Biofilm growth in human skeletal material from ancient Mesopotamia

Investigators have long recognised the effects of microbial activity on archaeological bone. These investigators, however, have focused on single or groups of microbes rather than on complex microbial aggregates such as biofilms, a focus that has affected our understanding of archaeological bone biodeterioration. In this paper, we report on the investigation of a biofilm in archaeological human bone from the site of Tell Leilan, Syria (2900–1900 BCE). Scanning electron microscopy indicated that the biofilm is characterised by single cells and microcolonies of bacteria and fungi, as well as calcite crystals that were all embedded within extracellular polymeric substances. Using culture techniques and DNA sequencing, we isolated and identified several microbes from the biofilm including Amycolatopsis sp., Penicillium chrysogenum, Aspergillus sp., Chaetomium sp., and Cladosporium sp. Having characterised the Leilan biofilm, we are now closer to understanding the complex process of bone biodeterioration in archaeological bone collections.     

Small‐scale schooling and national development

In Greenland the conditions of the small settlement schools are very different from those of the large urban schools. And the opportunities (concerning further education and/or employment) for the young adults from the settlements are rather bad: Most of the young persons in settlements grow up to be unemployed and uneducated living on social welfare. Concerning the causes of the problems this paper calls attention to the importance of a multi‐factor theory operating on three levels: 1) Social factors in the settlement. 2) Factors in the school system. 3) Psychological factors.     

Memory,Trauma, and the French-Algerian War: Michael Haneke's Caché (2005)

This article examines Michael Haneke's 2005 film Caché and its treatment of the October 1961 massacre in light of recent scholarship about memory and trauma. It argues that the film demands of its viewers a complex, critical position, requiring us not merely to passively re-witness the traumatising events of 17 October, but to take on as spectators a more active role in the work of remembering. The article examines narrative and visual elements in the film in order to demonstrate how Caché illustrates and questions how film and other media forms contribute to the working through of collective trauma and, in so doing, function as potential ‘sites of memory’.     

Pressure groups and Australian health policymaking in the 1980s

In March 1983 the new Labor government was in a position to implement its health policies, including its promised revival of the community health program. Although funds were allocated, substantive issues of policy remained. Various parties at interest could agree on general principles but differed on operational meanings, means, and priorities. Seventy‐five groups whose leaders were interviewed devised an array of organizational strategies to influence policy development. These included reworking their own priorities and internal structures, developing media strategies, and changing their relations with outside organizations. The more successful groups, at least in the short term, tended to be older and larger.     

Ceramic style analysis in archaeology and ethnoarchaeology: Bridging the analytical gap

A refitting study with a sample of sherds from Broken K Pueblo indicates that at least some of the “patterning” in the assemblage identified by Hill (1970, Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona 18) results from unrecognized whole vessels and large conjoinable sherds. It is argued that contemporary stylistic analyses are based on many of the same analytical methods employed in the Broken K study and that research findings of ethnoarchaeology are rarely applied in the analysis of prehistoric ceramics. Despite archaeologists' increasing awareness of formation processes, spurred by ethnoarchaeological research, analytic methods that identify and take into account the effects of these processes on archaeological ceramic assemblages are underdeveloped. Suggestions are offered to resolve this problem, for both archaeological and ethnoarchaeological ceramic analysis, that may permit archaeologists to discover in prehistoric assemblages the same types of relationships identified in systemic assemblages.