Perspectives on Global-Change Archaeology

In this article, I explore the characteristics of global-change archaeology as an emerging field of research. Global-change archaeology seeks to document and apply historical knowledge of past human–environmental interactions to the understanding of contemporary environmental problems and management and planning for future sustainability. It takes place within an interdisciplinary research structure and is situated within the explanatory contexts of historical science and humanistic history with close links to historical and political ecology. Both history and agency play important roles in the practice of global-change archaeology. Past human decision making in the context of cultural attitudes and perceptions also has a significant role in the archaeology of global change.     

Domesticating Imperialism: Sexual Politics and the Archaeology of Empire

ABSTRACT  The archaeology of empire is permeated by sexual narratives. This has been especially true of archaeological research on the Spanish Americas, where the material remains of colonial settlements have often been interpreted as products of a literal and figurative marriage between two cultures. However, investigating colonization as a consensual domestic arrangement has masked the ways in which imperial projects relied on the exercise of power, including sexual regulations and sexual coercion. Recent archaeological and ethnohistoric research at the Spanish-colonial military settlement of El Presidio de San Francisco affords a different perspective, one in which the public and institutional exercise of sexual control was central to the imperial project.     

布氏田鼠对主要贮草种类的选储嗜好

布氏田鼠 (Ｍｉｃｒｏｔｕｓｂｒａｎｄｔｉ)为内蒙古典型草原区的主要害鼠 ,其危害主要表现在与牲畜争夺牧草资源[1,3 ,5,6,9] 。该鼠属不冬眠种类 ,冬季主要以洞群贮草仓库中的贮草为食 ,因此 ,研究其秋季集群的贮草习性 ,对于分析和了解该鼠的越冬生态特征具有一定的意义。有关布氏田鼠的贮草习性 ,已有一些报道[4 ,7] 。研究表明 ,在羊草 冷蒿 隐子草草场 ,布氏田鼠的越冬贮草以蒿属 (Ａｒｔｅｍｉｓｉａ)植物为主 ,其中冷蒿 (Ａ .ｆｒｉｇｉｄａ)与黄蒿 (Ａ .ｓｃｏｐａｒｉａ)占贮草比例超过 90 % [2 ] ,但上述研究均未涉及布氏田鼠…     

Food Preference and Reproductive Plasticity in an Invasive Freshwater Snail

The freshwater apple snail Pomacea canaliculata has become a major crop pest in southeast Asia and Hawai'i and threatens natural wetland habitats in these regions and elsewhere. Deliberately introduced as a potential human food resource, it has also been proposed as a possible biocontrol agent against aquatic weeds. Various factors may facilitate its rapid invasion of new areas; we focus on two: growth rate and food preference. Our field observations and laboratory experiments suggest that in Hawai'i P. canaliculata reaches reproductive maturity in 10 months or more, less time than in its native temperate and seasonal Argentina, where it takes 2 years, but longer than in parts of southeast Asia, where it may take as little as 2 months. This increased growth rate, and thence reproductive rate, probably facilitate rapid population growth. Although P. canaliculata is usually considered an indiscriminate generalist macrophytophagous feeder, laboratory experiments indicated preferences among the dominant plants at our field site and growth rate differences when constrained to feed only on one of these plants. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), a major invasive weed, was not preferred in food choice experiments, and snails offered only water hyacinth on which to feed did not differ in growth rate from unfed snails. Another important invasive weed, water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes), was also not preferred, but snails fed on it did grow, though not as quickly as those fed on green-leaf lettuce. Among the food plants offered in the experiments the native Vigna marina was the most preferred. Therefore, although a generalist, P. canaliculata exhibits some discrimination among food plants. We recommend that it not be introduced for use as a biological control agent for aquatic weeds.     

圈养华南虎食物通过消化管时间的初步测定

采用苹果皮作标记物 ,对 4只圈养成年健康华南虎的食物通过消化管的时间进行试验性测定 ,结果平均值为 18 36± 3 5 8h (13 83～ 2 2 5 7h) ,其中 9∶30投喂的为 2 1 97± 0 74h ,16∶4 0投喂的为 15 2 0± 0 87h ,牛肉、混合饲料间和虎个体间差异均不显著。     

Gender and ethnic identity among second-generation Indo-Caribbeans

This article discusses second-generation Indo-Caribbean (West Indian of Indian descent) teenagers’ ethnic identities, through a look at their taste preferences and self assertions of identity. Both Indo-Caribbean young men and women draw from multiple influences on their identities. In terms of tastes in clothing and movies, however, girls are more interested in things Indian, and in “Indian culture”. Boys, on the other hand, choose to distance themselves from an Indian identity. Three factors explain these gender differences in choices about ethnic identity: (1) different media images for South Asian men and women; (2) a school context lending different levels of peer symbolic status to perceived Indian boys and girls; and (3) a gendered process of migration by which women maintain stronger cultural roots in the new country. The findings in this article point to the need to pay attention to gender differences when considering ethnic incorporation.     

