Introduced taro (Colocasia esculenta) and yams (Dioscorea spp.) in Podtanean (2700–1800 years BP) deposits from Mé Auré Cave (WMD007), Moindou,New Caledonia

Plant microfossil analysis was carried out on deposits bearing Podtanean (2700–1800 years BP) ceramics from Mé Auré Cave, Moindou, New Caledonia. Starch residues of introduced Colocasia esculenta, Dioscorea esculenta and one or more, undifferentiated Dioscorea species were identified. The latter include Dioscorea alata, D. bulbifera, D. nummularia and D. pentaphylla. The data provide the first direct evidence of prehistoric horticulture in New Caledonia.     

Agrarian restructuring and gender – designing family farms in Central and Eastern Europe

This article attempts to describe the gender dimensions and aspects of agrarian transition/transformation in post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe with a focus on family farms. This farming model is characterised by a conflation of labour, land, capital, management and human bonding and was promoted by the privatisation policy of post-socialist restructuring. Several problems of the new family farms are looked at with a gender perspective, singling out ideological, social and economic parameters.     

信访工作在建国初期社会建设中的作用

建国后人民群众通过来信来访的方式向党和政府反映大量的社会问题,主要集中在失业问题、干部的官僚主义和违法乱纪问题以及三农问题。信访工作在建国初期对于化解各种社会矛盾和推动社会建设起了重要作用。     

中国新石器时代文化演变动力分析

对多年来积累的气候资料的综合分析表明:在全新世期间有两个比较明显的温暖期。它们的时间分别为8～6kaBP(校正成日历年龄大约为9～7calkaBP)和5～3kaBP(日历年龄大约为5.5～3.2calkaBP)。文化的发展很大程度上受到了环境条件的制约。在前一个温暖期的后半段(8～7calkaBP),北方旱作农业(磁山文化、大地湾文化、兴隆洼文化)发展起来。南方稻作农业要在7.0～6.0calkaBP才初具规模。而6.0～5.5calkaBP的气候冷干事件使得南北方文化均有不同程度的衰退,但是南方受到的影响要小于北方。在后一个温暖期到来之后(5.5～3.2calkaBP),分别以龙山文化和良渚文化为代表的南北方新石器文化几乎同时进入发展史上的另一个黄金时代。尽管南北方文化体系对于气候变化的响应有所差异,并且不同时期不同地域文化发展动力也不尽相同,但是从大的时空尺度上来看,我国的新石器时代发展经历了如下阶段:最早期文化萌芽阶段(10calkaBP)——早中新石器时代之间的文化相对衰退期(10～8calkaBP)——新石器时代中期的北方农业文明崛起(8～7calkaBP)——7.0～6.0calkaBP的南方稻作农业的极大发展期——6.0～5.5calkaBP的文化衰退期——新石器时代晚期(5.5～4.0calkaBP)文化的极大繁荣。其间一些大的文化演替或者转型事件的时间在各地也大致相同。说明这种大的文化演进过程还是受到了同一个信号的支配,而只有环境气候因素才可能影响到如此大的范围。     

谈清宫皇帝后妃油画半身像

油画对于中国来说是一个外来的画种,经过美术史家多年的努力,它东传的时间和途径已然大致明确。但研究中还是有很多缺环。近些年来对清朝宫廷绘画实物及相关资料的发现,为欧洲油画东传的过程提供了更多的信息。本文通过对流传至今的清宫油画作品进行梳理,提出一些想法,或可补充关于"西画东渐"的叙述。     

The status of phytolith analysis in the American tropics

Phytolith analysis is now sufficiently mature to provide an independent source of data in tropical paleoethnobotany and paleoecology. At the same time, ongoing studies of phytoliths from tropical plants and sediments are discovering new applications. There are, to be sure, problems in interpreting prehistoric plant use and paleoecology which cannot be addressed through phytolith analysis; some of the more important ones are listed. Through a review of recent studies in the New World tropics, this paper presents some contributions to, problems of, and prospects for phytolith analysis to inform the archaeological community about such issues as (1) the origins and dispersals of domesticated plants, (2) the development of tropical forest agriculture, (3) the uses of tropical plants in prehistory, and (4) the distribution and composition of past plant communities.     

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.     

Valuing place/placing value: the elusive normativity of landscape in rural Tuscany

Rural Tuscany has become both a paragon of harmonious beauty and a terrain of legal conflict and recrimination. When they do not resort to essentialist notions of taste, many commentators are prone to explain the ‘preservation’ of Tuscany's countryside as the outcome of locally rooted legislative interventions meant to prevent ‘speculation’ and ‘debasement’ (scempio). Tuscany is indeed the site of layers of normative constraints and guidelines, ranging from local zoning regulations to the expectations associated with UNESCO's World Heritage Site status. Far from being self-evident, however, these normative constructs have been debated in Tuscan society over decades of rapid and often chaotic change. The reinvention of rural Tuscany as a paragon of beauty emerged from the search for an elusive form of coherence and meaning, whose features generated both conflict and accommodations. By focusing on a valley in southern Tuscany which obtained the status of World Heritage Site in 2004 (the Orcia valley), the article shows the power of the circumventions, negotiations and reinterpretations in which rural Tuscans have engaged while navigating the alternative temporalities of global validation, national legitimation and local belongings.     

Archaeobotanical investigation of two Scythian-Sarmatian period pits in eastern Ukraine: Implications for floodplain cereal cultivation

Abstract

Two Scythian-Sarmatian period pits dated to the 5th–1st centuries b.c. were discovered while excavating the Chalcolithic site of Zanovskoe, located on a floodplain of the Donets River in the steppe region of eastern Ukraine, Lugansk oblast. No contemporaneous settlement sites are known in the region. Archaeobotanical analysis was conducted on charred plant macrofossils recovered from pits at the site. The crop assemblage consisted of hulled barley and broomcorn millet, from which AMS radiocarbon dates were obtained. Other identified plant species mostly constituted arable weeds and wetland plants. The archaeobotanical assemblage implies floodplain cereal cultivation strategies among the steppe inhabitants during this period.     

The origins of agriculture in North-West Africa: macro-botanical remains from Epipalaeolithic and Early Neolithic levels of Ifri Oudadane (Morocco)

This research aims to shed light on the early stages of agricultural development in Northern Africa through the analysis of the rich macro-botanical assemblages obtained from Ifri Oudadane, an Epipalaeolithic–Early Neolithic site from North-East Morocco. Results indicate the presence of domesticated plants, cereals (Hordeum vulgare, Triticum monococcum/dicoccum, Triticum durum and Triticum aestivum/durum) and pulses (Lens culinaris and Pisum sativum) in the Early Neolithic. One lentil has been dated to 7611 ± 37 cal BP representing the oldest direct date of a domesticated plant seed in Morocco and, by extension, in North Africa. Similarities in both radiocarbon dates and crop assemblages from Early Neolithic sites in Northern Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula suggest a simultaneous East to West maritime spread of agriculture along the shores of the Western Mediterranean. Wild plants were abundantly collected in both the Epipalaeolithic and the Early Neolithic periods pointing to the important role of these resources during the two periods. In addition to fruits and seeds that could have been consumed by both humans and domesticated animals, fragments of esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima) rhizomes have been identified. This is a western Mediterranean native plant that may have been used as a source of fibres for basketry.