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Anatomy Vivas for the Intercollegiate MRCS
by Manoj Ramachandran Nick Aresti Mark StringerPresented in a question-and-answer format, Anatomy Vivas for the Intercollegiate MRCS will help candidates prepare for the anatomy section of the new Intercollegiate MRCS exam and will aid their learning in the format in which they will be tested. The book is unique in that it is based on the new examination. It is divided into the specialty areas and is based on clinical scenarios. Featuring photographs of dissections, detailed diagrams and radiographic images, the book is the most concise and accurate anatomy aid for the MRCS examination. Written by recent candidates, experienced surgical anatomists and authors of other successful MRCS guides, it features explanations presented in a memorable, logical and easy to learn manner, and highlights areas that regularly feature in the exam. Past questions, core topics and recurring themes are discussed in detail, ensuring that candidates are as prepared as possible. It is an indispensable guide to success.
Anaximander: And the Birth of Science
by Carlo RovelliThe bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics illuminates the nature of science through the revolutionary ideas of the Greek philosopher Anaximander Over two millennia ago, the prescient insights of Anaximander paved the way for cosmology, physics, geography, meteorology, and biology, setting in motion a new way of seeing the world. His legacy includes the revolutionary ideas that the Earth floats in a void, that animals evolved, that the world can be understood in natural rather than supernatural terms, and that universal laws govern all phenomena. He introduced a new mode of rational thinking with an openness to uncertainty and the progress of knowledge. In this elegant work, the renowned theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli brings to light the importance of Anaximander&’s overlooked influence on modern science. He examines Anaximander not from the point of view of a historian or as an expert in Greek philosophy, but as a scientist interested in the deep nature of scientific thinking, which Rovelli locates in the critical and rebellious ability to reimagine the world again and again. Anaximander celebrates the radical lack of certainty that defines the scientific quest for knowledge.
Ancestors: Identity and DNA in the Levant
by Pierre ZallouaAn eye-opening investigation into ancestry and origins in the Middle East that synthesizes thousands of years of genetic history in the region to question what it means to be indigenous to any land&“Ancestors transcends geography to launch an eye-opening inquiry into the relationship of genetics and identity. It&’s a transformational read for us all.&”—Jason Roberts, author of Every Living Thing and A Sense of the WorldIn recent years, genetic testing has become easily available to consumers across the globe, making it relatively simple to find out where your ancestors came from. But what do these test results actually tell us about ourselves?In Ancestors, Pierre Zalloua, a leading authority on population genetics, argues that these test results have led to a dangerous oversimplification of what one&’s genetic heritage means. Genetic ancestry has become conflated with anthropological categories such as &“origin,&” &“ethnicity,&” and even &“race&” in spite of the complexities that underlie these concepts. And nowhere is this interplay more important and more controversial, Zalloua writes, than in the Levant—an ancient region known as one of the cradles of civilization and that now includes Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Turkey.Born in Lebanon, Zalloua grew up surrounded by people for whom the question of identity was a matter of life or death. Building on years of research, he tells a rich and compelling history of the Levant through the framework of genetics that spans from one hundred thousand years ago, when humans first left Africa, to the twenty-first century and modern nation-states.A timely, paradigm-shifting investigation into ancestry and origins in the Middle East, Ancestors ultimately reframes what it means to be indigenous to any land—urging us to reshape how we think about home, belonging, and where culture really comes from.
Ancestors in Evolutionary Biology: Linear Thinking about Branching Trees (Systematics Association Special Volume Series)
by Ronald A. JennerPhylogenetics emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as a speculative storytelling discipline dedicated to providing narrative explanations for the evolution of taxa and their traits. It coincided with lineage thinking, a process that mentally traces character evolution along lineages of hypothetical ancestors. Ancestors in Evolutionary Biology traces the history of narrative phylogenetics and lineage thinking to the present day, drawing on perspectives from the history of science, philosophy of science, and contemporary scientific debates. It shows how the power of phylogenetic hypotheses to explain evolution resides in the precursor traits of hypothetical ancestors. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the topic of ancestors, which is central to modern biology, and is therefore of interest to graduate students, researchers, and academics in evolutionary biology, palaeontology, philosophy of science, and the history of science.
