Finding Early Farming Communities in southern Mozambique: Using Geophysical Surveys to examine potential new open-air sites

The arrival of Early Farming Communities (EFC) in Mozambique is traditionally defined by the appearance of the “Bantu package”, especially of the so-called Matola pottery at the beginning of the 1st millennium CE. Although many EFC sites are known in Mozambique and South Africa, little is known about their settlement structures. In the case of Mozambique, the well-known Matola, Zitundo and University Campus sites were discovered by chance. The Department of Archaeology and Anthropology (DAA) at the University Eduardo Mondlane has successfully conducted surveys in the Changalane Administrative Post (Namaacha District, Maputo province) for years, documenting new potential EFC and Stone Age sites. Together with the German Archaeological Institute and the University of Hamburg, geophysical surveys were carried out on four sites. The aim was to get an overview of the sites and to locate potential excavation areas such as waste or storage pits, furnaces or huts. Although the method is already of great importance in Europe and is used regularly, only few comparative studies from sub-Saharan Africa are known. Within this region in the southeast and the described context of the continent the method is applied for the first time. A verification of the results in the form of test excavations is planned in the near future.The arrival of Early Farming Communities (EFC) in Mozambique is traditionally defined by the appearance of the “Bantu package”, especially of the so-called Matola pottery at the beginning of the 1st millennium CE. Although many EFC sites are known in Mozambique and South Africa, little is known about their settlement structures. In the case of Mozambique, the well-known Matola, Zitundo and University Campus sites were discovered by chance. The Department of Archaeology and Anthropology (DAA) at the University Eduardo Mondlane has successfully conducted surveys in the Changalane Administrative Post (Namaacha District, Maputo province) for years, documenting new potential EFC and Stone Age sites. Together with the German Archaeological Institute and the University of Hamburg, geophysical surveys were carried out on four sites. The aim was to get an overview of the sites and to locate potential excavation areas such as waste or storage pits, furnaces or huts. Although the method is already of great importance in Europe and is used regularly, only few comparative studies from sub-Saharan Africa are known. Within this region in the southeast and the described context of the continent the method is applied for the first time. A verification of the results in the form of test excavations is planned in the near future.&nbsp

The Forgotten Kingdom.: New investigations in the prehistory of Eswatini

The kingdom of Eswatini provides a rich archaeological sequence covering all time periods from the Early Stone Age to the Iron Age. For over 27 years though, no or very little archaeological research was conducted in the country. In the scope of a new project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) we aim to re-excavate and re-date Lion Cavern, the potentially oldest ochre mine in the world. In addition, we conduct a largescale geological survey for outcrops of ochre and test their geochemical signatures for comparative studies with archaeological ochre pieces from MSA and LSA assemblages in Eswatini. Here we present a review of the research history of the kingdom and some preliminary results from our ongoing project

Creative Thinking and Modelling for the Decision Support in Water Management

This paper reviews the state of art in knowledge and preferences elicitation techniques. The purpose of the study was to evaluate various cognitive mapping techniques in order to conclude with the identification of the optimal technique for the NetSyMod methodology. Network Analysis Creative System Modelling (NetSyMod) methodology has been designed for the improvement of decision support systems (DSS) with respect to the environmental problems. In the paper the difference is made between experts and stakeholders knowledge and preference elicitation methods. The suggested technique is very similar to the Nominal Group Techniques (NGT) with the external representation of the analysed problem by means of the Hodgson Hexagons. The evolving methodology is undergoing tests within several EU-funded projects such as: ITAES, IISIM, NostrumDSS

Expression of nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunits from parasitic nematodes in Caenorhabditis elegans

The levamisole-sensitive nicotinic acetylcholine receptor present at nematode neuromuscular junctions is composed of multiple different subunits, with the exact composition varying between species. We tested the ability of two well-conserved nicotinic receptor subunits, UNC-38 and UNC-29, from Haemonchus contortus and Ascaris suum to rescue the levamisole-resistance and locomotion defects of Caenorhabditis elegans strains with null deletion mutations in the unc-38 and unc-29 genes. The parasite cDNAs were cloned downstream of the relevant C. elegans promoters and introduced into the mutant strains via biolistic transformation. The UNC-38 subunit of H. contortus was able to completely rescue both the locomotion defects and levamisole resistance of the null deletion mutant VC2937 (ok2896), but no C. elegans expressing the A. suum UNC-38 could be detected. The H. contortus UNC-29.1 subunit partially rescued the levamisole resistance of a C. elegans null mutation in unc-29 VC1944 (ok2450), but did cause increased motility in a thrashing assay. In contrast, only a single line of worms containing the A. suum UNC-29 subunit showed a partial rescue of levamisole resistance, with no effect on thrashing