Fadime Suata-Alpaslan

Objectives: This study presents a dental paleopathological analysis of skeletal remains from the Middle Byzantine Değirmenaltı Monastery (Tuzla, Istanbul), aiming to characterise the frequency and severity of dental pathology in the assemblage and to interpret the findings within the documented dietary and occupational context of Byzantine monastic life. Materials and Methods: Seven dental pathology categories whose caries, alveolar abscess, dental calculus, enamel hypoplasia, chipping, periodontitis, and antemortem tooth loss (AMTL) were macroscopically examined in 15 individuals recovered from 14 burials. A total of 247 teeth were recorded, together with 38 antemortem tooth losses. Occlusal wear was scored on a ten-point scale. Findings were compared with published dental data from contemporaneous Byzantine and medieval Anatolian populations. Results: Caries affected 80.0% of individuals (n=12; tooth-level prevalence 10.5%), dental calculus 73.3% (n=11; 41.3%), and AMTL 60.0% (n=9; 13.3%). Alveolar abscess was observed in 46.7% (n=7), periodontitis in 40.0% (n=6), enamel hypoplasia in 33.3% (n=5), and chipping in 26.7% (n=4). Occlusal wear scores ranged from 1.3 to 7.1. Conclusions: The dental profile reflects a carbohydrate-rich monastic diet, communal-living oral hygiene deficits, and pre-admission childhood physiological stress. Non-masticatory wear and chipping patterns in some individuals point to craft-related dental use, consistent with occupational differentiation reported in the postcranial skeleton of the same assemblage.

In the interaction between Man and his environment, the role of small mammals is often overlooked. Although micromammals are used as an indicator for palaeoenvironments of the Palaeolithic, the role of synanthropic species, from the Holocene is, particularly for Anatolia, insufficiently documented and not well understood. This study reports the discovery of micromammal remains from two archaeological sites in northeastern Türkiye: Niksar Castle and Pulur Höyük. So far, the newly discovered fauna consists of a rat ( Rattus rattus ), a murine ( Mus musculus ), and a hare ( Lepus europaeus ) in Niksar Castle, whereas the Macedonian mouse ( Mus macedonicus ), a mole rat ( Spalax leucodon ), a hamster ( Mesocricetus brandti ) and an arvicoline ( Microtus sp.) were found in Pulur Höyük. The difference between the two assemblages lies in Niksar Castle yielding mostly synanthropic species, whereas the Pulur Höyük assemblage has an indigenous wild small mammal fauna.

We present the first ancient DNA data from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Mesopotamia (Southeastern Turkey and Northern Iraq), Cyprus, and the Northwestern Zagros, along with the first data from Neolithic Armenia. We show that these and neighboring populations were formed through admixture of pre-Neolithic sources related to Anatolian, Caucasus, and Levantine hunter-gatherers, forming a Neolithic continuum of ancestry mirroring the geography of West Asia. By analyzing Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic populations of Anatolia, we show that the former were derived from admixture between Mesopotamian-related and local Epipaleolithic-related sources, but the latter experienced additional Levantine-related gene flow, thus documenting at least two pulses of migration from the Fertile Crescent heartland to the early farmers of Anatolia.

By sequencing 727 ancient individuals from the Southern Arc (Anatolia and its neighbors in Southeastern Europe and West Asia) over 10,000 years, we contextualize its Chalcolithic period and Bronze Age (about 5000 to 1000 BCE), when extensive gene flow entangled it with the Eurasian steppe. Two streams of migration transmitted Caucasus and Anatolian/Levantine ancestry northward, and the Yamnaya pastoralists, formed on the steppe, then spread southward into the Balkans and across the Caucasus into Armenia, where they left numerous patrilineal descendants. Anatolia was transformed by intra–West Asian gene flow, with negligible impact of the later Yamnaya migrations. This contrasts with all other regions where Indo-European languages were spoken, suggesting that the homeland of the Indo-Anatolian language family was in West Asia, with only secondary dispersals of non-Anatolian Indo-Europeans from the steppe.