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life
by Prof Richard Dawkins Yan WongA fully updated edition of one of the most original accounts of evolution ever written, featuring new fractal diagrams, six new 'tales' and the latest scientific developments.THE ANCESTOR'S TALE is a dazzling, four-billion-year pilgrimage to the origins of life: Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong take us on an exhilarating reverse journey through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life. It is a journey happily interrupted by meetings of fellow modern animals (as well as plants, fungi and bacteria) similarly tracing their evolutionary path back through history. As each evolutionary pilgrim tells their tale, Dawkins and Wong shed light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection and extinction.Written with unparalleled wit, clarity and intelligence; taking in new scientific discoveries of the past decade; and including new 'tales', illustrations and fractal diagrams, THE ANCESTOR'S TALE shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world.
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life
by Prof Richard Dawkins Yan WongOne of the most brilliant scientists of our age gives us his definitive work: a synthesis of his comprehensive vision of life.THE ANCESTOR'S TALE is a pilgrimage back through time; a journey on which we meet up with fellow pilgrims as we and they converge on our common ancestors. Chimpanzees join us at about 6 million years in the past, orang utans at 14 million years, as we stride on together, a growing band. The journey provides the setting for a collection of some 40 tales. Each explores an aspect of evolutionary biology through the stories of characters met along the way. The tales are interspersed with prologues detailing the journey, route maps showing joining lineages, and life-like reconstructions of our common ancestors. THE ANCESTOR'S TALE represents a pilgrimage on an unimaginable scale: our goal is four billion years away, and the number of pilgrims joining us grows vast - ultimately encompassing all living creatures. At the end of the journey lies something remarkable in its simplicity and transformative power: the first, humble, replicating molecules.Read by Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward(p) 2005 Orion Publishing Group
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life
by Richard Dawkins Yan WongA fully updated edition of one of the most original accounts of evolution ever written, featuring new fractal diagrams, six new 'tales' and the latest scientific developments.THE ANCESTOR'S TALE is a dazzling, four-billion-year pilgrimage to the origins of life: Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong take us on an exhilarating reverse journey through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life. It is a journey happily interrupted by meetings of fellow modern animals (as well as plants, fungi and bacteria) similarly tracing their evolutionary path back through history. As each evolutionary pilgrim tells their tale, Dawkins and Wong shed light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection and extinction.Written with unparalleled wit, clarity and intelligence; taking in new scientific discoveries of the past decade; and including new 'tales', illustrations and fractal diagrams, THE ANCESTOR'S TALE shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world.
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
by Richard Dawkins Yan WongThe renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work in this revised edition that offers a comprehensive look at evolution.Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty "rendezvous points" where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the first primordial organism.Dawkins's brilliant, inventive approach allows us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in a bracingly novel way. It also lets him shed bright new light on the most compelling aspects of evolutionary history and theory: sexual selection, speciation, convergent evolution, extinction, genetics, plate tectonics, geographical dispersal, and more. The Ancestor's Tale is at once a far-reaching survey of the latest, best thinking on biology and a fascinating history of life on Earth. Here Dawkins shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world.
Ancestors, Territoriality, and Gods: A Natural History of Religion (The Frontiers Collection)
by Ina Wunn Davina GrojnowskiThis books sets out to explain how and why religion came into being. Today this question is as fascinating as ever, especially since religion has moved to the centre of socio-political relationships. In contrast to the current, but incomplete approaches from disciplines such as cognitive science and psychology, the present authors adopt a new approach, equally manifest and constructive, that explains the origins of religion based strictly on behavioural biology. They employ accepted research results that remove all need for speculation. Decisive factors for the earliest demonstrations of religion are thus territorial behaviour and ranking, coping with existential fears, and conflict solution with the help of rituals. These in turn, in a process of cultural evolution, are shown to be the roots of the historical and contemporary religions.
