Tagged / the conversation

What ancient footprints can tell us about what it was like to be a child in prehistoric times

BU research, Featured, the conversation

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Footprint from 700,000 years ago. Matthew Bennett, Author provided

By Professor Matthew Bennett and Dr Sally Reynolds.

Western society has a rather specific view of what a good childhood should be like; protecting, sheltering and legislating to ensure compliance with it. However, perceptions of childhood vary greatly with geography, culture and time. What was it like to be a child in prehistoric times, for example – in the absence of toys, tablets and television?

In our new paper, published in Scientific Reports, we outline the discovery of children’s footprints in Ethiopia which show how children spent their time 700,000 years ago.

We first came across the question of what footprints can tell us about past childhood experiences a few years back while studying some astonishingly beautiful children’s footprints in Namibia, just south of Walvis Bay. In archaeological terms the tracks were young, dating only from around 1,500 years ago. They were made by a small group of children walking across a drying mud surface after a flock of sheep or goats. Some of these tracks were made by children as young as three-years-old in the company of slightly older children and perhaps young adolescents.

Namibian footprints. Matthew Bennett, Author provided

The detail in these tracks, preserved beneath the shifting sands of the Namibian Sand Sea, is amazing, and the pattern of footfall – with the occasional skip, hop and jump – shows they were being playful. The site also showed that children were trusted with the family flock of animals from an early age and, one assumes, they learnt from that experience how to function as adults were expected to within that culture.

No helicopter parents

But what about the childhood of our earlier ancestors – those that came before anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens)? Children’s tracks by Homo antecessor (1.2m to 800,000 years ago) were found at Happisburgh in East Anglia, a site dating to a million years ago. Sadly though, these tracks leave no insight into what these children were doing.

Reconstruction of Homo Heidelbergensis. Jose Luis Martinez Alvarez/wikipedia, CC BY-SA

But the footprints described in our recent study – from a remarkable site in the Upper Awash Valley of Southern Ethiopia that was excavated by researchers from the Università di Roma “La Sapienza” – reveal a bit more. The children’s tracks were probably made by the extinct species Homo heidelbergensis(600,000 to 200,000 years ago), occurring next to adult prints and an abundance of animal tracks congregated around a small, muddy pool. Stone tools and the butchered remains of a hippo were also found at the site, called Melka Kunture.

This assemblage of tracks is capped by an ash flow from a nearby volcano which has been dated to 700,000 years ago. The ash flow was deposited shortly after the tracks were left, although we don’t know precisely how soon after. The tracks are not as anatomically distinct as those from Namibia but they are smaller and may have been made by children as young as one or two, standing in the mud while their parents and older siblings got on with their activities. This included knapping the stone tools with which they butchered the carcass of the hippo.

The findings create a unique and momentary insight into the world of a child long ago. They clearly were not left at home with a babysitter when the parents were hunting. In the harsh savannah plains of the East African Rift Valley, it was natural to bring your children to such daily tasks, perhaps so they could observe and learn.

This is not surprising, when one considers the wealth of ethnographic evidence from modern, culturally distinct human societies. Babies and children are most often seen as the lowliest members of their social and family groups. They are often expected to contribute to activities that support the mother, and the wider family group, according to their abilities. In many societies, small boys tend to help with herding, while young girls are preferred as babysitters. Interestingly, adult tools – like axes, knives, machetes, even guns – are often freely available to children as a way of learning.

Artistic impression of scene at Melka Kunture. Matthew Bennett, Author provided

So, if we picture the scene at Melka Kunture, the children observing the butchery were probably allowed to handle stone tools and practice their skills on discarded pieces of carcass while staying out of the way of the fully-occupied adults. This was their school room, and the curriculum was the acquisition of survival skills. There was little time or space to simply be a child, in the sense that we would recognise today.

This was likely the case for a very long time. The Monte Hermoso Human Footprint Site in Argentina (roughly 7,000-years-old) contains predominantly small tracks (of children and women) preserved in coastal sediments and it has been suggested that the children may have played an important role in gathering seafood or coastal resources. Similarly, most of the tracks in the Tuc d’Audoubert Cave in France (15,000-years-old) are those of children and the art there is striking. Perhaps they were present when it was carved and painted?

However, these observations contrasts to the story that emerged last year based on tracks from the older Homo Homo erectus (1.5m-year-old) at Ileret, located further south in the Rift Valley, just within the northern border of Kenya. Here the tracks have been interpreted as the product of adult hunting groups moving along a lake shore, rather than a domestic scene such as that at Melka Kunture. However, these scenes aren’t mutually exclusive and both show the power of footprints to provide a snapshot into past hominin behaviour.

