Maradidae: a new family of vombatomorphian marsupial from the late Oligocene of Riversleigh,northwestern Queensland

Black, K., March 2007. Maradidae: a new family of vombatomorphian marsupial from the late Oligocene of Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland. Alcheringa 31, 17-32. ISSN 0311-5518.

Marada arcanum gen. et sp. nov. is described from the late Oligocene Hiatus Site, Riversleigh World Heritage Property, northwestern Queensland. Although known from only a single dentary, it is assigned to a new family Maradidae, based on a unique combination of both plesiomorphic and apomorphic features. Of the known vombatomorphians, Marada is most similar to primitive wynyardiids and diprotodontoids (palorchestids and diprotodontids). Further clarification of the phylogenetic position of Maradidae within Vombatomorphia requires discovery of upper dentitions and crania.

Karen Black [k.black@unsw.edu.au], Vertebrate Palaeontology Laboratory, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia; received 17.1.2005, revised 1.6.2005.     

Game Resources, Social Interaction, and the Ecological Footprint in Southwest New Mexico

Humans have modified their environments for millennia, but the role of these impacts on economic and social strategies among communities can be difficult to assess. This is due in part to the difficulty of quantifying impacts, which hinders our evaluations of the effects of different resource acquisition strategies and impairs attempts to understand competing demands on resources and their effects on the evolution of social relations. In this paper we employ footprint analysis, a tool used in ecology, to assess the impact of prehistoric subsistence farming communities on the environment, specifically faunal resources. We use footprint analysis to quantify the impact of various strategies of game acquisition by Classic Mimbres period (AD 1000-1130) farmers in the North American Southwest. Assessments are then employed in identifying changes in social relations among communities that may have contributed to settlement changes in the region.     

Rethinking British Communist Party Women in the 1920s

Until very recently, writing on the Communist Party of GreatBritain (CPGB) concentrated primarily on the party's relationshipwith the Communist International (to which it was affiliated)and the Bolshevik leadership in Moscow. Far less attention hasbeen paid to the actual men and women who made up the ranksof the CPGB and sought to establish the party's identity ata grass roots level. This article examines the experiences ofwomen in the CPGB during the 1920s, particularly in relationto women's politics in the period, and with regard to the socialisttraditions that preceded and partly informed the CPGB's earlydevelopment. It argues that despite communist avocation of aparty of a ‘new type’, the CPGB inherited many ofthe existing uncertainties as to the role of women within socialistorganization.     

Do faunal remains reflect socioeconomic status? An ethnoarchaeological study among Central African farmers in the northern Congo Basin

Zooarchaeological analyses often draw inferences on socioeconomic status from the composition of bone assemblages associated with houses and other structures in residential sites. In this paper, we test how well faunal assemblages reflect socioeconomic differences among contemporary farmer households in two rural villages in the Central African Republic. Independent measures of wealth are tallied and ranked for six households in each village, including complete inventories of the types and numbers of material goods and the sizes of residential structures and agricultural fields. These data are compared against the associated food bones collected from household trash middens and activity areas, including skeletal abundances, large mammal body part representation, and taxonomic diversity. In most instances larger and more taxonomically diverse faunal assemblages are associated with houses of means and the faunas do, in fact, reflect differences in socioeconomic status. However, faunal “wealth” may be linked to factors unrelated to social or economic inequalities, notably the presence of active hunters. Our analyses suggest that small animals provide useful and important data in assessing socioeconomic means, and comparative studies of wealth in archaeological contexts should not be based on bones alone.     

From Ubombo to Mkhuzi: disease, colonial science, and the control of Nagana (livestock trypanosomosis) in Zululand, South Africa, C. 1894-1953

This article looks at the scientific studies and debates that surrounded the control of nagana (trypanosomosis in livestock) in Zululand, South Africa, from the late nineteenth century until the 1950s. By 1953 the disease appeared to be contained following the use of DDT to exterminate the tsetse fly that spread the infection from immune wildlife to susceptible livestock. It argues that South Africa made an important contribution to western knowledge about trypanosomosis in terms of its etiology and possibilities for its control-a fact that has often been overlooked in the historical literature that has tended to focus on events in colonial central and east Africa. It explores Zulu conceptualizations of nagana, which influenced early researchers, the evolution of veterinary, entomological, and ecological sciences as "tools" for understanding and suppressing disease, as well as the difficulties involved in reconciling game conservation with colonial settlement. The article also shows how an animal disease contributed to the development of colonial science and encouraged the expansion of scientific networks with African colonies and beyond.     

Evolutionary Foraging Models in Zooarchaeological Analysis: Recent Applications and Future Challenges

The last few decades have witnessed a rapid rise in the use of foraging models derived from behavioral ecology to explain and predict temporal and spatial differences in faunal assemblages. Although these models build on conventional ideas about utility firmly embedded in zooarchaeological analyses, when cast in an evolutionary framework these ideas produce some of the most sophisticated and elegant interpretations of archaeofaunas to date. In this article I review the methodological and practical strengths and weaknesses of current zooarchaeological applications of foraging models. Recent applications of foraging models to the zooarchaeological record reveal important variability in human-prey interactions across time and space. Case-specific applications generate theoretical and methodological advances that augment and are complementary to model building in allied fields. Recent applications also identify shortcomings in the underlying assumptions and rationale of some foraging models that mirror past and on-going discussions in anthropology and biology. I discuss how these shortcomings can fruitfully direct future applications and research in foraging economics.