Pleistocene hominins as a resource for carnivores. A c. 500,000-year-old human femur bearing tooth-marks in North Africa (Thomas Quarry I, Morocco)

In many Middle Pleistocene sites, the co-occurrence of hominins with carnivores, who both contributed to faunal accumulations, suggests competition for resources as well as for living spaces. Despite this, there is very little evidence of direct interaction between them to-date. Recently, a human femoral diaphysis has been recognized in South-West of Casablanca (Morocco), in the locality called Thomas Quarry I. This site is famous for its Middle Pleistocene fossil hominins considered representatives of Homo rhodesiensis. The bone was discovered in Unit 4 of the Grotte à Hominidés (GH), dated to c. 500 ky and was associated with Acheulean artefacts and a rich mammalian fauna. Anatomically, it fits well within the group of known early Middle Pleistocene Homo, but its chief point of interest is that the diaphyseal ends display numerous tooth marks showing that it had been consumed shortly after death by a large carnivore, probably a hyena. This bone represents the first evidence of consumption of human remains by carnivores in the cave. Whether predated or scavenged, this chewed femur indicates that humans were a resource for carnivores, underlining their close relationships during the Middle Pleistocene in Atlantic Morocco

L’Acheuléen africain vu de l’extrême Maghreb

Au nord-ouest de l’Afrique, dans la région de Casablanca, on relève un développement exceptionnel des dépôts littoraux et dunaires de la séquence « quaternaire », qui commence aux environs de six millions d’années et se constitue au cours du Pliocène et du Pléistocène. Cette succession de paléolittoraux a enregistré, en détail, les variations du niveau de l’océan mondial. Elle a également conservé une longue archéo-séquence, documentant l’apparition de l’Acheuléen dans la région à la fin du Pléistocène inférieur et son évolution au cours du Pléistocène moyen. Depuis 1978, un programme de recherches archéologiques maroco-français conduit ses recherches dans cette séquence ; il a permis la révision stratigraphique et culturelle des localités classiques et la découverte de nouveaux sites. Nous présentons ici l’état de l’art sur l’origine et l’évolution de l’Acheuléen africain au Maroc atlantique, dans la région de Casablanca

Situational awareness within objective structured clinical examination stations in undergraduate medical training - a literature search

Background: Medical students may not be able to identify the essential elements of situational awareness (SA) necessary for clinical reasoning. Recent studies suggest that students have little insight into cognitive processing and SA in clinical scenarios. Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) could be used to assess certain elements of situational awareness. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature with a view to identifying whether levels of SA based on Endsley's model can be assessed utilising OSCEs during undergraduate medical training. Methods: A systematic search was performed pertaining to SA and OSCEs, to identify studies published between January 1975 (first paper describing an OSCE) and February 2017, in peer reviewed international journals published in English. PUBMED, EMBASE, PsycINFO Ovid and SCOPUS were searched for papers that described the assessment of SA using OSCEs among undergraduate medical students. Key search terms included "objective structured clinical examination", "objective structured clinical assessment" or "OSCE" and "non-technical skills", "sense-making", "clinical reasoning", "perception", "comprehension", "projection", "situation awareness", "situational awareness" and "situation assessment". Boolean operators (AND, OR) were used as conjunctions to narrow the search strategy, resulting in the limitation of papers relevant to the research interest. Areas of interest were elements of SA that can be assessed by these examinations. Results: The initial search of the literature retrieved 1127 publications. Upon removal of duplicates and papers relating to nursing, paramedical disciplines, pharmacy and veterinary education by title, abstract or full text, 11 articles were eligible for inclusion as related to the assessment of elements of SA in undergraduate medical students. Discussion: Review of the literature suggests that whole-task OSCEs enable the evaluation of SA associated with clinical reasoning skills. If they address the levels of SA, these OSCEs can provide supportive feedback and strengthen educational measures associated with higher diagnostic accuracy and reasoning abilities. Conclusion: Based on the findings, the early exposure of medical students to SA is recommended, utilising OSCEs to evaluate and facilitate SA in dynamic environment

Le jardin et la maison arabes au Maroc

Contiene: Vol. I (VIII, 120 p., 57 h. de lám., [4] h.) -- vol. II (94 p., h. de lám. 58-136, [4] h.

