Historical representations of social groups across 200 years of word embeddings from Google Books.

Using word embeddings from 850 billion words in English-language Google Books, we provide an extensive analysis of historical change and stability in social group representations (stereotypes) across a long timeframe (from 1800 to 1999), for a large number of social group targets (Black, White, Asian, Irish, Hispanic, Native American, Man, Woman, Old, Young, Fat, Thin, Rich, Poor), and their emergent, bottom-up associations with 14,000 words and a subset of 600 traits. The results provide a nuanced picture of change and persistence in stereotypes across 200 y. Change was observed in the top-associated words and traits: Whether analyzing the top 10 or 50 associates, at least 50% of top associates changed across successive decades. Despite this changing content of top-associated words, the average valence (positivity/negativity) of these top stereotypes was generally persistent. Ultimately, through advances in the availability of historical word embeddings, this study offers a comprehensive characterization of both change and persistence in social group representations as revealed through books of the English-speaking world from 1800 to 1999.

Multiple migrations to the Philippines during the last 50,000 years.

Island Southeast Asia has recently produced several surprises regarding human history, but the region's complex demography remains poorly understood. Here, we report ∼2.3 million genotypes from 1,028 individuals representing 115 indigenous Philippine populations and genome-sequence data from two ∼8,000-y-old individuals from Liangdao in the Taiwan Strait. We show that the Philippine islands were populated by at least five waves of human migration: initially by Northern and Southern Negritos (distantly related to Australian and Papuan groups), followed by Manobo, Sama, Papuan, and Cordilleran-related populations. The ancestors of Cordillerans diverged from indigenous peoples of Taiwan at least ∼8,000 y ago, prior to the arrival of paddy field rice agriculture in the Philippines ∼2,500 y ago, where some of their descendants remain to be the least admixed East Asian groups carrying an ancestry shared by all Austronesian-speaking populations. These observations contradict an exclusive "out-of-Taiwan" model of farming-language-people dispersal within the last four millennia for the Philippines and Island Southeast Asia. Sama-related ethnic groups of southwestern Philippines additionally experienced some minimal South Asian gene flow starting ∼1,000 y ago. Lastly, only a few lowlanders, accounting for <1% of all individuals, presented a low level of West Eurasian admixture, indicating a limited genetic legacy of Spanish colonization in the Philippines. Altogether, our findings reveal a multilayered history of the Philippines, which served as a crucial gateway for the movement of people that ultimately changed the genetic landscape of the Asia-Pacific region.

Population structure of indigenous inhabitants of Arabia.

Modern day Saudi Arabia occupies the majority of historical Arabia, which may have contributed to ancient waves of migration out of Africa. This ancient history has left a lasting imprint in the genetics of the region, including the diverse set of tribes that call Saudi Arabia their home. How these tribes relate to each other and to the world's major populations remains an unanswered question. In an attempt to improve our understanding of the population structure of Saudi Arabia, we conducted genomic profiling of 957 unrelated individuals who self-identify with 28 large tribes in Saudi Arabia. Consistent with the tradition of intra-tribal unions, the subjects showed strong clustering along tribal lines with the distance between clusters correlating with their geographical proximities in Arabia. However, these individuals form a unique cluster when compared to the world's major populations. The ancient origin of these tribal affiliations is supported by analyses that revealed little evidence of ancestral origin from within the 28 tribes. Our results disclose a granular map of population structure and have important implications for future genetic studies into Mendelian and common diseases in the region.

The association between cold extremes and neonatal mortality in Swedish Sápmi from 1800 to 1895.

Background: Studies in which the association between temperature and neonatal mortality (deaths during the first 28 days of life) is tracked over extended periods that cover demographic, economic and epidemiological transitions are quite limited. From previous research about the demographic transition in Swedish Sápmi, we know that infant and child mortality was generally higher among the indigenous (Sami) population compared to non-indigenous populations. Objective: The aim of this study was to analyse the association between extreme temperatures and neonatal mortality among the Sami and non-Sami population in Swedish Sápmi (Lapland) during the nineteenth century. Methods: Data from the Demographic Data Base, Umeå University, were used to identify neonatal deaths. We used monthly mean temperature in Tornedalen and identified cold and warm month (5th and 95th) percentiles. Monthly death counts from extreme temperatures were modelled using negative binomial regression. We computed relative risks (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI), adjusting for time trends and seasonality. Results: Overall, the neonatal mortality rate was higher among Sami compared to non-Sami infants (62/1,000 vs 35/1,000 live births), although the differences between the two populations decreased after 1860. For the Sami population prior 1860, the results revealed a higher neonatal incidence rate during cold winter months (<-15.4°C, RR = 1.60, CI 1.14-2.23) compared to infants born during months of medium temperature. No association was found between extreme cold months and neonatal mortality for non-Sami populations. Warm months (+15.1°C) had no impact on Sami or non-Sami populations. Conclusions: This study revealed the role of environmental factors (temperature extremes) on infant health during the demographic transition where cold extremes mainly affected the Sami population. Ethnicity and living conditions contributed to differential weather vulnerability.

