Deer or Horses with Antlers? Wooden Figures Adorning Herders in the Altai

Among the burials of horse herders who lived in the 4th–3rd centuries BCE Altai Mountains of South Siberia were some that contained small wooden figures of four-legged hoofed animals that represent horses, deer, or hybrid creatures. They decorated headgear buried with select commoners of the Pazyryk Culture. Although the people, material possessions, and horses of the elites were frequently ornamented with imagery often associated with the so-called Scytho-Siberian animal style, these figurines are generally more realistic and less stylized representations of natural creatures, either cervids or horses. There is, however, ambiguity in these representations; in some cases, figures that are horses have inset recesses on the tops of their heads, in addition to holes for ear inserts. This recalls the elaborate headdresses on some horses outfitted with large displays of antlers or horns made of wood, leather, and felt buried with the Pazyryk leaders. The implication of this ambiguity is explored here. Horses were “cultural capital and tokens of clout” (see Andreeva Introduction, this volume) in the Pazyryk Culture, as well as the base of the economy. Deer were foundational to older belief systems in Siberia. The commingling of horse, mountain goat/ibex, and deer features in Pazyryk Culture imagery has inspired this study

A Distinct Form of Socio-Political and Economic Organization in the Pazyryk Culture

The Pazyryk Culture, situated in the Altai Mountains of Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China, flourished for a relatively short period: 5th–3rd centuries BCE. A series of burial grounds from the later phase, 4th–mid-3rd centuries BCE, to be studied here reveal the remains of three groups of individuals of high, mid, and lower status. Within the limiting topographical and environmental confines of the local region, in contrast to the vast grasslands of the steppe and the deserts and oases of Central Asia, it is possible via the analysis of material culture and with reference to ethnographic studies to see nuances of interaction among these three groups and the regions immediately adjacent during this short period. Aided by modern scientific techniques, including DNA and isotopic analysis, together with analysis of excavated and often frozen remains, it is also possible to map out a heterarchical set of relationships within the hierarchical framework. The model developed in this unique landscape might be tested elsewhere in Eurasia as it extends the application of the notion of nonuniform socio-political organization among pastoralists noted for Bronze Age societies in the Eurasian steppe to the late Iron Age

CD200 is induced by ERK and is a potential therapeutic target in melanoma

Immune-mediated antitumor responses occur in patients with metastatic melanoma (MM), and therapies designed to augment such responses are clinically beneficial. Despite the immunogenicity of melanoma, immunomodulatory therapies fail in the majority of patients with MM. An inability of DCs to sufficiently activate effector cells may, in part, underlie this failure of the antitumor response seen in most patients. In this work, we show that mutation of N-RAS or B-RAF, signature genetic lesions present in most MMs, potently induced the expression of cell-surface CD200, a repressor of DC function. Employing 2 independent, genome-wide microarray analyses, we identified CD200 as a highly dynamic, downstream target of RAS/RAF/MEK/ERK activation in melanoma. CD200 protein was similarly overexpressed in human melanoma cell lines and primary tumors. CD200 mRNA expression correlated with progression and was higher in melanoma than in other solid tumors or acute leukemia. Melanoma cell lines expressing endogenous CD200 repressed primary T cell activation by DCs, while knockdown of CD200 by shRNA abrogated this immunosuppressive effect. These data indicate that in addition to its effects on growth, survival, and motility, ERK activation in MM attenuates a host antitumor immune response, implicating CD200 and its interaction with the CD200 receptor as a potential therapeutic target for MM