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A new analysis of ancient faeces taken from two Jerusalem latrines dating back to the biblical Kingdom of Judah has uncovered traces of a single-celled microorganism Giardia duodenalis – a common cause of debilitating diarrhoea in humans.

A research team led by the University of Cambridge say it is the oldest example we have of this diarrhoea-causing parasite infecting humans anywhere on the planet. The study is published in the journal Parasitology.  

“The fact that these parasites were present in sediment from two Iron Age Jerusalem cesspits suggests that dysentery was endemic in the Kingdom of Judah,” said study lead author Dr Piers Mitchell from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology.

“Dysentery is a term that describes intestinal infectious diseases caused by parasites and bacteria that trigger diarrhoea, abdominal cramps, fever and dehydration. It can be fatal, particularly for young children.”

“Dysentery is spread by faeces contaminating drinking water or food, and we suspected it could have been a big problem in early cities of the ancient Near East due to over-crowding, heat and flies, and limited water available in the summer,” said Mitchell.

The faecal samples came from the sediment underneath toilets found in two building complexes excavated to the south of the Old City, which date back to the 7th century BCE when Jerusalem was a capital of Judah.

During this time, Judah was a vassal state under the control of the Assyrian Empire, which at its height stretched from the Levant to the Persian Gulf, incorporating much of modern-day Iran and Iraq. Jerusalem would have been a flourishing political and religious hub estimated to have had between 8,000 and 25,000 residents.

Both toilets had carved stone seats almost identical in design: a shallow curved surface for sitting, with a large central hole for defecation and an adjacent hole at the front for male urination. “Toilets with cesspits from this time are relatively rare and were usually made only for the elite,” said Mitchell.

One was from a lavishly decorated estate at Armon ha-Natziv, surrounded by an ornamental garden. The site, excavated in 2019, probably dates from the days of King Manasseh, a client king for the Assyrians who ruled for fifty years in the mid-7th century.

The site of the other toilet, known as the House of Ahiel, was a domestic building made up of seven rooms, housing an upper-class family at the time. Date of construction is hard to pin down, with some placing it around the 8th century BCE.

However, its destruction is safely dated to 586 BCE, when Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II brutally sacked Jerusalem for a second time after its citizens refused to pay their agreed tribute, bringing to an end the Kingdom of Judah.

Ancient medical texts from Mesopotamia during the first and second millennium BCE describe diarrhoea affecting the populations of what is now the Near and Middle East. One example reads: “If a person eats bread and drinks beer and subsequently his stomach is colicky, he has cramps and has a flowing of the bowels, setu has gotten him”.

The cuneiform word often used in these texts to describe diarrhoea was sà si-sá. Some texts also included recommended incantations for reciting to increase the chances of recovery.

“These early written sources do not provide causes of diarrhoea, but they encourage us to apply modern techniques to investigate which pathogens might have been involved,” said Mitchell. “We know for sure that Giardia was one of those infections responsible.”

The team investigated the two-and-a-half-thousand year-old decomposed biblical period faeces by applying a bio-molecular technique called “ELISA”, in which antibodies bind onto the proteins uniquely produced by particular species of single-celled organisms.

“Unlike the eggs of other intestinal parasites, the protozoa that cause dysentery are fragile and extremely hard to detect in ancient samples through microscopes without using antibodies,” said co-author and Cambridge PhD candidate Tianyi Wang.

The researchers tested for Entamoeba, Giardia and Cryptosporidium: three parasitic microorganisms that are among the most common causes of diarrhoea in humans, and behind outbreaks of dysentery. Tests for Entamoeba and Cryptosporidium were negative, but those for Giardia were repeatedly positive.

Previous research has dated traces of the Entamoeba parasite, which also causes dysentery, as far back as Neolithic Greece over 4,000 years ago. Previous work has also shown that users of ancient Judean toilets were infected by other intestinal parasites including whipworm, tapeworm and pinworm.

This research was undertaken through a collaboration between the University of Cambridge, Tel Aviv University, and the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Study of 2,500-year-old latrines from the biblical Kingdom of Judah shows the ancient faeces within contain Giardia – a parasite that can cause dysentery.

Toilets with cesspits from this time are relatively rare and were usually made only for the elitePiers MitchellYa’akov BilligThe toilet seat from the estate at Armon ha-Natziv. The site, excavated in 2019, probably dates from the days of King Manasseh, a client king for the Assyrians who ruled for fifty years in the mid-7th century.

