Cientistas portugueses resolvem o enigma Quem domesticou o coelho? Os monges da Provença, diz a genética

Uma noticia do Público sobre a domesticação do coelho.

Bolsa: Antropologia Biológica

Está a concurso a atribuição de uma bolsa em Antropologia Biológica com o objectivo de investigar a saúde dos adolescentes na Londres Medieval a partir de uma análise paleopatológica e análise isotópica. Os responsáveis por este projecto são a Dr.ª Mary Lewis (Universidade de Reading) e a Dr.ª Janet Montgomery (Universidade de Durham). A bolsa terá uma duração de 3 anos e é financiada pelo Leverhulme Trust.

Mais informações aqui.

Estágio em Antropologia Biológica

A Câmara Municipal da Figueira da Foz abriu concurso para a admissão de um estagiário em Antropologia Biológica. Um dos objectivos passa pelo estudo das colecções arqueológicas de restos humanos da reserva museológica da autarquia a partir de uma perspectiva biocultural.

Informações detalhadas podem ser consultadas aqui e aqui.

5º encontro internacional de antracologia

5th INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF CHARCOAL ANALYSIS
The charcoal as cultural and biological heritage

Valencia, Spain, September 5th-10th 2011

Terá as seguintes sessões:

1. Methods, taphonomy, dating
2. Wood and charcoal anatomy. Problems and solutions
3. Pedo-anthracology and Pre-Quaternary charcoal
4. Archaeological charcoal: natural or human impact on the vegetation
5. Ethnographical data of wood and charcoal use

Podem ver mais detalhes aqui.

Dendrocronologia: "2500 Years of European Climate Variability and Human Susceptibility"

Foi publicado esta semana na revista Science um artigo que, através de um estudo dendrocronológico, tenta relacionar eventos históricos bem definidos com alterações ao nível ambiental.

No Centro da Europa foi recolhida uma série de dados dendrocronológicos de origem em árvores actuais, madeira de construção e madeira fóssil que permitem fazer inferências climáticas acerca dos últimos 2500 anos assim como documentar actividades de corte de árvores. Os elementos de registo são impressionantes e frequentemente comparáveis com fontes históricas. A título de exemplo:

"A total of 87 different medieval written sources comprise 88 eyewitness accounts of regional hydroclimatic conditions (with 1-7 reports per year) resolved to the year or better, which corroborate 30 out of 32 of the extremes preserved in our oak record between AD 1013 and 1504, whereas 16 reports have been found to be contradictory."

O grande conjunto de autores deste estudo demonstram existir uma evidente correlação entre diminuição de área florestada e aumento de população. Durante a peste negra, a população diminui e a área florestada aumenta. O mesmo acontece, ainda que de forma menos marcada, no período de crise e posterior desmantelamento do Império Romano do Ocidente (250-400 DC). Este último período corresponde, segundo o registo dendrológico, a uma fase de marcada instabilidade climática e forte aumento de precipitação, o que poderá ter acelerado ou pelo menos condicionado a crise socio-económica verificada na região. Por outro lado, fases historicamente tidas como de apogeu ao nível socio-económico, tais como a fase imperial romana e a Idade Média, apresentam um registo paleoambiental oposto:

"Average precipitation and temperature showed fewer fluctuations during the ~AD 1000-1200 period of peak medieval demographic and economic growth."

Em suma, "agrarian wealth and overall economic growth might be related to climate change on high- to mid-frequency (inter-annual to decadal) time-scales." Saliento o potencial dos estudos dendrocronológicos para as abordagens paleoclimáticas e, de um modo geral, paleoambientais. A possibilidade de fazer inferências numa escala anual e ao nível da década não tem paralelos em outras abordagens, por exemplo nos estudos polínicos, onde a escala temporal é um aspecto com o qual é mais difícil de lidar dada a natureza das séries sedimentares que servem de base aos estudos e o aporte de trabalho que representa o estudo de séries temporais de resolução fina.

