First study of 'Golden Age' mandolins unlocks secrets of their beauty

Mandolins made by G. Filano 1765 (a), A. Vinaccia 1785 (b), G.B. Fabricatore 1789 (c) and G. Gagliano 1799 (d). Credit: Image courtesy of Springer Science+Business Media

Analyzing varnishes and decorations could provide a new way to identify mandolin "Old Masters."

Some of the most elaborately decorated instruments in history were produced in 18th century Naples. The materials for varnishes and decorations used by individual mandolin masters, honed for wealthy clients in the ancient city's labyrinthine artisan quarter, have been kept secret for over 200 years. Details are disclosed for the first time by Tommaso Rovetta from the Università degli Studi di Pavia and colleagues at the Laboratorio Arvedi Research Group in Springer's journal Applied Physics A -- Materials Science & Processing.

Italian conservation scientists studied ten instruments from some of the most important dynasties of the "Golden Age" of Neapolitan mandolins. Advanced high-resolution imaging techniques shed light on some of the most jealously guarded decorative secrets and could provide a new way to accurately identify mandolins from specific workshops.

The Neapolitan mandolin was set apart by the deeper bowl of its body, producing a more resonant sound heard in works by Beethoven and Verdi. The style was developed by the Vinaccia family and adopted by other leading luthiers such as the Filano, Fabricatore and Gagliano families.

The scientists obtained mandolins from each of these makers courtesy of the National Museum of Musical Instruments in Rome and a private collector. Given their rarity and excellent state of conservation, only microscopic samples could be analysed from already-damaged areas. Nevertheless, the team was able to see that different workshops used different techniques and materials to achieve the same aesthetic effect.

"For mandolins of unknown origin, our results could represent a new way to identify where they were made and therefore their historic and economic value," says Tommaso Rovetta.

In particular, the resin used between patterns of pearl, ivory, bone or possibly horn around the sound hole contain a mixture unique to each workshop. Shellac, a resin from the lac beetle popular today in nail varnish, seems to be the only substance which formed a common base to which pigments and minerals were added. In a 1796 Fabricatore, a mineral found only in the volcanic lavas of Mount Vesuvius was detected. The mixtures in Vinaccia instruments were particularly complex and the scientists were surprised to find the fossilised remains of diatoms, a type of algae.

"We assume there were intense exchanges of technical know-how between masters and their apprentices but, with no written records, this knowledge was taken to the grave," says Rovetta. "We hope the rediscovery of ancient recipes will provide inspiration to today's luthiers."

Source: Springer Science+Business Media

Blazing car murder of 1930 investigated

Slide with Blazing Car victim's sample on it. Sample taken by Sir Bernard Spilsbury.
Credit: University of Leicester

University of Leicester leads collaboration with Northumbria University, Northamptonshire Police and The Royal London Hospital Museum, in investigation of the Blazing Car Murder of 1930

A forensic team from the University of Leicester and Northumbria University has spearheaded an investigation which has shed new light on a murder case from 1930.

A team from the University of Leicester, led by Dr John Bond OBE from the Department of Chemistry and Dr Lisa Smith from the Department of Criminology worked with colleagues from Northumbria University, Northamptonshire Police and The Royal London Hospital Museum to tackle the riddle of the 'Blazing Car Murder' from over 80 years ago.

The case involved the murder of a male in a car fire in Hardingstone, Northamptonshire, on 6 November 1930. Alfred Rouse was convicted, and later hanged, at Bedford Gaol in March 1931, for murdering his victim who to this day, has not been identified.

At the time, a post mortem examination was carried out in the garage of the local public house by the Home Office-appointed pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury, working alongside another local pathologist.

Sir Spilsbury reported that lavender coloured material and light brown hair were found at the scene. It was further documented that the victim's jawbone was removed to assist with possible identification and tissue samples taken for microscopical examination.

Two of these tissue samples are still in existence and archived in The Royal London Hospital Museum: one from the prostate to confirm the sex of the victim, and another from the lung to determine whether or not the victim was already dead before the fire was started.

In recent months, attention has turned to the fact that a man named William Briggs left his family home in London to attend a doctor's appointment at around the same time the crime was committed -- and was never seen or heard of again.

As part of their family ancestry research, the relatives of William Briggs wanted to verify earlier generations' belief that their ancestor may have been Rouse's car murder victim.

Last year, a number of William Briggs's relatives approached Northamptonshire Police in an attempt to put the 83-year-old mystery to rest and finally reveal the identity of the victim.

They met with the Force's curator and archivist Richard Cowley, discussed the story of the murder and were shown artefacts relating to the crime which, at the time received worldwide attention.

With the help of Northamptonshire Police, the family contacted University of Leicester academic Dr John Bond OBE. He and Dr Lisa Smith negotiated with The Royal London Hospital museum to allow one of the remaining tissue samples to be examined.

The slide was released with the approval of Professor Richard Trembath, at Queen Mary College University of London. The slide originates from the old Department of Forensic Medicine which formed part of The London Hospital Medical College. The College was merged with Queen Mary College in 1995.

The University of Leicester team considered whether there might just be enough mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) left on the slide to get a profile to compare with mtDNA from the family.

Mitochondrial DNA is wholly inherited from the maternal line so it is essential to have an unbroken maternal line of descendants to test.

University of Leicester worked with the Northumbria University Centre for Forensic Science and Dr Eleanor Graham, a former member of staff at the University of Leicester, and Victoria Barlow to carry out DNA analysis on the samples to see if there was a match from the sample and the relatives.

Fortunately, the scientists obtained a full single male mtDNA profile from the slide to compare to the family.

Dr John Bond, from the University of Leicester said: "It's been very interesting and rewarding working on such a famous, local murder case. It was quite a unique investigation to be involved in, as the perpetrator had been identified long ago and brought to justice while the victim's identity remained unknown.

"It was a great example of how the scientific and criminological expertise at the University of Leicester and Northumbria University, working together with the police, could provide answers to this family after 83 years."

