Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe

Update notice Author Correction: Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe (Nature, (2022), 608, 7922, (336-345), 10.1038/s41586-022-05010-7) Nature, Volume 609, Issue 7927, Pages E9, 15 September 2022In European and many African, Middle Eastern and southern Asian populations, lactase persistence (LP) is the most strongly selected monogenic trait to have evolved over the past 10,000 years(1). Although the selection of LP and the consumption of prehistoric milk must be linked, considerable uncertainty remains concerning their spatiotemporal configuration and specific interactions(2,3). Here we provide detailed distributions of milk exploitation across Europe over the past 9,000 years using around 7,000 pottery fat residues from more than 550 archaeological sites. European milk use was widespread from the Neolithic period onwards but varied spatially and temporally in intensity. Notably, LP selection varying with levels of prehistoric milk exploitation is no better at explaining LP allele frequency trajectoriesthan uniform selection since the Neolithic period. In the UK Biobank(4,5) cohort of 500,000 contemporary Europeans, LP genotype was only weakly associated with milk consumption and did not show consistent associations with improved fitness or health indicators. This suggests that other reasons for the beneficial effects of LP should be considered for its rapid frequency increase. We propose that lactase non-persistent individuals consumed milk when it became available but, under conditions of famine and/or increased pathogen exposure, this was disadvantageous, driving LP selection in prehistoric Europe. Comparison of model likelihoods indicates that population fluctuations, settlement density and wild animal exploitation-proxies for these drivers-provide better explanations of LP selection than the extent of milk exploitation. These findings offer new perspectives on prehistoric milk exploitation and LP evolution.Peer reviewe

Surface Mol (CD11b/CD18) glycoprotein is up-modulated by neutrophils recruited to sites of inflammation in vivo

Inasmuch as the recruitment of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) to inflammatory foci in vivo involves adhesion-dependent events (e.g., margination, diapedesis, and directed migration), we sought to characterize the relationship between the local accumulation of PMNs in sterile peritonitis and their surface expression of the adhesion-promoting plasma membrane glycoprotein. Mol (CD11b/ CD18). In an immunofluorescence analysis of PMNs isolated from rats injected intraperitoneally with sterile 1% glycogen solution, we detected a significant enhancement of surface Mol expression by exudative peritoneal PMNs. In contrast, no significant rise in Mol expression was noted over time by circulating intravascular PMNs (isolated simultaneously). However, these intravascular PMNs had the capacity to increase their surface Mol density upon exposure to peritoneal fiuid supernatant at 37°C. These results demonstrate that PMNs at sites of inflammation in vivo do up-modulate their surface expression of the adhesion-promoting Mol glycoprotein during their recruitment from the circulating, intravascular leukocyte pool.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44502/1/10753_2004_Article_BF00916757.pd

Définition du Néolithique Moyen Bourguignon du Jura (4200-3600 av. J.-C.). Premiers résultats

National audienc

Typologie, chronologie et répartition des grandes haches alpines en Europe occidentale.

