The Janulis Burial: A Case of Gender Fluidity in the Middle Archaic Period?

ABSTRACT

An amateur 1969 excavation at the Middle Archaic period Janulis site in Ontario unearthed the skeletal remains of three individuals and a dog. One of these, an adult female with an extensive offering, displayed several changes in the bones of her right arm and shoulder caused by the repetitive and intensive practice of an overhand throwing motion. The association of eight projectile points with her skeleton indicates that the activity was projectile throwing, suggesting a strong emphasis on hunting, normally a masculine role. She also had a turtle-shell rattle, an instrument usually associated with men in that time period. In contrast, the presence of two deer styliform bones in the burial point to a feminine role. These anomalies raise the possibility that this individual had adopted a nonbinary gender status, but the paucity of reliable comparative data makes it difficult to precisely define that status.     

Limb bones asymmetry and stress in medieval and recent populations of Central Europe

Monitoring the degree of asymmetry in different parts of the human body can contribute to population studies, as it may be connected indirectly with the social structure, living conditions, and also with biomechanical stress affecting the person. Analysis of asymmetry may also assess preferential use of the right or left of the body during specific activities. This study is based on the measurements of bones of the upper and lower limbs of skeletons derived from the remarkable medieval cemeteries of Mikulčice‐Kostelisko (78 male, 132 female) and Prušánky (66 male, 69 female) (9th–12th centuries AD), and a series of skeletons representing a recent population from Bohemia (143 male, 157 female). The objective was to assess directional asymmetry (DA), fluctuating asymmetry (FA) and antisymmetry (AS) of the dimensions of the evaluated bones, and to use these data to compare the characteristics of the medieval and recent populations. DA was recorded in most dimensions. In the upper limb, the humerus exhibited the greatest expression of asymmetry, and, with the exception of the clavicle, DA was always more pronounced on the right side. Conversely, DA was less prevalent in the lower limb bones. It was more pronounced on the transverse, sagittal and circumferential dimensions of the diaphyses and epiphyses than on the length, and in most cases it was on the left side. The FA values were very low, and almost negligible in relation to the size. Nevertheless, FA was markedly more frequent on the lower than on the upper limb. In contrast to the medieval population, the recent population had higher FA and DA values. Thus, we propose that people from this medieval population were subjected to lower developmental stress than the recent sample. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Asymmetry of power and attention in alliance politics: the US–Republic of Korea case

While power asymmetry typically defines security relationships between allies, there exist other forms of asymmetry that influence alliance politics. In order to illustrate how they can shape policy outcomes that cannot be explained solely through the lens of power capabilities, the authors examine the role of relative attention that each side pays to the alliance. It is their central argument that since the client state has a greater vested interest in the alliance and given that attention depends on interest/need, the client state can leverage attention to get its way. By analysing two specific cases, the 2002 South Korean schoolgirls tragedy and the 2008 beef protests—instances where the South Koreans succeeded in compelling US concessions—the authors show that because the alliance was more central to the client state's agendas, there existed an asymmetry of attention that offered leveraging opportunities for the weaker ally. In this study, the authors emphasise the role of media attention as a key variable, and seek to contribute to debates on weaker party leverage in asymmetrical alliances.     

导游员道德危险的防范与控制

导游员的道德危险是近年来困扰着旅行社行业的一个严重问题,本文分析其道德危险的表现形式及其产生的原因,指出其危害,并提出防范和控制导游员道德危险的建议.     

Bone remodelling following a lower leg fracture in the 11,000‐year‐old hunter‐gatherer from Vado all' Arancio (Italy)

The Upper Palaeolithic skeleton from Vado all'Arancio (Italy), dated to about 11,330 BP, exhibits a severe ankle fracture healed with residual deformation. Following recovery, this young hunter‐gatherer continued to walk for an extended period of time, albeit in a mechanically altered manner. While right‐left differences in external lower limb bone measurements are relatively low, biomechanical analysis of femur and tibia indicates unusually pronounced asymmetry in all cross‐sectional measures of diaphyseal strength. Asymmetry results primarily from normal side endosteal hypertrophy, and not from hypotrophy of the injured limb, suggesting that this individual resumed active life following recovery. This pattern of asymmetry underscores the role of physical activity in maintaining bone mass. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Sunghir 3 Upper Paleolithic Juvenile: Pathology versus Persistence in the Paleolithic