Detective Chief Superintendent Paul Phillips from Northamptonshire Police said: "From our perspective this is a closed case, the offender Alfred Rouse was convicted of murder and hanged, but this has been a long-standing mystery in Northamptonshire as the identity of the victim has never been established.

"Our work at Northamptonshire Police is victim focused so I was delighted to learn of new opportunities to establish the identity of the victim through the development of forensic science."

Dr Eleanor Graham from Northumbria University stated: "Projects such as this highlight the fact that forensic DNA analysis is not confined to 'catching criminals'. DNA analysis also has a critical role to play in the identification of those who have been killed during criminal acts, accidents or natural disasters, which have occurred recently, or many years ago."

The result is due to be revealed to the family on the BBC's The One Show on a date to be fixed.

Blazing Car Murder background:

Alfred Rouse sustained a head wound in the First World War, which left him with a personality disorder, to the point that he was described as 'a promiscuous rake with an enormous sexual appetite'.

Rouse was a commercial traveller who went all around the country and his promiscuous lifestyle resulted in him facing severe financial problems.

As a consequence, Rouse devised a plan to murder a homeless tramp who would not be missed by anyone which would enable him to stage his own death in a car accident and then disappear to start a new life free from financial restriction.

To that end, Rouse rendered his victim unconscious, placed him in the driver's seat of his car and set the car alight.

Rouse was making his way from the scene but bumped into two local youths keen to see what was going on and take part in some late Bonfire Night celebrations.

This initial contact eventually led to Rouse's arrest. He was convicted at Northampton Assizes and hanged in Bedford on 10 March 1931.

The local Herald newspaper suggested that the identity of Rouse's victim 'would likely remain a mystery forever.' But will it………..?

Source: University of Leicester

Genes tell story of birdsong and human speech

The activity of genes related to singing shows a unique pattern in the brain of an Australian Budgerigar.
Credit: Duke University

His office is filled with all sorts of bird books, but Duke neuroscientist Erich Jarvis didn't become an expert on the avian family tree because of any particular interest in our feathered friends. Rather, it was his fascination with how the human brain understands and reproduces speech that brought him to the birds.

"We've known for many years that the singing behavior of birds is similar to speech in humans -- not identical, but similar -- and that the brain circuitry is similar, too," said Jarvis, an associate professor of neurobiology at the Duke University Medical School and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "But we didn't know whether or not those features were the same because the genes were also the same."

Now scientists do know, and the answer is yes -- birds and humans use essentially the same genes to speak.

After a massive international effort to sequence and compare the entire genomes of 48 species of birds representing every major order of the bird family tree, Jarvis and his colleagues found that vocal learning evolved twice or maybe three times among songbirds, parrots and hummingbirds.

Even more striking is that the set of genes involved in each of those song innovations is remarkably similar to the genes involved in human speaking ability.

The findings are part of a package of eight scientific papers in a Dec. 12 special issue of Science and 21 additional papers appearing nearly simultaneously in Genome Biology, GigaScience and other journals. Jarvis' name appears on 20 papers and he is a corresponding author for 8 of them.

Jarvis co-led the Avian Phylogenomics Consortium with Guojie Zhang of the National Genebank at BGI in China and the University of Copenhagen and M. Thomas P. Gilbert of the Natural History Museum of Denmark. His Duke lab contributed to preparing samples, sequencing and annotating the genomes, performing the analyses and coordinating the overall project.

The Jarvis lab in the Bryan Research Building prepared DNA of many of the species, pulling it from little chunks of frozen, pink bird flesh collected over the past 30 years by museums and other institutions around the world. To ensure the DNA being sequenced really belonged to the Golden-collared manakin and not an undergraduate lab assistant, the lab has been kept spotlessly clean and many of its tools are used only once, to avoid the possibility of subsequent contamination.

"We change gloves a lot," said Carole Parent, the lab research analyst who set up a DNA isolation pipeline for the next stage of the project to sequence still more birds and supervised sample prep with a team of Duke undergrads and a student from East Chapel Hill High School.

All of this meticulous and somewhat tedious work has given Jarvis and hundreds of colleagues around the world a crack at an unprecedented amount of genomic data generated by BGI in China. The whole-genome comparison of the 48 bird species required new algorithms written at the University of Illinois and University of Texas that ran for 400 years of CPU time on three supercomputers in the U.S.

Of the 29 papers covering everything from penguin evolution to color vision, eight are devoted to bird song.

One of the Dec. 12 papers in Science found there is a consistent set of just over 50 genes that show higher or lower activity in the brains of vocal learning birds and humans. These changes were not found in the brains of birds that do not have vocal learning and of non-human primates that do not speak, according to this Duke team, which was led by Jarvis; Andreas Pfenning, a graduate of the Ph.D. program in computational biology and bioinformatics (CBB); and Alexander Hartemink, professor of computer science, statistical science and biology.

"This means that vocal learning birds and humans are more similar to each other for these genes in song and speech brain areas than other birds and primates are to them," Jarvis said.

These genes are involved in forming new connections between neurons of the motor cortex and neurons that control the muscles that produce sound.

A companion study by another CBB doctorate, Rui Wang, looked at the specialized activity of a pair of genes involved in the regions of the brain that control song and speech. This study, appearing in the Journal of Comparative Neurology, found that these genes are down- and up-regulated in one brain region of song-learning birds during the juvenile period of their vocal learning , changes that last into adulthood. This study, and that of Pfenning, hypothesize that changes in these genes could be critical for the evolution of song in birds and speech in humans.

"You can find those same genes in the genomes of all species, but they're active at much higher or lower levels in the specialized song or speech brain regions of vocal learning birds and humans," Jarvis said. "What this suggests to me is that when vocal learning evolves, there may be a limited way in which the brain circuits can evolve."

Another paper in Science from Duke, led by post-doc Osceola Whitney, Pfenning, Hartemink and Anne West, an associate professor of neurobiology, looked at gene activation in different areas of the brain during singing. This team found activation of 10 percent of the expressed genome during singing, with diverse activation patterns in different song-learning regions of the brain. The diverse gene patterns are best explained by epigenetic differences in the genomes of the different brain regions, meaning that individual cells in different brain regions can regulate genes at a moment's notice when the birds sing.

