bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Neurocrania from Sunghir 1, 2, 3, and 5
Authors: Trinkaus Erik , Buzhilova Alexandra P. , Mednikova Maria B. , Dobrovolskaya Maria V.
Published: November 2020

In most presentations of associated human fossil remains, the cranium and the mandible are discussed separately, as though they represent separate entities of human anatomy. However, in a paleobiological assessment of the Sunghir human remains, especially for the associated skeletons of Sunghir 1 to 3, it is more relevant to consider them in terms of the two primary functional units of the head, the neurocranium and the facial skeleton. The former includes skeletal elements directly relating to the brain, the special senses contained within the temporal bone, the mandibular articulation, and the muscular attachments on the external portions of the posterior and lateral cranium. The first two aspects are principally neurological, and they can be accessed only to a limited extent given the availability of radiographs of the Sunghir crania but not CT scans. The last two aspects relate to features that would best be considered in the context of the cervical region (the nuchal muscle attachment area) and mastication (the temporomandibular joint and the cranial attachments for temporalis and deep masseter). However, since the nuchal region and the temporomandibular joint are intimately related to more strictly neurocranial aspects of the cranium, they are discussed here, but then the latter is referred to with respect to the facial skeleton. In addition, individual bones, and especially the frontal, ethmoid, and sphenoid bones, form an interface between the neurocranial cavity and the facial skeleton. Their various portions, as they relate to one or the other of these anatomical spheres, are discussed separately. As detailed in chapter 4, there are four largely complete neurocrania from Sunghir. The Sunghir 1 to 3 neurocrania are largely present, but they have sustained variable degrees of in situ distortion and restoration. The Sunghir 5 one was extensively reassembled with generous applications of wax, but most of it appears to be present and in its correct positions. The Sunghir 1 neurocranium is largely complete, with only minor restoration of missing portions.
The Shoulders and Arms of Sunghir 1 to 3
Authors: Trinkaus Erik , Buzhilova Alexandra P. , Mednikova Maria B. , Dobrovolskaya Maria V.
Published: November 2020

The three partial skeletons from Sunghir retain substantial portions of their shoulder and arm remains, from the proximal clavicle to the distal radius and ulna. The scapulae, as with most of those from the Pleistocene, retain principally the spine, the glenoid area, the coracoid process, and the axillary border. The left forearm of Sunghir 2 is absent (as is his left hand), and the left humerus consists of a diaphyseal section without the metaphyses and a partial proximal epiphysis. It is nonetheless possible to assess both overall upper limb proportions (chapter 11) and a number of aspects that relate to upper limb asymmetry, clavicle and scapular morphology, glenohumeral proportions, diaphyseal robustness, cubital articulations, and reflections of pronation-supination hypertrophy for all three of them. Although humans are considered to be bilaterally symmetrical in their limbs, there are small degrees of asymmetry in most limb bones. These asymmetries are frequently exaggerated in the human upper limb, given our handedness and the subsequent preference for use of the dominant arm in more mechanically demanding activities (Raymond and Pontier 2004). In general, the level of asymmetry in the dimensions of epiphyses, and especially of articulations, is modest. However, substantial asymmetry in measures of upper limb diaphyses (particularly of the humerus) have been documented in samples of recent humans (e.g., Ruff and Jones 1981; Fresia et al. 1990; Trinkaus et al. 1994; Roy et al. 1994; Churchill 1994; Steele and Mays 1995; Sakaue 1997; Mays 2002; Auerbach and Ruff 2006; Cowgill 2008; Auerbach and Raxter 2008), as well as in a number of Late Pleistocene humans (e.g., Trinkaus et al. 1994; Churchill and Formicola 1997; Cowgill 2008; Shang and Trinkaus 2010; Cowgill et al. 2012b; Mednikova 2012; Volpato et al. 2012). Moreover, as is indicated by labial anterior dental striations and one individual’s forearm bones, such handedness extends back through the genus Homo (Weaver et al. 2001; Frayer et al. 2012).
The Sunghir Pedal Skeletons
Authors: Trinkaus Erik , Buzhilova Alexandra P. , Mednikova Maria B. , Dobrovolskaya Maria V.
Published: November 2020

