DNA analysis in charred grains of naked wheat from several archaeological sites in Spain

In the present work we attempt to recover endogenous ancient DNA from cereal grains preserved under different conditions: charred, partially charred and waterlogged. A total of 126 grains from naked wheat and 18 from barley from different sites on the Eastern Iberian Peninsula ranging from the beginning of agriculture in the region to the turn of the Common Era, were studied. Two different extraction protocols were used, a standard phenol–chloroform method and a silica-based DNA extraction procedure implemented for artificially charred seeds. Amplifications were directed to three markers: the large subunit of ribulose 1,5 biphosphate carboxylase (rbcL) and the microsatellite WCT12 in the chloroplast genome and the x and y subunits of the high molecular weight glutenin gene (Glu-1) in the nucleus. The first two were used to assess the preservation status of the samples, while with the third we tried to identify the wheat grains at species level. It was possible to obtain eleven positive amplifications in 8 partially charred seeds but only two amplifications of the Glu-1 gene from a single sample of the Early Bronze age were genome-specific. Different contamination sources were identified and reported. Cloning and alignment of sequenced clones showed a correspondence of the amplified fragment to modern wheat D genome haplotypes. This result suggests that the sample corresponds to hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), thus being the first ancient DNA evidence to date for the cultivation of hexaploid wheat in the prehistoric agriculture of the Iberian Peninsula. Moreover, obtained results highlight contamination problems associated to the study of ancient archaeobotanical charred seeds suggest that the combination of a silica-based extraction method together with the amplification of specific targets is a good strategy for recovering endogenous ancient DNA from this kind of material.     

A Shooting Incident at Insein Prison,Burma, in 1947

On 9 February 1947, a detachment of armed police was called into the Insein Central Gaol in the northern suburbs of Rangoon to quell a serious disturbance. The police fired into the rioting prison wards, killing four inmates—a further prisoner died of heart failure—and wounding three others. The inspector-general of prisons, Burma, the superintendent of the Insein Gaol, and the district superintendent of police were subsequently suspended from duty. This paper examines the background to the Insein Gaol shootings, the incident itself, the government-ordered enquiry into the shootings, the government's response to the enquiry's report, and the final fate of the three senior prison and police officials. The paper sets the Insein prison shootings, in all their aspects, in the context of the fierce struggle between the Burmese nationalists and a weakening British administration in the final months of colonial rule.     

Indo-Hispanic Dynamics: From Contact to Colonial Interaction in the Greater Antilles

Indo-Hispanic interaction is an essential issue in the colonial period in the Caribbean, but its study is currently marginalized as an offshoot of pre-Columbian archaeology. This state of affairs denies the indigenous contribution to the past and present ethnocultural composition of the region and privileges a colonial approach in scholarship. This paper reviews important aspects of the history of archaeological research on contact and colonial interaction in the Greater Antilles and its theoretical underpinnings. It also presents two recent archaeological case studies that show different facets of the interaction processes using new methodological approaches: El Cabo, Dominican Republic, with evidence of early contact, and El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba, a context of interethnic interaction under colonial conditions.     

Science,gender and moral ascendancy in liberal Italy

Following Italian unification ‘progressive’ physicians, jurists, and criminal sociologists, who constituted a sizeable if particular school of anticlericalism, adopted organic explanations separating responsible from pathological citizens. Positivist criminology enabled the conflation of sexual with political turbulence, of women with peasants and workers, of feminine deficiencies with Mezzogiorno underdevelopment. A secular, literate minority succeeded in resurrecting hierarchies grounded in gender, class and regional differences, and it did so without invoking the moral authority of the Catholic Church.