Geochemical sourcing of basalt artifacts from Kaua‘i,Hawaiian Islands

We report on energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) sourcing of 807 basalt artifacts and 34 basalt ecofacts recovered from stratified midden at Nu‘alolo Kai, Kaua‘i. These data are compared with EDXRF analyses of 473 alluvial pebbles from Waimea Canyon, 34 adzes from the Kaua‘i Museum, and published geochemical data for Kaua‘i basalts. Formal tools, such as adzes, chisels, and mirrors were predominantly manufactured from sources not available at Nu‘alolo Kai. Most adzes and chisels are consistent with sources available elsewhere on Kaua‘i, but two basalt mirrors are outside the expected geochemical range of Kaua‘i basalts. In contrast, almost all expedient tools were manufactured from basalts available at Nu‘alolo Kai. These findings support the existence of an island-wide distribution system for adze material on Kaua‘i, and challenges extant models of pre-contact Hawaiian economics to consider the mechanisms through which specialized commodities were produced and distributed.     

Businesses, Green Groups and The Media: The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Climate Change Debate

The lion's share of media and governmental commentary on the recent Sixth Conference of the Parties (COP-6) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has focused on rifts between the EU and the 'Umbrella Group' of countries, including the United States, Canada and Japan, and has led many observers to speculate that intergovernmental negotiations on climate change may have irretrievably broken down. Limiting the focus solely to political difficulties with specific issues, however, emphasizes only part of the story and takes no account of the complex context in which the international negotiations are embedded. This approach does not give sufficient credit to the growing momentum gathering outside the negotiating halls. This article examines recent and rapid changes in attitude and awareness among non-governmental groups-including business and industry, environmental groups and the media-on the issue of global climate change, and the impact these changes have had on the negotiating process and the overall climate change debate. Together these groups provide encouraging signs of a shift in public opinion and ample proof that the failure of the talks in The Hague does not signal the end of the road.     

Obsidian hydration dating on the South Coast of Peru

We compare over 230 obsidian hydration readings from 30 individual site components from the Southern Nasca Region (SNR) with independent age estimates based on radiocarbon dates and temporally diagnostic artifacts. Although there are problems with small sample sizes, and readings must be adjusted for elevation, a very strong relationship accounting for nearly 90% of the total variation in the data set is found. This suggests that obsidian hydration dating (OHD) works in the SNR and is a viable means of independently estimating age. Residual values from our regression suggest that hydration age estimates are usually within 15% of the radiocarbon estimates. Finally, we present an equation other scholars can use to estimate age for Quispisisa obsidian in the SNR.     

Oldest record of the scale-leaved clade of Podocarpaceae,early Paleocene of Patagonia,Argentina

A new podocarpaceous conifer is described from the early Danian Salamanca Formation (southern Chubut, Patagonia, Argentina) based on compressions of leafy branches with cuticular remains. Kirketapel salamanquensis gen. et sp. nov. has amphistomatic, scale-like leaves with marginal frills distinguishable at the apex; stomata oriented randomly in relation to the major axis of the leaf with four to five subsidiary cells and extremely reduced Florin rings; and irregularly shaped epidermal cells. We compare K. salamanquensis with extant and extinct members of the imbricate-leaved podocarps, among which it closely resembles Florin’s Dacrydium group C genera (i.e., Lagarostrobos, Manoao, Lepidothamnus and Halocarpus). Among these genera, only Lepidothamnus has a living representative in South America, the Chilean L. fonkii, whose leaf macro- and micromorphological characters are described in detail for comparison. Overall, the Patagonian fossil species is most similar to the extant and extinct members of Lagarostrobos in its cuticular micromorphology; however, macromorphological characters, such as the leaf size, apex curvature and mode of flattening, clearly differentiate it from all four genera of Dacrydium group C. We include Kirketapel salamanquensis in a combined molecular and morphological phylogenetic analysis conducted under the maximum parsimony criterion. The new, early Paleocene fossil taxon is confidently recovered as part of the scale-leaved clade as defined herein, which also includes Halocarpus, Phyllocladus, Lepidothamnus, Parasitaxus, Lagarostrobos and Manoao, and it constitutes the oldest record known for the group by at least 17 million years as well as its first fossil occurrence outside Australasia, establishing a widespread Gondwanan history. Furthermore, based on its oldest locality of occurrence, K. salamanquensis shows that the divergence of the total group of the scale-leaved podocarps occurred by at least 65 million years ago, adding to the growing systematic knowledge of earliest Cenozoic macrofloras in the Southern Hemisphere.

Ana Andruchow-Colombo [aandruchow@mef.org.ar] and Ignacio Escapa [iescapa@mef.org.ar] CONICET, Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio Av. Fontana 140, Trelew 9100, Chubut, Argentina; Raymond J. Carpenter* [raymond.carpenter@adelaide.edu.au] School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55, Hobart, Tas. 7001, Australia; Robert S. Hill [bob.hill@adelaide.edu.au] School of Biological Sciences and Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia; Ari Iglesias [ari_iglesias@yahoo.com.ar] CONICET, Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente INIBIOMA-CONICET, Universidad Nacional del COMAHUE, Quintral 1250, San Carlos de Bariloche 8400, Río Negro, Argentina; Ana Abarzua [anaabarzua@uach.cl] Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Av. Rector Eduardo Morales Miranda 23, Valdivia 5090000, Región de los Ríos, Chile; Peter Wilf [pwilf@psu.edu] Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. *Also affiliated with: School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia. Received 28.2.2018; revised 22.8.2018; accepted 24.8.2018.