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Due to advances in surgical methods, such as miniplate and lag screw osteosynthesis, there is current discussion about the adequate therapy of condylar fractures. Regarding the insufficient outcome of conservative treatment confirmed by refined methods of functional diagnosis, there is a trend towards surgical therapy, at least in cases of condylar displacement out of the fossa. This trend was also prompted when surgeons learned that the condyle determines local growth but does not serve as a growth center of the mandible. Along with increased interest in temporomandibular function and surgical therapy of internal disorders, surgical therapy of traumatic soft tissue lesions was emphasized. This consequently led to surgical restoration of intraarticular fractures. Conservative treatment will nonetheless be sufficient in cases of minor displacement due to a higher ability of remodeling, even more so in children.

West Africa at the moment is totally absent from discussions relating to the Middle Stone Age. Sites belonging to this period have been known in this region for a long time, but their stratigraphic context has frequently been unsure or is completely lacking. As in southern Africa and in western Europe, progress in our knowledge of this stage depends mainly on the construction of a general chronological framework, preferably correlated with worldwide climatic changes and supported by absolute dates. For this reason the study of the complex of open air sites at Ounjougou has opened up a new perspective of the MSA in West Africa. Almost 30 archaeological levels belonging to the period have been identified within thick Pleistocene deposits, most of aeolian origin. Systematic recovery of OSL dates has allowed this sequence of deposits to be determinated chronologically, and the many palaeolithic occupations have thus been indirectly dated. The oldest MSA occupations are dated to the end of the Middle Pleidocene, about 150 kyrs ago. They are more numerous between 80 and 25 kyrs ago, with a particular concentration in isotopic stage 3. As usual in open air sites, the density of material within these archaeological levels is very variable, and only the lithic industries have been preserved. Apart from the frequency of occupation, the originality of this archaeological sequence resides in the diversity of these industries, which follow on one from another without any apparent logic. Techniques of manufacture (such as Levallois, discoid, blade, unipolar, or bipolar on anvill) alternate throughout the sequence, and industries characterized by bifacial foliate artefacts occur more than once. If for the most part of these industries fit easily enough within the West African MSA as a whole, there are same questions arising with regard to the diversity of technical traditions and their rapid alternation. Are there regional equivalents for this rhythm of change, does it have any particular significance in terms of the peopling of West Africa at this time, and what could have led to these rapid change?

Mediante la ventilación de los secaderos de estanterías se consigue conservar, en verano, el bajo precio del secado natural, y obtener, en invierno un precio comparable al del secado artificial.

At Ounjougou (Dogon country Mali) thanks at a local hydrographic change a complex stratigraphic sequence is subjected to a rapid incision of the Yamé and its affluents. While Holocene deposits are significantly present most of the material that fills the relief developed in sandstone consists of Upper Pleistocene formations. The stratigraphy full of discontinuities the great diversity of lithic industries as well as the preliminary OSL datings allow us to reconstitute the major stages of the geomorphological evolution and to propose a primary chrono cultural framework of Middle Stone Age occupations. The Ounjougou sequence is especially characterised by the alternation of original lithic industries which have no contemporary West African equivalents and industries with more common characteristics which echo more greatly developed technical and cultural phenomena. We can thus propose that the sequence observed at Ounjougou does not concur with the hypothesis of a unique initial population which then evolved on site but conforms more realistically with the successive populations hypothesis.