Adaptations and Dispersals of Anatomically Modern Humans in the Changing Environments of North Africa: the Contribution of Microvertebrates

There is limited available data on the environmental context of the arrival of the first anatomically modern humans (AMH) in North Africa, and subsequent Paleolithic and Neolithic occupations within this region. Microvertebrates such as rodents, shrews, amphibians, and squamates are known to be good indicators of climate and landscape changes. They also represent continental paleoecological records that can be directly related to human occupations. Moreover, faunas and humans have been subjected to several dispersal waves through similar routes, and some rodents may present anthropophilous behavior. Therefore, by understanding the dispersal pattern and pathways of these microvertebrates, it is possible to propose scenarios for human dispersal events. In this study we took the rich microfaunal assemblages from the Témara region, Atlantic Morocco (El Harhoura 2 and El Mnasra Caves), and placed them within a broader synthesis, in order to highlight the role of microvertebrates in providing a better understanding of the human-environment relationship during the Late Quaternary in North Africa.     

Human Responses to Changing Environments in Central Africa Between 40,000 and 12,000 B.P.

Reconstructions of the Equatorial forest in Central Africa fuel the debate on whether hunter-gatherers at the end of the Pleistocene were capable of living in or off the forest prior to the advent of agriculture. Their traces are rare and often reduced to their stone equipment. In an attempt to see to what extent technology and environmental exploitation are interrelated, all Central African sites dated between 40,000 and 12,000 B.P. are analyzed for their material culture, the environmental setting at the time of the occupation, and the exploitation of that environment. Although the evidence is still circumstantial, two large technological traditions have been recognized in Central Africa at the end of the Pleistocene, the Lupemban and microlithic industries, and both are associated with a variety of environments. This, in combination with a fragmented forest and concomitant increase of ecotone during the Last Glacial Maximum, would have enhanced rather than hampered human occupation in the area. It may be argued that the inherent flexibility and capability of exploiting a variety of environments enabled the hunter-gatherer communities to face and adapt to environmental changes regardless of stone technology.     

An Archaeology of Landscapes: Perspectives and Directions

This review calls for the definition of a landscape approach in archaeology. After tracing the development of the landscape idea over its history in the social sciences and examining the compatibility between this concept and traditional archaeological practice, we suggest that archaeology is particularly well suited among the social sciences for defining and applying a landscape approach. If archaeologists are to use the landscape paradigm as a pattern which connects human behavior with particular places and times, however, we need a common terminology and methodology to build a construct paradigm. We suggest that settlement ecology, ritual landscapes, and ethnic landscapes will contribute toward the definition of such a broadly encompassing paradigm that also will facilitate dialogue between archaeologists and traditional communities.     

Emergent Complexity,Changing Landscapes,and Spheres of Interaction in Southeastern South America During the Middle and Late Holocene

Newly created academic programs at Brazilian universities have provided the impetus for new archaeological projects in southeastern South America during the last two decades. The new data are changing our views on emergent social complexity, natural and human-induced transformation of the landscape, and transcontinental expansions and cultural interactions across the Río de la Plata basin during the Middle and Late Holocene. We concentrate on six major archaeological traditions/regions: the Sambaquis, the Pantanal, the Constructores de Cerritos, the Tupiguarani, the Southern Proto-Jê, and the middle and lower Paraná River. Diverse and autonomous complex developments exhibit distinct built landscapes in a region previously thought of as marginal compared with cultural developments in the Andes or Mesoamerica. The trajectories toward increased sociopolitical complexity flourished in very different and changing environmental conditions. While some groups were pushed to wetland areas during a drier mid-Holocene, others took advantage of the more humid Late Holocene climate to intensively manage Araucaria forests. The start of the second millennium AD was a critical period marked by an increased number of archaeological sites, the construction of ceremonial architecture, and the intensification of landscape transformation; it also was marked by the rapid expansion of influences from outside the La Plata basin. The Amazonian Tupiguarani and Arawak newcomers brought with them significant changes in technologies and social and political structures, as well as novel landscape management practices.     

Cuban Landscapes: Heritage,Memory, and Place

Growing individual mobility has been a key element in the re-evaluation of the links between (national) place and identity in what has been labelled a'borderless world'. In this paper, an alternative perspective is provided by exploring the ways in which discussions around travel are used to redefine the nation as a bounded, familiar and homely place.

In the first section, a number of key themes in the wider literature on ‘home’ are identified and applied to the nation, notably the idea that ‘homely spaces’ are imagined and experienced in relation to journeys elsewhere. This idea is then evidenced by a range of empirical data, which shows how individuals are often made aware of their own national identity and allegiances, when negotiating encounters with other people and cultural forms.

