The Evolving Role of External Forcing in North Atlantic SST Variability Over the Last Millennium

Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV) impacts temperature, precipitation, and extreme events on both sides of the Atlantic basin. Previous studies with climate models have suggested that when external radiative forcing is held constant, the large-scale ocean and atmosphere circulation are associated with sea-surface temperature anomalies that have similar characteristics to the observed AMV. However, there is an active debate as to whether these internal fluctuations driven by coupled atmosphere-ocean variability remain influential to the AMV on multidecadal timescales in our modern, anthropogenically-forced climate. Here we provide evidence from multiple large ensembles of climate models, paleo reconstructions, and instrumental observations of a growing role for external forcing in the AMV. Prior to 1850, external forcing, primarily from volcanoes, explains about one third of AMV variance. Between 1850 and 1950, there is a transitional period, where external forcing explains half of AMV variance, but volcanic forcing only accounts for about 10% of that. After 1950, external forcing explains three quarters of AMV variance. That is, the role for external forcing in the AMV grows as the variations in external forcing grow, even if the forcing is from different sources. When forcing is relatively stable, as in earlier modeling studies, a higher percentage of AMV variations are internally generated.

Paleolithic Personal Ornaments from Xiaogushan Cave: The Formation of Early Symbolism and Its Regional Features in Northeast China

This article presents the results of a comparative study of personal ornaments from Xiaogushan Cave in the interregional and regional context of the formation of modern behavior. Xiaogushan is a Paleolithic and Neolithic site in Northeast China. In the Upper Paleolithic layers of the site, apart from tools, personal ornaments were found— pendants made from animal teeth, and a decorated bone disc. The date of the site is a matter of debate; ornaments from layers 2 and 3 date to ~30 ka BP. Like other bone artifacts (harpoon, needles, point), and together with types of stone tools and lithic technology, they mirror the local process of Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. We focus on similarities between the Xiaogushan ornaments and Upper Paleolithic pendants from northern China and Eurasia in general, attesting to modern behavior during the transitional period and being an important marker of the spread of Upper Paleolithic innovations from the centers to the periphery. Xiaogushan is the fi rst Upper Paleolithic industry in Northeast China known to date, and demonstrates skills and symbolic behavior typical of the initial Upper Paleolithic. The Xiaogushan pendants follow the general tendencies, while being specifi c markers of the evolution of symbolic behavior in Eastern Eurasia.

Late quaternary palaeoclimates of western India : A geoarchaeological approach

Western India comprises parts of the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. This region has varied climate and landscape. Northwestern Rajasthan is an area of internal drainage, with dunes, playas and rocky pediments. The Luni, Sabarmati and Mahi basins to the south of this zone show the influence of both aeolian and fluvial processes. Aeolian landforms are absent in the Nrmada, Tapi, Godavari and Bhima basins and fluvial aggradation has alternated with erosion in response to climatic change. Dominance of semi-arid to arid climate throughtout the Quaternary in the entire region has ment that Quaternary geological processes have been weak, preserving many features of the Tertiary in the present landscape. The variation in the geomorphic processes shaping the landscape and the complex links between geomorphic proceses and climate mean that our understanding of palaeoclimates in western India in far from complete. This paper gives an overview of the Late Quaternary palaeoclimate of western India, based primarily on recent work by the authors in Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Some issues in the palaeoclimatic interpretation of the geological record are discussed. Signatures of Late Pleistocene aridity, fluctuating climate during the Pleistocene Holocene transitional period, early Holocene humid climate and increased aridity from the middle Holocene onwards are reflected in different ways in the different landscape settings.

Why do Malaysian Young Adults Buy Health Insurance?

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the importance of health insurance. Although most of the companies in Malaysia usually provide employee benefit plans such as medical coverage to their employees, the COVID-19 pandemic that severely impacted the economy and employment has also abruptly exposed the unemployed and retrenched workers to the risk of high medical costs. Thus, this study aims to identify the factors that affect the purchase intention of health insurance among Malaysian young adults in the transitional period of life and could be vulnerable to potentially catastrophic expenses in severe injury or illness. Using a convenience sampling method, a set of self-administered questionnaires was distributed to 200 young adults in Malaysia who are aged between 18 to 25 years old. The results show that attitude, perceived behavioural control, and perceived financial benefits significantly influence health insurance's purchase intention. This study offers an insight into the rationale of buying health insurance among Malaysian young adults, mainly from the behavioural perspective. The finding also suggests important managerial implications to the associated parties, particularly in reinforcing a positive attitude towards health insurance's purchase intention among Malaysian young adults.

Ivan Franko’s Perception of Oleksandr Konyskyi: the Processes of Convergence, Divergence and Memorialisation

