Phoenician maritime pioneering and Punic expansion : reconstructing trade and dietary patterns

Perhaps the most significant legacy attributed to the Phoenicians was their mastery of the seas, which led them to establish the first grand commercial Mediterranean network, expanding from Lebanon to beyond the Pillars of Hercules between the 8th and 6th centuries BC. The Punic culture, which flourished in the central and western Mediterranean from Phoenician colonies, maintained the exceptional navigation skills of the Phoenicians, but developed into more settled and structured territories that allowed the communities to intensify their exploitation of Mediterranean resources. Their rise to prominence can be measured by the threat they posed to the Roman Republic, while the salvage of the agronomic treatises by Mago after the sacking of Carthage attests to their renowned agrarian competence. The paucity of Phoenician and Punic written sources essentially means that material culture provides the data with which to model community lifeways, including daily dietary patterns, and trade more generally. The aim of this session was to bring together research focused on diet and trade in the Phoenician and Punic world, building on the work that has been done on foodways to model community interaction (Mata Parreño et al. 2010; Delgado and Ferrer 2011a and 2011b). The session comprised five oral contributions and a poster presentation. The focus was on central and western Mediterranean mainland regions and island territories. Findings from more recent archaeological excavations were described and discussed, and scientific applications to archaeological material were outlined and interpretations put forward and discussed.peer-reviewe

Earliest evidence of dental caries manipulation in the Late Upper Palaeolithic

Prehistoric dental treatments were extremely rare, and the few documented cases are known from the Neolithic, when the adoption of early farming culture caused an increase of carious lesions. Here we report the earliest evidence of dental caries intervention on a Late Upper Palaeolithic modern human specimen (Villabruna) from a burial in Northern Italy. Using Scanning Electron Microscopy we show the presence of striations deriving from the manipulation of a large occlusal carious cavity of the lower right third molar. The striations have a “V”-shaped transverse section and several parallel micro-scratches at their base, as typically displayed by cutmarks on teeth. Based on in vitro experimental replication and a complete functional reconstruction of the Villabruna dental arches, we confirm that the identified striations and the associated extensive enamel chipping on the mesial wall of the cavity were produced ante-mortem by pointed flint tools during scratching and levering activities. The Villabruna specimen is therefore the oldest known evidence of dental caries intervention, suggesting at least some knowledge of disease treatment well before the Neolithic. This study suggests that primitive forms of carious treatment in human evolution entail an adaptation of the well-known toothpicking for levering and scratching rather than drilling practices

DISC1 genetics, biology and psychiatric illness

Psychiatric disorders are highly heritable, and in many individuals likely arise from the combined effects of genes and the environment. A substantial body of evidence points towards DISC1 being one of the genes that influence risk of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, and functional studies of DISC1 consequently have the potential to reveal much about the pathways that lead to major mental illness. Here, we review the evidence that DISC1 influences disease risk through effects upon multiple critical pathways in the developing and adult brain

Phoenician maritime pioneering and Punic expansion: Reconstructing trade and dietary patterns

Session organized by Debono-Spiteri, Salazar García & Vell

Starch taphonomy on stone tools: Considering anthropogenic alterations, climate, and soil chemistry

Poster Abstrac

Starch taphonomy on stone tools: Considering anthropogenic alterations, climate and soil chemistry

Podium Presentation, Session 1

A Late Neolithic Single Grave Culture burial from Twello (central Netherlands): Environmental setting, burial ritual and contextualisation

European Prehistor