The Sunghir humans retain exceptionally complete pedal remains, especially for Sunghir 1 but also in large part for Sunghir 2 and 3 (chapter 4). The Sunghir 1 pedal remains articulate into two quite complete pedal skeletons, principally missing the middle and distal phalanges of the lesser toes. The Sunghir 2 and 3 pedal skeletons are similarly complete, although the toes were pointed upwards in situ, resulting in considerable loss of the pha­langes (chapters 3 and 4). However, given the thin cortical bone over their trabecular tarsal and epiphyseal cores, the bones are substantially more eroded than those of Sunghir 1. The assessments for the two immature pedal skeletons are primarily in terms of discrete traits, those that appear to have already been formed by their ages-at-death. There is also a dearth of comparative data for similarly aged Middle and Upper Paleolithic pedal remains, known principally for the early adolescent Paglicci 12 (Mallegni & Parenti 1973). However, there are extensive osteometric and discrete trait data available for mature pedal remains from Middle Paleolithic and Early/Mid Upper Paleolithic (E/MUP) human foot bones, largely following the Martin system but expanded and modified (e.g., Matiegka 1938; McCown and Keith 1939; Trinkaus 1975a, 1975b, 1983a, 1983b; Vandermeersch 1981; Sládek et al. 2000; Trinkaus et al. 2006a; Shang and Trinkaus 2010). Therefore, a number of aspects of the Sunghir 1 pedal remains are compared graphically and in terms of trait frequencies to Late Pleistocene comparative samples, as well as to background samples of recent humans. The proportions of the pedal skeleton can be of relevance for the biomechanical effectiveness of the foot during forward and/or upward propulsion. In a static model, in which the body is being raised by elevation of the heel, and by extension the tibia through the talocrural articulation, the fulcrum is at the metatarsal heads (especially of metatarsal 1). This applies to climbing and to forward propulsion of the body on a level or upward slope.
The Lost Elements
Authors: Fontani Marco , Costa Mariagrazia , Orna Mary Virginia
Published: November 2020

The Periodic Table of Elements hasn't always looked like it does now, a well-organized chart arranged by atomic number. In the mid-nineteenth century, chemists were of the belief that the elements should be sorted by atomic weight. However, the weights of many elements were calculated incorrectly, and over time it became clear that not only did the elements need rearranging, but that the periodic table contained many gaps and omissions: there were elements yet to be discovered, and the allure of finding one had scientists rushing to fill in the blanks. Supposed "discoveries" flooded laboratories, and the debate over what did and did not belong on the periodic table reached a fever pitch. With the discovery of radioactivity, the discourse only intensified. Throughout its formation, the Periodic Table of Elements has seen false entries, good-faith errors, retractions, and dead ends. In fact, there have been more falsely proclaimed elemental discoveries throughout history than there are elements on the table as we know it today. The Lost Elements: The Periodic Table's Shadow Side collects the most notable of these instances, stretching from the nineteenth century to the present. The book tells the story of how scientists have come to understand elements, by discussing the failed theories and false discoveries that shaped the path of scientific progress. We learn of early chemists' stubborn refusal to disregard alchemy as a legitimate practice, and of one German's supposed discovery of an elemental metal that breathed. As elements began to be created artificially in the twentieth century, we watch the discovery climate shift to favor the physicists, rather than the chemists. Along the way, Fontani, Costa, and Orna introduce us to the key figures in the development of today's periodic table, including Lavoisier and Mendeleev. Featuring a preface from Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann, The Lost Elements is an expansive history of the wrong side of chemical discovery-and reveals how these errors and gaffes have helped shape the table as much as any other form of scientific progress.
The Aliens in Our Midst: Managing Our Ecosystems
Authors: Subramaniam Banu
Published: November 2020

I begin with a central and profound insight of the feminist and cultural studies of science: that nature and culture, science and society, and biology and the social are not binary opposites. Rather, they are co-constituted and co-produced. We need to go beyond the idea of nature shaping culture and culture shaping nature and move toward an understanding where nature and culture are seen as inextricably interconnected and indeed as constitutive of each other. Instead of the binary formulation of nature and culture, we should begin thinking in terms of Donna Haraway’s (1999) memorable phrase naturecultures. There is no nature and culture, only naturecultures. I use the field of invasion biology as an illustrative case in point. It will come as no surprise to readers of this volume that we live in times of numerous environmental crises, in particular perceived crises of our ecosystems. While there are many sites and sources of the problems that have been identified, one prominent source in the biological and popular literature is that of invasive species. It is argued that some exotic and foreign species are entering the nation, growing and reproducing aggressively and in the process destroying native habitats and landscapes. The central problem is seen as a proliferation of exotic and foreign species, and the solution proposed is the eradication of these species in order to save native ecosystems. As Preston and Williams (2003) sum up: “Invasive alien species are emerging as one of the major threats to sustainable development, on a par with global warming and the destruction of life support systems.” Considered as biological “pollutants,” invasive species are seen as a major threat (Simberloff 2000) and a costly “catastrophe” for native biodiversity (McNeely 2001). They are seen by the National Wildlife Foundation as a “major threat” to biodiversity, second only to habitat loss and degradation, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has similarly described them as a “major cause” of biodiversity loss throughout the world. Politicians and environmental activists alike call for immediate action (Carlton 1999).
On an Economic Treadmill of Agriculture: Efforts to Resolve Pollinator Decline
Authors: Suryanarayanan Sainath
Published: November 2020

