We explore the standards of research and reporting needed to justify the destructive analysis of archaeological human bone for biomolecular studies of ancient tuberculosis (TB). Acceptable standards in osteological interpretation have been met in some biomolecular papers, but there are also cases where insufficient care has been taken in distinguishing between pathognomonic lesions and those that are ‘consistent with’ a diagnosis of TB. Some biomolecular studies have failed to recognize that archaeological bones might be contaminated with environmental mycobacteria whose DNA could give rise to false positives in polymerase chain reactions directed at members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. The difficulties of applying spoligotyping to ancient DNA have also been underestimated and conclusions drawn from such analyses are often weakly supported. Assumptions that mycobacterial DNA preserves better than human DNA, and that contamination with modern DNA is less of a problem, has led in some cases to a laxity in research standards with insufficient attention paid to the need to authenticate ancient DNA results. We illustrate our concerns by reference to a recent paper reporting biomolecular detection of ancient TB DNA in skeletons from the eastern Mediterranean Neolithic settlement of Atlit-Yam. We are unconvinced that the skeletal evidence presented in this paper gives sufficient indication of TB to warrant destructive analysis, and we are concerned that during the biomolecular part of the project inadequate attention was paid to the possibility that results might be due to laboratory cross-contamination or to amplification of environmental mycobacterial DNA present in the bones. 相似文献
Central place foraging models are used to investigate assemblage variability at two Paleoarchaic (terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene) dacite quarries in the central and eastern Great Basin. Our analyses focus specifically on biface reduction and how varying degrees of reduction relate to the costs of transporting the resulting products upon departing the quarry. Our results suggest that when the distance to be traveled to a residential base is great, reduction will proceed further at the quarry than if the residential base is fairly close. Further, a residential site assemblage will consist of bifaces at later stages of reduction than its associated quarry. 相似文献
Dynamique de l'espace français et aménagement du territoire. (The Dynamics of French Space and Spatial Planning), Michel Rochefort. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1995, 138 pp, £15.00, ISBN 2 7384 3338 3
Urban Process and Power. Peter Ambrose. London and New York: Routledge, 1994, 245 pp, £12.00 pb, ISBN 1 415 00850 6; £40.00 hb, ISBN 0 415 00850 4
Transport Systems, Policy and Planning: a Geographical Approach. R. Tolley and B. Turton. Harlow: Longman, 1995, xviii + 401 pp, £20.99 pb, ISBN 0 582 00562 0
Transport Policy—Ways into Europe's Future (Strategies and Options for the Future of Europe: Basic Findings 8). K. Button, with contributions by W. Weidenfeld, G. Wolfgang Heinze, H. H. Kill, R. Münch, N. Walter, G. Topmann, H. Holzapfel and K. O. Schallaböck. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, 1994, 227 pp, £9.00, ISBN 3 89204 065 6
The European Challenge: Geography and Development in the European Community. M. Blacksell and A. M. Williams (Eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 429 pp, 1994, £45.00 hb, ISBN 0 19 874176 6; £15.95 pb, ISBN 0 19 874177 4相似文献
In Ghana, strategies to address poverty among rural women have often been linked to women's empowerment programmes with credit as a core component of these. Yet, many programmes focus on the economic benefit to women without necessarily looking at the impact on gender relations at the household level and its implications on women. Using quantitative and qualitative data from the Dangme West district of Ghana, this article shows how poverty reduction programmes with credit components can reduce women's vulnerability to poverty and empower them. But much more needs to be done to complement these efforts. The study shows that women beneficiaries as against women non-beneficiaries have significantly improved their socio-economic status through access to financial and non-financial resources. This has in certain instances improved gender relations at the household level, with women being recognized as earners of income and contributors to household budget. However, some women still regard their spouses as ‘heads’ and require their consent in decisions even in issues that have to do with their own personal lives. Moreover, the improved economic status of women has resulted in a ‘power conflict’, creating confrontation between spouses. The article recommends that, as part of their programmes, assisting organizations and institutions must address ‘power relations’, the basis of gender subordination at the household level, otherwise socio-cultural norms and practices, underpinned by patriarchal structures, will remain ‘cages’ for rural women. 相似文献
Concerns about the decline in uptake of secondary geography education continue despite arguments supporting the value of geography education, the power of geographical thinking, and geography’s critical role in preparing students to deal with complex challenges. Already constrained by neoliberal politics of disadvantage, young people must plan and prepare for chaotic futures. Consequently, young people are becoming distressed and worried about their futures and feeling powerless as society fails to adequately address these issues. In this article, we ask what schools and universities can do as place-based public institutions to serve young people to effectively respond to eco-anxiety and build capacities to surf the unrelenting waves of change. We draw on journeys that brought three young doctoral candidates to study geography. From their stories, we sketch what a geographical education could offer in terms of relevance, practicality, and engagement with transformative system change. We think that under current world conditions, this is a moment to revive geography education and give it renewed purpose to encourage young people to develop skills and competences to tackle wicked problems. 相似文献
The archaeological record of the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in the Great Basin consists largely of surface lithic artifacts, and consequently research has concentrated on typological and technological studies. The small suite of radiocarbon dates available suggests human presence in the Great Basin by at least 11,500 B.P., but evidence of subsistence is scanty. Technological analyses as well as artifact distributions suggest that the earliest occupants of this region subsisted primarily by hunting, possibly large terrestrial game. As elsewhere in North America, the earliest occupants of the Great Basin faced a rapidly changing environment, with the drying of shallow pluvial lake remnants and the creation of new habitats. Paralleling these changes, significant subsistence resource diversification coupled with expansion into new environments is evident by the close of the Pleistocene. 相似文献