British Neolithic Axehead Distributions and Their Implications

Neolithic stone axeheads from Britain provide an unusually rich, well-provenanced set of evidence with which to consider patterns of prehistoric production and exchange. It is no surprise then that these objects have often been subject to spatial analysis in terms of the relationship between particular stone source areas and the distribution of axeheads made from those stones. At stake in such analysis are important interpretative issues to do with how we view the role of material value, supply, exchange, and demand in prehistoric societies. This paper returns to some of these well-established debates in the light of accumulating British Neolithic evidence and via the greater analytical power and flexibility afforded by recent computational methods. Our analyses make a case that spatial distributions of prehistoric axeheads cannot be explained merely as the result of uneven resource availability in the landscape, but instead reflect the active favouring of particular sources over known alternatives. Above and beyond these patterns, we also demonstrate that more populated parts of Early Neolithic Britain were an increased pull factor affecting the longer-range distribution of these objects

Cycles in Stone Mining and Copper Circulation in Europe 5500–2000 BC: A View from Space

The authors of this article consider the relationship in European prehistory between the procurement of high-quality stones (for axeheads, daggers, and other tools) on the one hand, and the early mining, crafting, and deposition of copper on the other. The data consist of radiocarbon dates for the exploitation of stone quarries, flint mines, and copper mines, and of information regarding the frequency through time of jade axeheads and copper artefacts. By adopting a broad perspective, spanning much of central-western Europe from 5500 to 2000 bc, they identify a general pattern in which the circulation of the first copper artefacts was associated with a decline in specialized stone quarrying. The latter re-emerged in certain regions when copper use decreased, before declining more permanently in the Bell Beaker phase, once copper became more generally available. Regional variations reflect the degrees of connectivity among overlapping copper exchange networks. The patterns revealed are in keeping with previous understandings, refine them through quantification and demonstrate their cyclical nature, with additional reference to likely local demographic trajectories

Design, development and validity testing of the Gang Affiliation Risk Measure (GARM)

This study aimed to create a measure of risk for gang affiliation, for use in the UK. A pilot stage invited gang affiliated and non-gang affiliated participants between the ages of 16–25 years to retrospectively self-report on 58 items of risk exposure at the age of 11 years. Based on performance of these items, a 26-item measure was developed and administered to a main study sample (n=185) of gang affiliated and non-gang affiliated participants. Categorical Principal Component Analysis was applied to data, yielding a single-factor solution (historic lack of safety and current perception of threat). A 15-item gang affiliation risk measure (GARM) was subsequently created. The GARM demonstrated good internal consistency, construct validity and discriminative ability. Items from the GARM were then transformed to read prospectively, resulting in a test measure for predictive purposes (T-GARM). The T-GARM requires further validation regarding its predictive utility and generalisability. However, this study has resulted in the first measure of gang affiliation, with promising results

Supply and demand in prehistory? Economics of Neolithic mining in northwest Europe

The extent to which non-agricultural production in prehistory had cost-benefit motivations has long been a subject of discussion. This paper addresses the topic by looking at the evidence for Neolithic quarrying and mining in Britain and continental northwest Europe and asks whether changing production through time was influenced by changing demand. Radiocarbon dating of mine and quarry sites is used to define periods of use. These are then correlated with a likely first-order source of demand, the size of the regional populations around the mines, inferred from a radiocarbon-based population proxy. There are significant differences between the population and mine-date distributions. Analysis of pollen data using the REVEALS method to reconstruct changing regional land cover patterns shows that in Britain activity at the mines and quarries is strongly correlated with evidence for forest clearance by incoming Neolithic populations, suggesting that mine and quarry production were a response to the demand that this created. The evidence for such a correlation between mining and clearance in continental northwest Europe is much weaker. Here the start of large-scale mining may be a response to the arrival by long-distance exchange of high-quality prestige jade axes from a source in the Italian Alps

Confronting gang membership and youth violence: Intervention challenges and potential futures

Evaluation of approaches and psychological obstacles to tackling youth gang involvement

Adoptive gay father families: parent-child relationships and children's psychological adjustment

Findings are presented on a U.K. study of 41 gay father families, 40 lesbian mother families, and 49 heterosexual parent families with an adopted child aged 3–9 years. Standardized interview and observational and questionnaire measures of parental well-being, quality of parent–child relationships, child adjustment, and child sex-typed behavior were administered to parents, children, and teachers. The findings indicated more positive parental well-being and parenting in gay father families compared to heterosexual parent families. Child externalizing problems were greater among children in heterosexual families. Family process variables, particularly parenting stress, rather than family type were found to be predictive of child externalizing problems. The findings contribute to theoretical understanding of the role of parental gender and parental sexual orientation in child development

The effectiveness of Stepping stones Triple P: the design of a randomised controlled trial on a parenting programme regarding children with mild intellectual disability and psychosocial problems versus care as usual

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Children with an intellectual disability are at increased risk of psychosocial problems. This leads to serious restrictions in the daily functioning of the children and to parental stress. Stepping Stones Triple P aims to prevent severe behavioural, emotional and developmental problems in children with a (intellectual) disability by enhancing parenting knowledge and skills, and the self-confidence of parents. This paper aims to describe the design of a study of the effectiveness of parenting counselling using Stepping Stones Triple P compared to Care as Usual.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The effects of Stepping Stones Triple P will be studied in a Randomised Controlled Trial. Parents of children aged 5-12 years with an IQ of 50-85 will be recruited from schools. Prior to randomisation, parents complete a screening questionnaire about their child's psychosocial problems and their parenting skills. Subsequently, parents of children with increased levels of psychosocial problems (score on Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire ≥ 14) will be invited to participate in the intervention study. After obtaining consent, parents will be randomised either to the experimental group (Stepping Stones Triple P) or to Care as Usual. The primary outcome is a change in the child's psychosocial problems according to parents and teachers. The secondary outcome is a change in parenting skills. Data will be collected before the start of the intervention, immediately after the intervention, and six months after.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This paper presents an outline of the background and design of a randomised controlled trial to investigate the effectiveness of Stepping Stones Triple P, which aims to decrease psychosocial problems in children with a mild intellectual disability. Stepping Stones Triple P seems promising, but evidence on its effectiveness for this population is still lacking. This study provides evidence about the effects of this intervention in a community-based population of children with a mild intellectual disability.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>Netherlands Trial Register (NTR): <a href="http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/admin/rctview.asp?TC=NTR2624">NTR2624</a></p