Identifying Behavioural Modernity: Lessons from Sahul

This contribution is aimed at drawing attention to the fact that the current most widely accepted understanding of the origins of modern behaviour is very much dominated by Western concepts of the character of humanity. Here, it is briefly discussed that this understanding not only produces less than convincing results in the current discussion on ‘modern human origins’, but it is still plagued by problems that were already evident in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is suggested that these issues are connected to a simplistic and essentialist understanding of human historical development. The concept of ‘modernity’ inevitably produces a version of human history that is unilinear, Eurocentric and concentrates on the development and history of state societies. It is therefore suggested that 'modernity' in all its versions is very much counterproductive for our aim to understand the human past and present. It needs to be replaced by an understanding of organisms, humans and their environments as mutually constituting each other and as products of their situated becoming and not of essential (cognitive and/or genetic) and time-less qualities

Indigenous Concerns, Archaeology, and Activism

Archaeologists have been in contact with Indigenous communities since the origins of the discipline during the 19th century. From the beginning, this relationship was fundamentally structured by the fact that academic archaeology reflects the development of European/Western modernity, nationalism, and imperialism. As a consequence, during archaeology’s long and complex history, the relationship with Indigenous communities has often been characterised by confrontations, disputes, and misunderstandings. The dominant worldview upon which archaeology stands, rooted in Enlightenment philosophies and materialism, is often in contradiction to Indigenous perspectives. This applies, for example, to notions of time and history, the position and roles of humans within the natural world, ancestry and personhood, distinctions between life and death, and the animated and unanimated. These fundamental differences, and the associated unequal power relations between researchers on the one hand and Indigenous communities on the other, have caused innumerable instances of the appropriation and/or destruction of heritage sites and built structures and the removal and theft of artefacts and human remains. Accordingly, archaeological practices have been causing pain and suffering for Indigenous communities. However, these aspects are not restricted to archaeology but are more broadly related to the idea and reality of modern science and research practice itself. The perspective of Indigenous communities is encapsulated in Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s statement that “scientific research remains inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism […] The word itself, ‘research’, is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary” (Tuhiwai Smith 2012: 232). This understanding reflects the extensive and continuing experiences of objectification by Indigenous people in their engagements with researchers. It unmasks the position of Western (and other imperially rooted) science as yet another facet of extractive and exploitative practices of European domination. Indigenous communities have criticised that scientific practices can extract and claim ownership of Indigenous ways of knowing and heritage while excluding the people themselves from these processes and the subsequent results (Tuhiwai Smith 2012: 240)

Identifying Behavioural Modernity: Lessons from Sahul

This contribution is aimed at drawing attention to the fact that the current most widely accepted understanding of the origins of modern behaviour is very much dominated by Western concepts of the character of humanity. Here, it is briefly discussed that this understanding not only produces less than convincing results in the current discussion on ‘modern human origins’, but it is still plagued by problems that were already evident in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is suggested that these issues are connected to a simplistic and essentialist understanding of human historical development. The concept of ‘modernity’ inevitably produces a version of human history that is unilinear, Eurocentric and concentrates on the development and history of state societies. It is therefore suggested that 'modernity' in all its versions is very much counterproductive for our aim to understand the human past and present. It needs to be replaced by an understanding of organisms, humans and their environments as mutually constituting each other and as products of their situated becoming and not of essential (cognitive and/or genetic) and time-less qualities

First large-scale provenance study of pigments reveals new complex behavioural patterns during the Upper Palaeolithic of southwestern Germany

The use of red iron‐based earth pigments, or ochre, is a key component of early symbolic behaviours for anatomically modern humans and possibly Neanderthals. We present the first ochre provenance study in Central Europe showing long‐term selection strategies by inhabitants of cave sites in south‐western Germany during the Upper Palaeolithic (43–14.5 ka). Ochre artefacts from Hohle Fels, Geißenklösterle and Vogelherd, and local and extra‐local sources, were investigated using neutron activation analysis (NAA), X‐ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results show that local ochre sources were continuously and systematically accessed for c.29 500 years, with periodic events of long‐distance (about > 300 km) ochre acquisition during the Aurignacian (c.35–43 ka), suggesting higher mobility than previously suspected. The results reveal previously unknown long‐term, complex spatio‐temporal behavioural patterns during the earliest presence of Homo sapiens in Europe.publishedVersio

Mobile SARS‑CoV‑2 screening facilities for rapid deployment and university-based diagnostic laboratory

