This article addresses the proposition that the lower Lahontan drainage basin (LLDB) is “unique” within the Intermountain West in terms of the use of caves and rockshelters as burial locations, and that such burials are “rare” elsewhere (Thomas et al. 2025). We compare archaeologically known cave burials in the Bonneville basin (BB), ranging in age from approximately 10,700 to approximately 1000 cal BP, to those in the LLDB. There are 18 such sites in the BB and an additional five in the upper Lahontan basin within the foraging range of late Holocene BB farmer-foragers. Although this number is roughly half of that in the LLDB, such sites are not “rare” or even uncommon in the BB. The difference in numbers may be attributed more to differences in population sizes in the two basins than to differences in burial practices. After about 5000 cal BP, many caves and rockshelters containing burials in the LLDB were occupied residentially, diurnally, or while storing and retrieving cached material. Given that Thomas and colleagues (2025:246) indicate the Northern Paiute tended to avoid such caves, it is likely that it was the ancestors of other groups who lived in them. Ethnographic and archaeological evidence suggests that at least some of these caves were occupied by the ancestral Washoe, whose historic territory extended into the LLDB, and possibly by related tribes who now reside exclusively in California.

The memoir of Shadrack Byfield, an English weaver and war amputee, occupies a privileged place in the historiography and public memory of the Anglo‑American War of 1812. Yet relatively little is known about the author of this rare rank-and-file account. Drawing on extensive archival research and a newly discovered second autobiography, this article challenges the familiar image of Byfield as a plainspoken exemplar of military stoicism. It reveals how war in North America transformed the former private soldier both physically and psychologically. Examining Byfield’s return to civilian life, the article highlights his tenacious pursuit of veterans’ benefits, his cultivation of influential patrons, and his invention of a prosthetic device to enable a resumption of weaving work. It also traces the ex‑serviceman’s path to publication and explores his shifting self‑presentation in print—first as a dutiful soldier and later as a redeemed sinner. Integrating scholarship on disability, memoirs, military welfare, and the history of emotions, the article argues that Byfield’s exceptionally well‑documented life offers a window into the wider experiences of Britain’s homecoming soldiers after the Napoleonic Wars.

Reservoir construction causes marked changes in hydrological, physical and chemical conditions, with rapid effects on aquatic communities. The initial filling phase, characterised by abrupt changes over days to weeks and the onset of vertical stratification, is particularly critical, yet its effects on planktonic ciliate communities remain poorly understood. Here, we combined high-frequency sampling with a two-strata design (surface and bottom) to investigate how the initial filling, and consequent vertical stratification, of a tropical reservoir affect the density, biomass and taxonomic groups composition of the planktonic ciliates community. We observed pronounced temporal and spatial changes, with physicochemical differences between strata and filling phases. We observed that the ciliate community responded to these changes with consistently higher density and biomass at the surface and in the middle of the filling period. Linear mixed-effects and generalised additive models supported our findings, with significant temporal variation in all attributes, with trajectories over the filling period characterised by an initial increase followed by a decline, and by marked shifts among ciliate groups that indicate a clear successional pattern. Our results suggest that the surface strata of the reservoir work as a dynamic and productive environment, whereas the bottom strata remain limiting for ciliate development, mainly due to lower oxygen concentrations. By providing one of the few high-resolution assessments of planktonic ciliates during reservoir filling, integrating vertical structure, temporal dynamics and taxonomic succession, this study extends the trophic-surge perspective to microbial consumers and highlights the value of ciliates as bioindicators during dam construction and early reservoir operation.

Infants with single ventricle physiology are at increased risk of undernutrition, which can contribute to adverse outcomes. This is a retrospective case series examining factors associated with undernutrition in patients with single ventricle physiology at one year of age. It includes 56 infants from a single institution who underwent single ventricle palliation between 2003 and 2023. Undernutrition was defined as a weight-for-length z-score below -1, based on World Health Organization normative data. Independent variables included surgical interventions, cardiorespiratory factors, and nutritional interventions. Associations between these variables and nutritional status were assessed using Fisher’s exact test. At one year, a total of nine infants (16%) were undernourished. Undernutrition rates significantly declined after 2013 (p = 0.02), demonstrating improvements in nutritional outcomes over our study period. Those who used supplemental oxygen or pulmonary medications were undernourished at lower rates, though this difference was not statistically significant. While the number of undernourished patients in the cohort may have limited the study’s power, our findings suggest that early respiratory interventions may provide nutritional benefits in infants with single ventricle physiology.

This article traces how and why the ‘competition’ of marriage culminated in the rise of the matrimonial advertisement across early twentieth-century India. It examines how the matrimonial, as a systematized textual schema, became a constitutive component of a reforming marriage market and integral to how the gendered body was imagined within transforming familial norms. The article draws on the extensive scholarship on labour and marriage in colonial Bengal to argue for the development of an ‘All-India’ middle-class marital marketplace as new forms of networking and work emerged. It does this by undertaking a cross-regional comparative analysis of matrimonials between 1915 and 1950 across urban India—alongside memoirs, colonial ethnographies, and periodicals—to extrapolate strategies of status-making and explore how discourses on conjugality ceded into legislative debates around customary law and property. The article begins by considering the placement and composition of matrimonials before delving into how matches were assessed, arguing that they expressed shifting marital norms, conjugal capital, and caste consolidation which led to the commodification of an expansive marital marketplace. It then examines debates around monetary marriage exchanges (like dowry) as a form of capital accumulation, disentangling how requests were articulated within the matrimonial advertisement through the complex textual grammars of signalling wealth.

This study examines the relationship between microfinance and poverty alleviation, considering the moderating effect of both digital and traditional financial knowledge, as well as of social capital. The data sample comprises survey responses from 500 clients of conventional and Islamic microfinance institutions in Bhakkar, one of Pakistan’s most dynamic microfinance districts. The empirical results, obtained via structural equation modeling, show that digital financial knowledge positively moderates the relationship between microfinance effectiveness and poverty alleviation. A similar result is found for the moderating role of social capital when traditional financial knowledge is included in the model. However, this is not the case when digital financial knowledge is included in the model. These findings emphasize the importance of promoting both financial literacy and digital skills to maximize the positive impact of microfinance on poverty reduction.