Referência:
Büntgen U, Tegel W, Nicolussi K, McCormick M, Frank D, Trouet V, Kaplan JO, Herzig F, Heussner K-U, Wanner H, Luterbacher J, Esper J 2500 Years of European Climate Variability and Human Susceptibility. Science

Pântanos e rios na origem das primeiras cidades, no Iraque

As equipas americanas voltaram a trabalhar no Iraque, várias décadas depois. Começam já a colocar novas teoria acerca do surgimento e desenvolvimento das primeiras cidades. Aparentemente estas desenvolveram-se nas proximidades de pântanos e não de rios (Tigre e Eufrates).

Segundo a arqueóloga e especialista em detecção remota que liderou uma equipa de trabalho na região, o papel dos rios têm sido sobrestimado. Diz ela que a grande extensão e complexidade do sistema de canais verificado na região foi uma resposta a uma fase de escassez de recursos e não o instigador do desenvolvimento. Segundo ela, as áreas alagadas forneciam um grande manancial de recursos:

"delicate fish and bird bones at sites like Eridu and Uruk have been largely ignored by archaeologists, both because of the focus on sheep and goats and because such bones are not easily preserved."

O caso do Iraque é claramente o de um desfasamento em relação aos desenvolvimentos da arqueologia das últimas décadas. Para a compreensão das civilizações que estão na origem da escrita e, porque não, da nossa civilização, temos de remeter para uma literatura datada e uma arqueologia ultrapassada, em virtude de factores políticos.

Voltando à hipótese da arqueóloga, no fundo não é assim tão inovadora e não é isenta de problemas, como o próprio texto sugere: "the distinction between marshes, fields, and grazing land may be more blurred than she contends."

Esta noticia foi publicada no último número da revista Science.

Doutoramento no Max Planck Institute

Aqui fica o anúncio:

Ph.D studentship in Human Palaeontology at the Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology

The Department of Human Evolution of the Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig (Germany) invites applications for
one or more PhD positions. Research projects will focus on the
cranio-dental fossil record of African Plio-Pleistocene hominins.

Applicants should hold a Masters degree or equivalent in biology,
anthropology, palaeontology, or a related field. A good basic knowledge
of the hominin fossil record, and of common analytical methods is
important. The PhD stipend will be given for three years, and the
successful candidate(s) will enroll in the Leipzig School of Human
Origins. The formal deadline of application is 31 January 2011
but late applications may be
considered.

For further information please contact

Fred Spoor (f.spoor@eva.mpg.de)
Alyson Reid (alyson_reid@eva.mpg.de)

Glossário Botânico

Para quem trabalha em arqueobotânica, um bom glossário dá muito jeito.

Existe on-line, no site do Herbário da Universidade de Coimbra, o Glossário de Termos Botânicos de Rosette Batarda Fernandes (1972), revisto por Fátima Sales em 2007.

Deixo aqui a definição de um elementos vegetal de grande importância no registo Arqueobotânico, e tão desconhecido entre os arqueólogos:

Espigueta (Spicula). Inflorescência elementar das Cyperaceae e Poaceae (Gramineae); nestas últimas é constituída por duas (também uma ou três) brácteas estéreis (glumas) na base, um eixo (raquila) com número variável de nós inserindo-se disticamente uma flor em cada um; o perianto é reduzido a duas (por vezes três) lodículas (v) ou ausente; as flores são rodeadas geralmente por duas brácteas (glumela inferior ou lema e glumela superior ou pálea).

Consumo humano de cevada e aveia: o testemunho dos coprólitos

Um artigo recentemente publicado na revista Vegetation History and Archaeobotany pretende confirmar o consumo de cevada pelo homem em época romana, em contextos militares. Este consumo é mais ou menos consensual, ainda que haja quem aponte que tanto a aveia como a cevada eram principalmente consumidos por animais domésticos. Aliás, os autores mencionam unicamente a importância de provar o consumo humano da cevada, menosprezando a importância do testemunho do consumo humano da aveia.

