• Infectious virus in exhaled breath of symptomatic seasonal influenza cases from a college community | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
    http://www.pnas.org/content/115/5/1081

    Estimation de la propagation de la grippe par aérosol dans l’air expiré :
    • il n’est pas nécessaire de tousser ou d’éternuer
    • l’émission de virus augmente avec l’indice de masse corporelle (IMC) et… la répétition de la vaccination anti grippe (pour les aérosols les plus fins et les infections des voies supérieures, à confirmer)

    Significance
    Lack of human data on influenza virus aerosol shedding fuels debate over the importance of airborne transmission. We provide overwhelming evidence that humans generate infectious aerosols and quantitative data to improve mathematical models of transmission and public health interventions. We show that sneezing is rare and not important for—and that coughing is not required for—influenza virus aerosolization. Our findings, that upper and lower airway infection are independent and that fine-particle exhaled aerosols reflect infection in the lung, opened a pathway for a deeper understanding of the human biology of influenza infection and transmission. Our observation of an association between repeated vaccination and increased viral aerosol generation demonstrated the power of our method, but needs confirmation.

    Abstract
    Little is known about the amount and infectiousness of influenza virus shed into exhaled breath. This contributes to uncertainty about the importance of airborne influenza transmission. We screened 355 symptomatic volunteers with acute respiratory illness and report 142 cases with confirmed influenza infection who provided 218 paired nasopharyngeal (NP) and 30-minute breath samples (coarse >5-µm and fine ≤5-µm fractions) on days 1–3 after symptom onset. We assessed viral RNA copy number for all samples and cultured NP swabs and fine aerosols. We recovered infectious virus from 52 (39%) of the fine aerosols and 150 (89%) of the NP swabs with valid cultures. The geometric mean RNA copy numbers were 3.8 × 104/30-minutes fine-, 1.2 × 104/30-minutes coarse-aerosol sample, and 8.2 × 108 per NP swab. Fine- and coarse-aerosol viral RNA were positively associated with body mass index and number of coughs and negatively associated with increasing days since symptom onset in adjusted models. Fine-aerosol viral RNA was also positively associated with having influenza vaccination for both the current and prior season. NP swab viral RNA was positively associated with upper respiratory symptoms and negatively associated with age but was not significantly associated with fine- or coarse-aerosol viral RNA or their predictors. Sneezing was rare, and sneezing and coughing were not necessary for infectious aerosol generation. Our observations suggest that influenza infection in the upper and lower airways are compartmentalized and independent.

    • Tiens, justement, nos amis du #Decodex sont de sortie sur le sujet…

      Les conclusions douteuses d’articles hostiles au vaccin contre la grippe
      http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2018/02/14/les-conclusions-douteuses-d-articles-hostiles-au-vaccin-contre-la-grippe_525

      L’affirmation selon laquelle la vaccination augmenterait la « propagation de la maladie » qu’on retrouve dans certains titres n’est pas plus étayée par les faits.

      Bon, ce n’est qu’un tout petit élément du plaidoyer, mais là où ça devient cocasse, c’est quand on lit l’étude qui est (indirectement) citée pour mentionner le faible taux d’efficacité du vaccin anti grippal pour la saison2016)

      Contemporary H3N2 influenza viruses have a glycosylation site that alters binding of antibodies elicited by egg-adapted vaccine strains | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
      http://www.pnas.org/content/114/47/12578

      Individuals that had been vaccinated in the previous 2 y[ears] exhibited overall lower antibody boosts (Fig. S1), after adjusting for age and prevaccination antibody titers (Table S3).

      (c’est la dernière phrase de l’article avant la Discussion)

    • Sinon, sur le fond du décodage.

      Pourquoi c’est faux

      1. Le vaccin contre la grippe offre bien une protection limitée
      M. Brownstein s’appuie sur des données compilées dans une étude publiée dans la Cochrane Library début février. Cette publication spécialisée confirme une réalité connue de longue date : le vaccin contre la grippe est loin d’offrir une protection comparable à la plupart des autres vaccins.

      Normalement, la conclusion devrait donc être : c’est plutôt vrai (et c’est bien connu, d’ailleurs…

      2. Un taux d’échec à « 99 % » fallacieux
      L’article de M. Brownstein a, en revanche, largement manipulés les chiffres de la Cochrane Library. L’étude en question aboutit, en effet, aux deux estimations suivantes :
      • En moyenne, 2,3 % des adultes en bonne santé non vaccinés seraient touchés par la grippe, contre 0,9 % des vaccinés ;
      • 21,5 % des adultes non vaccinés seraient touchés par des infections proches de la grippe, contre 18,1 % des vaccinés.

