Filling Gaps in Afric Maps: Fifty Years of Archaeology in Africa

Discusses archaeology's contribution to the historiography of Africa and its effect in changing attitudes to the continent's past over the past 50 years. Situates the discussion in the larger context of attitudes towards the history of Africa since the 18th century

A comparison of opioid prescription trends in England and the United States from 2008 to 2020

BACKGROUND: The prescription opioid epidemic in the United States (US) is well documented, and recent measures have reduced prescribing rates in that country. Evidence suggests opioid prescriptions have been rising recently in other countries too. OBJECTIVE: The current paper aimed to compare trends in opioid prescribing in England and the US. METHODS: Trends in rates of prescriptions per 100 members of the population were calculated for England and the US using publicly available government data on prescriptions and population statistics. RESULTS: Rates of prescribing are converging. At the peak of the US epidemic in 2012, there were 81.3 prescriptions per 100 people, but this had fallen to 43.3 by 2020. Prescribing peaked in England in 2016 at 43.2 prescriptions per 100 people, but has fallen only slightly, so that in 2020 there were 40.9 prescriptions per 100 people. CONCLUSION: The data indicate that levels of opioid prescribing in England are now similar to those in the US. They remain high in both countries, despite recent falls. This suggests the need for further measures to prevent over-prescribing and to support people who would benefit from withdrawing from these drugs

Using commercial and recreational fisher knowledge to reconstruct historical catch rates for Queensland snapper (Chrysophrys auratus), Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson) and coral trout (Plectropomus spp.): long-term data for incorporation into future stock assessments

[Excerpt] This project was funded by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (project number 2013-018). The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority also provided funding for the Coral Trout component of the research. We wish to thank both funders for their support. We thank staff at the FRDC, members of the Queensland FRAB, the Queensland Government Department for Agriculture and Fisheries, and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, who provided invaluable advice throughout the project

Trends and transitions observed in an iconic recreational fishery across 140 years

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordRecreational fishing has taken place for centuries and is a globally popular activity, yet a lack of monitoring data means historical trends in recreational fisheries are often little understood compared to their commercial counterparts. We examined archival sources and conducted fisher interviews to examine changes in the Queensland recreational snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) fishery throughout its documented history. Over a 140-year period, we extracted data on technological innovations, catch rate trends, and social and regulatory change. Technological innovations were evident throughout the history of the recreational fishery. During the 1960s, 1990s and 2000s, several periods of rapid technological transition occurred, where a technology was adopted by >50% of recreational fishers within 10 years of its introduction. Since the 1960s, the timing and rate of adoption of fish-finding technology by recreational fishers has kept pace with the commercial sector. These technological advances have profoundly increased recreational targeting ability, but despite these advances, recalled recreational catch rate trends demonstrated significant declines over the course of the 20th century. While minimum size limits have been imposed on the snapper fishery for over a century, in contrast, the introduction of recreational in-possession limits only commenced in the 1990s. At this time, the beginnings of a societal transition was also observed, where longstanding ‘take all’ attitudes towards fishing began to be replaced by a more conservation minded ethic. This shift was driven in part by the changing regulatory landscape, as well as wider attitudinal change influenced by the media and shifting societal norms, although whether this led to a reduction in total recreational catch remains unclear due to a lack of fishery-wide monitoring data and the open access nature of the recreational fishery. This study demonstrates that in the absence of systematic data collection, archival sources and fisher interviews can contribute an interdisciplinary knowledge base for understanding and interpreting historical fishery trends.RT, SB and JP were supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. Fieldwork costs were supported by the University of Queensland’s New Staff Start-Up Fund, awarded to RT, and the Fisheries Research Development Corporation (FRDC) on behalf of the Australian Government, report 2013-018 "Using commercial and recreational fisher knowledge to reconstruct historical catch rates for Queensland pink snapper (Pagrus auratus) and Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson): long-term data for incorporation into future stock assessments”

