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High-resolution geophysical evidence on the seafloor morphology and acoustic stratigraphy of the Yermak Plateau and northern Svalbard margin between 79°20′ and 81°30′N and 5° and 22°E is presented. Geophysical datasets are derived from swath bathymetry and sub-bottom acoustic profiling and are combined with existing cores to derive chronological control. Seafloor landforms, in the form of ice-produced lineations, iceberg ploughmarks of various dimensions (including features over 80 m deep and down to about 1000 m), and a moat indicating strong currents are found. The shallow stratigraphy of the Yermak Plateau shows three acoustic units: the first with well-developed stratification produced by hemipelagic sedimentation, often draped over a strong and undulating internal reflector; a second with an undulating upper surface and little acoustic penetration, indicative of the action of ice; a third unit of an acoustically transparent facies, resulting from debris flows. Core chronology suggests a MIS 6 age for the undulating seafloor above about 580 m. There are several possible explanations, including: (a) the flow of a major grounded ice sheet across the plateau crest from Svalbard (least likely given the consolidation state of the underlying sediments); (b) the more transient encroachment of relatively thin ice from Svalbard; or (c) the drift across the plateau of an ice-shelf remnant or megaberg from the Arctic Basin. The latter is our favoured explanation given the evidence currently at our disposal.

Southern Africa was likely exclusively inhabited by San hunter-gatherers before ~2000 years ago. Around that time, East African groups assimilated with local San groups and gave rise to the Khoekhoe herders. Subsequently, Bantu-speaking farmers, arriving from the north (~1800 years ago), assimilated and displaced San and Khoekhoe groups, a process that intensified with the arrival of European colonists ~350 years ago. In contrast to the western parts of southern Africa, where several Khoe-San groups still live today, the eastern parts are largely populated by Bantu speakers and individuals of non-African descent. Only a few scattered groups with oral traditions of Khoe-San ancestry remain. Advances in genetic research open up new ways to understand the population history of southeastern Africa. We investigate the genomic variation of the remaining individuals from two South African groups with oral histories connecting them to eastern San groups, i.e., the San from Lake Chrissie and the Duma San of the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg. Using ~2.2 million genetic markers, combined with comparative published data sets, we show that the Lake Chrissie San have genetic ancestry from both Khoe-San (likely the ||Xegwi San) and Bantu speakers. Specifically, we found that the Lake Chrissie San are closely related to the current southern San groups (i.e., the Karretjie people). Duma San individuals, on the other hand, were genetically similar to southeastern Bantu speakers from South Africa. This study illustrates how genetic tools can be used to assess hypotheses about the ancestry of people who seemingly lost their historic roots, only recalling a vague oral tradition of their origin. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00439-016-1729-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

AbstractThousands of Roma were killed in Ukraine by the Nazis and auxiliary police on the spot. There are more than 50,000 Roma in today’s Ukraine, represented by second and third generation decendants of the genocide survivors. The discussion on Roma identity cannot be isolated from the memory of the genocide, which makes the struggle over the past a reflexive landmark that mobilizes the Roma movement. About twenty Roma genocide memorials have been erected in Ukraine during last decade, and in 2016 the national memorial of the Roma genocide was opened in Babi Yar. However, scholars do not have a clear picture of memory narratives and memory practices of the Roma genocide in Ukraine. A comprehensive analysis of the contemporary situation is not possible without an examination of the history and memory of the Roma genocide before 1991.

