A brief exploration of neurological art history

The invention of realistic portraiture to reveal "inner life" is attributed by some art historians to Jan van Eyck who worked in Flanders from 1420 onwards. We show, using clinical neurological examination of the gold mask of Agamemnon dating from 1550-1500 BC and of the portraits of Henry III and his son Edward I -- important English royals -- painted between 1216 and 1307, that realistic portraits were made well before the 15th Century. Thus artists unwittingly used neurology as part of their realistic approach to the presentation of the face. Because neurological diagnosis is often visual, neurology, in turn, has a rich potential to unveil examples of realism in art. We consider the art pieces examined here also pertinent to art historians, as they assess the role of art in documenting history.     

Deriving Empirical Definitions of Spatial Labor Markets: The Roles of Competing Versus Complementary Growth

If economic growth elsewhere raises an individual's earning prospects relative to his present location, then the individual will move. However, if the individual can exploit economic growth elsewhere by commuting, he will not need to move to gain from the expansion. County-level data from eight states in the Midwest over the period 1969–1994 are used to show that local county population responds positively to own-county economic growth, economic growth in the adjacent county, and economic growth two counties away. The magnitude of the effect decreases as distance from the county increases, and turns negative beyond a three county radius.     

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL RANK IN THE EARLY NEOLITHIC OF NORTHERN EUROPE

Klavs Randsborg has made important contributions to the archaeology of the Bronze Age and later prehistoric periods, but in the 1970s he also touched upon issues such as the formation of rank in Neolithic societies. In his article ‘Social Dimensions of Early Neolithic Denmark’, he suggested that a hierarchical society arose at the transition from the Early to Middle Neolithic, c. 3300–3200 BC. Since then, excavations and research have resulted in numerous publications about the Neolithic, but only rarely have these examined social development. In this article, the authors continue the debate, sharing the same starting point as Klavs Randsborg, but here approaching the question of emerging social inequality on the background of recent research into the early agricultural societies in Northern Europe, seen in a broader European context. The primary focus is upon burial monuments as manifestations of status and power, and parallels are drawn with similar construction activities amongst present‐day farming communities in such remote areas as the islands of Southeast Asia. The social organisation and ritual customs of these modern farming communities are considered relevant when interpreting the archaeological evidence for early agricultural societies in Northern Europe.     

The intestines of a more than 2000 years old peat-bog man: microscopy,magnetic resonance imaging and C-dating

The intestines of Grauballe Man, who is a 2400-old late Iron Age body found in a raised bog in the central part of Jutland, Denmark, was examined by microscopy and magnetic resonance imaging. Plant roots found in the tissue were radiocarbon dated by AMS.     

Estimation of Anisotropic,Time-Varying Spatial Spillovers of Fine Particulate Matter Due to Wind Direction

This paper investigates the effect of daily wind direction and speed on the spatio-temporal distribution of particulate matter, . Interdependencies between the values of different monitoring sites are characterized by incorporating time-varying anisotropic spatial weighting matrices. These weights are parameterized with respect to wind direction, speed and a range that marks the bandwidth of admissible deviations between wind direction and bearing. The empirical analysis is based on daily values recorded by monitoring sites located across the eastern United States in 2015 as well as several meteorological regressors. More precisely, we propose a space-time dynamic panel data model with different spatial autoregressive, temporal and exogenous dependencies. All model parameters are estimated by the quasi-maximum likelihood approach. The estimation procedure, including the identification of the range and spatial parameters, is verified by Monte Carlo simulations. We show that part of the spatial dependency of values is explained by wind direction.