bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Plant Food Diet of Mesolithic Northwestern Europe
Authors: Kubiak-Martens Lucy 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
In this chapter, we contribute to the discussion about importance of plant gathering in Mesolithic Europe by presenting archaeobotanical evidence recovered in the last few decades from archaeological sites in northwestern Europe. The recovery and identification of plant food remains from early archaeological sites can be challenging. However, novel archaeobotanical techniques and the increasing interest of archaeologists to include archaeobotany within their research strategies have considerable implications for how we view the plant component in the diet of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. The study presented in this chapter shows the diversity of plant species and plant parts used and the environments that were explored by the Mesolithic groups in their search for food plants. This, we hope, will create a more balanced view of the complex relationship between animal and plant food components in the European Mesolithic diet.
Lithic Technology
Authors: Sørensen Mikkel 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
This chapter concerns lithic technology during the Mesolithic with a focus on northern Europe. Methodological aspects on how to study lithic technology are addressed, with emphasis on the chaîne opératoire, and the lithic craft tradition of the Mesolithic is addressed in light of social theory. An analysis of the two main lithic productions of the Mesolithic, the adze/axe production and the blade production, concerning their methods of production and conduction techniques, is carried out in a diachronous perspective. It is concluded that several leaps in lithic technology are seen across Europe during the eighth–seventh millennia bc, particularly concerning the introduction of the pressure and indirect knapping technique, and concerning the conical core blade concept and the handle core blade concept. These leaps are argued to be best understood as results of changes in social transmission from vertical to horizontal transmission related to cultural influences from eastern Europe to western Europe.
Quarrying and Lithic Procurement
Authors: Nyland Astrid J. 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
In Mesolithic Europe, lithic raw material procurement was a fundamental task, but also a multi-dimensional and heterogeneous phenomenon. Because of Europe’s varied geology and topography, procurement of specific rock types is regionally distinct. However, procurement practices also vary because practices are historically situated, specked with choices, and thus socially infused. In this chapter, although also described, lithic procurement is considered as constituted by more than the methods of quarrying, detaching, and collecting rock for tool production. Investigations of the character of procurement, the scale and intensity of exploitation, as well as distribution, can give insight into ascribed values of rock and place, mobility, settlement systems, social organization, and relations. Lithic procurement practices, the way people procured, utilized, and distributed specific rock types, is also argued as a source of knowledge for how people expressed their place in the world, their belonging or perceived ancestry, and even cosmology.
Eastern Europe
Authors: Dolbunova Ekaterina , Mazurkevich Andrey 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
Eastern Europe encompasses a huge area with different ecotones settled non-uniformly during Mesolithic from c. 10,400–9,200 bc. The end of the Mesolithic in eastern Europe corresponds to the beginning of the Atlantic period when pottery spread over vast areas rather rapidly (c. 6,000–5,600 bc). The Mesolithic strategies increasingly relied on the exploitation of aquatic resources, waterfowl, edible plants, and hunting of animals adapted to the forest and forest-steppe environments. The development of effective use of aquatic resources allowed breaking through ecological barriers posed by large bodies of wetlands and turn them to transport routes and as source of food. Different eastern European Mesolithic cultures were formed on the basis of the local Palaeolithic cultures or under the influence of neighbouring cultures, which resulted in the formation of a number of different technocomplexes. Substantial changes in the social organization of Mesolithic groups are marked by the appearance of large ‘communal’ cemeteries and new forms of art, restricted to several smaller areas within the forest zone of eastern Europe. The Late Mesolithic is characterized by cultural diversity manifested through diversification of complexes.
Human–Animal Relationships
Authors: Mannermaa Kristiina 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of relations between humans and animals in prehistoric hunter-gatherer cultures. I approach the subject by using archaeological and ethnographic examples from northern Mesolithic contexts, concerning fish, birds, and mammals from various points of view. The approach is based on the generally accepted idea that the worldviews of many recent indigenous and prehistoric groups were relational and multivocal. Relations between humans, animals, plants, landscapes, artefacts, and other things in the past were varied, fluid, and included the notification of agency of other-than-human beings. For Mesolithic groups objects, things, and non-humans may have possessed souls, and these could have been perceived as persons. However, understanding what this may have meant for the people who lived thousands of years ago may be challenging.