      Le chiffre de 99% est tout à fait faux, en effet. Les chiffres fournis à l’appui montre tout de même que la protection est plutôt faible.

      Le rapport des cotes (odds ratio) pour le risque d’attraper la grippe est de 2,6 entre un individu non vacciné et un individu vacciné. Ce nombre tombe à 1,2 pour les infections proches de la grippe.

      Il est également trompeur d’avoir occulté le cas des infections proches de la grippe, bien que l’écart entre les deux groupes reste également limité dans ce cas de figure.

      De fait, il est tout juste significatif. cf. le passage correspondant dans l’étude de référence

      Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults. - PubMed - NCBI
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29388196

      MAIN RESULTS:
      […] Inactivated influenza vaccines probably reduce influenza in healthy adults from 2.3% without vaccination to 0.9% (risk ratio (RR) 0.41, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.36 to 0.47; 71,221 participants; moderate-certainty evidence), and they probably reduce ILI from 21.5% to 18.1% (RR 0.84, 95% CI 0.75 to 0.95; 25,795 participants; moderate-certainty evidence

      (désolé, ils calculent le rapport des cotes dans le sens inverse et la (légère) différence (pour les inverses des valeurs) vient certainement des arrondis (à 1 chiffre après la virgule) des pourcentages).

      3. Les prétendus dangers du vaccin ne sont pas étayés
      […]
      L’affirmation selon laquelle la vaccination augmenterait la « propagation de la maladie » qu’on retrouve dans certains titres n’est pas plus étayée par les faits.

      cf. ci-dessus.

      4. Le vaccin reste considéré comme pertinent pour les publics ciblés
      […]
      Comme toute politique de santé publique, ce choix de recommander la vaccination contre la grippe dans certains cas fait l’objet de débats et de questionnements légitimes. Les affirmations catégoriques véhiculées par certains sites douteux n’en restent pas moins mensongères.

      Ce serait sympa (comme dirait l’autre…) si ces débâts et questionnements légitimes étaient traités autrement que par la « pédagogie » (sic) de l’extension par décret des obligations vaccinales.

    • Pour finir, le bilan de l’efficacité du vaccin pour la saison grippale 2014-15 aux États-Unis.

      Efficacité inférieure à 20% (tous âges confondus et toutes souches confondues) et inexistante pour la tranche d’âge 18-64 ans.

      2014–2015 Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness in the United States by Vaccine Type | Clinical Infectious Diseases | Oxford Academic
      https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/63/12/1564/2282808

      Background
      Circulating A/H3N2 influenza viruses drifted significantly after strain selection for the 2014–2015 vaccines. Also in 2014–2015, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended preferential use of live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) over inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) among children aged 2–8 years.

      Methods
      Vaccine effectiveness (VE) across age groups and vaccine types was examined among outpatients with acute respiratory illness at 5 US sites using a test-negative design, that compared the odds of vaccination among reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction–confirmed influenza positives and negatives.

      Results
      Of 9311 enrollees with complete data, 7078 (76%) were influenza negative, 1840 (19.8%) were positive for influenza A (A/H3N2, n = 1817), and 395 (4.2%) were positive for influenza B (B/Yamagata, n = 340). The overall adjusted VE was 19% (95% confidence interval [CI], 10% to 27%) and was statistically significant in all age strata except those aged 18–64 years. The adjusted VE of 6% (95%CI, −5% to 17%) against A/H3N2-associated illness was not statistically significant, unlike VE for influenza B/Yamagata, which was 55% (95%CI, 43% to 65%). Among those aged 2–8 years, VE against A/H3N2 was 15% (95%CI, −16% to 38%) for IIV and −3% (CI, −50% to 29%) for LAIV; VE against B/Yamagata was 40% (95%CI, −20% to 70%) for IIV and 74% (95%CI, 25% to 91%) for LAIV.

      Conclusions
      The 2014–2015 influenza vaccines offered little protection against the predominant influenza A/H3N2 virus but were effective against influenza B. Preferential use of LAIV among young children was not supported.

      représentation graphique (en haut la souche A, en bas la souche B, la A était environ 5 fois plus fréquente que la B)

    • Pour ce dont je me souviens, et contrairement à d’autres vaccins plutôt efficaces, cette faible efficacité serait essentiellement due à un pari (industriel et sanitaire) difficile à étayer sur ce que vont donner les mutations de virus de la grippe, bien moins stables que d’autres. Une affaire de prédictibilité défaillante puisqu’on élabore les vaccins depuis des souches antérieures.