Coetzee on South Africa's Past: Remembering in the Time of Forgetting

As an intellectual figure in South Africa, J. M. Coetzee has consistently engaged with the politics of the past, particularly the contemporary ethical ramifications of the colonial past, alongside the more recent and bitter history of oppression under apartheid. As archaeologists, we aim to excavate these engagements through his novels and essays, particularly his long-standing concerns with the Khoekhoe communities of the Cape. In South Africa today, the tensions between remembering and forgetting are palpable and, in the aftermath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), we suggest that not all forgetting can be cast as therapeutic. Throughout his complex relationships with the nation's history, Coetzee foregrounds the colonial past and reiterates the ethical responsibilities of remembering so that the patterns of the past are not repeated.     

浙江省商品粮基地县粮食生产力的评价与分析

利用系统聚类法和稳定性测度的Finlay和Wilkinson模型分析了浙江21个商品粮基地县的粮食生产力水平及其稳定性．结果表明：21个县（市）的粮食生产力水平可以分成4类,而绍兴与海盐为生产力最高的一类,同时绍兴县的生产力稳定性高于平均稳定性．生产力的年度稳定性之间存在显著差异,其中1984年与1985年的生产力稳定性分别显著与极显著地高于平均稳定性,而1988年的稳定性却显著地低于平均稳定性;然而,生产力的地区稳定性之间却无显著差异．本文还依据分析结果就维持生产力稳定性问题提出了建议.     

The origins of agriculture in the Americas

Three independent centers of domestication and agricultural origin have been identified in the Americas: the south-central Andes, Mexico, and most recently, eastern North America. Much of the evidence for early domesticates in these three regions has been excavated from higher elevation dry caves and rock shelters. These sites contain remarkably well preserved plant and animal remains, along with a record of short-term occupation by small groups of hunter-gatherers and early cultivators. As a result it has long been thought that plants and animals were brought under domestication in the Americas by small, seasonally mobile societies living in upland settings. The age of small seeds and other plant materials recovered from such dry caves and believed to represent early domesticates was, of necessity, determined indirectly, through conventional large-sample radiocarbon dating of organic material thought to be contemporaneous. In each of the three regions, the earliest domesticates were believed to date between 7,000 and 10,000 B.P. The origin of agriculture in the Americas was thought to be roughly contemporary with the transition from foraging to farming in the Near East (Fertile Crescent, ca. 10,000 B.P.) and China (Yangtze Corridor, ca. 8,500 B.P.). Since the mid-1980s, however, the age of many of the proposed early domesticates in the Americas, as well as their contexts of domestication, have been re-examined, beginning in eastern North America. The excavation of larger and more sedentary river valley settlements in eastern North America has yielded ample evidence of the cultivation of domesticated seed plants. This evidence is as old as or older than that recovered from seasonally occupied upland caves and rock shelters. In addition, a new and more rigorous standard for evidence of domestication has been adopted in eastern North America. That standard, which requires direct dating of seeds and other plant parts that exhibit clear, unequivocal, and well-documented morphological markers of domestication, is now being applied throughout the Americas, producing conservative timetables of domestication and agricultural origins that contradict alternative, more speculative chronological frameworks. Under the new standard of evidence, domestication of plants in all three independent centers (and in the Andes, domestication of animals) appears to have taken place between about 5,500 and 4,000 years ago, much more recently than previously was thought. Several lines of evidence also suggest that the Native American societies that first brought these species under domestication may not have been exclusively seasonally mobile hunter-gatherers of higher-elevation environments. In each of the three regions, domesticates recovered from upland caves may reflect a transition to a farming way of life accomplished by societies occupying more sedentary settlements in river valleys. In some cases, upland caves containing domesticates may represent one component in the seasonal round of early food production by societies occupying nearby river valleys; in others, they may mark the subsequent expansion of food production economies out of rich river valley resource zones into adjacent upland environments.     

