Human History Research Articles

Global musical diversity is largely independent of linguistic and genetic histories

Music is a universal yet diverse cultural trait transmitted between generations. The extent to which global musical diversity traces cultural and demographic history, however, is unresolved. Using a global musical dataset of 5242 songs from 719 societies, we identify five axes of musical diversity and show that music contains geographical and historical structures analogous to linguistic and genetic diversity. After creating a matched dataset of musical, genetic, and linguistic data spanning 121 societies containing 981 songs, 1296 individual genetic profiles, and 121 languages, we show that global musical similarities are only weakly and inconsistently related to linguistic or genetic histories, with some regional exceptions such as within Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Our results suggest that global musical traditions are largely distinct from some non-musical aspects of human history.

Introduction: Border Politics and Refugee Narratives in Contemporary Literature

Refugeehood—whether triggered by religious intolerance, ethnic strife, political repression, war, or environmental factors—has been a constant throughout human history, but it was not until the twentieth century that refugees were endowed with legal status on an international level [...]

Oxidative Stress: An Intersection Between Radiation and Sulfur Mustard Lung Injury.

Nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction share both a tragic and beneficial legacy in mankind's history and health. The horrific health effects of ionizing radiation and mustard gas exposures unleashed during disasters, wars, and conflicts have been harnessed to treat human health maladies. Both agents of destruction have been transformed into therapies to treat a wide range of cancers. The discovery of therapeutic uses of radiation and sulfur mustard was largely due to observations by clinicians treating victims of radiation and sulfur mustard gas exposures. Clinicians identified vulnerability of leukocytes to these agents and repurposed their use in the treatment of leukemias and lymphomas. Given the overlap in therapeutic modalities, it goes to reason that there may be common mechanisms to target as protective strategies against their damaging effects. This commentary will highlight oxidative stress as a common mechanism shared by both radiation and sulfur mustard gas exposures and discuss potential therapies targeting oxidative stress as medical countermeasures against the devastating lung diseases wrought by these agents.

A stochastic approach for co-evolution process of virus and human immune system

Infectious diseases have long been a shaping force in human history, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of their dynamics. This study introduces a co-evolution model that integrates both epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics. Utilizing a system of differential equations, the model represents the interactions among susceptible, infected, and recovered populations for both ancestral and evolved viral strains. Methodologically rigorous, the model’s existence and uniqueness have been verified, and it accommodates both deterministic and stochastic cases. A myriad of graphical techniques have been employed to elucidate the model’s dynamics. Beyond its theoretical contributions, this model serves as a critical instrument for public health strategy, particularly predicting future outbreaks in scenarios where viral mutations compromise existing interventions.

The Transition of English Literature from the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth Century: A Case Study of Bernard Shaw & H. G. Wells

The sincerity of literature as an expression of life is normal, as long as it expresses the human soul which is affected by external life. This is something that humans cannot escape from or stand in isolation of, but the responses differ according to different human natures, and the way each person receives and interacts with influences, but they all in the end echo the external life. European life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the scene of violent intellectual movements, all of which tended to solve the social problems that had worsened at that time in human history, owing to the reaction of industrial progress in economy and society. It was natural for literature to enter the battle and be one of its effective weapons because writers could not be isolated in their ivory towers, far from the conflicting classes and the rapidly transforming situations, as if they did so, their readers would abandon them, in search of those who would talk about their pain and share their problems. Therefore, most of the literary productions of this time — all types of plays, novels, poetry, and essays — take social problems as their theme, and try in their own way to point out the means of treatment. Perhaps the most distinguished examples of this trend were Bernard Shaw, and H. G. Wells, whose production mainly depends on such topics. And if there are other writers and critics, we are just content with these two as they are sufficiently indicative in terms of providing an understanding of prospects and mechanism of the literature of that era.

