Functional-adaptive features and palaeobiologic implications of the postcranial skeleton of the late Miocene sabretooth borhyaenoid Thylacosmilus atrox (Metatheria)

A functional-adaptive study of the postcranium of two late Miocene sabretooth borhyaenoid specimens (Mammalia, Metatheria) is presented. Thylacosmilus atrox developed a longer neck than in non-sabretooth borhyaenoids and was capable of strong flexion of the head. The lower back is well-stabilized and more rigid than in the other borhyaenoids. The forelimb appears well-suited for manipulating and capturing prey, with a probably well-developed deltoid and pectoral musculature. Compared with other Miocene borhyaenoids, the hip joint of Thylacosmilus is modified to allow greater postural flexibility (e.g. possibility of erect stances). The low greater femoral trochanter, the short and sigmoid tibia, and the semiplantigrade hind foot of Thylacosmilus precluded fast running. Thylacosmilus killed by stabbing, a peculiar mechanism that evolved in parallel in many other sabretooth taxa. This technique has significant functional-adaptive consequences on the postcranial skeleton, superimposed on the generalized morphological pattern reflected in its non-sabertooth relatives. The superficial similarities observed between Thylacosmilus and Smilodon overshadow real differences (at the level of joint patterns and muscular groups involved in particular movements), a condition that suggests the development in the marsupial form of a morphological type unique to the thylacosmilid lineage within Borhyaenoidea.     

Remains of an Eocene skink from Queensland

Azurduya gen. nov. (Brachiopoda: Camarotoechiidae) is described from Early Carboniferous sequences in the Argentine Precordillera and northern Chile. Marine assemblages and the palynoflora associated with this genus suggest a Tournaisian age. The type species Azurduya chavelensis (Amos, 1958) is reviewed and redescribed from material from the type locality. Additional material from equivalent localities in the Rio Blanco Basin (La Rioja and San Juan provinces, Argentine Precordilera) has been used to understand ontogenetic changes as well intraspecific variation. Azurduya cingolanii sp. nov. is proposed.     

The youngest non-lepidosirenid lungfish of South America (Dipnoi,latest Paleocene–earliest Eocene,Argentina)

The first lungfish tooth plate from the Las Flores Formation, Chubut, southern Argentina, is described. This is the youngest ceratodontid known from the continent. In Africa, ceratodonts disappeared in the Eocene. Afterwards, they are only known from Australia until their extinction during the Pleistocene. The Las Flores tooth plate also represents the southernmost lungfish known since the Coniacian (early Late Cretaceous).     

Securing the “Interests” of the South: John Mitchel,A.G. Magrath,and the Reopening of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Traditionally scholars have downplayed the importance of southern calls to reopen the transatlantic slave trade in the 1850s. Those who have paid serious attention to this effort see it as another endeavor by aristocratic planters to enshrine their social, economic, and political power in the antebellum South. The advocates were, as one puts it, “no champions of the common white man.” Two Irish-American leaders who supported the reopening, John Mitchel and Andrew Gordon Magrath, complicate this view of the attempt as just a planters’ plot. Their actions and opinions indicate that some proponents did see importing African slaves as something that would benefit all whites and not just the elite, and, as a result, protect the overall “interests” of the South. Mitchel and Magrath's support of Ireland and Irish immigrants and their opposition to British power influenced their positions on the matter.     

