An Early Pleistocene Phytolith Record from Wonderwerk Cave,Northern Cape,South Africa

Grass silica short cell phytoliths were sampled from the four lowermost archaeological strata in excavation 1 at Wonderwerk Cave and offer an independent record of climatic change during an episode of Early Stone Age hominin occupation at the cave. Linked to differences in growing season temperature and the geographic distribution of C₃ and C₄ grasses in southern Africa, fossil grass phytoliths were used to trace palaeoenvironmental shifts at the site. The results suggest that Early Pleistocene environmental conditions at the cave fluctuated: between wetter and drier summer–rainfall growing conditions (C₄) towards the end of the Olduvai subchron and the beginning of the subsequent interval of reversed polarity, to mostly dry and cooler winter–rainfall growing conditions (C₃), that continued throughout the interval. It ended with a shift towards increased summer rainfall aridity at around one million years ago. The fluctuation between markedly wetter and drier C₄ conditions at the cave (NADP-me grass types vs. NAD-me grass types) does not support the premise that the expansion of C₄ grasslands was always coupled with increased aridity.     

The Scottish Parliament,Regulation and Land Use Planning

Constitutional reforms are taking place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These offer the opportunity to bring about a more effective policy framework for a range of policy areas including land use planning. In Scotland, the introduction of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 could allow the improvement of spatial planning policy and practice in a variety of ways, including bringing a more strategic approach at regional level, introducing a national plan and ensuring greater links with innovative community planning exercises. Such improvements could ensure a more sustainable environment as well as a more inclusive society and could offer lessons for similar practice in other contexts.     

National Parks in Scotland: Balancing Environment and Economy

The use of National Park designations to bring about aims including the protection and conservation of the natural environment has become established in most European Union member states. In the UK, such arrangements have long featured in England and Wales, but they have not been paralleled by similar designations in Scotland. Now, however, National Parks are being introduced in Scotland. While the proposed arrangements build on the experience of National Parks elsewhere in Europe, and particularly in England and Wales, they incorporate the distinctive feature of seeking to bring about socio-economic development as well as environmental protection.     

The role of honey hunting in supporting subsistence livelihoods in Sumbawa,Indonesia

Honey from the giant Asian honey bee (Apis dorsata) has been harvested by communities throughout Southeast Asia for centuries. In Indonesia, 80 per cent of the national supply of honey comes from Sumbawa; however, there is limited information regarding the sustainability and importance of honey hunting in supporting rural livelihoods. This study used semi‐structured interviews and questionnaires to examine honey hunting and forest honey production in Sumbawa. It evaluates the economic and cultural importance, opportunities, and constraints of honey hunting and prompts us to suggest that income generation from honey plays a critical role in supporting rural communities. Of respondents, 83 per cent reported that income from honey was essential and accounts for 68 per cent of cash income. Yet honey hunters were harvesting using destructive methods under dangerous conditions and are subject to unpredictable market prices and fluctuating yields. Unlike situations in other areas of Indonesia, no system of customary law was found to exist that defines ownership of honey trees and the right to harvest from them. Limited access to market information, high moisture content of honey, and limited training and extension services were identified as key constraints. Future research exploring the sustainability of harvesting practices and mechanisms for improving profitability of honey hunters would be valuable.     

Specialization and social inequality in Bronze Age SE Arabia: analyzing the development of production strategies and economic networks using agent-based modeling

This paper investigates the role of specialized production strategies in the development of socio-economic inequalities in Bronze Age south-eastern (SE) Arabia, and particularly, the ways in which a localized, internal exchange economy may have produced stress and instability in the SE Arabian socio-economic system. While archaeological research has established that the communities of SE Arabia participated in a widespread Bronze Age exchange system that included areas of the ancient Near East, South Asia, and Central Asia, it is unclear to what degree this interaction fostered the broad-scale socio-economic changes seen in the Early Bronze Age of SE Arabia. Here we present the results of an agent-based model that suggest the nature of the internal exchange economy in SE Arabia itself may have precipitated the social conditions necessary for change by allowing individuals to profit disproportionately. We thus emphasize the importance of local production strategies in generating socio-economic change, in addition to the well-established economic and cultural contacts with the wider Bronze Age world.