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International aid for pre-primary education has fallen further behind an agreed 10% spending target since the COVID-19 outbreak, according to new research.

The report, compiled by academics at the University of Cambridge for the global children’s charity, Theirworld, highlights “continued, chronic” underfunding of pre-primary education in many of the world’s poorest nations, after years of slow progress and pandemic-related cuts.

Early childhood education is widely understood to be essential to children’s successful cognitive and social development and to breaking cycles of poverty in poorer countries. In 2017, Cambridge research for Theirworld resulted in UNICEF formally recommending that 10% of education aid should be allocated to pre-primary education. Last year 147 United Nations member states signed a declaration agreeing to the target.

According to the new report’s findings, aid spending is falling far short of this goal and any progress towards the target ground to a halt following the COVID-19 outbreak. The most recent figures, from 2021, indicate that the proportion of education aid spent on pre-primary education internationally during the pandemic dropped by approximately (US)$19.7 million: from 1.2% to 1.1%.

The report identifies several reasons for the decline, notably spending cuts by the World Bank’s International Development Association, EU Institutions, and by the governments of wealthy nations, such as the UK.

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education said: “Hundreds of millions of children around the world are missing out on high-quality pre-primary education despite clear evidence that prioritising this will improve their life chances. The overall trend is very worrying.”

“Although some progress has been made towards the 10% target, it started from a very low base. Other education levels are still being prioritised amid a general decline in aid spending. International commitments to pre-primary education are good, but we need concrete action.”

The United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals include the ambition to provide all children with proper childcare and pre-primary education. Over the past seven years, Theirworld and the REAL Centre have systematically monitored aid spending, tracking progress towards this goal.

The new report was compiled using the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s creditor report system, which gathers information about the aid contributions of both individual countries and international agencies such as UNICEF and the World Bank.

It shows that over the past two decades, the proportion of education aid spending that goes to pre-primary education has never exceeded 1.2%. Between 2020 and 2021, spending on the sector dropped from $209 million to $189.3 million: a decrease of 9.4%, compared with a 6.9% fall in education aid overall and a 0.9% decline in total aid spending. In 2021, aid spending on post-secondary education – the vast majority of which never leaves donor countries – was 27 times higher than that spent on pre-primary, despite widespread acknowledgement of the need to invest in the early years.

The report nevertheless also shows that the 10% target is attainable. UNICEF, which has consistently prioritised pre-primary education, spent 30% of its education aid budget on the sector in 2021. Italy increased spending from $2.6 million to $38 million. The majority of this was allocated to the ‘National Strategy on Human Resource Development’ which focuses on supporting the Jordanian government in strengthening its education system.  

The research shows that pre-primary aid is highly concentrated from a few donors, leaving early childhood development in poorer countries particularly vulnerable to sudden fluctuations in those donors’ spending.

Much of the pandemic-induced drop in spending, for instance, occurred because the World Bank cut its investment in pre-primary education from $122.8 million to $70.7 million. Other donors, such as Canada, EU Institutions, France, Norway and the UK, also reduced spending in this area. In 2021, eight of the top 35 education donors allocated no funds to pre-primary education at all.

The UK’s contribution was lacklustre for the world’s sixth largest economy, due in part to the Government’s controversial decision to reduce overall aid spending from the UN-recommend target of 0.7% of Gross National Income to 0.5%. Between 2020 and 2021, its education aid spending dropped from $703.67 million to $584.95 million. Aid to pre-primary was particularly badly hit, falling from an already low $5.6 million in 2020 to just $1.8 million in 2021, equivalent to a mere 0.3% of its reduced education aid budget.

The report also shows that pre-primary education spending tends to be focused on lower-middle income countries rather than the very poorest nations. In 2021, just 15% of aid in this area went to countries classified as “low income”, while 52.7% was allocated to lower-middle income countries.

As a result, some of the world’s least-advantaged children have little prospect of receiving pre-primary support. Eritrea and Sudan, for example, received no pre-primary education aid in 2021. In many other poorer countries – such as the Central African Republic, Chad, Niger and Syria – the amount of aid per primary school-aged child was less than $5.

Rose said the finding pointed to the need for a model of “progressive universalism”, where those most in need receive a greater proportion of aid spending. “The biggest gaps are in the poorest countries, and particularly among the very poorest and least advantaged,” she said. “Increasing spending on pre-primary alone will not be enough. We also have to make sure those in greatest need are prioritised.”