People of the ancient rainforest: late Pleistocene foragers at the Batadomba-lena rockshelter, Sri Lanka

Batadomba-lena, a rockshelter in the rainforest of southwestern Sri Lanka, has yielded some of the earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in South Asia. H. sapiens foragers were present at Batadomba-lena from ca. 36,000 cal BP to the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene. Human occupation was sporadic before the global Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Batadomba-lena’s Late Pleistocene inhabitants foraged for a broad spectrum of plant and mainly arboreal animal resources (monkeys, squirrels and abundant rainforest snails), derived from a landscape that retained equatorial rainforest cover through periods of pronounced regional aridity during the LGM. Juxtaposed hearths, palaeofloors with habitation debris, postholes, excavated pits, and animal and plant remains, including abundant Canarium nutshells, reflect intensive habitation of the rockshelter in times of monsoon intensification and biome reorganisation after ca. 16,000 cal BP. This period corresponds with further broadening of the economic spectrum, evidenced though increased contribution of squirrels, freshwater snails and Canarium nuts in the diet of the rockshelter occupants. Microliths are more abundant and morphologically diverse in the earliest, pre-LGM layer and decline markedly during intensified rockshelter use on the wane of the LGM. We propose that changing toolkits and subsistence base reflect changing foraging practices, from shorter-lived visits of highly mobile foraging bands in the period before the LGM, to intensified use of Batadomba-lena and intense foraging for diverse resources around the site during and, especially, following the LGM. Traces of ochre, marine shell beads and other objects from an 80 km-distant shore, and, possibly burials reflect symbolic practices from the outset of human presence at the rockshelter. Evidence for differentiated use of space (individual hearths, possible habitation structures) is present in LGM and terminal Pleistocene layers. The record of Batadomba-lena demonstrates that Late Pleistocene pathways to (aspects of) behavioural ‘modernity’ (composite tools, practice of symbolism and ritual, broad spectrum economy) were diverse and ecologically contingent.     

Symbol and Sustenance: Cattle in South Asian Culture

Domesticated Indian zebu cattle were present on the western margins of the South Asian subcontinent as early as 6000 B.C. Cattle were important in the agricultural economy of the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley, but archaeological evidence suggests the bull was also assuming a symbolic or religious role in this culture during the third millennium B.C. There is, however, little to suggest that the cow was viewed as sacred. Following the decline of the Harappan civilization, northwestern India was settled by Aryan-speaking peoples who laid the foundations of modern Indian society. The Aryans were pastoral by nature and the economic importance of cattle to this society is mirrored in the role of cattle in ritual, in the pastoral symbolism of the Vedic literature (the ancient religious literature of Hinduism), and also in the association of the cow with various Vedic deities. Yet, again there is nothing to suggest the cow was viewed as sacred at this time. It is not until the appearance of the ahimsa philosophy at the end of the Vedic period, and the acceptance of this belief in the major religious philosophies of the region (Jainism, Buddhism, and later Hinduism), that the concept of the sanctity and inviolability of the cow began to crystallize. The “sacred-cow concept” appears as established doctrine in Hindu literature by the end of the medieval period (ca. fourth century A.D.), although popular practice appears to be at variance with this doctrine. A variety of historical, political, religious and social factors appear to have contributed to the general acceptance of the sacred cow doctrine by the Hindu population at large. During the 1960s, the “sacred cow” was at the center of a controversy in the social sciences concerning whether the concept was essentially religious in nature or reflected the ecological realities of the cattle economy of the Indian subcontinent. This debate notwithstanding, cattle remain central to the Indian economy, but also play a significant role in the religion and rituals of modern Hinduism, particularly those related to the worship of Krishna. Cattle have also assumed a political role in contemporary India, with anti-cow-slaughter legislation and the protection of the cow being identified with the emerging Hindutva movement. No understanding of South Asian culture can be complete without an awareness of the economic, historical, political and religious dimensions of cattle in the Indian subcontinent.     

