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We present a comprehensive 10Be chronology for Holocene moraines in the Lago Argentino basin, on the east side of the South Patagonian Icefield. We focus on three different areas, where prior studies show ample glacier moraine records exist because they were formed by outlet glaciers sensitive to climate change. The 10Be dated records are from the Lago Pearson, Herminita Península-Brazo Upsala, and Lago Frías areas, which span a distance of almost 100 km adjacent to the modern Icefield. New 10Be ages show that expanded glaciers and moraine building events occurred at least at 6120 ± 390 (n = 13), 4450 ± 220 (n = 7), 1450 or 1410 ± 110 (n = 18), 360 ± 30 (n = 5), and 240 ± 20 (n = 8) years ago. Furthermore, other less well-dated glacier expansions of the Upsala Glacier occurred between ~1400 and ∼1000 and ∼2300 and ∼2000 years ago. The most extensive glaciers occurred over the interval from ∼6100 to ∼4500 years ago, and their margins over the last ∼600 years were well within and lower than those in the middle Holocene. The 10Be ages agree with 14C-limiting data for the glacier histories in this area. We then link southern South American, adjacent South Atlantic, and other Southern Hemisphere records to elucidate broader regional patterns of climate and their possible causes. In the early Holocene, a far southward position of the westerly winds fostered warmth, small Patagonian glaciers, and reduced sea ice coverage over the South Atlantic. Although we infer a pronounced southward displacement of the westerlies during the early Holocene, these conditions did not occur throughout the southern mid-high latitudes, an important exception being over the southwest Pacific sector. Subsequently, a northward locus and/or expansion of the winds over the Patagonia-South Atlantic sector promoted the largest glaciers between ∼6100 and ∼4500 years ago and greatest sea ice coverage. Over the last few millennia, the South Patagonian Icefield has experienced successive century-scale advances superimposed on a long-term net decrease in size. Our findings indicate that glaciers and sea ice in the Patagonian-South Atlantic sector of the Southern Hemisphere did not achieve their largest Holocene extents over the last millennium. We conclude that a pattern of more extensive Holocene ice prior to the last millennium is characteristic of the Southern Hemisphere middle latitudes, which differs from the glacier history traditionally thought for the Northern Hemisphere. Fil: Kaplan, Michael. Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory; Estados Unidos Fil: Schaefer, Joerg. Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory; Estados Unidos Fil: STRELIN, Jorge Adrián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra; Argentina Fil: Denton, George. Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory; Estados Unidos. University Of Maine; Estados Unidos Fil: Anderson, R. F.. University Of Maine; Estados Unidos. Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory; Estados Unidos Fil: Vandergoes, M.. GNS Science; Estados Unidos Fil: Finkel, R.. California State University; Estados Unidos Fil: Schwartz, Roseanne. Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory; Estados Unidos Fil: Travis, S.. General Communication Inc.; Estados Unidos Fil: Garcia, J. L.. University Of Maine; Estados Unidos. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Chile Fil: Martini, Mateo Antonio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra; Argentina Fil: Nielsen, S. H. H.. Kenex Ltd.; Nueva Zelanda

The Greenland Ice Sheet is undergoing dynamic changes that will have global implications if they continue into the future. In this regard, an understanding of how the ice sheet responded to past climate changes affords a baseline for anticipating future behavior. Small, independent ice caps adjacent to the Greenland Ice Sheet (hereinafter called “local ice caps”) are sensitive indicators of the response of Greenland ice-marginal zones to climate change. Therefore, we reconstructed late Holocene ice-marginal fluctuations of the local Istorvet ice cap in east Greenland, using radiocarbon dates of subfossil plants, 10 Be dates of surface boulders, and analyses of sediment cores from both threshold and control lakes. During the last termination, the Istorvet ice cap had retreated close to its maximum Holocene position by ∼11,730 cal yr BP. Radiocarbon dates of subfossil plants exposed by recent recession of the ice margin indicate that the Istorvet cap was smaller than at present from AD 200 to AD 1025. Sediments from a threshold lake show no glacial input until the ice cap advanced to within 365 m of its Holocene maximum position by ∼AD 1150. Thereafter the ice cap remained at or close to this position until at least AD 1660. The timing of this, the most extensive of the Holocene, expansion is similar to that recorded at some glaciers in the Alps and in southern Alaska. However, in contrast to these other regions, the expansion in east Greenland at AD 1150 appears to have been very close to, if not at, a maximum Holocene value. Comparison of the Istorvet ice-cap fluctuations with Holocene glacier extents in Southern Hemisphere middle-to-high latitude locations on the Antarctic Peninsula and in the Andes and the Southern Alps suggests an out-of-phase relationship. If correct, this pattern supports the hypothesis that a bipolar see-saw of oceanic and/or atmospheric circulation during the Holocene produced asynchronous glacier response at some localities in the two polar hemispheres.

