title: James Lankford

text: James Paul Lankford (born March 4, 1968) is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Oklahoma since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the U.S. representative for from 2011 to 2015.


title: James Lankford

text: From 1996 to 2009, Lankford was the student ministries and evangelism specialist for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma and director of the youth programming at the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center in Davis, Oklahoma.


title: James Lankford

text: In January 2014, Lankford announced he would run in the 2014 U.S. Senate special election following Tom Coburn's planned resignation from the Senate. He won the June 2014 primary with 57% of the vote, becoming the Republican nominee. He won the special election with nearly 68% of the vote and was elected to the balance of Coburn's term. He was reelected in 2016, again with nearly 68% of the vote.


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford was born March 4, 1968, in Dallas, Texas, the son of Linda Joyce (née House) and James Wesley Lankford. His mother was an elementary school librarian. His maternal grandparents owned a small dry-cleaning business, his father and paternal grandparents a dairy farm. His stepfather was a career employee of AC Delco, the parts division of General Motors.


title: James Lankford

text: His parents divorced when he was four; he lived with his mother and older brother for a time in his grandparents' garage apartment. He became a Christian at eight. His mother remarried when he was twelve, and the family moved to Garland, Texas, with his stepfather.


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford attended Lakeview Centennial High School in Garland. While there, he participated in the Close Up Washington civic education program. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Secondary Education (specializing in speech and history) at University of Texas at Austin in 1990, and a master's degree in Divinity at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1994. He was a substitute teacher and speech team assistant teacher at Pflugerville High School in 1991.


title: James Lankford

text: After graduating, Lankford moved to Edmond, a suburb of Oklahoma City, where he still lives. He worked for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. From 1996 to 2005, he was the program director of Falls Creek, the largest Christian camp in the U.S.


title: James Lankford

text: After two-term incumbent Republican Mary Fallin announced she was giving up her seat to run for governor of Oklahoma, Lankford entered the race to succeed her. He finished first in a seven-way Republican primary—the important contest in this heavily Republican district—and defeated former State Representative Kevin Calvey in the runoff. He then defeated Democrat Billy Coyle in the general election with 62.53% of the vote.


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford defeated Democrat Tom Guild with 59% of the vote. Following the election, he was named chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, the fifth-ranking position in the House Republican caucus, an unusually senior position for a second-term House member.


title: James Lankford

text: In January 2014, Lankford announced he would run in the 2014 Senate special election to succeed retiring Republican Senator Tom Coburn. Lankford won the June 2014 Republican primary, defeating former state House speaker T.W. Shannon and former state senator Randy Brogdon. In November, Lankford won the election for the final two years of Coburn's second term, defeating retiring state senator Constance N. Johnson by 319,079 votes, with 557,002 (67.9%) to Johnson's 237,923 (29.0%). Independent candidate Mark Beard won the remaining 25,965 votes (3.2%).


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford was elected to a full six-year term in the Senate in 2016, defeating Democratic consultant Mike Workman with 67.7 percent of the vote. As in 2014, he won in a landslide, carrying every county in the state.


title: James Lankford

text: On December 21, 2017, Lankford was one of six senators to introduce the Secure Elections Act, legislation authorizing block grants to states to update outdated voting technology as well as form a program for an independent panel of experts that would work toward the development of cybersecurity guidelines for election systems that states could then implement, along with offering states resources to install the recommendations.


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford supports budget austerity through lowering taxes and reducing government spending. He took the taxpayer protection pledge promising to support no new taxes. He supports the repeal of the income and estate taxes and supports a sales tax to tax consumption and not savings or earnings.


title: James Lankford

text: In 2014, Lankford was endorsed by the National Rifle Association and had an "A" rating from the group. Lankford supports loosening restrictions on interstate gun purchases. He opposes firearm microstamping, a controversial method of imprinting casings with a unique marking to match it with a specific firearm, and would allow veterans to register unlicensed firearms.


title: James Lankford

text: After the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in which the perpetrator used a Smith & Wesson M&P15 AR-15 style rifle to kill 17 and wound 17 others, Lankford said on NBC News' "Meet the Press" he was open to requiring more comprehensive background checks for firearm purchases, saying, "The problem is not owning an AR-15, it’s the person who owns it.”


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford opposed a 2018 ballot measure to legalize medical marijuana in Oklahoma, calling it "harmful to the social fabric of Oklahoma" and arguing that it would have a "dramatic effect on our families and our schools and our businesses and the future of our state". He also appeared in a video ad calling for defeat of the initiative, stating: "Our families won't be better if more parents and grandparents smoke more marijuana." The measure passed with 57% of the vote.


title: James Lankford

text: In 2015, Lankford introduced the Keeping out Illegal Drugs (KIDS) Act to block federal funds for Indian tribes that allow the cultivation or distribution of marijuana on their land. Lankford stated: "It is important for our nation to help address this issue for the sake of the next generation of Native Americans. This legislation is a good step in trying to protect young tribal members and fulfill our trust responsibility to Native Americans."


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford supports extending the Patriot Act and expanding roving wiretaps occurring in the US. He supports the prioritization of security, starting with military bases.


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford supports expanding exploration of gas and oil both domestically and on the outer continental shelf. He opposes the Environmental Protection Agency regulating emission standards as he believes it hinders economic growth. Lankford believes manure and other fertilizers should not be classified as pollutants or hazardous.


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, calling it a "myth." In 2018, he strongly criticized the National Science Foundation for funding projects that seek to increase reporting on climate change in weathercasts, saying it "is not science—it is propagandizing."


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford opposes the Affordable Care Act and has voted to repeal it. In a 2017 Facebook post, he claimed "Since 2013, a majority of states are seeing premiums and costs double, including states that expanded Medicaid".


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford has stated his belief that federally funded health insurance is unconstitutional and that he will oppose any and all moves for a federal healthcare system. He supported an initiative to allow Medicare choice and institute budget cuts.


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford opposes abortion. He believes Congress should recognize life at the moment of fertilization. He opposes any federally funded programs that allow for abortion, as well as Planned Parenthood and other similar groups.


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford has largely opposed legislation promoting LGBT rights. He opposes same-sex marriage. In the early days of his 2010 campaign for the House of Representatives, Lankford disparaged the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded hate crime legislation to include greater penalties for hate crimes motivated by the victim's sexual orientation or race.


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford supported Oklahoma Question 711, a statewide constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and civil unions that passed in 2004 with 75% of the vote and remained law until it was challenged in court and struck down by a federal judge as unconstitutional in 2014. Lankford lambasted the decision, saying that "marriage is a state issue and Oklahoma has spoken." He also endorsed the Defense of Marriage Act and condemned the 2013 Supreme Court decision striking down parts of the law.


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford has defended businesses and individuals opposing LGBT rights, including Chick-fil-A in the wake of its denunciation over donations to groups opposing same-sex marriage, and Phil Robertson after he was suspended from "Duck Dynasty" in 2013 following comments regarded as anti-LGBT and racist. Lankford attacked A&E for suspending Robertson, writing that Robertson "should be able to speak his views without fear of being silenced."


title: James Lankford

text: In 2012, five days after President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, the first sitting U.S. president to do so, Lankford told a "ThinkProgress" interviewer that he believed homosexuality is a choice and that employers should be allowed to terminate workers for their sexual orientation: "I think it's a choice issue." After LGBT advocates condemned his statements, Lankford defended himself on local television, reiterating his view that homosexuality is a choice.


title: James Lankford

text: After the Southern Poverty Law Center designated the Alliance Defending Freedom an anti-LGBT hate group, Lankford criticized the designation and defended the ADF, which had described same-sex marriage as a threat to "healthy, free and stable society."


title: James Lankford

text: In 2015, Lankford condemned the Supreme Court ruling in "Obergefell v. Hodges", which held that same-sex marriage bans violated the constitution.


title: James Lankford

text: The Human Rights Campaign, the largest organization advocating for LGBT rights in the United States, included Lankford in its 2016 "Congressional Hall of Shame" along with Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz.


title: James Lankford

text: In August 2018, Lankford, Marco Rubio and 15 other lawmakers urged the Trump administration to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses in western China's Xinjiang region. They wrote: "The detention of as many as a million or more Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in "political reeducation” centers or camps requires a tough, targeted, and global response."


title: James Lankford

text: In June 2020, Lankford criticized President Trump's decision to walk to the St John's Episcopal Church near the White House, calling it "confrontational". In a BBC interview he said that racism passes on from one generation to the next, and he challenged families to invite a family of a different ethnicity to their home for a meal, to "allow friendship to develop where there has only been friendliness in the past".


title: James Lankford

text: In January 2021, after Lankford questioned the validity of the 2020 presidential election, some Black Tulsa leaders called for him to resign from both the 1921 Race Massacre Centennial Committee and the Senate. They saw the false fraud allegations, which focused on primarily Black cities, as an attack on Black voters. Lankford later apologized for his role in casting doubt on Black votes.


title: James Lankford

text: After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Trump refused to concede, Lankford said he would intervene and ensure that Biden, the incoming president, would receive intelligence briefings. Shortly thereafter, he backtracked, said the media had twisted his words, and said "I'm not in a hurry, necessarily, to get Joe Biden these briefings."


