bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Impact of COMT Val158Met‐polymorphism on appetitive conditioning and amygdala/prefrontal effective connectivity
Authors: Klucken Tim , Kruse Onno , Wehrum‐Osinsky Sina , Hennig Juergen , Schweckendiek Jan , Stark Rudolf 
Published: November 2014

AbstractAppetitive conditioning is an important mechanism for the development, maintenance, and treatment of psychiatric disorders like substance abuse. Therefore, it is important to identify genetic variations, which impact appetitive conditioning. It has been suggested that the Val158Met‐polymorphism in the Catechol‐O‐Methyl‐Transferase (COMT) is associated with the alteration of neural processes of appetitive conditioning due to the central role of the dopaminergic system in reward processing. However, no study has so far investigated the relationship between variations in the COMT Val158Met‐polymorphism and appetitive conditioning. In this fMRI study, an appetitive conditioning paradigm was applied, in which one neutral stimulus (CS+) predicted appetitive stimuli (UCS) while a second neutral stimulus (CS−) was never paired with the UCS. As a main result, we observed a significant association between the COMT Val158Met‐genotype and appetitive conditioning: skin conductance responses (SCRs) revealed a significant difference between CS+ and CS− in Val/Val‐allele carriers but not in the other genotype groups. Val/Val‐allele carriers showed increased hemodynamic responses in the amygdala compared with the Met/Met‐allele group in the contrast CS+ > CS−. In addition, psychophysiological‐interaction analysis revealed increased effective amygdala/ventromedial prefrontal cortex connectivity in Met/Met‐allele carriers. The increased amygdala activity points to facilitated appetitive conditioning in Val/Val‐allele carriers while the amygdala/prefrontal connectivity results could be regarded as a marker for altered emotion regulation during conditioning, which potentially impacts appetitive learning sensitivity. The SCRs finding indicates a stronger conditioned response in the Val/Val‐allele group and dovetails with the neural differences between the groups. These findings contribute to the current research on COMT in emotional processing. Hum Brain Mapp 36:1093–1101, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
New approaches to open site spatial archaeology in Sturt National Park, New South Wales, Australia
Authors: Holdaway Simon , Witter Dan , Fanning Patricia , Musgrave Robert , Cochrane Grant , Doelman Trudy , Greenwood Simon , Pigdon Dan , Reeves Jamie 
Published: November 2014

AbstractSurface scatters of stone artefacts are ubiquitous in the Australian landscape and form the basis for the majority of archaeological conservation decisions. The research reported here proposes a distributional approach for analysing this record founded on the artefact as the minimal recording unit rather than the site. A method of assemblage definition is proposed to permit the study of assemblage composition across space. The method is applied to artefacts exposed on the surface as a result of recent erosion at TIB 13 (Sturt National Park, NSW). All stone artefacts greater than 20mm in maximum dimension were recorded by locating each artefact in three‐dimensional space and analysing it in place. The distribution of these artefacts was then compared to the nature of the landform on which they rested through the use of a GIS. Analysis of assemblage composition indicates significant differences across an area of approximately 30,000m2.
Alternative timescales: a critical review of Willandra Lakes dating
Authors: Gillespie Richard 
Published: November 2014

AbstractThe Late Pleistocene radiocarbon record from the Willandra Lakes region is analysed to select the most reliable age estimates. Chemical pretreatment experiments addressing problems of contradictory ages on black organic samples from archaeological hearths and shell middens show that macroscopic charcoal is not present at some sites, although multiple sub‐samples of well preserved charcoal have been dated at other sites. Radiocarbon measurements on properly decontaminated charcoal are as reliable as other robust single component samples such as shell, fish otoliths and emu eggshell. After calibration, 14C ages are in close agreement with luminescence based ages on suitably analysed quartz from the same sites. Regional patterns of 14C and luminescence dates are correlated across the Murray‐Darling basin, implying rapid and sensitive responses to changing climate. Chemical arguments, and the likelihood of widespread sediment erosion prior to Last Glacial Maximum, suggest that probable ages for some human burials are younger than usually quoted. There is no unequivocal evidence for archaeological remains in the Willandra older than 43 ka.
Taphonomy of Mungo B assemblage: indicators for subsistence and occupation of Lake Mungo
Authors: Walshe Keryn 
Published: November 2014