When calculated with the commonly accepted average Northern Hemisphere production rate, 10 Be dates of surface boulders on moraines in the Lago Argentino area of Patagonia are younger than minimum-limiting 14 C ages for the same landforms. This disagreement could result from the lack of a regional 10 Be production-rate calibration site. To assess this possibility, we here present high-precision measurements of 10 Be in samples collected from surface boulders on the Herminita and Puerto Bandera moraine complexes deposited alongside Lago Argentino on the eastern flank of the Andes at 50°S in Patagonia. Together with maximum- and minimum-limiting 14 C ages for the two moraine systems, these measurements confine the local 10 Be production rate to between 3.60 and 3.82 atoms/g/yr (midpoint = 3.71 ± 0.11 atoms/g/yr) when using a time-dependent scaling method that incorporates a high-resolution geomagnetic model. This range includes upper and lower error bounds of acceptable production rates derived from both the Herminita and the Puerto Bandera sites. The upper limit of this range is more than 12% below the average Northern Hemisphere production rate, as calculated using the same scaling method, given in Balco et al. [Quat. Geochron 3 (2008) 174–195]. Other scaling models yield production rates with similarly large offsets from the Balco et al. (2008) rate. On the other hand, the range of acceptable production rate values determined from Patagonia overlaps at 1σ with, and encompasses, the production rate recently derived in Macaulay valley in the Southern Alps of New Zealand [A. Putnam et al., Quat. Geochron. 5 (2010a) 392–409]. Within uncertainties (i.e., overlap at 1 sigma) this Patagonian production rate range also agrees with a recently determined production rate from low-elevation sites in northeastern North America and northern Norway. When the Macaulay production rate is used to calculate Patagonian exposure dates, 14 C and 10 Be chronologies are mutually compatible for late-glacial moraine systems. Both chronologies then indicate that outlet glaciers of the Southern Patagonian Icefield achieved a late-glacial maximum in the western reaches of Lago Argentino at 13,000 cal. yr BP at the end of the Antarctic Cold Reversal (14,500–12,900 cal. yr BP). Outlet glaciers subsequently receded to near present-day ice margins during the Younger Dryas stadial (12,900–11,700 cal. yr BP). This general retreat was interrupted about 12,200 cal. yr BP when Upsala Glacier constructed an interlobate complex of moraine ridges on Herminita Peninsula. Mountain glaciers in Patagonia and New Zealand, on both sides of the South Pacific Ocean, exhibited a coherent pattern of late-glacial ice-margin fluctuations.

Hand shaping in terrestrial mammals is adapted to many functions including walking, climbing, exploration, and skilled manipulation. Nevertheless, hand shaping is not well described in the rat (Rattus norvegicus) although the species is used to study the evolution of movement, the neural control of movement, and to model impairments that can result from brain injury. In the present study, rat hand movements were examined in standardized tests of overground walking, horizontal or inclined ladder rung walking, exploring a vertical wall of a cylinder, and skilled reaching for food. Behavior was filmed with high-speed (250-1000 f/s) video camera from which frame-by-frame behavioral and kinematic analyses (Peak Motus) were made. There were three hand actions common to all tasks. In release, the hand pushed off or was lifted from a substrate; in collection, the digits were closed and flexed though the midpoint of limb transport; and, in manipulation, the hand and digits were shaped to contact or grasp a target. The movements of release and collection, although variable in character, speed and duration, were very similar in the different tests. The movement of manipulation featured greater specialized digit use and varied sensory control (olfaction, vibrissae, and tactile senses) in different tasks. Conserved release and collection vs. the variability of manipulation is discussed in relation to the evolution, neural control, and neural commitment underlying hand movements.

