Attitudes to Drought in Outback Communities in South Australia

This paper explores the perceptions of drought by residents in outback South Australia and their associated responses to the drought. Behavioural Geography methodology is used with data drawn from interviews with pastoralists, business owners, and residents of small outback towns and Aboriginal communities. Although they were not resident in the region, the perceptions of tourists were also garnered. The results show that perceptions varied between the groups of people interviewed. Outback residents contrasted their own frugal water use with reports of wasteful behaviour by foreign tourists. Local inhabitants were largely ‘accepting’ of the drought, having survived worse droughts in the past and over many years. They were therefore of the sentiment that they would cope with future droughts. Despite the sentiments of acceptance, the dropping groundwater levels and continued lack of rainfall were leading to growing concerns for the future. The concerns point to a boundary to community resilience to drought in outback South Australia.     

Modeling wood acquisition strategies from archaeological charcoal remains

Archaeological charcoal remains are often used to reconstruct local woodland composition in the past, but rarely address how and why people may have selected specific woody taxa for particular purposes. Models from the field of human behavioral ecology predict that people forage for wood resources by taking into account the relative usefulness, abundance, and handling time related to procuring different wood types. Archaeological and ecological data from the site of Gordion, in Central Anatolia (modern Turkey), were used to test expectations associated with such models. Results suggest that inhabitants of Gordion used wood types for fuel in proportion to their local availability, but that they selected specific, more distant woods for construction. In most occupation periods pine was preferred for construction, perhaps because it produces long, straight timbers for roofing, despite the distance at which it grows from the site. This case study demonstrates that behavioral ecology modeling can help to distinguish between multiple wood acquisition strategies potentially used in the past and improve our understanding of wood use from archaeological charcoal remains.     

Seasonality and intra-site variation of Neanderthal occupations in the Middle Palaeolithic locality of Payre (Ardèche,France) using dental wear analyses

The reconstruction of Palaeolithic subsistence and settlement systems at the Middle Palaeolithic site of Payre (France) is undertaken through the application of dental wear analyses combined to zooarchaeological, technological, and ecological indicators. Three archaeological levels were investigated. Level D, dated to MIS 5, could correspond to an occupation during the cold season. In levels G and F, dated to MIS 8-7, animals were probably hunted during a warmer season. According to dental wear analyses, it is likely that level F has actually recorded a succession of short occupations, contrary to what is observed in the levels G and D. Those differences in the duration of site occupation are discussed in the light of previous sedimentological, zooarchaeological, and technological studies.     

“地域—文化”遗产调研的基本方向

文化遗产调查的内容和应当追问的问题对于遗产管理具有重要的意义,如对于文化遗产本身的景观分布范围、社会原生背景、使用和改用状况以及对于反映人地关系和遗产压力等方面因素进行的分析,都是对遗产进行评估和处理的依据来源,这些调查内容都应被视为对遗址进行管理的基本参数来源,也是对遗址进行规划的基础。我国目前的遗产实践中尚存在遗产调查上的缺陷,主要表现为遗产调查简单化和离散化,对于遗产调查的细化和整合是亟需解决的方法论问题,特别是对于遗产范围的认定、遗产与现代社会的关系以及遗产本身的背景和现实处境都缺乏具有针对性的调查手段。这些问题成为遗产保护和利用的较大的障碍,而解决的途径应当是改进遗产调查模式。     

鹤壁刘庄遗址下七垣文化墓地出土人骨标本鉴定报告

本文是刘庄遗址下七垣文化墓地出土人骨的鉴定报告。共对202例个体进行了鉴定。对死亡年龄的分析结果表明,该批古代居民的死亡高峰集中25～35岁和40～50岁两个年龄段。该墓地古代居民齿科疾病患病率低。     

Boat-based foraging and discontinuous prehistoric red abalone exploitation along the California coast

Temporally and spatially discontinuous pulses of heavy prehistoric exploitation of red abalone (Haliotis rufescens) have been documented along the southern and central California coast. This article examines the very late (post-950 cal BP) appearance of numerous red abalone processing sites on the Monterey Peninsula in central California. We test three prominent explanations offered for the sudden onset of red abalone processing sites: trophic cascades resulting from human predation on sea otters, logistical foraging by inland residents, and changes in sea surface temperature. A trophic cascade appears to have occurred but does not fully explain the nature or timing of the phenomenon in the region.     