3500 years of shellfish mariculture on the Northwest Coast of North America.

Ancient systems of mariculture were foundations of social-ecological systems of many coastal Indigenous Peoples. However, since such systems either do not leave tangible remains in the archaeological record, and/or are hard to date, we know little about their development and use. Clam gardens, traditional mariculture features located within the intertidal zone along the Northwest Coast of North America, are composed of a rock wall positioned at the low tide mark and a flattened terrace on the landward side of the wall. Because these features are largely composed of rock and sediment, and have complex formation histories, they can be difficult to age. On northern Quadra Island, British Columbia, we identify three variations in clam garden form, constructed in different geomorphological settings, each of which require different sampling approaches to obtain ages on construction and ongoing use. To age the clam gardens, we consider radiocarbon dating of invertebrates that inhabit beach deposits (both pre- and post-garden construction), and the relationship of the gardens and clam samples to the local sea level history and taphonomic processes. Within our study area, we find clam gardens have been in use for 3500 years, likely corresponding to other social and ecological changes of the time. These data allow us to formulate guidelines on samples most suitable to constrain the age of initial and on-going wall construction and use of clam gardens, which can be extrapolated to dating other ancient mariculture features in other regions. Such dating programs are the foundation for understanding the long-term development of traditional marine management practices and how they are situated in broader social-ecological systems.

Ancient water bottle use and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure among California Indians: a prehistoric health risk assessment.

BACKGROUND: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are the main toxic compounds in natural bitumen, a fossil material used by modern and ancient societies around the world. The adverse health effects of PAHs on modern humans are well established, but their health impacts on past populations are unclear. It has previously been suggested that a prehistoric health decline among the native people living on the California Channel Islands may have been related to PAH exposure. Here, we assess the potential health risks of PAH exposure from the use and manufacture of bitumen-coated water bottles by ancient California Indian societies. METHODS: We replicated prehistoric bitumen-coated water bottles with traditional materials and techniques of California Indians, based on ethnographic and archaeological evidence. In order to estimate PAH exposure related to water bottle manufacture and use, we conducted controlled experiments to measure PAH contamination 1) in air during the manufacturing process and 2) in water and olive oil stored in a completed bottle for varying periods of time. Samples were analyzed with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) for concentrations of the 16 PAHs identified by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as priority pollutants. RESULTS: Eight PAHs were detected in concentrations of 1-10 µg/m3 in air during bottle production and 50-900 ng/L in water after 2 months of storage, ranging from two-ring (naphthalene and methylnaphthalene) to four-ring (fluoranthene) molecules. All 16 PAHs analyzed were detected in olive oil after 2 days (2 to 35 µg/kg), 2 weeks (3 to 66 µg/kg), and 2 months (5 to 140 µg/kg) of storage. CONCLUSIONS: For ancient California Indians, water stored in bitumen-coated water bottles was not a significant source of PAH exposure, but production of such bottles could have resulted in harmful airborne PAH exposure.

From Savagery to Sovereignty: Identity, Politics, and International Expositions of Argentine Anthropology (1878­1892).

In the late nineteenth century, Argentine intellectual elites turned to world's fairs as a place to contest myths of Latin American racial inferiority and produce counternarratives of Argentine whiteness and modernity. This essay examines Argentine anthropological displays at three expositions between 1878 and 1892 to elucidate the mechanisms and reception of these projects. Florentino Ameghino, Francisco Moreno, and others worked deliberately and in conjunction with political authorities to erase the indigenous tribes from the national identity, even while using their bodies and products to create prehistory and garner intellectual legitimacy. Comparison of the three fairs also demonstrates how the representation of Amer-Indians and their artifacts shifted in accordance with local political needs and evolving international theories of anthropogenesis. The resulting analysis argues for the importance of considering the former colonies of the Global South in understanding the development of pre-twentieth-century anthropology and world's fairs, particularly when separating them from their imperial context.

