Analysis of shared heritability in common disorders of the brain

Paroxysmal Cerebral Disorder

The "war on terror" and the military-archaeology complex: Iraq, ethics, and neo-colonialism

The archaeological response to the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq is often portrayed as a crusade to rescue antiquities, destroyed either directly by the military action itself or indirectly by the looting of archaeological sites and museums. I argue in this paper that this narrative is awfully inadequate, and masks the ethical and political dimensions at the core of this historical episode. I contend that, in their often well-intended attempts to rescue antiquities, most archaeologists involved have projected a professionalized, apolitical and abstract response, devoid of the social and political context, and based on the fetishisation of a narrowly and problematically defined archaeological record. I argue further that the increasing collaboration of many archaeologists with the invading militaries and occupation authorities since 2003, assisted by the “cultural turn” especially within the US military, have laid the foundations for an emerging military-archaeology complex. I trace the contours of this phenomenon by examining various archaeological and museum discourses and practices. This new development (with historical resonances that go as far back as the 18th century, if not earlier) is linked directly with the ontology and epistemology of archaeology, and deserves further close scrutiny and analysis. The thesis advanced here does not advocate inaction and withdrawal in situations of warfare, but a critical engagement that safeguards the autonomy of the scholar; critiques the political agendas and power structures of contemporary warfare; deconstructs its discursive basis and its ideological overtones; and shows its catastrophic consequences for people and things alike, past and present. <br/

Indigenous Traces in Colonial Spaces: Archaeologies of Ambiguity, Origins, and Practices

This article reconsiders how archaeologists find Indigenous people, particularly Native Americans, in past colonial communities. Significant progress has been made in studying indigenous living areas associated with colonial communities but not in recovering evidence for (or even remembering) Native people laboring in distinctly colonial spaces. I propose that the reason for the lag lies in an incomplete perspective on material culture and space that denies their polyvalent and ambiguous, yet informative and manifestly real, nature. A new perspective can be forged with greater use of social theory pertaining to practice, space, and labor. Reconceptualizing material culture and space in colonial contexts requires that archaeologists acknowledge the role of labor relations in structuring material and spatial practices and not conflate origins of artifacts and spaces with other possible social meanings derived from practice. This article examines these two dimensions with three North American cases from New England, Florida, and California

Geophysical analysis at the Old Whaling site, Cape Krusenstern, Alaska, reveals the possible impact of permafrost loss on archaeological interpretation

The Old Whaling site at Cape Krusenstern, Alaska, has been the subject of contested interpretations stemming from an original theory proposed by J. Louis Giddings more than half a century ago. In an attempt to address recent suggestions that the occupational history is more complex than originally believed, the site was the subject of a non-invasive geophysical survey conducted by our team in 2011. The project served as a starting point for assessing the potential for archaeological remains at the site that had not been detected with previous investigations, and to gain a better understanding of site morphology. The investigation was implemented with two well-established geophysical methods, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetic gradiometry. The survey revealed no unequivocal evidence of additional occupations as has been recently suggested, but did reveal a dynamic site morphology that may have implications for archaeological interpretation