“I spent the first year drinking tea”: Exploring Canadian university researchers’ perspectives on community‐based participatory research involving Indigenous peoples

Community‐based participatory research (CBPR) is generally understood as a process by which decision‐making power and ownership are shared between the researcher and the community involved, bi‐directional research capacity and co‐learning are promoted, and new knowledge is co‐created and disseminated in a manner that is mutually beneficial for those involved. Within the field of Canadian geography we are seeing emerging interest in using CBPR as a way of conducting meaningful and relevant research with Indigenous communities. However, individual interpretations of CBPR's tenets and the ways in which CBPR is operationalized are, in fact, highly variable. In this article we report the findings of an exploratory qualitative case study involving semi‐structured, open‐ended interviews with Canadian university‐based geographers and social scientists in related disciplines who engage in CBPR to explore the relationship between their conceptual understanding of CBPR and their applied research. Our findings reveal some of the tensions for university‐based researchers concerning CBPR in theory and practice.     

Sickle blade life-history and the transition to agriculture: an early Neolithic case study from Southwest Asia

In Southwest Asia, sickle blades first appear early in the sequence of the transition to agriculture. In the past, detailed qualitative research on silica bearing blade stone tools focus on the characterization of use-wear traces such as polish types and accrual rates. In this paper we approach the study of sickle blades slightly different, choosing to examine tool life-history by developing a method to quantitatively estimate harvesting intensity. The method centers on an experiment of cutting cereal stalks and measuring stone blade edge thickness under a scanning electron microscope as a proxy for cutting time. We end with regressing the experimental results to provide an estimation of how intensively archaeological sickle blades recovered from the site of Dhra’, Jordan were used for harvesting. The results, while preliminary, enable an initial interpretation of sickle blades as important tools with long use-life histories during the early Neolithic in the Southern Levant.     

Assessing the reliability of criteria used to identify postcranial bones in sheep, Ovis, and goats, Capra

Criteria developed to distinguish between selected postcranial elements of sheep and goats are evaluated using modern specimens from the collections of the Field Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of Natural History, and the Museum of Anthropology and the Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan. Elements considered are: the distal humerus, proximal and distal radius, distal tibia, distal metapodials, astragalus, calcaneus, and the first and second phalanx. This evaluation includes an assessment of 1385 elements from 49 goat and 84 modern sheep skeletons. It also includes a blind test on elements drawn from 20 specimens taken by six analysts with differing levels of experience. Overall, the criteria evaluated are highly reliable, especially in goats and only slightly less so in sheep. A major exception is the distal tibia, where diagnostic criteria tested proved substantially less reliable than other criteria evaluated here. Strongly positive results were also obtained when the sample was partitioned by sex, domestic status, and age. Results of the blind test show some variability depending on the level of experience of the analyst, underscoring the need for training and access to adequate modern reference collections before attempting to apply these criteria to archaeological assemblages. The results of this assessment stand in stark contrast to those obtained in an earlier assessment of the reliability of criteria used to distinguish between mandibles and mandibular teeth of sheep and goats. In all but a few teeth, dental criteria proved to be much less reliable, especially in goats. They were also significantly less reliable in the identification of both younger and older animals. Unlike dental criteria, there are no biases introduced by variable reliability of postcranial criteria that distort taxon-specific harvest profiles based on long-bones.     

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.     

Production and Consumption of Copper-base Metals in the Indus Civilization

We review the existing data sets for the production and consumption of copper-base objects at Indus sites, outline a working typology for metal objects, and provide new data from on-going analytical work on the copper assemblage from Harappa. The role of metals in the economic and social networks of the Indus tradition is examined in terms of patterns of use and technological style. We note that Indus metalsmiths apparently relied more on procurement of metal ingots or scrap than on primary ingot production through smelting, which would have affected other aspects of Indus metallurgy. Object production did not involve elaborate forms, but may have involved complex alloying. Finally, we conclude that there is no evidence for elite control of metal production, and that access to metals was relatively widespread.     

AVIATION NOISE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: THE BARRIO BARRIER*

ABSTRACT Aviation noise is a harmful pollutant, which has yet to be studied in the environmental justice literature. This paper uses Tobit and logit multivariate regression analyses to analyze noise pollution exposure from a major commercial‐service airport. It addresses the issue of whether people moved to the aviation noise‐impacted areas or the noise encroached on the people, and controls for economic and political costs as well as the possibility of racial and ethnic prejudice. The results indicate that ethnicity is the primary cause of the disproportionate burden of aviation noise pollution borne by Hispanics in the area analyzed.     

THE IMPACT OF MIGRATION ON REGIONAL WAGE INEQUALITY: A SEMIPARAMETRIC APPROACH

According to economic theory, regional migration is a primary mechanism through which regional wage convergence is predicted to occur. However, this does not necessarily imply that regional migration has an equalizing effect on regional inequality. Despite considerable literatures on regional migration and regional wage inequality, little attention has focused on the relationship between the two. This paper investigates one of the primary mechanisms through which migration affects individual region's wage distributions. It adopts a semiparametric procedure to examine how the regional wage distributions in Great Britain have changed as a result of migration using British Household Panel Survey data for 1991–2007.     

Variations in Human Adaptations During the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene at Quebrada Jaguay (QJ-280) and the Ring Site,Southern Perú

Vertebrate remains from two stratified sites, the Quebrada Jaguay site (QJ-280) and the Ring Site, reveal details about economic strategies practiced between 13,145 and 7500 cal yr BP on the southern coast of Perú. The near absence of terrestrial resources, a broad continuity in economic activities focused on marine resources, and flexibility within the overall strategy, are among the most interesting aspects of these data. Although they reflect economic and social decisions driven, in part, by fluctuations in environmental conditions, they demonstrate that people were sophisticated strategists actively responding to dynamic environmental conditions.