The full report will be available on the Theirworld website.

New research shows proportion of international education aid for early childhood learning fell to just 1.1% post-pandemic, far short of an agreed 10% target.

The biggest gaps are in the poorest countries, and particularly among the very poorest and least advantagedPauline RoseAhmed AkachaChildren in Idlib Governorate, Syria: one of the countries most seriously affected by the underfunding of pre-primary education

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Russian military mobilisations saw huge spikes in anti-regime web searches, according to a study of search trends from Google and Yandex.

A study tracking the lives of Chicagoans from childhood and adolescence in the 1990s to the start of middle age has found that 56% of Black and Hispanic residents from across the city witnessed at least one shooting by the time they turned forty.

White residents were exposed to gun violence at less than half the rate of Black and Hispanic residents, although it was still high: 25% of White Chicagoans had witnessed a shooting before turning forty.  

Across all racial categories, 50% of the study’s participants had been exposed to gun violence by age forty. The average age to witness a shooting was just 14 years old.  

Of those in the study, more than 7% of Black and Hispanic people had themselves been shot before turning forty, compared to 3% of White people. The average age for being shot was 17 years old.

Researchers also compared the locations of gun violence incidents* in the year leading up to recent study interviews in 2021. Rates of shootings within a 250-metre radius of the homes of Black participants were over 12 times higher than those of White participants. Rates of shootings near the homes of Hispanic people were almost four times higher than for White people.

The research team continued to gather data for participants who had moved out of the city, although the vast majority of gun violence took place within Chicago. 

The sustained stress of living with the potential for gun violence likely takes a “cumulative physiological toll” on Chicago’s citizens – and people in cities across the US, argue researchers.

Findings from the latest study, led by a University of Cambridge criminologist in collaboration with researchers from Harvard and Oxford universities, are published in JAMA Network Open, a journal of the American Medical Association

“Existing evidence suggests that the long-term stress of exposure to firearm violence can contribute to everything from lower test scores for schoolkids to diminished life expectancy through heart disease,” said study lead author Dr Charles Lanfear, from the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology.

“We expected levels of exposure to gun violence to be high, but not this high. Our findings are frankly startling and disturbing,” said Lanfear. “A substantial portion of Chicago’s population could be living with trauma as a result of witnessing shootings and homicides, often at a very young age.”

“It is clear that Black people in particular are often living in a very different social context, with far higher risks of seeing and becoming victims of gun violence in the streets near their homes lasting into middle age.”

The Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), a Harvard University study, has followed thousands of children since they were first surveyed in the 1990s, gathering life experiences as they grow up in the city or move away. Participants are from households selected at random from a set list of eighty Chicago districts – carefully chosen to reflect Chicago’s spectrum of race and levels of social advantage, or lack thereof.   

The latest research focused on data gathered from 2,418 of participants born in the early 1980s through to the mid-1990s, equally split between men and women.**   

The oldest study participants, born in 1981, hit adolescence in the early-to-mid 1990s when lethal violence reached a peak in the US. “The nineties saw a demographic bump collide with high poverty levels and rises in gang crime resulting in part from the crack epidemic,” said Lanfear.

“However, since 2016 we have seen another surge in gun violence. Rates of fatal shootings in Chicago are now higher than they ever were in the nineties.”

Men are far more likely to be involved in violent crime, and this is reflected in the risks of actually being shot by age 40, which are five times higher for men than women. However, there was a much smaller difference between the sexes for exposure to gun violence: 43% of women and 58% of men had seen someone shot.

“The chronic stress effects on women from being so highly exposed to firearm violence may well be substantial in Chicago, and indeed in many US cities,” said Lanfear.

“The study participants are taken from right across Chicago, and only a tiny fraction will be involved in any kind of crime. Given the levels of women and children witnessing gun violence in the city, the vast majority of this exposure will be as bystanders in public spaces, in streets or outside schools.”    

“The public health consequences of life in violent and traumatised neighbourhoods will be playing out not just in Chicago, but in many cities right across the United States,” Lanfear said.

 

Study following Chicagoans over a 25-year period suggests over half of the city’s Black and Hispanic population, and a quarter of its White population, have seen a shooting by age 40.

