CONSERVATION LAND AMENITIES AND REGIONAL ECONOMIES: A POSTMATCHING DIFFERENCE‐IN‐DIFFERENCES ANALYSIS OF THE NORTHWEST FOREST PLAN

The 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) resulted in the protection of over 11 million acres of public forestland in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. This paper quantifies the amenity effect arising from protected NWFP lands on long‐run community economic growth. Using community fixed effects and postmatching panel regression to control for many sources of bias, we find highly localized and positive amenity impacts on the growth in median income, population, and property values for small communities close to protected NWFP land, as compared to communities far from the NWFP. We find no effect on medium‐sized communities.     

The vanishing millets of the Indus civilization

The importance and influence of small millets during the Indus civilization is increasingly evident. The presence of both wild and cultivated millet seeds recovered from Harappan sites suggests that they played an important role in some regions of the civilization. Yet many of these small-grained cereals are rarely used today. This paper explores the role of small millets during the Indus civilization and attempts to explain why the use of these crops has declined so significantly over the last 5,000 years.     

Middle Holocene hunter-gatherers of Cis-Baikal, Siberia: An overview for the new century

The paper examines Middle Holocene hunter-gatherer adaptive strategies in the Baikal region of Siberia based on diverse data (radiocarbon, mortuary, geochemical, genetic, human osteological, and zooarchaeological) accumulated over the last 10–15 years. The new model emphasizes the cyclical nature of the long-term changes and recognizes similarities between the Early Neolithic and Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age cultures. The overall impression seems to be that change in the region was rapid rather than gradual. A number of interesting correlations between various cultural and environmental variables have been identified. During the Early Neolithic and Late Neolithic–Bronze Age, the spatial distributions of mortuary sites, open landscape, and good fisheries are all correlated and both intervals are coeval with periods of environmental stability. For the Early Neolithic two additional sets of correlated variables have been identified: (1) the uneven distribution of fish resources, uneven distribution of the human population, and cultural heterogeneity; and (2) poorer overall community health, more extensive male travel and heavier workloads, and higher reliance on fishing. For the Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age, the sets of correlated variables are somewhat different: (1) more even distribution of terrestrial game resources (herbivores), more even distribution of the human population, and cultural homogeneity; and (2) better overall community health, less travel and lighter workloads, more equitable distribution of labor between males and females, and higher reliance on game hunting. Viewed together, these patterns emphasize the much more dynamic pattern of hunter-gatherer cultural variability, temporally and spatially, compared to what was known before.     

Rice or millets: early farming strategies in prehistoric central Thailand

Ancient seeds from archaeological sites can provide clues that are crucial for understanding and characterizing subsistence strategies. This in turn contributes to our understanding of, and explanations for, the relationship between socioeconomic systems and organization of craft production. This article will examine the relationship between rice and millets at three prehistoric sites from a regional copper-producing center in central Thailand to provide new insights into the subsistence strategy of these communities and to better understand the relationship between these crops and their introduction and use in Southeast Asia.     

ELASTICITIES OF CONSTRAINED GRAVITY MODELS*

ABSTRACT Doubly constrained gravity models require a balancing procedure to make estimated origin and destination totals consistent. We show through a series of examples that not just the magnitudes but even the signs of derivatives and elasticities of gravity model flows depend on the specific balancing procedure used. Hence, if such elasticities are regarded as meaningful, then the balancing of origin and destination totals must be regarded as an integral part of the gravity theory itself.     

Geographical Variation of Subsistence Strategies in Early Mediaeval Populations of Southwestern Germany

The investigation is based on bone element data of early Mediaeval human skeletal samples from eight differing environmental conditions in lowland and mountain range localities of southern Germany. Reconstruction of plausible subsistence strategies revealed close correlations with the respective ecological potentials of the localities as indicated by proxy data on geomorphology, climate, and soil quality. In general, lowland situations showed mixed dietary patterns with a prevalence of agricultural farming, whereas in mountainous areas the emphasis was on dairy farming production and horticulture. This points to subsistence activities during the early Middle Ages that are closely adjusted to differing environmental conditions. An obvious deviation from this pattern in one locality (Kirchheim unter Teck) is explained in terms of successful socio-cultural buffering of limited but effective exploitation of the natural setting.