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford initially announced plans to object to the counting of some swing states' electoral votes as part of an attempt to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, but he reversed course after the 2021 United States Capitol attack. He later apologized to his black constituents for his involvement in casting doubt on votes from predominantly black communities in several swing states.


title: James Lankford

text: Lankford and his wife, Cindy, have two daughters. He attends Quail Springs Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church in Oklahoma City.


title: Nicomedia

text: Nicomedia (; , "Nikomedeia"; modern İzmit) was an ancient Greek city located in what is now Turkey. In 286, Nicomedia became the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire (chosen by the emperor Diocletian who ruled in the east), a status which the city maintained during the Tetrarchy system (293–324).


title: Nicomedia

text: The Tetrarchy ended with the Battle of Chrysopolis (Üsküdar) in 324, when Constantine defeated Licinius and became the sole emperor. In 330 Constantine chose for himself the nearby Byzantium (which was renamed Constantinople, modern Istanbul) as the new capital of the Roman Empire.


title: Nicomedia

text: The city was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the victory of Sultan Orhan Gazi against the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines managed to retake it in the aftermath of the Battle of Ankara, but it fell definitively to the Ottomans in 1419.


title: Nicomedia

text: It was founded in 712–11 BC as a Megarian colony and was originally known as Astacus (; , 'lobster'). After being destroyed by Lysimachus, it was rebuilt by Nicomedes I of Bithynia in 264 BC under the name of Nicomedia, and has ever since been one of the most important cities in northwestern Asia Minor. The great military commander Hannibal Barca came to Nicomedia in his final years and committed suicide in nearby Libyssa (Diliskelesi, Gebze). The historian Arrian was born there.


title: Nicomedia

text: Nicomedia was the metropolis and capital of the Roman province of Bithynia under the Roman Empire. It is referenced repeatedly in Pliny the Younger's Epistles to Trajan during his tenure as governor of Bithynia. Pliny, in his letters, mentions several public buildings of the city such as a senate-house, an aqueduct, a forum, a temple of Cybele, and others, and speaks of a great fire, during which the place suffered much. Diocletian made it the eastern capital city of the Roman Empire in 286 when he introduced the Tetrarchy system.


title: Nicomedia

text: Nicomedia was at the center of the Diocletianic Persecution of Christians which occurred under Diocletian and his Caesar Galerius. On 23 February 303 AD, the pagan festival of the Terminalia, Diocletian ordered that the newly built church at Nicomedia be razed, its scriptures burnt, and its precious stones seized. The next day he issued his "First Edict Against the Christians," which ordered similar measures to be taken at churches across the Empire.


title: Nicomedia

text: The destruction of the Nicomedia church incited panic in the city, and at the end of the month a fire destroyed part of Diocletian's palace, followed 16 days later by another fire. Although an investigation was made into the cause of the fires, no party was officially charged, but Galerius placed the blame on the Christians. He oversaw the execution of two palace eunuchs, who he claimed conspired with the Christians to start the fire, followed by six more executions through the end of April 303. Soon after Galerius declared Nicomedia to be unsafe and ostentatiously departed the city for Rome, followed soon after by Diocletian.


title: Nicomedia

text: Nicomedia remained as the eastern (and most senior) capital of the Roman Empire until co-emperor Licinius was defeated by Constantine the Great at the Battle of Chrysopolis (Üsküdar) in 324. Constantine mainly resided in Nicomedia as his interim capital city for the next six years, until in 330 he declared the nearby Byzantium (which was renamed Constantinople) the new capital. Constantine died in a royal villa in the vicinity of Nicomedia in 337. Owing to its position at the convergence of the Asiatic roads leading to the new capital, Nicomedia retained its importance even after the foundation of Constantinople.


title: Nicomedia

text: A major earthquake, however, on 24 August 358, caused extensive devastation to Nicomedia, and was followed by a fire which completed the catastrophe. Nicomedia was rebuilt, but on a smaller scale. In the sixth century under Emperor Justinian I the city was extended with new public buildings. Situated on the roads leading to the capital, the city remained a major military center, playing an important role in the Byzantine campaigns against the Caliphate. From inscriptions we learn that in the later period of the empire Nicomedia enjoyed the honour of a Roman colony.


title: Nicomedia

text: In 451, the local bishopric was promoted to a Metropolitan see under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The metropolis of Nicomedia was ranked 7th in the "Notitiae Episcopatuum" among the metropolises of the patriarchate. In the eighth century the Emperor Constantine V established his court there for a time, when plague broke out in Constantinople and drove him from his capital in 746–47. From the 840s on, Nicomedia was the capital of the "thema" of the "Optimatoi". By that time, most of the old, seawards city had been abandoned and is described by the Persian geographer Ibn Khurdadhbih as lying in ruins, with settlement restricted to the hilltop citadel. In the 1080s, the city served as the main military base for Alexios I Komnenos in his campaigns against the Seljuk Turks, and the First and Second Crusades both encamped there.


title: Nicomedia

text: The city was briefly held by the Latin Empire following the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in 1204: in late 1206 the seneschal Thierry de Loos made it his base, converting the church of Saint Sophia into a fortress; however, the Crusader stronghold was subjected to constant raids by the Emperor of Nicaea Theodore I Laskaris, during which de Loos was captured by Nicaean soldiers; by the summer of 1207 Emperor Henry of Flanders agreed to evacuate Nicomedia in exchange for de Loos and other prisoners Emperor Theodore held. The city remained in Byzantine control for over a century after that, but following the Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Bapheus in 1302, it was threatened by the rising Ottoman beylik. The city was twice sieged and blockaded by the Ottomans (in 1304 and 1330) before finally succumbing in 1337.


title: Nicomedia

text: The city remained in Ottoman hands until the Battle of Ankara and subsequent Ottoman Interregnum weakened them enough for the neighbouring states to demand the return of their conquered lands from the warring Ottoman princes in exchange for their support against the other princes. In this way the Byzantines secured considerable territorial concessions including Nicomedia and other lands on the east side of the Bosphorus. However, this last period of Byzantine rule was rather short-lived, as Nicomedia was definitively taken by the Ottomans around 1419.


title: Nicomedia

text: During the Empire, Nicomedia was a cosmopolitan and commercially prosperous city which received all the amenities appropriate for a major Roman city. Nicomedia was well known for having a bountiful water supply from two to three aqueducts, one of which was built in Hellenistic times. Pliny the Younger complains in his "Epistulae" to Trajan, written in 110 AD, that the Nicomedians wasted 3,518,000 sesterces on an unfinished aqueduct which twice ran into engineering troubles. Trajan instructs him to take steps to complete the aqueduct, and to investigate possible official corruption behind the large waste of money. Under Trajan, there was also a large Roman garrison. Other public amenities included a theatre, a colonnaded street typical of Hellenistic cities and a forum.


title: Nicomedia

text: The major religious shrine was a temple of Demeter, which stood in a sacred precinct on a hill above the harbor. The city adopted official cults of Rome avidly, there were temples dedicated to the Emperor Commodus, a sacred precinct of the city dedicated to Augustus, and a temple of Roma dedicated during the late-Republic.


title: Nicomedia

text: The city was sacked in AD 253 by the Goths, but when Diocletian made the city his capital in 283 AD he undertook grand restorations and built an enormous palace, an armory, mint, and new shipyards.


title: Nicomedia

text: The ruins of Nicomedia are buried beneath the densely populated modern city of İzmit, which has largely obstructed comprehensive excavation. Before the urbanization of the 20th century occurred, select ruins of the Roman-era city could be seen, most prominently sections of the Roman defensive walls which surrounded the city and multiple aqueducts which once supplied Nicomedia's water. Other monuments include the foundations of a 2nd-century AD marble nymphaeum on İstanbul street, a large cistern in the city's Jewish cemetery, and parts of the harbor wall.


title: Nicomedia

text: The 1999 İzmit earthquake, which seriously damaged most of the city, also led to major discoveries of ancient Nicomedia during the subsequent debris clearing. A wealth of ancient statuary was uncovered, including statues of Hercules, Athena, Diocletian and Constantine.


title: Nicomedia

text: In the years after the earthquake, the Izmit Provincial Cultural Directorate appropriated small areas for excavation, including the site identified as Diocletian's Palace and a nearby Roman theatre. In April 2016 a more extensive excavation of the palace was begun under the supervision of the Kocaeli Museum, which estimated that the site covers 60,000 square meters (196,850 square feet).


title: Sintashta culture

text: The Sintashta culture (), around 2050–1900 BCE, is the first phase of the Sintashta–Petrovka culture or Sintashta–Arkaim culture, and is a late Middle Bronze Age archaeological culture, located to the east of the Southern Urals, within the northern Eurasian steppe on the borders of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The whole Sintashta–Petrovka complex was dated in a recent publication by Stephan Lindner, based on a series of 19 calibrated radiocarbon dating samples as belonging to c. 2050–1750 BCE. The phase of the Petrovka culture can be dated c. 1900–1750 BCE. The oldest reliable analysis of human remains from Sintashta is radiocarbon dated to a mean of cal BC (2335–2041 calBC), and genetically analyzed as Y-haplogroup R1a-Z93 < R-Z2124.