Among the three main groups of vocal learning birds, parrots are clearly different in their ability to mimic human speech. Mukta Chakraborty, a postdoc in the Jarvis lab, led a project that used the activity of some of the specialized genes to discover that the parrot's speech center is organized somewhat differently. It has what the researchers call a "song-system-within-a-song-system" in which the area of the brain with different gene activity for producing song has an outer ring of still more differences in gene expression.

Parrots are very social animals, Chakraborty said, and having the ability to quickly pick up "dialects" of parrot speech may account for their super-charged speech center. The "shell" or outer regions were found to be proportionally larger in the parrot species, which are believed to have the highest vocal, cognitive and social abilities. These species include Amazon parrots, the African Grey and the Blue and Gold Macaw.

Jarvis was also part of a team with Claudio Mello and his Ph.D. student Morgan Wirthlin at Oregon Health & Science University that found ten more genes that are unique to song-control regions of songbirds. This paper appears in BMC Genomics.

A paper in Science led by Zhang, Gilbert and Jarvis found the genomes of vocal learners are more rapidly evolving and have more chromosomal rearrangements compared to other bird species. This genomic comparison also found similar changes occurred independently in in the song-learning area of different birds' brains.

Jarvis said knowing more of this history of how speech evolved in birds makes vocal learning birds even more valuable model organisms for helping to answer the questions he and other researchers are addressing about human speech.

"Speech is difficult to study in human brains," he said. "Whales and elephants learn speech and songs, but they're too big to house in the lab. Now that we have a deeper understanding of how similar birdsong brain regions are to human speech regions at the genetic level, I think they'll be a better model than ever."

Jarvis' general exploration of the bird brain over his 16 years at Duke has also led to several unexpected discoveries unrelated to song.

In 2005, he and colleagues found a center of the brain in migratory birds that apparently enables sensing of magnetic fields through "night vision." That year he also led a revision of the understanding of bird brain organization and vertebrate brain evolution. Last year, he led a re-drawing of the geography of the bird brain based on analysis of 52 genes that are active in 23 areas of the brains of eight species of birds. This new map shows neuron groupings in the birds' brains to be organized in columns like the brains of humans and other mammals.

He also branched out a bit and learned about the brain structures that enable mice to "sing" in ultrasonic ranges beyond human hearing.

Jarvis said this first wave of findings from the Avian Phylogenomics Consortium is just the beginning of an exciting new era of genomic analysis. The international group is already sequencing more birds at the whole-genome level.

"This is an exciting moment," said Jarvis, who is also a member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences. "Lots of fundamental questions now can be resolved with more genomic data from a broader sampling. I got into this project because of my interest in birds as a model for vocal learning and speech production in humans, and it has opened up some amazing new vistas on brain evolution."

Source: Duke University

Hox cluster found in Crown of Thorns starfish a surprise

A Crown of Thorns starfish, Acanthaster planci, feeding on several species of Montipora corals. The image was taken off the coast of Okinawa near Sesoko Island. Credit: Yuna Zayasu

New research published in the journal genesis, by Kenneth Baughman, Dr. Eiichi Shoguchi, Professor Noriyuki Satoh of the Marine Genomics Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, and collaborators from Australia, reports an intact Hox cluster in the Crown of Thorns starfish, Acanthaster planci. This surprising result contrasts with the relatively disorganized Hox cluster found in sea urchins, which are also echinoderms, classification of animals including starfish, sea lilies, and sea cucumbers. Stanford University Professor Christopher Lowe, who studies developmental biology in echinoderms, summarizes the paper: "The translocation of the Hox cluster in echinoderms has been a major red herring for understanding their evolution. It's really good to have some hard data showing that some echinoderms exhibit some oddities that are not representative of all echinoderms."

The Hox cluster is a classic example of an 'evo-devo' genetic toolkit. The term "evo-devo" refers to the study of genetic programs that control development, which can be compared between species, and thus, across evolutionary time. 

The Hox genes coordinate segmental identity along the head to tail (anterior-posterior) axis. The Hox cluster is evolutionarily conserved and has been 

repurposed repeatedly during the evolution of the animal body plan, or how animals are shaped. Past studies have shown that Hox clusters organize the development of brain and central nervous system regions in chordates, limb bud identity in vertebrates, and, classically, antennae or wing segment identity in fruit flies.

Generally, the Hox cluster shows "colinearity," in which gene order correlates with the location of expression, or the developmental stage of expression. "For example, anterior Hox genes are expressed in regions that are closer to the head of an embryo, and are expressed sooner during development, versus the posterior Hox genes," explained Baughman. "Thus, we were surprised to see chordate-like Hox cluster organization in starfish, which have a radial body plan." Echinoderms are classical model organisms for embryology, and more recently evo-devo. Baughman added, "Interacting with the speakers and students of theOIST Winter Course 'Evolution of Complex Systems' (OWECS) allowed me to appreciate the importance of finding an intact Hox cluster in starfish."

The Crown of Thorns starfish, a predatory starfish which feeds on corals, is famous for its dramatic changes in population density on the reefs near Australia, as well as Okinawa. Over the past 50 years, this has resulted in a measurable loss of coral reefs. A recent 27-year reef monitoring study of the Great Barrier Reef estimated that the starfish accounts for 42% of the loss in coral cover, 2nd only to typhoons. While population control was the initial motivation for Crown of Thorns genome research, the Hox cluster report is one of the first to show that the species can be useful for studies in evolutionary-developmental biology. "We were excited to see the entire Hox cluster on a single genomic scaffold, a result which confirmed the remarkably high quality of the genomic data," said Prof. Satoh.

As is often the case with science, the discovery raises more questions than it answers. If starfish have a collinear Hox cluster, what accounts for their dramatic departures in body plan organization? Do starfish express Hox genes during development in a manner similar to chordates, as indicated by the organization of their Hox cluster? Baughman looks forward to addressing these questions and many more as part of his doctoral research. "I look forward to pursuing developmental biology studies that may suggest methods for mitigating damage to the coral reef caused by the Crown of Thorns starfish."

