The Gibraltar National Museum is a national museum of the history, culture and natural history of Gibraltar located within the city centre of the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. Founded in 1930 by the then Governor of Gibraltar, General Sir Alexander Godley, the museum houses an array of displays portraying The Rock's millennia-old history and the unique culture of its people. The museum also incorporates the remains of a 14th-century Moorish bathhouse. Its director since 1991 is Prof. Clive Finlayson.
Recent advances in the study of ancient DNA recovered from fossils and cave sediments have profoundly changed our views on the biological and cultural interactions between populations and lineages of fossil Homo in the Later Pleistocene of Eurasia. A spatiotemporally complex picture emerges, with multiple population admixture and replacement events. Focusing on the evidence from Western Eurasia, we consider here how the mapping out of between-species interactions based on fossil and material cultural evidence is being replaced by a broader approach. Traditional narratives about human migrations and the biological and/or cultural advantages of our own species over the Neanderthals are now giving way to the study of the biological and cultural dynamics of past human populations and the nature of their interactions in time and space.
This chapter engages with the resilience of traditional streets names at Gibraltar together with the resistance they posed to the implementation of official street names. The permanence of traditional names, in use pre-1704 until the mid-nineteen seventies, raises questions regarding Edward Said's theory of imaginative geographies regarding the colonially informed mapping of a territory. Whilst this (did) level of mapping was exercised at Gibraltar post-1704, I suggest that this process proved to be incomplete when it came to the territory's urban streetscape, a space which had already been imaginatively mapped by the inhabitants though a linguistically and culturally codified street naming principle. These traditional street names existed only in their imagination as they did not appear on street signs, yet they were extremely effective in disrupting access to a military based settler community. As newcomers to the territory, this sector was linguistically and culturally ill equipped to decipher the norms underpinning these names, rendering this group quite unable to easily find locations in the territory's city centre. Testament to this was the need to publish lists of street names even after official street names were placed on street corners in the 1870s. However, rather than leading to greater access or effective mapping, these publicly displayed official names created a doubling through the co-existence of two parallel albeit very different sets of nomenclature. This (piece) chapter aims at unpacking the terms under which traditional street names were generated and sustained, together with the challenge they posed to a colonially informed mapping necessary for fixity and control over the territory. Attention will be drawn towards initiatives to publish lists bearing both official and traditional street names; the aim was to decodify if not decentre these traditional names, but at a practicable level, these lists were deemed as necessary tools to be able to navigate Gibraltar's streets. Whilst difficult to fully measure their success, the need to publish lists over a prolonged period of time offers insight into the limitations of a colonially informed mapping process when faced with a far more powerful mapping principle that existed only in the minds of Gibraltarians.
This article aims to delve into the reality of glacial refuges of forests and tree species (including conifers, mesothermophilous angiosperms and xerothermic scrub) during the cold dry phases of the Iberian Pleistocene in which there is evidence of occupation of Middle Palaeolithic people. The research framework focuses on the eastern sector of the Iberian Peninsula due to the physiographic, palaeobotanical and archaeological peculiarities, substantiated by recent studies. We contend that some Neanderthal occupations developed in the context of high geobiological complexity, high biological diversity and highly structured forest ecosystems. We highlight the importance of glacial refuges as local anomalies that, however, would be contingent on vegetational development, and on the survival of Palaeolithic groups in areas with a broad diversity of natural resources.
Background and aims: Tolerance, one of the key features of addiction, is a highly debated criterion for behaviors, considered controversial and difficult to assess. The Incentive-Sensitization Theory of addiction (IST) provides a robust empirical background on the dynamics of the motivational and hedonic systems underlying addiction, reflecting tolerance. The aim of this proof-of-concept study was to introduce 'wanting' and 'liking' as an IST-based measure of tolerance. Methods: Survey data were analyzed on two potentially problematic substance use behaviors (alcohol and nicotine use) and seven potential behavioral addictions (internet use, social media use, pornography use, eating, television series watching, gaming and working) of 774 participants (517 women, Mage = 35.8 years, SD = 11.84), using linear regression models. Results: The models describing the relationship between usage frequency and the difference between self-reported 'wanting' and 'liking' were significant for all of the investigated substance use and potential behavioral addictions. As a general pattern, the balance of 'wanting' and 'liking' was disrupted with increasing usage/behavior frequency, with a steady increment in 'wanting' in all investigated cases. Conclusion: Based on the results, the proposed measure is promising. This approach can potentially provide an empirically robust tool for addiction research, with the potential to compare substance and behavioral addictions along one unified dimension.