Boards and Cords: Discriminating Types of Artificial Cranial Deformation in Prehispanic South Central Andean Populations

For over a century, a number of ambiguous typologies have been employed to distinctly categorise types of artificial cranial deformation. This paper provides a quantitative method, based on multiple dimensions and discriminant function analysis, by which to assign skulls not only into discrete categories: deformed or not, but also by type: annular or tabular. A series of prehispanic, adult, human crania (n = 469) from archaeological sites in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru represented by both normal and artificially deformed specimens, provide craniometric data for four measurements across the vault: maximum cranial length, breadth and height and the frontal chord. These data are used to develop three indices which in turn are used to compute two discriminant functions. Results are plotted on a territorial map whereby the type of deformity can be determined. When these methods were applied to a comparative cranial sample of nondeformed skulls from South America, 100% of the samples was found to be nondeformed. When these methods were applied to the samples which were subjectively classified a priori by the first author as nondeformed, 81.3% of the samples were found to be nondeformed. This study demonstrates the value of a more objective and quantitative method by which to classify artificial cranial deformation, and thus provides a new approach. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Systematic status of the Miocene darter ‘Liptornis’ hesternus Ameghino, 1895 (Aves,Suliformes, Anhingidae) from Patagonia,Argentina

Diederle, J.M., 1.8.2015. Systematic status of the Miocene darter ‘Liptornis’ hesternus Ameghino, 1895 (Aves, Suliformes, Anhingidae) from Patagonia, Argentina. Alcheringa 39, 589–594. ISSN 0311-5518.

Liptornis hesternus was established by Ameghino in the late 1800s on the basis of a cervical vertebra (NHMUK-A599) from the Santa Cruz Formation (Santacrucian, South American Land Mammal Age, early Miocene, Burdigalian Stage) of Patagonia, Argentina. Although taxonomic attributions were controversial, the specimen is now confidently assigned to Anhingidae. Recently, however, L. hesternus was designated a nomen dubium because of its uninformative diagnostic characters and apparent loss of the holotype. Nevertheless, NHMUK-A599 has been relocated and is redescribed here prompting referral to Anhinga. A combination of traits are shared with the extant Anhinga anhinga and A. melanogaster, and the material is dimensionally compatible with A. anhinga. The estimated body size of NHMUK-A599 would have been larger than A. minuta but less than A. grandis, A. subvolans, A. fraileyi and A. walterbolesi. Finally, Anhinga hesterna is considered valid and represents the stratigraphically oldest occurrence of the genus in South America and the southernmost yet recorded.

Juan M. Diederle [juandiederle@cicyttp.org.ar], Laboratorio de Paleontología de Vertebrados, Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción (CICYTTP-CONICET), Materi y España, E3105BWA Diamante, Entre Ríos, Argentina.     

Rommel's Desert War

The article discusses why and how the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) European allies came to hold such divergent opinions over what was at stake in Vietnam. It also examines how European reluctance to fight alongside the United States in South-East Asia affected relations within NATO. The voices of the smaller NATO members will also be considered. The article concludes that the transatlantic rift was contained not just because of cold-war realities but also because the Johnson and Nixon administrations took steps to repair the transatlantic relationship and because European integration acted as a binding force.     

Classical Biography: An Ancient Literary Art

The contradictory and distorted portrayal of certain female attributes in Pablo Neruda's Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada is an attempt to understand and unveil, from an adolescent's point of view, the mystery of the "beloved." The lack of knowledge about the female explains the ambivalence and insecurity in the representation of the woman, which resolves itself through a strategy of metamorphosis and textual dissection. Nevertheless, to discover and possess these female attributes is an illusion, a mirage created by masculine desire that only succeeds in approaching the beloved through a series of metamorphoses and fragmentation that actually obscures her further. But the effort is not in vain. The desire to understand (and love) makes possible the pursuit of the female who always is the same, although somehow different: the unknown stranger.     

拉美研究中的民众主义:概念含义的演变

西方拉美学界对于民众主义这一概念的含义的界定发生过较大的变化。早期现代化理论学者和依附论学者强调民众主义概念的社会经济特征和历史阶段性特征,西方自由主义经济学界将民众主义界定为一种特定的经济政策。80年代以后,这种界定方式受到实证与理论上的双重挑战,于是,有的学者将民众主义界定为一种政治策略。这一修正使得这一概念可以用来解释80年代以后拉美政治发展的新现实,因而是有价值的。