Another Dating Revolution for Prehistoric Archaeology?

Transitions to the Howiesons Poort Industry and other early modern human cultural phases have conventionally been explained as direct or indirect responses to major climatic and ecological fluctuations. Advances in optically stimulated luminescence dating have now provided the time resolution necessary to refute these explanations. However, for improvements in dating methods to have a revolutionary impact on the archaeology of early modern human evolution, the correction of these flawed narratives can only be regarded as a first step. What is more important is that the discipline now embraces the opportunity to analyse cultural entities in terms of their internal temporal structure, and hence to realign praxis with contemporary evolutionary theory.     

The 1932 and 1944 Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine: rewards for ground-breaking studies in neurophysiology

In 1932 Sherrington and Adrian were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries regarding the functions of neurons" and in 1944 Erlanger and Gasser were awarded the same prize "for their discoveries relating to the highly differentiated functions of single nerve fibres." Sherrington made important discoveries on the reflex functions of the spinal cord, formulated the concept of the "synapse," defined the principle of the "final common path," studied "reciprocal innervation" and showed that central inhibition was an active phenomenon. He distinguished three types of receptors: extero-, intero-, and proprioceptive, studied the proprioceptive reflexes in the decerebrate animal and mapped their pathways in the spinal cord. Adrian made fundamental discoveries on the function of single nerve fibers, developed new techniques for the amplification of the weak signals and discovered that increased stimulation resulted in increased frequency of the impulses, the amplitude being unaffected. Erlanger and Gasser introduced the cathode-ray oscillograph and demonstrated the existence of three main groups of nerve fibers, A, B, and C, the conduction velocities of which were in approximately linear relationship with the fiber diameter, the A-fibers being the fastest and thickest and the C-fibers the slowest and having the finest diameter. Together the contributions by the four Laureates paved the way to modern neurophysiology.     

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