Shelley and Berkeley: The Platonic Connection

[Δεν διατίθεται περίληψη / no abstract available

Radiocarbon dates for the late Pleistocene and Early Holocene occupations of Cova Rosa (Ribadesella, Asturias, Spain)

Four excavations have been performed at the archaeological site of Cova Rosa (Asturias, Cantabrian Spain): three of them in the second half of last century and the other in this decade. Although little of the archaeological material found in those excavations has been published, here we attempt the stratigraphic correlation of sections revealed by the different excavations and we present 22 new radiocarbon dates for bones and marine shells, built in a Bayesian statistical model. This has enabled the documentation of occupations that mainly took place during the Last Glacial period, in the Solutrean (middle and upper phases) and Magdalenian (archaic, lower, and upper phases), and also in the early Holocene (Mesolithic). These occupations are compared with the record at other sites in Cantabrian Spain in general and in Asturias, in particular.Introduction Cova Rosa Cave - Geographical and Geological Setting - History of Research - Stratigraphy Radiocarbon dates at Cova Rosa - Method - Validity Analysis - Results and Critical Assessment - Solutrean - Magdalenian - Mesolithic Discussion: 14C chronology of Cova Rosa Conclusion

Distinguishing African bovids using Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS): new peptide markers and insights into Iron Age economies in Zambia

Assessing past foodways, subsistence strategies, and environments depends on the accurate identification of animals in the archaeological record. The high rates of fragmentation and often poor preservation of animal bones at many archaeological sites across sub-Saharan Africa have rendered archaeofaunal specimens unidentifiable beyond broad categories, such as “large mammal” or “medium bovid”. Identification of archaeofaunal specimens through Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), or peptide mass fingerprinting of bone collagen, offers an avenue for identification of morphologically ambiguous or unidentifiable bone fragments from such assemblages. However, application of ZooMS analysis has been hindered by a lack of complete reference peptide markers for African taxa, particularly bovids. Here we present the complete set of confirmed ZooMS peptide markers for members of all African bovid tribes. We also identify two novel peptide markers that can be used to further distinguish between bovid groups. We demonstrate that nearly all African bovid subfamilies are distinguishable using ZooMS methods, and some differences exist between tribes or sub-tribes, as is the case for Bovina (cattle) vs. Bubalina (African buffalo) within the subfamily Bovinae. We use ZooMS analysis to identify specimens from extremely fragmented faunal assemblages from six Late Holocene archaeological sites in Zambia. ZooMS-based identifications reveal greater taxonomic richness than analyses based solely on morphology, and these new identifications illuminate Iron Age subsistence economies c. 2200–500 cal BP. While the Iron Age in Zambia is associated with the transition from hunting and foraging to the development of farming and herding, our results demonstrate the continued reliance on wild bovids among Iron Age communities in central and southwestern Zambia Iron Age and herding focused primarily on cattle. We also outline further potential applications of ZooMS in African archaeology.Introduction Faunal identifications and key research questions ZooMS in African archaeology Materials & methods Collagen extraction and digestion Peptide mass fingerprinting LC-MS/MS Biomarker identification and confirmation Identification of archaeological samples Results and discussion - Data quality control - Distinguishing among bovid groups Comparison with published markers ZooMS analysis and archaeofaunal identifications Herding economies and the persistence of hunting in Iron Age Zambia Conclusio

Lipid nanoparticle-mediated messenger RNA delivery for ex vivo engineering of natural killer cells

Natural killer (NK) cells participate in the immune system by eliminating cancer and virally infected cells through germline-encoded surface receptors. Their independence from prior activation as well as their significantly lower toxicity have placed them in the spotlight as an alternative to T cells for adoptive cell therapy (ACT). Engineering NK cells with mRNA has shown great potential in ACT by enhancing their tumor targeting and cytotoxicity. However, mRNA transfection of NK cells is challenging, as the most common delivery methods, such as electroporation, show limitations. Therefore, an alternative non-viral delivery system that enables high mRNA transfection efficiency with preservation of the cell viability would be beneficial for the development of NK cell therapies. In this study, we investigated both polymeric and lipid nanoparticle (LNP) formulations for eGFP-mRNA delivery to NK cells, based on a dimethylethanolamine and diethylethanolamine polymeric library and on different ionizable lipids, respectively. The mRNA nanoparticles based on cationic polymers showed limited internalization by NK cells and low transfection efficiency. On the other hand, mRNA-LNP formulations were optimized by tailoring the lipid composition and the microfluidic parameters, resulting in a high transfection efficiency (∼100%) and high protein expression in NK cells. In conclusion, compared to polyplexes and electroporation, the optimized LNPs show a greater transfection efficiency and higher overall eGFP expression, when tested in NK (KHYG-1) and T (Jurkat) cell lines, and cord blood-derived NK cells. Thus, LNP-based mRNA delivery represents a promising strategy to further develop novel NK cell therapies

Coastal Subsistence, Maritime Trade, and the Colonization of Small Offshore Islands in Eastern African Prehistory