AbstractA bone assemblage from Shawcross' excavation at the Mungo B site shows that it is both burned at high temperatures and highly fragmented. Taphonomically, the assemblage displays post‐depositional disturbance by carnivores, human occupation and possibly fluvial sorting. The known breeding behaviour of the animals represented supports a picture of year round hunting in both the lacustrine environment and the forested hinterlands.
Long‐term Aboriginal use of western Victoria: reconsidering the significance of recent Pleistocene dates for the Grampians‐Gariwerd region
Authors: McNiven Ian J. , David Bruno , Lourandos Harry 
Published: November 2014

AbstractLong‐term archaeological trends for western Victoria have been a cornerstone in the modelling of changes in Aboriginal site and regional land use in Australian prehistory since the early 1980s. Both the archaeological trends and the explanatory socio‐demographic models, however, have been contested in the archaeological literature. Bird et al.'s (1998:35) recent paper offers new data which are claimed to ‘call for a re‐evaluation of current thinking on south‐west Victoria’. We point out that contrary to their interpretations, sedimentation rates do increase significantly at the rockshelter sites of Drual and Billimina in the late Holocene. As such, the new dates for the Grampians‐Gariwerd region strongly support both existing chronological trends in the archaeological record of western Victoria and Lourandos' (1983, 1997) socio‐***demographic model of long‐term change for the region.
‘Nowadays with glass’: regional variation in Aboriginal bottle glass artefacts from Western Australia
Authors: Harrison Rodney 
Published: November 2014

AbstractThis paper builds on the few well known analyses of glass artefacts by recognising that bottle shape strongly influences glass artefact morphology in glass tool manufacture. Analysis of Aboriginally worked glass artefacts, using similar bottles, from two regions in Western Australia show differences that cannot be attributed to regional variation in raw materials. These differences may relate to long term approaches to artefact manufacture.
Lithic Technology in Tasmania
Authors: Moore Mark W. 
Published: November 2014

AbstractAlthough a great deal of information exists about the types of stone implements made by Aboriginal Tasmanians, their stone technology is largely undescribed. Two studies initiated by Forestry Tasmania provided the opportunity to examine Tasmanian lithic technology in eastern Tasmania and the Southern Forests. The results of the studies indicate that two strategies of stone procurement and reduction were practiced in both parts of the state. One strategy involved collecting small cobbles and pebbles from surface exposures. These stones were reduced off‐source by freehand or bipolar percussion into small flake blanks. The blanks were used as cutting tools or retouched into scrapers. Many of the scrapers produced on these blanks fall within the “thumbnail” typological category. The other strategy involved reducing large blocks of material on‐source into large flake blanks. These large flake blanks were exported and used as cutting tools, reduced as small cores, or, most often, retouched into large scrapers. In contrast to most small scrapers originating from transported cores, these large scrapers were resharpened prior to discard. The expression of these strategies differs between the two project areas. The off‐source reduction strategy appears to be present in Pleistocene assemblages and the on‐source strategy may have emerged in the Holocene.
Uncertain supplies: water availability and regional archaeological structure in the Palmer River catchment, central Australia
Authors: Thorley Peter 
Published: November 2014

AbstractThis paper describes a seemingly paradoxical situation in a specific region of the Australian arid zone where indigenous archaeological material is more densely concentrated in areas away from, rather than near, the most permanent waters. In the Palmer River catchment, sites near certain ephemeral waters are argued to have functioned as regional centres while the role of permanent waters is seen to be secondary, particularly in respect of strategies of social interaction and ceremonial performance. Large aggregations at permanent waters were probably the exception rather than the rule and the general trend was toward a reduction in group size with resource scarcity. The use of ephemeral resources for regional interaction provided a means to distribute temporary surplus across a wider population while increasing certainty that essential resources would remain accessible from permanent waters in periods of low rainfall. These features, which were part of the settlement pattern from the mid to late Holocene, were not evident in the archaeological record from the late Pleistocene. The implications of the results for models held to account for settlement patterns in arid regions are addressed.
Source to discard: patterns of lithic raw material procurement and use in Sturt National Park, northwestern New South Wales
Authors: Doelman Trudy , Webb John , Domanski Marian 
Published: November 2014