title: Sintashta culture

text: The Sintashta culture was previously dated to the period 2200–1800 BCE. In 2020 Ventresca Miller et al. still claimed a period of 2400–1800 BCE, based on 44 earlier C14 calibrated datings by the Russian Academy of Sciences, which some other researchers consider outdated. The culture is named after the Sintashta archaeological site, in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, and spreads through Orenburg Oblast, Bashkortostan, and Northern Kazakhstan.


title: Sintashta culture

text: This culture is thought to represent an eastward migration of peoples from the Corded Ware culture. It is widely regarded as the origin of the Indo-Iranian languages. The earliest known chariots have been found in Sintashta burials, and the culture is considered a strong candidate for the origin of the technology, which spread throughout the Old World and played an important role in ancient warfare. Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of copper mining and bronze metallurgy carried out there, which is unusual for a steppe culture. Among the main features of the Sintashta culture are high levels of militarism and extensive fortified settlements, of which 23 are known.


title: Sintashta culture

text: According to Russian archaeologists, the Sintashta culture emerged from the interaction of two antecedent cultures, the Poltavka culture and the Abashevo culture. Because of the difficulty of identifying the remains of Sintashta sites beneath those of later settlements, the culture was only distinguished in the 1990s from the Andronovo culture. It was then recognised as a distinct entity, forming part of the "Andronovo horizon". Results from a genetic study published in "Nature" in 2015 suggested that the Sintashta culture emerged as a result of an eastward migration of peoples from the Corded Ware culture.


title: Sintashta culture

text: Morphological data suggests that the Sintashta culture might have emerged as a result of a mixture of steppe ancestry from the Poltavka culture and Catacomb culture, with ancestry from Neolithic forest hunter-gatherers.


title: Sintashta culture

text: Even though other researchers think it's an outdated chronology, Ventresca Miller et al. still claim that the first Sintashta settlements appeared around 2400 BCE and lasted until 1800 BCE with population estimates in each site ranging from 200 to 700 individuals, during a period of climatic change that saw the already arid Kazakh steppe region become even colder and drier. The marshy lowlands around the Ural and upper Tobol rivers, previously favoured as winter refuges, became increasingly important for survival. Under these pressures both Poltavka and Abashevo herders settled permanently in river valley strongholds, eschewing more defensible hill-top locations. Ventresca Miller et al. also claims that "by 2300 cal BCE, Middle Bronze Age sites associated with Sintashta and Petrovka cultural groups in northern Kazakhstan heavily exploited domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats alongside horses with occasional hunting of wild fauna".


title: Sintashta culture

text: Its immediate predecessor in the Ural-Tobol steppe was the Poltavka culture, an offshoot of the cattle-herding Yamnaya horizon that moved east into the region between 2800 and 2600 BCE. Several Sintashta towns were built over older Poltavka settlements or close to Poltavka cemeteries, and Poltavka motifs are common on Sintashta pottery.


title: Sintashta culture

text: Sintashta material culture also shows the influence of the late Abashevo culture, derived from the Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture, a collection of Corded Ware settlements in the forest steppe zone north of the Sintashta region that were also predominantly pastoralist.


title: Sintashta culture

text: The people of the Sintashta culture are thought to have spoken Proto-Indo-Iranian, the ancestor of the Indo-Iranian language family. This identification is based primarily on similarities between sections of the "Rig Veda", a religious text which includes ancient Indo-Iranian hymns recorded in Vedic Sanskrit, and the funerary rituals of the Sintashta culture as revealed by archaeology. Many cultural similarities with Sintashta have also been detected in the Nordic Bronze Age of Scandinavia.


title: Sintashta culture

text: There is linguistic evidence of interaction between Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian languages, showing influences from the Indo-Iranians into the Finno-Ugric culture.


title: Sintashta culture

text: From the Sintashta culture the Indo-Iranian followed the migrations of the Indo-Iranians to Anatolia, India and Iran. From the 9th century BCE onward, Iranian languages also migrated westward with the Scythians back to the Pontic steppe where the proto-Indo-Europeans came from.


title: Sintashta culture

text: The preceding Abashevo culture was already marked by endemic intertribal warfare; intensified by ecological stress and competition for resources in the Sintashta period. This drove the construction of fortifications on an unprecedented scale and innovations in military technique such as the invention of the war chariot. Increased competition between tribal groups may also explain the extravagant sacrifices seen in Sintashta burials, as rivals sought to outdo one another in acts of conspicuous consumption analogous to the North American potlatch tradition.


title: Sintashta culture

text: Sintashta artefact types such as spearheads, trilobed arrowheads, chisels, and large shaft-hole axes were taken east. Many Sintashta graves are furnished with weapons, although the composite bow associated later with chariotry does not appear. Higher-status grave goods include their infamous chariots, as well as axes, mace-heads, spearheads, and cheek-pieces. Sintashta sites have produced finds of horn and bone, interpreted as furniture (grips, arrow rests, bow ends, string loops) of bows; there is no indication that the bending parts of these bows included anything other than wood. Arrowheads are also found, made of stone or bone rather than metal. These arrows are short, 50–70 cm long, and the bows themselves may have been correspondingly short.


title: Sintashta culture

text: The Sintashta economy came to revolve around copper metallurgy. Copper ores from nearby mines (such as Vorovskaya Yama) were taken to Sintashta settlements to be processed into copper and arsenical bronze. This occurred on an industrial scale: all the excavated buildings at the Sintashta sites of Sintashta, Arkaim and Ust'e contained the remains of smelting ovens and slag. Around 10% of graves, mostly adult male, contained artifacts related to bronze metallurgy (molds, ceramic nozzles, ore and slag remains, metal bars and drops). However, these metal-production related grave goods rarely co-occur with higher-status grave goods. This likely means that those who engaged in metal production were not at the top of the social-hierarchy, even though being buried at a cemetery evidences some sort of higher status.


title: Sintashta culture

text: Much of Sintashta metal was destined for export to the cities of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in Central Asia. The metal trade between Sintashta and the BMAC for the first time connected the steppe region to the ancient urban civilisations of the Near East: the empires and city-states of Iran and Mesopotamia provided an almost bottomless market for metals. These trade routes later became the vehicle through which horses, chariots and ultimately Indo-Iranian-speaking people entered the Near East from the steppe.


title: Sintashta culture

text: Physical remains of the Sintashta people have revealed that they were Caucasoid with dolichocephalic skulls. Sintashta skulls are very similar to those of the preceding Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture and Abashevo culture, which ultimately trace their origin to Central Europe, and those of the succeeding Srubnaya culture and Andronovo culture. Skulls of the related Potapovka culture are less dolichocephalic, possibly as a result of admixture between Sintashta people and descendants of the Yamnaya culture and Poltavka culture, who although of a similar Europoid type, were less dolichocephalic than Sintashta. The physical type of Abashevo, Sintashta, Andronovo and Srubnaya is later observed among the Scythians.


title: Sintashta culture

text: analyzed the remains of four individuals ascribed to the Sintastha culture. One male carried haplogroup R1a and J1c1b1a, while the other carried R1a1a1b and J2b1a2a. The two females carried U2e1e and U2e1h respectively. The study found a close autosomal genetic relationship between peoples of Corded Ware culture and Sintashta culture, which "suggests similar genetic sources of the two," and may imply that "the Sintashta derives directly from an eastward migration of Corded Ware peoples." Sintashta individuals and Corded Ware individuals both had a relatively higher ancestry proportion derived from the Central Europe, and both differed markedly in such ancestry from the population of the Yamnaya Culture and most individuals of the Poltavka Culture that preceded Sintashta in the same geographic region. The Bell Beaker culture, the Unetice culture and contemporary Scandinavian cultures were also found to be closely genetically related to Corded Ware. A particularly high lactose tolerance was found among Corded Ware and the closely related Nordic Bronze Age. In addition, the study found the Sintashta culture to be closely genetically related to the succeeding Andronovo culture.


title: Sintashta culture

text: The dispersal of the DOM2 genetic lineage, believed to be the ancestor of all modern domesticated horses, is linked with the populations which preceded the Sintashta culture and their expansions. A genetic study published in 2021 suggests that these horses were selectively bred for desired traits including docility, stress tolerance, endurance running, and higher weight-carrying thresholds.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD, , ) is a social democratic political party in Mexico. The PRD originated from the Democratic Current, a political faction formed in 1986 from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The PRD was formed after the contested general election in 1988, which the PRD's immediate predecessor, the National Democratic Front, believed was rigged by the PRI. This sparked a movement away from the PRI's authoritarian rule.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: As of 2020, the PRD is a member of the Va por México coalition. Internationally, the PRD is a member of the Progressive Alliance. The members of the party are known colloquially in Mexico as "Perredistas".


