Landscapes of Prehistoric Northwestern Sichuan: From Early Agriculture to Pastoralist Lifestyles

We describe a preliminary survey of a relatively unknown part of the eastern Himalayas: northwestern Sichuan. This survey revealed that three phases of occupation are represented across the landscape. Large settlements with dense remains characterize the landscape during the Neolithic (3400–2000 cal b.c.). Following a hiatus in occupation, stone-cist graves characterize the region during the Bronze Age (1450–800 cal b.c.). The lack of settlement remains from this period indicates that mobile pastoralism increased in importance. Finally, between a.d. 500 and 1500, dense scatters of ceramics over a wide altitudinal range correspond to a fragmentation in Tibetan history, when local warlords established themselves in the region. While some changes in occupation and subsistence practices are linked to climate change, others relate to changes in political power. We argue that further survey work is needed to expand our understanding of past land use and the development of pastoralist practices.     

From Darkness into Light: Race,Population, and Environmental Advocacy

Environmentalists and environmental organizations in the USA have long identified population growth as a key threat to environmental sustainability at local and global scales. The neo‐Malthusian logics they invoke embed racialized images and categories in defining population “problems”, yet increasingly social justice language is invoked in population debates as a “solution” in the context of international development. This article explores the historical and contemporary characterizations of race as a central component of population–environment advocacy. It focuses on locations of race narratives in both the conceptualizations of population growth as an environmental problem, and family planning as a global solution. Through a critical analysis of the “population justice” framework, I argue that new discursive approaches attempt to reposition population work as socially just, while eliding critical analyses of race.     

Race,Space, and Nature: An Introduction and Critique

In this essay we put forth nested arguments about the way that racialization remains a powerful force in contemporary society, contending that intersections with space and nature offer important lessons about the (de)construction of race. We argue that the pernicious character traits of racial constructs develop through spatial practices and intersect with ideas about “nature” and belonging. We trace these concepts through recent conversations in geography and environmental studies, and we call for a persistent, critical, and prominent engagement with racialization in the spatial social sciences. Finally, we introduce the papers that constitute this symposium, which engages these questions from a range of perspectives and across a variety of landscapes. We hope to spur the conversation about “race and geography”, broadly conceived, beyond studies conceptualized around race alone. We are hopeful that this work, and the larger body of work it contributes to, travels beyond academic conversations to engage broader social justice debates about the “nature” of racial inequality—to ultimately participate in its dismantlement.     

Moving agriculture onto the Tibetan plateau: the archaeobotanical evidence

The Tibetan Plateau has one of the least hospitable environments for agriculture on the planet; however, its inhabitants have developed an economic system based on agriculture and pastoralism suited to it’s geoenvironmental stressors. Little is known about the timing of the spread of agriculture onto the plateau or how agricultural systems were adapted to this environment. In this article, we present palaeoethnobotanical data from two sites, Changdu Karuo (c. 2700–2300 cal B.C.) and Kyung-lung Mesa (A.D. 220–334 and A.D. 694–880). In addition, we synthesize previously reported data (much of which has never been published in peer-reviewed journals). We argue that the earliest agriculture was based on millets (broomcorn and foxtail) and was accompanied by a pig-based economic system. This early economy, which likely originated in western China, was later replaced by a better adapted system, similar to those identified in Central Asia. The later system was based on crops such as wheat, barley, peas, and millets, as well as sheep and goat pastoralism. Wild resources obtained through hunting, fishing, and foraging appear to have been complements to the diet on the Tibetan Plateau.     

Illegal fishing and Australian security

The security impact of illegal fishing is not well understood. Where illegal fishing is recognised as a security problem, the focus has been on fish as a natural resource, the depletion of which can have impacts on food security, individual livelihoods, and the economic survival of states relying on illegal fishing. We argue that a focus on fish as a natural resource obscures the other security challenges the crime of illegal fishing poses to Australia. As this paper explains, illegal fishing overlaps with drug, human, weapon and other contraband trafficking and smuggling; irregular maritime arrivals; and maritime piracy. In addition, like other easily transported, high value resources, illegal fish can fund insurgencies and other types of political violence. Understanding illegal fishing as a security challenge will improve Australia’s national security policy. First, it acknowledges fish as a vital natural resource, implicated in economic, ecological, and human security; second, it analyses how illegal fishing interlinks with other maritime crimes; third, it challenges the effectiveness of monitoring and enforcement of illegal fishing; fourth, it presents an opportunity for effective regional cooperation; and finally it highlights the benefits of regional cooperation in responding to illegal fishing.     

Producing Vancouver's (hetero)normative nightscape

The article argues, through an examination of Vancouver's entertainment district as an actively produced ‘civilizing’ space dominated by private enterprise, that it is important to understand the ‘mainstream’ as a grounded site which produces, maintains and reiterates the moral contours of heterosexuality (among other things) within the city. Nightclubs in particular, experienced as spaces of hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity, offer a prime example of how the union of governmentality, surveillance and private enterprise work together in the maintenance and regulation of social conformity. Drawing upon an ethnographic study from 2005 to 2006, I explore the entertainment district and highlight young adults' perceptions of its nightlife economy and how space, hegemonic sexuality and nightlife collide.     

Complex Pathways Towards Emergent Pastoral Settlements: New Research on the Bronze Age Xindian Culture of Northwest China

Journal of World Prehistory - The Xindian culture of northwest China has been seen as a prototypical example of a transition toward pastoralism, resulting in part from environmental changes that...     

南阳黄山遗址独山玉制品调查简报

黄山遗址出土的玉制品的质地均为独山玉质,器形主要为各类生产工具,其制作大体经过了两个或两个以上工艺过程.经实地调查,黄山遗址出土的玉制品以及数百件大小玉料,均来自该遗址西南约2.5公里的独山.