  • Women were the key to spreading culture around Europe | Daily Mail Online (septembre 2017)
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4850532/Women-key-spreading-culture-Europe.html

    Women spread culture and knowledge around Europe 4,000 years ago while men stayed at home, according to ancient bone records
    • Families were formed in a surprising manner in the Lechtal area, now in Germany
    • Study found women travelled far and wide from home villages to start families
    • They brought with them new cultural ideas, while men tended to stay near home
    • The so-called ’patrilocal’ pattern combined with individual female mobility was not a temporary phenomenon, but persisted over a period of 800 years

    Women were the ‘driving force’ spreading new ideas and technologies across Britain and Europe during the Stone Age – while their menfolk stayed home, a surprising new study has found.

    Previous ideas of how our primitive ancestors travelled have been shaken by analysis of bones and teeth from ancient peoples.

    They show that many females found buried in ancient burial grounds made long journeys to distant villages far from the homesteads where they were born and grew up.

    • Female exogamy and gene pool diversification at the transition from the Final Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age in central Europe
      http://www.pnas.org/content/114/38/10083.abstract

      Significance
      Paleogenetic and isotope data from human remains shed new light on residential rules revealing patrilocality and high female mobility in European prehistory. We show the crucial role of this institution and its impact on the transformation of population compositions over several hundred years.

      Evidence for an epoch-transgressing maternal relationship between two individuals demonstrates long-debated population continuity from the central European Neolithic to the Bronze Age. We demonstrate that a simple notion of “migration” cannot explain the complex human mobility of third millennium BCE societies in Eurasia. On the contrary, it appears that part of what archaeologists understand as migration is the result of large-scale institutionalized and possibly sex- and age-related individual mobility.

      Abstract
      Human mobility has been vigorously debated as a key factor for the spread of bronze technology and profound changes in burial practices as well as material culture in central Europe at the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. However, the relevance of individual residential changes and their importance among specific age and sex groups are still poorly understood. Here, we present ancient DNA analysis, stable isotope data of oxygen, and radiogenic isotope ratios of strontium for 84 radiocarbon-dated skeletons from seven archaeological sites of the Late Neolithic Bell Beaker Complex and the Early Bronze Age from the Lech River valley in southern Bavaria, Germany. Complete mitochondrial genomes documented a diversification of maternal lineages over time. The isotope ratios disclosed the majority of the females to be nonlocal, while this is the case for only a few males and subadults. Most nonlocal females arrived in the study area as adults, but we do not detect their offspring among the sampled individuals.

      The striking patterns of patrilocality and female exogamy prevailed over at least 800 y between about 2500 and 1700 BC. The persisting residential rules and even a direct kinship relation across the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age add to the archaeological evidence of continuing traditions from the Bell Beaker Complex to the Early Bronze Age. The results also attest to female mobility as a driving force for regional and supraregional communication and exchange at the dawn of the European metal ages.

    • Version plus musclée du Telegraph

      Forget the wandering warrior: Bronze Age women travelled the world while men stayed at home
      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/04/forget-wandering-warrior-bronze-age-women-travelled-world-men

      The concept that men stay at home while independent women venture out into the world is considered a rather modern phenomenon.

      But a study suggests that in fact, the practice was rooted in ancient times, when Bronze Age men stayed at home while adventurous women were the key to spreading culture and ideas.

      The research reveals that over a period of some 800 years, European women travelled between 300km and 500km from their home villages to start families, while men tended to stay near where they were born.

    • Et un point de vue absolument inverse (article de mars 2017), qui reprend l’hypothèse de migrations
      • mixtes, lors de la transition néolithique (7500 ans AA (avant aujourd’hui)
      • essentiellement masculines, pour le passage à l’âge du bronze (5000 ans AA)

      Genetic data show mainly men migrated to Europe from the Pontic steppe 5,000 years ago - Vetenskapsområdet för teknik och naturvetenskap - Uppsala universitet
      http://www.teknat.uu.se/nyheter/nyhetsdetaljsida/?id=8264&typ=artikel

      Researchers from Uppsala and Stanford University investigated the genetic ancestry on the sex-specifically inherited X chromosome and the autosomes in 20 early Neolithic and 16 Late Neolithic/Bronze Age human remains. Contrary to previous hypotheses suggesting patrilocality (social system in which a family resides near the man’s parents) of many agricultural populations, they found no evidence of sex-biased admixture during the migration that spread farming across Europe during the early Neolithic.

