Captain Everill’s Error: Mapping the Upper Strickland River in Papua and New Guinea, 1885–1979

An error dating from 1885 in mapping the upper Strickland River, Papua New Guinea, was reinforced and extended by government officer Charles Karius in 1929 when reporting results from a lengthy exploratory patrol. Detailed maps produced by the US Army and the Royal Australian Survey Corps in, respectively, 1942 and 1966 perpetuated these errors. It was not until 1979, with release of a series of 1:100,000 topographic maps, that long-standing errors were finally put to rest. Throughout these years, the contributions of well-informed people tended to be ignored in favour of the opinions of those whose status implied authority.     

On the Origins and Dissemination of Domesticated Sorghum and Pearl Millet across Africa and into India: a View from the Butana Group of the Far Eastern Sahel

Four decades have passed since Harlan and Stemler (1976) proposed the eastern Sahelian zone as the most likely center of Sorghum bicolor domestication. Recently, new data on seed impressions on Butana Group pottery, from the fourth millennium BC in the southern Atbai region of the far eastern Sahelian Belt in Africa, show evidence for cultivation activities of sorghum displaying some domestication traits. Pennisetum glaucum may have been undergoing domestication shortly thereafter in the western Sahel, as finds of fully domesticated pearl millet are present in southeastern Mali by the second half of the third millennium BC, and present in eastern Sudan by the early second millennium BC. The dispersal of the latter to India took less than 1000 years according to present data. Here, we review the middle Holocene Sudanese archaeological data for the first time, to situate the origins and spread of these two native summer rainfall cereals in what is proposed to be their eastern Sahelian Sudan gateway to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean trade.     

Gabrielle Lévy and the Roussy-Lévy syndrome

In 1934, Gabrielle Lévy died at the age of 48. She became well known for an article she published on a hereditary polyneuropathy in cooperation with Gustav Roussy, resulting in the eponym Roussy-Lévy syndrome. Not much is known about this extraordinary neurologist/neuropathologist. Her family declared that she died from the disease she was studying. She was a pupil of Pierre Marie, with whom she worked at the Salpêtrière in Paris and wrote on war neurology. In cooperation with Marie, she published a number of articles on postencephalitic syndromes, which also became the subject of her 1922 thesis. Three years later, she became associate physician at the Paul-Brousse Hospital in Paris, where the study of brain tumors became one of the subjects of her scientific work. Remarkably, Lévy was first author in a few of her many articles, although Roussy confirmed that she often initiated the study and even wrote the main part. In this article her career is considered in the context of the struggle of women physicians to improve their position during the early-twentieth century. She probably died from a brain tumor or a postencephalitic syndrome.     

The architecture of the Iron Age II fortified settlement at Muweilah (Sharjah,United Arab Emirates)

Excavations at Muweilah have uncovered twelve buildings encircled by two pairs of walls and ditches. We have published preliminary studies of several buildings. Research has now progressed to a stage where it is possible to produce a more complete analysis of the architecture. In this report, we present a detailed discussion of the fortifications and each building with its installations. Our assessment of the architecture identified the repeated combination of three rooms in many of the buildings in the Central Area of Muweilah. Moreover, a detailed study of the fortifications revealed several means of accessing Building II, the columned hall, in the Western Area. These findings offer insights into the organisation of Iron Age II settlements in south‐eastern Arabia.     

Telepresence-Enabled Maritime Archaeological Exploration in the Deep

Telepresence-enabled exploration of deep sea environments has developed over the past 30 years, providing access to archaeologists, scientists, and the general public to sites otherwise inaccessible due to depth. Pioneered through the inception of the JASON Project in the late 1980 s, telepresence missions have expanded to two dedicated ships of exploration, NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer and exploration vessel Nautilus, and has been implemented on a series of opportunistic missions on other vessels. This paper chronicles the history of the use of telepresence for the exploration of shipwrecks in deep water as well as how this capability has allowed the public to engage with such missions. Broadening the scope of who can explore the deep sea, telepresence has also expanded what is observed and documented in the deep, which speaks to humanity’s use of the maritime world and an archaeology of discard through our material disposed of into the deep sea.     

‘The Wind has been Gathering Force’: Iain Macleod and his Policy Change on Tanganyika

This article examines the decision in May 1960 by the British colonial secretary, Iain Macleod, to accelerate dramatically the independence timetable for Tanganyika. Making extensive use of recently released archive material, it looks at the key factors behind this largely neglected but nevertheless significant episode, seeking to demonstrate that, despite Macleod's subsequent recollection of events, there was a clear policy change in May 1960; that it was for the main part external nationalist and internationalist pressures which led to the policy change; that, importantly, newly identified short-term factors of a change of heart by nationalist leader Julius Nyerere, events in Somaliland and the need to demonstrate positive Commonwealth credentials were the immediate and decisive reasons behind the acceleration; and that, in explaining the advancement, it is valuable to understand why and how individual factors contributed to the policy change and how they worked together.     

Invasive cordgrass (Spartina spp.) in south‐eastern Australia induces island formation,salt marsh development,and carbon storage

Invasive vegetation species can lead to major changes in the geomorphology of coastal systems. Within temperate estuaries in the southern hemisphere, especially Australia and New Zealand, the cordgrass Spartina spp. has become established. These species are highly invasive, and their prolific growth leads to the development of supratidal environments in formerly intertidal and subtidal environments. Here, we quantified the impact of Spartina invasion on the geomorphology and sequestration capacity of carbon in the sediments of Anderson Inlet, Victoria, Australia. Spartina was first introduced to the area in the 1930s to aid in land reclamation and control coastal erosion associated with coastal development. We found that Spartina now dominates the intertidal areas of the Inlet and promotes accretion (18 mm/year) causing the formation of over 108 ha of supratidal islands over the past 100 years. These newly formed islands are calculated to potentially contain over 5.5 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent carbon. Future management of the inlet and other Spartina‐dominated environments within Australian presents a dilemma for resource managers; on the one hand, Spartina is highly invasive and can outcompete native tidal marshes, thereby warranting its eradication, but on the other hand it is likely more resilient to rising sea levels and has the potential for carbon sequestration. Whether or not the potential advantages outweigh the significant habitat change that is anticipated, any management strategies will likely require additional research into costs and benefits of all ecosystem services provided by Spartina including in relation to nutrient cycling, shoreline stabilisation, and biodiversity as well as in response to the longevity of carbon found within the sediments.