Apuntes sobre la evolución del concepto de "territorio" en la investigación del Paleolítico Cantábrico

El presente artículo por objeto la revisión crítica de aquellos trabajos que desde los inicios de la investigación arqueológica han tratado, de forma directa o indirecta, el análisis del comportamiento territorial de las sociedades del Paleolítico Cantábrico, a fin de elaborar un breve estado de la cuestión en torno a la validez de los modelos teórico-metodológicos propuestos y la aplicabilidad de los análisis territoriales a este período aún tan ignoto. Como resultado, se observa una evolución en el modo de entender y estudiar los "territorios", que hay que contextualizar dentro de las propias inercias historiográficas, y que ha derivado en una profusión de visiones parciales que creemos necesario superar en años venideros

El depósito arqueológico de Larrañaga (Hondarribia, Gipuzkoa) : Algunas reflexiones sobre la problemática de los yacimientos al aire libre

En el presente artículo se exponen los resultados obtenidos en las labores de prospección arqueológica desarrolladas en el yacimeinto al aire libre de Larrañaga (Hondarribia, Gipuzkoa). Asimismo, se contextualizan estos resultados con los obtenidos en el proyecto de prospección, catas y sondeos arqueólógicos del Monte Jaizkibel que M.J. Iriarte y A. Arrizabalaga vienen desarrollando desde el año 2001, en el sector noreste del monte Jaizkibel (término municipal de Hondarribia, vertiente norte)

Aproximación al patrón alimentario de los inhumados en la cista de la Edad del Bronce de Ondarre (Aralar, Guipúzcoa) a través del análisis de isótopos estables de carbono y nitrógeno sobre colágeno óseo

The results of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis on bone collagen of the individuals interred in the Bronze Age (II millennium cal. BC) cist burial of Ondarre suggest a mixed diet based on C3 plants and mainly domesticated terrestrial animals. As observed in other contemporary sites in Iberia and the Balearic islands, marine and freshwater resources and C4 plants do not seem to have played an important role in everyday life subsistence. The observed high protein consumption may relate to the status of the people interred and/or to a dominant livestock economy where animal products would have a great importance in diet.Se presentan los resultados del análisis de isótopos estables de carbono y nitrógeno sobre colágeno óseo de los individuos depositados en la cista guipuzcoana de la Edad del Bronce (II milenio cal. BC) de Ondarre. Los datos obtenidos sugieren una dieta mixta de origen terrestre basada en el consumo de plantas C3 y sobre todo de animales domésticos. No existen indicios de que los recursos marinos, lacustre-fluviales o las plantas C4 supusieran una contribución significativa a la subsistencia cotidiana, tal y como parece ocurrir en otros yacimientos coetáneos de la Península Ibérica y el archipiélago balear. La elevada ingesta proteica observada podría vincularse con el estatus de los inhumados y/o con la prevalencia de un modelo económico ganadero en que el consumo de productos animales tendría un gran peso

The “post-weanling’s conundrum”: exploring the impact of infant and child feeding practices on early mortality in the Bronze Age burial cave of Moro de Alins, north-eastern Iberia, through stable isotope analysis

Producción CientíficaThe relationship between infant and child feeding practices and early mortality is difficult to address in past societies. Here, stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope measurements of bulk bone and sequential dentine samples of deciduous second and/or permanent first molars of four younger children, one older child, one late adolescent, and two young adults (n = 8) from Moro de Alins cave, north-eastern Iberia, are used to explore the potential impact of early-life nutrition on mortality in the Bronze Age. Isotope results are compatible with generally short exclusive breastfeeding and standard weaning periods compared to other pre-modern populations. However, there are differences in exclusive breastfeeding mean δ13C values and in Δ13C trophic shifts between exclusive breastfeeding and immediate post-weaning isotope values for those individuals who survived into adolescence and adulthood and those who did not. While the former seem to be consistent with trophic distances published for modern mother–infant pairs, the latter are above most of them. This may suggest that individuals who consumed similar foods to their mothers or suffered from less physiological stress during or after weaning had greater chances of survival during early childhood and beyond. Post-weaning seems to have been a particularly stressful period of life, where a number of instances of patterns of opposing isotopic covariance compatible with catabolic changes, often preceding death among non-survivors, are detected. This outcome shows the key role of nutritional and/or physiological status in early-life morbidity and mortality among partially and especially fully weaned children from pre-antibiotic, pre-vaccination, and poor sanitation contexts and proposes that adult survival is rooted in early life experiences, in keeping with the developmental origins of health and disease.This work was supported and funded by the British Academy under the Newton International Fellowship NF170854European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 790491Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under the project (HAR2015-65620-P)Publicación en abierto financiada por el Consorcio de Bibliotecas Universitarias de Castilla y León (BUCLE), con cargo al Programa Operativo 2014ES16RFOP009 FEDER 2014-2020 DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN, Actuación:20007-CL - Apoyo Consorcio BUCL