More research is being conducted at OIST on the Crown of Thorns starfish in the Marine Biophysics Unit by Masako Nakamura in cooperation with local fishermen. In addition to the research collaboration highlighted by the Hox publication, recent efforts by the Okinawa Prefectural Government and Australian Institute of Marine Science are also working on projects to protect the existing coral reefs from the Crown of Thorns starfish.

Source: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology - OIST

Viking fortress discovery: Archaeological dating results

Two carbon-14 dating results have removed all doubt regarding the authenticity of the Viking fortress.
Credit: Image courtesy of Aarhus University

In September 2014, archaeologists from the Danish Castle Centre and Aarhus University announced the discovery of a Viking fortress in a field belonging to Vallø Manor, located west of Køge on the east coast of Sealand. This was the first discovery of its kind in Denmark in over 60 years. Since then, archaeologists have been waiting impatiently for the results of the dating of the fortress. Now the first results are available, and they will be presented at a seminar at Aarhus University on 18 November.

"When the discovery was published back in September, we were certain that we had found a Viking ring fortress, but since then there have been intense discussions online and amongst archaeologists about whether we were right. Now we know without doubt that we have found a fortress from the 10th century," says archaeologist Nanna Holm, curator of the Danish Castle Centre.

Two carbon-14 dating results have removed all doubt regarding the authenticity of the Viking fortress. The carbon-14 dating was performed by the AMS 14C Dating Centre at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Aarhus University in close collaboration with Accium BioSciences' laboratories in Seattle.

"The two samples were both taken from the outermost tree rings of charred logs that were found in the northern gateway of the fortress. The results of the two samples are almost identical: The fortress was built in the period between the year 900 and the beginning of the 11th century," explains Marie Kanstrup, an employee at the AMS 14C Dating Centre at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University.

Dating is important in determining the role of the fortress in the history of the Viking age

Søren Sindbæk, a professor of medieval archaeology at Aarhus University, explains that archaeologists are still working to date the fortress more precisely.
"We would like to determine a specific year. The carbon-14 method can't provide that, but we are working on different methods that can help us date the fortress even more precisely."

Dating the fortress will be an important step towards understanding its role in the history of the Viking age.

"We can't say whether or not it's Harald Bluetooth's fortress yet, but now that we've dated it to the 10th century, the trail is getting hotter. The things we've discovered about the fortress during the excavations all point in the same direction. We already know that there's a good chance that we'll find conclusive evidence next year," says Sindbæk.

A structure meant to symbolise power

Even though the excavations have closed for this year, the finds bode well for future efforts. The archaeologists' investigations have also revealed that the Viking fortress was built right next to the open sea.

"The excavation showed that there was a basin of fresh or brackish water right next to one side of the fortress -- presumably a quite narrow inlet leading out to Køge Bay. When the fortress was built, hundreds of tonnes of the heavy clay subsoil would have had to have been dug out into the sea basin," explains Nanna Holm.

According to Nanna Holm, this work was undertaken for no other reason than to give the fortress an impressive location. The structure was meant to signal power.

The same master builder may be responsible

The excavation has also shown that the construction of the fortress is closely related to other Viking fortresses such as Fyrkat near Hobro, Aggersborg near the Limfjord and Trelleborg near Slagelse. These fortresses were undoubtedly built during the reign of Harald Bluetooth, and still more evidence suggests that Borgring, as the fortress has been named, might have belonged to the same building programme.

"There are a lot of similar details in these structures. And it's been wonderful to see the same things coming to light at Borgring. In addition to the structure of the rampart and the gates, we have also found traces of a street with wood paving running along the inside of the rampart -- just like in Fyrkat, Aggersborg and Trelleborg. The most striking thing, however, is the measurements of the fortress. The rampart of Borgring is 10.6 metres wide. That is exactly the same width as the rampart of Fyrkat. So it's hard to avoid the sense that the same master builder was responsible," says Sindbæk.

Source: Aarhus University

Digging for answers: Gender inequality in archeology?

Dana Bardolph.
Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - Santa Barbara

On an archaeology field trip in New Mexico as an undergraduate in 2006, Dana Bardolph noticed something that struck her as an odd gender imbalance: The professor leading the dig was a men, while the graduate assistant and all but two of the 14 undergrads were women.

"And it just got me thinking," Bardolph recalled. "Is this reflective of the profession as a whole, or is it an anomaly?"

The question stayed with her, and four years ago she decided to search for an answer. Her findings -- generated after digging through more than 4,500 peer-reviewed papers in 11 archaeology journals covering a 23-year period -- are published in a recent issue of the archaeology journal American Antiquity.

Bardolph, a Ph.D. student in UC Santa Barbara's Department of Anthropology, found that female authors are significantly and consistently underrepresented in American archaeology journals. Indeed, although the gender ratio among researchers is roughly equal, in the journals Bardolph surveyed, female authors account for slightly less than 29 percent of articles published.

"I found that there was no significant difference between any of the regions, any of the journals, so it was really a ubiquitous pattern across the study samples," Bardolph said.

The results, she and researchers familiar with the paper said, have deep implications not just for women in the field but for the direction and substance of archaeology itself. Bardolph argues, based on feminist theory, that the low rates of publication perpetuate a marginalization of female researchers in academia and demonstrate what she called "a pernicious historical bias with regards to the visibility, recognition, presentation and circulation of women's writing."

Bardolph's adviser, Amber VanDerwarker, associate professor of anthropology and director of UCSB's Integrative Subsistence Laboratory, said the paper has the potential to catalyze a movement toward greater gender equity in publishing and academia. "It is hugely significant because there have been articles here and there that talk about this issue of gender equity in the field," she said, "and none of the studies has done this much data collection and analysis; this is the first study of this scale looking at publication rates."

Among the articles surveyed in the major journals, Bardolph found 71.4 percent were lead-authored by men and 28.6 percent by women. The regional journals revealed nearly identical numbers. In addition, the data were consistent over time.

