Nest–site Selection and Breeding Success of Wedge–tailed Shearwaters Puffinus pacificus at Heron Island

The nest-site selection and the reproductive success of the Wedge-tailed Shearwater (Puffinus pacificus) were examined at Heron Island. Thirteen habitat variables were measured and grouped statistically into four composite variables, which were related to nest-site selection and breeding success in two structural equation models. Both models showed that substrate moisture was negatively related to nest-site selection, although one model revealed an additional positive effect of soil strength. Hatching success was associated with high substrate moisture and with low density of nesting birds. Burrows are probably sited where excavation is easiest and eggs laid where collapse is least likely. Some small-scale competition for nest–sites may occur.     

Stable nitrogen isotope values in arid‐land kangaroos correlated with mean annual rainfall: potential as a palaeoclimatic indicator

Bone collagen stable nitrogen isotope values are reported for modern kangaroos (Macropus spp.) from eight field sites along a 1160 km south–north transect from temperate coastal to arid interior South Australia, in order to investigate δ¹⁵N tissue variability in relation to rainfall and relative humidity. Mean annual rainfall along the transect ranges from 775 mm at Mount Gambier in the southeastern coast to 176 mm at Innamincka in the arid northern interior, while 3pm relative humidity ranges from 73% at coastal Flinders Chase to 36% at Innamincka. In arid habitats (176–238 mm rainfall), the δ¹⁵N values of kangaroo bone collagen become more positive in relation to decreasing mean annual rainfall (r² = 0.98), while there is only a weak correlation with relative humidity (r² = 0.67). In contrast, in temperate and semi‐arid coastal habitats (350–775 mm), there is no correlation between kangaroo bone collagen δ¹⁵N values and rainfall (r² = 0.0011) or between δ¹⁵N values and relative humidity (r² = 0.0035). Thus, in South Australia, kangaroo bone collagen δ¹⁵N values do not show a simple linear correlation with either rainfall or relative humidity across all habitats. These results suggest that stable nitrogen isotope analyses of herbivore bones obtained from archaeological and palaeontological sites may provide a reliable proxy for past rainfall values in arid‐land ecosystems. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Palaeobiogeography of the Ordovician trilobite Prosopiscus,with a new species from western New South Wales

Prosopiscus is particularly important in Ordovician palaeobiogeography because of its wide geographic distribution in Gondwana and peri-Gondwanan regions. It appears to have been confined to low palaeolatitudes, representing a characteristic member of the warm water eastern Gondwanan shelf faunas. Trends in the distribution of the Ordovician genus can be observed due to its long stratigraphic range. Prosopiscus was restricted to, and may have originated in, Australia during the late Early Ordovician (Bendigonian-Chewtonian). By the Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian), Prosopiscus had dispersed to other parts of Gondwana and peri-Gondwana, including the North and South China blocks, Tarim, central Himalayas, and the Argentine Precordillera (South America). Possible explanations for the distribution of Prosopiscus are that: (1) there were no oceanic barriers preventing dispersal of trilobites between different regions of Gondwana, thus permitting uninhibited migration over vast distances; (2) Prosopiscus was not restricted to a specific biofacies; (3) a major eustatic transgression during the early Darriwilian may have facilitated the dispersal of Prosopiscus in allowing further development and expansion of marine environments; and (4) a prolonged planktonic larval stage may have permitted wide dispersal.

Prosopiscus lauriei sp. nov. is described from the late Early Ordovician (Bendigonian-Chewtonian) Tabita Formation at Mount Arrowsmith, northwestern New South Wales, Australia. The new species is closely related to P. praecox, from the Nora Formation, Georgina Basin, central Australia, and to P. magicus from northwest China.     