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The PRD has its origins with the leftist members of the PRI, Institutional Revolutionary Party. The PRI had dominated Mexican politics since its founding in 1929. In 1986, a group of PRI members – including Ifigenia Martínez, Rodolfo González Guevara, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas – formed the Democratic Current, a political faction within the PRI. The Democratic Current aimed to pressure the PRI to become a more democratic party and to address the issue of national debt including the social effects of the economic crisis that came from attempting to pay that debt. The Democratic Current was also against technocratization, in which the people in power had not held public office and were scholars that were often educated abroad. Under the Miguel de la Madrid presidency which lasted from 1982–1988, the PRI and Mexico were moving towards a technocracy especially since de la Madrid was a technocrat himself. The Democratic Current did not have many technocrats and was thus left out of the decision-making process. This political marginalization led the Democratic Current members to be more vocal about their concerns because they did not have a position of power to protect within the PRI.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: After public criticisms and debate between the Democratic Current and the PRI, ten Democratic Current members signed Working Document Number One which was the official beginning of the Democratic Current. However, the PRI refused to acknowledge the Democratic Current as an organization unless they joined a union, which was allowed in the PRI. The forming of a group that was not united because of work but because of difference in ideology within the PRI caused fear of division within the party.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: Once de la Madrid's six-year term as president was coming to a close, the PRI chose six possible candidates for president and notably did not choose Cárdenas. The PRI had no process to apply as candidate so Cárdenas could not run as a candidate for president. On October 4, 1987 Carlos Salinas de Gortari was ultimately chosen as the PRI candidate. Gortari did not embody anything that the Democratic Current wanted and many of the Democratic Current members left the PRI including Cárdenas during November 1987. Some Democratic Current members went on to support Cárdenas in his 1988 quest for presidency and help in the founding of the PRD.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: On October 12, 1987 Cárdenas became the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution's presidential candidate. Cárdenas still remained an independent candidate due to electoral laws which meant that many parties could choose Cárdenas as their candidate. The groups of the independent left that supported Cárdenas were the Socialist Mexican Party which included the Unified Socialist Party of Mexico, the Mexican Workers' Party, the Patriotic Revolutionary Party, the Communist Left Unity, and the People's Revolutionary Movement. The parastatal groups, state-owned enterprises that are separate from government, that supported Cárdenas were the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution, Popular Socialist Party, and the Party of the Cardenist Front of National Reconstruction, which made up the National Democratic Front. Other groups that supported Cárdenas were the Social Democratic Party, Ecologist Green Party of Mexico, Democratic Unity, , Critical Point Revolutionary Organization, and Neighborhood Assembly


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: In the 1988 presidential election Cárdenas had come closer than any other political candidate to winning against the PRI, which had been in power since 1929. The victory of the PRI's candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, in 1988 was largely considered electoral fraud after the computers tabulating votes had reportedly crashed. Years later, it was determined that there was indeed electoral fraud in the election.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The 1988 election sparked a movement against the authoritarian rule of the PRI. As an integral part of the movement towards democracy, the Party of the Democratic Revolution was formed as Mexico's only leftwing party. On May 5, 1989, Cárdenas declared the establishment of the PRD. Former PRI members who also helped found the PRD include: Cárdenas, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, Ifigenia Martínez y Hernández and Andrés Manuel López Obrador.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The party was founded by smaller left-wing parties such as the Mexican Communist Party (PCM, "Mexican Communist Party"), Unified Socialist Party of Mexico (PSUM, "Unified Socialist Party of Mexico"), Socialist Mexican Party (PMS, "Socialist Mexican Party") and Mexican Workers' Party (PMT, "Mexican Workers' Party"). The PMS donated its registration with the Federal Electoral Commission (CFE) to enable the new party to be established.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: Small leftist group leaders joined the PRD which left small leftist organizations vulnerable. Additionally, some leftist organizations were wary that their individual concerns would be lost by joining a political group.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: In the early years, the PRD was not successful in elections because of electoral fraud. The PRD often claimed that the PRI was participating in electoral fraud. This was in contrast to PAN, the conservative party, who chose to cooperate with the PRI. However, the PRD also cooperated with the PRI to make policy changes that moved towards democracy.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: Salinas, PRI member and president of Mexico from 1988 to 1994, had made some improvements to the Mexican economy but Mexico still did not have a democratic system. During this time the PRD had become involved with many social justice movements against the neoliberal and antidemocratic policies of the PRI. However, because the PRD began as a combination of many groups, there were many viewpoints and it was difficult to form a unified front. Additionally, the PRD had a difficult time transitioning from a movement with a non-negotiable goal to a party that pushed gradual reforms.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: Cárdenas ran for national presidency under the PRD in 1994. Cárdenas ran against Diego Fernández, PAN candidate, and PRI party winner of the election, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce. Cárdenas made the Alianza Democrática Nacional campaign, where he mobilized 57 organizations. Cárdenas did not cooperate well with the PRD and was sometimes contradictory to the PRD.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The PRI used its media influence to promote the idea that changing the governing party would disrupt the nation as well as to portray Cárdenas and the PRD as confrontational and violent.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: After his loss Cárdenas claimed fraud; however, the party did not support him and instead focused on winning seats in congress.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: In 1997, the PRD won its first governorship with Cárdenas as governor of Mexico City. The PRD also gained the second largest majority in the Chamber of Deputies. These victories were due in part to changes in electoral rules.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: This division between currents was seen during the internal election of March 14, 1999 when there were voting discrepancies.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: By the end of 1999, 650 PRD members of the PRD had been assassinated, mostly by the PRI, as a way to intimidate those working towards democracy, civic engagement, and social movements.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: After the election of Vicente Fox, PAN candidate, the PRD announced that it would not file any complaints about the elections. This was a shift in strategy from the usual protests of fraud. However, some local PRD activists groups filed complaints but these were turned down by the PRD and the electoral court.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The former mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was the presidential candidate for the "Coalición por el Bien de Todos" (Coalition for the Good of All) in the 2006 presidential elections. López Obrador ran against Felipe Calderón, PAN candidate, and Roberto Madrazo, PRI candidate.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: López Obrador's campaign relied on citizen's networks (redes ciudadanas) that focused on mobilizing the public to campaign. This strategy focused on López Obrador as an individual and not the PRD. This was worrisome to PRD leaders because they thought that the PRD's concerns would not be addressed. However, many party members thought that López Obrador would win so these concerns were not addressed.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: After the general election of July 2, 2006, and a recount of the 9.09% of the ballot tally sheets which supposedly presented irregularities, the Federal Electoral Institute recorded the vote results in favor of Felipe Calderón by a margin of 0.58 percent, about 243,000 votes. These results were later validated by the Federal Electoral Tribunal. However, the PRD claimed that there was election fraud. The claims of election fraud have been rejected by the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF), which considered these "notoriously out of order" ("notoriamente improcedente") and certified PAN's candidate Felipe Calderón as the winner.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: López Obrador then rallied his supporters to hold demonstrations in the capital, Mexico City. These demonstrations were organized by the PRD, whose stronghold is in Mexico City. The PRD had called for demonstrations and set up camps in the capital's main square, blocking one of its main avenues (Paseo de la Reforma) for six weeks to demand a recount of all votes, which was not granted. The camps were later dismantled after confrontation with the Mexican Army became likely.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: On September 5, the Federal Electoral Tribunal announced that there was not enough evidence of electoral fraud which legitimized Calderon as President. This caused López Obrador to maintain his campaign of civil disobedience and declared himself as "Legitimate President" in a "public open vote" (people in the main square raising their hands). López Obrador did not recognize the legitimacy of Calderón as president. The PRD was criticized for not complying with the democratic system that it had lauded and helped create. However, the PRD could not agree on whether they should move forward and cooperate with the current system and contribute to policy or take on an uncompromising stance in an attempt to overturn the current system. This split later trickled on to other things such as electoral and petroleum reforms where one part of the party wanted to cooperate while the other refused to out of allegiance to López Obrador.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: In 2008 after bitter infighting within the party Jesús Ortega, an opponent of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was elected party president. In the 2009 legislative elections, López Obrador supported two smaller parties while maintaining his ties to the PRD.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The party had enjoyed a reputation of honesty unmatched by its competitors, until the "Video Scandals" a series of videos where notable party members were taped receiving cash funds or betting large sums of money in a Las Vegas casino.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: Later, another video was recorded by Cuba's government where Carlos Ahumada, the man providing the money, states that members of the PRI and PAN, PRD's rivals, were planning the situation presented in the first video as part of a plot against Andrés Manuel López Obrador to discredit him as a possible presidential candidate.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: Party members who were seen on the video tapes were expelled from the party, but those who were supposedly associated, but never legally charged, are still active members.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: After the loss, López Obrador told a rally in Mexico City's main plaza Zocalo on 9 September 2012 that he would withdraw from the Democratic Revolution Party "on the best of terms," as well as the Labor Party and Citizens' Movement (MC). He added that he was working on founding a new party from the Movement for National Regeneration, which he would later name MORENA.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The defeat of the PAN and the PRD in the Mexico general elections in 2012, as well as the departure of Andrés Manuel López Obrador from the PRD, caused these two parties to approach each other despite the friction obtained in the 2006 general elections.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: During 2017, Ricardo Anaya, then President of PAN, announced his party's proposal to create an alliance of politicians called "Opposition Wide Front" in order to "form a coalition government that will result in a stable majority that can be governed the country and make the change of regime a reality."


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: On 5 September the PAN formalized an alliance with PRD and MC under the name of "Citizen Front for Mexico," registering the coalition before the National Electoral Institute, an alliance to last for 6 years.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: On 17 December, the three parties ratified the alliance with the creation of an electoral coalition to participate in the federal elections of 2018 and multiple state elections with the name of "Por México al Frente."


