The fish of Lake Titicaca: implications for archaeology and changing ecology through stable isotope analysis

Research on past human diets in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin has directed us to investigate the carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes of an important dietary element, fish. By completing a range of analyses on modern and archaeological fish remains, we contribute to two related issues regarding the application of stable isotope analysis of archaeological fish remains and in turn their place within human diet. The first issue is the potential carbon and nitrogen isotope values of prehistoric fish (and how these would impact human dietary isotopic data), and the second is the observed changes in the fish isotopes through time. Out of this work we provide quantitative isotope relationships between fish tissues with and without lipid extraction, and a qualitative analysis of the isotopic relationships between fish tissues, allowing archaeologists to understand these relationships and how these values can be applied in future research. We test a mathematical lipid normalization equation to examine whether future researchers will need to perform lipid extraction procedures for Lake Titicaca fish. We also analyze a number of aquatic plants to better understand the range of isotopic signatures of the Lake Titicaca ecosystem. We use these data to better understand prehistoric human diet and the role that fish may have played in the past as well as potential changes in local lake ecology through time.     

清代太湖流域的环境与卫生——以外国人的游程与感觉为中心

太湖流域是一个独立的地文系统,自唐宋以来的经济开发和商业化发展,使这里的民生显得异样繁荣。地方史料中的绝大多数,谈论的都是这里的高额赋税负担和内部经济生活的多样化及地区差异,对于民众生活的环境与卫生问题,直接性的详细记载极少。清代中后期外国人在这一地域内的众多游记和日记,于这方面却有颇为细致的描述,侧重点大多在河流环境、建筑居住、城镇街道景观和饮食卫生等问题,负面性的评述占据了大多数。这一当中固然有太平天国战乱后的影响内容,也有中国人的许多常态生活习惯,更带有外国人的猎奇与鄙薄的眼光,但是在总体上都可反映出中国人长期并不真正重视的环境问题及相对淡漠的卫生观念。而所谓"近代化"的理论推导,大多仅限于1843年开埠后沿江滨海重要城市的一些证据,其实并不符合太湖流域广泛城乡的实际生活。     

Age and exploitation of obsidian from the Medicine Lake Highland,California

The relationship between major and minor elements, trace element composition, and age of obsidian sources within a volcanic field, is of considerable interest for obsidian source and artifact research in the New and Old World. The present study investigates this relationship in the Medicine Lake Highland of western North America. Geological evidence had indicated a very young age for all obsidian sources in the Highland, yet archaeological evidence suggested that obsidian was utilized for several thousand years. X-ray fluorescence analysis distinguished the latest flow (Glass Mountain) from the Cougar Butte, Grasshopper Flat, and Lost Iron Wells sources. Data obtained from two nearby archaeological sites showed that obsidian from the latter two sources was used by c. 7500 bc, while Glass Mountain material was not used (or available) until after 1360± 240 bp. These findings indicate that inferences of an extremely recent age for all obsidian sources in the volcanic field were unwarranted. Further analysis of major and minor elements indicated different hydration rates for these sources. The results argue that significant geochemical variability, as well as age differences, can exist between obsidian sources within the same volcanic field.     

Top-down or bottom-up: rural settlement and raised field agriculture in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia

Differing interpretations regarding the organization of past intensive farming are often distinguished as “top-down” or “bottom-up” perspectives. The development of intensive farming and its social organization are attributed to either nascent states and centralized governments or the incremental work of local communities or kin-based groups. We address the social organization of raised field farming in one region of the Lake Titicaca Basin of the Andean altiplano, Bolivia. We evaluate past research in the Katari Valley, including our own, based on recent settlement survey, excavation, and a variety of analyses. Taking a long-term perspective covering 2500 years, we find that relations of production and rural organization changed greatly over time in relation to changing sociopolitical conditions. Local communities played dynamic roles in the development and organization of raised field farming, yet its intensification and ultimate recession were keyed to the consolidation and decline of the Tiwanaku state. We conclude that the top-down/bottom-up dichotomy is overdrawn. Local communities and their productive practices never operated in a political or economic vacuum but both shaped and were transfigured by regional processes of state formation, consolidation, and fragmentation.     

王安石·《湖田疏》·“废湖为田”

在南京玄武湖的历史上,700年来一直记载王安石作《湖田疏》奏请将玄武湖\"废湖为田\",其实《湖田疏》是一篇伪作,王安石的\"废湖为田\"案是一桩历史冤案。     

Hunter–gatherer foraging ranges, migrations, and travel in the middle Holocene Baikal region of Siberia: Insights from carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures

Foraging ranges, migrations, and travel among Middle Holocene hunter–gatherers in the Baikal region of Siberia are examined based on carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures obtained from 350 human and 203 faunal bone samples. The human materials represent Early Neolithic (8000–6800 cal BP), Late Neolithic (6000–5000 cal BP), and Early Bronze Age periods (∼5000–4000 cal BP) and come from the following four smaller areas of the broader region: the Angara and upper Lena valleys, Little Sea of Baikal’s northwest coast, and southwest Baikal. Forager diets from each area occupy their own distinct position within the stable isotope spectrum. This suggests that foraging ranges were not as large as expected given the distances involved and the lack of geographic obstacles between the micro-regions. All examined individuals followed a similar subsistence strategy: harvesting game and local fishes, and on Lake Baikal also the seal, and to a more limited extent, plant foods. Although well established in their home areas, exchange networks with the other micro-regions appear asymmetrical both in time and direction: more travel and contacts between some micro-regions and less between others. The Angara valley seems to be the only area with the possibility of a temporal change in the foraging strategy from more fishing during the Early Neolithic to more ungulate hunting during the Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age. However, the shift in stable isotope values suggesting this change can be viewed also as evidence of climate change affecting primary productivity of the Baikal–Angara freshwater system.     

西藏旧石器时代的再认识——以阿里日土县夏达错东北岸地点为中心

一、引言面对险恶的生存环境,初上西藏高原的人们在体会了缺氧、寒冷、资源缺乏后,都不仅要问人类何时拓殖这一片广袤的高原[1]。西藏高原有无旧石器时代遗存,是21世纪