In high cliffside caves, explorers find 1,500-year-old bones.
The remains of 27 ancient men, women, and children have been found in cliffside caves in Nepal. Many of the bones bear cut marks that point to a previously unknown Himalayan death ritual, experts say.
The corpses—many of which had been stripped of flesh—were placed in the high mortuaries some 1,500 years ago, the team announced Friday.
Nearly 67 percent of the bodies' had been defleshed, most likely with a metal knife, say the researchers, who found the remains in 2010.
After the de-fleshing process, the corpses had been neatly laid to rest on wide wooden shelves, the researchers speculate. But due to centuries of exposure to the elements, the bones and bunks—and much of the caves themselves—had collapsed by the time the team entered the chambers.
Also in the jumble: goat, cow, and horse remains—perhaps sacrificial offerings for the dead, though their purpose remains a mystery.
Dug into characteristically reddish cliffs of the Upper Mustang district, the human-made caves lie at 13,800 feet (4,200 meters) above sea level, high above the village of Samdzong (Mustang region map).
In ancient times, rock outcrops and probably ladders would have eased access to the caves. Since then, however, erosion has rendered the chambers accessible to only expert climbers, such as seven-time Everest summiter Pete Athans, who co-led the team.
"Clues to when these caves were built, and by whom, are melting before our eyes," Athans said in a press statement. "The cave tomb we found is under great threat. It is situated in a fragile rock matrix that has already collapsed some time in the past. I don't believe the tomb would've lasted one more monsoon."
De-fleshed, With All Due Respect
Little is known about the three ancient Himalayan groups that de-fleshed and entombed their dead in the high Mustang caves, making the motives behind the rite even murkier. The team has, however, ruled out cannibalism.
"When you're going for meat, you process a skeleton in a very different way than if you were trying to strip the flesh off," explained project leader Mark Aldenderfer, an archaeologist at the University of California, Merced.
"In cannibalism, the base of the skull is often smashed [to get at the brains], and bones are broken and twisted, usually for marrow. There's nothing like that in any of the bone parts that we recovered. ...
"This was done in a respectful fashion," added Aldenderfer, who received partial funding from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)
Preliminary DNA analysis of some of the bones suggests the de-fleshing subjects were related.
"I would imagine that many of these mortuary caves are for large extended families," Aldenderfer said.
"This would be their traditional burial place, and another family would have their own."
Secondhand Rite?
Aldenderfer and his team think the practice of de-fleshing corpses and entombing them in caves might be a previously unknown bridge between two other known death rituals.
One, the Tibetan sky burial—thought to have originated several hundred years later—involves dismembering a body and exposing it to the elements and to scavengers such as vultures. Present-day Tibet is just 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the cave tombs.
The other funerary rite is older and hails from the Zoroastrian religion, which has its roots in ancient Persia (now Iran). Zoroastrians, Aldenderfer said, "are known to have de-fleshed their dead and fed the flesh to animals."
Ancient people living in the Upper Mustang region may have adopted funerary rituals of passing Zoroastrians as they traveled west, Aldenderfer said. These rites, in turn, may have transformed into, or inspired, the Tibetan sky-burial ritual.
That idea, according to anthropologist Mark Turin, who wasn't part of the project, is "an interesting and perfectly workable hypothesis."
Bloodstained Landscape
The new finds are only the latest to be uncovered in the remote cliffs.
In the 1980s a Nepalese-German team discovered cave tombs dating back about 3,000 years. The human remains in those caves hadn't been de-fleshed, however.
And in 2009 the team behind the new discovery announced they'd found a cliff-cave trove of Tibetan art, manuscripts, and skeletons dating back to the 15th century.
In addition to the newfound mortuary caves, Aldenderfer's team has found nearby caves that were created later, likely for use as living spaces.
"I don't think the people who built those 'apartment complexes' actually knew that those mortuary caves were nearby," Aldenderfer said.
Turin, director of the Digital Himalaya Project at the University of Cambridge, said he's not surprised that people have been repeatedly drawn to the Upper Mustang cliffs, despite the challenges.
In fact, the cliffs' isolation may have been an important part of their allure. Many of the local beliefs that have been practiced in the region, including Buddhism, place great value on the idea of religious retreat, Turin said.
"Monks can now practice and reside in monasteries, but we're talking about long before the establishment of any monastery," he said.
"These [caves] may well have been proto-monastic places ... and as such, people might retreat or bury their dead there."
Also, Turin said, ancient people may have felt tied to the landscape in a way that might be hard for many modern Westerners to understand.
Even today, "a well-known story is in circulation about the taming of the territory. ... When the Buddhist saints came up and slew the local deities, their blood and [body parts] stained the Earth and created the colors" of the landscape, Turin said.
"The religious culture that exists in people's minds can be mapped onto the landscape. This means that the landscape is sacred, and that caves and places of retreat are similarly sacred."
