Fremont Hunting and Resource Intensification in the Eastern Great Basin

Empirical tests of resource-intensification models argue for diminishing foraging efficiency among hunter–gatherers in California over the past 2000 years (Basgall, 1987,Research in Economic Anthropology9,21–52; Broughton, 1994aJournal of Archaeological Science21,501–514; 1994bJournal of Anthropological Anthropology13, 371–401). The evidence for this long-term trajectory consists of decreases in the abundance of large, high-ranked prey in archaeofaunal assemblages. This paper presents faunal data from Fremont structural sites in the eastern Great Basin and Northern Colorado Plateau as an additional empirical test of resource intensification patterns and compares them to trends in California and the American Southwest. The measure of resource efficiency used is the artiodactyl index (following Broughton, 1994ab), a tool derived from prey choice models of optimal foraging. Faunal data from Fremont structural sites argue that (1) foraging efficiency declined during the Fremont period, and (2) this decline was due to population growth.     

农业和文明起源

文明起源在考古学上是一个复杂的问题,牵涉到人类社会的许多方面。其中一个重要方面就是农业。本文试图强调农业对文明起源所起的推动作用,并提出一些有关农业考古的看法,希望对目前正在进行的中华文明探源工程和类似课题有所帮助。     

绿色农业视角下青海特色农业发展路径及对策

绿色农业是二十一世纪农业发展的理想模式。青海独特的地域环境和资源条件形成了丰富的特色农业资源,也为发展绿色农业奠定了基础。文章通过对青海特色农业绿色化发展条件的分析,指出了特色农业的发展目标,并提出了实施路径及相关对策。     

张謇与近代化大农业的产生

20世纪初,以江苏著名的民族资本企业家张謇为代表的中国现代化事业的先行者们,引进西方资本主义经营模式,在江苏苏北沿海地区进行资本主义大农业经营,创造性地建立了公司加佃户(农户)的经营方式,并将这种方式纳入了近代大工业主导的资本主义市场经济体系,形成了具有现代意义的农工商一体化格局,在近代中国第一次成功地将传统小农推向了现代大市场。     

Organisational Needs and Priorities of Heritage Areas in the USA

Academics and practitioners alike know relatively little about the core competencies that are transferable from one heritage-area initiative to another. Often those new to the field have had to look to consultants or peers for advice regarding the essential core competencies needed to make their emerging organisations a success.This research surveyed the executive directors of the known universe of 154 heritage areas in the USA for the purposes of identifying the essential core skills they feel are needed to create and sustain a multi-jurisdictional heritage-tourism initiative. In addition, the importance-performance methodology employed in the survey instrument made it possible to assess their critical needs and priorities for training. Results of this study contributed to the design of the Heritage Development Institute, recently created to serve the executive staff of the nation's heritage areas at the College of Charleston on behalf of the Alliance of National Heritage Areas (www.cofc.edu/~heritage).     

Resource Intensification and Resource Depression in the Pacific Northwest of North America: A Zooarchaeological Review

In the Pacific Northwest of North America, researchers routinely suggest changes in human use of animals explain hunter-gatherer organizational changes and development of cultural complexity. For example, most models developed to explain developing cultural complexity invoke salmon in some fashion. Yet until recently, fish remains were not carefully studied and more generally, zooarchaeological evidence has not been systematically used to test models of culture change. This study reviews the 10,000-year-old faunal record in the Pacific Northwest to test predictions drawn from models of resource intensification, resource depression and hunter-gatherer organizational strategies. The records from two subareas, the South-Central Northwest Coast (Puget Sound/Gulf of Georgia) and the Northern Columbia Plateau, are examined in detail, representing 63 archaeological sites. While minor changes in animal use are evident, the overall record is characterized by stability rather than change.     

Agroclimatic Conditions of the Distribution and Specialization of Agriculture

The author uses the annual march of precipitation as a basis for climatic regionalization of small areas. He finds that this method meets the requirement of using an index related directly to the circulation of the atmosphere and easily constructed from widely available precipitation data. He also holds that the march-of-precipitation method yields more precise regional boundaries than other methods. The author finds virtually complete agreement between his climatic regions and the regional units delimited by Soviet geobotanists.     

Immigrant Needs and Local Government Services

Upon their arrival in the United States, immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, impact the provision of local government services. Survey data collected from four immigrant groups (Nicaraguans, Haitians, Central Americans, and Mexicans) in Miami, Florida, and Las Vegas, Nevada examine the question of whether country of origin is a predictor of local government service utilization by immigrants. The findings suggest that immigrants, regardless of country of origin, share similar characteristics and attitudes regarding life in the United States. The major differences among the immigrant groups studied appear to be in their plans for the future. The Mexican respondents were likely to be described as sojourners, with plans to return to their home country, while the other groups intended to settle permanently in the United States. At the local level, these findings suggest that policymakers must be sensitive to motivations of the immigrants who locate in their areas, understanding the implications for service delivery in multilanguage, multiculture communities.     

Artifical Intensification of the Melting of Mountain Glaciers to Increase the Stream Flow in Central Asia

The author reviews experiments on the dusting of glaciers to promote melting and calls for an integrated program of research and experimentation to assure practical application of this method of increasing stream flow for irrigation of arid lands. The program has been opposed by some glaciologists on the ground that glacier meltwater makes up a negligible percentage of stream flow and that artificial intensification of melting may disturb the natural evolution of glaciers and reduce normal stream flow.     