Ancestral Genomics: African American Health in the Age of Precision Medicine
by Constance B. HilliardA leading evolutionary historian offers a radical solution to racial health disparities in the United States.Constance B. Hilliard was living in Japan when she began experiencing joint pain. Her doctor diagnosed osteoarthritis—a common ailment for someone her age. But her bloodwork showed something else: Hilliard, who had never had kidney problems, appeared to be suffering from renal failure. When she returned to Texas, however, a new round of tests showed that her kidneys were healthy. Unlike the Japanese doctor, her American primary care provider had checked a box on her lab report for “African American.” As a scholar of scientific racism, Hilliard was perplexed. Why should race, which experts agree has no biological basis, matter for getting accurate test results?Ancestral Genomics is the result of Hilliard’s decade-long quest to solve this puzzle. In a masterful synthesis of evolutionary history, population genetics, and public health research, she addresses the usefulness of race as a heuristic in genomic medicine. Built from European genetic data, the Human Genome Project and other databases have proven inadequate for identifying disease-causing gene variants in patients of African descent. Such databases, Hilliard argues, overlook crucial information about the environments to which their ancestors’ bodies adapted prior to the transatlantic slave trade. Hilliard shows how, by analyzing “ecological niche populations,” a classification model that combines family and ecological histories with genetic information, our increasingly advanced genomic technologies, including personalized medicine, can serve African Americans and other people of color, while avoiding racial essentialism.Forcefully argued and morally urgent, Ancestral Genomics is a clarion call for the US medical community to embrace our multigenomic society.
Ancestral Journeys: The Peopling of Europe from the First Venturers to the Vikings (Revised and Updated Edition)
by Jean Manco“An ambitious and lucid full narrative account of the peopling of Europe . . . this will undoubtedly provide a base line for future debates on the origins of the Europeans.” —J. P. Mallory, author of In Search of the Indo-Europeans and The Origins of the Irish Who are the Europeans? Where did they come from? New research in the fields of archaeology and linguistics, a revolution in the study of genetics, and cutting-edge analysis of ancient DNA are dramatically changing our picture of prehistory, leading us to question what we thought we knew about these ancient peoples. This paradigm-shifting book paints a spirited portrait of a restless people that challenges our established ways of looking at Europe’s past. The story is more complex than at first believed, with new evidence suggesting that the European gene pool was stirred vigorously multiple times. Genetic clues are also enhancing our understanding of European mobility in epochs with written records, including the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, the spread of the Slavs, and the adventures of the Vikings. Now brought completely up to date with all the latest findings from the fast-moving fields of genetics, DNA, and dating, Jean Manco’s highly readable account weaves multiple strands of evidence into a startling new history of the continent, of interest to anyone who wants to truly understand Europeans’ place in the ancient world.
Ancestral Passions: the Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings
by Virginia MorellNo other family in history has dominated a scientific field as the Leakey family has. Louis, Mary, and Richard Leakey have made key fossil discoveries that have shaped and reshaped our understanding of human origins. As a member of the tiny minority of scientists who believed that humankind originated in Africa millions of years ago, Louis Leakey helped to lay the theoretical groundwork for the science of paleoanthropology. In Ancestral Passions, Virginia Morell has written the first full biography of the Leakeys, a vivid portrait of a family whose contributions to science remain unmatched.
Ancestry Quest
by Mary Beth SammonsWho am I? Where do I come from? Why am I the way I am? In Ancestry Quest: How Stories of the Past Heal the Future, Mary Beth Sammons follows dozens of individuals as they delve deep into their family mysteries—attempting to discover the truth of their identities—all through the results of a simple DNA test and online ancestry searches. Each journey is dramatically different: some joyously unite with long-lost siblings while others are forced to reckon with a fractured and devastating past. These stories, heart-wrenching and warming, intimate and inspiring, showcase and distill the lessons learned in the search for what makes us who we really are—and promise to redefine family in ways never before possible.