Sculpture and Art (Portable and Non-Portable)
Authors: Płonka Tomasz 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
This chapter describes the Mesolithic portable art of Europe and its interpretations. It analyses objects in the form of engravings on tools and ceremonial objects, and non-portable monumental sculptures. The engravings were usually manufactured on artefacts made of bone, antler, wood, and stone, and on amber beads, the latter known only in southern Scandinavia. Most of the artefacts were found in northern Europe where the conditions for the preservation of organic artefacts are favourable. Engraved patterns are rather geometrical; anthropomorphic and zoomorphic motifs are rare. One can distinguish some stylistic differences in this art in Europe. They concern northeastern, northwestern, southwestern, and southern parts of the continent. The patterns relate to the symbolic culture of Mesolithic hunters and gatherers and mirrored their worldview, religious concepts, and mythical relationships. Some of them seem to refer to the shamanistic vision of the world because they present a zonal organization of the motifs which is related to a shamanistic concept how the world is built. This meaning of ornamentation implies that the decoration was a ritual activity and the decorated artefacts themselves were also objects of complex rituals.
Introduction
Authors: Stutz Liv Nilsson , Peyroteo Stjerna Rita , Tõrv Mari 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
Mesolithic research has undergone a series of important transformations over the past several decades, making it one of the most dynamic and prolific fields of archaeology today. The handbook captures our ambition to demonstrate the plurality of perspectives and developments in Mesolithic research, combining theoretically new and innovative questions strongly valuing the methodological connection to the empirical record. It consists of fifty-nine chapters giving voice to a diverse set of authors including established senior researchers and scholars at the beginning of their career, from across the study area. This has enabled us to deliver broad overviews and case studies on the seven key topics of Mesolithic Europe: Mesolithic geographies; hunter-fisher-gatherer landscapes; Mesolithic life; meaningful technology; death and the dead; cosmologies; and ritual and symbolism. We believe that the archaeology of Mesolithic Europe will continue to develop from the strengths demonstrated in this volume, which is its diversity, its commitment to collaborative research, and to a unique connection of exciting exploratory theory, a grounding in the empirical evidence, and a potential to continue to grow with the development of scientific methods.
Orwell and John Milton
Authors: Cook Elizabeth , Waddell Nathan 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
This chapter considers George Orwell’s creative literary relationship with the poet John Milton. Our claim is that the character and function of Milton’s ‘impress’ on Orwell takes a different shape in his fiction and in his non-fiction. In Orwell’s fiction, which mainly (though not exclusively) features quotations from and allusions to Paradise Lost, the relationship is a matter of often straightforward, sometimes ironic evocation. Thematically pertinent lines and ideas in Milton’s work are quoted or alluded to in order to help Orwell clinch a point, or to make a satiric intervention. Orwell’s non-fiction, by contrast, tends to draw Milton into a more directly articulated concern with the question of human liberty—here, the touchstone is Areopagitica (1644). Milton’s availability to Orwell, as a source to imitate and to appropriate, was to some extent a matter of slotting him into a broader spiritual imaginary. But it was also a matter of direct literary influence, with Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) in particular showing a deep Miltonic strain; and a case of ideological difference, with Milton’s appointment as a state-approved censor providing one very clear point of political discrepancy between the two figures. For Orwell, Milton was a touchstone that could be called upon when required—sometimes praised, sometimes rejected, but always influential, even in negation.
Orwell and George Gissing
Authors: Taylor D. J. 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
The Victorian novelist who meant the most to Orwell and who left the most profound impression on his own work was George Gissing. ‘Perhaps the best novelist England has produced’, Orwell wrote in a Tribune essay from 1943. Compliments to Gissing are scattered through Orwell’s writings like confetti at a wedding, and Orwell repeatedly proselytized on the earlier writer’s behalf. This chapter considers the implications of Orwell’s esteem, and reflects on the Gissing novels he read; on his own writings about Gissing; and on Gissing’s influence on Orwell’s fiction. There were significant gaps in Orwell’s knowledge of Gissing’s writing. However, a Gissing ‘presence’ in Orwell’s fiction is undeniable, as A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935), Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Coming Up for Air (1939), and Animal Farm (1945) make clear. In the end, though, all these occasional diggings beneath the topsoil of Gissing’s work are overshadowed by a wider and more ideological debt—itself all the more remarkable in that Gissing’s ideological tendencies, such as they are, sharply opposed almost everything Orwell held dear. Gissing realized, as Orwell himself was to do, that economic insecurity hits the petit bourgeoisie far more than the working classes, for the thing that is taken away from them in times of crisis is their respectability, the sense of who they are. In Gissing’s gloomy back-streets and depressed lower-middle-class interiors, which were to prove so important for Orwell, the seeds of totalitarianism take root and flourish.
