Cajal's Brief Experimentation with Hypnotic Suggestion

Spanish histologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, one of the most notable figures in Neuroscience, and winner, along with Camillo Golgi, of the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries on the structure of the nervous system, did not escape experimenting with some of the psychiatric techniques available at the time, mainly hypnotic suggestion, albeit briefly. While a physician in his thirties, Cajal published a short article under the title, “Pains of labour considerably attenuated by hypnotic suggestion” in Gaceta Médica Catalana. That study may be Cajal's only documented case in the field of experimental psychology. We here provide an English translation of the original Spanish text, placing it historically within Cajal's involvement with some of the key scientific and philosophical issues at the time.     

An empirical test of the relative frequency of bipolar reduction in Beds VI,V, and III at Mumba Rockshelter,Tanzania: implications for the East African Middle to Late Stone Age transition

Mumba Rockshelter, Tanzania, is the only East African site spanning a continuous record of more than 100,000 years, including the Middle Stone Age (MSA) to Late Stone Age (LSA) Transition. Rather than examine the presence or absence of traditional markers of “behavioral modernity”, we have endeavored here to respond to the calls of Shea (2011) and Basell (2008) by examining the proportional similarity of a trait present throughout the MSA–LSA sequence at Mumba Rockshelter: the bipolar technique of lithic reduction. We use a quantified, experimentally derived proxy to track the relative amount of bipolar percussion among Mumba's Beds VI, V, and III, namely, waste shatter. Our examination of Mehlman's previously unanalyzed collections from Mumba demonstrates that in terms of bipolar production Bed V is statistically indistinguishable from the Late Stone Age (LSA) Bed III, but significantly different from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) Bed VI. Given that Bed V dates to 56.9 ± 4.8 − 49.1 ± 4.3 ka cal BP, this result is consistent with other evidence that the origins of the LSA in East Africa began well before 40 kya, and that Mumba Bed V represents one of the earliest manifestations of the LSA in East Africa. We conclude with a discussion of factors that may have influenced the increased dependence of bipolar production at the site.     

A cautionary note on the use of captive carnivores to model wild predator behavior: a comparison of bone modification patterns on long bones by captive and wild lions

A study with wild lions in Tarangire National Park (Tanzania) and with captive lions in Cabárceno Reserve (Spain) has yielded two different bone modification patterns, probably as a result of the differences in environmental contexts. Captive lions have modified bones more intensively, both in the form of total number of tooth-marked bones and number of tooth marks per tooth-marked bone, probably because of stereotypic behaviors. This emphasizes the importance of environmental contexts to understand carnivore behavior and their resulting bone modification patterns. It also shows that analogical models based on experiments carried out with captive carnivores may be biased and inadequate as proxies for wild carnivore bone modification behaviors.     

Potemkin Revolution: Utopian Jungle Cities of 21st Century Socialism

This paper explores the entanglement of ideology and materiality in the production of the spaces of 21^st century socialism. “Millennium Cities” are currently being constructed for indigenous communities throughout the Ecuadorian Amazon, with revenues derived from petroleum extracted within their territories. As iconic spatial symbols of the “Citizens’ Revolution”, the Millennium Cities would appear to embody “the original accumulation of 21^st century socialism”—a utopian state ideology promising the collective appropriation of natural resources without the dispossession of the peasantry. Drawing on extensive field research, we argue that they are better understood as a simulation of urban modernity that is symptomatic of the predominance of ground rent in South American capitalism, and which conceals the violent repression of an autonomous indigenous project of petroleum‐based modernization. The original accumulation of 21^st century socialism can therefore be interpreted as a “fantasy of origins”, which functions to reproduce the primitive accumulation of capital.     

Unraveling a Neanderthal palimpsest from a zooarcheological and taphonomic perspective

Practically all archeological assemblages are palimpsests. In spite of the high temporal resolution of Abric Romaní site, level O, dated to around 55 ka, is not an exception. This paper focuses on a zooarcheological and taphonomic analysis of this level, paying special attention to spatial and temporal approaches. The main goal is to unravel the palimpsest at the finest possible level by using different methods and techniques, such as archeostratigraphy, anatomical and taxonomical identification, taphonomic analysis, faunal refits and tooth wear analysis. The results obtained are compared to ethnoarcheological data so as to interpret site structure. In addition, activities carried out over different time spans (from individual episodes to long-term behaviors) are detected, and their spatial extent is explored, allowing to do inferences on settlement dynamics. This leads us to discuss the temporal and spatial scales over which Neanderthals carried out different activities within the site, and how they can be studied through the archeological record.     

