Eine Fundstelle der Glockenbecherzeit in Wetzikon ZH – Kempten, Tösstalstrasse 32–36

Geplante Bauarbeiten zur Erweiterung der Berufswahl- und Weiterbildungsschule Zürcher Oberland erforderten vorgängige archäologische Sondierungen. Abgesehen von römischen Funden wurde eine Strate mit glockenbecherzeitlichen Scherben entdeckt. Die darauf eingeleitete Rettungsgrabung führte zur Freilegung eines verlandeten Bacharmes. In dieser natürlichen Senke war eine Kulturschicht der Glockenbecherzeit erhalten geblieben. Bauliche Strukturen wurden nicht festgestellt. Das umfangreiche Fundmaterial und die C14-Daten lassen eine über längere Zeit dauernde Besiedlung vermuten. Von grossem Interesse sind zudem die Ergebnisse der Archäobiologie. An Tierknochen liessen sich ausschliesslich Haustiere bestimmen. Unter den Kulturpflanzen war Gerste, gefolgt von Emmer am stärksten vertreten. Der deutliche Nachweis von Grünlandpflanzen weist auf die Verwendung von Heu. Dies - zusammen mit weiteren Umweltdaten - deutet auf eine Öffnung der Landschaft im Endneolithikum

Lexical access speed and the development of phonological recoding during immediate serial recall

A recent Registered Replication Report (RRR) of the development of verbal rehearsal during serial recall revealed that children verbalized at younger ages than previously thought, but did not identify sources of individual differences. Here, we use mediation analysis to reanalyze data from the 934 children ranging from 5 to 10 years old from the RRR for that purpose. From ages 5 to 7, the time taken for a child to label pictures (i.e. isolated naming speed) predicted the child’s spontaneous use of labels during a visually presented serial reconstruction task, despite no need for spoken responses. For 6- and 7-year-olds, isolated naming speed also predicted recall. The degree to which verbalization mediated the relation between isolated naming speed and recall changed across development. All relations dissipated by age 10. The same general pattern was observed in an exploratory analysis of delayed recall for which greater demands are placed on rehearsal for item maintenance. Overall, our findings suggest that spontaneous phonological recoding during a standard short-term memory task emerges around age 5, increases in efficiency during the early elementary school years, and is sufficiently automatic by age 10 to support immediate serial recall in most children. Moreover, the findings highlight the need to distinguish between phonological recoding and rehearsal in developmental studies of short-term memory

Lexical access speed and the development of phonological recoding during immediate serial recall

A recent Registered Replication Report (RRR) of the development of verbal rehearsal during serial recall revealed that children verbalized at younger ages than previously thought, but did not identify sources of individual differences. Here, we use mediation analysis to reanalyze data from the 934 children ranging from 5 to 10 years old from the RRR for that purpose. From ages 5 to 7, the time taken for a child to label pictures (i.e. isolated naming speed) predicted the child’s spontaneous use of labels during a visually presented serial reconstruction task, despite no need for spoken responses. For 6- and 7-year-olds, isolated naming speed also predicted recall. The degree to which verbalization mediated the relation between isolated naming speed and recall changed across development. All relations dissipated by age 10. The same general pattern was observed in an exploratory analysis of delayed recall for which greater demands are placed on rehearsal for item maintenance. Overall, our findings suggest that spontaneous phonological recoding during a standard short-term memory task emerges around age 5, increases in efficiency during the early elementary school years, and is sufficiently automatic by age 10 to support immediate serial recall in most children. Moreover, the findings highlight the need to distinguish between phonological recoding and rehearsal in developmental studies of short-term memory

On-site data cast doubts on the hypothesis of shifting cultivation in the Late Neolithic (c. 4300-2400 cal. BC): Landscape management as an alternative paradigm

This article brings together in a comprehensive way, and for the first time, on- and off-site palaeoenvironmental data from the area of the Central European lake dwellings (a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site since 2011). The types of data considered are as follows: high-resolution off-site pollen cores, including micro-charcoal counts, and on-site data, including botanical macro- and micro-remains, hand-collected animal bones, remains of microfauna, and data on woodland management (dendrotypology). The period considered is the late Neolithic (c. 4300–2400 cal. BC). For this period, especially for its earlier phases, discussions of land-use patterns are contradictory. Based on off-site data, slash-and-burn – as known from tropical regions – is thought to be the only possible way to cultivate the land. On-site data however show a completely different picture: all indications point to the permanent cultivation of cereals (Triticum spp., Hordeum vulgare), pea (Pisum sativum), flax (Linum usitatissimum) and opium-poppy (Papaver somniferum). Cycles of landscape use are traceable, including coppicing and moving around the landscape with animal herds. Archaeobiological studies further indicate also that hunting and gathering were an important component and that the landscape was manipulated accordingly. Late Neolithic land-use systems also included the use of fire as a tool for opening up the landscape. Here we argue that bringing together all the types of palaeoenvironmental proxies in an integrative way allows us to draw a more comprehensive and reliable picture of the land-use systems in the late Neolithic than had been reconstructed previously largely on the basis of off-site data

Ultrasound-based prediction of pathologic response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer patients

