Surprisingly rapid growth in Neanderthals

Life-history traits correlate closely with dental growth, so differences in dental growth within Homo can enable us to determine how somatic development has evolved and to identify developmental shifts that warrant species-level distinctions. Dental growth can be determined from the speed of enamel formation (or extension rate). We analysed the enamel extension rate in Homo antecessor (8 teeth analysed), Homo heidelbergensis (106), Homo neanderthalensis ('Neanderthals'; 146) and Upper Palaeolithic-Mesolithic Homo sapiens (100). Here we report that Upper Palaeolithic-Mesolithic H. sapiens shared an identical dental development pattern with modern humans, but that H. antecessor and H. heidelbergensis had shorter periods of dental growth. Surprisingly, Neanderthals were characterized by having the shortest period of dental growth. Because dental growth is an excellent indicator of somatic development, our results suggest that Neanderthals developed faster even than their immediate ancestor, H. heidelbergensis. Dental growth became longer and brain size increased from the Plio-Pleistocene in hominid evolution. Neanderthals, despite having a large brain, were characterized by a short period of development. This autapomorphy in growth is an evolutionary reversal, and points strongly to a specific distinction between H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis.     

Synchronous drying and cooling in central Asia during late Oligocene

Aridification of central Asia during late Oligocene and Early Miocene has been documented by numerous eolian records from the North Pacific and central Asia. However, direct evidence of aridity from the interior of the arid zone is still rather scarce. To better reconstruct the climate history in central Asia during the late Oligocene, we have analyzed ostracod assemblages and gypsum content in the sediments from the lacustrine Jingou River section in the northern Tianshan Mountains. Our results show that the cold water species Candona cf. Neglecta and Pseudocandona albicans replaced the warm water species Ilyocypris bradyi and Ilyocypris sp. to become the dominant species at 23.8 Ma, indicating significant cooling in central Asia at that time. At the same time, a substantial increase in gypsum content indicates the intensification of central Asian drying. The synchronous cooling and drying approximately coincided with the Oi2b.1 and/or Mi1 events, implying a causal linkage between late Oligocene global cooling and central Asian aridity.     

Placing late Neanderthals in a climatic context

Attempts to place Palaeolithic finds within a precise climatic framework are complicated by both uncertainty over the radiocarbon calibration beyond about 21,500 14C years bp and the absence of a master calendar chronology for climate events from reference archives such as Greenland ice cores or speleothems. Here we present an alternative approach, in which 14C dates of interest are mapped directly onto the palaeoclimate record of the Cariaco Basin by means of its 14C series, circumventing calendar age model and correlation uncertainties, and placing dated events in the millennial-scale climate context of the last glacial period. This is applied to different sets of dates from levels with Mousterian artefacts, presumably produced by late Neanderthals, from Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar: first, generally accepted estimates of about 32,000 14C years bp for the uppermost Mousterian levels; second, a possible extended Middle Palaeolithic occupation until about 28,000 14C years bp; and third, more contentious evidence for persistence until about 24,000 14C years bp. This study shows that the three sets translate to different scenarios on the role of climate in Neanderthal extinction. The first two correspond to intervals of general climatic instability between stadials and interstadials that characterized most of the Middle Pleniglacial and are not coeval with Heinrich Events. In contrast, if accepted, the youngest date indicates that late Neanderthals may have persisted up to the onset of a major environmental shift, which included an expansion in global ice volume and an increased latitudinal temperature gradient. More generally, our radiocarbon climatostratigraphic approach can be applied to any 'snapshot' date from discontinuous records in a variety of deposits and can become a powerful tool in evaluating the climatic signature of critical intervals in Late Pleistocene human evolution.     

Neanderthals and the modern human colonization of Europe

The fate of the Neanderthal populations of Europe and western Asia has gripped the popular and scientific imaginations for the past century. Following at least 200,000 years of successful adaptation to the glacial climates of northwestern Eurasia, they disappeared abruptly between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago, to be replaced by populations all but identical to modern humans. Recent research suggests that the roots of this dramatic population replacement can be traced far back to events on another continent, with the appearance of distinctively modern human remains and artefacts in eastern and southern Africa.     

亚洲中部干旱区水环境变迁及其生态环境效应

亚洲中部干旱区包括中亚的成海流域和我国西北内陆干旱区。二者不但在自然环境条件非常相似，而且自古以来在政治、经济、文化上都有着密切的联系。自20世纪50年代以来，该区内各国展开了大规模的水土资源开发活动，对生态环境造成了严重的影响：湖泊萎缩，河流断流，水质恶化，土地荒漠化加剧，生态多样性减少等等。本文对上述现象及其对该区域社会经济发展和人们的生存环境所产生的严重威胁首次进行了较为系统、深入的分析总结，并提出了改善该区域生态环境现状的具体措施。     

Late survival of Neanderthals at the southernmost extreme of Europe

The late survival of archaic hominin populations and their long contemporaneity with modern humans is now clear for southeast Asia. In Europe the extinction of the Neanderthals, firmly associated with Mousterian technology, has received much attention, and evidence of their survival after 35 kyr bp has recently been put in doubt. Here we present data, based on a high-resolution record of human occupation from Gorham's Cave, Gibraltar, that establish the survival of a population of Neanderthals to 28 kyr bp. These Neanderthals survived in the southernmost point of Europe, within a particular physiographic context, and are the last currently recorded anywhere. Our results show that the Neanderthals survived in isolated refuges well after the arrival of modern humans in Europe.     

