The spread of Neolithic plant economies from the Near East to northwest Europe: a phylogenetic analysis

Phylogenetic techniques are used to analyse the spread of Neolithic plant economies from the Near East to northwest Europe as a branching process from a founding ancestor. The analyses are based on a database of c. 7500 records of plant taxa from 250 sites dated to the early Neolithic of the region in which they occur, aggregated into a number of regional groups. The analysis demonstrates that a phylogenetic signal exists in the data but it is complicated by the fact that in comparison with the changes that occurred when the crop agriculture complex expanded out of the Near East, once it arrived in Europe it underwent only limited further changes. On the basis of the analysis it has been possible to identify the species losses and gains that occurred as the complex of crops and associated weeds spread and to show the influence of geographical location and cultural affinity on the pattern of losses and gains. This has led to consideration of the processes producing that history, including some reasons why the dispersal process did not produce a perfect tree phylogeny, as well as to the identification of some specific anomalies, such as the unusual nature of the Bulgarian pattern, which raise further questions for the future.     

“清江四案”“白银案”之前后

锦屏本地苗族木商向政府状告外省木商使用冲铅银两假币的诉讼案件。收集到的两件状词,一是道光七年（1827）由李荣魁带头起诉到贵州布政使司批转黎平府的公文,又由黎平府作出处理公告;另件是光绪十三年（1887）姜名卿等向黎平府递交的状纸。两起案件相隔60年,因为假银泛滥、受害深重后才产生诉讼,政府行文禁止后,仍禁而不止,所以少数民族的木商、林农和从事木材运输的农民工,受假银之害至少在80年以上。但从外省木商之滥用假币,折射出清水江木业之兴旺。     

Archaic Period Domesticated Plants in the Mid-Ohio Valley: Archaeobotanical Remains from the County Home Site (33at40), Southeastern Ohio

Late Archaic archaeobotanical remains from the County Home site (33AT40), southeastern Ohio, are described. Measurements of chenopod (Chenopodium berlandieri) seed-coat thicknesses and marshelder (Iva annua) achene and kernel lengths from the site are indicative of domesticated types (ssp. jonesianum and var. macrocarpa, respectively) dating to ca. 3000 B.P. to 3600 B.P. Together, these specimens represent some of the earliest evidence of plant domestication outside the oak-hickory and oak-savannah forests of eastern North America. The recovery of these plants with other cultigens in hearths and earth ovens at the County Home site indicates that the timing for the arrival of the Initial Crop Complex in the Appalachian mixed forest of the middle Ohio Valley occurred earlier than previously documented. The results of this research contribute to the growing database of early plant domestication and a broader understanding of the origins of food production.     

三种植物成分防霉活性及其对纸张、颜料影响的实验研究

针对文物保存中的霉菌病害问题,测试了三种植物成分柠檬醛、肉桂醛和香茅醛在室温条件下的自然挥发对文物中几种常见的橘青霉、黑曲霉、球毛壳三种霉菌的防霉活性,研究了三种成分对实验宣纸的色差、强度影响和对三种丙烯的颜色的色料影响。结果表明,三种成分均具有良好的气相防霉效果,但对文物材质的影响有所差异。     

Decentring 1788: Beyond Biotic Nativeness

The usefulness of the concept of biotic nativeness has been challenged in both the social and natural sciences, for different reasons. This paper explores the particular construction of nativeness in Australia in relation to plants, showing that the definition builds on and inscribes more deeply the boundary between humans and the rest of nature seen in the wider literature. In this context two further boundaries are etched: between some humans and others, and before and after European colonisation. Such a use of nativeness as an axiom of environmental management is argued to be problematic, foreclosing a number of future options just when we need to increase our capacity to deal with contingency and unpredictability. But if Australia has experienced distinctive historical processes of entrenching these boundaries, it also has a distinctive heritage of destabilisation in a range of geographic work. The paper discusses how we might build on this heritage to imagine more open futures in which the problematic boundaries were removed. Some of these futures resonate with vernacular recombinations of plants from diverse origins.     