Orwell and Trotskyism
Authors: Goodway David 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
This chapter explores the assertions that Orwell ascribed to some form of Trotskyism. Central to these is his fighting with the quasi-Trotskyist POUM militia in the Spanish Civil War. But this and the following suppression of the POUM were experiences that fostered his analysis of the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and hence were the seed-plot of both Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. He saw the Kronstadt mutiny of 1921 (for the repression of which Trotsky had responsibility) as the pivotal event in Russia and hence the reason for the emergence of what he termed ‘oligarchical collectivism’. His almost certain intellectual indebtedness to the American James Burnham, himself a former Trotskyist, is emphasized, as is his assessment of Trotsky whom, unsurprisingly, he held in low esteem.
Orwell and Kindness
Authors: Faragher Megan 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
By centralizing the role of kindness in Orwell’s work, this chapter underscores that while the concept of kindness does not achieve the notoriety of other more central concepts like decency or fair play, instances of it across Orwell’s work are paramount to his vision of a more just future. Where concepts like decency are subject to the flattening impacts of propaganda and polemic, instances of interpersonal kindnesses in works like Homage to Catalonia emerge as incorruptible moments of solidarity. These acts, often in the context of the deadening interpersonal impacts of war and struggle, provide alternatives to the history of spiritual faith that Orwell diagnosed as in decline. This chapter argues that, commanding the role once reserved for faith, kindness in Orwell’s work recenters acts of sacrifice and comradery at the center of anti-fascist resistance.
Orwell, Afrofuturism, and Queer Speculative Fiction
Authors: Dini Rachele 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
This chapter examines the legacy of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in a selection of queer speculative and Afrofuturist novels by British, Japanese, Ghanaian-American, Nigerian, and American writers published between the late 1970s and early 2020s. Kay Dick’s They (1977, reprinted 2022), Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police (1994; translated 2019), Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s ‘Zimmer Land’ (2018), Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift (2019), and Marisa Crane’s I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself (2023), I argue, dismantle the white supremacist, patriarchal, heteronormative, and western imperialist principles undergirding Orwell’s text and its most famous descendants, the majority of which are by white Anglo-American male writers. By replacing the individual narrative with a collective one, centring the stories of the oppressed, and sidelining the structures and systems that render their worlds oppressive to focus, instead, on the everyday and, very often, the home, Dick, Ogawa, Serpell, and Crane problematize the Orwellian tradition and reconceptualize the genre of dystopian fiction. I contextualize these texts both within the respective histories to which they allude and within the history of queer speculative and Afrofuturist fiction more generally.
Orwell and Social Media
Authors: Losh Elizabeth 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
Today’s internet critics often draw analogies with the dystopian scenarios in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). However, the purpose of these analogies is often to draw attention to the ways that the surveillance depicted in the novel differs significantly from modes of digital surveillance today. The book also seems to remain current in public conversations about social media, because it presents citizens as victims of disinformation and collective amnesia, unable to comprehend basic facts in a paper-free world. However, these characterizations of why Orwell’s work remains relevant in the digital age are necessarily incomplete, and they often ignore the timeliness of material other than Nineteen Eighty-Four as a critical lens for social media, such as Burmese Days (1934) or “Notes on Nationalism” (1945).
Digital Constitutionalism in Australia
Authors: Mann Monique , Murray Angus 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
This chapter examines expansions in telecommunications surveillance law in Australia and highlights the lack of constitutionally protected rights and values that underpin the project of digital constitutionalism. The core critique mounted here is not directed at the project of digital constitutionalism, however. Rather it highlights challenges in realizing or achieving it under certain constitutional frameworks such as Australia’s. While Australia is signatory to numerous international human rights instruments such as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and is a member of the Freedom Online Coalition and has made commitments to the Declaration for the Future of the Internet, it remains the only Western democracy that lacks a comprehensive and enforceable human rights framework. The absence of such enforceable protections in the ‘offline’ world means there are also limited, if indeed any, protections for rights online (ie ‘digital rights’). The analysis here focuses on aspects of surveillance laws that have significant consequences for the rule of law, democracy, and state power, and that erode the right to privacy. The authors conclude that in the absence of a comprehensive and enforceable human rights framework enshrined in a constitutional or statutory framework (protecting both ‘offline’ and ‘digital’ rights), it will not be possible to realize digital constitutionalism in Australia.