A prova foi obtida no estudo de coprólitos. Contudo, este estudo apresenta de imediato um problema de base: a prova de que o coprólito é humano. Eis a menção que os autores fazem a este respeito:

"The contexts under analysis comprised sieved material from pit and ditch fills (see Table 1) and were not macromorphologically distinguishable as discrete human coprolites. Furthermore, no chemical approaches such as sterol analyses were used to independently confirm the presence of human sewage."

Confesso aqui a minha surpresa de que ainda se coloque a questão acerca do consumo humano da cevada, ao ponto de se sentir a necessidade de centrar um artigo nesse aspecto. Os estudos de coprólitos, quando identificada a sua origem humana ou animal (de outro animal que não o ser humano, entenda-se), justifica-se por si só, pois fornecem informações muito interessantes. Não é necessário colocar na primeira linha questões que já estão resolvidas. Mas entende-se que é necessário os artigos sejam vendáveis...

Eis a referência do artigo (descarreguem aqui):

Britton K, Huntley J (2011) New evidence for the consumption of barley at Romano-British military and civilian sites, from the analysis of cereal bran fragments in faecal material. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 20: 41-52

Bolsa de Doutoramento - Universidade de Reading

Aqui fica a descrição do concurso para uma bolsa em Antropologia Biológica:

PhD position on the Adolescence, Migration and Health in Medieval England Research project (Leverhulme Trust)
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading

Applications are welcomed for a 3-year PhD studentship in biological anthropology funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The candidate will join a team of researchers examining the life course of children and young adults (10-15 years) during the early and later medieval period, especially in regard to employment and migration. This will be a full-time doctoral project to identify and record the prevalence of trauma in child skeletons from the two large multi-period sites in England. This is an understudied area in archaeology, and requires further detailed research into the properties of juvenile bone and mechanics of non-adult fractures. The project will include the collation of published and unpublished medieval trauma cases, and an evaluation of the importance of these in suggesting activity. It is anticipated that this research will provide new information on the diagnosis and recording of child trauma, whilst contributing to, and benefitting from, the project as a whole.

The research student's activities will include project planning and management, on-site analysis and library and archival research. The research student will contribute to the project publications where appropriate and will be encouraged to take the lead publishing aspects of the project that derive from their PhD research, especially in their final year. Throughout their PhD, the successful candidate will be expected fulfil the training requirements of the University and will contribute to relevant academic and research activities. The candidate will have access to a fully equipped osteological research laboratory and a reference archive. Dr Lewis currently supervises five PhD students and they, in addition to the project PDRA and Dr Janet Montgomery (University of Durham), provide a supportive and vibrant community for this research.
The applicant will normally be expected to be a university graduate with a Masters degree in human osteology and palaeopathology or related discipline. The candidate should demonstrate a strong motivation to complete a PhD within 3 years, and have experience of palaeopathological analysis, including trauma identification. Experience of examining child skeletal remains is desirable, but not essential. You will be expected to travel to collect data in both Lincoln and London.
Closing date for applications: 7 March 2011
Starting date of the PhD project: 1 October 2011.
Informal enquiries should be directed to the Project Leader: Dr Mary Lewis (m.e.lewis@reading.ac.uk).
Apply at: http://www.reading.ac.uk/Study/apply/pg-applicationform.aspx. A statement regarding your suitability for this research studentship should be included in the ‘Description of Proposed Research’ section at the end of the application form. For any queries regarding the application process please contact Elizabeth Wyeth (m.e.wyeth@reading.ac.uk).
Further information on the Department of Archaeology can be found at: http://www.reading.ac.uk/archaeology/

Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

Um artigo esclarecedor acerca do que é um doutoramento hoje. O artigo original pode ser lido aqui.
Aproveitei para salientar algumas coisas a negrito. O negrito em itálico é original do texto.

