Inhabiting the World’s Largest Tropical Delta: Understanding Human-Environment Relationship from a Century-Long Archaeological Quest in Bangladesh

Due to the exceptionally rich tropical resource, the Lower Ganges-Brahmaputra basins have attracted people of diverse ethnic and geographical backgrounds for millennia. So far 524 protected sites in present Bangladesh indicate the busy human occupation in the world’s largest delta at least from 5th century BCE. Although systematic archaeology began in the 1870s there is still a paucity of knowledge about past human land use and livelihood strategies across this area, which is especially prone to floods, cyclones, and river migrations. Here we attempt a systematic survey of human-environment interactions in ancient deltaic Bangladesh. Revisiting the fragmentary information from archaeological records and epigraphic references produced through over a century-long archaeological legacy, this study is the first attempt at a synthesis of the changing relationships between ancient people and their environment elements including land, water bodies, flora and fauna.

Imagining the Etruscans: Modern European Perceptions of an Ancient Italian Civilization

The Etruscans, ancient people of pre-Roman Italy, have been the subject of lively discussions among both scholars and disseminators of popular pseudo-scientific theories from the late Humanistic age, an interest and popularity that reached a crescendo in the 18th to 20th centuries. This paper aims to explore the ideological features of the foundation of the highly specialized but often self-referential discipline, the so-called “Etruscology” that finally developed in the 20th century, with particular reference to the complicated connections between the very Italian territorial context of Etruscan civilization and the European dimension of its reception and popularization.

Origins of Food Production in the High Andes

Vertical topography, high altitude, infertile soils, and an arid climate make the Andes of South America a difficult region for agriculture. Nonetheless, archaeologists have found that potatoes, oca, quinoa, and kañawa were first domesticated by ancient famers in and near a region known as the Altiplano. Research indicates that approximately 6,000 years ago hunter-gatherers began to cultivate wild ancestors of these crops. Shortler thereafter, llama and alpaca herders played an important role in developing crop cultivation strategies; potatoes were uniquely adapted to a mobile pastoral lifestyle. By about 1,500 bce there is archaeological evidence that these crops were fully domesticated and supported early village life. Eventually tubers and chenopods were foundational sustenance for civilization and cities across the pre-Hispanic Andean highlands. Breeding over the last four millennia by generations of Indigenous Andean farmers in the diverse environments and climatic conditions of the Andes has resulted in a hugely diverse array of these crops. The outcome of these efforts is that hundreds of varieties of quinoa and over 5,000 varieties of potatoes are grown by Andean farmers in the 21st century. Potatoes in particular are a unique case of domestication for two reasons: (a) ancient farmers figured out how to store them long term through a freeze-drying process; (b) chemicals that are toxic to humans were not bred out of all varieties; rather, ancient people figured out that eating particular clays made the toxic potatoes less bitter and edible. Through paleoethnobotanical and genetic research, archaeologists have begun to shed light on the tangled history of Andean peoples and their crops.

D. H. Lawrence’s Etruscan Places. A Modernist Revaluation of Temporality

The article deals with the literary modes of constructing temporality in D. H. Lawrence’s Etruscan Places (1932), a travel book written in 1927 and published posthumously. Typically for the first decades of the twentieth century, the work reflects the writer’s anxieties about war force, scientific discoveries and cultural exhaustion in a series of interrelated essays on the remnants of ancient Etruria and the powerful memory of Etruscan civilization. In this article, Etruscan Places is read like a subjective re-creation of a lost civilization; it is interpreted as the writing of an imaginary philosophy attributed to an ancient people and modelled on Lawrence’s personal engagement with the renewal of life potentialities. Patterning his book on the past-present opposition, the author recuperates the Etruscan past within the mythical framework of modernist coherence. The repeated movements between the lost Etruscan world and the writer’s mostly disappointing contemporary age reveal the possibility of establishing continuities not only on an anthropological plane, but also on a philosophical-aesthetic one. The Etruscans’ narrative of death brings to light an art of living; the historical perspective blends with existential and artistic considerations. Lawrence’s exploratory technique is based on similitudes and antitheses, being literarily rendered by a cross-cultural discourse that combines the factual with the fictional, and the epic with the lyric. The British author’s style puts forward repetition as a modernist rhetorical achievement that indirectly questions the validity of literary tradition. Furthermore, the explicit intertextuality of the book completes the writer’s modernist perspective, authenticating the cultural substance of the temporal links that Lawrence seeks to uncover.

The First Whole Genome Sequencing of Sanghuangporus sanghuang Provides Insights into Its Medicinal Application and Evolution

Sanghuangporus is a medicinal macrofungal genus typified by S. sanghuang, the very species utilized in traditional Chinese medicines by Chinese ancient people. To facilitate the medicinal application of S. sanghuang, we, for the first time, perform its genome sequencing and analyses from a monokaryon strain. A 33.34 Mb genome sequence was assembled to 26 contigs, which lead to the prediction of 8278 protein-coding genes. From these genes, the potential biosynthesis pathway of sesquiterpenoids was, for the first time, identified from Sanghuangporus, besides that of triterpenoids. While polysaccharides are the main medicinal metabolites in S. sanghuang, flavonoids are especially abundant medicinal metabolites comparing with other medicinal macrofungal groups. From the genomic perspective, S. sanghuang has a tetrapolar heterothallic mating system, and has its special nutritional strategy and advantageous medicinal properties compared with S. baumii and S. vaninii. A phylogenomics analysis indicates that Sanghuangporus emerged 15.39 million years ago and S. sanghuang has a closer phylogenetic relationship with S. baumii than S. vaninii. However, S. sanghuang shares a higher region of synteny and more orthologous genes, including carbohydrate-active enzymes with S. vaninii than S. baumii. A comparative genomics analysis with S. baumii and S. vaninii indicates that species diversification within Sanghuangporus may be driven by the translocation and translocation plus inversion of genome sequences, while the expansion and contraction of gene families may contribute to the host specificity of Sanghuangporus species. In general, the genome sequence of S. sanghuang provides insights into its medicinal application and evolution.