‘Public health’ investigates the determinants of health, born during the Enlightenment in the seventeenth/eighteenth century. But ‘public health’ is also policies, aiming at the improvement of a population’s health. There is a mutual interchange between public health as science and as politics. A brief historical background is followed by an analysis of the impacts of political changes during the first two decades of the twenty first century in Sweden. In 2005, a policy document accepted by all political parties except for the Moderate Party highlighted socio-economic factors and structural reforms to decrease the health gaps in the population. The general election in September 2006 resulted in a new majority in the parliament and a center-right coalition government, including the Moderates and three parties that had approved of the 2005 document. In 2007 a “new public health policy” was introduced. Its priority lists stressed individual behavior and the new policy should be incentives to work instead of “allowances”. The Public Health Institute got instructions in accordance with the new policy. The ten years following this policy change has seen public health policies and attitudes to research shifting almost year by year. The new policy met a counter-stream from the very beginning. Influenced by Michael Marmot’s WHO Commission on health inequalities, regional commissions started in Sweden, Recommendations how to decrease social health gaps was adopted with almost no opposition by regional health boards in 2012–2013. But new problems were now occupying politicians and media—how to finance the growth of the old, multi-sick part of the population and increasing costs for new medical technologies and drugs. Public health as an academic discipline was in the middle of this fluctuating political landscape with direct effects on what has been considered worth listening to or support by public money.

It is often difficult to determine when war turns into peace. Peace is not estab- lished at an exact moment, but grows gradually out of a state of war. In times of peace, preparation for war can be so extensive that peace differs only marginally from war. Hence, the concept of war needs to be refined. The situation on the Åland Islands in the period 1808-1856 shows how the transition from peace to war was not an absolute phenomenon. In 1809, the islands were transferred from Sweden to Russia. To the islanders, the most noticeable consequence of their al- tered status was the annual quartering of Russian soldiers in their homes. At times, Russian troops were quartered in as many as 60 percent of the households on the islands. Soldiers stayed for months, sometimes for as long as ten months in a year. The quartering of soldiers never led to serious confrontations, but a bal- anced relationship could be maintained between the Russian military and the Ålanders. The islanders supplied the military with fuel and transports. The con- struction of the fortress at Bomarsund affected the islanders only indirectly, however. With the outbreak of the Crimean War the Ålanders were placed in a difficult situation. French and British troops captured and destroyed Fort Bomar- sund in the summer of 1854. The constitutional status of the islands was uncertain and the islanders suffered a crisis of loyalty. In 1856, Åland was demilitarised.

SEAD - The Strategic Environmental Archaeology Database

The aim of this paper is to revise a standard narrative about governance of the Swedish school system in the period of 1910-1908. According to this narrative, the Swedish school system was centralized during this period. However, this narrative does not fit the history of Swedish mathematics education (years 7-9). The research questions are: where in the school system was change initiated and how was change enforced? On the basis of studies of syllabi, textbooks, teaching literature, teacher journals and reports from investigations and development projects, different modes of governance of school mathematics are identified. The main results are that textbook producers rather than national syllabi and exams were drivers of change in the period 1910-1960. Moreover, the centralized attempts to change school mathematics, prepared in the 1960s, were soon abandoned in the early 1970s. Thus, centralized governance of Swedish school mathematics, with the ambition to achieve change, was something that took effect relatively late and during a very short period of time.

During a spectacular excavation in 1921 at the Norse farm of Herjolfsnes (Ikigaat) on the southern tip of Greenland, Poul Nørlund found 58 wooden crosses of drift­wood in the graves at the site. These vary in size from c. 10 to 70 cm. Since then, more crosses have been found in other churchyards, as well as a few in a more “profane” context in dwellings. Nearly all of these crosses are quite simple. But six of them are more elaborately carved with specific traits, which enable closer comparison with prototypes from Europe. Four crosses have Doric capital ends, which must be derived from the design of German and English crosses dating to the beginning of the 11th century and spread to Scandinavia in the 12th century. A regular crucifixion group (Calvary) has English and Norwegian antecedents dating to the mid-13th century, and a panel crucifix displays elements from a period as long c. 1200–1350, suggesting extreme lateness in style. There is nothing to stop us assuming that dissemination of influences essentially occurred through Nor­way and perhaps Iceland. Several stylistic traits, such as the Doric capitals, acanthus leaf and classical drapery, can be traced all the way back to classical anti­quity and represent their earliest occurrence in the western hemisphere. https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-429323