Pioneers of Affective Neuroscience and Early Concepts of the Emotional Brain

Views on the representation of emotion in the brain, as formulated about a century ago, are described, with a focus on the Vienna physiologist and psychologist Sigmund Exner, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and the French physician Israel Waynbaum. All three can be characterized as forerunners in the field of “affective neuroscience”. By the turn of the century, they had developed a neural network theory of emotion which included a stage of pre-cortical processing. In spite of their otherwise very diverse theoretical backgrounds, their concepts of parallel processing routes were highly similar. It is interesting to note that their ideas were on line with present-day views on the neural substrates and physiological characteristics of emotional processing, although none of the three scientists could rely on the refined anatomical knowledge available nowadays.     

Notes from Batavia, the Europeans' graveyard: the nineteenth-century debate on acclimatization in the Dutch East Indies

Since the advent of European colonial expansion, medical theories of acclimatization have been inextricably related to convictions about the possibility and desirability of white settlement in the colonies, and political ideas of colonial governance. Before 1800, acclimatization theories emphasized the inherent flexibility of the human constitution and its ability to adapt to new environments. During the first half of the nineteenth century, European theorists came to highlight the vulnerability of white Europeans in the tropics to disease, degeneration, and death instead. They consequently argued that white settlement in the tropics was impossible and inadvisable. European physicians in the British and French colonies presented similar views. By contrast, their colleagues in the Dutch East Indies remained optimistic. They associated themselves with the colonial European settler community and shared their grievances against autocratic colonial rule. They presented medical theories which related acclimatization to prudent behavior, morality, and proper management of the environment, thereby downplaying the significance of climate and high temperatures. During the following decades, their views on acclimatization were transferred to the Netherlands, where they were deployed as an argument against the cultivation system, the then-current approach of colonial governance, which emphasized the trade of cash crops grown by the indigenous population, severely limited European settlement, and curtailed the rights of Europeans living in the Indies. Throughout the nineteenth century, the influence of climate and the possibility of acclimatization became recurring themes in debates about colonial governance in both the Dutch East Indies and the Netherlands.     

Ancient bacterial DNA (aDNA) in dental calculus from archaeological human remains

The purpose of this study was to identify reactive bacterial aDNA in archaeological human dental calculus. Dental calculus was collected from a middle/late Neolithic human skull from Hulbjerg passage grave, Langeland, Denmark and prepared for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) or gold-labeled antibody TEM. TEM showed calcified, as well as non-calcified bacteria. Immunogold labeling occurred over the cytoplasmic portions of the sectioned bacteria. The result demonstrated that it is possible to identify aDNA sequences from bacteria in archaeological material of considerable age by this technique.     

“‘Ruottiksi’, translated Paul Muotka patiently. ‘Kiitos.’” Mikael Niemi,Meänkieli and Readers Inside and Outside Tornedalen

The present study in the research field of literary multilingualism and literary codeswitching is based on Mikael Niemi's novel Mannen som dog som en lax (2006) [The man who died like a salmon]. The novel is set mainly in Tornedalen, a widely bilingual area in Sweden where many people speak both Swedish and Meänkieli, a national minority language in Sweden since 2000. All instances of codeswitching in the material studied were identified and an analysis, based on Eriksson and Haapamäki's model designed to analyse literary multilingualism and literary codeswitching, was performed. The model consists of three main components: (1) the communicative context of the analysed work; (2) the form of codeswitching in the analysed work; and (3) the possible literary functions of codeswitching in the analysed work. The sender, Mikael Niemi, does not consider himself bilingual and most intended receivers are not bilingual either, even though linguistic conditions are central to the theme of the novel. Swedish is the base language of the novel, while elements of Meänkieli/Finnish, varieties of Swedish, and other languages represent a small fraction of the entire text. Implicit literary codeswitching predominates in the material in the form of metalinguistic comments and contextualization cues. By far the most common type of explicit literary codeswitching is between Swedish and Meänkieli/Finnish. The novel contains examples of literary codeswitching used in attempts to reproduce authentic usage and depict an authentic linguistic setting. In other examples, Tornedalen, Tornedalians and Meänkieli/Finnish are depicted as exotic phenomena compared with the majority society. Likewise, there are examples of how certain passages in the novel may include or exclude readers, depending on their understanding of Meänkieli/Finnish. Certain elements of Meänkieli can be interpreted as expressions of linguistic emancipation and the liberation of identity that empowers speakers of Meänkieli and the community of these speakers.     

Between the Piles. Studying Excavation Photographs to Determine the Area of Physical Disturbance Caused by Piling in the Netherlands

Excavation photographs that show piles can be used to determine and measure the area of disturbance around piles. Until now, this has only been done at a small scale and with ideal examples. The present study shows that less ideal photographs can also be used to determine the disturbance around piles, at a much larger scale. Using predefined methods of documentation and registration, data can be collected about the disturbance of different types of piles, with varied piling techniques, in various burial environments and archaeological contexts. This data will be used in the second phase of the research to determine the loss of archaeological information due to piling.     

Under Pressure: A Laboratory Investigation into the Effects of Mechanical Loading on Charred Organic Matter in Archaeological Sites

The present publication investigates what happens to archaeological sites when they are built over. Focus is put on the degradation of charred organic materials by static loading. It is assumed that materials lose archaeological value if their fragments become too small to be recovered, or too distorted to be classified at species level. Several charred ecofacts of a few millimetres in size (wood fragments, hazelnut shells, and seeds) have been selected and subjected to individual particle strength tests. Assemblages of these particles have also been compressed one-dimensionally and scanned at several stages of testing using laboratory based X-ray microtomography. Microscopic damage by splitting or crushing is found to be limited at the macroscopic yield stress. It initiated at stresses less than 80 kPa for the weakest assemblages, and in all cases at stresses below 320 kPa. (80 kPa represents the load of a 6 m high sand embankment on soft soil that has half-settled underneath the groundwater table, while 320 kPa corresponds to stresses applied beneath the pile foundation level of high-rise buildings.) Sand seeded with charred particles has also been tested to illustrate the beneficial effect of embedment of charred particles in sand during static one dimensional loading.