While the data demonstrated a clear gender bias, what they didn't show is the source, said Bardolph, whose specialty is paleoethnobotany, a study of the relationship between humans and plants in the past.

The journals don't track submissions by gender, so there's no way to tell if men are being favored explicitly, she said. Other studies, however, have found that men submit papers far more often than women do, with equal rejection rates among the genders.

Based on her research, Bardolph said she suspects the bias is likely a result of authorial behavior rather than editorial or reviewer bias. Women, she noted, are more likely to take on "nurturing" roles in academia and accept positions in smaller teaching colleges as opposed to large research universities with their more abundant resources.

"When you have grad students you can collaborate with, you publish more than you would if you were doing everything by yourself," VanDerwarker said. "I spent a few years at a teaching college just struggling to keep up with the publication record."

Another potential factor Bardolph noted is more subjective: braving the sometimes-brutal journal submission process. The anonymity of peer reviewers occasionally engenders harsh rejections. And archaeology, which has long been dominated by men, is no exception.

"I think it's highly plausible that the issue of rejection ¾ and whether you do decide to revise and resubmit or discard the manuscript -- has a lot to do with confidence issues," Bardolph said. "I wouldn't be surprised if that was in fact the case, that perhaps women were revising and resubmitting less often than men."

For Bardolph, getting academia to acknowledge gender bias is just one step on a long road to equality. "People aren't really realizing this sort of inequality is still pervasive," she said. "My real goal is to bring awareness to the issue and to inspire people to delve more deeply into their particular subdisciplines and continue this type of research so we can continue to explore why these inequities perpetuate and think about what we can do about them."

Source: University of California - Santa Barbara

Findings at viking archaeological site show power trumping practicality

Baylor archeologist Davide Zori and assistant at Viking farmstead. Credit: Image courtesy of Baylor University

Vikings are known for raiding and trading, but those who settled in Iceland centuries ago spent more time producing and consuming booze and beef -- in part to gain political clout in a place very different from their Scandinavian homeland, says a Baylor University archaeologist.

The seafaring warriors wanted to sustain the "big man" society of Scandinavia -- a political economy in which chieftains hosted huge feasts of beer and beef served in great halls, says Davide Zori, Ph.D., a Denmark native and archeological field director in Iceland, who conducted National Science Foundation-funded research in archeology and medieval Viking literature.
But instead, what Zori and his team discovered is what happened when the Vikings spent too long living too high on the hog -- or, in this case, the bovine. 

"It was somewhat like the barbecue here. You wanted a big steak on the grill," said Zori, assistant professor in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core. He co-edited the book Viking Archaeology in Iceland: Mosfell Archaelogical Project with Jesse Byock, Ph.D., professor of Old Norse and medieval Scandinavian studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"It made it really showy -- if you could keep it up." The Viking chieftains used such wealth and cultural displays to flex political muscle with equals or rivals -- plus to cement good relations with local laborers, Zori said.

Zori and Byock's team excavated a farmstead called Hrísbrú in Iceland's Mosfell Valley. The farm -- inhabited by some of the most famous Vikings of the Icelandic sagas -- included a chieftain's longhouse nearly 100 feet long with a "feast-worthy" great hall, a church and a cemetery of 26 graves indicating a mix of pagan and Christian traditions. Males sometimes were buried with ship remnants rather than in the simpler Christian manner of leaving earthly possessions behind.

Carbon dating and studies of volcanic layers indicate the longhouse was built in the late ninth or early 10th century and abandoned by the 11th. The archeological team uncovered 38 layers of floor ash, including refuse dumped atop the abandoned house, also discovering bones, barley seeds and valuable glass beads imported from Asia. "By applying anthropology and medieval texts, we can excavate and compare," Zori said.

Viking sagas, first written in the 13th century and based on oral accounts, included such details as where people sat at feasts, "which shows your ranking . . . These texts read almost like novels. They're incredible sources. They talk about daily life," Zori said.

"Yes, the Vikings may have put axes to one another's heads -- but these accounts also describe milking cows."

High Times and Hard Times

When the Vikings arrived in uninhabited Iceland, they found forested lowlands, ample pastures and sheltered sea inlets. Excavations show that choice cattle were selected for feasts, with ritual slaughter and display of skulls, according to research published by Zori and others in the journal Antiquity. Barley seeds unearthed from floors or refuse heaps indicate barley consumption, and pollen studies demonstrate barley cultivation. Barley could have been used for bread or porridge, but beer's social value makes it very likely barley was used mainly to produce alcohol, Zori said.

Over centuries, as temperatures in the North Atlantic dropped during the "Little Ice Age," being a lavish host got tougher. "Nine months of winter -- and three months that are only a little less than winter," Zori said.

While sheep could find food free range most of the year and were suited for cold, prized cattle had to be kept indoors in large barns during the winter. Savvy supply-and-demand reckoning was crucial to be sure the food lasted -- both for cattle and humans -- and could be preserved.

"They had to decide how many to slaughter and store," Zori said. "They didn't have salt, so they had to use big vats of curdled milk as a preservative." As the landscape changed due to erosion, climate shifts and cleared forests, it became harder to rear larger numbers of cattle.

High-status households also struggled to grow enough grain for beer-making, based on historical accounts and confirmed by a growing body of archeological data. With a shorter growing season and colder climate than in their homelands, Icelandic Vikings would have needed more laborers to improve the soil -- and as the chieftains' power waned, they would have had trouble attracting workers. As barley cultivation stopped, the local chieftains are no longer mentioned in the Viking sagas.

Changing Directions

"You can see in the archeological evidence that they adjusted their strategy and gave it up eventually," Zori said. "It got harder and harder to keep up that showiness -- and when that collapsed, you didn't have that power, that beer and big slabs of beef to show off."

When barley was abandoned, the pollen record shows native grasses for grazing increased. Archeological findings show that the proportion of cattle to sheep bones declined, as Hrísbrú residents shifted to more practical, less laborious sheep-herding.

"You wonder what came first for the chieftains at Hrísbrú: Were they no longer powerful and didn't need barley and beef? Or could they just not keep it up and so they lost power? I favor the second explanation," Zori said.