Comes Horreorum – Komēs tēs Lamias

Abstract

It is a fact that very little is known of the organisation of the storage and distribution of grain at Constantinople by the imperial government after the later sixth/early seventh century. Until this time, the supply was assured through the bureau of the praetorian prefect of the East and his subordinate, the comes horreorum, along with the latter's staff of humerarii and chartularii, who had charge of the public (state) granaries; and through an independent bureau called the sitōnikon, originally under the authority of the City Prefect, but after Justinian's time transferred to the competence of the praetorian prefect of the East. The granaries where the grain was stored are named in the Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae as the horrea Troadensia, Valentiaca, Constantiaca, Alexandrina and the horreum Theodosianum – two presumably named after the sources of supply (the Troad and Egypt), three after the emperors during whose reigns they were constructed. A sixth-century ceremony preserved in the De Caerimoniis of Constantine VII records a state inspection of one of these granaries by the emperor and the praetorian prefect – where the emperor might also take along a surveyor to check the amount of grain registered by the comes, and to ensure that none had been stolen or sold illicitly.     

Isotopic evidence for Middle Horizon to 16th century camelid herding in the Osmore Valley,Peru

Archaeological and zooarchaeological data indicate that camelid pastoralism was a subsistence and economic mainstay of Middle Horizon and more recent cultures in the Osmore region of southern Peru. However, it is not known whether camelids were primarily herded in highland puna pastures or near lower elevation sites in the middle valley or along the coast. This research examines the elevation of archaeological camelid herding in the Osmore Valley using stable isotope analysis. Stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotope ratios were measured on 28 archaeological camelid bone samples from the Middle Horizon sites of Cerro Baúl and Cerro Mejía, the Late Intermediate site of Yaral and the late pre‐Hispanic to Colonial period site of Torata Alta. Twenty‐three archaeological camelids have δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values similar to five modern camelids maintained in highland puna pastures. In contrast, three camelids from the high status Wari site of Cerro Baúl, and two from Yaral have unexpectedly high δ¹³C and/or δ¹⁵N values outside the expected range for camelids pastured in highland puna habitats. The results may be explained by differences in foddering practices, altitudinal herding range or climatic conditions. Strontium isotope ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) were also assessed to infer pasture elevation using the camelid remains from Cerro Baúl (n = 11). One individual in this sub‐sample exhibits a non‐local ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr value indicative of an origin in the highland puna region east or south of Lake Titicaca. It was not possible to further distinguish between camelids herded in lower to middle elevation habitats outside the Lake Titicaca basin using ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values. This study suggests that multiple isotope proxies may be used to identify animals primarily pastured in lowland coastal versus highland puna (> 4000 masl (meters above sea level)) habitats, but are less useful at distinguishing between animals pastured in lower to middle elevation settings. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pleistocene frogs from the Darling Downs,southeastern Queensland,and their palaeoenvironmental significance

Systematic collecting from fluvial late Pleistocene deposits from the Darling Downs, southeast Queensland, Australia, has led to the recovery of the first fossil frogs from the region, ail from the Myobatrachidae, a family of ground dwelling and burrowing frogs. The most common species recovered, Limnodynastes tasmaniensis, is extant on the Darling Downs. The fossil taxa include species whose extant populations inhabit arid zones(Limnodynastes sp. cf. L. spenceri), montane forests (Kyarranus spp.), and open woodlands (Neobatrachus sudelli), and indicate the existence of a mosaic of habitats during the Pleistocene. The absence of the Hylidae (tree frogs), a family common throughout the Darling Downs today, may be explained by a taphonomic bias that favours non-arboreal forms. Alternatively, hylids may have been rare or absent on the Darling Downs during the Pleistocene.     

Significance of new species of Cryptorhynchia (Brachiopoda) from the Middle Jurassic of Kutch,India

Cryptorhynchia is a brachiopod genus, until recently known only from the late Bathonian. Two new species C. karuna and C. jhooraensis are here described from the middle Bathonian at Kutch, western India and record the earliest known occurrences of the genus. They constitute ancestor-descendant lineages with the two existing younger species C. pulcherrima and C. rugosa respectively. Evolution in both cases shows ‘parallel’ trends and the descendants are scaled-down versions of their respective progenitors. Statistical analyses reveal that this evolutionary miniaturization involves allometry-induced heterochrony, especially progenesis, and is marked by a rapid speciation event compatible with the punctuational model. Evolution appears to be anagenetic and may be attributed to the unstable nature of environment where onshore innovation produced smaller descendants that adopted r-strategy. Facies distribution and functional morphology suggest that species of Cryptorhynchia were well adapted to shallow, unstable carbonate shelf. However, they disappeared suddenly at the Bathonian - Callovian boundary which was marked by a global transgression. The possible causal factors of their extinction may be the consequent changes in bathymetry and substrate condition.     

