27 research outputs found
Histaminergic system in brain disorders: lessons from the translational approach and future perspectives
A Guide to Medications Inducing Salivary Gland Dysfunction, Xerostomia, and Subjective Sialorrhea: A Systematic Review Sponsored by the World Workshop on Oral Medicine VI
Atoll Archaeology in the Pacific
As islands formed by biogenic agents
(unconsolidated carbonate sediments deposited by
waves on reef platforms), atolls and table reefs, or
low coral islands without lagoons, can be regarded
as especially constraining habitats for human settlement.
The challenges faced by people, both past and
present, include low soil fertility, absence of perennial
surface freshwater, and extreme vulnerability to
flooding by stormsurge and sea-level rise due to low
elevation of the highly fragmented landmass, only a
few meters above mean sea level. There are about
300 atolls and low coral islands in the Pacific and
thousands of individual islets (motu). Several archipelagoes
are dominated by these limestone islands,
such as the Tuamotus, the Central and Eastern Carolines,
the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and Tuvalu.
Because of their small size, limited and at time
fluctuating resources, and relative isolation, atolls
are often perceived as marginal environments.
While some human communities did not endure
(Di Piazza and Pearthree 2001), a remarkable
number were sustainable for centuries, taking
advantage of opportunities many atolls provided
and indicating a long history of resilience to environmental
variability (Fitzpatrick et al. 2016).
Despite these achievements, atolls have received
relatively little coverage by Pacific archaeologist
Pofatu, a curated and open-access database for geochemical sourcing of archaeological materials
High Precision U/Th Dating of First Polynesian Settlement
Previous studies document Nukuleka in the Kingdom of Tonga as a founder colony for first settlement of Polynesia by Lapita peoples. A limited number of radiocarbon dates are one line of evidence supporting this claim, but they cannot precisely establish when this event occurred, nor can they afford a detailed chronology for sequent occupation. High precision U/Th dates of Acropora coral files (abraders) from Nukuleka give unprecedented resolution, identifying the founder event by 283868 BP and documenting site development over the ensuing 250 years. The potential for dating error due to post depositional diagenetic alteration of ancient corals at Nukuleka also is addressed through sample preparation protocols and paired dates on spatially separated samples for individual specimens. Acropora coral files are widely distributed in Lapita sites across Oceania. U/Th dating of these artifacts provides unparalleled opportunities for greater precision and insight into the speed and timing of this final chapter in human settlement of the globe
Basalt geochemistry reveals high frequency of prehistoric tool exchange in low hierarchy Marquesas Islands (Polynesia)
Management of Hypertension Following Hurricane Katrina: A Review of Issues in Management of Chronic Health Conditions Following a Disaster
Language trees support the express-train sequence of Austronesian expansion
Languages, like molecules, document evolutionary history. Darwin(1) observed that evolutionary change in languages greatly resembled the processes of biological evolution: inheritance from a common ancestor and convergent evolution operate in both. Despite many suggestions(2-4), few attempts have been made to apply the phylogenetic methods used in biology to linguistic data. Here we report a parsimony analysis of a large language data set. We use this analysis to test competing hypotheses - the "express-train''(5) and the "entangled-bank''(6,7) models - for the colonization of the Pacific by Austronesian-speaking peoples. The parsimony analysis of a matrix of 77 Austronesian languages with 5,185 lexical items produced a single most-parsimonious tree. The express-train model was converted into an ordered geographical character and mapped onto the language tree. We found that the topology of the language tree was highly compatible with the express-train model