On your next stroll outdoors, you may come across a flowering plant, enjoy its beauty, and perhaps even taste its fruits. A wandering Homo sapiens, however, is probably not the flowering plant’s primary audience; an insect pollinator is more likely the one being wooed. Indeed, the vast biodiversity of flowering plants and insects on Earth is thought to be the result of a fruitful co-evolution over several million years between these organisms (Price 1997, pp. 239–258). Bees, wasps, butterflies, flies, and several other insects are also crucial in their role as pollinators for sus­taining managed agricultural ecosystems (or agro-ecosystems; National Research Council [NRC] 2007). Honey bees (Apis mellifera), managed by beekeepers, are alone estimated to be responsible for over $15 billion worth of increased yield and quality in the United States annually (Morse and Calderone 2000). U.S. growers rent an estimated 2 million beehives each year from beekeepers to pollinate over ninety different fruit, vegetable, and fiber crops (Delaplane and Mayer 2000; NRC 2007). In the first decades of the 21st century, public and scientific attention in the United States and elsewhere has been gripped by frequent reports of declines in populations of insect pollinators (e.g., Biesmeijer et al. 2006; NRC 2007), exemplified most dramatically by the news of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) among managed honey bees (vanEngelsdorp et al. 2009; Pettis and Delaplane 2010). While there are ongoing scientific and public debates over the extent to which the documented declines in insect pollinators constitute a global “pollinator crisis,” whether agricultural productivity has actually declined due to these losses, and what the primary causal factors are, there is nonetheless a consensus that parts of North America and Europe continue to undergo worrying reductions in the diversity and abundance of multiple species of insect pollinators (Ghazoul 2005; Stefan-Dewenter et al. 2005; NRC 2007; Carvalheiro et al. 2013). In this chapter, I analyze the main kinds of efforts that are being taken by key institutional players to resolve the environmental problem of pollinator decline in the United States.
Conclusion
Authors: Kemmerer Lisa
Published: November 2020

Each chapter of Eating Earth focuses on environmental problems that stem from our willingness to consume animal products—environmental problems that stem from animal agriculture, fisheries, and hunting policies and practices. The final chapter also exposes relevant history and myths that explain why the vast majority of U.S. citizens continues to accept sport hunting despite the environmental problems that stem from this deadly pass time. Animal products, whether organic or local, whether hunted or purchased, whether chicken or fish or yogurt, harm the environment. As this book draws to a close, it is important to at least mention the larger picture with regard to ethics and dietary choice: There are a handful of other critical reasons to move decisively toward a plant-based diet, all of which are interconnected. I remember the five reasons for choosing a plant-based diet through a mnemonic using the Italian word for love, AMORE. In this acronym, “A” represents what is likely the most common reason for choosing a vegan diet—animals. In choosing to kill or buy body parts, mammary secretions, and eggs from other animals, we support the exploitation and slaughter of living, breathing, sentient beings, who would prefer to live out their natural lives peacefully in their own communities. In the U.S., ten billion farmed animals are denied pretty much every natural behavior, without regard to their sufferings, only to be shipped to their deaths when they are adolescents—all for the sake of eggs, milk, and various “meats.” The long-term suffering endured by farmed animals—especially female farmed animals in the egg and dairy industries—is truly unconscionable. Cruel practices are always unearthed when undercover investigators penetrate the increasingly thick walls that conceal common animal agriculture practices. If you are unaware of the stunted lives and premature deaths forced on farmed animals around the world, please explore footage taken by undercover activists, starting with the excellent YouTube clip, “If Slaughterhouses Had Glass Walls.” “M” represents the many critical medical reasons for rejecting an omnivore’s diet.
Introduction
Authors: Gorman Sara E. , Gorman Jack M.
Published: November 2020

On October 8, 2014, Thomas Eric Duncan died in a Dallas hospital from Ebola virus infection. From the moment he was diagnosed with Ebola newspapers all over the country blared the news that the first case of Ebola in the United States had oc¬curred. Blame for his death was immediately assigned to the hospital that cared for him and to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). By the end of the month a total of four cases had developed in the United States: two in people— including Duncan— who acquired it in African countries where the disease was epidemic and two in nurses who cared for Duncan. Headlines about Ebola continued to dominate the pages of American newspapers throughout the month, warning of the risk we now faced of this deadly disease. These media reports were frightening and caused some people to wonder if it was safe to send their children to school or ride on public transportation— even if they lived miles from any of the four cases. “There are reports of kids being pulled out of schools and even some school closings,” reported Dean Baker in the Huffington Post. “People in many areas are not going to work and others are driving cars rather than taking mass transit because they fear catching Ebola from fellow passengers. There are also reports of people staying away from stores, restaurants, and other public places.” An elementary school in Maine suspended a teacher because she stayed in a hotel in Dallas that is 9.5 miles away from the hospital where two nurses contracted the virus. As Charles Blow put it in his New York Times column, “We aren’t battling a virus in this country as much as a mania, one whipped up by reactionary politicians and irresponsible media.” It turns out that Thomas Duncan was not the only person who died in the United States on October 8, 2014. If we extrapolate from national annual figures, we can say that on that day almost 7,000 people died in the United States.
Conspiracy Theories
Authors: Gorman Sara E. , Gorman Jack M.
Published: November 2020