The Pre-Settlement Vegatation of the Western and Central Wimmera Plains of Victoria,Australia

Historical records indicate that the fertile soils of the western and central Wimmera Plains of Victoria, Australia formerly supported grassy woodlands on rises and flats, and grasslands on shallow depressions and clay plains. Soil type and micro-relief appear to have been the major factors that determined the distribution of these communities. Burning of the woodlands by Aborigines may have contributed to their open grassy nature. The few ungrazed remnants of Buloke (Allocasuarina luehmannii) woodland support a suite of species that are absent from or uncommon in other Buloke woodland remnants in the region. This work demonstrates that in districts where little intact native vegetation remains, investigation of the distribution and floristic composition of the pre-settlement vegetation can provide useful information for the maintenance and restoration of remnant vegetation.     

Resource Exploitation and Wood Mobility in Northern European Oak: dendroprovenancing of individual timbers from the Mary Rose (1510/11–1545)

Dendrochronology has proved useful in suggesting the provenance of timbers in northern Europe, particularly for ship‐timbers, which may have originated from a distant source. Historical chronologies are usually derived from timbers of uncertain origin. In trying to provenance a new chronology, therefore, trends in the geographical distribution of statistical matches should be viewed, rather than individual strong matches. While it is usual to test a site‐chronology created from several individual timbers, in a situation such as the Mary Rose, where individual timbers may have been sourced from several regions, the matches of individual timbers may shed light on their origins. © 2010 The Author     

Andreas Kalvos and the Eighteenth-Century Ethos

Abstract

In the space of a few years the small isle of Zante, one of the Ionian group, produced three important poets: Hugo Foscolo, Dionysios Solomos, and the subject of this present study, Andreas Kalvos. Kalvos was born in 1792, fourteen years after Foscolo and six years before Solomos. His father's family may originally have come from Crete. His mother's family was one of the aristocratic families of Zante—the family name had been inscribed ever since the Venetian occupation of the island in the Gold Book of the island nobility. The marriage of the poet's parents does not seem to have been a success, for not many years after the birth of his younger brother in 1794, the father, taking the two children with him, left Zante for Leghorn, where his brother was consul for the Ionian Islands, and where there was a considerable Greek colony. In 1805 Andreas' mother obtained a divorce fron her husband on the grounds of desertion, and shortly afterwards she married for the second time. She died in 1815, never having seen her children again after their departure from Zante.     

Exploring Oyster (Crassostrea virginica) Habitat Collection via Oxygen Isotope Geochemistry and its Implications for Ritual and Mound Construction at Crystal River and Roberts Island,Florida

Research at Crystal River and Roberts Island Shell Mound Complex, on the western coast of Florida, USA, offers a quantitative assessment of the temporality of shell deposit construction, Native subsistence practices, and mobility patterns through stable oxygen isotope data from eastern oyster (C. virginica). The δ¹⁸O_water values of oysters vary synchronously with salinity, assuming relatively constant δ¹⁸O_water/salinity gradients since the time of occupation, allowing for an examination of shifts in oyster habitat exploitation over time. Our previous (Thompson et al. 2015) study indicated that midden accumulation occurred throughout the year, while oysters from mound deposits were collected in colder months. New data indicate that in addition to differential season of collection, habitat exploitation also varied. During early occupation at the site, oysters were collected primarily from lower saline habitats, while in later phases oysters were obtained from higher salinity waters; we relate this to a lower sea level and concomitant settlement shift seaward. Additionally, oyster from later mound contexts was collected from higher saline habitats relative to those in midden contexts; Native people may have targeted specific bioherms at certain times for the year for feasting-related mound construction.     