_____________
References:
Than, Ker. 2011. "New Death Ritual Found in Himalaya—27 De-fleshed Humans". National Geographic Daily News. Posted: March 1, 2011. Available online: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110301-himalayas-caves-defleshed-skeletons-science-nepal-mustang/
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Bamiyan Buddhas once glowed in red, white and blue
TUM conservators research the ruins of the statues and offer an outlook on the prospect of restoration
 |
Restorers from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen have analyzed hundreds of fragments of the Bamiyan Buddhas. |
The world watched in horror as Taliban fanatics ten years ago blew up the two gigantic Buddha statues that had since the 6th century looked out over the Bamiyan Valley in what is now Afghanistan. Located on the Silk Road, until the 10th century the 55 and 38 meter tall works of art formed the centerpiece of one of the world's largest Buddhist monastic complexes. Thousands of monks tended countless shrines in the niches and caves that pierced a kilometer-long cliff face.
Since the suppression of the Taliban regime, European and Japanese experts, working on behalf of UNESCO and coordinated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), have been endeavoring to secure the remains and restore access to the statues. The fragments are being very carefully examined, as prior to the explosion the Buddha statues had barely been researched. For a year and a half now, scientists from the Chair of Restoration, Art Technology and Conservation Science have been studying several hundred fragments at the TUM. Their findings not only contribute to our understanding of this world cultural heritage site, they may also enable the parts recovered to be reassembled:
* Coloration: "The Buddhas once had an intensely colorful appearance," says Professor Erwin Emmerling. His team discovered that prior to the conversion of the region to Islam, the statues were overpainted several times, presumably because the colors had faded. The outer robes, or sangati, were painted dark blue on the inside and pink, and later bright orange, on top. In a further phase, the larger Buddha was painted red and the smaller white, while the interior of the robes was repainted in a paler blue. The graphic reconstruction undertaken by the TUM researchers confirms ancient traditions: sources as far back as the 11th century speak of one red Buddha and one moon-white. The other parts of the figures may possibly have had a white priming coat, but that can no longer be proven beyond doubt.
* Construction technique: The statues themselves were hewn out of the cliff; however, the flowing garments were formed by craftsmen using clay, which was applied in two or three layers. The remains display an astonishing degree of artistic skill. "The surfaces are perfectly smooth – of a quality otherwise only found in fired materials such as porcelain," says Professor Emmerling. In the clay, the TUM conservators found straw and chaff which absorb moisture, animal hairs which stabilize the plaster like fine glass fibers, and quartz and other additives which prevent shrinkage. The bottom layer of plaster was held in place with ropes attached to small wooden pegs. This allowed the craftsmen of old to apply unusually thick layers of up to eight centimeters. "These have survived not only nearly 1500 years of history, but even the explosion in some parts," adds Professor Emmerling in amazement.
* Dating: Previous attempts to determine when the statues originated were estimates based on the style of the Buddha's robes or similar criteria. Now mass spectrometer tests at the ETH Zurich and the University of Kiel have determined the age of the organic material in the clay layers. The TUM scientists have, as a result, been able to date the construction of the smaller Buddha to between 544 and 595 and the larger Buddha between 591 and 644.
* Conservation: How can the fragments at this world heritage site be conserved for the future? The ICOMOS teams have in the meantime stacked the ruins in temporary warehouses in the Bamiyan Valley. Larger pieces have been covered over in situ. "However, that will only last for a few years, because the sandstone is very porous," Professor Emmerling explains. Conventional methods of conservation are out of the question. "On this scale, under the climatic conditions in the Bamiyan Valley, the behavior of the synthetic resins usually used would vary too widely relative to the natural rock." Expert conservator Professor Emmerling has therefore joined forces with Consolidas, a company founded by a TUM graduate, to refine a process recently developed by the latter for possible use on the Buddha fragments: instead of synthetic resins, it might be possible to inject an organic silicon compound in the stone.
In addition, the TUM conservators are also working on a 3D model of the cliff face that shows all of the pieces in their former position. Professor Emmerling considers a reconstruction of the smaller Buddha to be fundamentally possible – he argues in favor of reassembling the recovered parts, rather than attempting to reconstruct the original condition in antiquity. As far as the larger Buddha is concerned, in view of its depth of around 12 meters, Professor Emmerling is more skeptical. The smaller figure with a depth of around two meters was more along the lines of a relief. However, even to restore this figure, there are political and practical obstacles to overcome. Conservation of the fragments would require the construction of a small factory in the Bamiyan Valley – alternatively some 1400 rocks weighing up to two tons each would have to be transported to Germany. A conference to be held in Paris next week will consider the continuing fate of the Buddhas.
____________
References:
EurekAlert. 2011. "Bamiyan Buddhas once glowed in red, white and blue". EurekAlert. Posted: February 25, 2011. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/tum-bbo022511.php
Photo credit: Catharina Blaensdorf / TU Muenchen
Monday, March 7, 2011
Discovery of Oldest Northern North American Human Remains Provides New Insights Into Ice-Age Culture
Scientists have discovered the cremated skeleton of a Paleoindian child in the remains of an 11,500-year-old house in central Alaska. The findings reveal a slice of domestic life that has been missing from the record of the region's early people, who were among the first to colonize the Americas.
The discovery, by Ben Potter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and colleagues, appears in the 25 February issue of the journal Science.
"The site is truly spectacular in all senses of the word," Potter said. "The cremation is quite significant, but the context of the find is important too."