Watching Photographs: Inhabiting a Queer Feminist Perspective to Contest Reproductions of the ‘Refugee Crisis’

ABSTRACT Journalists have claimed that the 2015 European ‘refugee crisis’ is one of the most photographed crises in human history. It is important to understand what kind of messages these photographs convey, how they reproduce the hegemonic narrative, and how they become commodities. In this paper, we critique the visual economy of the ‘refugee crisis’ from a queer feminist perspective through the lens of reproduction. We show how the reproduction of images of ‘refugees’ is structured by, and naturalises reproductive heteronormativity, amongst other institutions, which we argue is essential to the functioning of bordered nation-states: the figure of the refugee is reproduced as presumptively heterosexual, and as reproductive. We focus on watching photographic images because, as we have seen over the past six years, through the use and control of photography, states seek to generate consent to the necropolitical management of ‘crisis’, to the undeclared war against refugees. We argue that by watching photographs, as opposed to merely looking at them, we can inhabit a queer feminist perspective that seeks to abolish state-imposed divisions between ‘refugees’, ‘migrants’, and ‘citizens’.

Bathymetric LiDAR and Semi‐Automated Feature Extraction Assist Underwater Archaeological Surveys

ABSTRACTCritical data concerning key developments in global human history now lie submerged on continental shelves where investigations confront significant challenges. Whereas underwater excavations and surveys are expensive and weather dependent and require specialized training and equipment, remote sensing methods can improve chances for success offshore. A refinement in one method, a semi‐automated analysis protocol that can help to identify Pleistocene and Holocene era archaeological deposits in bathymetric LiDAR datasets, is presented here. This method employs contour mapping to identify potential archaeological features in shallow water environments in Apalachee Bay, Florida. This method successfully re‐identified multiple previously recorded archaeological sites in the study region and detected at least four previously undocumented archaeological sites. These results suggest that this procedure can expand on methods to identify and record submerged archaeological deposits in sediment‐starved, shallow‐water environments.

New technology, psychiatry, and the law: Panic, prudence, possibility

Throughout human history, all new technology has been met with surprise, anxiety, panic, and – eventually – prudent adoption of certain aspects of specific technological advances. This pattern is evident in the histories of most technologies, ranging from steam power in the nineteenth century, to television in the twentieth century, and – now – ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) in the twenty-first century. Each generation believes that the technological advances of its era are quantitatively and qualitatively different to those of previous generations, but the underlying phenomenon is the same: the shock of the new, followed by more gradual adjustment to (and of) new technology. These concerns are apparent today in relation to AI, which reflects interesting but incremental advances on existing technologies, rather than stand-alone developments. The usual concerns with all technologies (e.g., that they will replace certain aspects of human function) are, perhaps, more concerning in fields such as mental capacity law, which often applies to people with impaired decision-making capacity who might be especially vulnerable to technologies which appear capable of encroaching disproportionately on decision-making or other areas of core human function. This paper approaches this topic from an historical standpoint, noting both previous technological panics in the past and the possibilities offered by AI today, provided it is approached in a proportionate, prudent, and person-centered way, underpinned by appropriate ethical guidance and active ethical awareness in clinical and legal practice.

World War I: Why Didn’t It Put an End to Belief in God?

One of the greatest calamities in human history was the First World War. It was a world conflict that saw the use of machine guns, tanks, poison gas, flame throwers, and aircraft. It also stands as an immovable boulder in the path of Christian theologians who refuse to see World War I as a challenge to their faith in a good and caring god. If an all-powerful, caring, and competent god had been paying close attention to each soldier as suggested by the New Testament, then how can the inaction of this god be explained or excused? When the suffering is so horrible and so massive, compassion dictates that god must do something. Otherwise, god is a joke—and “free will” is no defense whatever.

Ancient Mycobacterium leprae genome reveals medieval English red squirrels as animal leprosy host.

Leprosy, one of the oldest recorded diseases in human history, remains prevalent in Asia, Africa, and South America, with over 200,000 cases every year.1,2 Although ancient DNA (aDNA) approaches on the major causative agent, Mycobacterium leprae, have elucidated the disease's evolutionary history,3,4,5 the role of animal hosts and interspecies transmission in the past remains unexplored. Research has uncovered relationships between medieval strains isolated from archaeological human remains and modern animal hosts such as the red squirrel in England.6,7 However, the time frame, distribution, and direction of transmissions remains unknown. Here, we studied 25 human and 12 squirrel samples from two archaeological sites in Winchester, a medieval English city well known for its leprosarium and connections to the fur trade. We reconstructed four medieval M.leprae genomes, including one from a red squirrel, at a 2.2-fold average coverage. Our analysis revealed a phylogenetic placement of all strains on branch 3 as well as a close relationship between the squirrel strain and one newly reconstructed medieval human strain. In particular, the medieval squirrel strain is more closely related to some medieval human strains from Winchester than to modern red squirrel strains from England, indicating a yet-undetected circulation of M.leprae in non-human hosts in the Middle Ages. Our study represents the first One Health approach for M.leprae in archaeology, which is centered around a medieval animal host strain, and highlights the future capability of such approaches to understand the disease's zoonotic past and current potential.