The effects of 118 years of industrial fishing on UK bottom trawl fisheries

This is the final version of the article. Available from Springer Nature via the DOI in this record.In 2009, the European Commission estimated that 88% of monitored marine fish stocks were overfished, on the basis of data that go back 20 to 40 years and depending on the species investigated. However, commercial sea fishing goes back centuries, calling into question the validity of management conclusions drawn from recent data. We compiled statistics of annual demersal fish landings from bottom trawl catches landing in England and Wales dating back to 1889, using previously neglected UK Government data. We then corrected the figures for increases in fishing power over time and a recent shift in the proportion of fish landed abroad to estimate the change in landings per unit of fishing power (LPUP), a measure of the commercial productivity of fisheries. LPUP reduced by 94% - 17-fold - over the past 118 years. This implies an extraordinary decline in the availability of bottom-living fish and a profound reorganization of seabed ecosystems since the nineteenth century industrialization of fishing.R.H.T. was supported by Natural England and a Mia J. Tegner Memorial Research Grant. S.B. was supported by a Ray Lankester Investigatorship from the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom

The potential of historical ecology to aid understanding of human-ocean interactions throughout the Anthropocene

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordMarine historical ecology emerged in the scholarly literature with the aim of understanding long-term dynamics in marine ecosystems and the outcomes of past human-ocean interactions. The use of historical sources, which differ in temporal scale and resolution to most scientific monitoring data, present both opportunities and challenges for informing our understanding of past marine ecosystems and the ways in which human communities made use of them. With an emphasis upon marine social-ecological changes over the past 200 years, I present an overview of the relevant historical ecology literature and summarise how this approach generates a richer understanding of human-ocean interactions and the legacies associated with human-induced ecosystem change. Marine historical ecology methodologies continue to be developed, while expanded inter- and multi-disciplinary collaborations provide exciting avenues for future discoveries. Beyond scholarship, historical ecology presents opportunities to foster a more sustainable relationship with our oceans going forward: by challenging ingrained perceptions of what is 'normal' within marine ecosystems, reconnecting human communities to the oceans, and providing cautionary lessons and exemplars of sustainable human-ocean interactions from the past. To leverage these opportunities, scholars must work alongside practitioners, managers and policy makers to foster mutual understanding, explore new opportunities to communicate historical findings, and address the challenges of integrating historical data into modern-day frameworks. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.European Union Horizon 202

Historical spatial reconstruction of a spawning-aggregation fishery

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Aggregations of individual animals that form for breeding purposes are a critical ecological processfor many species, yet these aggregations are inherently vulnerable to exploitation. Studies of the decline ofexploited populations that form breeding aggregations tend to focus on catch rate and thus often overlookreductions in geographic range. We tested the hypothesis that catch rate and site occupancy of exploited fish-spawning aggregations (FSAs) decline in synchrony over time. We used the Spanish mackerel (Scomberomoruscommerson) spawning-aggregation fishery in the Great Barrier Reef as a case study. Data were compiled fromhistorical newspaper archives, fisher knowledge, and contemporary fishery logbooks to reconstruct catchrates and exploitation trends from the inception of the fishery. Our fine-scale analysis of catch and effort dataspanned 103 years (1911–2013) and revealed a spatial expansion of fishing effort. Effort shifted offshore at arate of 9.4 nm/decade, and 2.9 newly targeted FSAs were reported/decade. Spatial expansion of effort maskedthe sequential exploitation, commercial extinction, and loss of 70% of exploited FSAs. After standardizing forimprovements in technological innovations, average catch rates declined by 90.5% from 1934 to 2011 (from119.4 to 11.41 fish/vessel/trip). Mean catch rate of Spanish mackerel and occupancy of exploited mackerelFSAs were not significantly related. Our study revealed a special kind of shifting spatial baseline in which acontraction in exploited FSAs occurred undetected. Knowledge of temporally and spatially explicit informationon FSAs can be relevant for the conservation and management of FSA species.S.B., R.T., andJ.P. were supported by the Australian Research Council(ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation(project 2013-018). A.T. and S.B. were supported by funding from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (project 2010-007) on behalf of the Australian Government

