New Dates for Megalithic Stele Monuments of Gedeo, South Ethiopia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Ashenafi G. Zena ◽  
Andrew I. Duff ◽  
Addisalem Melesse ◽  
John A. Wolff ◽  
Alemseged Beldados ◽  
...  

Abstract This paper reports the results of an archaeological survey and test excavation conducted in one of the ancient megalithic stele sites in south Ethiopia, Sakaro Sodo. The Sakaro Sodo stele site is situated in Gedeo zone, which is known to have the largest number and highest concentration of megalithic stele monuments in Africa, with an estimate of more than 10,000 stelae in sixty or more sites. Prior to our work, only one absolute date was available (850 ± 40 BP) (Joussaume 2012) from a stele site in the Gedeo zone, suggesting stele sites began to be constructed in the region approximately a millennium ago. We report here new AMS dates suggesting that stelae were being emplaced about 2000 BP, pushing the creation of these monuments back at least a millennium. Additionally, we report preliminary findings from characterizing the geochemical properties of obsidian artifacts recovered from stele sites, and stone used to make stelae. While compositional analysis of obsidian suggests long-distance movement of material from sources located in northern Kenya, petrographic microscopy and electron microprobe analyses show a strong connection of stelae to local geological tuff exposures/sources.

Author(s):  
Carolyn Swan

Around the year 970 CE, a merchant ship carrying an assortment of goods from East Africa, Persia, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and China foundered and sank to the bottom of the Java Sea. Thousands of beads made from many different materials—ceramic, jet, coral, banded stone, lapis lazuli, rock crystal, sapphire, ruby, garnet, pearl, gold, and glass—attest to the long-distance movement and trade of these small and often precious objects throughout the Indian Ocean world. The beads made of glass are of particular interest, as closely-dated examples are very rare and there is some debate as to where glass beads were being made and traded during this period of time. This paper examines 18 glass beads from the Cirebon shipwreck that are now in the collection of Qatar Museums, using a comparative typological and chemical perspective within the context of the 10th-century glass production. Although it remains uncertain where some of the beads were made, the composition of the glass beads points to two major production origins for the glass itself: West Asia and South Asia.


2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (SI 2 - 6th Conf EFPP 2002) ◽  
pp. 542-544
Author(s):  
R. Pokorný ◽  
M. Porubová

Under greenhouse conditions 12 maize hybrids derived from crosses of four resistant lines with several lines of different level of susceptibility were evaluated for resistance to Czech isolate of Sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV). These hybrids were not fully resistant to isolate of SCMV, but the symptoms on their newly growing leaves usually developed 1 to 3 weeks later in comparison with particular susceptible line, the course of infection was significantly slower and rate of infection lower. As for mechanisms of resistance, the presence of SCMV was detected by ELISA in inoculated leaves both of resistant and susceptible lines, but virus was detected 7 days later in resistant line. Systemic infection developed only in susceptible lines. These results indicate restriction of viral long distance movement in the resistant line.


Genetics ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 163 (2) ◽  
pp. 823-831
Author(s):  
J A Sved ◽  
H Yu ◽  
B Dominiak ◽  
A S Gilchrist

Abstract Long-range dispersal of a species may involve either a single long-distance movement from a core population or spreading via unobserved intermediate populations. Where the new populations originate as small propagules, genetic drift may be extreme and gene frequency or assignment methods may not prove useful in determining the relation between the core population and outbreak samples. We describe computationally simple resampling methods for use in this situation to distinguish between the different modes of dispersal. First, estimates of heterozygosity can be used to test for direct sampling from the core population and to estimate the effective size of intermediate populations. Second, a test of sharing of alleles, particularly rare alleles, can show whether outbreaks are related to each other rather than arriving as independent samples from the core population. The shared-allele statistic also serves as a genetic distance measure that is appropriate for small samples. These methods were applied to data on a fruit fly pest species, Bactrocera tryoni, which is quarantined from some horticultural areas in Australia. We concluded that the outbreaks in the quarantine zone came from a heterogeneous set of genetically differentiated populations, possibly ones that overwinter in the vicinity of the quarantine zone.


Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 1221
Author(s):  
Samar Sheat ◽  
Paolo Margaria ◽  
Stephan Winter

Cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) is a destructive disease of cassava in Eastern and Central Africa. Because there was no source of resistance in African varieties to provide complete protection against the viruses causing the disease, we searched in South American germplasm and identified cassava lines that did not become infected with the cassava brown streak viruses. These findings motivated further investigations into the mechanism of virus resistance. We used RNAscope® in situ hybridization to localize cassava brown streak virus in cassava germplasm lines that were highly resistant (DSC 167, immune) or that restricted virus infections to stems and roots only (DSC 260). We show that the resistance in those lines is not a restriction of long-distance movement but due to preventing virus unloading from the phloem into parenchyma cells for replication, thus restricting the virus to the phloem cells only. When DSC 167 and DSC 260 were compared for virus invasion, only a low CBSV signal was found in phloem tissue of DSC 167, indicating that there is no replication in this host, while the presence of intense hybridization signals in the phloem of DSC 260 provided evidence for virus replication in companion cells. In neither of the two lines studied was there evidence of virus replication outside the phloem tissues. Thus, we conclude that in resistant cassava lines, CBSV is confined to the phloem tissues only, in which virus replication can still take place or is arrested.


1987 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 1148-1151 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. H. Hendrix ◽  
T. F. Mueller ◽  
J. R. Phillips ◽  
O. K. Davis

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 1302-1311 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Decroocq ◽  
B. Salvador ◽  
O. Sicard ◽  
M. Glasa ◽  
P. Cosson ◽  
...  

In Arabidopsis thaliana Columbia (Col-0) plants, the restriction of Tobacco etch virus (TEV) long-distance movement involves at least three dominant RTM (restricted TEV movement) genes named RTM1, RTM2, and RTM3. Previous work has established that, while the RTM-mediated resistance is also effective against other potyviruses, such as Plum pox virus (PPV) and Lettuce mosaic virus (LMV), some isolates of these viruses are able to overcome the RTM mechanism. In order to identify the viral determinant of this RTM-resistance breaking, the biological properties of recombinants between PPV-R, which systemically infects Col-0, and PPV-PSes, restricted by the RTM resistance, were evaluated. Recombinants that contain the PPV-R coat protein (CP) sequence in an RTM-restricted background are able to systemically infect Col-0. The use of recombinants carrying chimeric CP genes indicated that one or more PPV resistance-breaking determinants map to the 5′ half of the CP gene. In the case of LMV, sequencing of independent RTM-breaking variants recovered after serial passages of the LMV AF199 isolate on Col-0 plants revealed, in each case, amino acid changes in the CP N-terminal region, close to the DAG motif. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that the potyvirus CP N-terminal region determines the outcome of the interaction with the RTM-mediated resistance.


1981 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yung S. Liu ◽  
C.Y. Wei ◽  
W. Tantraporn ◽  
S.W. Chiang ◽  
G.E. Possin

ABSTRACTCharacteristics of CW Ar-ion laser annealed InSb has been studied; properties include stoichiometric composition analysis and electrical C-V measurements. The stoichiometry compositions of laser-annealed samples at different power levels and scan speeds have been studied using an electron microprobe technique. Results were compared with electrical C-V measurements using MOS structures.


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