Distinct positions of genetic and oral histories: Perspectives from India

Over the past decade, genomic data has contributed to several insights on global human population histories. These studies have been met both with interest and critically, particularly by populations with oral histories that are records of their past and often reference their origins. While several studies have reported concordance between oral and genetic histories, there is potential for tension that may stem from genetic histories being prioritized or used to confirm community-based knowledge and ethnography, especially if they differ. To investigate the interplay between oral and genetic histories, we focused on the southwestern region of India and analyzed whole-genome sequence data from 156 individuals identifying as Bunt, Kodava, Nair, and Kapla. We supplemented limited anthropological records on these populations with oral history accounts from community members and historical literature, focusing on references to non-local origins such as the ancient Scythians in the case of Bunt, Kodava, and Nair, members of Alexander the Great’s army for the Kodava, and an African-related source for Kapla. We found these populations to be genetically most similar to other Indian populations, with the Kapla more similar to South Indian tribal populations that maximize a genetic ancestry related to Ancient Ancestral South Indians. We did not find evidence of additional genetic sources in the study populations than those known to have contributed to many other present-day South Asian populations. Our results demonstrate that oral and genetic histories may not always provide consistent accounts of population origins and motivate further community-engaged, multi-disciplinary investigations of non-local origin stories in these communities.

Frequent disturbances enhanced the resilience of past human populations.

The record of past human adaptations provides crucial lessons for guiding responses to crises in the future1-3. To date, there have been no systematic global comparisons of humans' ability to absorb and recover from disturbances through time4,5. Here we synthesized resilience across a broad sample of prehistoric population time-frequency data, spanning 30,000 years of human history. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of population decline show that frequent disturbances enhance a population's capacity to resist and recover from later downturns. Land-use patterns are important mediators of the strength of this positive association: farming and herding societies are more vulnerable but also more resilient overall. The results show that important trade-offs exist when adopting new or alternative land-use strategies.

THE USE OF CULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HERITAGE IN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS BETWEEN SPACES, IDENTITIES, ATTITUDES, AND COGNITIVE WELL-BEING

The paper explores some links between educational research, the use of cultural and environmental heritage and education, where it is possible to combine knowledge, disciplines, and skills to strengthen the cultural profile of the school population, but also to bring about important changes in attitudes and behavior. The world's cultural and environmental heritage, which collects the traces of extraordinary but also tragic events in human history, can act as a unifying force for peaceful coexistence for the whole of humanity, enabling future citizens to participate in democratic debate and make informed choices about the social challenges they face. It therefore contributes not only to the development of knowledge, but also to the ability of children, young people, and adults to understand contemporary problems by placing them in human, social, environmental, historical, and cultural contexts that help them to live. For cultural heritage to contribute to the recovery of knowledge, researchers, teachers, and operators must be able to share a solid research background that allows them to address the various issues relating to the quality of the experiences of use carried out in school contexts, with the aim of improving the learning processes of users. In fact, the cultural and environmental resources of the territory can only be a real methodological resource for improving cognitive well-being and the overall quality of education at all levels if they are seen as useful tools for different types of learning (cognitive, social, etc.) and not as general educational tools. The paper therefore questions the use of cultural and environmental heritage in education and its adequacy with respect to learning conditions, pausing to consider also the role played by attitudes to fruition, highlighting those elements and dimensions that can contribute to redefining the relationship between education, goods, and environment, in the idea of strengthening interpretative repertoires in educational contexts.

Lifelong Learning Opportunities for Landscape Architecture Bachelor's Programs: Assessments on Landscape Design Component

Lifelong Learning Opportunities for Landscape Architecture Bachelor's Programs: Assessments on Landscape Design Component

Eucalyptus Essential Oil Based Nanoemulsions: Preparation and Biological Activities.