A substantial portion of Chicago’s population could be living with trauma as a result of witnessing shootings and homicidesCharles LanfearGetty imagesPolice line in Chicago, Illinois, USANotes

*Taken from the Gun Violence Archive, and not-for-profit organisation that collates data on gun violence drawn from sources including police departments, media and government agencies.
** Racial make-up of the study participants as follows: 890 Black respondents, 1146 Hispanic respondents, and 382 White respondents. The research looked at data from PHDCN study groups born in 1984, 1987 and 1996. The research team say they can safely estimate exposure to gun violence up to age 40 for the majority of the study participants. Even the younger group, now 27, are on track to compare with older cohorts, as most shootings are witnessed during youth.  

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Since its public release, ChatGPT has experienced widespread adoption. Its role in education, however, remains a topic of contention. Two researchers from the Faculty of Education offer their perspectives.

The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the award of 218 Advanced Grants to outstanding research leaders across Europe, as part of the Horizon Europe programme.

The grants, totalling €544 million, support cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields from medicine and physics to social sciences and humanities.

The ERC is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. The ERC Advanced Grant funding is amongst the most prestigious and competitive EU funding schemes, providing researchers with the opportunity to pursue ambitious, curiosity-driven projects that could lead to major scientific breakthroughs. Grants are awarded to established, leading researchers with a proven track record of significant research achievements over the past decade.

The University of Cambridge’s grant awardees are:

Anna Korhonen, Professor of Natural Language Processing in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, for her project Towards Globally Equitable Language Technologies.

Richard Nickl, Professor of Mathematical Statistics in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, for his project Statistical aspects of non-linear inverse problems.

Peter Sewell, Professor of Computer Science at the Computer Laboratory, for his project Secure Foundations: Verified Systems Software Above Full-Scale Integrated Semantics.

Sujit Sivasundaram, Professor of World History at the Faculty of History, for his project Colombo: Layered Histories in the Global South City.

"This funding puts our 218 research leaders, together with their teams of postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and research staff, in pole position to push back the boundaries of our knowledge, break new ground and build foundations for future growth and prosperity in Europe,” said Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth.

"These new ERC Advanced Grantees are a testament to the outstanding quality of research carried out across Europe. I am especially pleased to see such a high number of female researchers in this competition and that they are increasingly successful in securing funding. We look forward to seeing the results of the new projects in the years to come, with many likely to lead to breakthroughs and new advances,” said Maria Leptin, ERC President.

The laureates of this grant competition will carry out their projects at universities and research centres in 20 countries in Europe, with the highest number of projects in Germany (37), the UK (35), France (32) and Spain (16). The winners come from all over the world, with 27 nationalities represented, notably Germans (36 researchers), French (32), Italians (21), British (19).

This call for proposals attracted nearly 1,650 applications, which were reviewed by panels of renowned researchers. The overall success rate was 13.2%. Female researchers account for 23% of all applications, their highest participation rate in Advanced Grant calls up to now.

In addition to strengthening Europe's knowledge base, the grants are expected to create more than 2,000 jobs for postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and other staff at the host institutions. Past recipients have included Nobel laureates and other leading scientists who have gone on to make major contributions to their respective fields.

The statistics and final list of successful candidates are provisional. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom allows for associating the UK to the current EU research and innovation funding programme, Horizon Europe, subject to the adoption of a Protocol. As this Protocol has not been adopted so far, the UK is still considered “non-associated” to Horizon Europe. The successful proposals of applicants based in a country in the process of associating to Horizon Europe will be eligible for funding only if the relevant Horizon Europe association agreement applies by the time of the signature of the grant agreement. However, successful applicants from UK host institutions can still be funded, provided that they move to a host institution.

Adapted from a press release by the ERC.

The funding will enable these researchers to explore their most innovative and ambitious ideas.

yangwenshuang on Getty

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In a study of over 7,500 Irish children, researchers at the University of Cambridge and University College Dublin found that children exposed to ‘hostile’ parenting at age three were 1.5 times likelier than their peers to have mental health symptoms which qualified as ‘high risk’ by age nine.

Hostile parenting involves frequent harsh treatment and discipline and can be physical or psychological. It may, for example, involve shouting at children regularly, routine physical punishment, isolating children when they misbehave, damaging their self-esteem, or punishing children depending on the parent’s mood.

The researchers charted children’s mental health symptoms at ages three, five and nine. They studied both internalising mental health symptoms (such as anxiety and social withdrawal) and externalising symptoms (such as impulsive and aggressive behaviour, and hyperactivity).