But it does seem like the overwhelming parenting lesson from the distant past is that children had more responsibilities, less adult supervision and certainly no indulgence from their parents. It is a picture of a childhood very different from our own, at least from the privileged perspective of life in Western society.

 

Matthew Robert Bennett, Professor of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Bournemouth University and Sally Christine Reynolds, Senior Lecturer in Hominin Palaeoecology, Bournemouth University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Fact Check: does the north of England now get as much transport spending as the south?

BU research, Research communication, Research news

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Shutterstock

When you include those centrally funded and locally delivered projects, this government is spending more per head on transport in the northwest than we are in the southeast.

Chris Grayling, Sectary of State for Transport, 21 September 2017

There is a widely held view, fuelled by the media, that the north of England is hard done by when it comes to transport spending. Over 70,000 people recently signed a petition to the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, calling for more investment in transport in the north. Grayling has responded by saying the figures used to make this assessment are misleading, and that the northwest region now receives more transport spending than the southeast.

The issue of transport spending is awash with statistics. A recent House of Commons document confirmed that public spending on transport in absolute, per person and modal average terms is higher in parts of the north than in the southeast region outside London but not in the capital itself. In the 2015/16 financial year, transport spending per person was £401 in the northwest, £380 in Yorkshire and the Humber, and £299 in the northeast. For the southeast, it was £365 per head, while for London it was £973.

The think tank IPPR North has estimated that from 2016/17 onwards, the figures will be £680 for the northwest, £190 for Yorkshire and Humber, and £220 for the northeast. The southeast will get £226 and London £1,040.

So Grayling is right to say the northwest is doing well right now compared to the southeast (not including London), which is receiving similar amounts to the other northern regions. But this ignores the fact that London still receives far more than any other part of the country.

The problem with these kind of figures for individual years is that they can skew the overall picture of spending. For example, money for large infrastructure projects such as Crossrail in London and the southeast, and Manchester’s Metrolink programme, tend to be allocated to the particular years when the projects are completed.

Looking at all the spending data over a longer period of time is a better indicator of the gap between north and south. In terms of total transport spending, the southeast has actually received 13% more than the northwest since 2011/12. And looking at bus and rail services, London has received over five times more public spending in the last five years than the northwest.

But the real picture is even more complicated than this. Transport infrastructure in London is not just for Londoners. Many people in the southeast benefit hugely from London transport spending, especially those who commute in every day. Yet people from elsewhere in Britain also benefit when they visit, as do millions of international tourists.

London is very different from the other English regions, with much greater population density and a more mobile workforce. Its transport serves a different, wider purpose and also benefits from local government funding because of devolution. So a like-for-like comparison is inherently misleading.

The government’s recent budget has also gone some way to further reducing the north-south divide. The northeast will receive £337m for new rolling stock on the 40-year-old Tyne and Wear Metro network. Greater Manchester has been promised £240m to ease road congestion. A £1.7 billion fund will improve links between city centres and suburbs across the country. But the lack of news about the much-needed modernisation of the Manchester to Leeds transPennine route put on hold earlier this year is very disappointing, and Leeds still desperately needs a new mass transit system.

Verdict

It might come as a surprise for those in the northwest and Yorkshire to hear that they get about the same amount of transport spending (or more) than the southeast, but at the moment it is technically true. The northeast, meanwhile, remains the poor relation in every measurement of spending. But these simple facts don’t take account of the much higher spending in London or the very different circumstances by which this money is allocated.

Review

Derek Robbins, Senior Lecturer in Transport and Tourism, Bournemouth University

This is a comprehensive review of current transport investment and expenditure, well illustrated by published data. It can be difficult to separate data from political spin and government PR, which have the unnerving tendency to portray funding that has already been allocated as if it were newly announced. But the underlying premise of this article that transport investment in the northwest and Yorkshire has increased is well made.

I take greater issue with the conclusion that recent announcements have gone some way to further reducing the north-south divide. As the article illustrates, long-term investment is a better indicator, and the north still has some considerable catching up to do. The new projects are only a first step. I would also describe the lack of progress towards a modernised and reliable transPennine rail route as more than disappointing, given that it is an essential investment for future economic growth in the north.

While I also accept that London is different, I think the benefits of the capital’s transport links to the other English regions can be easily overstated.

 

Colin Bamford, Associate Dean, Business School, University of Huddersfield

Reviewed by Derek Robbins, Senior Lecturer in Transport and Tourism, Bournemouth University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

FoM academic publishes article on student debt in The Conversation

BU research, Featured academics, the conversation

Julie Robson from the Department of Marketing (FoM) has co-authored an article published today in The Conversation about unpaid student placements and debt.