Conspiracies are mysterious. We think it is reasonable to say, even without any data to support it, that most people have never been part of a conspiracy or even known a person who has. It seems that in ordinary life getting even a moderately sized group of people who all agree on something together, finding time to meet, and then planning and actually implementing a secret operation over a long period of time would be fairly difficult. Getting a few people together to plan a surprise birthday party and keeping the plans secret until the actual event is difficult enough. Many of us believed at one point or another as we were growing up that our parents were conspiring against us, but today’s parents rarely have the time or energy for even that much underhanded activity. Nevertheless, we are routinely asked to believe that large, well-organized, and focused conspiracies exist that, in order to maximize their profits and scope of influence, have as their goal the destruction of our health and well- being. Every charismatic leader we will describe in the next chapter claims to be the victim of at least one such conspiracy. In the health and medical fields, the alleged conspirators usually include some combination of organized medicine, mainstream academic science and public health, the government, and large pharmaceutical and other companies. Even Wayne LaPierre, the leader of the National Rifle Association with its vast economic resources and ties to the gun manufacturing industry, portrays himself as the victim of a conspiracy of left-wing politicians, the media, and the federal government, all of whom, he would have us believe, are intent on denying Americans their Second Amendment rights, thereby exposing us innocent citizens to bands of marauding, well-armed criminals. According to the leaders of conspiracy theory groups, “Most conspiracies are … invisible to the vast majority of sheeplike citizens who go grazing through the pasture of life, never suspecting the evil wolves lurking behind the rocks of everyday oc¬currences” Therefore, the conspiracy theory leaders tell us, they themselves are indispensable for our very survival.
Conclusion
Authors: Gorman Sara E. , Gorman Jack M.
Published: November 2020

We have argued throughout this book that there are complex psychological, social, and neurobiological underpinnings of resistance to scientific evidence. We have also argued that many of these tendencies are in many ways completely adaptive, healthy, and essentially human. The challenge that remains for those of us interested in maximizing population health and at the same time helping individuals to make scientifically informed health choices is to figure out how to address the tendencies that lead to false scientific belief without completely insulting or, worse, attempting to repress these tendencies. Not only does telling people not to be emotional fail, but we also strongly believe that it is in no one’s best interest to suppress this side of the human brain. So we propose a multipronged method to help guide people toward the evidence without dismissing the importance of their humanity. In the end, we don’t want people to scramble for a story when they should be paying attention to statistics. But at the same time, we wouldn’t want a society full of people who see only percentages and probabilities in place of showing empathy for the individuals around them. We just want to help people better tease out when their natural psychological tendencies are protecting them and when they are actually harming their health. We will begin by citing the core principles that we believe any reader of this book should take from reading it. Then we will show how these core principles translate into our recommendations for better strategies for communicating and dealing with people who do not believe the science. We call this the Gorman- Gorman method. Guiding Principle #1: It is not simply uneducated people who make irrational health decisions. We have seen multiple times throughout this book that making rational health choices is not particularly correlated with intelligence. There are abundant examples of people with illustrious academic training, including in the sciences, who have embraced unrealistic and irrational beliefs about important topics such as the relationship between vaccines and autism and the cause of AIDS.
Central Nervous System
Authors: Mehta Gautam , Iqbal Bilal
Published: November 2020

As with all neurological patients, you will be more likely to pick up the diagnosis if you take a step back and look at the whole patient. Take some time to assess their facial expressions, speech, tremor, and posture. A common instruction at this station, with the patient seated on a chair is ‘Look at this patient, and examine as appropriate’. Candidates are often baffled, when given this instruction. Often the patients with Parkinson’s disease are given specific instructions to interlock the fingers of both hands, or place hands flat on their lap to mask the tremor. Picking up an expressionless face and low volume monotonous speech from the outset will provide useful clues to the diagnosis. If you are not sure at this stage, proceed to examining the gait. Once you are certain, that this is Parkinson’s disease, you may proceed to demonstrate the other features. 1. Patients with Parkinson’s disease have characteristic expressionless facies (hypomimia), often described as ‘mask-like’. This is a manifestation of bradykinesia. There is a reduced blink rate. The glabellar tap (Myerson’s sign) is an unreliable sign and is not recommended in the examination. This involves tapping the patient’s forehead repeatedly. Normal subjects will stop blinking, but in Parkinson’s disease, the patient will continue to blink. The patient may be drooling saliva (resulting from dysphagia and sialorrhoea-due to autonomic dysfunction) 2. Patients may have soft speech (hypophonia). This is also a manifestation of bradykinesia, and characteristically, the speech is low-volume, monotonous and tremulous (appears slurred). 3. Blepharoclonus is tremor of the eyelids. This will only be demonstrated if the eyes are gently closed, as opposed to tightly closing the eyes. 4. The classic tremor is present at rest and asymmetrical (more marked on one side). It is classically described as being 4–6Hz and is the initial symptom in 60% of cases, although 20% of patients never have a tremor. The tremor may appear as a ‘pill-rolling’ motion of the hand or a simple oscillation of the hand or arm. It is easier to spot a tremor if you ask the patient to rest their arms in their lap in the semi-prone position.
Why Sex?
Authors: Sherratt Thomas N. , Wilkinson David M.
Published: November 2020

