Are your hands clean? Pollen retention on the human hand after washing.

Pollen retention on clothes, footwear, hair and body has been used to link people to localities with distinctive vegetation, or soils containing distinctive palynomorphs. Little attention has been given to human skin as a possible medium for carrying a forensically important pollen load and whether this might survive attempts to remove it. We report here the results of experiments testing the retention of pollen of 10 flowering plant species on the human skin through repeated cycles of washing and drying hands, using the WHO protocol to standardize hand-washing and drying. Between 0.36% and 2.74% (mean 0.93%) of the initial pollen load was retained through a single hand-wash. Trace amounts of some species survived multiple hand-wash cycles. It is concluded that forensic analyses can be made of the pollen load of those parts of the skin that may have been in contact with palynologically distinctive vegetation, even in cases where the person involved has washed, or been washed. These observations may also be of relevance in cases where human skin became contaminated with other microscopic particulates.

Issues of theory and method in the analysis of Paleolithic mortuary behavior: A view from Shanidar Cave.

Mortuary behavior (activities concerning dead conspecifics) is one of many traits that were previously widely considered to have been uniquely human, but on which perspectives have changed markedly in recent years. Theoretical approaches to hominin mortuary activity and its evolution have undergone major revision, and advances in diverse archeological and paleoanthropological methods have brought new ways of identifying behaviors such as intentional burial. Despite these advances, debates concerning the nature of hominin mortuary activity, particularly among the Neanderthals, rely heavily on the rereading of old excavations as new finds are relatively rare, limiting the extent to which such debates can benefit from advances in the field. The recent discovery of in situ articulated Neanderthal remains at Shanidar Cave offers a rare opportunity to take full advantage of these methodological and theoretical developments to understand Neanderthal mortuary activity, making a review of these advances relevant and timely.

Newly discovered Neanderthal remains from Shanidar Cave, Iraqi Kurdistan, and their attribution to Shanidar 5.

The Neanderthal remains from Shanidar Cave, excavated between 1951 and 1960, have played a central role in debates concerning diverse aspects of Neanderthal morphology and behavior. In 2015 and 2016, renewed excavations at the site uncovered hominin remains from the immediate area where the partial skeleton of Shanidar 5 was found in 1960. Shanidar 5 was a robust adult male estimated to have been aged over 40 years at the time of death. Comparisons of photographs from the previous and recent excavations indicate that the old and new remains were directly adjacent to one another, while the disturbed arrangement and partial crushing of the new fossils is consistent with descriptions and photographs of the older discoveries. The newly discovered bones include fragments of several vertebrae, a left hamate, part of the proximal left femur, a heavily crushed partial pelvis, and the distal half of the right tibia and fibula and associated talus and navicular. All these elements were previously missing from Shanidar 5, and morphological and metric data are consistent with the new elements belonging to this individual. A newly discovered partial left pubic symphysis indicates an age at death of 40-50 years, also consistent with the age of Shanidar 5 estimated previously. Thus, the combined evidence strongly suggests that the new finds can be attributed to Shanidar 5. Ongoing analyses of associated samples, including for sediment morphology, palynology, and dating, will therefore offer new evidence as to how this individual was deposited in the cave and permit new analyses of the skeleton itself and broader discussion of Neanderthal morphology and variation.

Controlling residential water demand in Qatar: an assessment.

Qatar has serious water resource problems, following rapid socioeconomic development and massive population increase. Municipal water provision depends on costly and unsustainable desalination. There is little regulation. Native Qataris do not pay a water tariff and migrants pay a subsidized price--approximately one third of the cost of production--so there is little awareness of the true cost of water and use is profligate. This paper discusses trends in water use and identifies issues underlying sustainable water use in Qatar. A questionnaire of respondents chosen to represent Qatari social groups measured awareness and attitudes to water. The results show that previous efforts to control water demand in Qatar, using awareness campaigns, legal restrictions and tariffs, have been ineffectual. The questionnaire evaluated reactions to possible measures to limit uses by raising awareness, using legal restrictions and raising tariffs. From this, a number of policy changes can be suggested, to bring Qatar's water industry towards sustainability.