Anthropological Archaeology Underwater: Hunting Architecture and Foraging Lifeways beneath the Great Lakes.

Hunter-gatherers are foundational to anthropology. Ethnographic accounts of foragers have been essential in building classic anthropological theories of human evolution, kinship, social organization, and religion. From these studies, a normative view of foragers as simple, highly mobile, egalitarian band societies with limited or no property/ownership, emerged and continues to be pervasive in the discipline. This larger issue frames the central problems addressed in this dissertation. It concerns hunter-gatherer societies and how they are effected by hunting architecture, such as drive lanes, animal corrals, and fishing weirs. These comparable built elements are found across time, space, and cultures because they are conditioned by similar traits in animal behavior. Subsistence strategies adopting such hunting features present a fundamental shift in exploitation by actively modifying the landscape (i.e. niche construction) to increase the yield and predictability of natural resources. It is argued that the creation and use of hunting architecture is among the most significant subsistence innovations in prehistory prior to the origins of agriculture; as similar to large-scale food production, the adoption of hunting architecture has demonstrable social and economic repercussions. This dissertation investigates the global phenomenon of hunting architecture by drawing on a regional case study – caribou hunting in the Great Lakes, where some of the oldest hunting structures (9,380-8,830 cal yr BP) have been submerged beneath Lake Huron. The preservation of a virtually unmodified, culturally engineered landscape underwater is an ideal laboratory for investigating broader issues. New underwater research conducted for this dissertation provides an unprecedented view of forager societies and hunting architecture in the past, problematizing our normative characterization of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Ultimately, this dissertation makes contributions to three core areas; the local archaeological problem of Great Lakes caribou hunters, the theoretical anthropological problem of hunting architecture and forager lifeways, and lastly, the global problem of conducting inundated archaeology. It provides a model for anthropological archaeology underwater and demonstrates that submerged prehistoric research can contribute to anthropology’s most significant questions.PHDAnthropologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120823/1/aklemke_1.pd

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Factors Associated with Revision Surgery after Internal Fixation of Hip Fractures

Background: Femoral neck fractures are associated with high rates of revision surgery after management with internal fixation. Using data from the Fixation using Alternative Implants for the Treatment of Hip fractures (FAITH) trial evaluating methods of internal fixation in patients with femoral neck fractures, we investigated associations between baseline and surgical factors and the need for revision surgery to promote healing, relieve pain, treat infection or improve function over 24 months postsurgery. Additionally, we investigated factors associated with (1) hardware removal and (2) implant exchange from cancellous screws (CS) or sliding hip screw (SHS) to total hip arthroplasty, hemiarthroplasty, or another internal fixation device. Methods: We identified 15 potential factors a priori that may be associated with revision surgery, 7 with hardware removal, and 14 with implant exchange. We used multivariable Cox proportional hazards analyses in our investigation. Results: Factors associated with increased risk of revision surgery included: female sex, [hazard ratio (HR) 1.79, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25-2.50; P = 0.001], higher body mass index (fo

Fracture fixation in the operative management of hip fractures (FAITH): an international, multicentre, randomised controlled trial

Background Reoperation rates are high after surgery for hip fractures. We investigated the effect of a sliding hip screw versus cancellous screws on the risk of reoperation and other key outcomes. Methods For this international, multicentre, allocation concealed randomised controlled trial, we enrolled patients aged 50 years or older with a low-energy hip fracture requiring fracture fixation from 81 clinical centres in eight countries. Patients were assigned by minimisation with a centralised computer system to receive a single large-diameter screw with a side-plate (sliding hip screw) or the present standard of care, multiple small-diameter cancellous screws. Surgeons and patients were not blinded but the data analyst, while doing the analyses, remained blinded to treatment groups. The primary outcome was hip reoperation within 24 months after initial surgery to promote fracture healing, relieve pain, treat infection, or improve function. Analyses followed the intention-to-treat principle. This study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00761813. Findings Between Mar