东亚季风的活动规律及其与南亚季风的区别

讨论了东亚季风活动的一般特征、东亚季风的变异性及其原因探讨的途径、东亚季风和南亚季风的区别。     

Numerical simulation of Urumqi Glacier No. 1 in the eastern Tianshan, central Asia from 2005 to 2070

Due to climate changes, most of the alpine glaciers have retreated dramatically during the past decades. Thus it is significant to predict the alpine glacier variability in the future for a better understanding of the impact of climate changes on water resource. In this paper, we perform the numerical simulation on Urumqi Glacier No.1 in the eastern Tianshan, central Asia (hereafter Glacier No.1 for short) by considering both the mass balance and ice flow. Given the shape of the Glacier No.1, the velocity of the glacier is obtained by solving a two-dimensional nonlinear Stokes equation and simulated result is in agreement with the observation. In order to predict the variability of Glacier No.1 in the next decades, a climatic scenario is constructed with a temperature rise rate as 0.17°C/10 a and precipitation as constant during the period of 2005-2070. The simulation shows that, the glacier terminus will retreat slowly and the glacier will thin dramatically before 2040, while after year 2040, the glacier terminus retreat will accelerate. This study confirms the increasing retreat rate of alpine glaciers under global warming.     

Muted climate variations in continental Siberia during the mid-Pleistocene epoch

The large difference in carbon and oxygen isotope data from the marine record between marine oxygen isotope stage 12 (MIS 12) and MIS 11, spanning the interval between about 480 and 380 kyr ago, has been interpreted as a transition between an extremely cold glacial period and an unusually warm interglacial period, with consequences for global ice volume, sea level and the global carbon cycle. The extent of the change is intriguing, because orbital forcing is predicted to have been relatively weak at that time. Here we analyse a continuous sediment record from Lake Baikal, Siberia, which reveals a virtually continuous interglacial diatom assemblage, a stable littoral benthic diatom assemblage and lithogenic sediments with 'interglacial' characteristics for the period from MIS 15a to MIS 11 (from about 580 to 380 kyr ago). From these data, we infer significantly weaker climate contrasts between MIS 12 and 11 than during more recent glacial-interglacial transitions in the late Pleistocene epoch (about 130 to 10 kyr ago). For the period from MIS 15a to MIS 11, we also infer an apparent lack of extensive mountain glaciation.     

中亚地区的伊斯兰化进程及其特点

公元7世纪后期，伊斯兰教随着阿拉伯人占据呼罗珊而传入今中亚南部地区，并由南而北，以战争、商贸和传教士等形式在一千余年的时间里经历了五个发展阶段后，最终普及中亚。伊斯兰教在中亚的传播过程中，表现出极大的灵活性和对当地社会、民族及原有化很强的适应性。     

伊斯兰教对南亚及东南亚五国教育的影响

伊斯兰教大约从公元8世纪开始进入南亚次大陆，约从公元13世纪末开始传入南洋群岛。伊斯兰教对印度、巴基斯坦、孟加拉、鳊尼西亚和马来西亚等五国近、现代教育的影响非常明显。伊斯兰教组织在这五国强调宗教教育的同时，客观上也促进了这些国家国民教育的发展。     

Activation of old carbon by erosion of coastal and subsea permafrost in Arctic Siberia

The future trajectory of greenhouse gas concentrations depends on interactions between climate and the biogeosphere. Thawing of Arctic permafrost could release significant amounts of carbon into the atmosphere in this century. Ancient Ice Complex deposits outcropping along the ~7,000-kilometre-long coastline of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), and associated shallow subsea permafrost, are two large pools of permafrost carbon, yet their vulnerabilities towards thawing and decomposition are largely unknown. Recent Arctic warming is stronger than has been predicted by several degrees, and is particularly pronounced over the coastal ESAS region. There is thus a pressing need to improve our understanding of the links between permafrost carbon and climate in this relatively inaccessible region. Here we show that extensive release of carbon from these Ice Complex deposits dominates (57?±?2 per cent) the sedimentary carbon budget of the ESAS, the world’s largest continental shelf, overwhelming the marine and topsoil terrestrial components. Inverse modelling of the dual-carbon isotope composition of organic carbon accumulating in ESAS surface sediments, using Monte Carlo simulations to account for uncertainties, suggests that 44?±?10 teragrams of old carbon is activated annually from Ice Complex permafrost, an order of magnitude more than has been suggested by previous studies. We estimate that about two-thirds (66?±?16 per cent) of this old carbon escapes to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, with the remainder being re-buried in shelf sediments. Thermal collapse and erosion of these carbon-rich Pleistocene coastline and seafloor deposits may accelerate with Arctic amplification of climate warming.     

宗教极端主义与中亚一体化

独立后的中亚国家一方面致力于各自国家的建设,另一方面又面临着诸多共同的矛盾与问题,其解决亟须加强各国的对话与合作.中亚一体化逐渐被提上议事日程.然而,宗教极端主义的甚嚣尘上,严重威胁了地区安全与稳定,也将阻碍中亚一体化的协调发展.加强各国在经济、政治和安全等方面的紧密合作成为各国的必然选择.     

相互依存与亚太地区的国家间合作

相互依存使亚太地区国家的共同利益不断增长，然而各个国家的个别利益并没有消失。基于此。亚太地区的国家间合作存在着无条件合作、竞争性合作和被动式协调三个层次和自助、政策协调和制度化安排三种类型。而正确地认识与维护国家利益以及完善制度化的安排将促进和巩固亚太地区的国家间合作。