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: In August 2018 PRD abandoned "Por México al Frente". In early 2019, the PRD split, with 9 deputies leaving the PRD and join Morena and join the government coalition of López Obrador and giving the government a two-thirds majority, allowing for the passage of constitutional reform.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: On 22 December 2020, the PRD formed the new alliance "Va por México", together with the National Action Party and the Institutional Revolutionary Party.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The PRD believes that Mexico currently has major problems of economic and social inequality that halt social development and affect liberty and democratic coexistence. Which is why the PRD has developed the following principles for their political party.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The PRD defends the educational principles that inspired the third article of the constitution and alights itself with an education -from beginning education to university- that is secular, public, free, scientific, and of quality, as well as an education that strengthens national identity.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The PRD, since its founding, believes that the state should have jurisdiction and should intervene in the fundamental and prioritized areas of the productive sector, as are nutrition, production of clean energy, telecommunications, the process of technology, infrastructure, communication mediums, financial systems, and technology trade for the national and regional development, restraining ownership and dominion of hydrocarbons and radio-electric spectrum for the nation and the recovery of basic goods that guarantee sovereignty.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The PRD defends the rights of every Mexican worker, the preservation and expansion of social security and the permanent improvements of contractual conditions.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The PRD adopts the principle of sustainable development as well as preserving the cultural environment. The PRD does this to satisfy the necessities of current and future generations, based on the responsible use of natural resources, including new tools for development, that would allow for the protection and recovery of the environment with comprehensive public policy.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The PRD supports the self-determination of communities, non-intervention, legal equality of states, the cooperation for national development and sovereignty and the respect and incorporation of international treaties to legislation.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The PRD consists of: congresses, councils, and executive committees, an assembly, and a committee. The nation, states, and municipalities have the same organization. They each have a congress, a council, and an executive committee. Congress has the most authority, the council coordinates communication between congresses, and the executive committee applies the guidelines set in place by the council. The maximum rule for any elected position is three years. The national, state, and municipal president cannot be reelected for the same position. The PRD has an anti-discriminatory policy for its internal elections. The PRD has policies put in place that guarantee the inclusion of women, young people, and indigenous people.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: The National Congress is the maximum authority of the PRD. The National Congress approves the statue, the declaration of principles, the program, and the political organization of the party. 90% of the National Congress is made up from delegates elected in municipal assemblies. The rest of the National Congress is made up by two delegates for each State Council, the presidents of the State Councils, the members of the National Executive Committee, and by the elected delegates of the National Council that shall not exceed 4% of the total delegates in the Party's Congress. The National Council chooses the majority of its 21-member executive committee except for the president of the party, the secretary of the party, and the parliamentary group coordinators.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: In 2014, the PRD became the first political party to have internal elections organized by the Federal Electoral Institute where those affiliated with the party could vote for the members of the National Congress and Council as well as State and Municipal Councils. 2 million people participated in the internal elections which is about 45% of those affiliated with the party.


title: Party of the Democratic Revolution

text: Inside the PRD, there are "currents" that are dedicated to specific approaches and stances or about specific themes or movements. These include:


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: Francisco de Jesus Marto (11 June 1908 – 4 April 1919) and Jacinta de Jesus Marto (11 March 1910 – 20 February 1920) were siblings from Aljustrel, a small hamlet near Fátima, Portugal, who with their cousin Lúcia dos Santos (1907–2005) reportedly witnessed three apparitions of the Angel of Peace in 1916 and several apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Cova da Iria in 1917. The title Our Lady of Fátima was given to the Virgin Mary as a result, and the Sanctuary of Fátima became a major centre of world Christian pilgrimage.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: The two Marto children were solemnly canonized by Pope Francis at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima, in Portugal on 13 May 2017, the centennial of the first Apparition of Our Lady of Fátima. They are the youngest Catholic saints, with Jacinta being the youngest saint who did not die a martyr.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: The youngest children of Manuel and Olimpia Marto, Francisco and Jacinta were typical of Portuguese village children of that time. They were illiterate.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: According to the memoirs of their cousin Sister Lúcia, Francisco had a placid disposition, was somewhat musically inclined, and liked to be by himself to think. Jacinta was affectionate with a sweet singing voice and a gift for dancing. Following their experiences, their fundamental personalities remained the same. Francisco preferred to pray alone, saying that this would "console Jesus for the sins of the world". Jacinta said she was deeply affected by a terrifying vision of Hell shown to the children at the third apparition, and deeply convinced of the need to save sinners through penance and sacrifice as the Virgin had told the children to do. All three children, but particularly Francisco and Jacinta, practiced stringent self-mortifications to this end. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in the report that confirmed Jacinta as beatified, observed that she seemed to have an "insatiable hunger for immolation." By this the Congregation was referring to immolation as offering in sacrifice.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: The brother and sister, who tended to their families’ sheep with their cousin Lúcia in the fields of Fátima, Portugal, reported seeing several apparitions of an angel in 1916. Lúcia later recorded the words of several prayers she said they learned from this angel.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: Sister Lúcia wrote in her memoirs that she and her cousins saw the first apparition of Mary on 13 May 1917. At the time of the apparition, Francisco was 8 years old, and Jacinta was 7.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: During the first apparition, the children said Mary asked them to pray the Rosary and to make sacrifices, offering them for the conversion of sinners. She also asked them to return to that spot on the thirteenth of each month for the next six months.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: The siblings were victims of the great 1918 influenza epidemic that swept through Europe that year. In October 1918, Jacinta told Lucia that Mary had appeared to her and promised to take them to heaven soon. Both lingered for many months, insisting on walking to church to make Eucharistic devotions and prostrating themselves to pray for hours, kneeling with their heads on the ground as they said the angel had instructed them to do.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: Francisco declined hospital treatment on 3 April 1919, and died at home the next day. In an attempt to save her life, which she insisted was futile, Jacinta was moved to Ourém Hospital. Her condition steadily worsened and, in an attempt to transfer her to the children's hospital in Lisbon, Queen Stephanie's Hospital (which at the time only allowed for children from the city to be treated there), she was moved first to the care of the small Orphanage of Our Lady of Miracles, in the Lisbon neighbourhood of Estrela. She developed purulent pleurisy and endured an operation in which two of her ribs were removed. Because of the condition of her heart, she could not be fully anesthetized, and suffered terrible pain, which she said would help to convert many sinners. On 19 February 1920, Jacinta asked the hospital chaplain who heard her confession to bring her Holy Communion and administer Extreme Unction because she was going to die "the next night". He told her that her condition was not that serious and that he would return the next day. The next day Jacinta was dead; she had died, as she had often said she would, alone.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: In 1920, shortly before her death at age nine, Jacinta Marto reportedly discussed the Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary with a then 12-year-old Lúcia dos Santos and said:


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: When you are to say this, don't go and hide. Tell everybody that God grants us graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; that people are to ask her for them; and that the Heart of Jesus wants the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be venerated at his side. Tell them also to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace, since God entrusted it to her.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: The cause for the siblings' canonization began in 1946. Exhumed in 1935, Jacinta's face was found to be incorrupt; Francisco's had decomposed. By 1951, when she was again exhumed for her reburial in the Basilica, Jacinta had begun to decompose also.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: In 1937 Pope Pius XI decided that causes for minors should not be accepted as they could not fully understand heroic virtue or practice it repeatedly, both of which are essential for canonization. For the next four decades, no sainthood processes for children were pursued. In 1979 the bishop of Leiria-Fátima asked all the world's bishops to write to the Pope, petitioning him to make an exception for Francisco, who had died at age 10, and Jacinta, who had died at age 9. More than 300 bishops sent letters to the Pope, writing that "the children were known, admired and attracted people to the way of sanctity. Favors were received through their intercession." The bishops also said that the children's canonization was a pastoral necessity for the children and teenagers of the day.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: In 1979, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints convened a general assembly. Cardinals, bishops, theologians and other experts debated whether it was possible for children to display heroic virtue. Eventually, they decided that, like the very few children who have a genius for music or mathematics, "in some supernatural way, some children could be spiritual prodigies." They were declared venerable by Pope John Paul II in 1989.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: On 13 May 2000, they were declared "blessed" in a decree from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Jacinta is the youngest non-martyred child ever to be beatified.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: When Pope John Paul II arrived in Fátima for the first time, in 1982, he said that he had come "because, on this exact date last year in St. Peter's Square, in Rome, there was an attempt on the life of your Pope, which mysteriously coincided with the anniversary of the first vision at Fátima, that of 13 May 1917. The coincidence of these dates was so great that it seemed to be a special invitation for me to come here."