Eucalyptus essential oil has remarkable industrial importance and biological properties due to its effectiveness against various diseases, reported throughout human history. Despite the extraordinary bioactivities of essential oil, its applications are limited due to volatility, insolubility in water, and less stability. Formulation of nanoemulsion is the best way to enhance the bio-efficacy of this essential oil and eliminate the factors responsible for limited application. This review article compiles the information regarding formulation of Eucalyptus essential oil-based nanoemulsion and their several biological activities and medicinal properties including antibacterial, antifungal, larvicidal, insecticidal, and cytotoxic activities etc. The bio-efficacy of essential oil-based nanoemulsion has also been found to be enhanced as compared utilization of essential oil alone. This review can be beneficial for researchers working on medicinal plant-based natural products, specifically containing Eucalyptus essential oil, to explore new research horizons in this emerging field.

Isotopic evidence of high reliance on plant food among Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers at Taforalt, Morocco.

The transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture stands as one of the most important dietary revolutions in human history. Yet, due to a scarcity of well-preserved human remains from Pleistocene sites, little is known about the dietary practices of pre-agricultural human groups. Here we present the isotopic evidence of pronounced plant reliance among Late Stone Age hunter-gatherers from North Africa (15,000-13,000 cal BP), predating the advent of agriculture by several millennia. Employing a comprehensive multi-isotopic approach, we conducted zinc (δ66Zn) and strontium (87Sr/86Sr) analysis on dental enamel, bulk carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) and sulfur (δ34S) isotope analysis on dentin and bone collagen, and single amino acid analysis on human and faunal remains from Taforalt (Morocco). Our results unequivocally demonstrate a substantial plant-based component in the diets of these hunter-gatherers. This distinct dietary pattern challenges the prevailing notion of high reliance on animal proteins among pre-agricultural human groups. It also raises intriguing questions surrounding the absence of agricultural development in North Africa during the early Holocene. This study underscores the importance of investigating dietary practices during the transition to agriculture and provides insights into the complexities of human subsistence strategies across different regions.

Using Portuguese BRCA pathogenic variation as a model to study the impact of human admixture on human health

BackgroundAdmixture occurs between different ethnic human populations. The global colonization in recent centuries by Europeans led to the most significant admixture in human history. While admixture may enhance genetic diversity for better fitness, it may also impact on human health by transmitting genetic variants for disease susceptibility in the admixture population. The admixture by Portuguese global exploration initiated in the 15th century has reached over 20 million of Portuguese-heritage population worldwide. It provides a valuable model to study the impact of admixture on human health. BRCA1 and BRCA2 (BRCA) are two of the important tumor suppressor genes. The pathogenic variation (PV) in BRCA is well determined to cause high risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Tracing the distribution of Portuguese BRCA PV in Portuguese-heritage population will help to understand the impact of admixture on cancer susceptibility in modern humans. In this study, we analyzed the distribution of the Portuguese-originated BRCA variation in Brazilian population, which has high degree Portuguese-heritage.MethodsBy comprehensive data mining, standardization and annotation, we generated a Portuguese-derived BRCA variation dataset and a Brazilian-derived BRCA variation dataset. We compared the two BRCA variation datasets to identify the BRCA variants shared between the two populations.ResultsThe Portuguese-derived BRCA variation dataset consists of 220 BRCA variants including 78 PVs from 11,482 Portuguese cancer patients, 93 (42.2%) in BRCA1 and 127 (57.7%) in BRCA2. Of the 556 Portuguese BRCA PV carriers carrying the 78 PVs, 331 (59.5%) carried the three Portuguese-BRCA founder PVs of BRCA1 c.2037delinsCC, BRCA1 c.3331_3334del and BRCA2 c.156_157insAlu. The Brazilian-derived BRCA variation dataset consists of 255 BRCA PVs from 7,711 cancer patients, 136 (53.3%) in BRCA1 and 119 (46.6%) in BRCA2. We developed an open database named dbBRCA-Portuguese (https://genemutation.fhs.um.edu.mo/dbbrca-portuguese/) and an open database named dbBRCA-Brazilian (https://genemutation.fhs.um.edu.mo/dbbrca-brazilian) to host the BRCA variation data from Portuguese and Brazilian populations. We compared the BRCA PV datasets between Portuguese and Brazilian populations, and identified 29 Portuguese-specific BRCA PVs shared between Portuguese and Brazilian populations, 14 in BRCA1 including the Portuguese founder BRCA1 c.3331_3334del and BRCA1 c.2037delinsCC, and 15 in BRCA2 including the Portuguese founder BRCA2 c.156_157insAlu. Searching the 78 Portuguese BRCA PVs in over 5,000 ancient human genomes identified evolution origin for only 8 PVs in Europeans dated between 37,470 and 3,818 years before present, confirming the Portuguese-specificity of Portuguese BRCA PVs; comparing the 78 Portuguese BRCA PVs Portuguese, 255 Brazilian BRCA PVs, and 134 African BRCA PVs showed little overlapping, ruling out the possibility that the BRCA PVs shared between Portuguese and Brazilian may also be contributed by African.ConclusionOur study provides evidence that the admixture in recent human history contributed to cancer susceptibility in modern humans.