In contrast to the temporary hunting camps and other specialized work sites that have produced much of the evidence of North America's early habitation, the newly discovered house appears to have been a seasonal home, used during the summer. Its inhabitants, who included women and children, foraged for fish, birds and small mammals nearby, according to Potter's team.
"Before this find we knew people were hunting large game like bison or elk with sophisticated weapons, but most of sites we had to study were hunting camps. But here we know there were young children and females. So, this is a whole piece of the settlement system that we had virtually no record of," he said.
"As part of the Beringian Land Bridge, Alaska was an important crossroads for the Old and the New Worlds. This study makes an important contribution to our understanding of the early inhabitants of Beringia and their culture," said Brooks Hanson, Deputy Editor, Physical Sciences, at Science.
The young child probably died -- it's not clear how -- before being cremated in a large pit in the center of the home. This pit had many purposes, including cooking and waste disposal. After the cremation, the pit was sealed up and the house was abandoned, the researchers report.
The name of the site where this discovery took place, "Upper Sun River," is a translation of a nearby Athabaskan placename, Xaasaa Na'. The site lies within a dune field in the boreal forest of the Tanana lowlands. The child has been named Xaasaa Cheege Ts'eniin (or Upward Sun River Mouth Child) by the local Native community, the Healy Lake Tribe.
The house's floor was dug about 27 centimeters below the original ground surface. Colored stains in the sediment suggest that poles may have been used to support the walls or roof, though it's not clear what the latter would have been made of. The entire house has not yet been fully excavated, so its total size is still unknown.
The pit at the center was oval-shaped and about 45 centimeters deep. In sediment layers beneath the skeleton, the researchers found bones of salmon, ground squirrels, ptarmigan and other small animals. The skeleton was a particular surprise, since no human remains older than a few hundred years have ever been found in Subarctic Alaska.
Only about 20 percent of the burned skeleton was preserved. The remains don't reveal the child's sex, but they do include teeth, which allowed the researchers to conclude the child was around three years old. The remains showed no signs of injury or illness, though that isn't surprising, since most health problems don't leave traces in bones.
Potter's team didn't find any objects that were clearly grave goods. The researchers did excavate two pieces of red ochre along with the skeleton, but their significance is unclear. While red ochre has been part of burials around the world, it also has many other uses.
This lack of symbolic objects is typical for a mobile hunter-gatherer society like the one at Upper Sun River, according to Potter. It should not be interpreted as a sign that the child's death was treated casually, Potter said.
"All the evidence indicates that they went through some effort. The burial was within the house. If you think of the house as the center of many residential activities: cooking, eating, sleeping, and the fact that they abandoned the house soon afterward the cremation, this is pretty compelling evidence of the careful treatment of the child," Potter said.
While the findings certainly provoke questions about the story of this particular death, for Potter and other archeologists, the site is perhaps even more valuable for what it says broadly about the lifestyles of the early people who lived in the region.
Although many of the specifics are still under debate, researchers generally believe that the first people in North America came across the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia some time near the end of the last ice age, around 13,000 years ago or earlier. Archaeological evidence from this time period is scanty, however, especially in the northern regions adjacent to the Bering Sea, known as Beringia.
Scientists have discovered only a handful of known houses in North America from the continent's first 2,000 years of human occupation. And, except for the one at Upper Sun River, those houses are in the lower 48 states or at Ushki Lake in Siberia. Ushki Lake also includes the only known burial site from this time period in Beringia.
The stone tools from contemporaneous sites in central Alaska fit into a category known as microblade technology, which consists of small, stone, razor-blade-like pieces set into larger organic points. In contrast, the more well-known Clovis people of central North America did not make microblades. In fact, the stone artifacts, along with the house structure and the types of animal remains found at Upper Sun River appear more similar to those of Siberia's Ushki Lake than to anything from the lower 48 states.
"We've got this basic technological organization system that links Alaska with the Old World," Potter said.
Researchers have debated over whether the people in central Alaska during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene were all part of one larger cultural group or whether they belonged to different groups. The tools and other remains at Upper Sun River, and their similarities to some others in the region, support the former scenario, Potter and his colleagues say.
Differences exist among the sites, but these may reflect this people's versatility, with different members carrying out different tasks, such as hunting large game or foraging for small mammals and birds, during different times of year, the researchers argue.
Throughout the excavation, Potter's groups worked closely with leaders of the Healy Lake Tribe and other native groups that live near the Upper Sun River site.
"Our consultation with the local Native groups is not only an ethical imperative in archaeology today, it has been a fulfilling and productive partnership, from my perspective," said Potter.
"We strove to be diligent with full and open negotiations from the time of discovery and before, and we have worked together to build a foundation for continued work on this find and for future discoveries."
__________________
References:
Science Daily. 2011. "Discovery of Oldest Northern North American Human Remains Provides New Insights Into Ice-Age Culture". Science Daily. Posted: February 24, 2011. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110224145551.htm
Journal Reference:
B. A. Potter, J. D. Irish, J. D. Reuther, C. Gelvin-Reymiller, V. T. Holliday. A Terminal Pleistocene Child Cremation and Residential Structure from Eastern Beringia. Science, 2011; 331 (6020): 1058 DOI: 10.1126/science.1201581
The discovery, by Ben Potter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and colleagues, appears in the 25 February issue of the journal Science.