Strontium and calcium distribution in plants: Effect on palaeodietary studies

In palaeodietary studies it is assumed that no discrimination occurs during uptake by plants of calcium and strontium from the soil. Here, a compilation of distribution ratios is presented from which it is apparent that differences in Sr/Ca ratios within and between plants do exist. These differences affect Sr intake by humans and animals and thus should be taken into consideration when interpreting prehistoric human bone Sr levels in a dietary sense, and when selecting a herbivorous baseline species. In agricultural societies, human Sr intake may be diversified by differences in Sr/Ca ratios in various grain species and varieties.     

Changing perceptions of West Africa's past: Archaeological research since 1988

Archaeological research since 1988 in West Africa has focused almost exclusively on the period since 10,000 B.P. Significant advances have been made in our understanding of the Late Stone Age in the Sahara and Savanna zones, the advent of metallurgy and subsequent changes in metal technology, and the comparative trajectories of complex societies in different regions. Increasingly, data are being recovered that fail to conform to earlier Eurocentric assumptions emphasizing linear, progressive change through a series of evolutionary ages and stages. The search for new, more appropriate models for interpreting West Africa's past has infused the discipline with great theoretical vitality. Both ethnoarchaeological studies and traditional archaeological research programs in West Africa are contributing substantially to the articulation of new theoretical frameworks for African archaeology and potentially for the discipline as a whole.     

New Dietary Evidence on Medieval Rural Communities of the Basque Country (Spain) and Its Surroundings from Carbon and Nitrogen Stable Isotope Analyses: Social Insights,Diachronic Changes and Geographic Comparison

This paper presents the results of palaeodietary reconstruction based on stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on bone collagen of five medieval rural populations from the Basque Country (northern Spain) spanning from 5^th to 15^th centuries ad . One hundred forty‐seven human and 47 domestic faunal samples were successfully analysed with the objective of defining agrarian productive strategies and food consumption patterns. The results grouped the five sites in two clusters: on one side Zaballa and Treviño, whose inhabitants followed diets exclusively based on C₃ plants with significant intake of animal protein, and on the other, the populations from Aistra and Zornoztegi, who combined C₃ and C₄ plants and consumed lower amounts of animal protein. The isotopic values from Dulantzi were intermediate to these two groups. No differences were detected when individual status markers, such as grave goods, were available. Conversely, some restrictions on the access to certain food resources based on sex were uncovered. A relevant change in δ¹³C values was identified around 10^th century, a consequence of a shift in the consumption patterns of C₃ and C₄ plants. Finally, these Basque sites were compared with those of the medieval Iberian case studies available in the literature. This comparison made evident the distinctive nature of the diet of the Basque medieval rural contexts. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hypolithic Plants from Carruthers Peak,Snowy Mountains,New South Wales,Australia

Hypolithic plants, plants growing under rocks, have been found from a number of climatically extreme, mostly arid sites from the poles to the equator, but there are limited reports from temperate zones. A brief survey in the Kosciuszko Alpine Area of New South Wales, Australia, revealed four species of moss and one liverwort growing beneath diaphanous quartz pebbles in feldmark vegetation communities. The probable restricted nature of this phenomenon and the likely impact of global warming, tourists and recreation management activities raise concerns for its conservation.     

Expertise Marginalized: Quality Inspection and the Grain Market in Republican China

With the help of professionally trained agricultural scientists, the Guomindang’s Nationalist government drafted a large-scale program for agricultural reconstruction in the late 1920s and early 1930s. At the heart of the program was a scientific rice-breeding experiment with the potential to produce great numbers of new high-yield rice varieties. However, this scientific achievement could not assure success of the new rice varieties in the market because the marketability of rice was determined not by the scientific productivity improvement but by a series of processes required before the rice reached consumers. For this, local and practical contexts had to be considered. By juxtaposing two different forms of “rice expertise,” this paper illuminates the incompatibility between the state’s productivist understanding of agricultural improvement and the quality issue in the grain market.