Determining calendar ages for radiocarbon dates, or ordered sequences of radiocarbon dates, that intersect with a plateau on the radiocarbon calibration curve can be problematic since, without additional prior constraints, the calendar age ranges determined will tend to spread across the plateau, yielding wide and less than useful calendar age probability densities and age ranges. Where possible, modeling analysis should seek to identify informative priors that act to restrict the otherwise poorly controlled spread of probability across plateaus. Such additional information may be available, among other sources, from the stratigraphy, the context, or the samples themselves. The recent dating of ordered sequences of radiocarbon dates on sections of branches of the same olive (Olea europaea) shrub from Therasia (southern Aegean) associated with the Minoan eruption of the Thera (Santorini) volcano (Pearson et al. 2023), which intersect with the plateau in the radiocarbon calibration curve ca. 1620–1540 BC, offers an example of the problem. A re-analysis adding some plausible informative priors offers a substantially better defined likely dating range and different conclusions. Instead of finding an inconclusive probability range “encompassing the late 17th and entire 16th century BC” followed by arguments for “indications of increased probabilities for a mid-16th century BC date for the eruption,” a re-analysis incorporating appropriate informative priors identifies the likely date range as falling between the late 17th to early 16th centuries BC.

During Iran's 2022–2023 countrywide uprising, the intensity of popular protests in Kurdistan and Baluchistan drew attention to the question of national oppression. Some scholars then revisited a debate, originally articulated in Marxist circles, on whether Iran's culturally and politically oppressed communities, like Azeris, Kurds, Baluchis or Arabs, are ethnic or national minorities. This article approaches the debate within the frame of national oppression as a historical construction. It argues that in Iran, as in almost all modern nation-states, nationhood was established through the forcible creation of minoritized communities whose potential claims to nationhood, or an equal place in a politically democratic and culturally pluralist nation, have been denied.

Arterial tortuosity syndrome is an extremely rare hereditary connective tissue disorder. We present a case of an incidentally diagnosed aneurysm of the aortic root and the ascending aorta caused by arterial tortuosity syndrome, which was confirmed genetically. The aneurysm was repaired surgically. One year after the procedure, there was no further dilation of the aorta or formation of new aneurysms.

This article explores the role of the Little Mothers’ Leagues in New York City, clubs created by public health authorities to educate working-class girls as young as eight years old who took care of their younger siblings while their parents worked. The Little Mothers’ Leagues served as an essential link between social reform and eugenic public health programming during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Eugenic maternalism, as articulated by the Little Mothers’ Leagues, distilled a sense of Americanness into a set of hygienic practices and rituals that could be easily understood and imitated. Through the Little Mothers’ Leagues, eugenic maternalist reformers addressed essential questions regarding the role of social reform in the “Americanization” process, the role of young girls as citizens and as entry points to the immigrant home, and the extent to which environmental reform could regulate the immigrant family. Examining the Little Mothers’ Leagues as a project that was both eugenic and maternalist allows us to better understand the ways that eugenic thinking permeated popular discourse through child welfare reform and domestic science.

David Geggus offers a detailed response to the three critiques of his “Kongomania” article by John Thornton, Christina Mobley, and James Sweet. Centered on demographic statistics and their link to cultural influence, the rebuttal examines evidentiary support for various assertions and hypotheses. The debate ranges over the use of certain ethnonyms (Creole, Congo, Mondongue); the creation of Vodou; the significance of Baudry des Lozières's Vocabulaire Congo; and the organization and aims of the 1791 uprising and the Haitian War of Independence.

Dans la perspective de la préparation d'une nouvelle édition annotée de l'Évangile selon Thomas, à paraître dans la collection « Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi » (Leuven, Peeters), cet article revient sur quelques-unes des questions qui ont été débattues à propos de cet écrit, à savoir son lieu et sa date de composition, ainsi que sa langue d'origine.

This article discusses the absolute chronology of burials from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC discovered under the mounds of three barrows in the Kordyshiv cemetery in western Ukraine. Its aim is to create a chronological model of the burials by modeling 27 AMS 14C dates obtained from 21 individuals buried in single and collective graves. Dietary analysis of stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope values are presented. The Bayesian modeling of the 14C dates from the three Kordyshiv barrows revealed the extremely important role of these monuments as long-term objects used for ritual purposes. At the end of the 3rd millennium BC, the epi-Corded Ware Culture (epi-CWC) community erected a mound over the central burial in Barrow 2, then interred the graves of three additional deceased. After several hundred years Barrow 2 was reused by Komarów Culture (KC) communities from the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) who interred their deceased in the existing mound. The oldest monument with MBA burials was Barrow 3, in which the dead were buried in a two-stage sequence before and after the mid-2nd millennium BC. The youngest dated grave was Burial 1 in Barrow 1, comprising a collective burial that was interred between 1400 and 1200 BC. The additional analyses of carbon and nitrogen isotopes show significant differences in the diet of epi-CWC individuals buried in Barrow 2 from the individuals representing the KC.

Dates from recently excavated Gangetic site of Sakas in Bihar, India, place it at ca.1800–1100 BC. The ceramic and lithic chronologies have been interpreted as Early Farming, Transitional and Chalcolithic/Developed Farming in date. However, depending on where in the Ganges Plains is studied, the time frame of Early, Developed and Advanced Farming periods varies widely, from 7th millennium to 2nd millennium BC and beyond, making the chronological framing of absolute dates within a regional scheme highly complex. In this paper we report the new radiocarbon results from Sakas and note how while these are critical for cementing the absolute dating of the site, until such time as a more stable periodization linked not only to relative and absolute dates but also human lifeways within the different zones of the Ganges plains is created, there remains difficulties in understanding how Sakas and other sites of similar date fit into the changing social, cultural and economic systems in this region.