ON THE evening before All Saints’ Day in 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg. In those days a thesis was simply a position one wanted to argue. Luther, an Augustinian friar, asserted that Christians could not buy their way to heaven. Today a doctoral thesis is both an idea and an account of a period of original research. Writing one is the aim of the hundreds of thousands of students who embark on a doctorate of philosophy (PhD) every year.

In most countries a PhD is a basic requirement for a career in academia. It is an introduction to the world of independent research—a kind of intellectual masterpiece, created by an apprentice in close collaboration with a supervisor. The requirements to complete one vary enormously between countries, universities and even subjects. Some students will first have to spend two years working on a master’s degree or diploma. Some will receive a stipend; others will pay their own way. Some PhDs involve only research, some require classes and examinations and some require the student to teach undergraduates. A thesis can be dozens of pages in mathematics, or many hundreds in history. As a result, newly minted PhDs can be as young as their early 20s or world-weary forty-somethings.

One thing many PhD students have in common is dissatisfaction. Some describe their work as “slave labour”. Seven-day weeks, ten-hour days, low pay and uncertain prospects are widespread. You know you are a graduate student, goes one quip, when your office is better decorated than your home and you have a favourite flavour of instant noodle. “It isn’t graduate school itself that is discouraging,” says one student, who confesses to rather enjoying the hunt for free pizza. “What’s discouraging is realising the end point has been yanked out of reach.”

Whining PhD students are nothing new, but there seem to be genuine problems with the system that produces research doctorates (the practical “professional doctorates” in fields such as law, business and medicine have a more obvious value). There is an oversupply of PhDs. Although a doctorate is designed as training for a job in academia, the number of PhD positions is unrelated to the number of job openings. Meanwhile, business leaders complain about shortages of high-level skills, suggesting PhDs are not teaching the right things. The fiercest critics compare research doctorates to Ponzi or pyramid schemes.

Rich pickings

For most of history even a first degree at a university was the privilege of a rich few, and many academic staff did not hold doctorates. But as higher education expanded after the second world war, so did the expectation that lecturers would hold advanced degrees. American universities geared up first: by 1970 America was producing just under a third of the world’s university students and half of its science and technology PhDs (at that time it had only 6% of the global population). Since then America’s annual output of PhDs has doubled, to 64,000.

Other countries are catching up. Between 1998 and 2006 the number of doctorates handed out in all OECD countries grew by 40%, compared with 22% for America. PhD production sped up most dramatically in Mexico, Portugal, Italy and Slovakia. Even Japan, where the number of young people is shrinking, churned out about 46% more PhDs. Part of that growth reflects the expansion of university education outside America. Richard Freeman, a labour economist at Harvard University, says that by 2006 America was enrolling just 12% of the world’s students.

But universities have discovered that PhD students are cheap, highly motivated and disposable labour. With more PhD students they can do more research, and in some countries more teaching, with less money. A graduate assistant at Yale might earn $20,000 a year for nine months of teaching. The average pay of full professors in America was $109,000 in 2009—higher than the average for judges and magistrates.

Indeed, the production of PhDs has far outstripped demand for university lecturers. In a recent book, Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, an academic and a journalist, report that America produced more than 100,000 doctoral degrees between 2005 and 2009. In the same period there were just 16,000 new professorships. Using PhD students to do much of the undergraduate teaching cuts the number of full-time jobs. Even in Canada, where the output of PhD graduates has grown relatively modestly, universities conferred 4,800 doctorate degrees in 2007 but hired just 2,616 new full-time professors. Only a few fast-developing countries, such as Brazil and China, now seem short of PhDs.

