Extractive Strategies at Peoria Quarry, Ottowa County, Oklahoma

The Peoria Quarry complex was first recognized as representing prehistoric activities by geologist Walter P Jenny in 1891. Jenny, who was studying the zinc and lead mines in southwestern Missouri and adjacent areas, made collections from the Peoria extractive area and submitted these specimens along with an introductory letter to Mr. G. K Gilbert of the United States Geological Survey. The latter contacted William H. Holmes, who visited the location in late October of that year (Holmes 1894:7-8). Prior to the evaluation of Jenny, the site was referred to as old Spanish mines because the local populace could not attribute such extensive digging to prehistoric peoples. Some early accounts of the Peoria Quarry area greatly exaggerated the vertical and horizontal extent of excavations. For example, Nieberding mentions that John P. McNaughton visited these mines in 1877 and concluded that at least 500 to 1000 men must have been engaged in digging pits over an extended period of time in a 40 acre area. According to McNaughton, some of the shafts were 250 to 300 feet in depth, and it amazed him that the pits apparently had been excavated using stone tools. He did not mention the great quantities of lithic debitage which surrounded each pit Holmes, while admitting that digging at the site had been extensive, estimated that chert had been extracted from an area of no more than four or five acres and stated that the greatest depth of pits in 1891 was about five feet. He did mention that a few trenches of 100 feet or more in length could be found along the margins of the site, but stated that most evidence of digging consisted of round pits up to 40 feet in diameter. His sketch map depicts the approximate extent of quarry pits and associated workshop areas

Recent Work at 34PA341 in the Brushy-Peaceable Watershed

In October 1993, Historic Preservation Associates (HPA) conducted Phase II assessments at several sites in SCS Impoundments 26 and 29 in the Brushy-Peaceable watershed, Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. Timothy C. Klinger acted as principal investigator; field director was Don R. Dickson. Most sites had been seriously disturbed by rodent activity and recent erosion. 34PS341, however, was located on a high terrace of Gardner Creek, did not seem to be as disturbed, and appeared to possibly represent a single Caddoan occupation. In April 1994, the HPA team excavated an additional 14 1x1 m units in the northeastern part of the site, an area that had yielded several culturally and functionally diagnostic artifacts in three 1x1 m units excavated in October. Three features were exposed during this work, as well as additional diagnostic artifacts. Feature 1 was a concentration of sandstone rock which did not seem fire-cracked. Feature 2 was a pit (storage?) which had been dug into sterile subsoil. Although pit the contents were waterscreened. nothing was found in the matrix that would suggest the pit use. Feature 3, only partially excavated at this time because most of it lay outside the 14-unit area (the team was excavating the last unit at that time), was a pit containing a substantial hearth in its upper margins. Charcoal from this hearth produced a 13C adjusted age of 1180 ± 70 B.P. (Beta-72083). This date indicated probable site use during the Terminal Late Woodland; a Haskell point recovered in Level 1 suggested Late Caddoan times

Obsidian Artifacts from the Ozark Area

In a paper presented at the Ozark Prehistory II session at the Society for American Archaeology meeting in New Orleans in 1996, the author stated that available evidence suggested two possible movements of Plains oriented peoples into the Ozark area during prehistoric times. The first of these was during the Late Archaic, and is reflected in quantities of Hanna, Duncan, and McKean bifaces being found in western Ozark sites. All of these types were named by Wheeler for examples recovered from Late Archaic sites in Wyoming. Although Perino suggests that the northeastern Oklahoma examples are only similar and should be named something else, all three types are often found on the same site in a Late Archaic context. In addition, the specimens are morphologically the same as Plains examples. The second apparent influx of Plains oriented peoples into the western Ozark area was during the Late Prehistoric when what is referred to as the Neosho phase suddenly appears in the area. Such Plains traits as Harahey knives, snub nosed scrapers, triangular arrow points, bison bone artifacts, and distinctive punctate decorated shell tempered pottery are found at both village sites and bluff shelters. Archeologists have yet to relate the Neosho phase phenomena to a specific Plains antecedent population in a convincingg way

Prehistoric Lithic Procurement Sites: A Vanishing Resource

Unfortunately, many archeologists are unaware of the rapidity with which these lithic procurement sites are being destroyed. Since many of them are located in areas not usually associated with prehistoric sites, such as on elevated ridges or in mountain settings often far from water, they are not monitored regularly by archeologists and often eliminated or damaged without scientific notice of such damage. For example, when I visited the Peoria Quarry in 1992 to obtain samples of the raw material, I discovered that over 90 percent of the site had been destroyed by leveling the ground for several houses. Later, in 1993, additional damage was done to the site by the installation of a water line through the remaining part of the site. In August, 1994, I visited the Golden Grove Quarry in Barton County, Missouri only to find that the owner of the site had recently filled in all of the one to two meter deep pits so that he could plant the area in fescue. In the Ouachita area near Hot Springs, hundreds of prehistoric quarries have been destroyed already by novaculite mining operations to obtain material for silica products and whetstones. The huge aboriginal quarrying complex on Spanish Mountain near Magnet Cove, Arkansas has been damaged severely, although portions of it are still intac