BACKGROUND: Accuracy in predicting pathologic response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in breast cancer is essential for the determination of therapeutic efficacy and surgical planning. This study aimed to assess the precision of ultrasound (US) for predicting pathologic complete response (pCR = ypT0) after NACT. METHODS: This retrospective mono-center study included 124 invasive breast cancer patients treated with NACT. Patients received US before and after NACT with documentation of clinical partial response (cPR) and clinical complete response (cCR). Post-operatively, the pathologic response was defined as absence of tumor cells (ypT0), presence of non-invasive tumor cells (ypTis) or invasive tumor cells (ypTinv). Sensitivity and specificity of US as well as false negative rate (FNR), negative predictive value (NPV) and positive predictive value (PPV) were analysed for receptor subtypes. A multivariable logistic regression model assessed the influence of patient- and tumor-associated covariates as predictors for pCR. RESULTS: 50 patients (40.3%) achieved pCR, 39 (78.0%) had a corresponding cCR. Overall sensitivity was 60.8% and specificity 78.0% for US-predicted remission. NPV and FNR differed substantially between subtypes. NPV was highest (75.0%) in triple negative (TN) subtype, while FNR was low (37.5%). Therefore, pathological response was most accurately predicted for TN cancers. NPV for human-epidermal-growth-factor-receptor-2-positive/hormone-receptor-positive (HER2+/HR+) was 55.6%, for HER2+/HR- 64.3% and for HER2-/HR+ 16.7%, FNRs were 40.0%, 71.4% and 32.3%, respectively. Receptor subtypes impacted pCR significantly (p-value: 0.0033), cCR correlated positively with pCR (p-value: 0.0026). CONCLUSION: US imaging is insufficient to predict pCR with adequate accuracy. Receptor subtypes, however, affect diagnostic precision of US and pathologic outcome

Plant economies and village life in Neolithic lake dwellings at the time of the Alpine Iceman

This paper gives an overview of domesticated and wild plants used during the 2nd half of the 4th millennium B.C. (cal.) in a region within a semicircle of ca. 100 km radius around the find spot of the Iceman. The landscape considered lies north of the main alpine chain and includes Central to Eastern Switzerland and SW-Germany (mainly sites at the lakes Zug, Zürich, Constance, Upper Swabia (the Federsee region) and western Bavaria). From this part of Central Europe the plant remains of many well preserved Lake dwelling sites were investigated during the last decades and much is known about the daily life in these villages. Probably contemporaneous with the Iceman’s lifetime is one of the best investigated settlements, Arbon Bleiche 3 at the southern shore of Lake Constance. A comparison of the Iceman´s artefacts and plant macro remains with the findings in the considered lake dwellings shows striking similarities, but also differences. Based on domestic plants found with the Iceman his southern provenience can be corroborated. He used domestic as well as wild plants, very similar as the contemporaries of the lakeside villages. The detailed knowledge of the manifold activities in the lakeshore village of Arbon Bleiche 3 allows us to show a rather realistic picture about the daily life circumstances at the time of the Iceman

Recovery techniques for waterlogged archaeological sediments : a comparison of different treatment methods for samples from Neolithic lake shore settlements

This paper presents the first comparable overview of different recovery techniques used for waterlogged Neolithic sediments in the surroundings of the Alps in the last decades. Such an investigation became necessary because it was not known which parts of plant taxa and remain types were lacking or completely underrepresented due to the application of inappropriate recovery techniques in Slovenian archaeobotany until recently. During the 2007 excavation of the approx. 5200 years old Neolithic pile dwelling site Stare gmajne, Ljubljansko barje, Slovenia, we compared three methods for the investigation of botanical macroremains: Method 1 (M1) included rough wet-sieving and subsequent drying of the fractions, method 2 (M2) rough wet sieving and keeping the fractions wet, and method 3 (M3) washing over (flotation) and keeping the fractions wet. M3 with gentle washing, systematic subsampling, examination, and sorting of macroremains in wet condition, as well as using 0.355 mm as smallest mesh size gave the best results. When using the rougher methods M2 or M1, waterlogged (uncarbonized) seeds of taxa like Linum usitatissimum, Papaver somniferum and Brassica rapa, waterlogged chaff of Cerealia, pericarps of Maloideae and Quercus sp., which are all fragile were underrepresented or even completely lacking, and therefore the plant spectra strongly biased. On the contrary, taxa like with lignified seed/fruit walls like Cornus mas, Corylus avellana or Rubus sp. were overrepresented when using the M2 and particularly the M1 method. The application of the M3 instead of the M1 method, which has been traditionally used in Slovenian archaeobotany until now, helped us to identify uncarbonized remains of Linum usitatissimum and Triticum div. spec. for the first time in a Neolithic wet site in Slovenia. Our study is to be seen as a contribution to the desperately needed standardisation of methods in archaeobotany. It shows clearly how strongly the plant spectra can be biased by inappropriate handling techniques. The conclusions hold for all kinds of waterlogged sediments of different periods

Isolated Naming Speed and development of Serial Recall

This project was a re-analysis of data collected as part of Elliott, E. M., Morey, C. C., AuBuchon, A. M., Cowan, N., Jarrold, C., Adams, E. J., ... & Voracek, M. (2021). Multilab Direct Replication of Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky (1966): Spontaneous Verbal Rehearsal in a Memory Task as a Function of Age. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 4(2), 25152459211018187