AbstractSturt National Park, located in arid Northwestern New South Wales, has an abundance of stone sources occurring as outcrops and pavements of rounded cobbles (gibber); the flaking quality of the silcrete varies according to its geological characteristics. Detailed studies have focused on the procurement and use of these silcrete sources using a quarry and two nearby lithic scatters in the Stud Creek catchment. The results show that quarry location was influenced by the outcrop type; rare massive outcrops were targeted while the much more common columnar silcrete was ignored. Furthermore, several factors have influenced stone use and tool forms, not only stone abundance and quality, but also the type of stone resource, the form and size of the blocks/boulders available, and the distance from the source. These factors have interacted to create the patterns of discard observed today.
Grand hypotheses: palaeodemographic modelling in Western Australia's South‐west
Authors: Dortch C. E. , Smith M. V. 
Published: November 2014

AbstractAppraised are two palaeodemographic models proposed for Late Quaternary Aboriginal cultural history in Western Australia's South‐west. Both are grounded on two ideas: (1) wetter conditions regionally lead to replacement of open vegetative associations by forest unsuited for foraging populations; (2) large‐scale shifts in stone artefact 'discard rates' recorded in occupation deposits indicate regional population changes. The original model proposes regional Middle Holocene depopulation. The second model, partly based on the same archaeological evidence, is a large‐scale construct calling for variations in population sizes in the South‐west and elsewhere before and after the last glacial maximum, followed by Holocene population rise. In this construct, population fluctuations are caused by changes in Late Quaternary physical conditions outlined in a global climatic model, though this model disagrees with more generally accepted continental palaeoclimatic modelling, and with regional faunistic and vegetative records. Interpretation of artefact discard rates in the stone industrial sequences of three of four principal occupation sites on which both models are based disregards relevant stratigraphic, chronological and other site‐specific factors. Proposed is an alternative regional model of population mobility and fluctuating occupation patterns explaining variations in amounts of archaeological material discarded in occupation sites as well as variations in these sites' distributions.
Lapita in the far west: recent developments
Authors: Summerhayes Glenn R. 
Published: November 2014

AbstractSince the Lapita Homeland Project of 1985 there has been an upsurge of research on Lapita in the Bismarck Archipelago. A description and comparison of two Lapita pottery assemblages from the Arawe Islands and Anir in the Bismarck Archipelago is presented in order to explore the social and economic relationships between these early communities which produced and used the ware. Assemblages from a third area, Mussau, are then compared in order to show that these three assemblages have many similarities in both decoration and production which are best explained in terms of social interaction.
The Lapita site at Votua, northern Lau Islands, Fiji
Authors: Clark Geoffrey , Anderson Atholl , Matararaba Sepeti 
Published: November 2014

AbstractArchaeological sites of exclusively Lapita provenance are important because they present an opportunity to tease out the elements of material culture and economic behaviour which belonged to the first colonisation phase in Remote Oceania from those which might have come later. Such sites are rare in the eastern Lapita province (Fiji and West Polynesia). We describe one from Mago Island in the northern Lau group of Fiji. Although excavations at the site were limited in extent, the modest range of faunal and artefactual remains should represent a more typical inventory of a single‐phase Lapita occupation than assemblages drawn from sites in which post‐Lapita habitation is also, and often inextricably, represented.
Avifaunal extinctions, vegetation change, and Polynesian impacts in prehistoric Hawai'i
Authors: Athens J. Stephen , Toggle H. David , Ward Jerome V. , Welch David J. 
Published: November 2014

