1,720,979 research outputs found
A Neolithic case of fibrous dysplasia from Çatalhöyük (Turkey)
No full textThe vast majority of primary burials at Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Central Anatolia, Turkey, 7100–6000 cal BC) are recovered from beneath house floors, with burials in external spaces extremely rare. Excavations at Çatalhöyük in 1998 brought to light a young adult male buried in a midden (a burial location observed so far for only 4 out of 440 individuals), showing a suite of pathological features affecting the entire skeleton. The observed pathological changes include perimortem and antemortem fractures, proliferative and resorptive areas, thinning of the bone cortex, and localized areas of disorganized spongy bone invaded by fibrous tissue. We propose a differential diagnosis by considering a set of conditions: Paget's disease, osteomyelitis, hyperparathyrhoidism, Ollier's disease, fibrosarcoma, and fibrous dysplasia. The severity and distribution of the observed skeletal changes are consistent with a diagnosis of polyostotic fibrous dysplasia, a possibly debilitating and disfiguring condition. This, together with an unusual depositional context, may suggest a socially-mediated reaction to this individual's infirmity
Century A.D.)
No full textIrregular burials (IB—burials showing features that contrast with the majority of others in their geographic and chronological context) have been the focus of archaeological study because of their relative rarity and enigmatic appearance. Interpretations of IB often refer to supposed fear of the dead or to social processes taking place in time-specific contexts. However, a comprehensive and quantitative analysis of IB for various geographical contexts is still lacking, a fact that hampers any discussion of these burials on a larger scale. century AD. Each burial has been coded according to ten dichotomous variables, further analyzed by means of chi-squared tests on absolute frequencies, non-metric multidimensional scaling, and cluster analysis.Even acknowledging the limits of this study, and in particular the bias represented by the available literature, our results point to interesting patterns. Geographically, IB show a contrast between Britain and Continental Europe, possibly related to historical processes specific to these regions. Different types of IB (especially prone depositions and depositions with the cephalic extremity displaced) present a series of characteristics and associations between features that permit a more detailed conceptualization of these occurrences from a socio-cultural perspective that aids to elucidate their funerary meaning.Altogether, the present work stresses the variability of IB, and the need to contextualize them in a proper archaeological and historical context. It contributes to the discussion of IB by providing a specific geographic and chronological frame of reference that supports a series of hypotheses about the cultural processes possibly underlying their occurrence
No gentry but grave-makers: inequality beyond property accumulation at Neolithic Çatalhöyük
No full textArchaeologists have adopted the Gini coefficient to evaluate unequal accumulations of material, supporting narratives modelled on modern inequality discourse. Proxies are defined for wealth and the household, to render 21st century-style economic tensions perceptible in the past. This ‘property paradigm’ treats material culture as a generic rather than substantive factor in unequal pasts. We question this framing while suggesting that the Gini coefficient can prompt a deeper exploration of value. Our study grows from multi-material evaluation of inequality at Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Here we use the Gini coefficient to scrutinise distributions of burial practices among houses. To the expectations of the property paradigm, the result is unintuitive–becoming slightly more equal despite rising social complexity. We explore possible explanations for this result, each pointing to a more substantive link between past futures and differentiated lives as a framework for archaeologies of inequality
A history of violence in the Mesolithic female skeleton from Mezzocorona-Borgonuovo (Trento, northeastern Italy)
Full text linkScholars have long been interested in understanding conflict in prehistoric times. Skeletal lesions attributable to interpersonal violence constitute the most direct evidence available to make inferences on the diachronic changes in the frequency, scale, and motivation for conflict among human communities. It has been proposed that evidence of violence becomes more common among Early Holocene Mesolithic hunter-gatherers; however, the skeletal record becomes increasingly fragmentary in more ancient periods, making the finding of new evidence of great importance. We present here a case of traumatic recidivism in a Mesolithic female from the site of Mezzocorona-Borgonuovo (MBN-1) in the northeastern Italian Alps (Trento). This female displays a perimortem perforating defect in the frontal bone, as well as healed cranial and forearm fractures. Although it is possible to interpret these injuries as resulting from falls from height, we propose that they are most compatible with MBN-1 being victim over time of multiple episodes of interpersonal violence. In addition, probably a few months before death, MBN-1 suffered another traumatic injury of the ankle, and in this case the fall from height appears the most likely scenario. We further propose that the attacks leading to the cranial and forearm fractures were presumably perpetrated by individuals coming from outside MBN-1's group. Conversely, her group most likely cared for her through medical treatment – as suggested by the successful healing of forearm and ankle fractures – and by according her a formal burial. The traumatic history of MBN-1 provides rare glimpses into the life experience of a Mesolithic female from northeastern Italy, a context where human remains are extremely rare. However, being a single case, more findings are needed to understand whether or not MBN-1 can be viewed as emblematic of the overall exposure to interpersonal or accidental trauma for Mesolithic groups in the area, and to explore issues of frequency, origin, and motivation for ancient conflict
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
An analysis of modified human teeth at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey
No full textThe use of human teeth for ornamental purposes is archaeologically documented from the European Upper Palaeolithic, and, sporadically, during the subsequent Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. To date, no examples of this practice are available for the Near East during this timeframe. This contribution presents three human teeth from Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Central Anatolia, Turkey; 7100–6000 cal BC) that appear to have been modified for use as pendants. Macroscopic, microscopic and radiographic analyses confirm the modification and use of two out of three of these finds. The two confirmed pendants were likely extracted from the skeletonised remains of mature and old adults, carefully drilled, and worn for a variable period of time. The rarity of such artefacts in the prehistoric Near East suggests a profound symbolic meaning for this practice and these objects, and provides new insights into the funerary customs and symbolic importance of the use of human body parts during the Neolithic of the Near East
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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