A short course in supply and demand

In research the story is similar. PhD students and contract staff known as “postdocs”, described by one student as “the ugly underbelly of academia”, do much of the research these days. There is a glut of postdocs too. Dr Freeman concluded from pre-2000 data that if American faculty jobs in the life sciences were increasing at 5% a year, just 20% of students would land one. In Canada 80% of postdocs earn $38,600 or less per year before tax—the average salary of a construction worker. The rise of the postdoc has created another obstacle on the way to an academic post. In some areas five years as a postdoc is now a prerequisite for landing a secure full-time job.

These armies of low-paid PhD researchers and postdocs boost universities’, and therefore countries’, research capacity. Yet that is not always a good thing. Brilliant, well-trained minds can go to waste when fashions change. The post-Sputnik era drove the rapid growth in PhD physicists that came to an abrupt halt as the Vietnam war drained the science budget. Brian Schwartz, a professor of physics at the City University of New York, says that in the 1970s as many as 5,000 physicists had to find jobs in other areas.

In America the rise of PhD teachers’ unions reflects the breakdown of an implicit contract between universities and PhD students: crummy pay now for a good academic job later. Student teachers in public universities such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison formed unions as early as the 1960s, but the pace of unionisation has increased recently. Unions are now spreading to private universities; though Yale and Cornell, where university administrators and some faculty argue that PhD students who teach are not workers but apprentices, have resisted union drives. In 2002 New York University was the first private university to recognise a PhD teachers’ union, but stopped negotiating with it three years later.

In some countries, such as Britain and America, poor pay and job prospects are reflected in the number of foreign-born PhD students. Dr Freeman estimates that in 1966 only 23% of science and engineering PhDs in America were awarded to students born outside the country. By 2006 that proportion had increased to 48%. Foreign students tend to tolerate poorer working conditions, and the supply of cheap, brilliant, foreign labour also keeps wages down.

A PhD may offer no financial benefit over a master’s degree. It can even reduce earnings

Proponents of the PhD argue that it is worthwhile even if it does not lead to permanent academic employment. Not every student embarks on a PhD wanting a university career and many move successfully into private-sector jobs in, for instance, industrial research. That is true; but drop-out rates suggest that many students become dispirited. In America only 57% of doctoral students will have a PhD ten years after their first date of enrolment. In the humanities, where most students pay for their own PhDs, the figure is 49%. Worse still, whereas in other subject areas students tend to jump ship in the early years, in the humanities they cling like limpets before eventually falling off. And these students started out as the academic cream of the nation. Research at one American university found that those who finish are no cleverer than those who do not. Poor supervision, bad job prospects or lack of money cause them to run out of steam.

Even graduates who find work outside universities may not fare all that well. PhD courses are so specialised that university careers offices struggle to assist graduates looking for jobs, and supervisors tend to have little interest in students who are leaving academia. One OECD study shows that five years after receiving their degrees, more than 60% of PhDs in Slovakia and more than 45% in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany and Spain were still on temporary contracts. Many were postdocs. About one-third of Austria’s PhD graduates take jobs unrelated to their degrees. In Germany 13% of all PhD graduates end up in lowly occupations. In the Netherlands the proportion is 21%.

A very slim premium

PhD graduates do at least earn more than those with a bachelor’s degree. A study in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management by Bernard Casey shows that British men with a bachelor’s degree earn 14% more than those who could have gone to university but chose not to. The earnings premium for a PhD is 26%. But the premium for a master’s degree, which can be accomplished in as little as one year, is almost as high, at 23%. In some subjects the premium for a PhD vanishes entirely. PhDs in maths and computing, social sciences and languages earn no more than those with master’s degrees. The premium for a PhD is actually smaller than for a master’s degree in engineering and technology, architecture and education. Only in medicine, other sciences, and business and financial studies is it high enough to be worthwhile. Over all subjects, a PhD commands only a 3% premium over a master’s degree.

Dr Schwartz, the New York physicist, says the skills learned in the course of a PhD can be readily acquired through much shorter courses. Thirty years ago, he says, Wall Street firms realised that some physicists could work out differential equations and recruited them to become “quants”, analysts and traders. Today several short courses offer the advanced maths useful for finance. “A PhD physicist with one course on differential equations is not competitive,” says Dr Schwartz.