Anchors—Tests Procedures and Vibratory Analysis
by Jean Jacques RincentThis book follows: Ground Anchors: Tension Force Vibratory Analysis JJ Rincent Springer Sept 2024. This new book is a summary of experience gained from the analysis of over 24 000 test curves obtained from 3000 ground anchors analysis. It provides practical feedback on the complexity of non-destructive testing. The test equipment, the rules to obtain interpretable acquisition results. The examples come from trials carried out in Brazil over the last 5 years and finally, the test methodology adopted for this experiment. These tests are generally carried out on ground anchors using strands as reinforcement or rebars several decades old. Information on their length and initial tension force is often non-existent after 40 years. That's why these vibration analysis tests provide the answers and information needed for stability and maintenance diagnostics. The examples chosen concern ground anchors equipped with bars, strands and also for nails, passive ground anchors and micro piles. Tests on prestressed dowels are described, and a test on a reinforcing bar linked to the construction of an early 16th century castle will be carried out. As a reminder that these tests results lead to define the total length of the tie bar, the free length, the diameter of the tie bar, i.e. the reinforcement with its cement grout, and finally the tension force at the time of testing. These data are essential for assessing the stability of retaining walls stabilised by tie rods. It should be stated that static tests, which are difficult to carry out at height, provide no information on lengths and run the risk of breaking old tie rods. All the tests carried out are used to construct the test method that can be adopted, taking into account the feedback acquired from thousands of static tests. For retaining structures and tie rods in particular, access to the head of the tie rods must be preserved in order to: - carry out inspection tests - re-tension the tie rods, if necessary - while protecting them from corrosion. Meeting these conditions means implementing sustainable maintenance of the structures. This test method is a diagnostic tool for ground anchors used by managers of retaining structures to design maintenance projects. The final aim is to increase the durability of the retaining structures. The tests proposed and explained using numerous examples and finally to propose a methodology for carrying out vibration analysis tests on ground anchors, as well as a framework for their interpretation.
Ancient Animals: Plesiosaur (Ancient Animals)
by Sarah L. ThomsonNinety million years ago, giant dinosaurs roamed the earth, pterosaurs flew through the air, and giant reptiles and fish hunted in the oceans. The area that is now Kansas was covered by water and one of its inhabi-tants was the plesiosaur—a reptile with an extremely long neck and a huge body. This early reader about the ancient plesiosaur brings the prehistoric world of this ocean-dwelling animal to life, explain-ing how scientists think these reptiles lived, hunted, and became extinct. Back matter explores other reptiles both ancient and modern and provides additional print, visual, and web resources.
Ancient Astronomical Observations and the Study of the Moon’s Motion (Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences)
by John M. SteeleThe discovery of a gradual acceleration in the moon's mean motion by Edmond Halley in the last decade of the seventeenth century led to a revival of interest in reports of astronomical observations from antiquity. These observations provided the only means to study the moon's 'secular acceleration', as this newly-discovered acceleration became known. This book contains the first detailed study of the use of ancient and medieval astronomical observations in order to investigate the moon's secular acceleration from its discovery by Halley to the establishment of the magnitude of the acceleration by Richard Dunthorne, Tobias Mayer and Jérôme Lalande in the 1740s and 1750s. Making extensive use of previously unstudied manuscripts, this work shows how different astronomers used the same small body of preserved ancient observations in different ways in their work on the secular acceleration. In addition, this work looks at the wider context of the study of the moon's secular acceleration, including its use in debates of biblical chronology, whether the heavens were made up of æther, and the use of astronomy in determining geographical longitude. It also discusses wider issues of the perceptions and knowledge of ancient and medieval astronomy in the early-modern period. This book will be of interest to historians of astronomy, astronomers and historians of the ancient world.
