Hunter-gatherer environments at the Late Pleistocene sites of Mwanganda's Village and Bruce, northern Malawi

Mwanganda's Village (MGD) and Bruce (BRU) are two open-air site complexes in northern Malawi with deposits dating to between 15 and 58 thousand years ago (ka) and containing Middle Stone Age (MSA) lithic assemblages. The sites have been known since 1966 and 1965, respectively, but lacked chronometric and site formation data necessary for their interpretation. The area hosts a rich stone artifact record, eroding from and found within alluvial fan deposits exhibiting poor preservation of organic materials. Although this generally limits opportunities for site-based environmental reconstructions, MGD and BRU are located at the distal margins of the alluvial fan, where lacustrine lagoonal deposits were overprinted by a calcrete paleosol. This has created locally improved organic preservation and allowed us to obtain ecological data from pollen, phytoliths, and pedogenic carbonates, producing a regional- to site-scale environmental context for periods of site use and abandonment. Here, we integrate the ecological data into a detailed site formation history, based on field observations and micromorphology, supplemented by cathodoluminescence microscopy and μ-XRF. By comparing local, on-site environmental proxies with more regional indicators, we can better evaluate how MSA hunter-gatherers made decisions about the use of resources across the landscape. Our data indicate that while tree cover similar to modern miombo woodland and evergreen gallery forest prevailed at most times, MSA hunter-gatherers chose more locally open environments for activities that resulted in a lithic artifact record at multiple locations between 51 and 15 ka.publishedVersio

Jakten på ynglekolonier : en studie for bruk av radio telemetri til å spore flaggermus i Sørøst-Norge

There is still a gap of knowledge regarding bats in Norway. More studies are needed to explore which habitats are important for the maternity colonies, and which methods are most suited to find them. This is especially important in the most densely populated area of Norway: the south east. Increased human encroachment and land use change may affect bat in a manner of ways, from putting them under intense pressure, to providing new colony sites. The goal of the study was to find maternity colonies of five common Norwegian bat species (order: Chiroptera) in rural and forested areas close to Oslo. Furthermore, we wanted to investigate the numbers of individuals at each colony, their spatial movements upon leaving the colony in the evening, how they moved in the landscape to their foraging ground(s) and lastly, we wanted to see to what extent terrain obstructions and distance influenced the signals we picked up from radio-tagged bats.M-ECO