Indigenous Infant Mortality by Age and Season of Birth, 1800-1899: Did Season of Birth Affect Children's Chances for Survival?

This paper focuses on the influence of season of birth on infant mortality among the Sami and non-Sami populations in northern Sweden during the nineteenth century. The source material is a set of data files from the Demographic Data Base at Umeå University, making it possible to combine age at death (in days), month of death, and month of birth over the course of the entire century. Cox regression models reveal that for the first week of life, season of birth had no influence on the risk of mortality. For the Sami, the results showed that being born during winter was related to a higher risk of neonatal mortality, and being born during summer was related to a higher risk of mortality after six months of age. Furthermore, for the Sami, the neonatal mortality showed a U-shaped pattern with a minimum in June-August, whereas the corresponding pattern among the non-Sami was flatter. The findings shed light on vulnerability in two populations sharing the same environment, but diverging in terms of social, economic, and cultural factors.

Discursos en torno a la colonialidad en Arrowsmith (John Ford, 1931) / Discussions on coloniality in Arrowsmith (John Ford, 1931)

La transición del médico-clínico al médico-investigador con el asentamiento de la teoría bacteriológica, en la película de John Ford Arrosmith (1931), constituye un punto de partida para observar cómo se establecen y se mantienen las relaciones de poder y dominación entre diferentes grupos humanos dentro de un sistema imperial/colonial. Por el lado del imperio, la exaltación de la modernidad, el progreso y la civilización a través del conocimiento científico-médico producido en las universidades y los laboratorios legitiman la expansión y la dominación. Sin embargo, la otra cara se descubre en la colonia, interior y de ultramar, donde las mismas relaciones intrican las geopolíticas de conocimiento que desacreditan los sistemas de sanción nativos, menosprecian a las cuidadoras, profesionales y no profesionales, instrumentalizan grupos humanos y sitúan la generación del conocimiento válido en las metrópolis urbanas y patriarcales (AU)

The transition from the physician-clinician to the physician-researcher with the establishment of the theory of bacteriology, in John Ford´s film Arrowsmith (1931), represents the starting point to observe how power and dominance relationships are established and maintained among different populations within and imperial/colonial system. On the side of the empire, the exaltation of modernity, progress and civilization through medico-scientific knowledge produced in universities and laboratories legitimize expansion and domination. However, the other side is uncovered in the colonies domestic an overseas, where the same relationships complicate the geopolitics of knowledge that discredit native healing systems, denigrate healers, both professional and non-professional, exploit populations and place the generation of valid knowledge within the urban and patriarchal mother countries (AU)

Historical review: Does falciparum malaria destroy isolated tribal populations?

Many isolated populations of tribal peoples were nearly destroyed when they first contacted infectious diseases particularly respiratory pathogens such as measles and smallpox. Surviving groups have often been found to have declining populations in the face of multiple social and infectious threats. Malaria, especially Plasmodium falciparum, was thought to be a major cause of depopulation in some tribal peoples isolated in tropical jungles. The dynamics of such host parasite interactions is unclear especially since most such populations would have had long histories of exposure to malaria. Three groups are individually reviewed: Meruts of Borneo, Yanomami of Amazonia, Jarawas of the Andaman Islands. The purpose of this review is to examine the role of falciparum malaria in the depopulation of some isolated tribal groups in order to understand what measures, if any, would be likely to prevent such losses.

Proving communal warfare among hunter-gatherers: The Quasi-Rousseauan error.

Was human fighting always there, as old as our species? Or is it a late cultural invention, emerging after the transition to agriculture and the rise of the state, which began, respectively, only around ten thousand and five thousand years ago? Viewed against the life span of our species, Homo sapiens, stretching back 150,000-200,000 years, let alone the roughly two million years of our genus Homo, this is the tip of the iceberg. We now have a temporal frame and plenty of empirical evidence for the "state of nature" that Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacque Rousseau discussed in the abstract and described in diametrically opposed terms. All human populations during the Pleistocene, until about 12,000 years ago, were hunter-gatherers, or foragers, of the simple, mobile sort that lacked accumulated resources. Studying such human populations that survived until recently or still survive in remote corners of the world, anthropology should have been uniquely positioned to answer the question of aboriginal human fighting or lack thereof. Yet access to, and the interpretation of, that information has been intrinsically problematic. The main problem has been the "contact paradox." Prestate societies have no written records of their own. Therefore, documenting them requires contact with literate state societies that necessarily affects the former and potentially changes their behavior, including fighting.

