The emergence of agropastoralism: Accelerated ecocultural change on the Andean altiplano, ∼3540–3120 cal BP

In the fourth millennium BP, there were major environmental and cultural changes on the Andean altiplano of South America, but the chronology remains vague. A recent synthesis describes a slow, gradual transition from hunting and gathering to agropastoralism. This proposal is tested by refining the date of the onset of more humid and stable conditions, around 3550 cal BP, based on a Bayesian model of 26 dates from Lake Wiñaymarka and an updated calculation of the lacustrine offset. This is compared to Bayesian models of 191 dates from 20 archaeological sites, which incorporate a number of recently processed radiocarbon dates. A synthesis is presented of 15 full coverage surveys, a summed probability distribution, and a Bayesian model of the transition to ceramics, which together support a scenario of a very rapid demographic increase. Fourteen models from archaeological sites are cross-referenced in a composite model, which identifies a brief, altiplano-wide emergence of agropastoralism with starting and ending boundaries of 3540 and 3120 cal BP, respectively. This starting boundary correlates strongly with the onset of improving environmental conditions, indicating synchronous cultural and environmental change. The suite of accelerating cultural changes included a marked reduction in mobility, a demographic surge, increased subsistence diversity, the adoption of ceramics, farming and the integration of camelid herding into a remarkably resilient economic strategy still in use today. This is a highly relevant but yet to be used comparative case study for the variable tempos of ‘big histories’, and ecocultural interactions that generate rapid, emergent episodes of wide-spread and enduring cultural change.     

Lévi-Strauss: Two lives

Two recent books about the great French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss have recently been published. Coming a decade after his death, they serve as an opportunity to reassess the legacy of Lévi-Strauss, as an anthropologist and a writer.     

L’Invention du Spectateur au XVIIIe Siècle L’Art Est Usage

18^th century philosophers analyzed art through the aesthetic experience of the audience. By contrast, Adam Smith was interested in the moral judgment that an impartial audience may formulate. How can art and morality, the beautiful and the good, be combined into one analytical framework? Art and morality convey non-transcendental values that are intrinsic to human experience. With the aesthetic experience of the audience, art is used, and ultimately depends on the ways that humans relate to works or art and to the beautiful.     

少年L引发的舆论乱相

制造传言、扩散传播,鉴别真假,再到新的传言产生,引发新一轮传播。喜欢它的锐利也好,不喜欢它的嘈杂也罢,人人要发声,人人有话说,这样的时代已经到来     

少年L案的庭外事

未成年翻案、涉及性侵……少年L的案件成了律师们的舞台。一场罗生门尚未平息,另一场罗生门已起     

Délocaliser L’esprit

The cognitive sciences have breathed fresh air into the old problem of localizing mental functions, which was often laughed off. Regarding the most philosophical form of the question on the localization of the mind, authors such as Peirce, James, Wittgenstein, and most recently Descombes have imagined delocalizing the mind in order to spread the conviction that the idea itself of a location of the mental is meaningless and to criticize the localisationism of today’s cognitive scientists.     

Index to Volume L—2009

A U. S.-based geographer investigates how decentralization, a central component of China's fiscal reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, has altered the foundation of underlying economic inequalities among its regions. More specifically, the paper examines the evolution of China's fiscal system during the reform era and corresponding changes in the character of central-local fiscal relations. It focuses on analyzing how patterns in regional fiscal disparities at multiple geographic levels have changed over time, laying the groundwork for further research on China's uneven regional development.     

握手——赠C.L.

握手——赠Ｃ．Ｌ．当我底眼光射上了你底头和脚，整个的我呈现在你面前，在那闪电般的视线互相接触的瞬间，我们不觉伸出了有力的手，同时地，前进了一步，我们紧固地握手了。相互地，不再看一眼，血在两个人底体内交流，从指到全身，到每个飞奔着的血管里。我们底脸上没...