Revisiting the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): International Histories of Agriculture,Nutrition,and Development

As far as international organizations and their written histories are concerned, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, presents quite a paradox. Though in its early years, the organization itself as well as individual staff members were determined to document and narrate FAO's history, sixty years later many aspects of FAO's history remain largely unknown. The following articles re-examine the history of FAO through a range of new perspectives that shed light on the intellectual roots of rural development ideas within the organization and illuminate the context of specific development missions, as well as the transnational flows of knowledge and expertise.     

社会经济需求与美国教育的发展

教育是使美国保持强国地位的关键因素之一。美国教育是建立在对欧洲教育本土化基础之上的,起点比较高。在社会和工业发展的不同阶段,美国根据社会经济发展的需要办教育,扩大教育对象,合理利用人力资源,强调研究和开发,注意培养人的应变能力,用教育推动现代化的持续发展。     

关于发展海东地区现代特色农业的思考

加快现代特色农业的发展是农村经济发展的核心和关键。现代特色农业是海东农业和农村经济发展中最具竞争优势和发展潜力的产业。随着我国农业产业结构调整的不断深化,海东现代特色农业的发展必须立足区情,突出重点,实施农业结构战略性调整,大力培育独具特色的主导产业。     

Intensification in the city centre: Barriers to implementation in Regina,Saskatchewan

As cities aim for more sustainable patterns of urbanization, intensification has emerged as a core planning strategy. In 2013, the City of Regina set new intensification targets: absorb 30% of annual population growth through intensification and add 10,000 residents to the city centre by 2035. In the decade since, implementation has been unsuccessful. This study explores the barriers to core area intensification in Regina by engaging with key informants through semi-structured interviews. Our findings identify the most significant barriers as soft market demand, a city centre that is unappealing as a residential context, insufficient political will, an absence of developers who specialize in core area intensification, and unfavourable development economics. These findings illustrate the unique challenges faced by mid-size Canadian cites in disrupting entrenched development patterns and driving development towards the downtown.     

Intensification and Social Complexity in the Interior Lowlands of Papua New Guinea: A Comparison of Bedamuni and Kubo

Kubo and Bedamuni are linguistically, culturally, and technologically related societies of the interior lowlands of Papua New Guinea. They occupy similar environments and have access to essentially the same resources. They differ in population density (Kubo 0.4 people/km², Bedamuni 7/km²), subsistence orientation (Kubo are hunter-gatherer-like, Bedamuni are farmers who hunt) and intensification of plant food production (Kubo lower, Bedamuni higher). Relative to Kubo, Bedamuni are shown to exhibit increased differentiation within and between production units, greater integration within and between residential units, and heightened forms of evaluation within and between cultural systems. Each of these general characteristics is illustrated by particulars that refer, for example, to role differentiation, rights of access to land and resources, dispute resolution, mechanisms of inter-community cohesion, and exegesis with respect to subsistence practices and cultural identity. In turn, differences between the two societies in terms of these general characteristics sustain an interpretation that Bedamuni is a socially more complex society than Kubo. The awkward notion of complexity is examined; it is understood to comprise two independent dimensions—the “involvement of parts” (which is itself multidimensional) and the “individuation of form.” The latter dimension has received too little attention in discussion and definitions of complexity.     

Intensification of shellfish exploitation: evidence of species-specific deviation from traditional expectations

As modern humans grapple with the repercussions of their extensive environmental impacts, archaeologists are increasingly looking toward the past to understand the nature and extent of prehistoric human impact on the environment. Many researchers rely heavily on archaeological correlates of resource intensification as a proxy measures of resource depletion, a profound and often catastrophic human impact. However, the traditional conceptualization of the archaeological correlates of shellfish intensification disregards a large amount of species-specific variation. This paper presents archaeomalacological data from Santa Cruz Island, California. The shell midden deposits CA-SCRI-480 contain a high density of Tivela stultorum (Pismo clam). Statistical analysis of the shellfish assemblage reveals significant variation in both the size and quantity of Pismo clam that people collected through time. This paper investigates this unique patterning with due consideration of the natural ecology and life history of the species and illustrates species-specific deviation from the traditional archaeological correlates of shellfish intensification. Increased collaboration with ecologists and biologists can help refine models of intensification when necessary in order create more sophisticated understanding of prehistoric human–resource interactions.     

Agriculture,Trade and Sustainability

In recent decades there has been growing concern about the combined undesired consequences of rapid economic growth, based on the free market movement, and developments in science and technology. This concern has placed the sustainable development concept on the world's agenda. The notion of sustainability, which originally referred mostly to the environmental consequences of human activities, along with their economic and social aspects, has been discussed not only at the national and the global levels but also in relation to particular sectors of the economy. One such sector is agriculture, which to be sustainable must be ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible. Unless current trade and agricultural policies are geared to creating such a structure, sustainability will be no more than a myth in the industrialized and globalized world, while considerable numbers of people will be left struggling with hunger and poverty. Ethical, fair trade and ecologic agricultural practices, such as organic farming, have been suggested as alternatives to existing practices. However, with their current and potential size, these alternatives cannot compete with existing production and trade systems. But these alternatives nevertheless highlight the main problems of current day free trade and industrialized agriculture structures and their related solutions.

This paper reviews the concepts of sustainable development and sustainable agriculture: it raises the question whether the world-wide free market economy is really free, and it considers the undesired consequences of this economy by focusing on the relationship between sustainable agriculture and agriculture-related trade policies.