Individualised pelvic floor muscle training in women with pelvic organ prolapse: a multicentre randomised controlled trial

<br>Background: Pelvic organ prolapse is common and is strongly associated with childbirth and increasing age. Women with prolapsed are often advised to do pelvic floor muscle exercises, but supporting evidence is limited. Our aim was to establish if one-to-one individualised pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) is effective in reducing prolapse symptoms.</br> <br>Methods: A parallel‐group multicentre randomised controlled trial (ISRCTN35911035) in female outpatients with newly-diagnosed, symptomatic stage I, II or III prolapse, comparing five PFMT appointments over 16 weeks (n=225) versus a lifestyle advice leaflet (n=222). Treatment allocation was by remote computer allocation using minimisation. Our primary endpoint was participants’ self-report of prolapsed symptoms at 12 months. Group assignment was masked from outcome assessors. We compared outcomes between trial groups in an intention-to-treat analysis. The cost of PFMT and savings on subsequent treatments were calculated to estimate cost-effectiveness.</br> <br>Findings: Compared to the control group, the intervention group reported fewer prolapse symptoms at 12 months (mean difference between groups in change score 1.52, 95% CI [0.46, 2.59], p=0.0053); reported their prolapse to be “better” more often (57.2% versus 44.7%, difference 12.6%, 95% CI [1.1%, 24.1%], p=0.0336); and had an increased but non-significant odds of having less severe stage of prolapse at their 6-month clinical examination, (OR 1.47, 95% CI [0.97, 2.27], p=0.07). The control group had a greater uptake of other prolapse treatment (49.6% versus 24.1%, difference 25.5%, 95% CI [14.5%, 36.0%], p <0.0001). Findings were robust to missing data. The net cost of the 25 intervention was £131.61 per woman and the cost per one-point reduction in the symptom score was £86.59, 95% CI [£50.81, £286.11]. </br&gt

Brain transplantation of genetically corrected Sanfilippo type B neural stem cells induces partial cross-correction of the disease

Sanfilippo syndrome type B (mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIB) is a recessive genetic disorder that severely affects the brain due to a deficiency in the enzyme α

Cerebellar c9RAN proteins associate with clinical and neuropathological characteristics of C9ORF72 repeat expansion carriers.

Clinical and neuropathological characteristics associated with G4C2 repeat expansions in chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9ORF72), the most common genetic cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia, are highly variable. To gain insight on the molecular basis for the heterogeneity among C9ORF72 mutation carriers, we evaluated associations between features of disease and levels of two abundantly expressed "c9RAN proteins" produced by repeat-associated non-ATG (RAN) translation of the expanded repeat. For these studies, we took a departure from traditional immunohistochemical approaches and instead employed immunoassays to quantitatively measure poly(GP) and poly(GA) levels in cerebellum, frontal cortex, motor cortex, and/or hippocampus from 55 C9ORF72 mutation carriers [12 patients with ALS, 24 with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and 19 with FTLD with motor neuron disease (FTLD-MND)]. We additionally investigated associations between levels of poly(GP) or poly(GA) and cognitive impairment in 15 C9ORF72 ALS patients for whom neuropsychological data were available. Among the neuroanatomical regions investigated, poly(GP) levels were highest in the cerebellum. In this same region, associations between poly(GP) and both neuropathological and clinical features were detected. Specifically, cerebellar poly(GP) levels were significantly lower in patients with ALS compared to patients with FTLD or FTLD-MND. Furthermore, cerebellar poly(GP) associated with cognitive score in our cohort of 15 patients. In the cerebellum, poly(GA) levels similarly trended lower in the ALS subgroup compared to FTLD or FTLD-MND subgroups, but no association between cerebellar poly(GA) and cognitive score was detected. Both cerebellar poly(GP) and poly(GA) associated with C9ORF72 variant 3 mRNA expression, but not variant 1 expression, repeat size, disease onset, or survival after onset. Overall, these data indicate that cerebellar abnormalities, as evidenced by poly(GP) accumulation, associate with neuropathological and clinical phenotypes, in particular cognitive impairment, of C9ORF72 mutation carriers