About 10% of the children were found to be in a high-risk band for poor mental health. Children who experienced hostile parenting were much more likely to fall into this group.

Importantly, the study makes clear that parenting style does not completely determine mental health outcomes. Children’s mental health is shaped by multiple risk factors, including gender, physical health, and socio-economic status.

The researchers do argue, however, that mental health professionals, teachers and other practitioners should be alert to the potential influence of parenting on a child who shows signs of having poor mental health. They add that extra support for the parents of children who are already considered to be at risk could help to prevent these problems from developing.

The study was undertaken by Ioannis Katsantonis, a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, and Jennifer Symonds, Associate Professor in the School of Education, University College Dublin. It is reported in the journal, Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences.

“The fact that one in 10 children were in the high-risk category for mental health problems is a concern and we ought to be aware of the part parenting may play in that,” Katsantonis said. “We are not for a moment suggesting that parents should not set firm boundaries for their children’s behaviour, but it is difficult to justify frequent harsh discipline, given the implications for mental health.”

Symonds said: “Our findings underline the importance of doing everything possible to ensure that parents are supported to give their children a warm and positive upbringing, especially if wider circumstances put those children at risk of poor mental health outcomes. Avoiding a hostile emotional climate at home won’t necessarily prevent poor mental health outcomes from occurring, but it will probably help.”

While parenting is widely acknowledged as a factor influencing children’s mental health, most studies have not investigated how it affects their mental health over time, or how it relates to both internalising and externalising symptoms together.

The researchers used data from 7,507 participants in the ‘Growing up in Ireland’ longitudinal study of children and young people. Mental health data was captured using a standard assessment tool called the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Each child was given a composite score out of 10 for their externalising and internalising symptoms at ages three, five and nine.

A second standard assessment was used to measure the parenting style children experienced at age three. Parents were profiled based on how far they inclined towards each of three styles: warm parenting (supportive and attentive to their child’s needs); consistent (setting clear expectations and rules); and hostile.

The researchers found that, based on the trajectories along which their mental health symptoms developed between ages three and nine, the children fell into three broad categories. Most (83.5%) were low risk, with low internalising and externalising symptom scores at age three which then fell or remained stable. A few (6.43%) were mild risk, with high initial scores that decreased over time, but remained higher than the first group. The remaining 10.07% were high risk, with high initial scores that increased by age nine.

Hostile parenting raised a child’s chances of being in the high-risk category by 1.5 times, and the mild-risk category by 1.6 times, by age nine. Consistent parenting was found to have a limited protective role, but only against children falling into the ‘mild-risk’ category. To the researchers’ surprise, however, warm parenting did not increase the likelihood of children being in the low-risk group, possibly due to the influence of other factors on mental health outcomes.

Previous research has highlighted the importance of these other factors, many of which the new study also confirmed. Girls, for example, were more likely to be in the high-risk category than boys; children with single parents were 1.4 times more likely to be high-risk, and those from wealthier backgrounds were less likely to exhibit worrying mental health symptoms by middle childhood.

Katsantonis said that the findings underscored the importance of early intervention and support for children who are at risk of mental health difficulties, and that this should involve tailored support, guidance and training for new parents.

“Appropriate support could be something as simple as giving new parents clear, up-to-date information about how best to manage young children’s behaviour in different situations,” he said. “There is clearly a danger that parenting style can exacerbate mental health risks. This is something we can easily take steps to address.”

Parents who frequently exercise harsh discipline with young children are putting them at significantly greater risk of developing lasting mental health problems, new evidence shows.

Avoiding a hostile emotional climate at home won’t necessarily prevent poor mental health outcomes from occurring, but it will probably helpIoannis KatsantonisGetty imagesAngry boy on stairs

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How a Cambridge professor helped the climate-embattled nation of Vanuatu put the question of global warming to the International Court of Justice for the first time in history.

The University contributes nearly £30 billion to the UK economy and supports more than 86,000 jobs across the UK, according to a new report.

From toasters that won’t pop to farmers hacking their own tractors, we ask why the right to repair is important for people and for the planet.

The benefits of skin-to-skin contact for both parents and infants are already recognised, but other behaviours common in hunter-gatherer societies may also benefit families in economically developed countries, a Cambridge researcher suggests.