Setting the Record Straight: Assessing the Reliability of Retrospective Accounts of Change

This is the final version of the article. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Ecological degradation is accelerating, reducing our ability to detect and reverse declines. Resource user accounts have the potential to provide critical information on past change but their reliability can rarely be tested, hence they are often perceived as less valid than other forms of scientific data. We compared individual fishers' catch records, recorded 1-50 years ago, with their memories of past good, typical and poor catches for the corresponding time period. Good and poor catches were recalled with reasonable accuracy, matching variability in recorded catch with no significant change observed over time. Typical recalled catches were overestimated and became significantly more exaggerated over time, but were more comparable to mean than median recorded values. While accuracy of resource users' memory varied with the type of information recalled, our results suggest that carefully structured interview questions can produce reliable quantitative data to inform resource management, even after several decades have elapsed.All authors were supported by the Australian Research Council’s Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. Fieldwork components were supported by The University of Queensland’s New Staff Start-Up Fund (Project No. 2012000643) and the FRDC (Project No. 2013–018), on behalf of the Australian Government

Finding the formula: formulaic language use in Hong Kong primary school English textbooks

This thesis examines the use of multi-word lexical phrases, sometimes referred to as formulaic language, in textbooks used in Hong Kong primary schools. To identify whether such phrases are as equally represented in Hong Kong English textbooks as they are in a textbook used by native English speakers in the United Kingdom, formulaic language is identified, counted and compared between texts. Identification is based on a set of pre-determined criteria, and frequency of the formulaic sequences is established using corpus linguistic methodology. An identification criteria value is given to all identified formulaic sequences based on how many criteria are used to identify them as formulaic. The suitability and usefulness of the formulaic sequences are discussed in relation to teaching and learning English as a foreign language. Results suggest that Hong Kong English textbooks contain less formulaic sequences than the textbook used in the United Kingdom and the identification criteria values are lower. Furthermore, qualitative analysis of formulaic sequences found in the Hong Kong English textbooks reveal a disparity in the structure and use of some sequences compared to sequences found in corpora of naturally produced English, raising the question of what constitutes native-like English

Reconstruction of Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) recruitment in the North Sea for the past 455 years based on the δ13C from annual shell increments of the ocean quahog (Arctica islandica)

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordnderstanding the recruitment variability of the Atlantic herring North Sea stock remains a key objective of stock assessment and management. Although many efforts have been undertaken linking climatic and stock dynamic factors to herring recruitment, no major attempt has been made to estimate recruitment levels before the 20th century. Here, we present a novel annually resolved, absolutely dated herring recruitment reconstruction, derived from stable carbon isotope geochemistry (δ13C), from ocean quahog shells from the Fladen Ground (northern North Sea). Our age model is based on a growth increment chronology obtained from fourteen shells. Ten of these were micromilled at annual resolution for δ13C analysis. Our results indicate that the anthropogenically driven relative depletion of 13C, the oceanic Suess effect (oSE), became evident in the northern North Sea in the 1850s. We calculated a regression line between the oSE‐detrended δ13C results (δ13CṠ) and diatom abundance in the North Sea, the regression being mediated by the effect of phytoplankton on the δ13C of the ambient dissolved inorganic carbon. We used this regression to build an equation mediated by a nutritional link to reconstruct herring recruitment using δ13CṠ. The reconstruction suggests that there were five extended episodes of low‐recruitment levels before the 20th century. These results are supported by measured recruitment estimates and historical fish catch and export documentation. This work demonstrates that molluscan sclerochronological records can contribute to the investigation of ecological baselines and ecosystem functioning impacted by anthropogenic activity with implications for conservation and stock management.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)FP7 People: Marie‐Curie Action