In discussing the discomfort and uncertainty they experience in ‘foreign’ locales, the national home is defined as a secure base from which to proceed and, most importantly, to return. Interestingly, these types of views were expressed by a range of social actors, ranging from college students, who travelled widely and with great enthusiasm, to retired people, who were increasingly restricted in their ability to visit foreign locales.     

Landscapes on the Margins: Gender and homelessness in Canada

This introductory article examines the issue of gendered homelessness and asks why so little academic feminist writing addresses this theme. The article begins with reference to a feminist novel—The Longings of Women by Marge Piercy—that does tackle this matter. The invisibility of the novel's homeless character is used as a way of introducing some distinctions between women's and men's homelessness. More generally, the article has two objectives. The first is to examine what feminist and other critical geographers have said, conceptually and empirically, about gendered homelessness, especially in Canada but also in other Western contexts. The second involves highlighting the problematic nature of too great a focus on visibility in relation to gendered homelessness, and offers an alternative reading drawn from examining the relations of bodies and urban space in conjunction with a discussion about the politics of scale and difference. All told, this collection of essays is an effort to highlight the often hidden and variable nature of gendered homelessness in Ontario, Canada and to argue that the theme is worthy of greater attention by feminist geographers.

Paisajes en los margines: género y la falta de vivienda

Éste artículo introductoria examina el tema de género y la falta de vivienda y pregunta porque hay pocos escritos feministas académicas que toca éste tema. El artículo empieza con relación a una novela feminista—The Longings of Women por Marge Piercy—que trata el tema. La invisibilidad del personaje sin hogar en el libro se utiliza como una manera de introducir algunas distinciones entre la falta de vivienda de mujeres y hombres. Más generalmente, el artículo tiene dos objetivos. El primer es examinar lo que feminista y otros geógrafos críticos han dicho conceptualmente y empíricamente sobre género y la falta de viviendo, no solo en Canadá sino en otros contextos Occidentales. El segundo involucra destacar la naturaleza problemática de un enfoque extensivo en la visibilidad en relación a género y la falta de viviendo, y ofrecer una lectura alternativa que viene de examinando las relaciones de cuerpos y espacio urbano conjuntamente con una discusión sobre las políticas de espacio y diferencia. En general, ésta compilación de ensayos es una tentativa para enfatizar que la naturaleza de género y la falta de vivienda en Ontario, Canadá son a menudo escondidos y variables, y además para argumentar que éste tema vale la pena de tender más atención por geógrafas feministas.     

War and Place: Landscapes of Conflict and Destruction in Prehistory

Abstract

The concept of place has rarely been applied to the archaeological study of warfare. Given that cultural landscapes embody meaning, however, the idea that places can be the focus of competition makes it evident that they can also shape associated conflict. As archaeologists move toward a more nuanced study of conflict in the past, such considerations will take on increasing importance, although as of yet most such studies are heavily reliant on textual sources and overtly symbolic material culture. This paper presents a case study from Burnt Corn Pueblo, in the Galisteo Basin, New Mexico, USA, and argues that evidence for conflict there at the beginning of the 13th century CE can be usefully interpreted through Ancestral Pueblo concepts of place.     

Changing Jobs and Changing Houses: Mobility Outcomes of Employment Transitions

The life-course approach to residential mobility and migration recognizes a central role for a variety of demographic and economic triggers in the mobility process. Having a child, getting married, separated, or divorced, have all been identified as triggers that generate residential relocations. It is obvious that a job change can also be viewed as a stimulus for residential relocation, although until now the interconnection has been evaluated mainly for long-distance migratory moves rather than for its effects on residential mobility. In this analysis we use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to test the association between employment changes and residential relocation. We examine both the occurrence and the timing of residential moves triggered by employment transitions. We show that job changes increase the likelihood of residential relocation in the aggregate and for singles when we hold other & "triggers" constant. The results of the analysis of the timing of job changes and residential relocations indicate that temporal differences exist between households types. Overall, the results establish that job change is an important triggering process in residential relocation and emphasizes the interconnected nature of life-course events.     

Materiality and Mutable Landscapes: Rethinking Seasonality and Marginality in Rural Ireland

Drawing on examples from Achill Island, County Mayo and from the north Antrim uplands, notions of marginality, isolation, and cultural stagnation associated with upland landscapes are explored in light of contradictory material and documentary data, raising questions about the materiality of marginality and challenging static, nationalist presentations of rural Irish life in the post-medieval period. Discussion of the Irish evidence is contextualized with reference to the twentieth-century construction of marginality in southern Appalachia.