Ancient Botany (Sciences of Antiquity)
by Gavin Hardy Laurence TotelinGavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin have brought together their botanical and historical knowledge to produce this unique overview of ancient botany. It examines all the founding texts of botanical science, such as Theophrastus' Enquiry into Plants, Dioscorides' Materia Medica, Pliny the Elder's Natural History, Nicolaus of Damascus' On Plants, and Galen' On Simple Remedies, but also includes lesser known texts ranging from the sixth century BCE to the seventh century CE, as well as some material evidence. The authors adopt a thematic approach rather than a chronological one, considering important issues such as the definition of a plant, nomenclature, classifications, physiology, the link between plants and their environment, and the numerous usages of plants in the ancient world. The book also takes care to place ancient botany in its historical, social and economic context. The authors have explained all technical botanical terms and ancient history notions, and as a result, this work will appeal to historians of ancient science, medicine and technology; classicists; and botanists interested in the history of their discipline.
Ancient DNA: Methods and Protocols (Methods in Molecular Biology #840)
by Michael Hofreiter Beth ShapiroResearch into ancient DNA began more than 25 years ago with the publication of short mitochondrial DNA sequence fragments from the quagga, an extinct relative of the zebra. Ancient DNA research really gained momentum following the invention of PCR, which allowed millions of copies to be made of the few remaining DNA molecules preserved in fossils and museum specimens. In Ancient DNA: Methods and Protocols expert researchers in the field describe many of the protocols that are now commonly used to study ancient DNA. These include instructions for setting up an ancient DNA laboratory, extraction protocols for a wide range of different substrates, details of laboratory techniques including PCR and NGS library preparation, and suggestions for appropriate analytical approaches to make sense of the sequences obtained. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular BiologyTM series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and key tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and practical, Ancient DNA: Methods and Protocols seeks to aid scientists in the further study of ancient DNA and the methodological approaches in ancient research.
Ancient DNA: The Making of a Celebrity Science
by Elizabeth D JonesThe untold story of the rise of the new scientific field of ancient DNA research, and how Jurassic Park and popular media influenced its development Ancient DNA research—the recovery of genetic material from long-dead organisms—is a discipline that developed from science fiction into a reality between the 1980s and today. Drawing on scientific, historical, and archival material, as well as original interviews with more than fifty researchers worldwide, Elizabeth Jones explores the field&’s formation and explains its relationship with the media by examining its close connection to de-extinction, the science and technology of resurrecting extinct species. She reveals how the search for DNA from fossils flourished under the influence of intense press and public interest, particularly as this new line of research coincided with the book and movie Jurassic Park. Ancient DNA is the first account to trace the historical and sociological interplay between science and celebrity in the rise of this new research field. In the process, Jones argues that ancient DNA research is more than a public-facing science: it is a celebrity science.
Ancient DNA: Methods And Protocols (Methods In Molecular Biology Series #840)
by Beth Shapiro Axel Barlow Peter D. Heintzman Michael Hofreiter Johanna L. A. Paijmans André E. R. SoaresThis fully updated second edition explores protocols that address the most challenging aspects of experimental work in ancient DNA, such as preparing ancient samples for DNA extraction, the DNA extraction itself, and transforming extracted ancient DNA molecules for sequencing library preparation. The volume also examines the analysis of high-throughput sequencing data recovered from ancient specimens, which, because of the degraded nature of ancient DNA and common co-extraction of contaminant DNA, has challenges that are unique compared to data recovered from modern specimens.Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. <P><P> Authoritative and cutting-edge, Ancient DNA: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition aims to serve both experts and beginners by presenting protocols in a manner that makes them easily accessible for everyday use in the lab.
The Ancient Engineers: An Astonishing Look Back at the Ancient Wonders of the World and Their Creators
by L. Sprague de CampThe Pyramids of Giza, the Parthenon of Greece, the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum of Rome. Today, we stand in awe before these wonders of the ancient world. They hold our history and the deepest secrets of our past in their hidden recesses. In The Ancient Engineers, L. Sprague de Camp delves into the heart of the mystery. He introduces us to the master builders who had the vision, the power, and the passion to reach for the clouds and touch the heavens. We share in some of the greatest technological triumphs of all time--triumphs of the human mind, imagination, and spirit.