Garba XIII (Melka Kunture, Upper Awash, Ethiopia): A new Acheulean site of the late Lower Pleistocene

Garba XIII is a new Acheulean site, recently excavated at Melka Kunture (2000 m asl), in the Upper Awash Valley of Ethiopia. The investigated archaeostratigraphic unit is located along the Garba gully and belongs to the Lower to basal Middle Pleistocene Melka Kunture Formation. In this paper, we discuss the evidence from a level discovered directly above a tuff unit recently dated to ∼1.0 Ma and stratigraphically below another tuff dated to ∼0.8 Ma. A detailed lithostratigraphic study of the exposed section is provided, as well as a paleontological analysis and chronological, ecological, and contextual information. Moreover, the analysis of the lithic assemblage allows a first evaluation of the technical and economic structure of this Acheulean production, documenting a set of innovations occurring on the Ethiopian highlands at the end of the Lower Pleistocene: the procurement of large boulders for the extraction of the LCT flake blanks right at the primary source; adoption of the Kombewa method; standardized façonnage for biface and cleaver manufacture and preference for discoid technology among small débitage methods. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA

Garba XIII (Melka Kunture, Upper Awash, Ethiopia) : a new Acheulean site of the late Lower Pleistocene

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Tracking random walks

14 pages +Supp info (7 pages)In empirical studies of random walks, continuous trajectories of animals or individuals are usually sampled over a finite number of points in space and time. It is however unclear how this partial observation affects the measured statistical properties of the walk, and we use here analytical and numerical methods of statistical physics to study the effects of sampling in movements alternating rests and moves of random durations. We evaluate how the statistical properties estimated are affected by the way trajectories are measured and we identify an optimal sampling frequency leading to the best possible measure. We solve analytically the simplest scenario of a constant sampling interval and short-tailed distributions of rest and move durations, which allows us to show that the measured displacement statistics can be significantly different from the original ones and also to determine the optimal sampling time. The corresponding optimal fraction of correctly sampled movements, analytically predicted for this short-tail scenario, is an upper bound for the quality of a trajectory's sampling. Indeed, we show with numerical simulations that this fraction is dramatically reduced in any real-world case where we observe long-tailed distributions of rest duration. We test our results with high resolution GPS human trajectories, where a constant sampling interval allows to recover at best $18\%$ of the movements, while over-evaluating the average trip length by a factor of $2$. If we use a sampling interval extracted from real communication data, we recover only $11\%$ of moves, a value that cannot be increased above $16\%$ even with ideal algorithms. These figures call for a more cautious use of data in all quantitative studies of individuals' trajectories, casting in particular serious doubts on the results of previous studies on human mobility based on mobile phone data

Carcass acquisition and consumption by carnivores and hominins in Middle Pleistocene sites of Casablanca (Morocco)

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Carcass acquisition and consumption by carnivores and hominins in Middle Pleistocene sites of Casablanca (Morocco)

International audienc

Carcass Acquisition and Consumption by Carnivores and Hominins in Middle Pleistocene Sites of Casablanca (Morocco)

Study of faunal series resulting from recent excavations in two caves in North Atlantic Morocco (Grotte à Hominidés - GH - and Grotte des Rhinocéros - GDR - at Thomas I and Oulad Hamida 1 quarries, Casablanca) has yielded new evidence concerning the gathering and processing of ungulates carcasses during the Middle Pleistocene in this part of North Africa. Preliminary taphonomic analysis of the macrofauna indicates that the carcasses were mainly introduced in the caves by carnivores. Additionally, marks generated by porcupines also occur. Dimensions and morphologies of tooth-marks and coprolites suggest that carnivores of different sizes (mainly middle-sized canids, hyenids and felids), as well as porcupines, used the cave. Cut-marks on the bones are absent at GH and scarce at GDR, despite their association with lithic artefacts and human fossils. This raises the question of the relationship between hominins and other competitors in these caves. The recurring question is to determine the modalities of niche partitioning by the various predators and/or carrion-eaters as well as the mode of introduction of artefacts and human remains