"What we're doing now is to let the archaeology speak, both for itself and for proof to verify (the texts)," he said. "Investigating politics breathes life into it, instead of just saying, 'Here are three rocks.' You can ask deeper questions."
Zori argues that Viking chieftains' drive to produce expensive beef and beer caused them to put their political aspirations above the greater good of the community.

"Maybe we don't need the Vikings to prove this," he said. "But it shows you that politics can become more important than creating a productive society."

Source: Baylor University

Roman Gladiators ate a mostly vegetarian diet and drank a tonic of ashes after training

Anthropology unlocks clues about Roman gladiators' eating habits. Credit: OEAI, Pietsch

Roman gladiators ate a mostly vegetarian diet and drank ashes after training as a tonic. These are the findings of anthropological investigations carried out on bones of warriors found during excavations in the ancient city of Ephesos.

Historic sources report that gladiators had their own diet. This comprised beans and grains. Contemporary reports referred to them as "hordearii" ("barley eaters").

In a study by the Department of Forensic Medicine at the MedUni Vienna in cooperation with the Department of Anthropology at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Bern, bones were examined from a gladiator cemetery uncovered in 1993 which dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century BC in the then Roman city of Ephesos (now in modern-day Turkey). At the time, Ephesos was the capital of the Roman province of Asia and had over 200,000 inhabitants.

Using spectroscopy, stable isotope ratios (carbon, nitrogen and sulphur) were investigated in the collagen of the bones, along with the ratio of strontium to calcium in the bone mineral.

The result shows that gladiators mostly ate a vegetarian diet. There is virtually no difference in terms of nutrition from the local "normal population." Meals consisted primarily of grain and meat-free meals. The word "barley eater" relates in this case to the fact that gladiators were probably given grain of an inferior quality.

Build-up drink following physical exertion

The difference between gladiators and the normal population is highly significant in terms of the amount of strontium measured in their bones. This leads to the conclusion that the gladiators had a higher intake of minerals from a strontium-rich source of calcium. The ash drink quoted in literature probably really did exist. "Plant ashes were evidently consumed to fortify the body after physical exertion and to promote better bone healing," explains study leader Fabian Kanz from the Department of Forensic Medicine at the MedUni Vienna. "Things were similar then to what we do today -- we take magnesium and calcium (in the form of effervescent tablets, for example) following physical exertion." Calcium is essential for bone building and usually occurs primarily in milk products.

A further research project is looking at the migration of gladiators, who often came from different parts of the Roman Empire to Ephesos. The researchers are hoping that comparison of the bone data from gladiators with that of the local fauna will yield a number of differences.

Source: Medical University of Vienna

Were Neanderthals a sub-species of modern humans? New research says no

Depiction of Neanderthal (stock image). Credit: © procy_ab / Fotolia

In an extensive, multi-institution study led by SUNY Downstate Medical Center, researchers have identified new evidence supporting the growing belief that Neanderthals were a distinct species separate from modern humans (Homo sapiens), and not a subspecies of modern humans.

The study looked at the entire nasal complex of Neanderthals and involved researchers with diverse academic backgrounds. Supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, the research also indicates that the Neanderthal nasal complex was not adaptively inferior to that of modern humans, and that the Neanderthals' extinction was likely due to competition from modern humans and not an inability of the Neanderthal nose to process a colder and drier climate.

Samuel Márquez, PhD, associate professor and co-discipline director of gross anatomy in SUNY Downstate's Department of Cell Biology, and his team of specialists published their findings on the Neanderthal nasal complex in the November issue of The Anatomical Record, which is part of a special issue on The Vertebrate Nose: Evolution, Structure, and Function (now online).

They argue that studies of the Neanderthal nose, which have spanned over a century and a half, have been approaching this anatomical enigma from the wrong perspective. Previous work has compared Neanderthal nasal dimensions to modern human populations such as the Inuit and modern Europeans, whose nasal complexes are adapted to cold and temperate climates.

However, the current study joins a growing body of evidence that the upper respiratory tracts of this extinct group functioned via a different set of rules as a result of a separate evolutionary history and overall cranial bauplan (bodyplan), resulting in a mosaic of features not found among any population of Homo sapiens. Thus Dr. Márquez and his team of paleoanthropologists, comparative anatomists, and an otolaryngologist have contributed to the understanding of two of the most controversial topics in paleoanthropology -- were Neanderthals a different species from modern humans and which aspects of their cranial morphology evolved as adaptations to cold stress.

"The strategy was to have a comprehensive examination of the nasal region of diverse modern human population groups and then compare the data with the fossil evidence. We used traditional morphometrics, geometric morphometric methodology based on 3D coordinate data, and CT imaging," Dr. Márquez explained.

Anthony S. Pagano, PhD, anatomy instructor at NYU Langone Medical Center, a co-author, traveled to many European museums carrying a microscribe digitizer, the instrument used to collect 3D coordinate data from the fossils studied in this work, as spatial information may be missed using traditional morphometric methods. "We interpreted our findings using the different strengths of the team members," Dr. Márquez said, "so that we can have a 'feel' for where these Neanderthals may lie along the modern human spectrum."

Co-author William Lawson, MD, DDS, vice-chair and the Eugen Grabscheid research professor of otolaryngology and director of the Paleorhinology Laboratory of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, notes that the external nasal aperture of the Neanderthals approximates some modern human populations but that their midfacial prognathism (protrusion of the midface) is startlingly different. That difference is one of a number of Neanderthal nasal traits suggesting an evolutionary development distinct from that of modern humans. Dr. Lawson's conclusion is predicated upon nearly four decades of clinical practice, in which he has seen over 7,000 patients representing a rich diversity of human nasal anatomy.

Distinguished Professor Jeffrey T. Laitman, PhD, also of the Icahn School of Medicine and director of the Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology, and Eric Delson, PhD, director of the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology or NYCEP, are also co-authors and are seasoned paleoanthropologists, each approaching their fifth decade of studying Neanderthals. Dr. Delson has published on various aspects of human evolution since the early 1970's.