Urbanization in Iron Age Europe: Trajectories,Patterns, and Social Dynamics

The development of the first urban centers is one of the most fundamental phenomena in the history of temperate Europe. New research demonstrates that the earliest cities developed north of the Alps between the sixth and fifth centuries BC as a consequence of processes of demographic growth, hierarchization, and centralization that have their roots in the immediately preceding period. However, this was an ephemeral urban phenomenon, which was followed by a period of crisis characterized by the abandonment of major centers and the return to more decentralized settlement patterns. A new trend toward urbanization occurred in the third and second centuries BC with the appearance of supra-local sanctuaries, open agglomerations, and finally the fortified oppida. Late Iron Age settlement patterns and urban trajectories were much more complex than traditionally thought and included manifold interrelations between open and fortified sites. Political and religious aspects played a key role in the development of central places, and in many cases the oppida were established on locations that already had a sacred character as places for rituals and assemblies. The Roman conquest largely brought to an end Iron Age urbanization processes, but with heterogeneous results of both abandonment and disruption and also continuity and integration.     

The Lower Paleolithic of Spain and Portugal

To most English readers the Lower Paleolithic of the Iberian peninsula is known mainly through a few sites such as Torralba and Ambrona, whose age and behavioral significance remain controversial. In fact, the archaeological data base for this period and region is much larger and more varied than is generally appreciated and includes primary-context sites such as Aridos that have provided unique combinations of evidence on hominid exploitation of elephant carcasses. This paper is both a comprehensive synthesis of our current knowledge and a first attempt to see patterns in the data. Every major occurrence is presented in its regional and geochronological framework; each is critically assessed for data quality and behavioral significance. Major issues addressed in this paper include the working out of regional sequences and intersite correlation, the age and significance of the oldest occurrences, the density and preferred areas of settlement within each region, temporal variation within the Acheulean, and the strength and weaknesses of the data and of our approaches to it.M.S. is responsible for the research and form of this paper; P.V. is responsible for translating, editing, and revising certain sections in consultation with the senior author.     

How real estate became ‘just another asset class’: the financialization of the investment strategies of Dutch institutional investors

The managers of a growing wall of money are continuously searching for investment opportunities. The financialization literature describes how this mobile capital puts pressure on commodities, debt, public services and economic activities to transform into investable, tradable, financial products. Regarding real estate, these investigations show how opaque, local, non-standardized goods, highly depending on both local legislation and developments, have been transformed into liquid, globally traded financial assets. By analysing the real estate investment strategies of Dutch institutional investors since the 1980s, this paper shows how a quantitative framework increasingly provides the basis for institutional investors’ real estate investment strategies. Direct ownership of properties has been exchanged into shares of properties, that is, fictitious capital, creating an impetus for ‘objectified numbers’ to measure the performance of these indirect investments. As knowledge about real estate has been outsourced, Dutch institutional investors now perceive real estate increasingly as ‘just another asset class’, thereby increasing leverage and volatility. This paper not only shows how finance ‘financialized’ itself by adopting a quantitative investment perspective, but it also offers an empirical account on how investment properties are transformed into financial assets that put pressure on state agencies to mobilize urban planning to deliver more of such assets.     

Documenting the indignation: Responses to the 2008 financial crisis in contemporary Spanish cinema

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to analyze two Spanish documentary films that reflect on the 2008 financial crisis in Spain, Mercado de futuros (Mercedes Álvarez, 2011) and No estamos solos (Pere Joan Ventura, 2015). These movies could be marked as political for their choice of a collective protagonist and for dealing with the issues of inequality with the purpose of appealing to mobilization and resistance to the neoliberal Western agenda that have provoked social cutbacks after the 2008 crisis. Mercedes Álvarez and Pere Joan Ventura follow the tradition of political documentaries traced by filmmakers such as Dziga Vertov, Joris Ivens, Pere Portabella, and Basilio Martín Patino and open the debate on how people can contribute to searching for renewal policies in times of crisis.     

Guidelines for On-Site Assessment of Historic Timber Structures

In the scope of European Cooperation in Science and Technology–Wood Science for Conservation of Cultural Heritage (COST IE0601–WoodCultHer) (available at http://www.woodculther.org) it was agreed to produce Guidelines for the Assessment of Historic Timber Structures, covering the principles and possible approaches for the safety assessment of old timber structures of historical relevance that could be used as the basis for possible European Standards, as discussed with CEN/TC346 (Conservation of Cultural Heritage).

This approach was targeted at all those concerned with the conservation of heritage buildings. These guidelines should also help decision-making regarding the need for immediate safety measures. The aim is to guarantee that inspection and assessment measures provide the necessary data for historical analysis, structural safety assessment, and planning of intervention works, while having minimal impact on the building fabric (the original materials, structural systems, and techniques).This article provides information on the criteria to be used in the assessment of load-bearing timber structures in heritage buildings. It covers the preliminary assessment (desk survey, preliminary visual survey, measured survey, structural analysis, and preliminary report), as well as the detailed survey of timbers (with a special emphasis on visual strength grading on site) and carpentry joints. The subsequent diagnostic report and the detailed design of repairs are outside its scope.