There is considerable confusion about the meaning of sex. It can be taken to mean gender (male or female), a form of recreation (‘hot sex’), or a form of procreation (‘sexual reproduction’). To most biologists, sex is none of the above. Instead, one definition of sex would simply be a process that combines genetic material from more than one individual. By this definition, sex is not in itself reproduction. For one thing, reproduction is not a necessary consequence of sex (many bacteria can simply share DNA through hooking up via conjugation), and sex is not always needed for reproduction (dandelions, greenfly, and starfish, to name a few, can all produce viable offspring without it). In fact, the specific act of combining genetic material can be thought of as the precise opposite of reproduction since it typically involves the coming together of the genetic material of two cells (‘gametes’) to create one (‘zygote’), rather than the splitting of one cell into two. All that said, in eukaryotic species (like us, with chromosomes housed discretely within a nuclear membrane) sex is a precursor to reproduction. Indeed, in some species including humans, other mammals, and many insect species, sex is an essential step in the production of offspring. To understand what sex is, we must first cover some basic genetics. Let us begin by thinking about the process of combining two gametes to produce a zygote—a fertilized egg. Naturally, if you simply combine all of the genetic material present in the nucleus of one of your typical cells with that derived from some lucky mate, then any resultant zygote would contain double the number of chromosomes. For example, humans are diploid, and have 23 pairs of chromosomes (one chromosome from each pair derived from each parent). Therefore, if you simply combine chromosomes from the diploid cells of two potential human parents, then the resulting zygote would have 46 pairs of chromosomes, and if two such individuals mated then their offspring would have 92 pairs of chromosomes. Clearly such accumulation of genetic material would quickly get out of hand, and cells would rapidly become obese with chromosomes.
Why are the Tropics so Diverse?
Authors: Sherratt Thomas N. , Wilkinson David M.
Published: November 2020

Our opening quotation describes Charles Darwin’s first experience of tropical forest on 29 February 1832. He had been looking forward to this moment for several years. While completing his studies at the University of Cambridge he had read Alexander von Humboldt’s accounts of tropical natural history and resolved that he too must experience the luxuriant vegetation and diversity of tropical species at first hand. Initially, Darwin planned to visit the subtropical island of Tenerife; however, this plan was superseded by the opportunity to join H.M.S. Beagle’s circumnavigation of the Earth—to his great disappointment Darwin never did get to land on Tenerife, although he saw it from the sea as the Beagle passed close by. Since Darwin’s time we have learnt much about the nature of biological diversity, both in the tropics and at higher latitudes. In this chapter, we review current knowledge of tropical diversity and how it compares with diversity at higher latitudes, before going on to discuss the various explanations that have been put forward to explain why the tropics have so many species. Here we define the tropics as the area between the Tropic of Cancer (23°28´ N) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23°28´ S) when we are discussing the modern world. In discussions of past climates, we refer to areas as ‘tropical’ if their reconstructed climates are similar to those currently experienced in the modern tropics. While we describe below how diversity changes with latitude, it is obvious that latitude itself is only part of a grid system that allows us to define the location of a point on the Earth’s surface, so it cannot itself have a direct effect on the number of species. However, many variables such as climate and land or ocean area are correlated with latitude and may provide an explanation for tropical diversity. Indeed, latitude itself is defined by the rotation of the Earth about its axis—a fundamentally abiotic (i.e. non-biological) planetary event. It follows that the ultimate cause of the gradient in diversity over latitude must be attributable to abiotic factors that are correlated with latitude, even if biological factors subsequently play a role in maintaining or promoting this diversity.
Is Nature Chaotic?
Authors: Sherratt Thomas N. , Wilkinson David M.
Published: November 2020

