Stone-boiling maize with limestone: experimental results and implications for nutrition among SE Utah preceramic groups

Groups living on Cedar Mesa, SE Utah in the late Basketmaker II period (Grand Gulch phase, AD 200–400) were heavily maize-dependent, but lacked beans as a supplemental plant protein, and pottery vessels for cooking. Common occurrence of limestone fragments in their household middens suggests 1) limestone may have been used as the heating element for stone-boiling maize and 2) this practice might have made some maize proteins more available for human nutrition. Experiments examined these possibilities; results indicate that stone-boiling with Cedar Mesa limestone creates an alkaline cooking environment suitable for nixtamalization of maize kernels, and that maize cooked in this fashion shows significant increases in availability of lysine, tryptophan, and methionine. Archaeological limestone fragments from a Grand Gulch phase site show amounts of fragmentation and changes in density consistent with repeated heating. While not conclusive, these data indicate that further research (e.g., examination of archaeological limestone fragments for maize starch grains or phytoliths) is warranted. It is suggested that greater attention be paid to archaeological indications of stone-boiling with limestone among maize-dependent but pre-pottery societies.     

Following the caterpillar fungus: nature,commodity chains,and the place of Tibet in China's uneven geographies

Following caterpillar fungus as it travels from the Tibetan Plateau to wealthy Chinese consumers, this article makes several interventions into geographical studies of commodity chains. First, it argues for an expansion beyond the usual call to connect the political economy of production with cultures of consumption; the cultural politics of production and political economies of consumption must also be considered. Second, it argues for bringing together political economy and more-than-human analytical approaches to commodity chains, showing how nature and the nonhuman play a key role in an assemblage that has allowed Tibetans to navigate livelihoods in a rapidly changing economy. This challenges a tendency to assume a universal figure of ‘the human’ in more-than-human geographies. Third, by connecting the erasure of Tibetans from representations of various natures used to sell caterpillar fungus with the broader politics of Tibetans within the People's Republic of China, we show that commodity fetishism can conceal not just labor relations, but also political struggles not reducible to class. Finally, we show that following a small fungus can shed light on the unevenness of China's capitalist development obscured in monolithic narratives of China's rise, demonstrating the value of expanding commodity chain studies beyond those that end with Western consumers.     

Book Reviews

THE REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC. Ferdinand A. Hermens. University of Notre Dame Press; Notre Dame, Indiana, 1958, 578 pp.

JAPAN AND HER DESTINY—MY STRUGGLE FOR PEACE. Mamoru Shigemitsu. Hutchinson; 1958, 392 pp.

SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY 1924–1926. Volume I. E. H. Carr. Macmillan, 1958, pp. viii + 557. Australian price 64/9.

A HISTORY OP SOCIALIST THOUGHT: VOLUME IV: COMMUNISM AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 1914–31. G. D. H. Cole. (In two parts: pp. x + 940), Macmillan, 1958. Australian price 75/6.     

Reviews

THE PEACEFUL ATOM IN FOREIGN POLICY. Arnold Kramish. For the Council on Foreign Relations. New York, Harper and Row, 1963. Pp. xi + 276. $5.50.

POWER AND THE PURSUIT OF PEACE: THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE HISTORY OF RELATIONS BETWEEN STATES. F. H. Hinsley. Cambridge University Press, 1963. Stg. 40/‐.

THE HIDDEN FORCE. F. W. Godwin, R. N. Goodwin and W. F. Haddad (eds.) New York, Harper & Row, 1963, Pp. 203.

POLITICS AND ECONOMICS. Lord Robbins, London, Macmillan & Co., 1963. Pp. x + 231. Australian price 41/6.

STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY. J. M. Mackintosh. London, Oxford University Press, 1962. Pp. 332. Australian price 37/6d.

THE BOMBAY MUNICIPAL CORPORATION: AN ELECTION STUDY. B. A. V. Sharma and R. T. Jangam. Bombay, Popular Book Depot, 1962. Pp. x + 170. Rs. 10.

THE NIGERIAN FEDERAL ELECTION OF 1959: POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION IN A DEVELOPING POLITICAL SYSTEM. K. W. J. Post. Oxford University Press for the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, London, 1963. Pp. xi + 286. Australian price 76/6d.

INDIA AND AFGHANISTAN: A STUDY IN DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS 1876–1907. D. P. Singhal. Brisbane, University of Queensland Press. Pp. 216. Australian price 55/6d.

SOUTHERN EUROPEANS IN AUSTRALIA. Charles A. Price. Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1963. Pp. xvi + 342. Australian price 59/6d.

THE METHOD AND STATISTICS OF ‘SOUTHERN EUROPEANS IN AUSTRALIA’. Charles A. Price. Canberra, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, 1963. Pp. viii + 125. Australian price 27/6d.