International audienceIn approaching the study of Alpine axeheads, we did not wish to follow previous researchers in privileging regional studies over broader reviews, and so we adopted a global, pan-European approach, examining all large Alpine axeheads across Europe. And since it would be a colossal task to document all of the many thousands of Alpine axeheads that have been found across Europe, we decided to limit our researches -following the ethnographic criteria used in our work in New Guinea- to axeheads that are, or had been, over 13.5 cm long. After ten years of desk- and museum- based work, our inventory of such axeheads currently stands at 1 764 examples, whose distribution stretches across Europe from Ireland, Brittany and Portugal in the west, to Bulgaria and Turkey in the east, and from Denmark in the north to Sicily in the south. The network over which Alpine axeheads circulated thus extended over 3 000 kilometres as the crow flies, between the Atlantic and the Black Sea. For the 5th millennium BC, the typological classification of these tools allows us to distinguish 15 different types. In studying the length/thickness ratio of complete examples, these types fall into a chronological sequence, informed by a factor analysis of axehead hoards (from both funerary and non-funerary contexts) and excluding those of Puy type (which have been influenced by copper axeheads and constitute a late introduction with the Chasséen, towards the end of the 5th millennium). According to this sequence: - the Bégude hoard is the earliest, being deposited at the beginning of the 5th millennium; - the next hoards are the group deposited around the middle of the 5th millennium in the Morbihan region of Brittany. Of these, those from Mané er Hroëck and Tumiac are the earliest, followed by Bernon, and finally Saint Michel and Petit Rohu; - the series ends with the hoards of Büssleben, Mönchpfiffel, Gonsenheim, Altenstadt, Le Pecq et Abbeville, deposited during the second half of the 5th millennium and at the beginning of the 4th millennium. The 'intuitive' typology and the initial chronological seriation that we had proposed in previous publications (based on typological associations in hoards and on axeheads from dated contexts) has been confirmed by this new work, with minor alterations. The mapping of the various axehead types at the scale of western Europe is a step that is key to understanding the dating and circulation of the large axeheads from their sources of raw material in the Alps to the maritime fringes of Europe. Globally, as we have noted previously, there is a striking symmetry, around the middle of the 5th millennium, between a western Europe where jade was the 'must have' material, and an eastern Europe in which this role was played by copper and gold. The two poles of this pattern lie at Carnac and the Gulf of Morbihan in the west and Varna in the east. The distribution maps allow us to follow and to confirm our chronological propositions : - The Bégude type of axehead, which is sometimes associated with regularly-shaped disc-rings of serpentinite or of jadeitite, is found over the entire area of influence of Cardial pottery styles to the west of the Alps. In opposition to this southern distribution, there is the northern distribution pattern of axeheads of Altenstadt/Greenlaw type. - Axeheads with expanded blades, even though some of them had been shaped in the quarries of Monte Viso, show an extraordinary concentration around the Gulf of Morbihan. These are the highly polished 'Carnac type' axeheads. - Finally the Puy type, the latest of the Alpine types, covers most of Continental Europe and heralds the decline in Alpine axehead production and the progressive return to the use of Alpine rock for making workaday axeheads and other woodworking tools. For certain axehead types -in particular, Altenstadt/Greenlaw- one notes the absence of roughouts in the quarrying sites of the Alps and Liguria. This is due to the fact that we are dealing with axeheads that were repolished on their arrival in the Paris Basin, using Alpine and Italian axehead types (in particular those of Durrington and Puymirol). This phenomenon, which occured in the southeastern part of the Paris Basin, seems to be identical to that which saw the transformation of polished Alpine axeheads on their arrival in the Morbihan, with the production of the 'Carnac' types of axehead. The intention could have been to produce styles of axehead that were incapable of being imitated and that were reserved for the elites. The incoming Alpine axeheads would have been regarded as magnificent exotic raw material, lacking in form or looking too much like the standard versions as used by neighbouring communities. At the other end of Europe, the same phenomenon of repolishing can be observed in Bulgaria with the Varna type (trapezoidal) and the thinned-down Durrington/Chelles type.Plutôt que de vouloir privilégier, comme par le passé, des études régionales de toutes les haches alpines - car le travail serait colossal à l'échelle de l'Europe avec certainement plus d'une dizaine de milliers de haches polies -, nous avons introduit l'idée d'une étude systématique, mais qui porterait essentiellement sur les grandes haches, la coupure (selon des critères ethnographiques observés en Nouvelle-Guinée) étant établie à 13,5 cm. Après dix années de travail en bibliographie et en musées, notre inventaire compte aujourd'hui 1 764 haches, réparties entre l'Irlande, la Bretagne et le Portugal à l'ouest, la Bulgarie et la Turquie à l'est, le Danemark au nord, la Sicile au sud. L'extension des réseaux de circulation des haches en roches alpines atteint donc 3 000 km à vol d'oiseau entre l'Atlantique et la Mer Noire. Pour le Ve millénaire, le classement typologique de ces outils polis permet de distinguer 15 types différents. En étudiant le rapport longueur/largeur des exemplaires complets, ces types s'organisent en chronologie lorsque l'on travaille en analyse factorielle sur les dépôts de haches (dépôts funéraires et assemblages enfouis sans rapport avec un espace funéraire), en excluant le type Puy (une imitation de hache en cuivre, d'introduction récente avec le Chasséen, vers la fin du Ve millénaire) : - Bégude est le dépôt le plus ancien (début du Ve millénaire) ; - suit le groupe des dépôts du Morbihan avec Mané er Hroëck et Tumiac, puis Bernon, enfin Saint-Michel et Petit Rohu (vers le milieu du Ve millénaire) - la série s'achève avec Büssleben, Mönchpfiffel, Gonsenheim, Altenstadt, Le Pecq et Abbeville pendant la 2e moitié du Ve millénaire et le début du IVe. La typologie " intuitive " et les premières sériations chronologiques que nous avions autrefois proposées (en nous fondant sur les associations typologiques dans les dépôts et sur les haches en contexte daté) se trouvent ainsi confirmées, à des nuances près. La cartographie des types à l'échelle de l'Europe occidentale est une étape clé de la datation et de l'observation de la circulation des grandes haches, depuis les exploitations alpines jusqu'aux marges maritimes de l'Europe. Globalement, comme nous l'avions déjà fait remarquer, la symétrie est frappante vers le milieu du Ve millénaire, entre une Europe occidentale du jade qui s'oppose à une Europe orientale du cuivre et de l'or, avec les deux pôles que sont Carnac et le Morbihan à l'ouest, Varna à l'est. De surcroît, les cartes de répartition permettent de suivre et de confirmer les propositions chronologiques. Le type Bégude, parfois associé à des anneaux-disque réguliers en serpentinite ou en jadéitite, couvre toute l'aire d'influence des styles de la céramique cardiale, à l'ouest des Alpes. À cette distribution méridionale s'oppose la répartition d'Altenstadt/Greenlaw, un modèle septentrional. Les haches à tranchant élargi, bien que mises en forme dans les carrières du Mont Viso pour certaines d'entre elles, montrent une concentration exceptionnelle autour du golfe du Morbihan (types " carnacéens " surpolis). Enfin le type Puy, le plus tardif, couvre la majeure partie de l'Europe continentale et annonce le déclin des productions alpines, avec un retour progressif à la hache considérée comme outil d'abattage. Pour certains types (Altenstadt/Greenlaw en particulier), il faut noter l'absence d'ébauches dans les exploitations des Alpes et de Ligurie : en fait, il s'agirait de haches qui ont été repolies à leur arrivée en Bassin parisien, en utilisant des modèles alpins et italiens (Durrington et Puymirol en particulier). Ce phénomène, qui intervient dans le sud-est du Bassin parisien, semble identique à celui qui a vu la transformation des lames polies alpines à leur arrivée en Morbihan avec la production des haches " carnacéennes ". L'idée pouvait être de produire des modèles inimitables et réservés aux élites, les haches alpines à leur arrivée étant considérées comme de magnifiques matières premières exotiques, mais informes ou trop marquées par les standards formels des voisins. À l'autre bout de l'Europe, le même phénomène de repolissage peut être observé en Bulgarie avec les types Varna (trapézoïdal) et Durrington/Chelles amincis par repolissage