As a corridor for population movement out of Africa, the southern Levant is a natural laboratory for research exploring the dynamics of the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition. Yet, the number of well-preserved sites dating to the initial millennia of the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP; ∼45-30 ka) remains limited, restricting the resolution at which we can study the biocultural and techno-typological changes evidenced across the transition. With EUP deposits dating to 45-39 ka cal BP, Mughr el-Hamamah, Jordan, offers a key opportunity to expand our understanding of EUP lifeways in the southern Levant.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMethodological developments and new paleoanthropological data remain jointly central to clarifying the timing and systemic interrelationships between the Middle-Upper Paleolithic (MP-UP) archaeological transition and the broadly contemporaneous anatomically modern human-archaic biological turnover. In the recently discovered cave site of Mughr el-Hamamah, Jordan, in situ flint artifacts comprise a diagnostic early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) assemblage. Unusually well-preserved charcoal from hearths and other anthropogenic features associated with the lithic material were subjected to acid-base-wet oxidation-stepped combustion (ABOx-SC) pretreatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Timely recognition and treatment of sepsis improves survival. The objective is to examine the association between recognition of sepsis and timeliness of treatments.
Methods: We identified a retrospective cohort of emergency department (ED) patients with positive blood cultures from May 2007 to January 2009, and reviewed vital signs, imaging, laboratory data, and physician/nursing charts.
To Malthus, rapid human population growth-so evident in 18th Century Europe-was obviously unsustainable. In his Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus cogently argued that environmental and socioeconomic constraints on population rise were inevitable. Yet, he penned his essay on the eve of the global census size reaching one billion, as nearly two centuries of super-exponential increase were taking off.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman evolution unfolded through a rather distinctive, dynamically constructed ecological niche. The human niche is not only generally terrestrial in habitat, while being flexibly and extensively heterotrophic in food-web connections. It is also defined by semiotically structured and structuring embodied cognitive interfaces, connecting the individual organism with the wider environment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To study the effectiveness of ibuprofen versus placebo in preventing acute mountain sickness (AMS) and high altitude headache (HAH).
Methods: Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.
Results: Two hundred ninety-four healthy Western trekkers were recruited on the Everest approach at 4280 m or 4358 m and randomly assigned to receive either 600 mg of ibuprofen or placebo 3 times daily before and during ascent to 4928 m.
We analyze terminal Pleistocene archaeofaunal diversity trends in the Southern Levant by examining eight Epipaleolithic (ca. 19-12ka) assemblages from the Western Galilee/Mt. Carmel, Israel subregion.
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