(2774) Cassyta baccifera J.S. Muell., Ill. Syst. Sex. Linnaei: t. 29. 1 Dec 1771 [Angiosp.: Cact.], nom. cons. prop. Typus: [icon in] Mueller, Ill. Syst. Sex. Linnaei: t. 29. 1 Dec 1771. (=) Cactus parasiticus L., Syst. Nat., ed. 10: 1054. Mai–Jun 1759, nom. rej. prop. Lectotypus (vide Mottram & Hoxey in Cactician 13: 92. 2020): [icon in] Plumier, Pl. Amer.: t. 197, fig. 2. 1758. The name Rhipsalis baccifera has been in use for the past 80 years for the most naturally wide-ranging species of Cactaceae. This epiphyte is widespread in the American tropics, from Florida (U.S.A.), eastern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, southwards to Bolivia and northeastern Brazil, and it is the only naturally occurring cactus in the Old World, having long-distance dispersed in prehistoric times to the humid parts of Africa, Madagascar, the Comores, Seychelles and Sri Lanka, where it is represented by various subspecies (Hunt & al., New Cactus Lexicon, Text.: 253. 2006, Illustr.: xi. 2013). In 1939, long before it was possible to conserve specific names, William Stearn (in Cactus J. (Croydon) 7: 107. 1939) combined the priorable Cassyta baccifera J.S. Muell. (Ill. Syst. Sex. Linnaei: t. 29. 1771) into Rhipsalis, the species having been previously known as Rhipsalis cassutha Gaertn. (Fruct. Sem. Pl. 1: 137. 1788). Rhipsalis baccifera is probably the cactus most represented in herbaria worldwide, since it is one of the easiest members of this succulent family to collect and dry, most forms also lacking spines. It is a conspicuous element of the Neotropical flora, even colonizing older street trees in towns and being amongst the commonest of pendent epiphytes, such as in the Brazilian city of Belém do Pará, eastern Amazônia. The name Rhipsalis baccifera is employed in many flora accounts and online checklists in countries throughout its range and is in the living collection databases of botanic gardens. An online search for the name Rhipsalis baccifera between 1980 and 2020 has recovered 1100 records, of which 365 were retrieved when restricting the search for scientific papers (341 for scientific articles). Recently, however, an older name, Cactus parasiticus L. (Syst. Nat., ed. 10: 1054. 1759), based on a mixture of the cactus and look-alike cylindrical-leaved orchids (Campylocentrum or Dendrophylax), has been resurrected and lectotypified by Mottram & Hoxey (in Cactician 13: 91–92. 2020) with the cactus element, using the cited illustration of a Caribbean plant discovered and drawn by Charles Plumier in the 17th century. These authors argued convincingly that in later publications Linnaeus restricted its application to the cactus element. Their decision displaces the universally used R. baccifera with a name that has hitherto never been in use, no doubt because its mixture of typifiable elements has discouraged authors from taking it up; indeed, earlier rules had required a name derived from two or more discordant elements to be rejected. Cactus parasiticus was cited in the synonymy of R. cassutha with a “?” by the cactus monographer Karl Schumann (Gesamtbeschreib. Kakteen: 622. 1898). On the other hand, the subsequent American monographers, N.L. Britton & J.N. Rose (Cactaceae 4: 219. 1923), stated that the type of Cactus parasiticus was “a species of Vanilla, probably V. claviculata Swartz” (Orchidaceae). As reported by Jarvis (Order out of Chaos: 372. 2007), Barthlott & Taylor (in Bradleya 13: 73. 1995), in a synopsis of Rhipsalideae, had earlier indicated their intention to formally reject the Linnaean name, but subsequently this action was not taken in the belief that orchidologists were going to lectotypify C. parasiticus in favour of one of the orchid elements, thereby removing the threat to R. baccifera. For reasons now lost sight of this did not happen, and so, in order to prevent undesirable nomenclatural change, Cassyta baccifera, the basionym of R. baccifera is here proposed for conservation against Cactus parasiticus. Aymonin (in Humbert, Fl. Madagasc. 145: 114. 1983) lectotypified Cassyta baccifera by the only surviving element, J.S. Mueller's (l.c.) detailed illustration. NPT, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8162-0505 DCZ, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6755-2238 The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Prof. John McNeill in revising this proposal.