Dr. Laitman states that this article is a significant contribution to the question of Neanderthal cold adaptation in the nasal region, especially in its identification of a different mosaic of features than those of cold-adapted modern humans. Dr. Laitman's body of work has shown that there are clear differences in the vocal tract proportions of these fossil humans when compared to modern humans. This current contribution has now identified potentially species-level differences in nasal structure and function.

Dr. Laitman said, "The strength of this new research lies in its taking the totality of the Neanderthal nasal complex into account, rather than looking at a single feature. By looking at the complete morphological pattern, we can conclude that Neanderthals are our close relatives, but they are not us."

Ian Tattersall, PhD, emeritus curator of the Division of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, an expert on Neanderthal anatomy and functional morphology who did not participate in this study, stated, "Márquez and colleagues have carried out a most provocative and intriguing investigation of a very significant complex in the Neanderthal skull that has all too frequently been overlooked." Dr. Tattersall hopes that "with luck, this research will stimulate future research demonstrating once and for all that Homo neanderthalensis deserves a distinctive identity of its own."

Source: SUNY Downstate Medical Center

Human faces are so variable because we evolved to look unique

The amazing variety of human faces -- far greater than that of most other animals -- is the result of evolutionary pressure to make each of us unique and easily recognizable. Credit: UC Berkeley

The amazing variety of human faces -- far greater than that of most other animals -- is the result of evolutionary pressure to make each of us unique and easily recognizable, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, scientists.

Our highly visual social interactions are almost certainly the driver of this evolutionary trend, said behavioral ecologist Michael J. Sheehan, a postdoctoral fellow in UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Many animals use smell or vocalization to identify individuals, making distinctive facial features unimportant, especially for animals that roam after dark, he said. But humans are different.

"Humans are phenomenally good at recognizing faces; there is a part of the brain specialized for that," Sheehan said. "Our study now shows that humans have been selected to be unique and easily recognizable. It is clearly beneficial for me to recognize others, but also beneficial for me to be recognizable. Otherwise, we would all look more similar."

"The idea that social interaction may have facilitated or led to selection for us to be individually recognizable implies that human social structure has driven the evolution of how we look," said coauthor Michael Nachman, a population geneticist, professor of integrative biology and director of the UC Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

The study will appear Sept. 16 in the online journal Nature Communications.

In the study, Sheehan said, "we asked, 'Are traits such as distance between the eyes or width of the nose variable just by chance, or has there been evolutionary selection to be more variable than they would be otherwise; more distinctive and more unique?'"

As predicted, the researchers found that facial traits are much more variable than other bodily traits, such as the length of the hand, and that facial traits are independent of other facial traits, unlike most body measures. People with longer arms, for example, typically have longer legs, while people with wider noses or widely spaced eyes don't have longer noses. Both findings suggest that facial variation has been enhanced through evolution.

Finally, they compared the genomes of people from around the world and found 

more genetic variation in the genomic regions that control facial characteristics than in other areas of the genome, a sign that variation is evolutionarily advantageous.

"All three predictions were met: facial traits are more variable and less correlated than other traits, and the genes that underlie them show higher levels of variation," Nachman said. "Lots of regions of the genome contribute to facial features, so you would expect the genetic variation to be subtle, and it is. But it is consistent and statistically significant."

Using Army data

Sheehan was able to assess human facial variability thanks to a U.S. Army database of body measurements compiled from male and female personnel in 1988. The Army Anthropometric Survey (ANSUR) data are used to design and size everything from uniforms and protective clothing to vehicles and workstations.

A statistical comparison of facial traits of European Americans and African Americans -- forehead-chin distance, ear height, nose width and distance between pupils, for example -- with other body traits -- forearm length, height at waist, etc. -- showed that facial traits are, on average, more varied than the others. The most variable traits are situated within the triangle of the eyes, mouth and nose.

Sheehan and Nachman also had access to data collected by the 1000 Genome project, which has sequenced more than 1,000 human genomes since 2008 and catalogued nearly 40 million genetic variations among humans worldwide. Looking at regions of the human genome that have been identified as determining the shape of the face, they found a much higher number of variants than for traits, such as height, not involving the face.

Prehistoric origins

"Genetic variation tends to be weeded out by natural selection in the case of traits that are essential to survival," Nachman said. "Here it is the opposite; selection is maintaining variation. All of this is consistent with the idea that there has been selection for variation to facilitate recognition of individuals."

They also compared the human genomes with recently sequenced genomes of Neanderthals and Denisovans and found similar genetic variation, which indicates that the facial variation in modern humans must have originated prior to the split between these different lineages.

"Clearly, we recognize people by many traits -- for example their height or their gait -- but our findings argue that the face is the predominant way we recognize people," Sheehan said.

Source: University of California - Berkeley

How culture influences violence among the Amazon's ‘fierce people'

In this mid-1960s photo, men from two Yanomamo villages in the Amazon engage in nonhostile combat to determine the strength and fighting prowess of potential alliance partners. A new study from the University of Utah and University of Missouri indicates the Yanomamo -- who engaged in killing to gain status in past decades -- often formed alliances with men in different villages when they attacked and killed people in other communities, then married their allies' sisters or daughters. The idea is they fought like a 'band of brothers-in-law' more than a closely related 'band of brothers,' fathers and sons from a single community. [show less] Credit: Napoleon Chagnon

When Yanomamö men in the Amazon raided villages and killed decades ago, they formed alliances with men in other villages rather than just with close kin like chimpanzees do. And the spoils of war came from marrying their allies' sisters and daughters, rather than taking their victims' land and women.

Those findings -- which suggest how violence and cooperation can go hand-in-hand and how culture may modify any innate tendencies toward violence -- come from a new study of the so-called "fierce people" led by provocative anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon and written by his protégé, University of Utah anthropologist Shane Macfarlan.

Macfarlan says the researchers had expected to find the Yanomamö fought like "bands of brothers" and other close male kin like fathers, sons and cousins who live in the same community and fight nearby communities. That is how fights are conducted by chimpanzees -- the only other apes besides humans that form coalitions to fight and kill.

