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International audience; The role of seasonality is indisputable in climate and ecosystem dynamics. Seasonal temperature and precipitation variability are of vital importance for the availability of food, water, shelter, migration routes, and raw materials. Thus, understanding past climatic and environmental changes at seasonal scale is equally important for unearthing the history and for predicting the future of human societies under global warming scenarios. Alas, in palaeoenvironmental research, the term ‘seasonality change’ is often used liberally without scrutiny or explanation as to which seasonal parameter has changed and how. Here we provide fundamentals of climate seasonality and break it down into external (insolation changes) and internal (atmospheric CO2 concentration) forcing, and regional and local and modulating factors (continentality, altitude, large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns). Further, we present a brief overview of the archives with potentially annual/seasonal resolution (historical and instrumental records, marine invertebrate growth increments, stalagmites, tree rings, lake sediments, permafrost, cave ice, and ice cores) and discuss archive-specific challenges and opportunities, and how these limit or foster the use of specific archives in archaeological research. Next, we address the need for adequate data-quality checks, involving both archive-specific nature (e.g., limited sampling resolution or seasonal sampling bias) and analytical uncertainties. To this end, we present a broad spectrum of carefully selected statistical methods which can be applied to analyze annually- and seasonally-resolved time series. We close the manuscript by proposing a framework for transparent communication of seasonality-related research across different communities.

COVID-19 mortality increases markedly with age and is also substantially higher among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) populations in the United States. These two facts can have conflicting implications because BIPOC populations are younger than white populations. In analyses of California and Minnesota—demographically divergent states—we show that COVID vaccination schedules based solely on age benefit the older white populations at the expense of younger BIPOC populations with higher risk of death from COVID-19. We find that strategies that prioritize high-risk geographic areas for vaccination at all ages better target mortality risk than age-based strategies alone, although they do not always perform as well as direct prioritization of high-risk racial/ethnic groups. Vaccination schemas directly implicate equitability of access, both domestically and globally.

International audience; The early phases of Neolithic expansion in the Central and Western Mediterranean are relatively poorly understood with regards to the diversity in the subsistence economy and the degree of interaction with indigenous hunter-gatherers. Recent analysis of pottery manufacturing techniques also points to a surprisingly diverse range of practices across the region. Here, we explore the use of pottery during the early phases of the Neolithic in the Northwestern Mediterranean, through analysis of organic residues absorbed in the pots of the Pendimoun rock-shelter (Impresso-Cardial complex) in Southeastern France. Using molecular and single-compounds stable carbon isotopes analyses, our study reveals that the majority of pots were used for processing wild or domesticated ruminant carcase fats, although lipids derived from cereals and wild non-ruminant fats, such as hares, cannot be excluded. In addition, a few of the earlier Impressa vessels showed the presence of beeswax and porcine fats. Correlations between the contents of the vessels and their volume were found, suggesting that vessels were manufactured for specific uses. Only one vessel from the Cardial phase showed evidence of dairy fats strengthening the notion that milk was not heavily or systematically exploited by the earliest Neolithic populations of the Mediterranean. Overall, however, our study calls for more detailed regional investigations to fully understand the transition to farming according to the local landscape and environmental context.

Collective memory of historical events can be transmitted across generations not only through cultural memory but also through communicative memory; that is, transmitted by people who have lived through these particular times. Yet, few studies have examined the temporal horizon of a particular type of communicative memory: family historical memories. In this article, we examine the intergenerational transmission of memories from the Second World War in families with an ancestor who resisted during the German Occupation. We interviewed 20 French‐speaking Belgian families over three generations. During these individual interviews, participants narrated an anecdote about their ancestor and the Resistance. Then, for the middle and youngest generations, we provided a short cue related to the story chosen by the oldest generation and enquired whether they could tell us the story in their own words. Memory transmission was analysed through two processes: retelling and recalling. Our main result revealed that there was a loss of details across generations, but not complete oblivion. We also found some instances of family myth transmitted across all generations. This study provides evidence that family historical memories fade away after a generation or two, even when these memories describe historical events deemed important for family and society.

Strontium isotopes (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) are used as geochemical tracers for paleomobility studies because they display predictable and stable patterns in ecosystems primarily controlled by the underlying geological regimes. While bedrock geology is stable over thousands of years, geomorphological processes can influence the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr in ecosystems over archeologically relevant timescales. Among these geomorphological processes, the deposition and reworking of volcanic sediments over Quaternary timescales are little studied but could be an important control of ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr variations in many archeological regions. North Patagonia is a key archeological region to address animal and human movements, and an ideal location to test the influence of Quaternary volcanism on ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr variation as it is located downwind of major volcanic centers. In this study, we aim to assess the main environmental and geological controls of bioavailable ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and to build a high-resolution isoscape using a machine learning regression framework for forthcoming paleomobility studies. We sampled several locations and analyzed different types of samples (N = 94). The ratios show a limited range of variation, which is not related to the bedrock geology. Rather, bioavailable ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr variations display a progressive increase going eastward (away from the Andes), following dust aerosol deposition and elevation variations (R² = 0.71, RMSE = 0.00041). We argue that this trend relates to the deposition and reworking of unradiogenic volcanic sediments by aeolian, fluvial and glacial erosion during the Quaternary. As most of this sediment reworking occurred during glacial periods, the current bioavailable ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr variations across the study area likely represent a long-term average that varied little during the Holocene. Consequently, our isoscape provides a solid base for Holocene paleomobility studies in North Patagonia and underlines the importance of Quaternary volcanism processes for interpreting ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr data in paleomobility studies in volcanic regions. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo

The two neighboring late prehistoric/protohistoric sites of Aw Gyi and Maliwan, located in the southernmost part of Myanmar in the Isthmus of Kra, yielded large quantities of glass beads and wastes. The measurement of 61 glass compositions from these sites using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry has revealed two different patterns. At Aw Gyi, a combination of potash and m-Na-Ca-Al glasses, also noticed at Arikamedu, India (1st c. BC and onward), and Phu Khao Thong, Thailand (2nd c. BC–4th c. AD), two ports facing the Bay of Bengal, suggests the existence of a “Bay of Bengal” network, active from the 2nd–1st c. BC. At Maliwan, the glass types are more diversified with some of them found generally during the 4th to 2nd c. BC period. This is in line with the radiocarbon dating of the site that shows an occupation from the 4th to the 1st c. BC. However, Maliwan has little in common in terms of glass typology with other early and contemporary sites along the Isthmus of Kra indicating that they were not part of the same network. At Aw Gyi and Maliwan, evidence would suggest bead making, but the craft areas where such an activity would have taken place remains to be found. Despite this caveat, the difference in glass composition and typology between these close-by sites draws perhaps a more complex economic and political situation than expected with different networks at early periods on the east and west side of the Isthmus of Kra.

A conserved painting removed from a Neolithic collective grave in Marne, France, provided an opportunity for radiocarbon dating to place Les Ronces Hypogeum 21 (Villevenard) into the chronology of that region. Chemical analysis with direct analysis in real time (DART) mass spectrometry, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) of samples from the painting revealed the presence of two kinds of wax (beeswax and paraffin or microcrystalline wax) that likely were added during the conservation, a drying oil like linseed oil, as well as markers of pine resin that may arise from turpentine or colophony. A new pretreatment protocol of chloroform followed by pH 8 phosphate buffer was developed, which yielded sufficient material for plasma-chemical oxidation and AMS radiocarbon dating. The radiocarbon dates place the image from Hypogeum 21 at the more recent end of the chronology that spans from the sixth to the third millennia cal BC for the Neolithic in France.