The article analyzes the reception of Oleksandr Konysky in the literary-critical and journalistic heritage of Ivan Franko. An important point in the study of the relationship between national identity and places of memory is P. Nora’s observation that through common symbols individuals become the basis of a common identity, then the bearers of collective memory no longer need special knowledge to achieve a common identity. The author gives interpretation of such concepts as “iconic figure of the transition period”, “Galicia — Ukrainian Piedmont” and the meaning of specific symbolic place — the Shevchenko Scientific Society, which Franco once drew attention to, glorifying the figure of Konysky, and which still have attractive properties, determining the processes of national identification, the cultural leader of which was Konysky. The subject of the research is tracing the inclusion of the figure of O. Konysky in the Ukrainian cultural and historical canon in the aspect of research on cultural memory and places of memory. The object of analysis is Franko’s literary criticism and journalistic work. The aim of study is to trace the formation of Ukrainophiles generation locus memoria on the example of inscribing the figure of O. Konysky in the Ukrainian cultural and historical canon. This aim involves solving the following tasks: to analyze in detail the figure of Konysky in the literary-critical discourse of Franko; identify the influence of mental and generational factors on their relationships; to find out the ways of memorializing the figure of Konysky in the reception of Franko. As a result of the analysis, using the approaches of biographical, historical-literary, empirical research methods, it was found that despite some contradictions of personal and ideological nature, Franco praised Konysky’s role in building the Ukrainian scientific and cultural space. Franko presented Konysky as an important figure of the transitional period and accentuated the key moments of his activities that had a positive impact on the development of the national idea and on the desire of Ukrainians for the autonomy.

Krasnoyarsky-IV kurgan cemetery of the Great Migration Period

The paper presents the materials of the Great Migration Period from the Omsk Irtysh region, obtained during the excavations of the Krasnoyarsky-IV burial ground. In total, eight burial mounds with 13 burials were examined in 2009 by the expedition of the Omsk State Pedagogical University led by M.A. Grachev. The aim of this work is to determine regional features and chronology of the Krasnoyarsky-IV burial complexes , as well as some details of the historical and cultural development of the local population in the transitional period from the Iron Age to the early Middle Ages. The research methodology is based on comparative and typological analyses of the material complexes, morphological and constructional specifics of the burials, and on anthropological studies, including methods of odontology. According to the results of the study, the chronological interval of the functioning of the necropolis spans the end of the 4th — first decades of the 6th centuries A.D., which corresponds with the appea-rance of the Karym type monuments in the territory of the southern taiga of Western Siberia. The signs of artificial skull deformation, erection of small embankments, cremations, and Eastern-European and Central Asian imports suggest involvement of the Karym population in the epochal historical and cultural processes, as well as contacts with neighboring forest-steppe and southern taiga cultures of the Ural-Siberian region. Characteristics associated with the heritage of the cultures of the Early Iron Age, particularly, the Sargatka and Kulayka Cultures, were noted: orientation of the buried; location of the goods in the grave; ornamental and morphological features of the ware; and specific types of bronze decorations. The symbiosis of innovations and traditions of the previous epoch is partly confirmed by the anthropological characteristics in the ratio of the longitudinal and transverse diameters of the crowns of the permanent lower first molars.

Cultural Metallurgy—A Key Factor in the Transition from the Chalcolithic to Bronze Age in the Southern Levant

The causes of the disappearance of Late Chalcolithic society (Ghassulian) in the early fourth millennium bc remain obscure. This study identifies the collapse as the consequence of a change in the approach to metallurgy from cosmological fundament (Late Chalcolithic) to a practical craft (EB1). This endogenous transition accounts for the cultural recession characterizing the transitional period (EB1A) and the discontinuity in ritual practices. The new practical approach in metallurgy is firstly observed in the southern margin of the Ghassulian culture, which produced copper for distribution in the Nile valley rather than the southern Levant. Nevertheless, the Ghassulian cultural markers visible in the newly emerging areas of copper working (southern coastal plain, Nile valley) denote the survival of the old cosmological traditions among metalworkers of the EB1 culture. Their religious expression unveils the extension of the Ghassulian beliefs attached to metallurgy and their metamorphosis into the esoteric fundaments of the Bronze Age religions.

“This Is Our Bank”: Agricultural Associations and Their Role in Two Swabian Villages in Satu Mare From the Regime Change to the Present

The study examines the impact of the agricultural associations of two Swabian settlements – Mezőfény (Foieni) and Mezőpetri (Petrești) – on the local economy and society. Agricultural associations played an important role at the beginning of the process of agrarian transformation after the regime change in Romania. The successor organisations of the socialist agricultural associations, now established on a voluntary basis, were able to counteract the impoverishment caused by the reparcelling or forced reparcelling of land during the long transitional period, while at the same time exploiting their monopoly position to prevent the emergence of individual and family farmers. The risk-averse, self-reliant economic model of the associations is reminiscent of the peasant, self-sufficient farm organisation. The associations can thus be seen as a very specific form of post-socialist post-peasant production systems.

Nazugum, a new 4000 year old rockshelter in the Ili Alatau, Tien Shan

The PALAEOSILKROAD project has been conducting field surveys in Kazakhstan to explore the regional Palaeolithic record by targeting primarily caves and rockshelters. However, the survey also discovered numerous sites that were occupied during the Holocene. In this paper, we present our preliminary findings from the Nazugum rockshelter, a new archaeological site located in south-eastern Kazakhstan (Almaty region). The stratigraphic sequence demonstrates the transition from fluvial channel deposits without artifacts to aeolian loess deposits with lithics, charcoal remnants, and fragments of animal bones. The lithics recovered from the sediment wall are dominated by bladelet technology, characteristic for Holocene assemblages. Radiocarbon dates from adjacent charcoal samples yielded an age of 2461-2347 cal. years BC attributing the human occupation to the transitional period of late Eneolithic and early Bronze Age. Our study provides new data for the use of rockshelters in Kazakhstan during the late Holocene and lays the groundwork for future salvage work in Nazugum rockshelter due to the active erosion of the archaeological record.