      – For later migrations from the Pontic steppe during the early Bronze Age, however, we find a dramatic male bias. There are simply too few X-chromosomes from the migrants, which points to around ten migrating males for every migrating female, says Mattias Jakobsson, professor of Genetics at the Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University.

    • Ancient X chromosomes reveal contrasting sex bias in Neolithic and Bronze Age Eurasian migrations
      http://www.pnas.org/content/114/10/2657.full



      Male (blue) and female (red) contribution during the early Neolithic and later Neolithic/Bronze Age migrations.
      Foto/bild: Mattias Jakobsson

      Significance
      Studies of differing female and male demographic histories on the basis of ancient genomes can provide insight into the social structures and cultural interactions during major events in human prehistory. We consider the sex-specific demography of two of the largest migrations in recent European prehistory. Using genome-wide ancient genetic data from multiple Eurasian populations spanning the last 10,000 years, we find no evidence of sex-biased migrations from Anatolia, despite the shift to patrilocality associated with the spread of farming. In contrast, we infer a massive male-biased migration from the steppe during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age. The contrasting patterns of sex-specific migration during these two migrations suggest that different sociocultural processes drove the two events.

       Abstract
      Dramatic events in human prehistory, such as the spread of agriculture to Europe from Anatolia and the late Neolithic/Bronze Age migration from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, can be investigated using patterns of genetic variation among the people who lived in those times. In particular, studies of differing female and male demographic histories on the basis of ancient genomes can provide information about complexities of social structures and cultural interactions in prehistoric populations. We use a mechanistic admixture model to compare the sex-specifically–inherited X chromosome with the autosomes in 20 early Neolithic and 16 late Neolithic/Bronze Age human remains. Contrary to previous hypotheses suggested by the patrilocality of many agricultural populations, we find no evidence of sex-biased admixture during the migration that spread farming across Europe during the early Neolithic. For later migrations from the Pontic Steppe during the late Neolithic/Bronze Age, however, we estimate a dramatic male bias, with approximately five to 14 migrating males for every migrating female. We find evidence of ongoing, primarily male, migration from the steppe to central Europe over a period of multiple generations, with a level of sex bias that excludes a pulse migration during a single generation. The contrasting patterns of sex-specific migration during these two migrations suggest a view of differing cultural histories in which the Neolithic transition was driven by mass migration of both males and females in roughly equal numbers, perhaps whole families, whereas the later Bronze Age migration and cultural shift were instead driven by male migration, potentially connected to new technology and conquest.

  • Accurate age estimation in small-scale societies
    http://www.pnas.org/content/114/31/8205.abstract?sid=95086eba-ecea-41ce-b082-5389cfaa1ee4

    Abstract
    Precise estimation of age is essential in evolutionary anthropology, especially to infer population age structures and understand the evolution of human life history diversity. However, in small-scale societies, such as hunter-gatherer populations, time is often not referred to in calendar years, and accurate age estimation remains a challenge. We address this issue by proposing a Bayesian approach that accounts for age uncertainty inherent to fieldwork data. We developed a Gibbs sampling Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm that produces posterior distributions of ages for each individual, based on a ranking order of individuals from youngest to oldest and age ranges for each individual. We first validate our method on 65 Agta foragers from the Philippines with known ages, and show that our method generates age estimations that are superior to previously published regression-based approaches. We then use data on 587 Agta collected during recent fieldwork to demonstrate how multiple partial age ranks coming from multiple camps of hunter-gatherers can be integrated. Finally, we exemplify how the distributions generated by our method can be used to estimate important demographic parameters in small-scale societies: here, age-specific fertility patterns. Our flexible Bayesian approach will be especially useful to improve cross-cultural life history datasets for small-scale societies for which reliable age records are difficult to acquire.


    • Fig. 3.
      Integrating uncertainties to estimate the mother’s age at parturition. (_Upper
      ) illustrations of how distinct partial rankings of individuals are combined by averaging the resulting age distributions (gray density curves) to give an overall age distribution (black density curves) per individual. The pair of individuals was chosen to be mother [Right Upper; right distribution (Lower)] and child [Left Upper; left distribution (Lower)], allowing us to “convolve” (Materials and Methods) the age distributions and obtain the posterior distribution of the mother’s age (Lower, blue density curve) at parturition.


