Preservation of Benin’s Heritage. Is there a Happy Ending?

Fifteen years of research in Benin provides a retrospective to challenge the mainstream recommendations on the management of cultural heritage. Benin is a politically stable country with traditional structures still in place, thus an ideal place to see how postmodern paradigms, also discussed widely at the PANAF 2018, may play out. Three cases are presented. Each demonstrates the potential of heritage preservation initiatives as well as local appreciation of such initiatives. At the same time, they expose severe flaws in instrumentation. Firstly, the preservation of heritage sites, is carried out in response to tourism demands; their value is still appreciated only in such context. Secondly, the establishment of such attraction sites is seen as a finite action, ignoring the need for upkeep and maintenance. Thirdly, misread recommendations regarding the implementation of such projects result in irreversible losses, especially due to the allotment of decisive influence to local communities

Parasitic infections and resource economy of Danish Iron Age settlement through ancient DNA sequencing.

In this study, we screen archaeological soil samples by microscopy and analyse the samples by next generation sequencing to obtain results with parasites at species level and untargeted findings of plant and animal DNA. Three separate sediment layers of an ancient man-made pond in Hoby, Denmark, ranging from 100 BC to 200 AD, were analysed by microscopy for presence of intestinal worm eggs and DNA analysis were performed to identify intestinal worms and dietary components. Ancient DNA of parasites, domestic animals and edible plants revealed a change in use of the pond over time reflecting the household practice in the adjacent Iron Age settlement. The most abundant parasite found belonged to the Ascaris genus, which was not possible to type at species level. For all sediment layers the presence of eggs of the human whipworm Trichuris trichiura and the beef tapeworm Taenia saginata suggests continuous disposal of human faeces in the pond. Moreover, the continuous findings of T. saginata further imply beef consumption and may suggest that cattle were living in the immediate surrounding of the site throughout the period. Findings of additional host-specific parasites suggest fluctuating presence of other domestic animals over time: Trichuris suis (pig), Parascaris univalens (horse), Taenia hydatigena (dog and sheep). Likewise, alternating occurrence of aDNA of edible plants may suggest changes in agricultural practices. Moreover, the composition of aDNA of parasites, plants and vertebrates suggests a significant change in the use of the ancient pond over a period of three centuries