Instead, "a more apt description might be a 'band of brothers-in-law,'" in which Yanomamö men ally with similar-age men from nearby villages to attack another village, then marry their allies' female kin, Macfarlan, Chagnon and colleagues write in the study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study provides a mechanism to explain why Yanomamö warriors in a 1988 Chagnon study had more wives and children than those who did not kill.

"We are showing these guys individually get benefits from engaging in killing," Macfarlan says. "They're getting long-term alliance partners -- other guys they can trust to get things done. And they are getting marriage opportunities."

Since his 1968 book "Yanomamö: The Fierce People," Chagnon has been harshly criticized by some cultural anthropologists who claim he places undue emphasis on genes and biology as underpinnings of human violence, based on his 1964-1993 visits to the Yanomamö. Defenders such as Macfarlan say Chagnon takes a much more balanced view, and that "it's never a genes-versus-culture argument. They operate in tandem."

Chagnon got what was seen as vindication in 2012 when he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. The new study, with Macfarlan as first author and Chagnon as senior author -- is Chagnon's inaugural PNAS article as a member.

Macfarlan joined the University of Utah faculty this year an assistant professor of anthropology. He worked as Chagnon's postdoctoral fellow at the University of Missouri from January 2013 to June 2014. Chagnon and Macfarlan conducted the study with two Missouri colleagues: anthropologists Robert S. Walker and Mark V. Flinn.

Models of Warfare

The Yanomamö -- hunters and farmers who live in southern Venezuela and northern Brazil -- once gained social status as "unokai" for killing.

Up to 20 Yanomamö (pronounced yah-NO-mama, but also spelled Yanomami or Yanomama) would sneak up on another village at dawn, "shoot the first person they saw and then hightail back home," Macfarlan says. Some Yanomamö men did this once, some up to 11 times and some never killed. (Data for the study, collected in the 1980s, covered somewhat earlier times when spears, bows and arrows were the primary weapons.)

Macfarlan says the classic debate has been, "does warfare in small-scale societies like the Yanomamö resemble chimpanzee warfare?" -- a theory known as the "fraternal interest group" model, in which bands of brothers, fathers, sons and paternal uncles all living in the same community fight other similar communities.

The new study asked whether Yanomamö killing follows that model or the "strategic alliance model," which the researchers dub the "band of brothers-in-law" model. This model -- supported by the study's findings -- indicates that Yanomamö men form alliances not with close kin from the same community, but with men from other communities. After killing together, a bond is formed and they often marry each other's daughters or sisters and move into one or the other's village or form a new village.

"When we started off this project, we all assumed it would be the chimpanzee-like model. But in human groups we have cultural rules that allow us to communicate with other communities. You certainly don't see chimpanzees doing this."

Is the study a retreat from what Chagnon's critics see as too much focus on genetic and biological underpinnings of violence? Macfarlan says no, that Chagnon "has never been as all-biology as people have painted him. Most of his published research shows how unique cultural rules make the Yanomamö an interesting group of people."

Earlier research suggested that for chimps, warfare is adaptive in an evolutionary sense, and that it also benefits small-scale human societies. The new study asked, "If warfare is adaptive, in what way do the adaptive benefits flow?" Macfarlan says.

"Some people, myself included, said, to the victor goes the spoils, because if you conquer another territory, you might take their land, food or potentially their females."

But the new study indicates "the adaptive benefits are the alliances you build by perpetrating acts of warfare," he adds. "It's not that you are taking land or females from the vanquished group, but for the Yanomamö, what you acquire is that you can exchange resources with allies, such as labor and, most importantly, female marriage partners."

The study's findings that the Yanomamö form strategic alliances to kill suggest that "our ultracoooperative tendencies tend to go hand-in-hand with our ultralethal tendencies," Macfarlan says. "We show a relationship between cooperation and violence at a level unseen in other organisms." That may seem obvious for allied nations in modern wars, but "we're saying that even in small-scale societies this is the case."

How the Study was Conducted

The new study analyzed data collected by Chagnon in the 1980s, when about 25,000 Yanomamö lived in about 250 villages ranging from 25 to 400 people.
The study examined 118 Yanomamö warriors or unokai who had killed a total of 47 people by forming raiding parties of two to 15 men. The researchers analyzed the relationships between every possible pair of men in those raiding parties. Among the 118 unokai men, there were 509 possible pairs. Macfarlan says the findings revealed surprises about the relationship between co-unokai -- pairs of men who kill together:

-- Only 22 percent of men who kill together were from the same lineage.

-- Only 34 percent of co-unokai pairs were from the same place of birth. "Guys who come from different places of birth are more likely to kill together."

-- Among co-killers known to be related, a majority were related on their mother's side rather than their father's side -- more evidence of forming alliances beyond the immediate paternal kinship group. In Yanomamö culture, true kin are viewed as being on the paternal side, while maternal relatives are seen as belonging to another social group.

-- The Yanomamö preferred forming coalitions with men within a median of age difference of 8 years. "The more similar in age, the more likely they will kill multiple times," Macfarlan says.

-- Of the 118 unokai, 102 got married in a total of 223 marriages to 206 women. Of married killers, 70 percent married at least one woman from the same paternal line as an ally in killing. And "the more times they kill together, the more likely they are going to get marriage partners from each other's family line," Macfarlan says.

-- As a result, "The more times the guys kill together, the more likely they are to move into the same village later in life, despite having come from different village."

The study found allies-in-killing often are somewhere between maternal first and second cousins, Macfarlan says. Under Yanomamö rules, a man's ideal marriage partner is a maternal first cousin, who would be the offspring of your mother's brother. He says Yanomamö rules allow marriage to a maternal first cousin, but not a paternal first cousin.

Despite debate over the biological roots of deadly coalitions in chimps and humans, the new study shows how culture can make it "uniquely human" because if Yanomamö men "kill together, they are plugged into this social scene, this marriage market," Macfarlan says. "They are playing the game of their culture."

Source: University of Utah