Sensory control of the natural skilled movement of reaching for a food target to eat (reach-to-eat) is closely coupled to the successive phases of the movement. Control subjects visually fixate the target from hand movement onset to the point that the digits contact the food, at which point they look away. This relationship between sensory attention and limb movement suggests that whereas limb advance is under visual control, grasping, limb withdrawal, and releasing the food to the mouth is guided by somatosensation. The pattern of sensory control is altered in Parkinson's disease (PD). PD subjects may visually fixate the target for longer durations prior to movement initiation, during the grasp, and during the initial portion of hand withdrawal suggesting that vision compensates for a somatosensory impairment. Because both medication and listening to favorite musical pieces have been reported to normalize some movements in subjects with PD, the present study compared the effect of medication and listening to preferred musical pieces on sensory attention shifts from vision to somatosensation during the reach-to-eat movement. Biometric measures of eye movement and the movement of the reaching limb were collected from PD subjects and aged-matched control subjects in four conditions in their own homes: off medication, off medication with music, on medication, and on medication with music. Unmedicated PD subjects were slower to visually disengage the target after grasping it. Their disengage latency was shortened by both music and medication. Medication and music did not improve other aspects of reaching, including reaching duration and the ratings of the movement elements of limb advance, grasping, and limb withdrawal. The results are discussed in relation to the idea that one way in which medication and music may aid movement in PD by normalizing somatosensory control of forelimb movement thus reducing compensatory visual monitoring.

Many theories of language posit its recent evolution, perhaps contemporaneous with the evolution of Homo sapiens. The embodied language theory, however, in proposing that language includes gestures, provides an avenue for tracing language origins to phylogenetically earlier ancestral species. Here, evidence is presented that the structure of functional hand movements (e.g., reaching for food, climbing a ladder, or crawling), in rats and humans is similar. The structure of these functional hand movements is then compared to speech-related hand gestures in humans. The sequence of language-related gestures are also found to be characteristic of functional hand movements. It is suggested that these findings show that the arm and hand gestures that accompany human speech are derived from the same neural substrates that produce functional movements. Additionally, evidence is reviewed that supports the idea that speech-related gestures resemble the movements elicited by long-train stimulation of the primate motor cortex. Together, this evidence suggests that speech-related hand gestures have their evolutionary origins in functional hand movements of ancestral non-primate and primate species and may be constrained by the neural substrate for those movements. These findings are further discussed in relation to the idea that speech-related gestures reflect forelimb motor cortex contributions to embodied language.

Performance in several memory tasks is known to be unaffected by hippocampal damage sustained before learning, but is severely disrupted if the same damage occurs after learning. Memories for preferred locations, or home bases, in exploratory tasks can be formed by rats with hippocampal damage, but it is unknown if the memory for a home base survives hippocampal damage. To examine this question, for 30 min each day for five consecutive days, rats explored a circular open field containing one local cue. By Day 5 the rats preferentially went directly to that location, spent the majority of their time at that location, made rapid direct trips to that location when returning from an excursion and so demonstrated that the location was a home base. Memory for the cued location was examined after a 24 h or 14-day interval with the cue removed. In Experiments 1 and 2, con- trol rats and rats with prior N-methyl-D-aspartic acid hippocampal lesions demonstrated memory of the home base location by making direct trips to that location. In Experiment 3, rats that had first explored the open field and cue and then received hippocampal lesions showed no memory for the cued location. The absence of anterograde impair- ment vs. the presence of retrograde impairment for memory of a spatial home base confirms a role for the hippocampus in the retention of spa- tial memory acquired during exploration. V C 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.