Parents and children may, for instance, benefit from a larger network of people being involved in care-giving, as seen in hunter-gatherer societies. Increasing staff-to-child ratios in nurseries to bring them closer to highly attentive hunter-gatherer ratios could support learning and wellbeing. And more peer-to-peer, active and mixed-age learning, as seen in hunter-gatherer communities, may help school children in developed countries.

Published today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the study by Dr Nikhil Chaudhary, an evolutionary anthropologist at Cambridge, and Dr Annie Swanepoel, a child psychiatrist, calls for new research into child mental health in hunter-gatherer societies. They explore the possibility that some common aspects of hunter-gatherer childhoods could help families in economically developed countries. Eventually, hunter-gatherer behaviours could inform ‘experimental intervention trials’ in homes, schools and nurseries.

The authors acknowledge that children living in hunter-gatherer societies live in very different environments and circumstances than those in developed countries. They also stress that hunter-gatherer children invariably face many difficulties that are not experienced in developed countries and, therefore, caution that these childhoods should not be idealised.

Drawing on his own observations of the BaYaka people in Congo and the extensive research of anthropologists studying other hunter-gatherer societies, Dr Chaudhary highlights major differences in the ways in which hunter-gatherer children are cared for compared to their peers in developed countries. He stresses that “contemporary hunter-gatherers must not be thought of as ‘living fossils’, and while their ways of life may offer some clues about our prehistory, they are still very much modern populations each with a unique cultural and demographic history”. 

Physical contact and attentiveness

Despite increasing uptake of baby carriers and baby massage in developed countries, levels of physical contact with infants remain far higher in hunter-gatherer societies. In Botswana, for instance, 10-20 week old !Kung infants are in physical contact with someone for around 90% of daylight hours, and almost 100% of crying bouts are responded to, almost always with comforting or nursing – scolding is extremely rare.

The study points out that this exceptionally attentive childcare is made possible because of the major role played by non-parental caregivers, or ‘alloparents’, which is far rarer in developed countries.

Non-parental caregivers

In many hunter-gatherer societies, alloparents provide almost half of a child’s care. A previous study found that in the DRC, Efe infants have 14 alloparents a day by the time they are 18 weeks old, and are passed between caregivers eight times an hour.

Dr Chaudhary said: “Parents now have much less childcare support from their familial and social networks than would likely have been the case during most of our evolutionary history. Such differences seem likely to create the kind of evolutionary mismatches that could be harmful to both caregivers and children.”

“The availability of other caregivers can reduce the negative impacts of stress within the nuclear family, and the risk of maternal depression, which has knock-on effects for child wellbeing and cognitive development.”

The study emphasises that alloparenting is a core human adaptation, contradicting ‘intensive mothering’ narratives which emphasise that mothers should use their maternal instincts to manage childcare alone. Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel write that ‘such narratives can lead to maternal exhaustion and have dangerous consequences’.

Care-giving ratios

The study points out that communal living in hunter-gatherer societies results in a very high ratio of available caregivers to infants/toddlers, which can even exceed 10:1.

This contrasts starkly with the nuclear family unit, and even more so with nursery settings, in developed countries. According to the UK’s Department of Education regulations, nurseries require ratios of 1 carer to 3 children aged under 2 years, or 1 carer to 4 children aged 2-3.

Dr Chaudhary said: “Almost all day, hunter-gatherer infants and toddlers have a capable caregiver within a couple of metres of them. From the infant’s perspective, that proximity and responsiveness, is very different from what is experienced in many nursery settings in the UK.”

“If that ratio is stretched even thinner, we need to consider the possibility that this could have impacts on children's wellbeing.”

Children providing care and mixed-age active learning

In hunter-gatherer societies, children play a significantly bigger role in providing care to infants and toddlers than is the case in developed countries. In some communities they begin providing some childcare from the age of four and are capable of sensitive caregiving; and it is common to see older, but still pre-adolescent children looking after infants.

By contrast, the NSPCC in the UK recommends that when leaving pre-adolescent children at home, babysitters should be in their late teens at least.

Dr Chaudhary said: “In developed countries, children are busy with schooling and may have less opportunity to develop caregiving competence. However, we should at least explore the possibility that older siblings could play a greater role in supporting their parents, which might also enhance their own social development.”

The study also points out that instructive teaching is rare in hunter-gatherer societies and that infants primarily learn via observation and imitation. From around the age of two, hunter-gatherer children spend large portions of the day in mixed-age (2-16) ‘playgroups’ without adult supervision. There, they learn from one another, acquiring skills and knowledge collaboratively via highly active play practice and exploration.

