The most useful papers for our purposes clearly described the evaluation framework that guided the evaluation. African Middle Stone Age (MSA) populations used pigments, manufactured and wore personal ornaments, made abstract engravings, and produced fully shaped bone tools. However, ongoing research across Africa reveals variability in the emergence of cultural innovations in the MSA and their subsequent development through the Later Stone Age (LSA). When present, it appears that cultural innovations manifest regional variability, suggestive of distinct cultural traditions. In eastern Africa, several Late Pleistocene sites have produced evidence for novel activities, but the chronologies of key behavioral innovations remain unclear. The 3 m deep, well-dated, Panga ya Saidi sequence in eastern Kenya, encompassing 19 layers covering a time span of 78 kyr beginning in late Marine Isotope Stage 5, is the only known African site recording the interplay between cultural and ecological diversity in a coastal forested environment. Excavations have yielded worked and incised bones, ostrich eggshell beads (OES), beads made from seashells, worked and engraved ocher pieces, fragments of coral, and a belemnite fossil. Here, we provide, for the first time, a detailed analysis of this material. This includes a taphonomic, archeozoological, technological, and functional study of bone artifacts; a technological and morphometric analysis of personal ornaments; and a technological and geochemical analysis of ocher pieces. The interpretation of the results stemming from the analysis of OES beads is guided by an ethnoarcheological perspective and field observations. We demonstrate that key cultural innovations on the eastern African coast are evident by 67 ka and exhibit remarkable diversity through the LSA and Iron Age. We suggest the cultural trajectories evident at Panga ya Saidi were shaped by both regional traditions and cultural/demic diffusion. Entheses have rarely been systematically studied in the field of human evolution. However, the investigation of their morphological variability (e.g., robusticity) could provide new insight into their evolutionary significance in the European Neanderthal populations. The aim of this work is to study the entheses and joint features of the lower limbs of El Sidrón Neanderthals (Spain; 49 ka), using standardized scoring methods developed on modern samples. Paleobiology, growth, and development of both juveniles and adults from El Sidrón are studied and compared with those of Krapina Neanderthals (Croatia, 130 ka) and extant humans. The morphological patterns of the gluteus maximus and vastus intermedius entheses in El Sidrón, Krapina, and modern humans differ from one another. Both Neanderthal groups show a definite enthesis design for the gluteus maximus, with little intrapopulation variability with respect to modern humans, who are characterized by a wider range of morphological variability. The gluteus maximus enthesis in the El Sidrón sample shows the osseous features of fibrous entheses, as in modern humans, whereas the Krapina sample shows the aspects of fibrocartilaginous ones. The morphology and anatomical pattern of this enthesis has already been established during growth in all three human groups. One of two and three of five adult femurs from El Sidrón and from Krapina, respectively, show the imprint of the vastus intermedius, which is absent among juveniles from those Neanderthal samples and in modern samples. The scant intrapopulation and the high interpopulation variability in the two Neanderthal samples is likely due to a long-term history of small, isolated populations with high levels of inbreeding, who also lived in different ecological conditions. find more The comparison of different anatomical entheseal patterns (fibrous vs. fibrocartilaginous) in the Neanderthals and modern humans provides additional elements in the discussion of their functional and genetic origin. Abri Pataud (France) is the type site in studies focusing on the appearance of modern humans and the development of classic Upper Paleolithic technocomplexes in Europe. It contains important evidence of successful adaptation strategies of modern humans to new territories and in response to sharply changing climatic conditions that characterized Marine Isotope Stages 3 and 2. Despite being for decades one of the best excavated and most studied Paleolithic sites, the chronology of Abri Pataud has lacked precision and revealed large discrepancies. The chronology of the lowermost part of the sequence (Levels 14-5) was refined in 2011 with the publication of 32 new radiocarbon determinations, mainly from the Aurignacian levels. In contrast, the Gravettian levels (Levels 5-2) remained poorly dated until now. Here, we present 18 new radiocarbon dates on cut-marked animal bones from the Gravettian part of the site, which complete the dating of this important sequence. The determinations are analyzed using Bayesian statistical modeling, and the results allow us to place the start of the Gravettian at the site between ∼33,000 and 32,000 cal BP (∼29,000-28,000 BP). We discuss the succession of the Gravettian facies across the sequence (Bayacian, Noaillian, Rayssian), as well as the likely duration of each archaeological level. With a total of more than 50 radiocarbon determinations, Abri Pataud offers secure information for the appearance and development of the technocomplexes linked with early modern humans and their establishment in western Europe. Based on published genetic data, it appears that it is the Gravettian hunter-gatherers and subsequent human groups, rather than the earlier Aurignacian and pre-Aurignacian groups, that contributed to the genetic signature of later and living Europeans. Hence, elucidating the precise timing of the Gravettian appearance has broad implications in our understanding of late human evolution across Europe. OBJECTIVES Recent trends of ‘vaccine hesitancy’ have resulted in calls for public health campaigns to improve immunisation uptake to World Health Organisation (WHO) targets. One potential strategy to improve uptake is to offer opportunistic vaccination to those hospital in-patients who have missed them. We aimed to evaluate parental and staff attitudes about introducing such a service for hospitalised children. STUDY DESIGN Cross sectional questionnaire-based design. METHODS We developed and distributed a questionnaire for parents/guardians of paediatric inpatients aged 5 years and under, and a questionnaire for frontline paediatric staff (including medical, nursing and allied health professionals). Vaccination rates were assessed through discussion with parents and by reviewing the personal child health record. RESULTS One-hundred families and 100 paediatric staff participated. Local vaccination rates were significantly below the WHO target (P  less then  0.001), particularly for the Bacille Calmette-Guerine (BCG) vaccination (P = 0.