‘Es honor de su nación’: Legal Rhetoric,Ethnic Alliances and the Opening of an Indigenous Convent in Colonial Oaxaca

This article examines the manner in which the caciques (noble Indians) and principales (Indian notables) from the Oaxaca region in New Spain adopted a ‘legal rhetoric’ in their quest to open a convent for noble Indian women during the eighteenth century. Through a close reading of the legal documentation produced in the petition for the convent for indigenous women in Antequera, I find that the caciques strategically used the same laws that had placed them in a subordinated place in the social hierarchy of the colony in order to negotiate certain rights and privileges. Aware of their belonging to the legally determined category of ‘Indians,’ indigenous peoples from the Valley of Oaxaca appealed specifically to the laws that had granted them a special judicial place in the colonial scheme. By referencing the Recopilación de las leyes de las Indias and several royal decrees (cédulas), the caciques appealed to colonial officials at a key historical moment, when Bourbon reforms sought to modernize all institutions, including the Catholic Church.     

Channel Adjustment Following the Crossing of a Threshold: Tarcutta Creek,Southeastern Australia

Historical records indicate that the fertile soils of the western and central Wimmera Plains of Victoria, Australia formerly supported grassy woodlands on rises and flats, and grasslands on shallow depressions and clay plains. Soil type and micro-relief appear to have been the major factors that determined the distribution of these communities. Burning of the woodlands by Aborigines may have contributed to their open grassy nature. The few ungrazed remnants of Buloke (Allocasuarina luehmannii) woodland support a suite of species that are absent from or uncommon in other Buloke woodland remnants in the region. This work demonstrates that in districts where little intact native vegetation remains, investigation of the distribution and floristic composition of the pre-settlement vegetation can provide useful information for the maintenance and restoration of remnant vegetation.     

Cambrian–Ordovician non-marine fossils from South Australia

Newly discovered trace and body fossils from the Grindstone Range Sandstone of South Australia reveal evidence of megascopic life on land during the Cambrian–Ordovician. Arthropod trackways (Diplichnites gouldi) are interpreted here to have formed on land. The most persuasive evidence for this view is that footprints vary in clarity along the length of the trackway as it traversed moist then dry silt, then biological soil crust. Compatible, though not diagnostic of walking on land is trackway symmetry, without one side buoyed up by current. The footprints bulge outward and are partially filled with miniature talus cones. Footprints also are alternate as in walking, rather than opposite as in sculling. Arthropod resting traces (Selenichnites sp. indet.) have 11 lateral furrows, and footprints are bundled into sets of 8–11, most like euthycarcinoids. No arthropod dwelling burrows were found in associated palaeosols, so the track maker was more likely amphibious than fully terrestrial. Associated trace fossils include a new ichnotaxon of burrow, Myrowichnus arenaceus gen. et sp. nov. Thallose impressions (Farghera robusta gen. et sp. nov.) have the radiating dichotomous form of lichens, algae and liverworts. All these trace and body fossils were found in weakly developed palaeosols. Other palaeosols in the same formation are evidence of terrestrial ecosystems of modest biomass, weathering, carbon sequestration and stability in dry tropical regions.     

Akhalkalaki: The Taphonomy of An Early Pleistocene Locality in the Republic of Georgia