Learning and play are two sides of the same coin, which contrasts with the lesson-time / play-time dichotomy of schooling in the UK and other developed countries.

Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel note that “Classroom schooling is often at odds with the modes of learning typical of human evolutionary history.” The study acknowledges that children living in hunter-gatherer societies live in very different environments and circumstances than those in developed countries:

“Foraging skills are very different to those required to make a living in market-economies, and classroom teaching is certainly necessary to learn the latter. But children may possess certain psychological learning adaptations that can be practically harnessed in some aspects of their schooling. When peer and active learning can be incorporated, they have been shown to improve motivation and performance, and reduce stress.” The authors also highlight that physical activity interventions have been shown to aid performance among students diagnosed with ADHD. 

Further research

The study calls for more research into children’s mental health in hunter-gatherer societies to test whether the hypothesised evolutionary mismatches actually exist. If they do, such insights could then be used to direct experimental intervention trials in developed countries.

Working with a team from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel hope that greater collaboration between evolutionary anthropologists and child psychiatrists/psychologists can help to advance our understanding of the conditions that children need to thrive.

Reference

N. Chaudhary & A. Swanepoel, ‘What Can We Learn from Hunter-Gatherers about Children’s Mental Health? An Evolutionary Perspective’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2023). DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.13773

Hunter-gatherers can help us understand the conditions that children may be psychologically adapted to because we lived as hunter-gatherers for 95% of our evolutionary history. Paying greater attention to hunter-gatherer childhoods may help economically developed countries improve education and wellbeing.

Parents now have much less childcare support from their familial and social networks than would likely have been the case during most of our evolutionary historyNikhil ChaudharyImage courtesy of Nikhil ChaudharyBaYaka camp in Congo. Image courtesy of Nikhil Chaudhary

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The spears were taken by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770 from Kamay (Botany Bay) at the time of the first contact between the crew of the HMB Endeavour and the Aboriginal people of eastern Australia.

Trinity College has agreed to permanently return the four spears to the La Perouse Aboriginal community. The College is now approaching the UK’s Charity Commission to obtain approval for this transfer of legal title.

James Cook recorded that 40 spears were taken from the camps of Aboriginal people living at Botany Bay in April 1770. 

Lord Sandwich of the British Admiralty presented the four spears to Trinity College soon after James Cook returned to England and they have been part of the collection since 1771.  Since 1914 the four spears have been cared for by the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA). The four spears are all that remain of the original 40 spears collected. 

Trinity College’s decision follows the establishment of a respectful and robust relationship over the last decade between the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Aboriginal community at La Perouse. Discussions included representatives of the local Gweagal people - the Aboriginal group from whom the spears were taken - the broader Dharawal Nation and leading community organisations, including the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council and the Gujaga Foundation. 

The relationship between Cambridge and La Perouse will continue through collaborative research projects and community visits, once the spears have been returned. 

The La Perouse community is currently lending contemporary spears made by Senior Gweagal Clan leader Rodney Mason to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to show how traditional knowledge has been passed down, while adapting to new technologies.

The decision by Trinity College to return the spears followed a formal repatriation request in December 2022, from the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council and the Gujaga Foundation.

In 2015 and again in 2020, some of the spears were returned temporarily to Australia, for the first time since they were taken, and displayed by the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, as part of two exhibitions exploring frontier encounters.

The spears will be permanently repatriated with the assistance of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).

La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council chairperson, Noeleen Timbery said the spears would be preserved for future generations.

“We are proud to have worked with Cambridge’s Trinity College and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to transfer the ownership of these enormously significant artefacts to the La Perouse Aboriginal community. They are an important connection to our past, our traditions and cultural practices, and to our ancestors. With assistance from the National Museum of Australia and AIATSIS we will ensure these objects are preserved for our future generations and for all Australians. 

"Our Elders have worked for many years to see their ownership transferred to the traditional owners of Botany Bay. Many of the families within the La Perouse Aboriginal community are descended from those who were present during the eight days the Endeavour was anchored in Kamay in 1770,” said Ms Timbery.

Professor Nicholas Thomas, Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, said he was honoured to have worked with the Kamay community to repatriate the spears.

“It has been immensely rewarding to work with the La Perouse community to research these artefacts and we look forward to extending the partnership into the future,” said Professor Thomas.