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: Another miracle was found to have been attributed to their intercession and the process that investigated the presumed miracle was validated on 8 February 2013. On 23 March 2017, it was announced that Pope Francis would canonize them while visiting Portugal on 12 and 13 May. The pope solemnly canonized the children on 13 May 2017 during the centennial of the first apparition.


title: Francisco and Jacinta Marto

text: They are the Catholic Church's youngest saints who did not die as martyrs, with Jacinta the youngest.


title: Kontakt-5

text: Kontakt-5 is a type of second-generation explosive reactive armour (ERA) originating in the Soviet Union. It is the first type of ERA that is able to significantly decrease the penetration of armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) rounds.


title: Kontakt-5

text: Introduced on the T-80U tank in 1985, Kontakt-5 is made up of "bricks" of explosive sandwiched between two metal plates. The plates are arranged in such a way as to move sideways rapidly when the explosive detonates. This will force an incoming kinetic energy penetrator or shaped charge jet to cut through more armour than the thickness of the plating itself, since "new" plating is constantly fed into the penetrating body. A kinetic energy penetrator will also be subjected to powerful sideways forces, which might be large enough to cut the rod into two or more pieces. This will significantly reduce the penetrating capabilities of the penetrator, since the penetrating force will be dissipated over a larger volume of armour.


title: Kontakt-5

text: Newer KE penetrators like the US M829A3, were "driven by the need to counter KE-effective explosive reactive armor (ERA)".


title: Kontakt-5

text: Relikt was designed by the Russian army in response to the new developments. Relikt is the 3rd generation Russian ERA, and is claimed to be twice as effective as Kontakt-5. It can be installed on T-72B and T-90 tanks and was adopted in 2006. The Russian Army T-72B3M main battle tank incorporates Relikt. Developed by NII Stali, Relikt uses a completely new composition of explosives to achieve dynamics protection. Unlike Kontakt-1, it works equally reliably against both low-velocity and high-velocity missiles, doubling protection against shaped charges and increasing anti-tank guided missile protection by 50 percent. Relikt defends against tandem warheads and reduces penetration of APFSDS rounds by over 50 percent.


title: Kontakt-5

text: Kontakt-5 armour is employed by Russia, Ukraine, India (T90-S) and Serbia (on M-84AS MBT), among others.


title: Kontakt-5

text: Malachit is the latest (4th) generation Russian explosive reactive armor, mounted on Armata project vehicles.


title: Human intelligence

text: Human intelligence is the intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. High intelligence is associated with better outcomes in life.


title: Human intelligence

text: Through intelligence, humans possess the cognitive abilities to learn, form concepts, understand, apply logic and reason, including the capacities to recognize patterns, plan, innovate, solve problems, make decisions, retain information, and use language to communicate. There are conflicting ideas about how intelligence is measured, ranging from the idea that intelligence is fixed upon birth, or that it is malleable and can change depending on an individual's mindset and efforts. Several subcategories of intelligence, such as emotional intelligence or social intelligence, are heavily debated as to whether they are traditional forms of intelligence. They are generally thought to be distinct processes that occur, though there is speculation that they tie into traditional intelligence more than previously suspected.


title: Human intelligence

text: As a construct and measured by intelligence tests, intelligence is considered to be one of the most useful concepts in psychology, because it correlates with many relevant variables, for instance the probability of suffering an accident, salary, and more.


title: Human intelligence

text: In psychology, human intelligence is commonly assessed by IQ scores that are determined by IQ tests. However, while IQ test scores show a high degree of inter-test reliability, and predict certain forms of achievement rather effectively, their construct validity as a holistic measure of human intelligence is considered dubious. While IQ tests are generally understood to measure some forms of intelligence, they may fail to serve as an accurate measure of broader definitions of human intelligence inclusive of creativity and social intelligence. According to psychologist Wayne Weiten, "IQ tests are valid measures of the kind of intelligence necessary to do well in academic work. But if the purpose is to assess intelligence in a broader sense, the validity of IQ tests is questionable."


title: Human intelligence

text: Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences is based on studies not only of normal children and adults, but also of gifted individuals (including so-called "savants"), of persons who have suffered brain damage, of experts and virtuosos, and of individuals from diverse cultures. Gardner breaks intelligence down into at least a number of different components. In the first edition of his book "Frames of Mind" (1983), he described seven distinct types of intelligence—logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. In a second edition of this book, he added two more types of intelligence—naturalist and existential intelligences. He argues that psychometric (IQ) tests address only linguistic and logical plus some aspects of spatial intelligence. A major criticism of Gardner's theory is that it has never been tested, or subjected to peer review, by Gardner or anyone else, and indeed that it is unfalsifiable. Others (e.g. Locke, 2005) have suggested that recognizing many specific forms of intelligence (specific aptitude theory) implies a political—rather than scientific—agenda, intended to appreciate the uniqueness in all individuals, rather than recognizing potentially true and meaningful differences in individual capacities. Schmidt and Hunter (2004) suggest that the predictive validity of specific aptitudes over and above that of general mental ability, or "g", has not received empirical support. On the other hand, Jerome Bruner agreed with Gardner that the intelligences were "useful fictions", and went on to state that "his approach is so far beyond the data-crunching of mental testers that it deserves to be cheered."


title: Human intelligence

text: Robert Sternberg proposed the triarchic theory of intelligence to provide a more comprehensive description of intellectual competence than traditional differential or cognitive theories of human ability. The triarchic theory describes three fundamental aspects of intelligence:


title: Human intelligence

text: The triarchic theory does not argue against the validity of a general intelligence factor; instead, the theory posits that general intelligence is part of analytic intelligence, and only by considering all three aspects of intelligence can the full range of intellectual functioning be fully understood.


title: Human intelligence

text: More recently, the triarchic theory has been updated and renamed as the Theory of Successful Intelligence by Sternberg. Intelligence is now defined as an individual's assessment of success in life by the individual's own (idiographic) standards and within the individual's sociocultural context. Success is achieved by using combinations of analytical, creative, and practical intelligence. The three aspects of intelligence are referred to as processing skills. The processing skills are applied to the pursuit of success through what were the three elements of practical intelligence: adapting to, shaping of, and selecting of one's environments. The mechanisms that employ the processing skills to achieve success include utilizing one's strengths and compensating or correcting for one's weaknesses.


title: Human intelligence

text: Sternberg's theories and research on intelligence remain contentious within the scientific community.


title: Human intelligence

text: Based on A. R. Luria's (1966) seminal work on the modularization of brain function, and supported by decades of neuroimaging research, the PASS Theory of Intelligence (Planning/Attention/Simultaneous/Successive) proposes that cognition is organized in three systems and four processes. The first process is the Planning, which involves executive functions responsible for controlling and organizing behavior, selecting and constructing strategies, and monitoring performance. The second is the Attention process, which is responsible for maintaining arousal levels and alertness, and ensuring focus on relevant stimuli. The next two are called Simultaneous and Successive processing and they involve encoding, transforming, and retaining information. Simultaneous processing is engaged when the relationship between items and their integration into whole units of information is required. Examples of this include recognizing figures, such as a triangle within a circle vs. a circle within a triangle, or the difference between 'he had a shower before breakfast' and 'he had breakfast before a shower.' Successive processing is required for organizing separate items in a sequence such as remembering a sequence of words or actions exactly in the order in which they had just been presented. These four processes are functions of four areas of the brain. Planning is broadly located in the front part of our brains, the frontal lobe. Attention and arousal are combined functions of the frontal lobe and the lower parts of the cortex, although the parietal lobes are also involved in attention as well. Simultaneous processing and Successive processing occur in the posterior region or the back of the brain. Simultaneous processing is broadly associated with the occipital and the parietal lobes while Successive processing is broadly associated with the frontal-temporal lobes. The PASS theory is heavily indebted to both Luria (1966, 1973), and studies in cognitive psychology involved in promoting a better look at intelligence.


title: Human intelligence

text: In Piaget's theory of cognitive development the focus is not on mental abilities but rather on a child's mental models of the world. As a child develops, increasingly more accurate models of the world are developed which enable the child to interact with the world better. One example being object permanence where the child develops a model where objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched.


title: Human intelligence

text: Piaget's theory described four main stages and many sub-stages in the development. These four main stages are:


title: Human intelligence

text: Degree of progress through these stages are correlated, but not identical with psychometric IQ. Piaget conceptualizes intelligence as an activity more than a capacity.


title: Human intelligence

text: One of Piaget's most famous studies focused purely on the discriminative abilities of children between the ages of two and a half years old, and four and a half years old. He began the study by taking children of different ages and placing two lines of sweets, one with the sweets in a line spread further apart, and one with the same number of sweets in a line placed more closely together. He found that, "Children between 2 years, 6 months old and 3 years, 2 months old correctly discriminate the relative number of objects in two rows; between 3 years, 2 months and 4 years, 6 months they indicate a longer row with fewer objects to have "more"; after 4 years, 6 months they again discriminate correctly". Initially younger children were not studied, because if at the age of four years a child could not conserve quantity, then a younger child presumably could not either. The results show however that children that are younger than three years and two months have quantity conservation, but as they get older they lose this quality, and do not recover it until four and a half years old. This attribute may be lost temporarily because of an overdependence on perceptual strategies, which correlates more candy with a longer line of candy, or because of the inability for a four-year-old to reverse situations.


title: Human intelligence

text: By the end of this experiment several results were found. First, younger children have a discriminative ability that shows the logical capacity for cognitive operations exists earlier than acknowledged. This study also reveals that young children can be equipped with certain qualities for cognitive operations, depending on how logical the structure of the task is. Research also shows that children develop explicit understanding at age 5 and as a result, the child will count the sweets to decide which has more. Finally the study found that overall quantity conservation is not a basic characteristic of humans' native inheritance.