Transformative learning in community college human geography: a mixed methods study

ABSTRACT

The study explores the extent to which transformative learning occurs using quantitative and qualitative methods in a human geography course (N = 35) and explores student affect in relation to the learning environment. We used the eight-scale Transformative Learning Environments Survey (TLES) instrument for the quantitative analysis and an aligned analysis of student reflective work to capture the “voice” of the student as a qualitative approach that provided a rounded perspective of transformative learning. The TLES proved reliable where the sub-scale Alpha reliability ranged from 0.71 to 0.93 and a separate affect scale of Satisfaction was 0.95. The standardized regression coefficient between Satisfaction and the sub-scale of Student-Acting demonstrated the strongest positive association (0.27), followed closely by Disorienting Dilemma-Environment (0.24). The qualitative results supported the quantitative associations in most cases, but not all. The qualitative aspect to this present study offers a deeper look – beyond just statistical outcomes – using students’ own voices to explain their perspectives related to transformative learning.     

Kyordyughen Site,Ymyiakhtakh Culture,Yakutia: An Interpretation of Burial Rite

A series of radiocarbon dates for the Late Neolithic burial at Kyordyughen, Yakutia, support its association with the Ymyiakhtakh culture. The article proposes a new interpretation of the burial rite in the context of the site. Possible reasons for the disruption of the burial are presented. The presence of the dismembered remains of another body may indicate the practice of human sacrifice. The emergence of warriors as a social group is discussed, and the question is raised as to whether such a group might have been present in the Late Neolithic societies of northeast Asia on the basis of evidence favoring social differentiation with regard to military status.     

Timing the Neolithic transition: the application of fluoride dating at Tell Halula,Syria

The study of Near Eastern Neolithic villages provides a unique means of tracing subsistence strategy, population growth, health, and emerging social inequality associated with agricultural origins. However, disentangling these patterns requires a detailed comprehension of the chronological placement of individual households in the site. In this paper, we present a test to determine the reliability and applicability of the fluoride dating method (a relative dating method) on human dentition of 40 samples from 28 Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (or PPNB) burials from the site of Tell Halula, in Syria. This method, applied here for the first time on a Neolithic Near East case study, is an alternative when other dating methods, like radiocarbon dates, do not provide the required temporal resolution to address particular research problems. Nonetheless, the results obtained in the fluoride analysis show how both the age at death of individuals, and the integrity of the burial plug enormously affect the amount of fluoride absorbed by teeth, so that only a small subset of the full dataset was suitable for fluoride dating. Although the distribution of fluoride values of dentine from the small sample of burials from suitable contexts matches the expected chronology, and corroborates the hypothesis that the occupation at Halula extends from the Middle to the Late PPNB, our analysis illustrates the need for a better understanding of the different sources of error in fluoride dating to improve the method itself, and to obtain more reliable fluoride chronologies.     

Stable isotope analysis of dog,fox, and human diets at a Late Holocene Chumash village (CA-SRI-2) on Santa Rosa Island,California

Stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotope analyses of dog (Canis familiaris), island fox (Urocyon littoralis), and human bone collagen from CA-SRI-2 (AD 130–1830) on Santa Rosa Island, California provide a proxy of diet and the relationships between humans and these animals. Carbon isotopic signatures indicate that Native Americans and their dogs at CA-SRI-2 subsisted almost exclusively on marine resources, while the island fox ate primarily terrestrial foods. Nitrogen isotopes and archaeofaunal remains indicate that humans and dogs also ate higher trophic level foods, including finfishes, marine mammals, and seabirds with smaller amounts of shellfish. The CA-SRI-2 island foxes appear to have eaten higher amounts of terrestrial foods, similar to the diets observed in modern fox populations. These data generally confirm the commensal relationship assumed to exist between domesticated dogs and people, but the carbon isotopic composition of dogs is enriched ∼2‰ compared to humans. We hypothesize that the difference in carbon isotopes between dogs and humans may have resulted from a higher consumption of C3 plants with lower δ¹³C values by humans, or less likely from the ingestion by dogs of significant amounts of bone collagen, which is enriched by ∼4‰ over associated muscle.