"The site is truly spectacular in all senses of the word," Potter said. "The cremation is quite significant, but the context of the find is important too."
In contrast to the temporary hunting camps and other specialized work sites that have produced much of the evidence of North America's early habitation, the newly discovered house appears to have been a seasonal home, used during the summer. Its inhabitants, who included women and children, foraged for fish, birds and small mammals nearby, according to Potter's team.
"Before this find we knew people were hunting large game like bison or elk with sophisticated weapons, but most of sites we had to study were hunting camps. But here we know there were young children and females. So, this is a whole piece of the settlement system that we had virtually no record of," he said.
"As part of the Beringian Land Bridge, Alaska was an important crossroads for the Old and the New Worlds. This study makes an important contribution to our understanding of the early inhabitants of Beringia and their culture," said Brooks Hanson, Deputy Editor, Physical Sciences, at Science.
The young child probably died -- it's not clear how -- before being cremated in a large pit in the center of the home. This pit had many purposes, including cooking and waste disposal. After the cremation, the pit was sealed up and the house was abandoned, the researchers report.
The name of the site where this discovery took place, "Upper Sun River," is a translation of a nearby Athabaskan placename, Xaasaa Na'. The site lies within a dune field in the boreal forest of the Tanana lowlands. The child has been named Xaasaa Cheege Ts'eniin (or Upward Sun River Mouth Child) by the local Native community, the Healy Lake Tribe.
The house's floor was dug about 27 centimeters below the original ground surface. Colored stains in the sediment suggest that poles may have been used to support the walls or roof, though it's not clear what the latter would have been made of. The entire house has not yet been fully excavated, so its total size is still unknown.
The pit at the center was oval-shaped and about 45 centimeters deep. In sediment layers beneath the skeleton, the researchers found bones of salmon, ground squirrels, ptarmigan and other small animals. The skeleton was a particular surprise, since no human remains older than a few hundred years have ever been found in Subarctic Alaska.
Only about 20 percent of the burned skeleton was preserved. The remains don't reveal the child's sex, but they do include teeth, which allowed the researchers to conclude the child was around three years old. The remains showed no signs of injury or illness, though that isn't surprising, since most health problems don't leave traces in bones.
Potter's team didn't find any objects that were clearly grave goods. The researchers did excavate two pieces of red ochre along with the skeleton, but their significance is unclear. While red ochre has been part of burials around the world, it also has many other uses.
This lack of symbolic objects is typical for a mobile hunter-gatherer society like the one at Upper Sun River, according to Potter. It should not be interpreted as a sign that the child's death was treated casually, Potter said.
"All the evidence indicates that they went through some effort. The burial was within the house. If you think of the house as the center of many residential activities: cooking, eating, sleeping, and the fact that they abandoned the house soon afterward the cremation, this is pretty compelling evidence of the careful treatment of the child," Potter said.
While the findings certainly provoke questions about the story of this particular death, for Potter and other archeologists, the site is perhaps even more valuable for what it says broadly about the lifestyles of the early people who lived in the region.
Although many of the specifics are still under debate, researchers generally believe that the first people in North America came across the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia some time near the end of the last ice age, around 13,000 years ago or earlier. Archaeological evidence from this time period is scanty, however, especially in the northern regions adjacent to the Bering Sea, known as Beringia.
Scientists have discovered only a handful of known houses in North America from the continent's first 2,000 years of human occupation. And, except for the one at Upper Sun River, those houses are in the lower 48 states or at Ushki Lake in Siberia. Ushki Lake also includes the only known burial site from this time period in Beringia.
The stone tools from contemporaneous sites in central Alaska fit into a category known as microblade technology, which consists of small, stone, razor-blade-like pieces set into larger organic points. In contrast, the more well-known Clovis people of central North America did not make microblades. In fact, the stone artifacts, along with the house structure and the types of animal remains found at Upper Sun River appear more similar to those of Siberia's Ushki Lake than to anything from the lower 48 states.
"We've got this basic technological organization system that links Alaska with the Old World," Potter said.
Researchers have debated over whether the people in central Alaska during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene were all part of one larger cultural group or whether they belonged to different groups. The tools and other remains at Upper Sun River, and their similarities to some others in the region, support the former scenario, Potter and his colleagues say.
Differences exist among the sites, but these may reflect this people's versatility, with different members carrying out different tasks, such as hunting large game or foraging for small mammals and birds, during different times of year, the researchers argue.
Throughout the excavation, Potter's groups worked closely with leaders of the Healy Lake Tribe and other native groups that live near the Upper Sun River site.
"Our consultation with the local Native groups is not only an ethical imperative in archaeology today, it has been a fulfilling and productive partnership, from my perspective," said Potter.
"We strove to be diligent with full and open negotiations from the time of discovery and before, and we have worked together to build a foundation for continued work on this find and for future discoveries."
