Last year on Mastodon we featured this story from the BBC about Gladstone's Library, the U.K.'s only residential library. Fediverse folk were so enthusiastic that when we discovered the library is offering scholarships to be taken in 2025, we had to share the information (see the second link in this post for all the details).
@CultureDesk@bookstodon It is worth warning folks who are thinking of visiting that it is full of the raceism (both casual and overt) of the time. Think carefully who you take there and go with that in mind.
@BlueCaller@actuallyautistic a lot of people are in that position. Either too expensive or too long of a wait (if out can even find someone who will schedule a diagnostic session for an adult).
The return of long-lost Sumero-Akkadian heritage and modern disorders: rediscovering Gilgamesh, Victorian tension, and aftermath
“The rediscovery of the Mesopotamian epic complicated centuries-old and on-going debates about time and history: The major archaeologists of the period utilized it to return the field to its earliest arguments and better understand what time and history meant at the end of the nineteenth century, the Historians, Hebraists, and Biblicists began to question the originality of the Bible and verify its reliability, and figures specialized in literature and/or the arts got access to the primary sources of prehistory to update existing literature or create new fictional arts.”
Nobody’s land? The oldest evidence of early Upper Paleolithic settlements in inland Iberia
“The directly dated cut-marked bones of ungulates indicate the presence of AMHs in inland Iberia during the early and mid-Upper Paleolithic. The paleoecological inferences suggest that human populations occupied Malia when climatic and ecological conditions were not particularly severe in terms of aridity and temperature.”
Nohemi Sala et al., Nobody’s land? The oldest evidence of early Upper Paleolithic settlements in inland Iberia. Sci. Adv.10, eado3807 (2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ado3807
Ancient Egyptian scribes and specific skeletal occupational risk markers (Abusir, Old Kingdom)
“Our research reveals that remaining in a cross-legged sitting or kneeling position for extended periods, and the repetitive tasks related to writing and the adjusting of the rush pens during scribal activity, caused the extreme overloading of the jaw, neck and shoulder regions.”
Brukner Havelková, P., Dulíková, V., Bejdová, Š. et al. Ancient Egyptian scribes and specific skeletal occupational risk markers (Abusir, Old Kingdom). Sci Rep 14, 13317 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-63549-z
Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic origins of early Iron Age Philistines
“Our analysis suggests that this genetic distinction is due to a European-related gene flow introduced in Ashkelon during either the end of the Bronze Age or the beginning of the Iron Age. This timing is in accord with estimates of the Philistines arrival to the coast of the Levant, based on archeological and textual records (2–4).”
Michal Feldman et al., Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic origins of early Iron Age Philistines. Sci. Adv.5, eaax0061 (2019). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax0061
“In what follows, a reading of Wittgenstein’s remarks will be offered according to which Wittgenstein subscribes to a form of dialetheism (that is, the view that there are sentences that are both true and false). In contrast to modern dialetheist approaches to the Liar, however, some of Wittgenstein’s remarks suggest combining a dialetheist position with what is called ‘logical nihilism’ (that is, the view that there are no universally valid inference rules).”
In a fieldnote shared by Teresa Cremer on S-AND.org you can meet Salim Ali Mohamed of the Malindi Beach Management Unit in Kenya. To him, sand indexes a healthy ocean. Poetically, Salim considers the ecological work of sand as cleansing respirations. What do receding shorelines, an unwanted effect of urban development, say about ownership, access, and practices of more-than-human care?
Read the full fieldnote here: https://s-and.org/blog/sand-the-ocean-breather
#Journals | Security and Safety "Secure and efficient Covert Communication for blockchain-integrated SAGINs"
Weijia Li, Yuan Zhang, Xinyu He and Yaqing Song
Late Neolithic collective burial reveals admixture dynamics during the third millennium BCE and the shaping of the European genome
“To conclude, our study of a Late Neolithic burial enables direct, quasi–real-time observation of the trimodal admixture processes in Europe between 3300 and 2600 cal BCE as steppe ancestry people dispersed and mixed with local Neo-ancestry groups or individuals. The generalization of the results obtained from our data suggests that this genomic transformation took place during a period of profound cultural change.”
Oğuzhan Parasayan et al., Late Neolithic collective burial reveals admixture dynamics during the third millennium BCE and the shaping of the European genome. Sci. Adv.10, eadl2468(2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adl2468
Agropastoral and dietary practices of the northern Levant facing Late Holocene climate and environmental change: Isotopic analysis of plants, animals and humans from Bronze to Iron Age Tell Tweini
“In view of the known critical factors influencing Bronze and Iron Age agriculture in the Eastern Mediterranean region, such as the global climate fluctuations at the end of the Early and Late Bronze Age or the collapse of the socio-economic system in connection with migrations, at least in part of a warlike nature, which are described as the invasion of the “Sea Peoples”, agricultural production at Tell Tweini proves to be comparatively resilient. Thus, despite the destruction of Tell Tweini in the first quarter of the 12th century BC, a revival of urban life and trading systems in the 11th century BC and continuing into the Iron Age II is evident.”
Fuller BT, Riehl S, Linseele V, Marinova E, De Cupere B, et al. (2024) Agropastoral and dietary practices of the northern Levant facing Late Holocene climate and environmental change: Isotopic analysis of plants, animals and humans from Bronze to Iron Age Tell Tweini. PLOS ONE 19(6): e0301775. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301775
Agropastoral and dietary practices of the northern Levant facing Late Holocene climate and environmental change: Isotopic analysis of plants, animals and humans from Bronze to Iron Age Tell Tweini
“In view of the known critical factors influencing Bronze and Iron Age agriculture in the Eastern Mediterranean region, such as the global climate fluctuations at the end of the Early and Late Bronze Age or the collapse of the socio-economic system in connection with migrations, at least in part of a warlike nature, which are described as the invasion of the “Sea Peoples”, agricultural production at Tell Tweini proves to be comparatively resilient. Thus, despite the destruction of Tell Tweini in the first quarter of the 12th century BC, a revival of urban life and trading systems in the 11th century BC and continuing into the Iron Age II is evident.”
Fuller BT, Riehl S, Linseele V, Marinova E, De Cupere B, et al. (2024) Agropastoral and dietary practices of the northern Levant facing Late Holocene climate and environmental change: Isotopic analysis of plants, animals and humans from Bronze to Iron Age Tell Tweini. PLOS ONE 19(6): e0301775. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301775
The potential of lacustrine sedimentary ancient DNA for revealing human postglacial recolonization patterns in northern Sweden – a review
“The questions of who the first postglacial peoples, or pioneers, were and where they came from therefore remain unanswered. Previous palaeogenomic analyses from remains from adjacent regions have suggested that two main routes into Sweden could have been taken by the pioneers, one from the SW through modern-day Denmark and Norway, and one from the east via Finland. However, no direct genetic evidence from the pioneers of northern Sweden exists.”
Johnson, E., Regnéll, C., Heintzman, P.D. and Linderholm, A. (2024), The potential of lacustrine sedimentary ancient DNA for revealing human postglacial recolonization patterns in northern Sweden – a review. Boreas. https://doi.org/10.1111/bor.12660