As part of our investigations into the potential of the Republic of Georgia for providing information on early hominin occupation of Eurasia, we report here on Akhalkalaki, a large late Early Pleistocene locality located along the lower slopes of a Miocene andesitic cone. Originally excavated in the 1950s as a palaeontological site, it was re-opened in the 1990s and stone tools were found associated with the fauna, suggesting that it is also an archaeological occurrence. Excavations in the 1950s and 1990s uncovered thousands of bones of an early Galerian fauna, including the remains of new species of Hippopotamus,Equus , and Canis (Vekua, 1962, 1987) and dominated by the remains of Equus süssenbornensis. We present the stratigraphy of the site, which together with faunal correlations and reversed paleomagnetics indicates an age most likely in the late Matuyama Chron, probably between 980,000 and 780,000 years ago. Taphonomic analysis suggests that the fauna was deposited and buried over a short time period, and was heavily modified by carnivores, but we cannot demonstrate involvement by hominins. Based on evidence of abundant krotovina (animal burrows filled with sediment) and the lack of definitive evidence for hominin modification to the bones, the stone tools at the site may have been mixed in with the older fauna. The taphonomic characteristics of the Akhalkalaki bone assemblage are not readily explained with reference to assemblage formation processes developed with actualistic studies that have been mostly conducted in Africa, including carnivore dens, predator arenas, human hunting and scavenging, mass deaths, or attritional bone deposition. Because of extreme anthropogenic modification of the present environments, the temperate setting, and the presence of mainly extinct taxa, local models based on actualistic studies cannot approximate the mammalian ecology reflected in the Akhalkalaki bone assemblage. A few comparisons are made with preliminary taphonomic observations from Dmanisi, an Early Pleistocene Homo ergaster site not far away.     

The oldest Ordovician stromatoporoids from Australia

The oldest known Australian Ordovician stromatoporoids are described from the Cashions Creek Limestone (formerly the Maclurites-Girvanella horizon) and correlatives of the Gordon Subgroup in Tasmania. The Cashions Creek Limestone and equivalents are correlated approximately with the North American Chazyan (Middle Ordovician). Representatives of Labechia, Stratodictyon and Stromatocerium are recorded from localities in the Mole Creek area, from the Florentine Valley and from Melrose. Three new species, Labechia banksi, Stratodictyon vetus and Stromatocerium bigsbyi are described. L. banksi comes from a slightly higher horizon in the succession at Mole Creek where it occurs in association with the earliest corals (Lichenaria). The distribution of the earliest Ordovician stromatoporoids — those appearing in the North American and Tasmanian successions — is reviewed, together with a discussion of their possible origins and interrelationships.     

Analysis of a Distribution of Point Events Using the Network‐Based Quadrat Method

This study proposes a new quadrat method that can be applied to the study of point distributions in a network space. While the conventional planar quadrat method remains one of the most fundamental spatial analytical methods on a two‐dimensional plane, its quadrats are usually identified by regular, square grids. However, assuming that they are observed along a network, points in a single quadrat are not necessarily close to each other in terms of their network distance. Using planar quadrats in such cases may distort the representation of the distribution pattern of points on a network. The network‐based units used in this article, on the other hand, consist of subsets of the actual network, providing more accurate aggregation of the data points along the network. The performance of the network‐based quadrat method is compared with that of the conventional quadrat method through a case study on a point distribution on a network. The χ² statistic and Moran's I statistic of the two quadrat types indicate that (1) the conventional planar quadrat method tends to overestimate the overall degree of dispersion and (2) the network‐based quadrat method derives a more accurate estimate on the local similarity. The article also performs sensitivity analysis on network and planar quadrats across different scales and with different spatial arrangements, in which the abovementioned statistical tendencies are also confirmed.     

The Good of Wrath: Supernatural Punishment and the Evolution of Cooperation

Abstract

Human cooperation remains a puzzle because it persists even in contexts where traditional theories predict it should not do so (i.e. among unrelated strangers, who never meet again and where reputation effects are absent). The leading explanation argues that cooperation occurs only if non-cooperators are punished. However, punishment is costly, so ‘second-order’ non-cooperators may arise who defect from contributing to punishment, thus unravelling this solution. We propose an alternative: during our history, the fear of supernatural punishment (whether real or not) deterred defectors and may therefore represent an adaptive trait favoured by natural selection. Supernatural beliefs are universal among human societies, commonly connected to taboos for public goods, so it seems plausible that they serve an important function in fostering cooperation. This hypothesis offers an explanation for (a) geographic variation in religious practices as solutions to local cooperation problems; and (b) the power of political appeals to religion to elicit cooperation.