In the 9th century BC, Assyrians based in northern Iraq started a relentless process of expansion that within two centuries would see them controlling most of the ancient Near East. Traditional explanations for the decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BC have emphasized the role of military conflict, and especially the destruction of the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, by a coalition of Babylonian and Median forces in 612 BC.

Metallurgical activities have been undertaken in northern South America (NSA) for millennia. However, it is still unknown how far atmospheric emissions from these activities have been transported. Since the timing of metallurgical activities is currently estimated from scarce archaeological discoveries, the availability of reliable and continuous records to refine the timing of past metal deposition in South America is essential, as it provides an alternative to discontinuous archives, as well as evidence for global trace metal transport.

Human pathogen richness and prevalence vary widely across the globe, yet we know little about whether global patterns found in other taxa also predict diversity in this important group of organisms. This study (a) assesses the relative importance of temperature, precipitation, habitat diversity, and population density on the global distributions of human pathogens and (b) evaluates the species-area predictions of island biogeography for human pathogen distributions on oceanic islands.

Between 1980 and 2008, two Pacific island nations – Nauru and the Cook Islands – experienced the fastest rates of increasing BMI in the world. Rates
were over four times higher than the mean global BMI increase. The aim of the present paper is to examine why these populations have been so prone to obesity increases in recent times.

Achieving global food security is one of the major challenges of the coming decades. In order to tackle future food security challenges we must understand the past. This study presents a historical analysis of global food availability, one of the key elements of food security. By calculating national level dietary energy supply and production for nine time steps during 1965–2005 we classify countries based on their food availability, food self-sufficiency and food trade. We also look at how diets have changed during this period with regard to supply of animal based calories.

Despite the existence of institutions designed to promote peace, interactions between individuals and groups sometimes lead to conflict. Understanding the causes of such conflict is a major project in the social sciences, and researchers in anthropology, economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, and sociology have long debated the extent to which climatic changes are responsible. Recent advances and interest have prompted an explosion of quantitative studies on this question.

This paper repositions iron smelting and the smelter at the centre of a revised narrative of pre- and early-colonial forest history and policy. In a medieval war economy the smelter shared a relationship of mutual interdependence with the feudal state as a provider of critical raw material for weapon manufacture. This, however, changed with the advent of the colonial state, interdependence giving way to competition over resources.