Many students say they are pursuing their subject out of love, and that education is an end in itself. Some give little thought to where the qualification might lead. In one study of British PhD graduates, about a third admitted that they were doing their doctorate partly to go on being a student, or put off job hunting. Nearly half of engineering students admitted to this. Scientists can easily get stipends, and therefore drift into doing a PhD. But there are penalties, as well as benefits, to staying at university. Workers with “surplus schooling”—more education than a job requires—are likely to be less satisfied, less productive and more likely to say they are going to leave their jobs.

The interests of universities and tenured academics are misaligned with those of PhD students

Academics tend to regard asking whether a PhD is worthwhile as analogous to wondering whether there is too much art or culture in the world. They believe that knowledge spills from universities into society, making it more productive and healthier. That may well be true; but doing a PhD may still be a bad choice for an individual.

The interests of academics and universities on the one hand and PhD students on the other are not well aligned. The more bright students stay at universities, the better it is for academics. Postgraduate students bring in grants and beef up their supervisors’ publication records. Academics pick bright undergraduate students and groom them as potential graduate students. It isn’t in their interests to turn the smart kids away, at least at the beginning. One female student spoke of being told of glowing opportunities at the outset, but after seven years of hard slog she was fobbed off with a joke about finding a rich husband.

Monica Harris, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, is a rare exception. She believes that too many PhDs are being produced, and has stopped admitting them. But such unilateral academic birth control is rare. One Ivy-League president, asked recently about PhD oversupply, said that if the top universities cut back others will step in to offer them instead.

Noble pursuits

Many of the drawbacks of doing a PhD are well known. Your correspondent was aware of them over a decade ago while she slogged through a largely pointless PhD in theoretical ecology. As Europeans try to harmonise higher education, some institutions are pushing the more structured learning that comes with an American PhD.

The organisations that pay for research have realised that many PhDs find it tough to transfer their skills into the job market. Writing lab reports, giving academic presentations and conducting six-month literature reviews can be surprisingly unhelpful in a world where technical knowledge has to be assimilated quickly and presented simply to a wide audience. Some universities are now offering their PhD students training in soft skills such as communication and teamwork that may be useful in the labour market. In Britain a four-year NewRoutePhD claims to develop just such skills in graduates.

Measurements and incentives might be changed, too. Some university departments and academics regard numbers of PhD graduates as an indicator of success and compete to produce more. For the students, a measure of how quickly those students get a permanent job, and what they earn, would be more useful. Where penalties are levied on academics who allow PhDs to overrun, the number of students who complete rises abruptly, suggesting that students were previously allowed to fester.

Many of those who embark on a PhD are the smartest in their class and will have been the best at everything they have done. They will have amassed awards and prizes. As this year’s new crop of graduate students bounce into their research, few will be willing to accept that the system they are entering could be designed for the benefit of others, that even hard work and brilliance may well not be enough to succeed, and that they would be better off doing something else. They might use their research skills to look harder at the lot of the disposable academic. Someone should write a thesis about that.

Sociedade Espanhola de Antropologia Física

Vai ter lugar em Barcelona o XVII Congresso da Sociedade Espanhola de Antropologia Física durante os dias 2 a 4 de Junho de 2011. A Faculdade de Biologia da Universidade de Barcelona será a anfitriã.

O prazo para entrega de resumos é 1 de Fevereiro e aqui fica a lista de sessões:

1) Applied Anthropology (Public Health)
2) Skeletal Anthropology and Palaeoanthropology
3) Forensic Anthropology and Palaeopathology
4) Human Population Dynamics
5) Genetic Diversity of Human Populations
6) Primatology
7) Somatalogy and Auxology

Todas as informações referentes a este encontro científico podem ser consultadas aqui.