      _Fig. 4.
      Overall distribution of age at parturition for the Palanan Agta. The overall distribution of the age at parturition in the Agta is obtained by averaging the age distributions obtained by the procedure depicted in Fig. 5 for all pairs of mother and child in our Palanan Agta dataset (blue density). This overall age distribution excludes 23 pairs for which the ages of both the mother and child are precisely known, which are shown separately (histogram).

  • News Feature: Can animal culture drive evolution?
    http://www.pnas.org/content/114/30/7734.full

    Killer whales, also known as orcas (Orcinus orca), have a geographic range stretching from the Antarctic to the Arctic. As a species, their diet includes birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles. But as individuals, they typically fall into groups with highly specialized diets and hunting traditions passed down over generations. Increasingly, scientists refer to these learned feeding strategies as #culture, roughly defined as information that affects behavior and is passed among individuals and across generations through social learning, such as teaching or imitation.

    Scientists once placed culture squarely in the human domain. But discoveries in recent decades suggest that a wide range of cultural practices—from foraging tactics and vocal displays to habitat use and play—may influence the lives of other animals as well. Studies attribute additional orca behaviors, such as migration routes and song repertoires, to culture. Other research suggests that a finch’s song, a chimpanzee’s nut cracking, and a guppy’s foraging route are all manifestations of culture. Between 2012 and 2014, over 100 research groups published work on animal culture covering 66 species, according to a recent review.

    Now, scientists are exploring whether culture may shape not only the lives of nonhuman animals but the evolution of a species. “Culture affects animals’ lives and their survival and their fitness,” says the review’s coauthor, behavioral scientist Andrew Whiten of the University of St Andrews in Scotland. “We’ve learned that’s the case to an extent that could hardly have been appreciated half a century ago.” Based on work in whales, dolphins, and birds, some researchers contend that animal culture is likely a common mechanism underlying animal evolution. But testing this hypothesis remains a monumental challenge.

  • Computer vision uncovers predictors of physical urban change
    http://www.pnas.org/content/114/29/7571.full


    Fig. 1.
    Computing Streetchange: (A) We calculate Streetscore, a metric for perceived safety of a streetscape, using a regression model based on two image features: GIST and texton maps. We calculate those features from pixels of four object categories—ground, buildings, trees, and sky—which are inferred using semantic segmentation. (B–D) We calculate the Streetchange of a street block as the difference between the Streetscores of a pair of images captured in 2007 and 2014. (B) The Streetchange metric is not affected by seasonal and weather changes. (C) Large positive Streetchange is typically associated with major construction. (D) Large negative Streetchange is associated with urban decay. Insets courtesy of Google, Inc.

    Significance
    We develop a computer vision method to measure changes in the physical appearances of neighborhoods from street-level imagery. We correlate the measured changes with neighborhood characteristics to determine which characteristics predict neighborhood improvement. We find that both education and population density predict improvements in neighborhood infrastructure, in support of theories of human capital agglomeration. Neighborhoods with better initial appearances experience more substantial upgrading, as predicted by the tipping theory of urban change. Finally, we observe more improvement in neighborhoods closer to both city centers and other physically attractive neighborhoods, in agreement with the invasion theory of urban sociology. Our results show how computer vision techniques, in combination with traditional methods, can be used to explore the dynamics of urban change.

    Abstract
    Which neighborhoods experience physical improvements? In this paper, we introduce a computer vision method to measure changes in the physical appearances of neighborhoods from time-series street-level imagery. We connect changes in the physical appearance of five US cities with economic and demographic data and find three factors that predict neighborhood improvement. First, neighborhoods that are densely populated by college-educated adults are more likely to experience physical improvements—an observation that is compatible with the economic literature linking human capital and local success. Second, neighborhoods with better initial appearances experience, on average, larger positive improvements—an observation that is consistent with “tipping” theories of urban change. Third, neighborhood improvement correlates positively with physical proximity to the central business district and to other physically attractive neighborhoods—an observation that is consistent with the “invasion” theories of urban sociology. Together, our results provide support for three classical theories of urban change and illustrate the value of using computer vision methods and street-level imagery to understand the physical dynamics of cities.