AbstractPre‐contact avifaunal extinctions in Hawai'i generally have been attributed to human predation and/or landscape alteration by colonizing Polynesians. However, until recently there have been insufficient data for evaluating most of the important variables involved in this issue. This situation has changed with recent archaeological, paleontological, and wetland coring research conducted on O'ahu's ‘Ewa Plain, a hot, dry emerged limestone reef characterized by numerous sinkholes. The main evidence obtained from this research includes (1) wetland coring data that stratigraphically demonstrate forest decline before any burning, (2) radiocarbon dating of bones of rats and extinct birds that provides a time frame for their occurrence unavailable from stratified deposits, and (3) the radiocarbon‐based history of human settlement of the 'Ewa Plain.Based on this evidence the argument is made that (1) at least some major avian extinctions occurred within the period immediately following Polynesian colonization, (2) these extinctions were due primarily to the rapid decline of their native lowland forest habitat, (3) human settlement of the 'Ewa Plain occurred after native forest collapse, not coincident with it, and (4) the main source of destruction of the native forests was the introduced Polynesian rat, Rattus exulans, not Hawaiian agricultural clearing and burning. This model also explains the absence of large quantities of bird bone in early sites (in contrast to other places in Polynesia and Micronesia), and the absence in early middens of many plants (notably Kanaloa kahoolawensis) that were common in the native forest.
Depicting cross‐cultural interaction: figurative designs in wood, earth and stone from south‐east Australia
Authors: Taçon Paul S.C. , South Barrina , Hooper Shaun Boree 
Published: November 2014

AbstractWe examine Aboriginal wooden artefacts traded between European and Aboriginal Australians in south‐east Australia in order to gain insight into the impact of cross‐cultural interaction on Aboriginal art traditions. Although we focus on wooden objects with figurative designs made and exchanged over the past 150 or more years, as well as their links to earlier ground, tree and rock‐art traditions, the study contributes to a larger understanding of cultural change not well documented with ethnography. Information from 469 individual pieces in 90 private and public collections, is summarised, along with the development of individual, community and regional styles. A theory about the role of such material culture during changing times in south‐east Australia is outlined. More generally, it is argued that material culture both mediates and expresses change, with figurative motifs and storytelling through pictures particularly effective when communicating to diverse groups of people of varying cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
Kimberley points and colonial preference: new insights into the chronology of pressure flaked point forms from the southeast Kimberley, Western Australia
Authors: Harrison Rodney 
Published: November 2014

AbstractBased on recent archaeological research in the southeast Kimberley this paper argues that while bifacially pressure flaked points are clearly present in the archaeological record from c. 1400‐l000calBP, Kimberley point manufacture reached its zenith only after AD1885, when there was both an intensification in the numbers of points produced, and increasing formalisation of point design. Changes in the numbers and formalisation of the shape of points produced after AD1885 are linked both to post‐contact social changes and the dialectic role played by non‐Aboriginal collectors in selecting for particular point forms. It is suggested that 'Kimberley points' as defined by Akerman and Bindon (1995) should be seen as an extreme formal variation on the range of pressure flaked point shapes that were manufactured over the last millennia in the Kimberley, developed to meet the particular preferences of colonial collectors. This study of formal changes in artefacts as a result of colonial contact in Australia is set within a framework of other research in colonial New Britain and the Admiralty Islands on the influence of collectors on the formal qualities of Indigenous objects.
Late Lapita occupation and its ceramic assemblage at the Sigatoka Sand Dune site, Fiji, and their place in Oceanic prehistory
Authors: Burley David V. , Dickinson William R. 
Published: November 2014