The Mid Upper Paleolithic Sunghir 3 late juvenile early modern human, from the most elaborate burial in the Pleistocene, had pathologically foreshortened and anteriorly bowed femora and, based on her dental enamel hypoplasias and transverse lines, sustained severe and persistent systemic stress throughout her decade of life. Her modest femoral and tibial asymmetry and her femoral bicondylar angles indicate non‐pathological patterns of posture and locomotion. The levels of rigidity for her weight‐bearing tibiae and the non‐dominant left arm reflect normal weight‐bearing and manipulation. These indicators are combined with an elevated level of right humeral strength, leading to pronounced humeral diaphyseal asymmetry, combined with elevated muscular insertion asymmetry. In combination with marked upper limb muscle markings and normal levels of bone formation, these reflections of her robustness indicate that she was fully mobile and participated actively in the tasks of her social group. There is no indication of the skeletal hypotrophy/atrophy that would be associated with less than full participation in the mobility and subsistence of her social group. As such, Sunghir 3 joins a growing list of developmentally or degeneratively pathological Late Pleistocene humans who nonetheless remained mobile and active. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessment of Musculoskeletal Stress Marker Development in the Hand

The analysis of musculoskeletal stress marker (MSM) development is a commonly employed tool in osteological surveys and is used to infer patterns of occupational activity and societal organisation in archaeological populations. Although the majority of research into upper limb MSMs has focused on the bones of the arm, the bones of the hand have been conspicuous by their absence. This is likely to be due to methodological issues surrounding the study of hand bones and a presumed lack of variation in MSM development in this area. To date, there have been no systematic studies investigating the presence and variation in MSM morphology for the muscles of the human hand. To address this issue, a presence/absence scoring system was developed for twelve sites of muscle origin and insertion in the metacarpals and phalanges, which was used to determine bilateral asymmetry in the hands of 31 individuals from the Naval Hospital Cemetery site in Greenwich, London. Analysis found observable variation in MSM development between and within the hands, which could be used to determine patterns of asymmetry within the sample. Comparisons with MSM scores from the humeri of these individuals indicate a differentiation in MSM development and asymmetry between these anatomical regions. Levels of asymmetry in the hands and humeri were generally low, with only the dorsal interossei displaying statistically significant asymmetry. Subsequent upper limb MSM research will benefit from the inclusion of data from the hands. These results do not support the continued use of the humerus as a proxy for MSM expression across the upper limb as a whole and suggest that important information regarding behavioural asymmetry in the hands is being lost because of the continual exclusion of this anatomical unit from MSM research. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Handedness and directional asymmetry in the long bones of the human upper limb

The long bones of the human upper limb usually show lateral asymmetries of length. This pattern can be attributed either to the mechanical consequences of handedness bias or to genetic or hormonal factors acting directly on longitudinal bone growth. Length data was obtained from the long bones of the upper limbs of a large skeletal assemblage from Wharram Percy, Yorkshire (England), predominantly deriving from the 11th-16th centuries A.D. The Wharram Percy adult skeletons had a population distribution of lateral asymmetries of length in the humerus and in the humerus-plus-radius (a proxy arm length index) which closely parallels the pattern of behavioural handedness found in modern populations. This pattern was developing in the skeletons from the infant and juvenile age ranges, but was absent in the neonates (of whom 12 out of 14 had longer left humeri). We argue that this supports the environmental hypothesis that the ontogeny of long bone length asymmetry is consequent to the earlier development of lateral bias in mechanical loading of the upper limbs.     

IF: COUNTERFACTUAL AND CONDITIONAL HISTORIOGRAPHY

Conditionals are a feature of historiography. Despite this, historiographical research is focused predominantly on one kind of conditional, counterfactuals. New trans‐Atlantic contributions to this research by Catherine Gallagher and Richard J. Evans highlight the rich history of counterfactuals in Western thought, and their use by individuals and groups to imagine a present and a future that addresses regrets about the present. Their intimation of a flattening out of history through counterfactual nostalgia is not supported by the artistic expression of Tacita Dean, and new contributions to the philosophy of conditionals, building relations, and causal relations by Karen Bennett and Anthony Kwame Appiah. This review teases out the layered, causally tainted, and metaphysically agnostic world posited by Karen Bennett and conjoins it with David Lewis's reflections on possible worlds to suggest that conditional and counterfactual operators in historiography are building restrictors. This takes us away from Niall Ferguson's argument for the use of counterfactuals as a recognition of the underdetermination of history, and reminds us of the need to—as Appiah argues so succinctly—understand the pervasive role that idealizations play in helping us to manage the world and ourselves. The review rounds out by highlighting the computational implications of our conditional world, inviting historians to be at the table as fairness is debated and coded. In this way, the gap in research on the ethical need for historiographical conditionals in the twenty‐first century is highlighted.