Centuries before King Harold of England famously received an arrow in the eye (AD 1066), Chinese officials in the T’ang dynasty (AD 618–907) began collecting annual reports on the abundance of migratory locusts. The primary aim of this initiative was to make sense of the changes over time (the dynamics) of this devastating agricultural pest, and thereby predict the timing and intensity of outbreaks. Now, despite a staggering 1,300 years of faithful recording, few patterns are evident and the data look decidedly messy. Irregular climatic fluctuations, particularly those involved in the drying up of grasslands on river deltas, may explain some of the variability. However, one might wonder whether some of this ‘messiness’ was internally driven, caused by some sort of ‘feedback’ arising within the dynamics themselves. Many long-term data sets on population dynamics have these extremely messy qualities, ranging from the daily number of damselfish reaching maturity on the Great Barrier Reef to the number of feral sheep on Scottish Islands, and it is important to know where it all comes from. The study of ‘chaos’ (easiest to define negatively as an absence of order, but we will get to a more formal definition later) has its roots in precisely the type of feedback processes referred to above, reflecting what mathematicians call ‘non-linearities’ (relationships that are not straight lines). Several mathematicians, most notably, the eminent French mathematician Henri Poincaré (1854–1912), had long noted that non-linear systems could generate some extremely unusual dynamics, such that the precise trajectory a system took was highly sensitive to the initial conditions. However, observations such as these were largely overlooked by ecologists until a new generation of researchers, notably Robert May (a physicist turned ecologist, now Lord May of Oxford), began toying with their own simple ecological models and appreciating that the behaviour of these models was not always simple. Until ecologists were made aware of the potential effects of non-linearities in the 1970s, the prevailing view was that complex dynamics must have complex causes.
General Conclusions
Authors: Sherratt Thomas N. , Wilkinson David M.
Published: November 2020

Brett Dennen is a fine musician, but listening to his lyrics, one might be tempted to think that because we ‘do [or see] it every day’, then it does not deserve an explanation. Our book has dealt with a variety of everyday phenomena such as ageing, sex, species, a green world, and a blue sea, and we hope that by now our readers will agree that there is a reason why things are this way. Indeed, the fact that these phenomena are so commonplace makes the questions all the more important. The exciting thing is that while considerable progress has been made in each of the areas we address, we still do not have a complete answer to any of the questions we have posed. We use this short concluding chapter to pull together some common threads and to discuss some of the interrelationships between our answers. First and foremost, even the most casual reader will note that there is a close interrelationship between the ecological and evolutionary explanations we have presented. Taking the perspective of evolutionary biology, almost all of the evolutionary explanations we have proposed include an important ecological component. For example, ageing is now widely seen to arise as a consequence of there being relatively weak natural selection late in an organism’s life. Yet the primary reason for this ‘selective shadow’ is that predators and parasites are likely to have killed the organism long before it reaches an advanced stage of maturity. Likewise, one explanation for the evolution of sex is that the variation it generates allows at least some of the offspring to better compete with members of the same species, or to avoid parasitism. In a similar vein, many of the ecological phenomena we have sought to explain have evolutionary origins. For example, tropical areas may have more species because rates of speciation are greater in the tropics, or because rates of extinction are greater at high latitudes, or both. Likewise, plants have evolved secondary compounds to deter herbivory, and the presence of these compounds may go some way towards understanding why the world remains green.
The History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Archaeology: The Case of the Ancient Monuments Protection Act (1882) (1990)
Authors: Murray Tim
Published: November 2020

At the conclusion of his last speech as President of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) in 1872, Sir John Lubbock announced his intention to try to introduce legislation that would protect the ancient monuments of Great Britain. He was optimistic about his chances for success: ‘As there seems to be a general wish throughout the country to take some adequate steps for the preservation of these ancient monuments and graves of our forefathers, I am not without hope that the bill may meet with favourable reception’ (Lubbock 1872: 442). It transpired that the Ancient Monuments Protection Bill (AMPB) was to sorely try Lubbock’s patience and sap his optimism, because the Ancient Monuments Protection Act (AMPA) was not to receive royal assent until 1882, ten years after Lubbock’s resignation from the presidency of the RAIGBI. The long battle to get the first AMPA onto the statute books had entailed a great many compromises concerning the machinery of protection and the degree of state interference in the property rights of landed citizens. The most important of these compromises was made in 1881, when Lubbock changed his parliamentary tactics. After years of obstruction in the House of Commons, Lubbock abandoned his Private Member’s Bill and carried a resolution through the house that forced the Gladstone Liberal government to introduce a public bill of its own. This bill became the basis of the first AMPA, and it was a pale reflection of Lubbock’s own proposed measure, even exempting the monuments of Ireland from protection until the Ancient Monuments Protection (Ireland) Act 1892. In the second reading debate of the government’s bill (August 11, 1882) Lubbock observed: . . .As regards the present bill, while it was, no doubt, a step in the right direction, especially in providing for the appointment of an inspector, he could not hope that it would prove altogether effectual. It was natural that he should prefer the bill that had been before the house in previous sessions. . . . . . .
‘Our Ancestors the Gauls’: Archaeology, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Manipulation of Celtic Identity in Modern Europe (1994)
Authors: Dietler Michael
Published: November 2020