AbstractThe Sigatoka Sand Dune site on the island of Viti Levu, Fiji, has been continuously eroding over the past half century. Large‐scale excavations here in the mid‐1960s documented a Late Lapita ceramic horizon, one significantly including many restorable or diagnostically complete vessels. A 1998 discovery of an intact segment of this deposit led to renewed excavation and the recovery of additional vessels. The results of this excavation are presented and used to redress long‐standing problems associated with the occupation and interpretation of the ceramic assemblage. Based on radiocarbon dates and geoarchaeological analysis, it is known that the ceramics originally were deposited and rapidly buried on a back beach sand flat over a very brief period of time ca. 2500 BP (ca. 2600 cal. BP). The distribution of ceramics, the relative absence of habitation features, non‐ceramic artifacts and fauna, and shoreline characteristics suggest the locale was employed as a canoe‐landing site. The temporal discreteness, and the completeness of ceramic vessels have made the collection a critical assemblage for comparative analyses in Oceanic prehistory. With only limited decoration applied to the vessels, the assemblage has been interpreted as a devolutionary stage, one intermediate between the complex and highly structured decorated vessels of the initial Lapita colonists and a sequent Plainware phase where decoration has all but disappeared. Rather than a devolutionary stage, the Sigatoka pottery represents a viable industry with functional if not social importance in late Lapita society.
New Pleistocene ages for backed artefact technology in Australia
Authors: Slack Michael J. , Fullagar Richard L.K. , Field Judith H. , Border Andrew 
Published: November 2014

AbstractTwo recently excavated sites adjacent to the Gregory River at Riversleigh in northwestern Queensland have yielded backed artefacts from Pleistocene sediments. One backed artefact is from an 80 cm deep, dense shell midden near the Old Lilydale Homestead (OLH) and radiocarbon determinations on associated freshwater mussel Alathyria cf. pertexta returned Late Pleistocene ages. Two backed artefacts from the limestone rockshelter GRE8 were also recovered from Pleistocene levels. All three backed artefacts are similar to geometric microliths, which are commonly associated with Holocene archaeological deposits. These data complement arguments for early Holocene and Pleistocene backed artefacts in southeastern Australia.
Is there a Pleistocene archaeological site at Cuddie Springs?
Authors: Gillespie Richard , Brook Barry W. 
Published: November 2014

AbstractThe juxtaposition of stone tools, charcoal and bones at Cuddie Springs has been used to support claims that people were butchering now‐extinct animals, and grinding seeds about 30,000 BP. Statistical analysis of dates for the site shows significant sediment disturbance, and the anomalous presence of hair residues in the absence of bone collagen suggests that bones and stone tools are not the same age. We argue that the published studies on the Cuddie Springs claypan deposits do not show a stratified and undisturbed Late Pleistocene archaeological site, as proposed by the excavators, instead revealing a palimpsest of Late Holocene and European occupational debris superimposed on a much longer‐term record of Quaternary landscape evolution. There is no reliable evidence that extinct Australian megafauna coexisted with people using seed‐grinding technology at Cuddie Springs, nullifying the excavators' support for climate change models of extinction and dietary choice.
First‐trimester combined screening for trisomy 21 in women with renal disease
Authors: Valentin Morgane , Muller Françoise , Beaujard Marie Paule , Dreux Sophie , Czerkiewicz Isabelle , Meyer Valérie , Leruez Marianne , Ville Yves , Salomon Laurent J. 
Published: November 2014

AbstractObjectiveTo evaluate the results of first‐trimester combined screening for Down syndrome in women with chronic renal disease.MethodFifty‐five pregnant women with renal disease were compared with 110 patients matched for maternal age, maternal weight, smoking status, and gestational age. Maternal renal function was assayed at the time of the combined screening, and renal insufficiency was defined by serum creatinine >90 µmol/L and renal clearance <80 mL/min. We defined three groups: kidney disease and normal renal function (group 1), kidney disease and renal insufficiency (group 2), and a control group (group 3). The values of nuchal translucency, pregnancy‐associated plasma protein A, human β‐chorionic gonadotrophin (hCGβ), and false‐positive rates for Down syndrome screening were compared.ResultsThere were 39 (71%) and 16 (29%) cases in groups 1 and 2, respectively. Nuchal translucency and multiple of the median (MoM) pregnancy‐associated plasma protein A were similar in the three groups. However, MoM hCGβ levels were higher in group 2 than in groups 1 and 3 (5.37 vs 1.1 vs 0.98 MoM, p = 0.0001). The resulting screen‐positive rate was also higher in group 2 than in groups 1 and 3 (43.7% vs 10.2% vs 5.5%, p = 0.0001).ConclusionTrisomy 21 first‐trimester screening using hCGβ is not suitable in the case of maternal renal failure. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.