Beijing Doctors＇ Gospel to the Children of the Plateau Who Are Suffering from Congenital Heart Diseases

Kunsang Yangzom burst into tears. If the Beijing medical team, aiming to complete a medical survey and treatment, did not drive 220-odd kilometers from Lhasa to Nakartse County in Lhoka Prefecture, the l 1-year-old little girl would never have known she had a congenital heart disease. If she had missed this opportunity to get treatment, in the coming some days her life would be at risk due to heart failure which might be caused by pulmonary hypertension and endocarditis.     

广元石窟彩绘初探

本文从广元石窟中纪年妆彩的题记内容,分析了自晚唐以后各时期广元石窟妆彩的内容与技法。进一步对广元石窟晚唐停顿开凿的历史原因和条件进行探讨,又从妆彩施主的社会地位分析了五代元代两次重要妆彩的背景与利州（广元）的独特历史地理位置密切相关。     

浅析马家窑文化彩陶几何纹纹饰

马家窑文化不同类型时期彩陶几何纹纹饰呈现出不同的特点和演变、发展脉络,本文主要探讨了几何纹纹饰风格的发展趋向和规律,分析了其产生的社会、技术因素,以期对我国史前先民的审美标准与价值取向有所了解。     

仰韶文化半坡类型早期彩陶鱼纹纹饰新释

半坡类型是仰韶文化的早期类型,鱼纹纹饰则是半坡类型彩陶最具特色和代表性的纹饰,在半坡类型文化早期多为单体鱼纹。对于半坡类型彩陶鱼纹纹饰的研究,学术界提出了很多不同观点,本文在各家观点的基础上,对之作出一种全新的解释,认为半坡类型彩陶鱼纹纹饰体现了半坡居民对鱼在水中游的这一自然现象的渴望、向往以及对水底世界的好奇。     

TRAVELOGUE ON THE UNINHABITED LAND OF NORTH TIBET

<正>Setting foot on the eternally snow-covered Qinghai-Tibet national road and heading to the"roof of the world",my gaze was unavoidably fixed on the vast but harsh conditions in the north-west of the Tibetan plateau.This is the"Changtang uninhabited land"to which people so often refer. It has been about 20 years since I last encountered the"uninhabited land"of North Tibet.Surprisingly,however,today I find this mysterious land has undergone an earthshaking change.     

Cultural cumulative effects: Communicating energy extraction's true costs

Residents of northeastern British Columbia's Peace River region concurrently confront intensifying oil/gas drilling, reinvigorated coal mining and the construction of a third massive hydroelectric dam. After years of approaching industrial impacts as temporally and spatially isolatable, calls to acknowledge cumulative ecological effects are finally being heard. Yet the sociocultural disruptions that accompany biophysical alterations are equally essential components of a comprehensive cumulative effects agenda. This article considers how frameworks for comprehending the consequences of landscape‐altering, life‐changing projects could be expanded to address both the complex realities of ecological degradation and the entangled cultural and political transformations that contour local communities and lives. Ultimately, the resource extraction experiences at the forefront of regional residents’ minds must be recognized as key determinants of forthcoming socio‐natural worlds, as they arise and aggregate out of countless culturally constituted and politically mediated decisions to embrace, accept or oppose extractive schemes.     

Stable isotope analysis of a medieval skeletal sample indicative of systemic disease from Sigtuna Sweden

In Sigtuna, Sweden, several medieval cemeteries have been excavated, from which approximately 800 skeletons have been excavated and analysed. Archaeological finds and anthropological analyses have exposed social differences between the cemeteries. Stable isotope analyses have shown that the inhabitants of the town consumed a mixed diet. Significant differences in dietary patterns between the cemeteries may be related to social stratification.In the outskirts of a churchyard excavated in 2006, bone changes showing systemic inflammatory disease indicative of leprosy were observed in six individuals. The burial location suggests that the affected belonged to a lower social stratum. Bone samples were taken from these six individuals, 19 other human skeletons and five animals from the same cemetery for analysis of the stable isotope composition of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and sulphur (S).The results showed no significant differences in δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values between the groups, i.e. the seemingly healthy humans and the humans affected by severe inflammatory disease appear to have had similar diets. Nor was a significant difference observed in δ³⁴S data between the six affected individuals and the rest of the sample, implying that no difference in origins could be observed between the two groups studied. However, a comparison between the present study and the previous analysis resulted in significant differences in carbon values.Based on the results obtained in this investigation it is suggested that if a dietary difference existed between people in the outskirts of a cemetery (for example those suffering from leprosy) and people buried in higher ranked regions, it was not a difference in food source but rather in other parameters. Instead dietary differences and possibly social variations are demonstrated between cemeteries. The results from the present study highlight the hierarchical arrangements of social classes in the early medieval society.     

Early history of Chinese domestic sheep indicated by ancient DNA analysis of Bronze Age individuals

China has a long history of sheep husbandry, and has several indigenous sheep breeds. However, the exact geographic origin of Chinese domestic sheep remains unclear. To provide valuable genetic information for origin of Chinese domestic sheep, we performed an ancient DNA study on 22 sheep excavated from four Bronze Age archaeological sites in Northern China. Two lineages (A and B) were observed in ancient Chinese sheep, of which lineage A was predominant reaching a frequency of 95.5%. Furthermore, phylogenetic network showed that the most frequent haplotype in ancient sheep was the founder of lineage A. These results suggest that Lineage A may hold the key to understanding the origin of Chinese domestic sheep. Sequence sharing and principal component analysis showed that the ancient Chinese sheep had a close affinity to modern Chinese sheep. However, there was no significant breed structure among three modern Chinese sheep groups, making it difficult to determine their relationship to ancient Chinese sheep. Lastly, our results imply that ancient DNA analysis could provide a new way to investigate prehistoric East-West contact.