Literary and archaeological sources have preserved a rich history of Southern Europe and West Asia since the Bronze Age that can be complemented by genetics. Mycenaean period elites in Greece did not differ from the general population and included both people with some steppe ancestry and others, like the Griffin Warrior, without it. Similarly, people in the central area of the Urartian Kingdom around Lake Van lacked the steppe ancestry characteristic of the kingdom’s northern provinces. Anatolia exhibited extraordinary continuity down to the Roman and Byzantine periods, with its people serving as the demographic core of much of the Roman Empire, including the city of Rome itself. During medieval times, migrations associated with Slavic and Turkic speakers profoundly affected the region.

The COVID-19 restrictions have impacted people’s lifestyles in all spheres (social, psychological, political, economic, and others). This study explored which factors affected the level of anxiety during the time of the first wave of COVID-19 and subsequent quarantine in a substantial proportion of 23 countries, included in this study. The data was collected from May to August 2020 (5 June 2020). The sample included 15,375 participants from 23 countries: (seven from Europe: Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Russia; 11 from West, South and Southeast Asia: Armenia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey; two African: Nigeria and Tanzania; and three from North, South, and Central America: Brazil, Canada, United States). Level of anxiety was measured by means of the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) and the 20-item first part of The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)—State Anxiety Inventory (SAI). Respondents were also asked about their personal experiences with COVID-19, attitudes toward measures introduced by governments, changes in attitudes toward migrants during a pandemic, family income, isolation conditions, etc. The factor analysis revealed that four factors explained 45.08% of variance in increase of anxiety, and these components were interpreted as follows: (1) personal awareness of the threat of COVID-19, (2) personal reaction toward officially undertaken measures and attitudes to foreigners, (3) personal trust in official sources, (4) personal experience with COVID-19. Three out of four factors demonstrated strong associations with both scales of anxiety: high level of anxiety was significantly correlated with high level of personal awareness of the threat of COVID-19, low level of personal reaction toward officially undertaken measures and attitudes to foreigners, and high level of presence of personal experience with COVID-19. Our study revealed significant main effects of sex, country, and all four factors on the level of anxiety. It was demonstrated that countries with higher levels of anxiety assessed the real danger of a pandemic as higher, and had more personal experience with COVID-19. Respondents who trusted the government demonstrated lower levels of anxiety. Finally, foreigners were perceived as the cause of epidemic spread.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread throughout the world, and concerns about psychological, social, and economic consequences are growing rapidly. Individuals’ empathy-based reactions towards others may be an important resilience factor in the face of COVID-19. Self-report data from 15,375 participants across 23 countries were collected from May to August 2020 during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, this study examined different facets of empathy—Perspective-Taking, Empathic Concern, and Personal Distress, and their association with cross-cultural ratings on Individualism, Power Distance, The Human Development Index, Social Support Ranking, and the Infectious Disease Vulnerability Index, as well as the currently confirmed number of cases of COVID-19 at the time of data collection. The highest ratings on Perspective-Taking were obtained for USA, Brazil, Italy, Croatia, and Armenia (from maximum to minimum); on Empathetic Concern, for the USA, Brazil, Hungary, Italy, and Indonesia; and on Personal Distress, from Brazil, Turkey, Italy, Armenia, Indonesia. Results also present associations between demographic factors and empathy across countries. Limitations and future directions are presented.

Prior and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic restrictions have resulted in substantial changes to everyday life. The pandemic and measures of its control affect mental health negatively. Self-reported data from 15,375 participants from 23 countries were collected from May to August 2020 during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two questionnaires measuring anxiety level were used in this study—the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), and the State Anxiety Inventory (SAI). The associations between a set of social indicators on anxiety during COVID-19 (e.g., sex, age, country, live alone) were tested as well. Self-reported anxiety during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic varied across countries, with the maximum levels reported for Brazil, Canada, Italy, Iraq and the USA. Sex differences of anxiety levels during COVID-19 were also examined, and results showed women reported higher levels of anxiety compared to men. Overall, our results demonstrated that the self-reported symptoms of anxiety were higher compared to those reported in general before pandemic. We conclude that such cultural dimensions as individualism/collectivism, power distance and looseness/tightness may function as protective adaptive mechanisms against the development of anxiety disorders in a pandemic situation.