title: Human intelligence

text: Piaget's theory has been criticized for the age of appearance of a new model of the world, such as object permanence, being dependent on how the testing is done (see the article on object permanence). More generally, the theory may be very difficult to test empirically because of the difficulty of proving or disproving that a mental model is the explanation for the results of the testing.


title: Human intelligence

text: Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development expand Piaget's theory in various ways such as also considering psychometric-like factors such as processing speed and working memory, "hypercognitive" factors like self-monitoring, more stages, and more consideration on how progress may vary in different domains such as spatial or social.


title: Human intelligence

text: Based on a review of 37 neuroimaging studies, Jung and Haier (2007) proposed that the biological basis of intelligence stems from how well the frontal and parietal regions of the brain communicate and exchange information with each other. Subsequent neuroimaging and lesion studies report general consensus with the theory. A review of the neuroscience and intelligence literature concludes that the parieto-frontal integration theory is the best available explanation for human intelligence differences.


title: Human intelligence

text: Based on the Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory, the tests of intelligence most often used in the relevant studies include measures of fluid ability (Gf) and crystallized ability (Gc); that differ in their trajectory of development in individuals. The 'investment theory' by Cattell states that the individual differences observed in the procurement of skills and knowledge (Gc) are partially attributed to the 'investment' of Gf, thus suggesting the involvement of fluid intelligence in every aspect of the learning process. It is essential to highlight that the investment theory suggests that personality traits affect 'actual' ability, and not scores on an IQ test. In association, Hebb's theory of intelligence suggested a bifurcation as well, Intelligence A (physiological), that could be seen as a semblance of fluid intelligence and Intelligence B (experiential), similar to crystallized intelligence.


title: Human intelligence

text: The intelligence compensation theory (a term first coined by Wood and Englert, 2009) states that individuals who are comparatively less intelligent work harder, more methodically, become more resolute and thorough (more conscientious) in order to achieve goals, to compensate for their 'lack of intelligence' whereas more intelligent individuals do not require traits/behaviours associated with the personality factor conscientiousness to progress as they can rely on the strength of their cognitive abilities as opposed to structure or effort. The theory suggests the existence of a causal relationship between intelligence and conscientiousness, such that the development of the personality trait conscientiousness is influenced by intelligence. This assumption is deemed plausible as it is unlikely that the reverse causal relationship could occur; implying that the negative correlation would be higher between fluid intelligence (Gf) and conscientiousness. The justification being the timeline of development of Gf, Gc and personality, as crystallized intelligence would not have developed completely when personality traits develop. Subsequently, during school-going ages, more conscientious children would be expected to gain more crystallized intelligence (knowledge) through education, as they would be more efficient, thorough, hard-working and dutiful.


title: Human intelligence

text: This theory has recently been contradicted by evidence, that identifies "compensatory sample selection". Thus, attributing the previous findings to the bias in selecting samples with individuals above a certain threshold of achievement.


title: Human intelligence

text: The view of cognitive ability has evolved over the years, and it is no longer viewed as a fixed property held by an individual. Instead, the current perspective describes it as a general capacity, comprising not only cognitive, but motivational, social and behavioural aspects as well. These facets work together to perform numerous tasks. An essential skill often overlooked is that of managing emotions, and aversive experiences that can compromise one's quality of thought and activity. The link between intelligence and success has been bridged by crediting individual differences in self-efficacy. Bandura's theory identifies the difference between possessing skills and being able to apply them in challenging situations. Thus, the theory suggests that individuals with the same level of knowledge and skill may perform badly, averagely or excellently based on differences in self-efficacy.


title: Human intelligence

text: A key role of cognition is to allow for one to predict events and in turn devise methods to deal with these events effectively. These skills are dependent on processing of stimuli that is unclear and ambiguous. To learn the relevant concepts, individuals must be able to rely on the reserve of knowledge to identify, develop and execute options. They must be able to apply the learning acquired from previous experiences. Thus, a stable sense of self-efficacy is essential to stay focused on tasks in the face of challenging situations.


title: Human intelligence

text: To summarize, Bandura's theory of self-efficacy and intelligence suggests that individuals with a relatively low sense of self-efficacy in any field will avoid challenges. This effect is heightened when they perceive the situations as "personal threats". When failure occurs, they recover from it more slowly than others, and credit it to an insufficient aptitude.


title: Human intelligence

text: On the other hand, persons with high levels of self-efficacy hold a task-diagnostic aim that leads to effective performance.


title: Human intelligence

text: Developed by Ackerman, the PPIK (process, personality, intelligence and knowledge) theory further develops the approach on intelligence as proposed by Cattell, the Investment theory and Hebb, suggesting a distinction between "intelligence as knowledge" and "intelligence as process" (two concepts that are comparable and related to Gc and Gf respectively, but broader and closer to Hebb's notions of "Intelligence A" and "Intelligence B") and integrating these factors with elements such as personality, motivation and interests.


title: Human intelligence

text: Ackerman describes the difficulty of distinguishing process from knowledge, as content cannot be eliminated from any ability test. Personality traits have not shown to be significantly correlated with the "intelligence as process" aspect except in the context of psychopathology. One exception to this generalization has been the finding of sex differences in cognitive abilities, specifically abilities in mathematical and spatial form.


title: Human intelligence

text: On the other hand, the "intelligence as knowledge" factor has been associated with personality traits of Openness and Typical Intellectual Engagement, which also strongly correlate with verbal abilities (associated with crystallized intelligence).


title: Human intelligence

text: It appears that Latent inhibition, the phenomenon of familiar stimuli having a postponed reaction time than unfamiliar stimuli has a positive correlation with creativity.


title: Human intelligence

text: Because intelligence appears to be at least partly dependent on brain structure and the genes shaping brain development, it has been proposed that genetic engineering could be used to enhance the intelligence, a process sometimes called biological uplift in science fiction. Experiments on mice have demonstrated superior ability in learning and memory in various behavioral tasks.


title: Human intelligence

text: A 2021 study showed that the Abecedarian Early Intervention Project resulted in significant changes in midlife brain structure in males. MRI scans showed that several brain region and total brain volumes were substantially larger in participants of the child care program than in the control group.<ref name="10.1162/jocn_a_01709"></ref>


title: Human intelligence

text: IQ leads to greater success in education, but independently education raises IQ scores. A 2017 meta-analysis suggests education increases IQ by 1-5 points per year of education, or at least increases IQ test taking ability.


title: Human intelligence

text: Substances which actually or purportedly improve intelligence or other mental functions are called nootropics. A meta analysis shows omega 3 fatty acids improves cognitive performance among those with cognitive deficits, but not among healthy subjects. A meta-regression shows omega 3 fatty acids improve the moods of patients with major depression (major depression is associated with mental deficits).


title: Human intelligence

text: Attempts to raise IQ with brain training have led to increases on aspects related with the training tasks – for instance working memory – but it is yet unclear if these increases generalize to increased intelligence per se.


title: Human intelligence

text: A 2008 research paper claimed that practicing a dual n-back task can increase fluid intelligence (Gf), as measured in several different standard tests. This finding received some attention from popular media, including an article in "Wired". However, a subsequent criticism of the paper's methodology questioned the experiment's validity and took issue with the lack of uniformity in the tests used to evaluate the control and test groups. For example, the progressive nature of Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM) test may have been compromised by modifications of time restrictions (i.e., 10 minutes were allowed to complete a normally 45-minute test).


title: Human intelligence

text: On the philosophical front, conscious efforts to influence intelligence raise ethical issues. Neuroethics considers the ethical, legal and social implications of neuroscience, and deals with issues such as the difference between treating a human neurological disease and enhancing the human brain, and how wealth impacts access to neurotechnology. Neuroethical issues interact with the ethics of human genetic engineering.


title: Human intelligence

text: Transhumanist theorists study the possibilities and consequences of developing and using techniques to enhance human abilities and aptitudes.


title: Human intelligence

text: Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. Eugenics has variously been regarded as meritorious or deplorable in different periods of history, falling greatly into disrepute after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.


title: Human intelligence

text: The approach to understanding intelligence with the most supporters and published research over the longest period of time is based on psychometric testing. It is also by far the most widely used in practical settings. Intelligence quotient (IQ) tests include the Stanford-Binet, Raven's Progressive Matrices, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children. There are also psychometric tests that are not intended to measure intelligence itself but some closely related construct such as scholastic aptitude. In the United States examples include the SSAT, the SAT, the ACT, the GRE, the MCAT, the LSAT, and the GMAT. Regardless of the method used, almost any test that requires examinees to reason and has a wide range of question difficulty will produce intelligence scores that are approximately normally distributed in the general population.


title: Human intelligence

text: Intelligence tests are widely used in educational, business, and military settings because of their efficacy in predicting behavior. IQ and "g" (discussed in the next section) are correlated with many important social outcomes—individuals with low IQs are more likely to be divorced, have a child out of marriage, be incarcerated, and need long-term welfare support, while individuals with high IQs are associated with more years of education, higher status jobs and higher income. Intelligence as measured by Psychometric tests has been found to be highly correlated with successful training and performance outcomes (e.g., adaptive performance), and IQ/"g" is the single best predictor of successful job performance; however, some researchers although largely concurring with this finding have advised caution in citing the strength of the claim due to a number of factors, these include: statistical assumptions imposed underlying some of these studies, studies done prior to 1970 which appear inconsistent with more recent studies, and ongoing debates within the Psychology literature as to the validity of current IQ measurement tools.