    • Data and Methods
      We obtained 360∘ panorama images of streetscapes from five US cities using the #Google_Street_View application programming interface. Each panorama was associated with a unique identifier (“panoid”), latitude, longitude, and time stamp (which specified the month and year of image capture). We extracted an image cutout from each panorama by specifying the heading and pitch of the camera relative to the Street View vehicle. We obtained a total of 1,645,760 image cutouts for street blocks in Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, New York, and Washington, DC, captured in 2007 (the “2007 panel”) and 2014 (the “2014 panel”).* We matched image cutouts from the 2007 and 2014 panels by using their geographical locations (i.e., latitude and longitude) and by choosing the same heading and pitch. This process gave us images that show the same place, from the same point of view, but in different years (Fig. 1 B–D).

  • The 2,500-year-old roots of gender inequality - The Boston Globe
    https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/03/04/the-year-old-roots-gender-inequality/7zE60rjYuOAHjFB8hEBq1N/story.html

    WOMEN STILL STRUGGLE for equal rights around the world — and considering patriarchy’s deep-seated roots in human history, it’s no wonder. In China, gender inequality may have its seeds in the Bronze Age more than 2,500 years ago, according to a recent study from Queens College in New York City.

    Scientists examined Neolithic Age graves from the Chinese Central Plains about 5,000 years ago, plus graves from the more recent Bronze Age. They documented the riches accompanying male and female skeletons and examined their bones for signs of stress. Then, they tested the chemical differences between sexes — a process that involves grinding human bones into a fine powder, dropping that powder into an acid to extract its protein, and running that protein through a mass spectrometer.

    These are really tough data sets to get, and they’ve done really difficult work by pulling all of these together,” said Tristram Kidder, an anthropology professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “What they found is a very significant change in China’s history — this shift towards patrilineal, male-dominated society.

    By examining carbon and nitrogen isotopes in the bones, scientists could see the types of plants and the amount of animal products people ate in roughly the last decade of their lives. Diets were about the same between sexes during the Neolithic Age, but that changed in the Bronze Age when new crops and domesticated animals were introduced. Men continued to live on traditional millet and animal products, while women were anemic and relied on wheat — a newer crop described as a “poor man’s food” in later historical records.

    Wheat isn’t significantly less nutritious than millet, but it’s a sign that males and females started eating and socializing separately.

    During the Neolithic [Period], females were probably contributing more to the farming community, and male and females were dependent on each other for survival,” said Kate Pechenkina, an anthropology professor at Queens College and the study’s lead author. “As soon as that relaxes, the balance tips toward gender inequality.

    The Neolithic burial site showed no clear sign of gender inequality — which is quite unusual, Pechenkina says. But in the Bronze Age, inequalities became obvious: Males were buried with more riches, and female skeletons became significantly shorter, likely because of childhood malnourishment.

    vu dans les brèves des Cahiers de Sciences et Avenir, n°168, avril 2017 sur Les Hérésies
    (mais pas trouvé sur leur site)

    • le résumé de l’étude, l’accès à l’article est sous #paywall

      Shifting diets and the rise of male-biased inequality on the Central Plains of China during Eastern Zhou
      http://www.pnas.org/content/114/5/932

      Farming domesticated millets, tending pigs, and hunting constituted the core of human subsistence strategies during Neolithic Yangshao (5000–2900 BC). Introduction of wheat and barley as well as the addition of domesticated herbivores during the Late Neolithic (∼2600–1900 BC) led to restructuring of ancient Chinese subsistence strategies. This study documents a dietary shift from indigenous millets to the newly introduced cereals in northcentral China during the Bronze Age Eastern Zhou Dynasty (771–221 BC) based on stable isotope analysis of human and animal bone samples. Our results show that this change affected females to a greater degree than males. We find that consumption of the newly introduced cereals was associated with less consumption of animal products and a higher rate of skeletal stress markers among females. We hypothesized that the observed separation of dietary signatures between males and females marks the rise of male-biased inequality in early China. We test this hypothesis by comparing Eastern Zhou human skeletal data with those from Neolithic Yangshao archaeological contexts. We find no evidence of male–female inequality in early farming communities. The presence of male-biased inequality in Eastern Zhou society is supported by increased body height difference between the sexes as well as the greater wealth of male burials.

    • Fin de l’article :

      “If their family or their community were short on food, girls were the first to be deprived,” Pechenkina said. “When your body doesn’t get enough food, it has to sacrifice something.”

      Scientists aren’t exactly sure how the inequality rose or whether this evidence can speak for the rest of the world. But finding a historical turning point inevitably gets us closer to understanding ourselves as people — and where our social issues were born.