These words are taken from Julius Caesar’s account of his war of conquest against the Celtic peoples of Western Europe in the first century BC. He attributed them to his enemy Vercingetorix, leader of the last great defence of Gaul against the Roman legions. More important in the context of the present discussion, they are inscribed at the base of a monumental bronze statue of Vercingetorix that surmounts the hilltop fortress of Alésia in Burgundy, the site of the final stand against the Romans. The French emperor Napoleon III commissioned the statue in 1865, and he also lavishly financed archaeological excavations at the site. Over a century later, in 1985, standing in the middle of the nearby ancient hilltop fortress of Bibracte (Mont Beuvray), where Vercingetorix had attempted to rally a united opposition against the Romans, French president François Mitterrand launched an appeal for national unity. Stating that Bibracte was the place where the ‘first act of our history took place’ (Mitterrand 1985: 54), he officially declared it a ‘national site’. A monument was also erected to commemorate his visit, and archaeological excavations were begun with financing on an unprecedented scale. It is my contention that such appeals to an ancient Celtic past have played, and continue to play, a number of important and often paradoxical roles in the ideological naturalization of modern political communities at several contradictory levels, including: (1) pan-European unity in the context of the evolving European Community, (2) nationalism within member states of that community, and (3) regional resistance to nationalist hegemony. An understanding of this complex process requires exploration of the ways in which language, objects, places, and persons have been differentially emphasized to evoke antiquity and authenticity at each of these levels in the process of constructing and manipulating emotionally and symbolically charged traditions of Celtic identity. As an archaeologist specializing in the study of those societies of ancient Iron Age Europe that serve as a touchstone of authenticity in the invocation of Celtic identity, I have an interest in examining the ways that archaeology has been appropriated, or has collaborated, in these ‘invented traditions’ (Hobsbawm 1983), and its potential role in sorting out the competing claims of what Benedict Anderson (1983) has called ‘imagined communities’.
North Sea Archaeologies
Authors: Van de Noort Robert
Published: November 2020

This innovative study offers an up-to-date analysis of the archaeology of the North Sea. Robert Van de Noort traces the way people engaged with the North Sea from the end of the last ice age, around 10,000 BC, to the close of the Middle Ages, about AD 1500. Van de Noort draws upon archaeological research from many countries, including the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium and France, and addresses topics which include the first interactions of people with the emerging North Sea, the origin and development of fishing, the creation of coastal landscapes, the importance of islands and archipelagos, the development of seafaring ships and their use by early seafarers and pirates, and the treatments of boats and ships at the end of their useful lives.
Archipelagos and islands
Authors: Van de Noort Robert
Published: November 2020

The North Sea is not renowned for its islands, and much of the modern land–sea interface is sharp, especially along the coasts of Jutland, North and South Holland and much of England. Nevertheless, the North Sea does contain a surprisingly large number of islands and archipelagos, which can be presented with reference to a clear north–south divide. In the northern half of the North Sea, most islands are of hard rock with shallow soils, and their islandness is the result of ongoing glacio-isostatic uplift of previously drowned lands and sea-level rise. With the exception of the Shetland and Orkney archipelagos, few of these islands are found at a great distance from the mainland, and the majority of the countless islands, islets, and rock outcrops off the North Sea coasts of Norway, Sweden, Scotland, and north-east England can be found within a few miles of the mainland. In the southern half of the North Sea, the islands are mainly made up of sand and clay and, in their history if not today, were frequently sandbanks formed by the sea utilizing both marine and riverine sediments. Most of the islands of the Wadden Sea in Denmark, Germany, and Holland are sandbanks elevated by aeolian-formed sand dunes. Further south, the core of the large islands of Zeeland is principally formed of riverine sands and marine clays intercalated with peat, reflecting coastal wetland conditions at various times in the Post-glacial and Holocene (Vos and Van Heeringen 1997). As with Zeeland, the islands on the English side of the North Sea, such as Mersey Island in the Blackwater estuary and Foulness Island in Essex, have now been incorporated into the mainland. Only a few islands cannot be so simply classified:Helgoland in the German Bight, a Sherwood Sandstone stack of Triassic date, is the best known example. Island archaeology, as we have seen (chapter 2), has for many decades approached islands as environments that were relatively isolated from the wider world.
Ecological Modernity in Shakespeare: an overview
Authors: Martin Randall
Published: November 2020