title: Human intelligence

text: There are many different kinds of IQ tests using a wide variety of test tasks. Some tests consist of a single type of task, others rely on a broad collection of tasks with different contents (visual-spatial, verbal, numerical) and asking for different cognitive processes (e.g., reasoning, memory, rapid decisions, visual comparisons, spatial imagery, reading, and retrieval of general knowledge). The psychologist Charles Spearman early in the 20th century carried out the first formal factor analysis of correlations between various test tasks. He found a trend for all such tests to correlate positively with each other, which is called a "positive manifold". Spearman found that a single common factor explained the positive correlations among tests. Spearman named it "g" for "general intelligence factor". He interpreted it as the core of human intelligence that, to a larger or smaller degree, influences success in all cognitive tasks and thereby creates the positive manifold. This interpretation of "g" as a common cause of test performance is still dominant in psychometrics. (Although, an alternative interpretation was recently advanced by van der Maas and colleagues. Their "mutualism model" assumes that intelligence depends on several independent mechanisms, none of which influences performance on all cognitive tests. These mechanisms support each other so that efficient operation of one of them makes efficient operation of the others more likely, thereby creating the positive manifold.)


title: Human intelligence

text: IQ tests can be ranked by how highly they load on the "g" factor. Tests with high "g"-loadings are those that correlate highly with most other tests. One comprehensive study investigating the correlations between a large collection of tests and tasks has found that the Raven's Progressive Matrices have a particularly high correlation with most other tests and tasks. The "Raven's" is a test of inductive reasoning with abstract visual material. It consists of a series of problems, sorted approximately by increasing difficulty. Each problem presents a 3 x 3 matrix of abstract designs with one empty cell; the matrix is constructed according to a rule, and the person must find out the rule to determine which of 8 alternatives fits into the empty cell. Because of its high correlation with other tests, the Raven's Progressive Matrices are generally acknowledged as a good indicator of general intelligence. This is problematic, however, because there are substantial gender differences on the "Raven's", which are not found when "g" is measured directly by computing the general factor from a broad collection of tests.


title: Human intelligence

text: A recent scientific understanding of collective intelligence, defined as a group's general ability to perform a wide range of tasks, expands the areas of human intelligence research applying similar methods and concepts to groups. Definition, operationalization and methods are similar to the psychometric approach of general individual intelligence where an individual's performance on a given set of cognitive tasks is used to measure intelligence indicated by the general intelligence factor "g" extracted via factor analysis. In the same vein, collective intelligence research aims to discover a "'c" factor' explaining between-group differences in performance as well as structural and group compositional causes for it.


title: Human intelligence

text: Several different theories of intelligence have historically been important for psychometrics. Often they emphasized more factors than a single one like in "g factor".


title: Human intelligence

text: Many of the broad, recent IQ tests have been greatly influenced by the Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory. It is argued to reflect much of what is known about intelligence from research. A hierarchy of factors for human intelligence is used. "g" is at the top. Under it there are 10 broad abilities that in turn are subdivided into 70 narrow abilities. The broad abilities are:


title: Human intelligence

text: Modern tests do not necessarily measure of all of these broad abilities. For example, Gq and Grw may be seen as measures of school achievement and not IQ. Gt may be difficult to measure without special equipment.


title: Human intelligence

text: "g" was earlier often subdivided into only Gf and Gc which were thought to correspond to the nonverbal or performance subtests and verbal subtests in earlier versions of the popular Wechsler IQ test. More recent research has shown the situation to be more complex.


title: Human intelligence

text: While not necessarily a dispute about the psychometric approach itself, there are several controversies regarding the results from psychometric research.


title: Human intelligence

text: One criticism has been against the early research such as craniometry. A reply has been that drawing conclusions from early intelligence research is like condemning the auto industry by criticizing the performance of the Model T.


title: Human intelligence

text: Several critics, such as Stephen Jay Gould, have been critical of "g", seeing it as a statistical artifact, and that IQ tests instead measure a number of unrelated abilities. The American Psychological Association's report "" stated that IQ tests do correlate and that the view that "g" is a statistical artifact is a minority one.


title: Human intelligence

text: A study suggested that intelligence is composed of distinct cognitive systems, each of which having its own capacity and being (to some degree) independent of other components, with the cognitive profile being emergent from anatomically distinct cognitive systems (such as brain regions or neural networks). For example, IQ and reading-/language-related traits/skills appear to be influenced "at least partly [by] distinct genetic factors".


title: Human intelligence

text: Various types of potential measures related to some definitions of intelligence but not part of IQ measurement include:


title: Human intelligence

text: Human intelligence could be distinguished from potential other types of intelligences which may include those of (some may belong to multiple or be impossible):


title: Human intelligence

text: Such intelligences, if they exist and are considered "intelligent", could be very different from human intelligences. Research may e.g. investigate differences between different types or profiles or aspects of intelligences, such as between modern humans and archaic humans.


title: Human intelligence

text: Psychologists have shown that the definition of human intelligence is unique to the culture that one is studying. Robert Sternberg is among the researchers who have discussed how one's culture affects the person's interpretation of intelligence, and he further believes that to define intelligence in only one way without considering different meanings in cultural contexts may cast an investigative and unintentionally egocentric view on the world. To negate this, psychologists offer the following definitions of intelligence:


title: Human intelligence

text: Although typically identified by its western definition, multiple studies support the idea that human intelligence carries different meanings across cultures around the world. In many Eastern cultures, intelligence is mainly related with one's social roles and responsibilities. A Chinese conception of intelligence would define it as the ability to empathize with and understand others — although this is by no means the only way that intelligence is defined in China.


title: Human intelligence

text: In several African communities, intelligence is shown similarly through a social lens. However, rather than through social roles, as in many Eastern cultures, it is exemplified through social responsibilities. For example, in the language of Chi-Chewa, which is spoken by some ten million people across central Africa, the equivalent term for intelligence implies not only cleverness but also the ability to take on responsibility. Furthermore, within American culture there are a variety of interpretations of intelligence present as well. One of the most common views on intelligence within American societies defines it as a combination of problem-solving skills, deductive reasoning skills, and Intelligence quotient (IQ), while other American societies point out that intelligent people should have a social conscience, accept others for who they are, and be able to give advice or wisdom.


title: Folk art

text: Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative. The makers of folk art are typically trained within a popular tradition, rather than in the fine art tradition of the culture. There is often overlap, or contested ground with 'naive art'. "Folk art" is not used in regard to traditional societies where ethnographic art continue to be made.


title: Folk art

text: The types of objects covered by the term "folk art" vary. The art form is categorised as "divergent... of cultural production ... comprehended by its usage in Europe, where the term originated, and in the United States, where it developed for the most part along very different lines." For a European perspective, Edward Lucie-Smith described it as "Unsophisticated art, both fine and applied, which is supposedly rooted in the collective awareness of simple people. The concept of folk art is a distinctly 19th-century one. Today it carries with it a tinge of nostalgia for pre-industrial society."


title: Folk art

text: Folk arts reflect the cultural life of a community. The art form encompasses the expressive culture associated with the fields of folklore and cultural heritage. Tangible folk art can include objects which historically are crafted and used within a traditional community. Intangible folk arts can include such forms as music and art galleries , dance and narrative structures. Each of these art forms, both tangible and intangible, typically were developed to address a practical purpose. Once the purpose has been lost or forgotten, there usually is no reason for further transmission unless the object or action has been imbued with meaning beyond its initial practicality. These artistic traditions are shaped by values and standards that are passed from generation to generation, most often within family and community, through demonstration, conversation, and practice.


title: Folk art

text: Objects of folk art are a subset of material culture and include objects which are experienced through the senses, by seeing and touching. Typical for material culture in art, these tangible objects can be handled, repeatedly re-experienced, and sometimes broken. They are considered works of art because of the technical execution of an existing form and design; the skill might be seen in the precision of the form, the surface decoration or in the beauty of the finished product. As a folk art, these objects share several characteristics that distinguish them from other artifacts of material culture.


title: Folk art

text: The object is created by a The craft-person works within an established cultural framework. The folk art has a recognizable style and method in crafting its pieces, which allows products to be recognized and attributed to a single individual or workshop. This was originally articulated by Alois Riegl in his study of "Volkskunst, Hausfleiss, und Hausindustrie", published in 1894. "Riegl ... stressed that the individual hand and intentions of the artist were significant, even in folk creativity. To be sure, the artist may have been obliged by group expectations to work within the norms of transmitted forms and conventions, but individual creativity – which implied personal aesthetic choices and technical virtuosity – saved received or inherited traditions from stagnating and permitted them to be renewed in each generation." Individual innovation in the production process plays an important role in the continuance of these traditional forms. Many folk art traditions like quilting, ornamental picture framing, and decoy carving continue to be practiced, and new forms continue to emerge.


title: Folk art

text: Contemporary outsider artists are often self-taught, and their work is usually developed in isolation or in small communities across the country. The Smithsonian American Art Museum houses over 70 folk and self-taught artists.