The Lives of Stone Tools: Crafting the Status, Skill, and Identity of Flintknappers. The University of Arizona Press, Tuscon, 2017

No abstract available

Mesolithic and later activity at North Barr River, Morvern

At North Barr River, Morvern, inspection of forestry planting mounds on a raised beach terrace identified a chipped stone assemblage associated with upcast deposits containing charcoal. An archaeological evaluation of the site, funded by Forestry Commission Scotland, sought to better understand the extent and character of this Mesolithic and later prehistoric lithic scatter. The lithic assemblage is predominantly debitage with some microliths and scrapers. The range of raw materials including flint, Rùm bloodstone and baked mudstone highlights wider regional networks. Other elements, including a barbed and tanged arrowhead, belong to later depositional episodes. Two mid-second millennium bc radiocarbon dates were obtained from soil associated with some lithics recovered from a mixed soil beneath colluvial deposits. The chronology of a putative stone bank or revetment is uncertain but the arrangement of stone may also date to the second millennium bc

Iron Age occupation evidence from Port Lobh, Colonsay (Scottish Inner Hebrides)

Evidence of a new Iron Age occupation site is presented from a site located at the southern edge of a former tidal estuary in western Colonsay. A radiocarbon date of between the 1st–2nd centuries BC is significant in a regional context, being the first of this period from the island. Recovered burnt occupation debris includes cattle bone, marine (limpet and periwinkle) shell and ceramics along with a terrestrial snail shell and carbonised macroplant assemblage. The site was identified from geophysical survey (magnetometry and resistivity) focused at an earlier 5th–4th millennia BC shell midden. The discovery highlights the value of alternative field techniques and looking beyond fortified sites to find more elusive settlement evidence

‘Tuesday Morning’, the schoolboy and Mann

The rediscovery of human remains, correspondence and other unpublished excavation archival material in the Glasgow Museums collection of Ludovic McLellan Mann prompted the reappraisal of a short archaeological investigation undertaken in April 1931 at Holm Park, near Ballantrae, Ayrshire, by a schoolboy, Eric French and his biology teacher, William Hoyland. This article offers a re-evaluation of their fieldwork which exposed two inhumation burials, named ‘Tuesday Morning’ and ‘Tuesday Afternoon’. Eight dog whelk shells remain from an overlying diffuse shell midden spread that may reflect the remnants of a dye-processing site. The skeletons and marine shells went on temporary display at Bryanston School, Dorset. The area south of Ballantrae is well known for prehistoric flint scatter sites and the finds presented the intriguing possibility that the burials might be Mesolithic in age, the excavators believing they might even be Palaeolithic. A collection of flint cores, initially associated with the archive, now appears unrelated to this excavation for it was found with a note written by a local lithic collector, William Edgar. New osteological analysis confirmed the presence of at least two adult individuals, and one bone sample returned an early medieval radiocarbon date. This evidence contributes to national understandings of early historic burial practices in unenclosed cemeteries during the transition from Iron Age pagan to Christian burial rites, important given the paucity of 1st millennium evidence in south-west Scotland. It also offers insight into an earlier account of multiple inhumation burials, found in the general vicinity in 1879, although aspects of the precise location and relationship between the two discoveries is currently unresolved. Mann’s correspondence with French’s father, a prominent Glasgow industrialist, and with Hoyland reveals the character of archaeological social networks in western Scotland during the 1930s which have been a neglected aspect of research to date

Calling time on Oronsay: revising settlement models around the mesolithic–neolithic transition in Western Scotland, new evidence from Port Lobh, Colonsay

For over 120 years, the shell middens of western Scotland and the series of open-air sites on Oronsay have been the focus of debate in European Mesolithic studies. This paper challenges the significance of Oronsay in light of results from the geophysical survey and test-excavation of a new limpet and periwinkle shell midden dated to the late 5th or start of the 4th millennium cal BC at Port Lobh, Colonsay that offers fresh evidence to re-evaluate critically the role of Oronsay and coastal resources in island settlement models ahead of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition. Test excavations recovered a marine molluscan assemblage dominated by limpet and periwinkle shells together with crab, sea urchin, a fishbone assemblage composed mainly of Gadidae, some identifiable bird and mammal bone, carbonised macroplant remains, and pumice as well as a bipolar lithic assemblage and coarse stone implements. Novel seasonality studies of saithe otolith thin-sections suggest wintertime tidal fishing practices. At least two activity events may be discerned, dating from the late 5th millennium cal BC. The midden could represent a small number of rapidly deposited assemblages or maybe the result of stocastic events within a more extended timeframe. We argue that alternative research questions are needed to advance long-standing debates about seasonal inter island mobility versus island sedentism that look beyond Oronsay to better understand later Mesolithic occupation patterns and the formation and date of Oronsay middens. We propose alternative methodological strategies to aid identification of contemporaneous sites using geophysical techniques and lithic technological signatures

FLIP: A Targetable Mediator of Resistance to Radiation in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Resistance to radiotherapy due to insufficient cancer cell death is a significant cause of treatment failure in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The endogenous caspase-8 inhibitor, FLIP, is a critical regulator of cell death that is frequently overexpressed in NSCLC and is an established inhibitor of apoptotic cell death induced via the extrinsic death receptor pathway. Apoptosis induced by ionizing radiation (IR) has been considered to be mediated predominantly via the intrinsic apoptotic pathway; however, we found that IR-induced apoptosis was significantly attenuated in NSCLC cells when caspase-8 was depleted using RNA interference (RNAi), suggesting involvement of the extrinsic apoptosis pathway. Moreover, overexpression of wild-type FLIP, but not a mutant form that cannot bind the critical death receptor adaptor protein FADD, also attenuated IR-induced apoptosis, confirming the importance of the extrinsic apoptotic pathway as a determinant of response to IR in NSCLC. Importantly, when FLIP protein levels were down-regulated by RNAi, IRinduced cell death was significantly enhanced. The clinically relevant histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors vorinostat and entinostat were subsequently found to sensitize a subset of NSCLC cell lines to IR in a manner that was dependent on their ability to suppress FLIP expression and promote activation of caspase-8. Entinostat also enhanced the anti-tumor activity of IR in vivo. Therefore, FLIP down-regulation induced by HDAC inhibitors is a potential clinical strategy to radio-sensitize NSCLC and thereby improve response to radiotherapy. Overall, this study provides the first evidence that pharmacological inhibition of FLIP may improve response of NCSLC to IR

The Mesolithic

No abstract available

The Mesolithic

No abstract available

An archaeology of dementia

No abstract available