The necropolis of Bolgare (Lombardy, Italy): Anthropological and paleopathological features of a Lombard population.

The mediaeval necropolis of Bolgare - St. Chierico is an important site in northern Italy, located in the Bergamo Province (about 40 km East of Milan). In order to reconstruct aspects of the demographic and health status of this Lombard population, macroscopic (morphological, metric and radiographic) and microscopic analyses were performed on over 400 skeletons for the assessments of sex (cranial and pelvic morphology, metrics), age (subadults: dental and bone development; adults: mainly pubic symphysis, auricular surface of the ilium, 4th rib) and stature, for the determination of ancestry and the identification of pathologies. Results proved the sample to be heterogeneous with males, females, adults and subadults. The sample seemed to be composed of several groups, including individuals with northern or eastern (Uralic) European features and, on the other hand, individuals with central European or Mediterranean characteristics. The first may be indicative of migrations of Lombards (suggested by tall stature estimates); the second could be considered autochthonous, bearing features more typical of northern Italian populations. Among palaeopathological finds, the study showed the presence of tuberculosis, gout, DISH and degenerative pathologies particularly on the pelvis and spinal column. The population of Bolgare constitutes one of the main sources of anthropological data on Lombards in Italy.

Entheseal changes and sexual division of labor in a North-African population: The case of the pre-Hispanic period of the Gran Canaria Island (11th-15th c. CE).

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between entheseal changes and sexual division of labor in the pre-Hispanic population of Gran Canaria Island (Spain). Ethnohistorical records from the period of contact between Europeans and the Canarian indigenous population provide rich information about the different activities performed by men and women. For this purpose, entheseal changes in a sample of 138 individuals (82 males and 56 females) buried in ten pre-Hispanic cemeteries (11th and 15th centuries cal. CE) were analyzed. Forty-one entheses located in the clavicle, humerus, ulna and radius were analyzed (fibrous and fibro-cartilaginous attachment sites). Entheses were graded using a visual and descriptive standard which summarized the entheseal changes. This method interprets the changes as a sign of robustness on a scale from low to high development and includes enthesopathies. The intra- and inter-observer error of this method was minimal. Sex differences in the degree of robustness, bilateral asymmetry, sexual dimorphism and principal components analyses were tested in this sample. The results indicate significant variance in the entheseal robustness between males and females. They also suggest the impact of certain biomechanical chains (pronosupination, shoulder rotation, etc.) in entheseal changes. These results contribute to an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the sexual division of labor in the pre-Hispanic society of Gran Canaria.

Insights from paleomicrobiology into the indigenous peoples of pre-colonial America - a review.

This review investigates ancient infectious diseases in the Americas dated to the pre-colonial period and considers what these findings can tell us about the history of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It gives an overview, but focuses on four microbial pathogens from this period: Helicobacter pylori, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Trypanosoma cruzi and Coccidioides immitis, which cause stomach ulceration and gastric cancer, tuberculosis, Chagas disease and valley fever, respectively. These pathogens were selected as H. pylori can give insight into ancient human migrations into the Americas, M. tuberculosis is associated with population density and urban development, T. cruzi can elucidate human living conditions and C. immitis can indicate agricultural development. A range of methods are used to diagnose infectious disease in ancient human remains, with DNA analysis by polymerase chain reaction one of the most reliable, provided strict precautions are taken against cross contamination. The review concludes with a brief summary of the changes that took place after European exploration and colonisation.

Insights from paleomicrobiology into the indigenous peoples of pre-colonial America - A Review

This review investigates ancient infectious diseases in the Americas dated to the pre-colonial period and considers what these findings can tell us about the history of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It gives an overview, but focuses on four microbial pathogens from this period: Helicobacter pylori, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Trypanosoma cruzi and Coccidioides immitis, which cause stomach ulceration and gastric cancer, tuberculosis, Chagas disease and valley fever, respectively. These pathogens were selected as H. pylori can give insight into ancient human migrations into the Americas, M. tuberculosis is associated with population density and urban development, T. cruzi can elucidate human living conditions and C. immitis can indicate agricultural development. A range of methods are used to diagnose infectious disease in ancient human remains, with DNA analysis by polymerase chain reaction one of the most reliable, provided strict precautions are taken against cross contamination. The review concludes with a brief summary of the changes that took place after European exploration and colonisation.