EDUCATIONAL CONTENT AND CONSCIOUS SPIRITUALITY IN THE ANCIENT TURKISH EPOSES "ALYP BAMSY BATYR" AND "ALPAMYS BATYR"

The article tells about the ancient Turkic epic "Alyp Bamsy". The epic was based on many ancient historical events that were not recorded in the science of Turkology. We believe that the source of the song "Alpamys batyr" may be "Alyp Bamsy". They say that from the very beginning of our country's history as a nation, we have withstood many tests. It seems that the historical continuity of the past and the present begins here. The ancient customs and traditions of our ancient people are reflected in the ancient epic. The analysis of the realities of life in this epic suggests that a great moment will come when our endangered or lost native culture will be reunited. The author of the article, as a Türkologist, was able to give an excellent assessment of the current issue.

TO THE QUESTION OF THE ORIGIN OF FINLAND HYDRONYMS.

The article is devoted to the linguistic analysis of Finnish hydronyms. The origin of the names of large and significant rivers in the region is considered. The systematization of hydronyms, which received a name in the Baltic language environment, has been carried out. River names have an etymology akin to concepts such as river, channel, stream, current. The proposed article makes it possible to clarify the archaeological and historical aspects of the life of ancient people in the region. The revealed patterns in the etymology of hydronyms correlate with the data of anthropology and genetics. The language of ancient pre-Finnish tribes that existed on the territory of Finland belonged to the Baltic language group.

Paleogeographic conditions of human habitation on the Karelian coast of the White Sea in the Late-Holocene (Chupa Town, Karelia, Russia)

Bottom sediments from Lake Pervoe Starushechye, on the White Sea shore, near Korabelnaya Bay, Chupa Town, 500 m from an archaeological site, were analyzed. The aim of our studies was to determine the position of the sea shoreline, to correlate archaeological sites relative to it, to date ancient settlements, and to reconstruct the paleoclimatic conditions and habitats of ancient people. Spore and pollen, diatom, and radiocarbon (14C) analyses were done. New evidence for the time of retreat of the seashore, the isolation of Lake Pervoe Starushechye from it and the time of the possible invasion of the area by ancient people was obtained. People were shown to inhabit the area from 3970 ± 120 to 3250 ± 120 14С y.a., when the sea shoreline reached modern levels of 19–22 m. The lake was then a ~8 m deep White Sea bay, in which marine gyttja was deposited. These events are reflected in the stratigraphy of the sequence and supported by the results of diatom and spore and pollen analyses. About 3500 y.a., mean annual temperatures in North Karelia were 2°С and annual precipitation ~50 mm/year higher than modern values. Spruce and pine-spruce forests with aspen and alder patches grew on the shore. A favorable climate and exuberant vegetation attracted people. Therefore, it is at the Atlantic-Subboreal boundary that the archaeological sites located at the above altitudes could arise. The lake separated from the White Sea 3020 ± 90 14С y.a. Freshwater sapropel was deposited in the isolated lake, as indicated by the composition of diatom flora and spore and pollen spectra. The sea shoreline declined to 17–16 m. Light-coniferous pine lichen-green moss forests with light-loving oligotrophic grasses were spreading actively throughout the study area.

WHAT DID OUR ANCESTORS LOOK LIKE? OR, THE CAPABILITIES OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION

Anthropological Reconstruction Laboratory of the Center for Physical Anthropology, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology RAS. The article relates the current state of the M.M. Gerasimov Laboratory of Anthropological Reconstruction of the Center for Physical Anthropology, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences. Emphasizing the role of the founder of the method of face reconstruction from the skull, the author discusses the latest improvements to this method. The data bank on the thickness of the facial integument in representatives of various ethnic groups, and the accumulated experience with regard to the relationships between facial features and the underlying structures of the skull, made it possible to create a program of craniofacial correspondence ‘The Algorithm of Appearance’, which significantly improves the process of reconstructing in vivo appearance based on the skull. The visual reconstruction of the appearance is supplemented by an anthropological description of the lifetime appearance, in terms of the ‘verbal portrait’ used in forensic science. A description of a unique collection of more than 300 sculptural and graphic portraits made on the basis of the skulls of ancient people and historical figures is given. Based on the examples of specific projects, the possibilities of anthropological reconstruction for solving applied and theoretical problems of science are shown. The reconstruction of the appearance of soldiers killed in the Second World War is the key patriotic direction of the Laboratory s work. Based on the results of these reconstructions, several fi were identifi Th Laboratory is currently at work on reconstructing the lifetime appearance of A.V. Suvorov on the basis of a death mask.

Aesthetic Significance of Solah Shringar (Sixteen Ornaments) in Unani Medicine

Ancient people were as passionate about the aesthetics of appearance as are individuals of today. Physical appearance has consistently been an inseparable part of daily human growth, and most individuals prefer to be labelled as beautiful and handsome. The practice of ‘Solah Shringar’ comprises sixteen ways of adorning a woman's body in the Hindu as well as Muslim ceremonies in India. The description of Solah Shringar is commonly found in the writings of Hindi poets. Different poets and scholars have enlisted various cosmetics in their writings from time to time. In medieval India, the Solah Shringar was referred to the seven plus nine items in which seven were connoted as Haft Qalam Ārāyish along with other nine ornaments. These sixteen aesthetics have greater relevance with Unani therapeutics. This article is a sincere attempt to critically analyse the therapeutic and cosmetic importance of sixteen ornaments of medieval India in the light of Unani medicine.