scholarly journals Dialectometry and Genetic Demography of Cystic Fibrosis. When Results Converge: The Case of Western Brittany

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 63-104
Author(s):  
Nadine Pellen ◽  
◽  
Tanguy Solliec ◽  

This article was born out of two separate approaches carried out independently of one another. The first dealt with genetic demography and the second with variational linguistics, aiming to study the population and language of Brittany from a certain perspective. In their recent study of the genetic history of France, Saint Pierre et al. show that Brittany “is substantially closer to the population from north-west Europe than to the north of France, in spite of both being equally geographically close” (2020: 863). They propose that the Bretons’ earliest ancestors could be the descendants of early Neolithic pastoralist nomads from the Steppes (SP) who would have arrived in Brittany (i.e. the ‘NW cluster’) via north-western Europe. The second hypothesis would support the idea of a more recent migration from northern Europe with high SP proportion, i.e., Celtic and/or Anglo-Saxon. Our initial hypothesis is that the convergences in linguistics and genetics may be explained by a unique historical event, namely, the Brittonic settlement of the Armorican peninsula from the 4th through at least the 7th centuries and perhaps as late as the 8th century. The application of linguistic distance measurements in the study of vernacular Breton varieties by means of a dialectometric analysis made it possible to observe clear correspondences between levels of linguistic similarity and the distribution of the genetic pools linked to cystic fibrosis. The convergence of our collective findings is most clearly manifested in the radical opposition of the north-western and the south-eastern zones of Breton-speaking Brittany in terms of the linguistic and genetic data. In our view, the scientific approach inherent to genetic and dialectometric research and the concordance of these data appear to not only reinforce many of the hypotheses advanced previously but to open new avenues for future research.

Author(s):  
Anne Haour

This chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the comparison of rulers, warriors, traders, and clerics on the central Sahel and the North Sea region. It argues that there was more similarity between north-western Europe and the central Sahel in the few centuries either side of AD 1001 than has hitherto been recognised, and maintains that the nature of the sources has obscured these formative times and left them in the shadow of organised structures. It discusses the interconnectedness of central Sahel and north-west Europe through contacts and shared pre-industrial nature.


2014 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
pp. 153-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Pickvance

The St Mary Magdalen chest is striking because of its carved facade and has attracted the attention of historians over the last century. There has been debate about its age, culminating in the recent suggestion that it either dates to the fourteenth century or is a later copy. This paper makes a detailed study of all the elements of the chest, constructional and decorative, and compares them with features of related medieval chests in England and Continental north-western Europe. It concludes that the chest has gone through a major reconstruction involving replaced front stiles but that it shares at least four features with chests in north Germany and Sweden dating from around 1320–30 that are not found in English chests, suggesting that it is an imported chest or was made by craftsmen working in that tradition. Numerous areas for future research into the features of English and Continental medieval chests are identified.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Sadi Maréchal

This article examines how villa baths in the north-western Roman empire can help us understand how rural regions were incorporated in the Roman cultural sphere despite the absence of cities and secondary agglomerations. Whereas in the first phase of Roman rule the addition of private baths to a villa could be interpreted as a marker of a Roman way of life, the ever larger and more luxurious bathhouses of the second and third centuries ad can only be understood in the context of intra-elite competition, revealing a real concern for displaying wealth and underlining social status, but also for leaving a family legacy. Here, a case-study in the rural north-west examines the role of baths in the self-representation of elites, the consolidation of elite peer interaction networks, the creation of social exclusion, and the inclusion of new ideas into local cultures.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Lambert ◽  
A. Penaud ◽  
M. Vidal ◽  
C. Gandini ◽  
L. Labeyrie ◽  
...  