__________________
References:
Science Daily. 2011. "Discovery of Oldest Northern North American Human Remains Provides New Insights Into Ice-Age Culture". Science Daily. Posted: February 24, 2011. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110224145551.htm
Journal Reference:
B. A. Potter, J. D. Irish, J. D. Reuther, C. Gelvin-Reymiller, V. T. Holliday. A Terminal Pleistocene Child Cremation and Residential Structure from Eastern Beringia. Science, 2011; 331 (6020): 1058 DOI: 10.1126/science.1201581
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Language patterns are roller-coaster ride during childhood development
Why, and when, do we learn to speak the way that we do? Research from North Carolina State University on African-American children presents an unexpected finding: language use can go on a roller-coaster ride during childhood as kids adopt and abandon vernacular language patterns.
"We found that there is a 'roller-coaster effect,' featuring an ebb and flow in a child's use of vernacular English over the course of his or her language development," says Dr. Walt Wolfram, William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor of English Linguistics at NC State and co-author of several recent papers describing the research. "This was totally unanticipated." Vernacular English is defined here as culturally specific speech patterns that are distinct from standard English; in this case, the vernacular is African-American English (AAE).
One implication of the finding involves education, since teachers often advocate teaching standard English early in a childhood education. "This approach does seem to work at first," Wolfram says, "but it doesn't last." In other words, if a school system wants its students to graduate high school with a strong foundation in standard English, it may have to revisit standard English later in the education curriculum.
Specifically, the researchers found that children come to school speaking English with a relatively high number of vernacular features. Then, through the first four grades of elementary school, those features are reduced, as children adopt more standard English language patterns. As the children move toward middle school, the level of vernacular rises – though many children often reduce their use of vernacular again as they enter high school.
"This finding reveals a cyclic pattern in the use of African-American vernacular English that no one expected to see during children's language development," says Janneke Van Hofwegen, a research associate at NC State and co-author of the study. "This wasn't even a hypothesis when we began the study."
The researchers note that, while their data looked solely at African-American children, the findings may be applicable more broadly to other groups.
The research stems from the longest, and largest, study ever to examine the longitudinal development of language in African-American children. The study began in 1990, following 88 African-American children from central North Carolina in order to track their language development. The study is ongoing, with 68 of the original participants still being tracked. The data is collected by the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute in Chapel Hill, N. C.
The retention rate of the participants is remarkably high, particularly given that approximately 71 percent of the children were living below the poverty line in 1990. "It's incredible, and gives us a rare opportunity to study language development in children," Wolfram says.
The study also gives researchers an impressive array of data, providing them with access to school and test data, as well as the data collected through the study's own interviews and surveys.
Researchers are currently assessing how and whether dialect use is related to literacy skills, as well as the role that mothers play in their children's use of vernacular.
One of the papers, "Trajectories of Development in AAE: The First 17 Years," is forthcoming from the Proceedings of the Conference on African American Language In Popular Culture. The paper was co-authored by Wolfram; Van Hofwegen; Mary E. Kohn, a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Dr. Jennifer Renn, who worked on the paper while a Ph.D. student at UNC-Chapel Hill. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
_____________
References:
EurekAlert. 2011. "Language patterns are roller-coaster ride during childhood development". EurekAlert. Posted: February 24, 2011. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/ncsu-lpa022411.php
Note: Another paper, "Coming of age in African American English: A longitudinal study," was co-authored by Wolfram and Van Hofwegen and was published in September 2010 in the Journal of Sociolinguistics.
"We found that there is a 'roller-coaster effect,' featuring an ebb and flow in a child's use of vernacular English over the course of his or her language development," says Dr. Walt Wolfram, William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor of English Linguistics at NC State and co-author of several recent papers describing the research. "This was totally unanticipated." Vernacular English is defined here as culturally specific speech patterns that are distinct from standard English; in this case, the vernacular is African-American English (AAE).
One implication of the finding involves education, since teachers often advocate teaching standard English early in a childhood education. "This approach does seem to work at first," Wolfram says, "but it doesn't last." In other words, if a school system wants its students to graduate high school with a strong foundation in standard English, it may have to revisit standard English later in the education curriculum.
Specifically, the researchers found that children come to school speaking English with a relatively high number of vernacular features. Then, through the first four grades of elementary school, those features are reduced, as children adopt more standard English language patterns. As the children move toward middle school, the level of vernacular rises – though many children often reduce their use of vernacular again as they enter high school.
"This finding reveals a cyclic pattern in the use of African-American vernacular English that no one expected to see during children's language development," says Janneke Van Hofwegen, a research associate at NC State and co-author of the study. "This wasn't even a hypothesis when we began the study."
The researchers note that, while their data looked solely at African-American children, the findings may be applicable more broadly to other groups.
The research stems from the longest, and largest, study ever to examine the longitudinal development of language in African-American children. The study began in 1990, following 88 African-American children from central North Carolina in order to track their language development. The study is ongoing, with 68 of the original participants still being tracked. The data is collected by the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute in Chapel Hill, N. C.
The retention rate of the participants is remarkably high, particularly given that approximately 71 percent of the children were living below the poverty line in 1990. "It's incredible, and gives us a rare opportunity to study language development in children," Wolfram says.
The study also gives researchers an impressive array of data, providing them with access to school and test data, as well as the data collected through the study's own interviews and surveys.
Researchers are currently assessing how and whether dialect use is related to literacy skills, as well as the role that mothers play in their children's use of vernacular.
