Why Scotland needs more than just a new migration policy

The Scottish Executive has adopted a policy to combat Scotland's declining population by encouraging inward migration. Using a multi‐state population model this paper presents nine long‐term population scenarios for Scotland using three net international migration levels and three fertility paths. The results show inward migration can slow population decline but makes little difference to population ageing. Without a higher fertility rate Scotland's population will become demographically unsustainable. Our simulations show that a higher fertility rate substantially reduces the future ageing.     

A simulation of the transmission of HIV and AIDS in regional populations within the United Kingdom

"The spread of HIV-1 in the United Kingdom is simulated by a model which integrates behavioural and epidemiological processes within a multi-regional population projection framework and represents the spatial heterogeneities in the distribution of HIV which have significant effects on transmission patterns. Analyses determine the significance of different parameters in contributing to prediction uncertainty and highlight the importance of behavioural change and international population movements."     

Genealogies of Practice in and of the Environment in Banda,Ghana

Despite recent emphases on both environmental archaeology and practice theory in archaeology, the two are rarely combined. In this paper, we illustrate a genealogies of environmental practice approach that seeks to understand how human actions grounded in familiar repertoires make sense of environmental and political economic change. Employing archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data, we first examine taxon-specific genealogies of practice and then compare them to one another as well as to broader climatic, political, and economic contexts of the last millennium in Banda, west central Ghana. In focusing on the interactivities between different kinds of data, we coax out the strategies used by Banda’s inhabitants to cope with fluctuating environmental and political conditions. We argue that during a several centuries long drought in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries ad, Banda villagers took advantage of a diverse set of economic activities to cope with turbulence, but by the late nineteenth century, these opportunities had dwindled, diminishing the villagers’ practical options.     

Reduced Population Variance in Strontium Isotope Ratios Informs Domesticated Turkey Use at Chaco Canyon,New Mexico,USA

Traditionally, strontium isotopes (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) have been used as a sourcing tool in numerous archaeological artifact classes. The research presented here demonstrates that ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr_bioapatite ratios also can be used at a population level to investigate the presence of domesticated animals and methods of management. The proposed methodology combines ecology, isotope geochemistry, and behavioral ecology to assess the presence and nature of turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) domestication. This case study utilizes ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr_bioapatite ratios from teeth and bones of archaeological turkey, deer (Odocoileus sp.), lagomorph (Lepus sp. and Sylvilagus sp.), and prairie dog (Cynomys sp.) from Chaco Canyon, NM, USA (ca. A.D. 800–1250). Wild deer and turkey from the southwestern USA have much larger home ranges and dispersal behaviors (measured in kilometers) when compared to lagomorphs and prairie dogs (measured in meters). Hunted deer and wild turkey from archaeological contexts at Chaco Canyon are expected to have a higher variance in their ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr_bioapatite ratios, when compared to small range taxa (lagomorphs and prairie dogs). Contrary to this expectation, ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr_bioapatite values of turkey bones from Chacoan assemblages have a much lower variance than deer and are similar to that of smaller mammals. The sampled turkey values show variability most similar to lagomorphs and prairie dogs, suggesting the turkeys from Chaco Canyon were consuming a uniform diet and/or were constrained within a limited home range, indicating at least proto-domestication. The population approach has wide applicability for evaluating the presence and nature of domestication when combined with paleoecology and behavioral ecology in a variety of animals and environments.