AbstractThe Holocene period (last 11,700 years BP) has been marked by significant climate variability over decadal to millennial timescales. The underlying mechanisms are still being debated, despite ocean–atmosphere–land connections put forward in many paleo-studies. Among the main drivers, involving a cluster of spectral signatures and shaping the climate of north-western Europe, are solar activity, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) varying atmospheric regimes and North Atlantic oceanic gyre dynamics. Over the last 2500 years BP, paleo-environmental signals have been strongly affected by anthropogenic activities through deforestation and land use for crops, grazing, habitations, or access to resources. Palynological proxies (especially pollen grains and marine or freshwater microalgae) help to highlight such anthropogenic imprints over natural variability. Palynological analyses conducted in a macro-estuarine sedimentary environment of north-western France over the last 2500 years BP reveal a huge and atypical 300 year-long arboreal increase between 1700 and 1400 years BP (around 250 and 550 years AD) that we refer to as the ‘1.7–1.4 ka Arboreal Pollen rise event’ or ‘1.7–1.4 ka AP event’. Interestingly, the climatic 1700–1200 years BP interval coincides with evidence for the withdrawal of coastal societies in Brittany (NW France), in an unfavourable socio-economic context. We suggest that subpolar North Atlantic gyre strengthening and related increasing recurrence of storminess extremes may have affected long-term coastal anthropogenic trajectories resulting in a local collapse of coastal agrarian societies, partly forced by climatic degradation at the end of the Roman Period.


2020 ◽  
pp. 250-266
Author(s):  
Jonathan Scott

This chapter studies cultural invention in light of the North-Western European cultural movement called Enlightenment. Enlightenment refers, in the first place, to a description by European intellectuals of what they took to be an advanced present state of moral and natural knowledge by comparison to that of the ancients. With related self-confidence, in the heyday of their empires, some described their culture as possessed of a dynamic modernity to be distinguished from the ‘oriental' lethargy and backwardness existing elsewhere. Yet Enlightenment also originated as European self-criticism. One context for that was the comparative perspective acquired by discovery of non-European cultures. In this and in other ways the origin of Enlightenment, including its ‘conviction that progress had become unstoppable', lies in the period when Renaissance and Reformation combined with printing and natural philosophy to establish the culture of the European North-West.


AmS-Skrifter ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 133-143
Author(s):  
Aoife Daly

The precise dating and determination of the source of timbers in shipwrecks found around the coasts of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, through dendrochronology allows us to see connections between north and  south, east and west throughout the region and to a high chronological precision. In this paper we take a look at results of recent analyses of timber from ships, and timber and barrel cargoes, to try to draw a chronological picture, from the twelfth to seventeenth centuries, of links between regions, through transport in oak ships and trade of timber. Archaeological finds of oak from timber cargos in shipwrecks and fine art objects (painted panels and sculpture) show the extent to which timber was shipped from Hanseatic towns along the southern Baltic coast, to western and north-western Europe.


Author(s):  
A.Yu. Ozerov ◽  
◽  
O.A. Girina, ◽  
D.V. Melnikov, ◽  
I.A. Nuzhdaev ◽  
...  

February 18, 2021, a flank eruption started on the north-western slope of the Klyuchevskoy Volcano (Kamchatka, Russia). Cinder cone was formed at the altitude of 2 850 m above sea level, from which a lava flow was spreading north-west. Having moved 1.2 km downslope, the lava flow entered the Ehrmann Glacier, which resulted in the formation of huge mud-stone flows. The latter made their way further north-east along the Kruten’kaya River bed and reached the length of about 30 km. The eruption brought onto the surface high-aluminous basaltic andesites typical of the Klyuchevskoy Volcano. By March 21, the flank eruption ended. It has been named after G.S. Gorshkov, associate member of USSR Academy of Science, famous Russian volcanologist.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-72
Author(s):  
Boris I. Chibisov

Introduction. History of the North-West area of Novgorod land at the end of the XV century attracted the attention of researchers mainly in the socio-economic aspect. This is due to the fact that Novgorod scribal books are dated by the end of the XV century. From the standpoint of socio-economic history their value is not in doubt, but from an ethno-historical point their onomastic content is underestimated. Materials and methods. The main source of research was the scribe book of the Vodskaya Pyatina 1499/1500. The descriptive method of research is to identify and record the Baltic-Finnish oikonyms (names of rural settlements) and anthroponyms mentioned in the scribe books. Baltic-Finnish anthroponyms are identified on the basis of an analysis of formal indicators of borrowing the anthroponyms. Results and Discussion. There are several areas where the Baltic-Finnish oikonymy and anthroponymy were concentrated, namely Korboselsky graveyard in the northern Prinevye, Lopsky and Terebuzhsky graveyards in the southern Ladoga, as well as Dudorovsky and Izhora graveyards south of the Neva. Archaeological sources record a significant presence of the Izhora antiquities. The presence of Karelians is noted in the northern Prievye and southern Ladoga. Slavic onomastic materials are recorded throughout Orekhovsky and Ladoga counties, but to mostly in the cities of Oreshka, Ladoga and their nearest areas. Conclusion. By the end of the XV century the north-western graveyards of Novgorod land were inhabited by representatives of various ethnic groups: Slavs, Vodians, Izhora and Karelians, as evidenced by the data of anthroponyms and toponyms of the scribe’s books and confirmed by archaeological sources.


