he claims will enable an investigator to reconstruct aspects of implement function. A notable feature of his approach is the assertion that distinctive wear-polishes form as a result of contact with specific worked materials, making the identification of worked materials possible. To verify the power of this approach, an independent “blind test” was conducted in which Keeley attempted to identify the uses of a set of experimental implements. While the test results support the utility of Keeley's approach in identifying worn areas on an implement and kinematics of use, we suggest the results do not demonstrate the existence of characteristic wear-polishes and thus question the efficacy of this technique in identifying worked materials.A reply by Keeley to this evaluation follows this paper.     

The persistence of white ethnicity in New England politics

There was a consensus among earlier students of New England politics that the political influence of European ancestry was fading by the latter half of the 20th century. We examine this proposition in recent times by exploring the role of ethnic ancestry in explaining the political divide in the region's presidential voting in over 1500 New England towns. Contrary to earlier predictions, ethnic origin does retain some explanatory power in models of recent voting behavior, and ethnic cleavages have not been entirely replaced by economic divisions in the electorate. Although the settlement patterns of the more established and numerous nationality groups (i.e. Irish and Italians) are less associated with partisanship than they were 50 years ago, the political salience of white ethnicity persists, suggesting that ethnic groups do not simply dealign or politically “assimilate” over time. Some groups maintain a strong identity in spite of upward mobility because movement from city to suburbs is selected not just on housing, income or school characteristics, as is usually the case, but on ethnicity too. Towns with significant concentrations of specific European ancestry groups lean Republican, even after we have accounted for the presence of other sources of political leaning and past voting tendencies, while Democratic attachments are undeniably strong in towns where the newer immigrant groups have settled. The “new ethnicity” (i.e. racial minorities) and the “old ethnicity” (i.e. white ethnics) clearly carry distinct political implications for this region's presidential politics.     

Patterns of Diagenesis in Bone II: Effects of Acetic Acid Treatment and the Removal of Diagenetic CO3

Archaeological bones of varying preservation have been treated with 0·1 M acetic acid in order to investigate the effect on structural and chemical alterations caused by diagenesis. Acetic acid is commonly used as a “cleaning agent” for removing diagenetic carbonate from bone and enamel, in an attempt to recover original, biogenic signals for use in dietary and¹⁴C dating studies.Diagenetic parameters were measured before and after treatment on a range of archaeological bones with good and bad preservation. Histological preservation defined the behaviour of the correlating parameters, where correlation coefficients between carbonate content and crystallinity, microporosity and macroporosity increased significantly after treatment. For histologically well preserved material, acetic acid is effective at returning carbonate content to around that of modern bone. Where bone is extensively damaged by micro-organisms, “loose” diagenetic material can be removed, but a fraction largely composed of hypermineralized bioapatite remains, which, we believe, cannot be reliably used to obtain accurate biological signals.     

The emigration state and the modern geopolitical imagination

This article systematically reviews how a large number of states relate to their diasporas. It shows how states constitute various extra-territorial groups as members of a loyal diaspora, through a diverse range of institutions and practices. The article distinguishes two types of diaspora mechanism: one which cultivates and recognizes diaspora communities, and another which draws them into reciprocal ties with their homeland. The article demonstrates that, contrary to the common wisdom, it is normal for states to have a variety of such mechanisms protruding beyond their borders and impacting on a variety of extra-territorial groups. It is useful to view these institutions and practices collectively as “the emigration state”. The article argues that the emigration state has been overlooked by what John Agnew calls “the modern geopolitical imagination”, in which territorial nation-state units, locked into competition at a fixed international scale, are thought of as the highest form of political organization.     

Parading the green – Procession as subaltern resistance in Manchester in 1867

This paper discusses the use of procession as a technique of subaltern resistance in a situation where hegemonic power is particularly dominant. After a review of the literature on hegemony, resistance and the origin and nature of processions, it discusses the situation in Manchester in late 1867 following the execution of the three Irishmen who became known as “The Manchester Martyrs”. Using contemporary British and Irish newspapers of varied outlook, it analyses processions of sympathy held on 24 November and 1 December. The organisation, route and composition of the processions and the dress and behaviour of the participants are analysed to demonstrate how procession can express resistance. The case study demonstrates how hegemony and resistance are closely intertwined and that spaces for resistance exist even in the most difficult circumstances, provided those organising resistance show sufficient understanding of the opportunities offered by national and local cultural traditions and local power relationships, and are able to persuade their followers to tailor their act of resistance to that context.