Molding maize: the shaping of a crop diversity landscape in the western highlands of Guatemala

Today's domesticated plants not only embody past human–nature interactions, but also reflect social history. Human seed exchange, replacement and loss are important forces in shaping crop diversity. This essay explores regional history in relation to the shaping of maize diversity in the western highlands of Guatemala. This is an area of exceptional maize heterogeneity and a peripheral part of the region where maize was domesticated. Maize diversity seems to have developed through geographic isolation in networks of seed exchange that were generally very local in scope. However, recent studies on Mexican maize suggest otherwise. However, few studies have examined crop diversity or seed exchange from a historical perspective. A closer examination of regional history suggests which processes might be important for shaping the present geographical distribution of maize diversity. Seeds were occasionally transported over longer distances. As a consequence, maize diversity is geographically not characterised by sharp differences between farming communities; the main differences are to be found in regional occurrences. This challenges antimodern ideas of closed, local native ecologies. Consequently, the conservation of maize genetic resources is a challenge, but not entirely contradictory with its transforming socio-economic context.     

Phylogenetic relationships of leptellinid brachiopods

The relationships among the diverse genera comprising the family Leptellinidae (Brachiopoda) are reviewed in the light of the revised edition of the Treatise on Invertebrate Palaeontology. Taxonomic work reassessed all the genera identified as Leptellinidae in the most current classification. Four genera were discarded, namely Bekkerella, Benignites, Leptastichidia and Nikitinamena. Cladistic analysis reveals the paraphyly of these genera; their abandonment leading to more morphologically coherent subdivisions of the family. Two subfamilies, Leptellininae and Palaeostrophomeninae, are emended and taxonomically restructured. The palaeogeographical history of the Leptellinidae is complicated. The Leptellinidae are first recorded in Baltica in the late Floian (Early Ordovician) and rapidly dispersed to circum-Iapetus palaeocontinents by the Dapingian, thence to most terranes composing Gondwana by the Darriwilian (Middle Ordovician).     

Campanile (Mollusca: Gastropoda): a new record from the early Miocene of Victoria,Australia

Campanile rupicolum sp. nov. is described from the early Miocene Upper Maude Limestone Member of Maude, Victoria. The genus has not hitherto been recorded from Victoria, a part of the Southeast Australian biogeographic Province, and was thought to be characteristic of the Austral-Indopacific Province. This is the oldest occurrence of the genus so far recorded from Australia.     

Remains of a Late Cretaceous pterosaur from the Molecap Greensand of Western Australia

Pterosaur remains are very rare in Australasia and especially in Upper Cretaceous strata. Thus, the discovery of a jaw fragment from the Cenomanian–Coniacian Molecap Greensand near Gingin in Western Australia represents an important new stratigraphical occurrence for the region. Although the teeth are not preserved, the presence of labio-lingually compressed alveoli that are anterolaterally oriented, variable in shape/size (inferring heterodonty) and very widely spaced is reminiscent of ornithocheirids—a geographically cosmopolitan clade of predominantly Early Cretaceous pterodactyloids. If correct, this identification could extend the known range of Ornithocheiridae through to the Late Cretaceous in the Southern Hemisphere.     

On the origin of the tree Spondias mombin in Africa

This paper examines evidence for the origin of the tree Spondias mombin in Africa, where it is generally described as introduced from the Neotropics. Based on biogeographical, ecological, and historical evidence, this paper argues that the tree reached Africa via natural, long-distance dispersal, and should be considered an African native plant. The idea that it is introduced appeared in 1868, when it was a scientifically justifiable conclusion reflecting the limitations of nineteenth-century biogeographical knowledge. By the early twentieth century, representing Spondias mombin as a human introduction in Africa was no longer scientifically justifiable because of advances in knowledge of the African flora and plant dispersal ecology. Nonetheless, most authors continued to represent the tree as introduced, in part because such representation was consonant with dominant images of the African environment: (a) that the continent had suffered extensive deforestation in the recent past, and (b) that Africa's flora was depauperate in fruit trees prior to the coming of Europeans. Recent authors continue to describe Spondias mombin as introduced because they have not sufficiently considered the historic contexts of primary and secondary sources on Neotropical plant introductions in Africa. This paper concludes that the human role in creating the African portion of the trans-Atlantic tropical flora has been overemphasized. Natural plant dispersal across the Atlantic may be more frequent than generally accepted.     

Climate,people and faunal succession on Java,Indonesia: evidence from Song Gupuh

Song Gupuh, a partially collapsed cave in the Gunung Sewu Limestones of East Java, Indonesia, contains over 16 m of deposits with a faunal sequence spanning some 70 ka. Major changes in the range of animals represented show the impact of climate change and humans. The Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene was a period of maximum biodiversity. Human use of Song Gupuh and other cave sites in the region also intensified significantly from ca. 12 ka, together with a new focus on exploitation of small-bodied species (macaque monkeys and molluscs), the first evidence for import of resources from the coast, and use of bone and shell tools. Human activity, especially after the onset of the Neolithic around 2.6 ka, subsequently contributed to a progressive loss of many species from the area, including tapir, elephant, Malayan bear, rhino and tiger, and this extinction process is continuing. We conclude by discussing the biogeographical significance of Song Gupuh in the context of other sites in Java (e.g. Punung, Wajak) and further afield (e.g. Liang Bua).     

Fur-bearing species and Scottish islands

Analysis of a database comprising archaeological records of fur-bearing species in Scotland has highlighted the presence of foxes, badgers and other mustelids in areas outside their modern-day geographic range. Of particular interest is the apparent presence of foxes on Orkney for a number of centuries, from perhaps the last few centuries BC to the mid to late first millennium AD, pine marten on Orkney in the Neolithic, and badgers on the Outer Hebrides in the Early Bronze Age and 6–7th centuries AD. While zooarchaeological analysis of the data suggests the evidence from the Outer Hebrides is indicative of imported products of fur-bearing species, such as skins or ‘trophies’, the evidence from Orkney suggests populations of fur-bearing species may have been purposefully introduced by humans. This raises interesting questions regarding human perception and use of the different species in prehistoric North Atlantic Scotland.