"The spears are exceptionally significant. They are the first artefacts collected by any European from any part of Australia, that remain extant and documented. They reflect the beginnings of a history of misunderstanding and conflict. Their significance will be powerfully enhanced through return to the country."

Dame Sally Davies, Master of Trinity College, welcomed the decision to return the spears.

“Trinity is committed to better understanding the College’s history, and to addressing the complex legacies of the British empire, not least in our collections,” said Professor Davies.

“The College’s interaction with the La Perouse Aboriginal community, the University of Cambridge and National Museum Australia regarding the return of artefacts to the people from whom they were taken has been a respectful and rewarding process. 

“We believe that this is the right decision and I would like to acknowledge and thank all those involved."

Dharawal Elder, Dr Shayne Williams said: “These spears are of immeasurable value as powerful, tangible connections between our forebears and ourselves. I want to acknowledge the respectfulness of Trinity College in returning these spears back to our community. In caring for the spears for over 252 years, Trinity College has ensured that these priceless artefacts can now be utilised for cultural education by the Aboriginal community into the future.”
 

Four Australian Aboriginal spears – cared for by Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology – are to be repatriated after Trinity College agreed to permanently return them to the country.

It has been immensely rewarding to work with the La Perouse community to research these artefacts and we look forward to extending the partnership into the future.Professor Nicholas Thomas, Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

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Working a four-day week boosts employee wellbeing while preserving productivity, according to research on a major six-month trial in the UK.  

Elif Yumru, Mehmet Dogar and Zeynep Olgun, who are all History PhD students from Turkey, have created the bursary to collect donations, and show solidarity with those whose lives have been shattered by the disaster. More than 40,000 people have died in Turkey and Syria and hundreds of thousands have been left homeless.

Elif, who is studying at Newnham College, used to live in Adana, which is in the region affected by the earthquake. She said: “It’s devastating to see the place that you grew up in reduced to rubble. I have relatives who died there, so it’s been incredibly personal. Working on this project has been very helpful, it’s really helped keep us focused over the past week.” 

Fellow Newnham student Zeynep said being so far away had been incredibly difficult for the students, but working on the project had been “good for our souls”.

“Experiencing such a tragedy from a distance, away from your home country where people are suffering, is very hard,” she said. “There is a communal grief that we cannot experience while we’re not in Turkey, and we cannot physically help people straight away. We have responsibilities here too, but it’s been extremely hard to put together these two different realities.” 

In southern Turkey, the earthquake caused considerable damage to 18 universities located in some of the most affected cities: Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Gaziantep, Diyarbakır, Malatya, Osmaniye, Adana, Adıyaman, Urfa and Kilis. The Cambridge students say the impact of the disaster will be felt by students in Turkey for years, both psychologically, and because of dramatic financial difficulties from losing family members, homes and belongings. 

Mehmet, who is a student at Selwyn College, is from Malatya. He said: “There are lots of donations going to Turkey at the moment, and that’s great because the situation is very urgent. But at the same time we know that, unfortunately, in perhaps a few months’ time, the international media attention will not be there. So we wanted to create a long-term initiative, because there are students who are going to need help for years.”

To directly identify students affected by the earthquake in Turkey, the students are collaborating with the Turkish Education Foundation UK (TEV UK), an independent charity established in the UK to help students from Turkey to access equal opportunities in education.

Professor Yael Navaro, from the University’s Department of Social Anthropology, who is from Istanbul, is supporting the new bursary fund. 

“People are dealing with horrible, apocalyptic situations of having to look for loved ones in the rubble,” she said. “We’re very much in touch with people out there, and we know what kind of help is needed. That’s why I’m so happy to support this project, working with the Turkish Educational Foundation which has the ability to reach university students who are actually in need.”

Donations to the fund will be transferred directly to TEV UK to be distributed in Turkey. 

For more information, and to donate, visit: Educational Fund Cambridge TEV-UK by Elif Yumru, Mehmet Dogar, Zeynep Olgun is fundraising for Turkish Education Foundation UK (justgiving.com)
 

Cambridge students have launched a bursary fund to help university students in Turkey affected by the devastating earthquake and its aftermath.

Experiencing such a tragedy from a distance, away from your home country where people are suffering, is very hard.Newnham PhD student Zeynep OlgunFrom left, Zeynep Olgun, Elif Yumru, and Mehmet Dogar, who are all History PhD students from Turkey

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