2015 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 51-59
Author(s):  
Вера [Vera] Астрэйка [Astrėĭka]

The Baltic elements in the grammar of traditional local dialects of north-western BelarusThe article analyzes a number of grammatical features typical for the North-West dialect zone of the Belarusian language. These peculiarities are interpreted as a possible result of Slavic-Baltic contacts in the region. Some phenomena can be explained as a Baltic (mainly (great)Lithuanian) substratum in North-West Belarusian dialects.The factor of areal neighborhood has to be taken into consideration too. Such phenomenon as language support has effect just in connection with the last one. A lot of the appropriate lingual facts are in restricted and inconsistent use. However, it is possible to be said about more or less significant (now or/and before) tendencies of regional lingual development. These tendencies has not got the status of a structural (= constitutional) lingual regularity. As a rule the wide and compact areas are characterized of some lingual facts (= lexemes), which illustrate the given transformations in the system of Belarusian dialects. Baltic influence upon the North-West Belarusian dialects grammar is detected on as the formal level so the structural one. And it is not noticeable at all times. The definite changes in the sphere of morphology and syntax can provoke different modifications in the other parts of a language system (word building, semantics). The results of this process are the evidences of ethnic and language assimilation of native Balts by Slavs in the region. That comes in support of forming the singular North-West Belarusian regiolect (= the regionally marked variety of a dialect language). Балтийские грамматические элементы в говорах северо-западной БеларусиВ статье анализируется ряд грамматических черт, характерных для говоров северо-западной диалектной зоны беларусского языка. Эти особенности квалифицируются автором как весьма вероятное следствие славяно-балтского языкового взаимодействия в соответствующем регионе. Отдельные явления есть основания рассматривать в качестве возможного проявления балтского (главным образом (пра-) литовского) субстрата в северо-западных беларусских говорах. Фактор ареальной смежности здесь также должен быть принят во внимание. В связи с последним следует упомянуть и действие феномена языковой поддержки. Многие соответствующие языковые факты имеют существенные ограничения в употреблении, в говорах выступают не всегда последовательно и регулярно. В некоторых случаях, однако, можно говорить о действии более или менее выраженных (в настоящем и/или прошлом) тенденций регионального языкового развития, которые пока не приобрели статус структурно значимой (= конститутивной) языковой закономерности. Широкие и компактные ареалы образуют, как правило, лишь отдельные языковые факты (= лексемы), иллюстрирующие данные трансформации в системе традиционных беларусских говоров. Балтское влияние на грамматический строй беларусских говоров северо-западной диалектной зоны выявляется как в плане формального выражения, так и на внутриструктурном уровне. Оно не всегда может быть заметно на первый взгляд. Определенные сдвиги в сфере морфологии и синтаксиса могут повлечь за собой изменения в других областях языковой системы (словообразовании, семантике). Результаты этого процесса являются ярким свидетельством того, что на отмеченной территории действительно имела место этноязыковая ассимиляция неславянского (= балтского) населения и происхо- дило формирование своеобразного северо-западного беларусского региолекта (= регионально обусловленной разновидности диалектной речи).


Author(s):  
Carlo Bottaini ◽  
Ignacio Montero-Ruiz ◽  
Susana Lopes ◽  
Lídia Baptista ◽  
Sérgio Gomes ◽  
...  

This paper deals with the preliminary results of the typological and analytical study of a collection of copper-based objects found at the site of Castelo Velho (Freixo de Numão). This collection is associated to different contexts from the 3rd millennium BC (Chalcolithic). The analyses, performed by non-destructive X-ray fluorescence (XRF), show that the metals were produced with almost pure copper and arsenical copper (> 2% As). Impurities, such as As (<2%), Fe, Bi, Ag, Sn, Sb and Ni, were also identified, likely due to their presence in the ores used for the production of the objects. The data suggest that the metals from Castelo Velho may be framed within the metallurgical production already known for the Chalcolithic of the North-Western Iberian Peninsula.


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