One of the papers, "Trajectories of Development in AAE: The First 17 Years," is forthcoming from the Proceedings of the Conference on African American Language In Popular Culture. The paper was co-authored by Wolfram; Van Hofwegen; Mary E. Kohn, a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Dr. Jennifer Renn, who worked on the paper while a Ph.D. student at UNC-Chapel Hill. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
_____________
References:
EurekAlert. 2011. "Language patterns are roller-coaster ride during childhood development". EurekAlert. Posted: February 24, 2011. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/ncsu-lpa022411.php
Note: Another paper, "Coming of age in African American English: A longitudinal study," was co-authored by Wolfram and Van Hofwegen and was published in September 2010 in the Journal of Sociolinguistics.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Origins of Farming in Europe Result of Human Migration and Cultural Change, Study Suggests
It has long been debated as to whether the transition from a largely hunter-gatherer to an agricultural subsistence strategy in Europe was the result of the migration of farmers from the Near East and Anatolia, or whether this transition was primarily cultural in nature. A new study, co-authored by researchers at University College Cork and the University of Kent suggests that the prehistoric adoption of farming practices in outlying regions of Europe, Scandinavia, the Baltic, European Russia and the Ukraine, was the result of cultural diffusion.
The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, uses measurements of skulls of hunter-gathering (Mesolithic) and early farming (Neolithic) prehistoric populations from Europe, Near East and Anatolia to find answers.
Results provide evidence that indigenous hunter-gatherers in central Europe were largely replaced or assimilated by incoming Near-Eastern farmers in the core region of south-east and Central Europe. However, hunter-gatherer populations survived in outlying regions and adopted some of the cultural practices from neighbouring farming communities.
Previously, it has been debated whether the transition from a largely hunter-gatherer (Mesolithic) to an agricultural (Neolithic) subsistence strategy in Europe was the result of the migration of farmers from the Near-East and Anatolia or whether this transition was primarily cultural in nature. The migration model (demic diffusion) would imply that indigenous hunter-gather populations in Europe were largely replaced or assimilated by incoming farmers and, therefore, that modern European populations are descended from these incoming farming populations. The cultural diffusion model, on the other hand, suggests that indigenous hunter-gatherer populations adopted farming practices and associated material culture, such as pottery, from Near Eastern farmers. This would suggest that modern European populations can trace their ancestry further back to the Palaeolithic period (roughly 2-4 million BC to 10,000 BC). Previous studies of modern European genetic variation have produced conflicting results regarding these debates, as these data are likely influenced by more recent (post-Neolithic) population migrations both from Asia and within Europe. Ancient DNA studies have the potential to shed light on this question, but at present, the available ancient DNA data are not geographically or chronologically widespread enough to model continent-wide processes.
The new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, B uses craniometric data from 30 Mesolithic and Neolithic populations to address these questions, as it has previously been shown that cranial measurements can be used as a reliable proxy for genetic information. The results show that while the initial transition to agriculture in central Europe was the result of migrating farmers from the Near-East and Anatolia, agricultural practices were adopted by indigenous hunter-gatherer populations in outlying regions of Europe. Therefore, instead of employing two competing and mutually exclusive models of biological versus cultural diffusion, a mosaic model of both biological and cultural diffusion is a more appropriate model for this demographic change across Europe as a whole.
The two authors of the paper are Dr Ron Pinhasi, University College Cork, Ireland and Dr Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. Dr Pinhasi is a lecturer in archaeology at UCC and his research interests include the the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition, Neanderthal phylogeography and the bioarchaeology of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Near East, Anatolia and Europe. The research was funded by the European Research Council Starting Grant. Dr Pinhasi is the first UCC researcher to be awarded funding by the ERC, a body set up by the European Commission to support the very best research across all fields of scholarship. Dr Pinhasi's other research in Armenia on Neanderthals and early modern humans is funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Science Foundation Ireland and the Leaky foundation. Dr Pinhasi did his undergraduate studies in the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, his Masters in Leuven, Belgium and his Doctorate in biological anthropology in Cambridge, UK. He is the first Palaeolithic archaeologist to be appointed in Ireland.
Dr Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel is a National University of Ireland Galway graduate and lecturer in biological anthropology at the University of Kent. Her research interests include human evolution and the reconstruction of modern human population history from genetic and morphological markers.
_____________
References:
Science Daily. 2011. "Origins of Farming in Europe Result of Human Migration and Cultural Change, Study Suggests". Science Daily. Posted: February 22, 2011. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110222192828.htm
The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, uses measurements of skulls of hunter-gathering (Mesolithic) and early farming (Neolithic) prehistoric populations from Europe, Near East and Anatolia to find answers.
Results provide evidence that indigenous hunter-gatherers in central Europe were largely replaced or assimilated by incoming Near-Eastern farmers in the core region of south-east and Central Europe. However, hunter-gatherer populations survived in outlying regions and adopted some of the cultural practices from neighbouring farming communities.