      “Last I heard, women make up 50 percent of the population in this world,” Kidder said. “Their stories in human history are very important because they shape who we are today.”

      Résumé : d’après des études sur les squelettes de femmes et d’hommes préhistoriques en Chine, il y a 5000 ans, dans le Néolithique, les femmes et les hommes mangeaient la même chose, et en particulier de la viande et du millet, et leurs squelettes ont des tailles comparables. C’est aussi une période où les deux sexes partageaient probablement équitablement les responsabilités, les activités, et une certaine interdépendance.

      Il y a 2500 ans, à l’Age de Bronze, lorsque l’agriculture s’est développée et la domestication animale a débuté, une inégalité s’est installée, en faveur des hommes. Les hommes ont continué de manger la même nourriture, alors que les femmes se sont mises à manger moins de viande, et d’autres céréales, en particulier du blé. S’il y avait moins de nourriture, elles en étaient les premières privées, et on observe des squelettes de femmes plus petits et comportant des signes de malnutrition infantile...

      La raison exacte qui a poussé cette inégalité à s’installer n’est pas connue, mais elle est datée et on peut imaginer que ça a du être peu ou prou pareil partout à un moment ou à un autre...

      Précédents articles sur le sujet :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/371071
      https://seenthis.net/messages/372186
      https://seenthis.net/messages/562728

      #domination #alimentation #dimorphisme_sexuel #stature #taille #inégalités #histoire #Préhistoire #Femmes #Femmes_Hommes #Sexisme #Petites #Evolution #Chine #Science

    • Je pencherais plutôt pour la répartition genrée des rôles à partir de l’adoption de l’agriculture : les hommes aux champs et les femmes à la maison. Les travaux dans les champs étant considéré comme un travail plus physique que les travaux domestiques, les hommes auraient été mieux nourris. Maintenant c’est peut-être plus complexe avec plusieurs facteurs qui peuvent entrer en jeu.

    • Ce que je soulignais @nicolasm c’est qu’avec la sédentarisation des communautés, les femmes ont été reléguées aux travaux domestiques contrairement aux hommes qui ont continué à vaquer à leurs occupations à l’extérieur. C’est une rupture importante d’avec les sociétés basées sur la chasse et la cueillette où tout le monde est dehors, et, semble-t-il, des inégalités moins pesantes.

    • Ca ne me choque pas d’imaginer un partage du travail, lié entre autre à la grossesse et à l’allaitement : puisque les femmes enfantent, on leur « épargne » les travaux difficiles ou dangereux, mais alors pourquoi, en même temps, on les affamerait ? C’est mettre en péril la génération suivante, y compris de futurs hommes.

      C’est complètement con, mais en même temps ce ne serait pas la seule fois dans leur histoire que les humains, et en particulier les hommes, font des choix complètement cons pour leur survie...

    • On a pas déjà eu des articles comme quoi avant l’agri le découpage n’était finalement peut-être pas aussi simple que ça, et qu’il y avait aussi des hommes à la cueillette et peut-être des femmes à la chasse ? Notamment parce qu’en fait c’était une présupposition sexiste des archéologues (les grands sont des hommes etc), alors qu’en fait les squelettes retrouvés sont très difficilement « sexuables ».

      En revanche, dès avant l’agriculture, les anthropologues nous disent généralement qu’il y avait déjà une grosse séparation par rapport au tabou du sang.

    • @aude_v plus que l’abondance c’est la répartition qui pose souci, le point critique est plutôt le fait que la nourriture soit stockable ou pas. Pour plusieurs auteurs à partir du jour où on a eu des surplus stockables on était foutus.
      Après, concernant les inégalités de genre, je dirais qu’elles sont plus probablement apparues en même temps que l’agriculture (à travers la maîtrise par les hommes de la reproduction humaine, animale et végétale) plutôt que comme conséquence de la gestion des surplus.
      #travail_reproductif

    • Peut être une piste avec Ibn Khaldoun (Islam des « lumiéres »)
      Sur le passage du nomadisme à la sédentarisation.
      Le groupe, le rapport à la nature, structure de civilisation, complexité des techniques (technologie) et gouvernement.

    • Suite de cette discussion et de celle sur le lien entre patriarcat et agriculture, cet article :

      L’homme est-il responsable de la désertification du Sahara il y a 8.000 ans ?
      Jean-Paul Fritz, L’Obs, le 16 mars 2017
      https://seenthis.net/messages/580597

      En comparant les données archéologiques sur l’apparition de l’élevage dans la région saharienne avec l’évolution sur la durée de certains types de végétation associés à une région désertique, l’archéologue a pu bâtir sa théorie.