The piece is loosely based on earlier research that examined students as vulnerable consumers where debt is concerned. This project was made possible following a successful application to the BU Undergraduate Research Assistant Programme (URAP) in 2015. Results from the research will be published in November 2017 in the Journal of Marketing for Higher Education. The article is entitled Working up a debt: Students as vulnerable consumers. The authors are Julie Robson (BU), Jillian Dawes Farquhar (Southampton Solent) and Christopher Hindle (BU URAP).

The article in The Conversation is entitled – Student interns are not entitled to the minimum wage and its costing them big time and can be accessed here.

The strange science of odour memory – BU published in the Conversation

BU research, Knowledge Exchange, Research communication

Andrew Johnson, Bournemouth University and Andrew Moss, Bournemouth University

Smell is a powerful sense. It can improve alertness, reduce anxiety and influence self-confidence. Certain odours can even prime people to have safe sex. The Conversation

Odours provide a richness to our perception of the world. But, despite the ubiquity of smell, we understand less about smell memory than we do about visual and auditory memory.

The classic example of smell memory is what has become known as a Proustian memory (or involuntary memory). For this phenomenon, mere exposure to a stimulus can automatically trigger a strong memory from the past. For Proust, it was tea-soaked madeleine that activated a detailed memory of his aunt’s house.

A simple madeleine plunged Proust back to his youth.
vm2002/Shutterstock.com

As a researcher of odour memory, people often tell me stories of smells that triggered vivid autobiographical memories. This might be the smell of hospital food, a certain alcoholic drink or the shampoo of a former lover. This strong relationship between odour and emotion is thought to result from the part of the brain involved in processing odours being positioned within the limbic system – an area of the brain integral to emotion.

Testing short-term memory for smells

Not all smell is stored in long-term memory, though. Some smells are only retained in memory for short periods. Imagine you’re shopping for a new aftershave or perfume. You wouldn’t smell two products at the same time as it would be difficult to distinguish between the two. To decide which one you prefer, you need to smell them one after the other. This means you have to temporarily store the smell and then recall it to make a comparison. We have been examining how people store odours in short-term memory and the extent to which odour memory works differently from other types of memory.

The simplest explanation is that people perform smell memory tasks by verbally labelling the odours (for example: “smells like cheese”). But using this kind of verbal strategy results in the memory task being a test of verbal rather than olfactory memory, because we’re storing the word “cheese” in verbal memory not the actual smell of cheese in odour memory. As researchers, we can limit the use of this strategy by selecting odours that are hard to name. For example, non-food odours are typically harder to label.

Another trick we use is asking participants to repeat words that are irrelevant to the task during the test; this is called “concurrent articulation”. Concurrent articulation disrupts the participant’s ability to name the odours and their ability to silently rehearse the names during the task. For example, if you’re repeating “the, the, the” while sniffing something that smells like new-mown grass, you won’t be able to store the words “new-mown grass” in your verbal memory. It’s a bit like trying to read a book while listening to the news.

It has been shown that people can perform short-term olfactory memory tasks when the odours are hard to name,
and when undertaking concurrent articulation. These findings suggest that while verbal labelling can improve the memory for an odour, people are also able to store the actual odour within memory. This is supported by research showing that different parts of the brain are activated when remembering easy-to-name and hard-to-name odours; specifically, the inferior frontal gyrus and the piriform cortex, respectively.

One method by which olfactory short-term memory has been compared with other types of memory is by examining how well people can remember a list of odours. Depending on the specifics of the memory task, people are typically good at remembering the first and last item on a list (a phenomena known as primacy and recency). There is some evidence that, for some tasks, smell memory produces different primacy and recency effects to that of other stimuli. These differences might indicate that your smell memory works in a different way to other types of memory.

Smell memory as a diagnostic tool

You might, quite reasonably, ask why you should be interested in testing smell memory, since most of the time we use our olfactory perception to make judgements about odours (that smell is nice/horrible). But research has shown that an impaired sense of smell memory is a predictor of developing dementia.

To further emphasise this link, people with the ApoE gene (a genetic risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s), who show no signs of dementia, have impaired odour identification. These findings suggest that an olfactory memory test could potentially be used as part of the armoury in detecting the early stages of dementia. Early detection is important, as the earlier the intervention, the better the outcome.

Andrew Johnson, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Bournemouth University and Andrew Moss, PhD Student in Cognitive Psychology, Bournemouth University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Professor Barry Richards on ‘The Conversation’

Research news

A piece written by BU’s Professor Barry Richards was featured as a lead article on ‘The Conversation’ website.

Entitled ‘A hymn confirms that the FA Cup final is a matter of life and death’, the article explores the reasons why ‘Abide with Me’ has become the FA Cup anthem.

The Conversation is a website, sourcing news and views from the academic and research community and sharing it with the wider public.

Read Barry’s article on The Conversation here.