Previously, it has been debated whether the transition from a largely hunter-gatherer (Mesolithic) to an agricultural (Neolithic) subsistence strategy in Europe was the result of the migration of farmers from the Near-East and Anatolia or whether this transition was primarily cultural in nature. The migration model (demic diffusion) would imply that indigenous hunter-gather populations in Europe were largely replaced or assimilated by incoming farmers and, therefore, that modern European populations are descended from these incoming farming populations. The cultural diffusion model, on the other hand, suggests that indigenous hunter-gatherer populations adopted farming practices and associated material culture, such as pottery, from Near Eastern farmers. This would suggest that modern European populations can trace their ancestry further back to the Palaeolithic period (roughly 2-4 million BC to 10,000 BC). Previous studies of modern European genetic variation have produced conflicting results regarding these debates, as these data are likely influenced by more recent (post-Neolithic) population migrations both from Asia and within Europe. Ancient DNA studies have the potential to shed light on this question, but at present, the available ancient DNA data are not geographically or chronologically widespread enough to model continent-wide processes.
The new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, B uses craniometric data from 30 Mesolithic and Neolithic populations to address these questions, as it has previously been shown that cranial measurements can be used as a reliable proxy for genetic information. The results show that while the initial transition to agriculture in central Europe was the result of migrating farmers from the Near-East and Anatolia, agricultural practices were adopted by indigenous hunter-gatherer populations in outlying regions of Europe. Therefore, instead of employing two competing and mutually exclusive models of biological versus cultural diffusion, a mosaic model of both biological and cultural diffusion is a more appropriate model for this demographic change across Europe as a whole.
The two authors of the paper are Dr Ron Pinhasi, University College Cork, Ireland and Dr Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. Dr Pinhasi is a lecturer in archaeology at UCC and his research interests include the the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition, Neanderthal phylogeography and the bioarchaeology of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Near East, Anatolia and Europe. The research was funded by the European Research Council Starting Grant. Dr Pinhasi is the first UCC researcher to be awarded funding by the ERC, a body set up by the European Commission to support the very best research across all fields of scholarship. Dr Pinhasi's other research in Armenia on Neanderthals and early modern humans is funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Science Foundation Ireland and the Leaky foundation. Dr Pinhasi did his undergraduate studies in the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, his Masters in Leuven, Belgium and his Doctorate in biological anthropology in Cambridge, UK. He is the first Palaeolithic archaeologist to be appointed in Ireland.
Dr Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel is a National University of Ireland Galway graduate and lecturer in biological anthropology at the University of Kent. Her research interests include human evolution and the reconstruction of modern human population history from genetic and morphological markers.
_____________
References:
Science Daily. 2011. "Origins of Farming in Europe Result of Human Migration and Cultural Change, Study Suggests". Science Daily. Posted: February 22, 2011. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110222192828.htm
Friday, March 4, 2011
Language researchers chart vanishing voices - video
In a video produced by Cambridge University, anthropologist Mark Turin discusses his work helping speakers of Thangmi, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in eastern Nepal. He aims to document disappearing languages, most of which haven't been written down before, as part of the World Oral Literature Project.
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References:
2011. "Language researchers chart vanishing voices - video". Guardian. Posted: February 22, 2011. Available online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2011/feb/22/language-researchers-vanishing-voices-video
____________
References:
2011. "Language researchers chart vanishing voices - video". Guardian. Posted: February 22, 2011. Available online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2011/feb/22/language-researchers-vanishing-voices-video
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Egypt's Hawass Fires Back at Critics
Egypt's ancient monuments reopened to tourists Sunday as the country's beleaguered antiquities minister forcefully defended his stewardship of its treasures. "Under my direction, the SCA [Supreme Council of Antiquities] has always been an honest department," Zahi Hawass told ScienceInsider in an e-mail. "Unfortunately, at the moment there is a lot of upheaval and some people are saying things for their own benefit and with their own agenda in mind."
Hawass is under fire for his close ties to the regime led by deposed President Hosni Mubarak, who elevated Hawass in late January from his position as head of the SCA to leading a new ministry of antiquities. SCA employees have demonstrated for higher pay outside of his office and individual SCA managers have harshly criticized their boss. For example, Hany Hanna, an SCA conservator, accused Hawass in an online letter 2 weeks ago of overseeing a "system of corruption." Meanwhile, the thefts at the Egyptian Museum and at cemeteries south of Cairo have shaken confidence in the country's ability to protect its ancient heritage.
Hawass says that as head of SCA he "raised salaries three times, created a social club for SCA staff, started the Festival of Archaeologists (which recognizes the achievements of Egyptian archaeologists at all levels), assisted employees in getting into university programs abroad and started many training programs for young archaeologists in Egypt." He added that Hanna "should have approached me first with his evidence of corruption." One foreign archaeologist, however, says that Hanna has been critical of Hawass's tenure for years and that his complaints were not new.
Others echo Hanna's concerns. Wafaa El Saddik, the former head of the Egyptian Museum and now president of the Children's Alliance for Traditions and Social Engagement, says that "everybody knows that there is corruption at SCA." She notes that many employees are paid for doing "honorary" work while "the rest of the SCA people didn't have enough to feed their children."
Hawass said on his blog today that he has asked Egypt's attorney general to look into what he calls "false accusations" in order to lay the matter to rest. And he told ScienceInsider that the new ministry, which Hawass says is an idea he has pushed for years, will mean more money for curation, protection, and preservation. "Money from the SCA's sites and museums was being redistributed throughout the [Ministry of Culture] and not necessarily being used to improve these things and to fund new projects," he notes. He adds that "I have also been trying to set up a union for archaeologists and now have the authority to do this, too."