      Voici environ 8.000 ans, les premières communautés pastorales se seraient installées dans la région du Nil, et auraient commencé à se répandre vers l’ouest. Et cette progression serait synchrone avec l’augmentation de la végétation désertique.

      Comment cela a-t-il pu se produire ? L’arrivée de tribus dont la ressource principale est l’élevage a eu des conséquences sur l’environnement. Ces civilisations ont aménagé l’espace, incendié des zones qu’ils souhaitaient dédier à leurs animaux, et plus globalement procédé à une déforestation. Le changement dans la végétation, et notamment la disparition de zones de forêts et de savanes, a pu changer la quantité de lumière solaire reflétée par le sol, qui a son tour aurait influencé la circulation atmosphérique. Les moussons, qui irriguaient le Sahara, auraient alors faibli, poussant la région sur le chemin de la désertification.

      #Sahara #désert #changement_climatique #anthropique #archéologie

      Et du coup :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/499739
      https://seenthis.net/messages/524060

      #inégalités #effondrement #collapsologie #catastrophe #fin_du_monde #it_has_begun #Anthropocene #Anthropocène #capitalocène

    • Pour les chasseurs-cueilleurs, une étude récente fournit des données impressionnantes. Après un an de terrain à quantifier scrupuleusement les items consommés par les hommes et les femmes dans six campements hadza (population de chasseurs‑cueilleurs en Tanzanie) un spécialiste de l’écologie comportementale humaine – par ailleurs pas le moins du monde concerné par les problématiques du genre – note que la viande constitue pratiquement 40% du régime alimentaire des hommes et 1% (à peine plus) de celui des femmes (Marlowe, 2010 : 128).

      https://www.cairn.info/revue-journal-des-anthropologues-2015-1-page-19.htm

      Cette étude indique que chez les peuples chasseurs- ceuilleurs, l’accès à la viande pour les femmes n’est pas brillant.
      De plus en plus j’ai l’impression qu’on part d’un déséquillibre assez marqué (le dimorphisme sexuel est présent à l’aventage des mâles depuis belles lurettes, cf Claudine Cohen)
      A la base c’est pas brillant, au néolithique c’est encore plus la merde, ca s’aggrave à l’age de bronze, c’est encore pire avec les grecs, les romains, du coté celte, plus les groupes s’agrandissent plus c’est mauvais pour les femmes, ca se dégrade encore avec les cathos, à la renaissance c’est carrément la chasse aux sorcières, à la révolution les droits des femmes se dégradent encore (on se demande comment c’est possible) au XIXeme t’as les ouvrières à assommoir industriel, au XXeme quelques améliorations notables (mais pour l’Afghanistan c’est pas frappant) et au XXIeme le porno, l’uberisation en marche, les désastres climatiques veillent à te faire aimer les privations alimentaires que tu t’impose toi même pour garder la ligne. Au XXIeme les effets nocifs touchent d’abord les femmes et les enfants, par exemple le Tsunami de 2004 en Indonésie à fait 80% de victimes parmi les femmes et les enfants).

  • Dans les premiers temps de l’humanité, les hommes et les femmes étaient égaux (les inégalités sont une invention tardive) | Le Partage
    http://partage-le.com/2015/05/dans-les-premiers-temps-de-lhumanite-les-hommes-et-les-femmes-etaient-eg

    Une étude montre que les tribus de chasseurs-cueilleurs modernes fonctionnent sur des bases égalitaires, indiquant que l’inégalité ést une aberration qui vit le jour avec l’avènement de l’agriculture.

    Nos ancêtres préhistoriques sont souvent présentés comme des sauvages armés de lances, mais les premières sociétés humaines ont probablement été fondées sur des principes égalitaires éclairés, selon des chercheurs.

    Une étude montre que chez les tribus de chasseurs-cueilleurs contemporains, femmes et hommes ont tendance à avoir une influence égale sur l’endroit où vit leur groupe, et avec qui ils vivent. Ces découvertes remettent en question l’idée selon laquelle l’égalité sexuelle est une invention récente, et suggèrent qu’il s’agissait de la norme pour les humains pendant la majeure partie de notre histoire évolutionnaire.

    #selon_une_étude_récente #inégalités #histoire