Isotopic evidence of strong reliance on animal foods and dietary heterogeneity among Early-Middle Neolithic communities of Iberia

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope research on past populations in the Iberian Neolithic has emphasized the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. This study provides the first isotopic insights into the diet and subsistence economy of Early and Middle Neolithic populations from open-air sites in interior north-central Iberia. We present bone collagen carbon (?13C) and nitrogen (?15N) isotope ratios for 44 humans and 33 animals recovered from six cemeteries of the Ebro valley and the northern Iberian Plateau. The results obtained are consistent with the C3 terrestrial diets typical of other contemporary south-western European populations, but the spacing between human and herbivore values from Los Cascajos and Paternanbidea sites is higher than expected, and a significant positive correlation is identified between the ?13C and ?15N human values at both. Moreover, the results clearly differ from those of the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic in the same region, which show significantly lower ?13C and ?15N values. These findings contribute to an understanding of the implementation of an agro-pastoral economy in interior Iberia, suggesting a stronger reliance on animal foods among the first Neolithic groups of inner Iberia than in subsequent periods as well as differential access to some resources (possibly suckling herbivores) in the diet, which may point to the existence of early social or economic inequalities that do not seem to be linked to age and sex parameters or to mortuary treatment.This research was funded by the Basque Government (POS_2013_1_147; POS_2014_2_24; POS_2015_2_ 0001) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (project ‘Coastal societies in a changing world: A diachronic and comparative approach to the Prehistory of SWEurope from the late Palaeolithic to the Neolithic (CoChange)’ (HAR2014-51830-P)). The study has also been supported by a Newton International Fellowship funded by the British Academy (NF170854); the Basque Government (IT542/10); the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) (UFI11/09); and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (projects ‘Los Caminos del Neolítico’ (HAR2009-09027) and ‘Los Caminos del Neolítico II’ (HAR2013-46800-P))

Stones in Motion: Cost units to understand flint procurement strategies during the Upper Palaeolithic in the south-western Pyrenees using GIS

Studies on lithic resource management –mainly flint– by prehistoric groups south of the western Pyrenees have significantly increased during the past decades. These studies usually focus on identifying outcrops and characterising the different varieties found at archaeological sites. However, the understanding of mobility and territorial management patterns based on raw materials is still very limited and has only been tackled in terms of lineal distance.This paper proposes a methodological approach for the territorial analysis of flint distribution with the three following aims: 1) to determine the expansion ranges of each variety of flint from its outcrop; 2) to spatially relate these outcrops with archaeological sites; and 3) to improve our knowledge on the catchment strategies of Upper Palaeolithic groups.The methodological tool chosen to fulfil these objectives is the Geographic Information System (GIS), because it allows to relate spatially the flint outcrops and flint varieties identified at archaeological sites based on: 1) isocost maps showing the cost of expansion for each variety of flint across the territory built on topography; 2) the quantification of the cost of expansion using Cost Units (CU); and 3) the relationship between the percentage of each variety of flint at each archaeological site and the cost of accessing its outcrop. In order to demonstrate that cost is a powerful way to relate spatially raw material distribution and archaeological sites with outcrops, we contrasted its results with the ones obtained by more classic means (Euclidean distance and distance across the most optimal route). It was therefore shown that cost is better at explaining the spatial relationship between flint outcrops and archaeological sites, which, in turn, provides new data on catchment strategies, mobility patterns and territorial management of Upper Palaeolithic groups