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has created a public crisis. Many medical and public institutions and businesses went into isolation in response to the pandemic. Because SARS-CoV-2 can spread irrespective of a patient's course of disease, these institutions’ continued operation or reopening based on the assessment and control of virus spread can be supported by targeted population screening. For this purpose, virus testing in the form of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis and antibody detection in blood can be central. Mobile SARS-CoV-2 screening facilities with a built-in biosafety level (BSL)-2 laboratory were set up to allow the testing offer to be brought close to the subject group's workplace. University staff members, their expertise, and already available equipment were used to implement and operate the screening facilities and a certified diagnostic laboratory. This operation also included specimen collection, transport, PCR and antibody analysis, and informing subjects as well as public health departments. Screening facilities were established at different locations such as educational institutions, nursing homes, and companies providing critical supply chains for health care. Less than 4 weeks after the first imposed lockdown in Germany, a first mobile testing station was established featuring a build-in laboratory with two similar stations commencing operation until June 2020. During the 15-month project period, approximately 33,000 PCR tests and close to 7000 antibody detection tests were collected and analyzed. The presented approach describes the required procedures that enabled the screening facilities and laboratories to collect and process several hundred specimens each day under difficult conditions. This report can assist others in establishing similar setups for pandemic scenarios

Early hominins in north-west Europe: a punctuated long chronology?

In light of changing views regarding the identity and evolutionary positions of Europe’s Lower Palaeolithic hominins, a re-consideration of the hominin occupation of North-West Europe from c. 1 million years ago (mya) to c. 400 thousand years ago (kya) is timely. A change in the scale and character of the overall European Palaeolithic record around c. 800-600 kya has been well documented and argued over since the mid-1990s. Hominin expansion into the European north-west, potentially from southern Europe, Africa or south-western Asia, has been linked to the introduction of a new lithic technology in the form of the biface. We evaluate three potential drivers for this northern range expansion: changing palaeo-climatic conditions, the emergence of an essentially modern human life history, and greater hominin behavioural plasticity. Our evaluation suggests no major changes in these three factors during the c. 800-600 kya period other than enhanced behavioural plasticity suggested by the appearance of the biface. We offer here a model of hominin occupation for north-west Europe termed the ‘punctuated long chronology’ and suggest that the major changes in the European Lower Palaeolithic record that occur at a species wide level may post-date, rather than precede, the Anglian Glaciation (marine isotope stage (MIS) 12)

The impact of contextual factors on nursing outcomes and the role of placebo/nocebo effects

Introduction: Placebo and nocebo effects represent one of the most fascinating topics in the health care field. Objectives: the aims of this discussion paper were (1) to briefly introduce the placebo and nocebo effects, (2) to elucidate the contextual factors able to trigger placebo and nocebo effects in the nursing field, and (3) to debate the impact of contextual factors on nursing education, practice, organisation, and research. Methods: a narrative review was conducted based on the available evidence. Results: Placebo responses (from Latin \u201cI shall please\u201d) are a beneficial outcome(s) triggered by a positive context. The opposite are the nocebo effects (from Latin \u201cI shall harm\u201d), which indicates an undesirable outcome(s) caused by a negative context. Both are complex and distinct psychoneurobiological phenomena in which behavioural and neurophysiological changes arise subsequent to an interaction between the patient and the health care context. Conclusion: Placebo and nocebo concepts have been recently introduced in the nursing discipline, generating a wide debate on ethical issues; however, the impact on nursing education, clinical practice, nursing administration, and research regarding contextual factors triggering nocebo and placebo effects has not been debated to date

Reflections of human beings : the Aurignacian art of central Europe

The aim of this work is to explore an interpretation of the Aurignacian art of central Europe that is explicitly based on a critical anthropological and sociological reflection of the subject. Within a separate social field in society, artistic activity is only a relatively recent phenomenon of modernity and a product of specific historical circumstances. Past research has often applied this understanding of Palaeolithic representations and has to large extent failed to connect artistic objects with social processes in the Palaeolithic. In contrast, this work explicitly understands Palaeolithic art (and any material expression of human agency) as products of their particular social conditions. Consequently, a diachronic perspective is abandoned in favor of a synchronic approach in which representations are related to inferred contemporary social processes. A social theoretical framework is proposed that puts forward a distinction of material structures, practice and ideology, which have to be taken into account as equal causal factors in an understanding of any products of human practices. These analytical distinctions are applied to a specific body of Palaeolithic representational objects and their archaeological contexts. These are mainly sixteen pieces from three cave sites in the southwest German Jura mountains. All these objects can be ascribed to a contemporary context within an established Aurignacian occupation in central Europe around ca. 32,000 years BP. The analysis shows that the objects were produced within relatively informal contexts. Each object was apparently attached to individual human beings and represents an individual concern with the communal symbolic and/or social order. In this ideological structure animals and their behaviours were apparently metaphorically linked to ideas about human and gender-specific actions. It is therefore argued that the Aurignacian statuettes not only allow an unique insight into an ideological structure of abstract meanings in a Palaeolithic context, but also into the ways individual persons related to it.</p

Reflections of human beings The Aurignacian art of central Europe

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