Hawass also said he met yesterday with a group of young archaeologists representing the protestors picketing his headquarters. He said they offered him flowers and an apology for not understanding that the ministry is "trying to increase the number of jobs available for newly qualified archaeologists and restorers."
In an interview today with Germany's Spiegel online magazine, Hawass argues that the real issue is the lack of jobs for young scientists. "Thousands of young archaeologists in the country are unemployed," he said. "We have way too many faculties churning out archeologists — many more than we need. Now these people see their chance to demonstrate loudly." But meanwhile, he adds, "my administration has no money."
While Hawass has been a staunch defender of Mubarak, both before and during the demonstrations, he told Spiegel that "I am not a leader. I am not a politician. I'm a scientist," adding, "I demonstrated with the people in Tahrir Square and they love me." Hawass also told the British newspaper The Express that while "the revolution may have been a good thing, … it has also caused thieves and vipers to come out." He promised that looters arrested for breaking into the museum last month "will be severely punished." And he seems shocked by the change brought about by the revolution. "Once you would not dare to show no respect to a government minister, now they come and spit in your face if they do not like what they hear."
Will he remain? He told ScienceInsider: " I hope that I will keep my new position because I believe that the monuments and museums of Egypt need me. If I am made to leave, I am confident that the young Egyptologists and archaeologists in the Ministry of Antiquities will do everything in their power to protect Egypt's cultural heritage."
______________
References:
Lawler, Andrew. 2011. "Egypt's Hawass Fires Back at Critics". Science Magazine. Posted: February 22, 2011. Available online: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/02/egypts-hawass-fires-back-at.html
Hawass is under fire for his close ties to the regime led by deposed President Hosni Mubarak, who elevated Hawass in late January from his position as head of the SCA to leading a new ministry of antiquities. SCA employees have demonstrated for higher pay outside of his office and individual SCA managers have harshly criticized their boss. For example, Hany Hanna, an SCA conservator, accused Hawass in an online letter 2 weeks ago of overseeing a "system of corruption." Meanwhile, the thefts at the Egyptian Museum and at cemeteries south of Cairo have shaken confidence in the country's ability to protect its ancient heritage.
Hawass says that as head of SCA he "raised salaries three times, created a social club for SCA staff, started the Festival of Archaeologists (which recognizes the achievements of Egyptian archaeologists at all levels), assisted employees in getting into university programs abroad and started many training programs for young archaeologists in Egypt." He added that Hanna "should have approached me first with his evidence of corruption." One foreign archaeologist, however, says that Hanna has been critical of Hawass's tenure for years and that his complaints were not new.
Others echo Hanna's concerns. Wafaa El Saddik, the former head of the Egyptian Museum and now president of the Children's Alliance for Traditions and Social Engagement, says that "everybody knows that there is corruption at SCA." She notes that many employees are paid for doing "honorary" work while "the rest of the SCA people didn't have enough to feed their children."
Hawass said on his blog today that he has asked Egypt's attorney general to look into what he calls "false accusations" in order to lay the matter to rest. And he told ScienceInsider that the new ministry, which Hawass says is an idea he has pushed for years, will mean more money for curation, protection, and preservation. "Money from the SCA's sites and museums was being redistributed throughout the [Ministry of Culture] and not necessarily being used to improve these things and to fund new projects," he notes. He adds that "I have also been trying to set up a union for archaeologists and now have the authority to do this, too."
Hawass also said he met yesterday with a group of young archaeologists representing the protestors picketing his headquarters. He said they offered him flowers and an apology for not understanding that the ministry is "trying to increase the number of jobs available for newly qualified archaeologists and restorers."
In an interview today with Germany's Spiegel online magazine, Hawass argues that the real issue is the lack of jobs for young scientists. "Thousands of young archaeologists in the country are unemployed," he said. "We have way too many faculties churning out archeologists — many more than we need. Now these people see their chance to demonstrate loudly." But meanwhile, he adds, "my administration has no money."
While Hawass has been a staunch defender of Mubarak, both before and during the demonstrations, he told Spiegel that "I am not a leader. I am not a politician. I'm a scientist," adding, "I demonstrated with the people in Tahrir Square and they love me." Hawass also told the British newspaper The Express that while "the revolution may have been a good thing, … it has also caused thieves and vipers to come out." He promised that looters arrested for breaking into the museum last month "will be severely punished." And he seems shocked by the change brought about by the revolution. "Once you would not dare to show no respect to a government minister, now they come and spit in your face if they do not like what they hear."
Will he remain? He told ScienceInsider: " I hope that I will keep my new position because I believe that the monuments and museums of Egypt need me. If I am made to leave, I am confident that the young Egyptologists and archaeologists in the Ministry of Antiquities will do everything in their power to protect Egypt's cultural heritage."
______________
References:
Lawler, Andrew. 2011. "Egypt's Hawass Fires Back at Critics". Science Magazine. Posted: February 22, 2011. Available online: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/02/egypts-hawass-fires-back-at.html
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