Low-Level Food Production

Societies with low-level food production economies occupy the vast and diverse middle ground between hunting–fishing–foraging and agriculture. Efforts by Ford, Harris, Rindos, Zvelebil, and others to characterize this in-between territory are discussed, and a new conceptual framework is proposed. Domestication, the central landmark of this middle ground, is situated well away from the boundaries with hunting–gathering and agriculture, and separates low-level food production economies into two broad categories. Key issues and questions concerning societies with low-level food production, both with and without domesticates, are discussed. Hunter–gatherer and agriculture boundary zones on either side of the middle ground are considered, as are the developmental pathways that traverse them.     

Beyond the buildings: Formation processes of ancient Maya houselots and methods for the study of non-architectural space

The success of activity areas research in domestic contexts has highlighted the need for archaeologists working in the tropics to explore both indoor and outdoor spaces. The preservation of houselot boundaries at ancient Chunchucmil, Yucatán, Mexico, provides an ideal environment to explore methods for the investigation of broad spaces beyond buildings, to test ethnoarchaeological models of activity areas and refuse disposal, and to demonstrate the importance of open spaces to understanding ancient economic organization. The results of methodological experiments reported in this paper favor the use of systematic subsurface sampling (as opposed to surface collections) for characterizing specific uses of space around houses. Formation processes dictate that soil chemistry, paleoethnobotany, and other laboratory techniques should supplement excavations. Our explorations of three houselots suggest that ethnoarchaeological models of the use of space in contemporary houselots serve as successful templates for interpreting the use of space in ancient times. Post-abandonment deposition within houselots, however, can confuse these interpretations. This paper therefore reports a new ethnoarchaeological study that helps illuminate the nature of post-abandonment discard. After resolving critical issues of methodology and formation processes, this paper assesses the economic contribution of houselot activities. Given Chunchucmil’s agricultural marginality, such home economics played an important role in the subsistence needs of this urban center.     

Australian Middle Cambrian molluscs and their bearing on early molluscan evolution

Thirty ammonite taxa are recognised in the Wangarlu Mudstone of the Bathurst Island Group from the Cox Peninsula and Shoal Bay, Northern Territory, Australia. Included are a new heteromorph genus Notostreptites, type species N. exilis, and four additional new species and subspecies: Pseudhelicoceras gracilis, Labeceras (L.) tumidum, Labeceras (Appurdiceras) decorum, and Idiohamites dorsetensis laticostatus. The assemblage is best collectively correlated with the Mortoniceras (M.) inflatum Zone of the standard European Albian zonation but some of its members may represent the lower part of the Stoliczkaia dispar Zone. It is broadly correlative with faunas from the Eromanga Basin, which relate to an extensive eastern Australian Late Albian epicontinental sea, but is strikingly different in aspect. The Wangarlu Mudstone assemblage has relatively high diversity and an abundance of cosmopolitan heteromorph taxa well known from Europe and elsewhere, whereas Eromanga Basin assemblages are of relatively low diversity and dominated by Austral heteromorph genera known only from Australasia, southern Africa and Malagasy. The Austral character of Eromanga Basin assemblages is attributed to evolution in a restricted epicontinental sea environment and modest dispersal whereas the continental margin position of the Wangarlu Mudstone ensured an influx of pandemic elements drawn from the mid-Cretaceous world ocean.