Competition Law in the Spotlight
Authors: Martínez Alba Ribera 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
Digital constitutionalism boils down to the relocation of power across different vectors in the digital arena. Abuses of power crystallize into the functioning of complex systems of governance. Competition law captures those abuses of power via the prohibition of abuse of a dominant position which has permeated public enforcement over conduct taking place in the digital sector. In this field of law, the legal regime meets economics in providing the operable framework for maintaining the competitive dynamics of digital platforms. These efforts to merge both disciplines have not come without friction since the tools at the disposal of competition authorities do not directly pursue the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms. The scales of the antitrust analysis have repeatedly turned in favour of the separation of the discipline from its constitutional outset. Against this background, the chapter drives two critical insights into the study of digital constitutionalism. First, the chapter addresses the transformation of the application of competition law from a punitive framework primarily focused on sanctioning private undertakings to a steering instrument to curb the governance mechanisms of digital platforms. The chapter considers the concept of business ecosystems to narrow that gap and draw out its implications in relation to the constitutional scheme. Second, the chapter reviews the most salient development that the European Union’s competition policy has produced to submit the conduct of digital platforms to the rule of law: the Digital Markets Act.
The MADS6, JAGGED, and YABBY proteins synergistically determine floral organ development in rice
Authors: Cai Zhengzheng , Li Jieqiong , Su Yuanyuan , Zheng Lili , Zhang Jianwei , Zhu Miaomiao , Qiu Bingwen , Kong Lan , Ye Yanfang , Xue Yongbiao , Wu Weiren , Duan Yuanlin 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
MADS6, JAGGED (JAG), and DROOPING LEAF (DL) are key regulators of floral organ patterns in rice (Oryza sativa); however, how they work together in specifying floral organs remains to be determined. Here, we extensively analyzed the coordination mechanism. Genetic interactions showed that all double/triple mutant combinations of mads6-5 with jag and/or dl-sup7 generated an inflorescence from the spikelet center and lemma-like organs (LLOs) at the periphery, indicating that these genes synergistically promote floral organ specification, inhibit inflorescence initiation, and terminate the floral meristem (FM). Particularly, a fully developed mads6-5 jag spikelet appeared as a large bouquet composed of numerous multi-floral complexes (MFC), while the triple mutant was generally similar to mads6-5 jag, except for a longer pedicel and fewer MFCs. Expression analysis revealed that JAG directly inhibits the transcription of MADS6 in stamens but not in pistils, as JAG and DL co-express in pistils and form a JAG-DL complex, indicating that JAG and DL may coordinate the transcription of MADS6 in sexual organs. Protein interactions revealed that MADS6 and JAG bind to five spikelet-related YABBY proteins (including DL), forming ten heterodimers, suggesting that they may promote floral differentiation through various pathways. However, MADS6 and JAG neither bound together nor formed a heterotrimer with any of the five YABBY proteins. These findings revealed specific synergistic patterns between MADS6, JAGGED, and YABBY proteins, which may contribute to the unique characteristics of rice spikelets and provide insights into the diversity regulation mechanisms of floral specification in plants.
Jasmonic acid and nitric oxide orchestrate a hierarchical melatonin cascade for Botrytis cinerea resistance in tomato
Authors: Shan Qing , Zhao Dan , Cao Bili , Zhu Xueying , Wang Chengqiang , Deng Lei , Li Chuanyou , Zhang Yang , Shi Qinghua , Gong Biao 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
Tomato gray mold, caused by Botrytis cinerea (B. cinerea), poses a major challenge to tomato production. In plants, B. cinerea resistance is positively regulated by melatonin; however, the regulatory mechanism of melatonin biosynthesis during B. cinerea infection is not known. Here, we established the working model of jasmonic acid (JA) and nitric oxide (NO) on melatonin biosynthesis in the state of B. cinerea infection. NO responded to B. cinerea infection earlier than JA. In the early stage of infection, tomato caffeic acid O-methyltransferase 2 (SlCOMT2) was S-nitrosylated by NO at Cys344, enhancing the stability of SlCOMT2 and preventing its degradation via the 26S proteasome. In the late stage of infection, JA-triggered SlMYC2 bound to SlCOMT1 and SlCOMT2 promoters for their transcription. NO and JA synergistically enhanced COMT-mediated melatonin biosynthesis during B. cinerea infection via post-translational modification and transcriptional activation. The accumulation of melatonin in tomato leaves inhibited cell death by scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS), thereby preventing B. cinerea from establishing infection sites. We propose that SlCOMT2Cys344 is a genetic manipulation site or biological breeding target that can be used to enhance melatonin synthesis and B. cinerea resistance in tomato.