Recent archaeological research has firmly established eastern Africa's offshore islands as important localities for understanding the region's pre-Swahili maritime adaptations and early Indian Ocean trade connections. While the importance of the sea and small offshore islands to the development of urbanized and mercantile Swahili societies has long been recognized, the formative stages of island colonization—and in particular the processes by which migrating Iron Age groups essentially became “maritime”—are still relatively poorly understood. Here we present the results of recent archaeological fieldwork in the Mafia Archipelago, which aims to understand these early adaptations and situate them within a longer-term trajectory of island settlement and pre-Swahili cultural developments. We focus on the results of zooarchaeological, archaeobotanical, and material culture studies relating to early subsistence and trade on this island to explore the changing significance of marine resources to the local economy. We also discuss the implications of these maritime adaptations for the development of local and long-distance Indian Ocean trade networks

Genetic insights into the social organization of Neanderthals

Genomic analyses of Neanderthals have previously provided insights into their population history and relationship to modern humans1–8, but the social organization of Neanderthal communities remains poorly understood. Here we present genetic data for 13 Neanderthals from two Middle Palaeolithic sites in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia: 11 from Chagyrskaya Cave9,10 and 2 from Okladnikov Cave11—making this one of the largest genetic studies of a Neanderthal population to date. We used hybridization capture to obtain genome-wide nuclear data, as well as mitochondrial and Y-chromosome sequences. Some Chagyrskaya individuals were closely related, including a father–daughter pair and a pair of second-degree relatives, indicating that at least some of the individuals lived at the same time. Up to one-third of these individuals’ genomes had long segments of homozygosity, suggesting that the Chagyrskaya Neanderthals were part of a small community. In addition, the Y-chromosome diversity is an order of magnitude lower than the mitochondrial diversity, a pattern that we found is best explained by female migration between communities. Thus, the genetic data presented here provide a detailed documentation of the social organization of an isolated Neanderthal community at the easternmost extent of their known range

Magdalenian and Epimagdalenian chronology and palaeoenvironments at Kůlna Cave, Moravia, Czech Republic

Kůlna Cave is the only site in Moravia, Czech Republic, from which large assemblages of both Magdalenian and Epimagdalenian archaeological materials have been excavated from relatively secure stratified deposits. The site therefore offers the unrivalled opportunity to explore the relationship between these two archaeological phases. In this study, we undertake radiocarbon, stable isotope (carbon, nitrogen and sulphur), and ZooMS analysis of the archaeological faunal assemblage to explore the chronological and environmental context of the Magdalenian and Epimagdalenian deposits. Our results show that the Magdalenian and Epimagdalenian deposits can be understood as discrete units from one another, dating to the Late Glacial between c. 15,630 cal. BP and 14,610 cal. BP, and c. 14,140 cal. BP and 12,680 cal. BP, respectively. Stable isotope results (δ13C, δ15N, δ34S) indicate that Magdalenian and Epimagdalenian activity at Kůlna Cave occurred in very different environmental settings. Magdalenian occupation took place within a nutrient-poor landscape that was experiencing rapid changes to environmental moisture, potentially linked to permafrost thaw. In contrast, Epimagdalenian occupation occurred in a relatively stable, temperate environment composed of a mosaic of woodland and grassland habitats. The potential chronological gap between the two phases, and their associations with very different environmental conditions, calls into question whether the Epimagdalenian should be seen as a local, gradual development of the Magdalenian. It also raises the question of whether the gap in occupation at Kůlna Cave could represent a change in settlement dynamics and/or behavioural adaptations to changing environmental conditions

Coastal subsistence, maritime trade, and the colonization of small offshore islands in eastern African prehistory

Recent archaeological research has firmly established eastern Africa’s offshore islands as important localities for understanding the region’s pre-Swahili maritime adaptations and early Indian Ocean trade connections. While the importance of the sea and small offshore islands to the development of urbanized and mercantile Swahili societies has long been recognized, the formative stages of island colonization—and in particular the processes by which migrating Iron Age groups essentially became “maritime”—are still relatively poorly understood. Here we present the results of recent archaeological fieldwork in the Mafia Archipelago, which aims to understand these early adaptations and situate them within a longer-term trajectory of island settlement and pre-Swahili cultural developments. We focus on the results of zooarchaeological, archaeobotanical, and material culture studies relating to early subsistence and trade on this island to explore the changing significance of marine resources to the local economy. We also discuss the implications of these maritime adaptations for the development of local and long-distance Indian Ocean trade networks.The Sealinks Project is funded through a grant toNicole Boivin from the European Research Council (StarterGrant 206148) under the “Ideas” specific Programme of the 7th Framework Programme (FP7). Additional funding includes: postdoctoral fellowships from the British Academy (2010–2013) and the University of Queensland (2015–2017) to Alison Crowther; a Fondation Fyssen Postdoctoral Grant toEr´endira Quintana Morales; and a postdoctoral fellowship from the Government of the Balearic Islands (Conselleria d’Educaci´o) and the European Social Fund to Llorenc¸ Picornell-Gelabert. Fieldwork was carried out under COSTECH Research Permit no. 2012-303-ER-2011-85 and the Division of Antiquities (Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Tanzania) excavation license no. EA.402/605/01 issued to Alison Crowther, and with the support and permission of theRegionalAdministrative Secretary (Dar es Salaam andCoast/Pwani), the District Administrative Secretary (Mafia), and the Village Executive Officer (Mtendaji wa Kijiji, Juani).http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uica20hb2016Anthropology and Archaeolog