Uncovering Tumour Heterogeneity through PKR and nc886 Analysis in Metastatic Colon Cancer Patients Treated with 5-FU-Based Chemotherapy

Colorectal cancer treatment has advanced over the past decade. The drug 5-fluorouracil is still used with a wide percentage of patients who do not respond. Therefore, a challenge is the identification of predictive biomarkers. The protein kinase R (PKR also called EIF2AK2) and its regulator, the non-coding pre-mir-nc886, have multiple e ects on cells in response to numerous types of stress, including chemotherapy. In this work, we performed an ambispective study with 197 metastatic colon cancer patients with unresectable metastases to determine the relative expression levels of both nc886 and PKR by qPCR, as well as the location of PKR by immunohistochemistry in tumour samples and healthy tissues (plasma and colon epithelium). As primary end point, the expression levels were related to the objective response to first-line chemotherapy following the response evaluation criteria in solid tumours (RECIST) and, as the second end point, with survival at 18 and 36 months. Hierarchical agglomerative clustering was performed to accommodate the heterogeneity and complexity of oncological patients’ data. High expression levels of nc886 were related to the response to treatment and allowed to identify clusters of patients. Although the PKR mRNA expression was not associated with chemotherapy response, the absence of PKR location in the nucleolus was correlated with first-line chemotherapy response. Moreover, a relationship between survival and the expression of both PKR and nc886 in healthy tissues was found. Therefore, this work evaluated the best way to analyse the potential biomarkers PKR and nc886 in order to establish clusters of patients depending on the cancer outcomes using algorithms for complex and heterogeneous data.This research was funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (DTS15/00174; PIE16-00045), by the Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento, Empresas y Universidad de la Junta de Andalucía and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), references SOMM17/6109/UGR (UCE-PP2017-3) and (PI-0441-2014), and by the Chair “Doctors Galera-Requena in cancer stem cell research” (CMC-CTS963). This research was also funded partially by RTI2018-098983-B-I00

Variability and practice load in motor learning. [Variabilidad y carga de práctica en el aprendizaje motor].

Previous studies have pointed out the convenience of taking the characteristics of the skill to be learned and the intrinsic characteristics of the learners into account when designing practice tasks. Nevertheless, few studies have manipulated the amount of variable practice. The ability to adapt, as an inherent feature of biological systems, can be an adequate framework to explain and predict motor learning processes. This paper is based on adaption processes explained under the theory of allostasis and the general adaption syndrome and shares the background of the Dynamic Systems Theory, to propose the concept of practice load as a useful tool to quantify variability of practice in motor learning. From this standpoint, the conditions of variable practice are reviewed to be a stimulus in an adequate magnitude and direction to take the learner to a higher level of performance and hence to optimize motor learning. Resumen Muchos autores han recomendado la conveniencia de ajustar los niveles de práctica variable teniendo en cuenta las características de la tarea y la variabilidad intrínseca que muestra el aprendiz en la ejecución de la habilidad. Sin embargo, no son numerosos los trabajos que han manipulado varios niveles de cantidad de variabilidad al practicar. La capacidad de adaptación, como rasgo de los sistemas biológicos puede resultar un marco adecuado para afrontar esta cuestión. En este trabajo, apoyado en los procesos de adaptación explicados bajo las teorías de alostasis y el síndrome general de adaptación (GAS), y bajo presupuestos compartidos por la Teoría General de Sistemas Dinámicos, propondrá el concepto de carga de práctica como una herramienta para cuantificar la práctica en el aprendizaje motor. Bajo esta perspectiva se revisan las condiciones en las que la práctica en variabilidad debe modularse, para suponer una estimulación que facilite al aprendiz una adaptación a un nivel de rendimiento superior y con ello optimizar el aprendizaje motor

Make a desert and call it peace: Massacre at the Iberian Iron Age village of La Hoya

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