Ancient Hydrocarbon Seeps (Topics in Geobiology #50)
by Neil H. Landman Andrzej Kaim J. Kirk CochranThis volume details the function of hydrocarbon seeps, their evolution over time, the most important seep occurrences and the fauna present in ancient hydrocarbon seeps. While several publications exist that cover modern seeps and vents, fossil seeps only constitute a small component of the literature. As such, many geologists, stratigraphers and paleontologists, as well as undergraduates and graduate students, are not very familiar with ancient hydrocarbon seep deposits and their associated fauna. This text is the first to comprehensively discuss the nature of such animal groups and how to recognize them. In addition to summarizing available knowledge on these topics for specialists in the field, this book offers the background needed to be of use to students as well as the wider community of geologists and paleontologists.
Ancient Landscapes of Western North America: A Geologic History with Paleogeographic Maps
by Ronald C. Blakey Wayne D. RanneyAllow yourself to be taken back into deep geologic time when strange creatures roamed the Earth and Western North America looked completely unlike the modern landscape. Volcanic islands stretched from Mexico to Alaska, most of the Pacific Rim didn’t exist yet, at least not as widespread dry land; terranes drifted from across the Pacific to dock on Western Americas’ shores creating mountains and more volcanic activity. Landscapes were transposed north or south by thousands of kilometers along huge fault systems. Follow these events through paleogeographic maps that look like satellite views of ancient Earth. Accompanying text takes the reader into the science behind these maps and the geologic history that they portray. The maps and text unfold the complex geologic history of the region as never seen before.
The Ancient Language of Sacred Sound: The Acoustic Science of the Divine
by David Elkington• Details how sacred sites resonate at the same frequencies as both the Earth and the alpha waves of the human brain • Shows how human writing in its original hieroglyphic form was a direct response to the divine sound patterns of sacred sites • Explains how ancient hero myths from around the world relate to divine acoustic science and formed the source of religion The Earth resonates at an extremely low frequency. Known as &“the Schumann Resonance,&” this natural rhythm of the Earth precisely corresponds with the human brain&’s alpha wave frequencies--the frequency at which we enter into and come out of sleep as well as the frequency of deep meditation, inspiration, and problem solving. Sound experiments reveal that sacred sites and structures like stupas, pyramids, and cathedrals also resonate at these special frequencies when activated by chanting and singing. Did our ancestors build their sacred sites according to the rhythms of the Earth? Exploring the acoustic connections between the Earth, the human brain, and sacred spaces, David Elkington shows how humanity maintained a direct line of communication with Mother Earth and the Divine through the construction of sacred sites, such as Stonehenge, Newgrange, Machu Picchu, Chartres Cathedral, and the pyramids of both Egypt and Mexico. He reveals how human writing in its original hieroglyphic form was a direct response to the divine sound patterns of sacred sites, showing how, for example, recognizable hieroglyphs appear in sand patterns when the sacred frequencies of the Great Pyramid are activated. Looking at ancient hero legends--those about the bringers of important knowledge or language--Elkington explains how these myths form the source of ancient religion and have a unique mythological resonance, as do the sites associated with them. The author then reveals how religion, including Christianity, is an ancient language of acoustic science given expression by the world&’s sacred sites and shows that power places played a profound role in the development of human civilization.
Ancient Mathematics (Sciences of Antiquity)
by Serafina CuomoThe theorem of Pythagoras, Euclid's "Elements", Archimedes' method to find the volume of a sphere: all parts of the invaluable legacy of ancient mathematics. But ancient mathematics was also about counting and measuring, surveying land and attributing mystical significance to the number six. This volume offers the first accessible survey of the discipline in all its variety and diversity of practices. The period covered ranges from the fifth century BC to the sixth century AD, with the focus on the Mediterranean region. Topics include:* mathematics and politics in classical Greece* the formation of mathematical traditions* the self-image of mathematicians in the Graeco-Roman period* mathematics and Christianity* and the use of the mathematical past in late antiquity.