Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by neuronal loss, extracellular amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques, and intracellular neurofibrillary tau tangles. A diagnosis is currently made from the presenting symptoms, and the only definitive diagnosis can be done post-mortem. Over recent years, significant advances have been made in using ocular biomarkers to diagnose various neurodegenerative diseases, including AD. As the eye is an extension of the central nervous system (CNS), reviewing changes in the eye’s biology could lead to developing a series of non-invasive, differential diagnostic tests for AD that could be further applied to other diseases. Significant changes have been identified in the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL), cornea, ocular vasculature, and retina. In the present paper, we review current research and assess some ocular biomarkers’ accuracy and reliability that could potentially be used for diagnostic purposes. Additionally, we review the various imaging techniques used in the measurement of these biomarkers.

Stone artefact archaeology in mainland Southeast Asia has not enjoyed the same level of interest and productivity as studies of stone artefacts in other parts of the world. Although there are a number of reasons for this, a significant one is the use of essentialism as the underlying philosophy of lithic classification. Essentialism is a flawed approach to classifying stone artefacts because of the continuous nature of artefact reduction. Case studies are presented that show essentialism has additional problems, such as inefficiency, compression of variation and inability to explain historical change. An alternative approach, nominalism, is better suited to lithic classification and analysis. Existing nominalist approaches can easily be adapted for Southeast Asia assemblages and promises to liven-up stone artefact archaeology in mainland Southeast Asia.

R is a scientific programming language that is widely used by archaeologists. This entry briefly describes the history and distinctive characteristics of the language, and how archaeologists have used it. The importance of R for reproducible research in archaeology is outlined, and future directions for the language in archaeology are indicated.

Previously it has been argued that midden analysis from three geographically distinct coastal regions of tropical northern Australia (Hope Inlet, Blyth River, Blue Mud Bay) demonstrates that changes through time in Aboriginal mollusc exploitation reflect broader coastal environmental transformations associated with late Holocene climatic variability (Bourke et al. 2007). It was suggested that, while a direct link between environmental change and significant cultural change in the archaeological record has yet to be demonstrated unambiguously, midden analysis has the potential to provide the as-yet missing link between changes in climate, environment and human responses over past millennia. We test this hypothesis with a preliminary sclerochronological analysis (i.e. of sequential stable isotopes of oxygen) of archaeological shell samples from all three regions. Our findings suggest the existence of variations in temperature and rainfall indicative of an increasing trend to aridity from 2000 to 500 cal. BP, consistent with previous palaeoenvironmental work across northern Australia.

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