The story of how The Globe (1599) was rebuilt from the reused oak timbers of The Theatre (1576) is well known. Less familiar is the environmental crisis that prompted this thrifty recycling. Shakespeare’s company, the Chamberlain’s Men, were in danger of losing The Theatre because the lease had expired. The landlord, Giles Allen, was threatening to pull down the playhouse and put its wood and timber to other uses. The leaseholders, Richard and Cuthbert Burbage, got there before him because a clause in the original agreement made them owners of the building on Allen’s land. In the lead-up to their stealthy dismantling of The Theatre on the icy morning of 28 December 1598, when Allen was away celebrating Christmas in the country, each side had been eyeing the valuable timber and wood. Its reuse was the lynchpin of a deal between the Burbages and five actor-sharers of the Chamberlain’s Men, including Shakespeare, for building The Globe: the brothers offered to supply the main materials if the sharers contributed to the lesser expenses of construction and maintenance. The Burbages had spent their savings on building an indoor theatre at Blackfriars two years before. Although it had begun to pay them rent, they could not afford to buy new materials because the price of wood and timber had risen 96 per cent over the quarter century since The Theatre had been built. This inflation was the result of southern English woodlands being deforested. Ancient English woodland and forests had been shrinking throughout the middle ages. By Henry VIII’s time the pace began to accelerate. Worried about timber supplies for shipbuilding, the government took the first steps—largely ineffective—to manage depletions. Climactic and demographic pressures aggravated overexploitation, and by the 1590s caused a fuel crisis in south-east England and the country’s first major environmental controversy. Similar to the threat of warming global temperatures today, the stresses on southern English woodland—at that time the country’s most essential but finite natural resource—reached an ecological turning point. A solution was in the offing, but it was a highly ambivalent one.
Localism, Deforestation, and Environmental Activism in The Merry Wives of Windsor
Authors: Martin Randall
Published: November 2020

Poisoned towns and rivers, species extinctions, and now climate change have confirmed many times over how modern dreams of limitless growth combined with relentless technological exploitation have compromised planetary life at every level. In response to such degradation, the integrity of local place has been a major orientation for environmental ethics and criticism. The origins of localism are conventionally traced to late-eighteenth-and nineteenth-century critiques of urban industrialization, and Romanticism’s corresponding veneration for rural authenticity and wilderness spaces. Mid-twentieth-century environmentalism revived this ‘ethic of proximity’ in denouncing the release of pollutants and carcinogens into local soils, waters, and atmospheres by civil offshoots of military manufacturing and industrial agriculture. Those releases did not stay local, but soon penetrated regional water systems and wind patterns to become worldwide problems. Such networks of devastation continue to grow, especially in developing countries eager to mimic the worst aspects of Western consumer culture. In response to these developments, ecotheorists have partially revised locally focused models of environmental protection. Planetary threats such as rising global temperatures, melting polar ice sheets, and more intense storms have made it imperative to update the famous Sierra Club slogan and to act globally as well as locally. Localism has also been reshaped by conservation biology’s new recognition that geophysical disturbances and organic change are structural features of all healthy ecosystems. Within these more complicated ecological paradigms, the cultivation of relatively balanced and genuinely sustainable local relationships nonetheless remains an important conservationist worldview. In early modern England it was the leading life experience out of which responses to new environmental dangers were conceived. In this chapter I shall discuss Shakespeare’s representations of one of the three most significant of these threats—deforestation—in The Merry Wives of Windsor. (The other two, exploitative land-uses and gunpowder militarization, will be the subjects of Chapters 2 and 3 respectively). Early modern English writers and governments treated deforestation as a national problem, even though its impacts were concentrated mainly in the Midlands and the south-east.
The oil window
Authors: Zalasiewicz Jan
Published: November 2020

It is a few million years later—perhaps three, perhaps five. Sediment has been pouring onto a Silurian sea floor that will, much later, be sliced into by a different sea and become the rugged cliff-fringed coastline of central Wales. It has been pouring in so thick and fast that our pebble stuff is now some two kilometres or more down below that sea floor. This is quite rapid burial, even by geological standards, and one can blame changing geography for that. To produce a lot of sediment, there is need for a lot of erosion, and also for the production of something that can be eroded—that is, uplands and mountains on land. On Earth, such production of topography is supplied by the marvellous machine of plate tectonics. And at that time, the ocean between Avalonia and Scotland, that we call the Iapetus Ocean, had just about closed, and those two landmasses were just beginning to nudge into each other. Soft collision, it’s called, when the pressure from the adjoining continents is just enough for sections of crust to begin to be pushed up and (to compensate) pushed down in different places—but not enough for the wholesale crumpling that goes with the creation of great mountain ranges. Thus, the landmass that was then in, and just south of, what is today South Wales was driven upwards, while the floor of the sea that then covered Wales was forced downwards. The resultant flood of sediment was Nature’s means of trying to restore equilibrium. Here, the particular pattern of squashing of the pebble stuff is linked with those enormous, mysterious movements of continents hundreds and thousands of kilometres away. And mysterious they certainly were, for on the heels of the soft collision should have followed the hard collision and mountain-building. But it didn’t. The mountain-building did take place—but only eventually, and not until many millions of years later. The Welsh mountains are quite a bit younger than they should be—and so that story will have to wait. Another story developed in splendid isolation from such tectonic violence. We can showcase it now.