Early Levallois technology and the Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition in the Southern Caucasus.

The Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition (~400,000 to 200,000 years ago) is marked by technical, behavioral, and anatomical changes among hominin populations throughout Africa and Eurasia. The replacement of bifacial stone tools, such as handaxes, by tools made on flakes detached from Levallois cores documents the most important conceptual shift in stone tool production strategies since the advent of bifacial technology more than one million years earlier and has been argued to result from the expansion of archaic Homo sapiens out of Africa. Our data from Nor Geghi 1, Armenia, record the earliest synchronic use of bifacial and Levallois technology outside Africa and are consistent with the hypothesis that this transition occurred independently within geographically dispersed, technologically precocious hominin populations with a shared technological ancestry.

The Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition: dating, stratigraphy, and isochronous markers.

Accurate and precise dating is vital to our understanding of the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. There are, however, a number of uncertainties in the chronologies currently available for this period. We attempt to examine these uncertainties by utilizing a number of recent developments in the field. These include: the precise dating of the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) tephra by 40Ar/39Ar; the tracing of this tephra to a number of deposits that are radiocarbon dated; the publication of revised radiocarbon calibration data for the period, showing a much better convergence with other available data than during the recent IntCal comparison; and a layer-counted ice-core chronology extending beyond 40,000cal BP. Our data comparisons suggest that a reasonable overall convergence between calibrated radiocarbon ages and calendar dates is possible using the new curves. Additionally, we suggest that charcoal-based radiocarbon ages, as well as bone-based radiocarbon determinations, require cautious interpretation in this period. Potentially, these issues extend far beyond the sites in this study and should be of serious concern to archaeologists studying the Middle to Upper Paleolithic. We conclude by outlining a strategy for moving the science forward by a closer integration of archaeology, chronology, and stratigraphy.

The effects upon helping behaviour of wearing pro-gay identification.

Shoppers were approached either by an ostensibly pro-gay person, wearing a tee-shirt bearing a pro-gay slogan, or by a person wearing an unmarked tee-shirt, asking for change of a pound. Help was less likely to be given to the ostensibly pro-gay person. This effect was not attenuated when the request was justified by a socially acceptable reason for needing change (although, overall, help was more likely to be given when requests were so justified). There were no effects of the sex of the subject or the sex of the person asking for change; nor were there any interactions involving those variables. The results suggest that the negative attitudes towards homosexuals reported in other studies have clear behavioural correlates and that 'homophobia' may be widespread in the general population.