激光喇曼光谱技术在食品科学中的应用

激光喇曼光谱技术是一种非侵入、非弹性的光散射技术,它能够无损地提供丰富的分子结构和物质成分的信息。近来它在食品工业领域表现出很大的应用潜力。本文综述了激光喇曼光谱技术在食品科学中的应用及其新进展。主要包括果蔬农药残留的检测、肉类产品质量检测、伪劣食品鉴定、食物蛋白的研究以及食品加工监控等方面的应用。并对喇曼光谱技术在这些方面的应用前景作了进一步的展望。     

The Value of Forests to World Food Security

We assembled information on the contribution and value of forests to world food security. An assessment was made of the role of forests and non-timber products in the food system of developing countries. We estimated that upwards of 300 million people annually earn part or all of their livelihood and food from forests. A total of about $90 billion in non-timber products are harvested each year. Forests also help to protect land, water, and biological resources, and they play an important role in maintaining the productivity of agricultural and environmental systems.     

Food Preference of Wireworms Analyzed with Multinomial Logit Models

Many species of wireworms (larvae of click beetles, Elateridae) are poly- phagous root herbivores. In grasslands under restoration succession with various grass species, we aim to determine the role of wireworms in aboveground vegetation succession. Therefore, it is crucial to know whether wireworms prefer some food plants to others. We have investigated the root preference to different grass species for Agriotes obscurus and Athous haemorrhoidalis and whether these preferences can be explained by covariates. In Experiment 1, individual wireworms could choose between four different plants, one of each species (Anthoxanthum odoratum, Festuca rubra, Holcus lanatus, and Lolium perenne). In Experiment 2, groups of wireworms were released into the soil in the center of 16 plants (4 from each species). We used multinomial logit models (MLMs) to analze the data. In the appendix the use of multinomial response models is clarified with a fictitious example, using the SAS statistic software package. No preference was found in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2 we found differences in attractiveness of plant species depending on wireworm species: A. obscurus preferred grass species from nutrient-rich grasslands (L. perenne and H. lanatus). Both wireworm species disliked F. rubra. The distance from the release point influenced the probability of being found at a certain place at the end of the experiment: wireworms tended to stay in the proximity of the release point. A. haemorrhoidalis was more often found farther from the point of release than A. obscurus. Dispersal was farther from the release point in experiments with young plants (6 weeks) compared to older ones (9 weeks). Results are discussed in a broad ecological context.     

Mapping hidden potential identity elements by computing the average discriminating power of individual tRNA positions

The recently published discrete mathematical method, extended consensus partition (ECP), identifies nucleotide types at each position that are strictly absent from a given sequence set, while occur in other sets. These are defined as discriminating elements (DEs). In this study using the ECP approach, we mapped potential hidden identity elements that discriminate the 20 different tRNA identities. We filtered the tDNA data set for the obligatory presence of well-established tRNA features, and then separately for each identity set, the presence of already experimentally identified strictly present identity elements. The analysis was performed on the three kingdoms of life. We determined the number of DE, e.g. the number of sets discriminated by the given position, for each tRNA position of each tRNA identity set. Then, from the positional DE numbers obtained from the 380 pairwise comparisons of the 20 identity sets, we calculated the average excluding value (AEV) for each tRNA position. The AEV provides a measure on the overall discriminating power of each position. Using a statistical analysis, we show that positional AEVs correlate with the number of already identified identity elements. Positions having high AEV but lacking published identity elements predict hitherto undiscovered tRNA identity elements.     

Food price volatility

The high food prices experienced over recent years have led to the widespread view that food price volatility has increased. However, volatility has generally been lower over the two most recent decades than previously. Variability over the most recent period has been high but, with the important exception of rice, not out of line with historical experience. There is weak evidence that grains price volatility more generally may be increasing but it is too early to say.     

基因工程在食品工业中的应用

阐述了基因工程的技术溯源,论述了基因工程在食品工业方面的应用,提出与生产实践相结合的实例;详细介绍了基因工程食品的由来,展望了基因工程技术在食品工业领域中的美好发展前景.     

From Casta to Californio: Social Identity and the Archaeology of Culture Contact

In culture contact archaeology, studies of social identities generally focus on the colonized–colonizer dichotomy as the fundamental axis of identification. This emphasis can, however, mask social diversity within colonial or indigenous populations, and it also fails to account for the ways that the division between colonizer and colonized is constructed through the practices of colonization. Through the archaeology of material culture, foodways, and architecture, I examine changing ethnic, racial, and gendered identities among colonists at El Presidio de San Francisco, a Spanish-colonial military settlement. Archaeological data suggest that military settlers were engaged in a double material strategy to consolidate a shared colonial identity, one that minimized differences among colonists and simultaneously heightened distinctions between colonists and local indigenous peoples.