Six seasons of wild pea harvest in Israel: bearing on Near Eastern plant domestication

Harvest experiments of wild crop relatives are essential for our understanding of the biology of wild plants embodied in the economy of ancient forager communities. Most of the previous experimental harvest reports spanned a single season and therefore are unable to address questions concerning long-term yield potential. Herein we report on six consecutive harvest seasons taking place at four sites in Israel that harbour wild pea populations: three typical Pisum fulvum sites and one typical Pisum elatius site. Three out of the four sites showed no indication of a decline in grain yield as a result of repeated harvest and the removal of a considerable portion of mature seeds. Site-specific factors seem to have a strong influence on the grain yield as no seasonal yield similarity was observed between adjacent and ecologically similar sites harbouring the same wild pea taxon. The erratic year-to-year wild pea yield we observed calls for a reassessment of the presumed role of grain legume species in Near Eastern hunter–gatherers' diet. Combined with published data on cultivation of wild pea, our results are inconsistent with models suggesting protracted domestication of Near Eastern grain legumes or with the preliminary attempts to apply Niche Construction Theory to the study of plant domestication in the Near East.     

An Element of Thought: Phosphorus and Mental Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century

Georges Cabanis (17571808), through his writings on the relation of the physical and moral, or psychological, aspects of man, left a legacy that made the study of mental activity a part of physiology. His views on the importance of phosphorus to the function of the brain thrust that element into a prominent stream of research that involved many investigators in several countries. Although that particular stream eventually dried up, its influence remained: by the beginning of the twentieth century basic medical science had become well set on studies of the mind-body relationship.     

Behavior Factor for Performance-Based Seismic Design of Plane Steel Moment Resisting Frames

Simplified expressions to estimate the behavior factor of plane steel moment resisting frames are proposed, based on statistical analysis of the results of thousands of nonlinear dynamic analyses. The influence on this factor of specific structural parameters, such as the number of stories, the number of bays, and the capacity design factor of a steel frame, is studied in detail. The proposed factor describes the seismic strength requirements in order to restrict maximum storey ductility to a predefined value. Interrelation studies between maximum storey ductility and the Park-Ang damage index are also provided for the damage-based interpretation of the performance levels under consideration. Realistic design examples serve to demonstrate the ability of the proposed factor to convert conventional force-based design to a direct performance-based seismic design procedure.     

Housing Allowances: Emerging Answers

Katharine L. Bradbury and Anthony Downs (editors), Do Housing Allowances Work? (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1981), 419 pp; ISBN 0-8157-1052-6, $26.95. Judith D. Feins and Terry Saunders Lane, How Much for Housing? (Cambridge, Mass.: Abt Books, 1981), 208 pp; ISBN 0-89011-558-3, $19.00. Raymond J. Struyk and Marc Bendick, Jr. (editors), Housing Vouchers for the Poor; Lessons from a National Experiment (Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1981), 424 pp; ISBN 87766-280-0, $25.00.