Patchy Anthropocoasts: A transdisciplinary perspective on dunes, plants, rabbits, and humans in the United Kingdom

In recent years, there has been increasing societal awareness of the crucial role that coastal dunes play in protecting against rising sea levels, mitigating climate change impacts, promoting biodiversity, and providing recreational opportunities. In some regions, dune management has been particularly focused on biodiversity and ecosystem restoration and the presence of alien species on dunes raises concerns about how these species become 'native,' 'invasive,' or 'hybrids' and whether they belong in their new ecosystems. These concerns illustrate how certain animals and plants assume different statuses according to normative categories associated with varying objectives. This article explores how perceptions of coastal dunes in the UK have transformed over time, from marginal resource frontiers to highly valued environments shaped by multispecies relations. In addition, this work explores how dunes around the UK emerge as ‘patchy anthropocoasts,’ that is, uneven landscapes designed by human purposes linked to economic activities, conservation, rabbit populations, unwanted vegetation, and the control of unpredictable sand movements. Bringing together diverse historical materials and scientific literature, this article links human and nonhuman histories with present debates on dune restoration from a transdisciplinary perspective rooted in anthropology, environmental history, and the natural sciences.

The Truth(s) of Western Civilization in Julian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters

A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters (1989) promises a history of the world, however, it only provides its readers with subjective perceptions of various Western characters. Barnes’ collection of vaguely connected stories depicts the world as a hegemonic Western space in which the Western definition of universal truth is used as a tool of cultural imperialism. The connections between the stories might seem oblique but meticulously structured patriarchal, religious, and artistic elements seem to expose the multiplicity of the definition of truth while simultaneously revealing how truth is used as a tool to create a specific and an exclusive understanding of civilization that is reserved for the West. This study explores how gender relations, religion, art, and perceptions towards cultures outside the Western civilization are narrated in A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters to reveal how Barnes reinstalls the very dynamics of the Western civilization he aims to deconstruct. The study starts with an exploration of the truths that are narrated in Barnes’ novel in order to demonstrate how Barnes attempts to deconstruct the fundamental values of civilization in his work through his stories offered from subjective points of view that are exclusively Western. The second part of the study defines the main ideals of the Western civilization and correlates these ideals with Barnes’ narrative which offers a seemingly deconstructive discourse while simultaneously reinstating hegemonic undertones. The third part of the study focuses on how Barnes reinstalls a fundamentally exclusive Western understanding of patriarchy, religion and art through his stories.

Prejudice and Discrimination : Barriers to Social Inclusion

This paper explores the multifaceted nature of prejudice and discrimination as significant barriers to social inclusion. Discrimination and prejudice are pervasive issues that have persisted throughout human history, influencing social dynamics, institutional structure, and individual behaviour. These phenomena are rooted in vices stereotypes and preconceived notions that lead to different shared treatment are unfair judgments based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, socioeconomic status, discrimination, income, passes, actions or practices that systematically disadvantage certain groups of individual, denying opportunities, resources or rights available to others prejudice on the other hand, is a pre-judgment or negative attitude towards individual or group is perceived differences, these attitudes are often ingrained and can lead to stereotyping scapegoating or stigmatization, understanding the complexities of prejudice and discrimination requires disciplinary perspective.