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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Human Transformation Of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Pacific Ocean), Terry L. Hunt, Carl P. Lipo
The Human Transformation Of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Pacific Ocean), Terry L. Hunt, Carl P. Lipo
Carl Lipo
Rapa Nui (Easter Island) has become widely known as a case study of human-induced environmental catastrophe resulting in cultural collapse. The island's alleged "ecocide" is offered as a cautionary tale of our own environmental recklessness. The actual archaeological and historical record for the island reveals that while biodiversity loss unfolded, the ancient Polynesians persisted and succeeded. Demographic "collapse" came with epidemics of Old World diseases introduced by European visitors. In this paper, we outline the process of prehistoric landscape transformation that took place on Rapa Nui. This process includes the role of humans using fire to remove forest and convert …
Wetland Manipulation In The Yalahau Region Of The Northern Maya Lowlands, Scott L. Fedick, Bethany A. Morrison, Bente Juhl Andersen, Sylviane Boucher, Jorge Ceja Acosta, Jennifer P. Mathews
Wetland Manipulation In The Yalahau Region Of The Northern Maya Lowlands, Scott L. Fedick, Bethany A. Morrison, Bente Juhl Andersen, Sylviane Boucher, Jorge Ceja Acosta, Jennifer P. Mathews
Jennifer P Mathews
Manipulation of wetlands for agricultural purposes by the ancient Maya of southern Mexico and Central America has been a subject of much research and debate since the 1970s. Evidence for wetland cultivation systems, in the form of drained or channelized fields, and raised planting platforms, has been restricted primarily to the southern Maya Lowlands. New research in the Yalahau region of Quintana Roo, Mexico, has recorded evidence for wetland manipulation in the far northern lowlands, in the form of rock alignments that apparently functioned to control water movement and soil accumulation in seasonally inundated areas. Nearby ancient settlements date primarily …
Lifeways In The Northern Maya Lowlands: New Approaches To Archaeology In The Yucatán Peninsula, Jennifer Mathews, Bethany Morrison
Lifeways In The Northern Maya Lowlands: New Approaches To Archaeology In The Yucatán Peninsula, Jennifer Mathews, Bethany Morrison
Jennifer P Mathews
The flat, dry reaches of the northern Yucatan Peninsula have been largely ignored by archaeologists drawn to the more illustrious sites of the south. This book is the first volume to focus entirely on the northern Maya lowlands, presenting a broad cross-section of current research projects in the region by both established and up-and-coming scholars. To address the heretofore unrecognized importance of the northern lowlands in Maya prehistory, the contributors cover key topics relevant to Maya studies: the environmental and historical significance of the region, the archaeology of both large and small sites, the development of agriculture, resource management, ancient …
Oceania - From Tobacco In Culture And History: An Encyclopedia, Vol 2, Terence Hays
Oceania - From Tobacco In Culture And History: An Encyclopedia, Vol 2, Terence Hays
Terence Hays
The earliest historical record of tobacco use in Oceania dates back from 1616 on islands off the northwest coast of New Guinea. Tobacco cultivation may have been introduced to the philippines by the Spanish as early as 1575, but it was after large-scale cultivation began to flourish in Europe in the 1590's that the use of tobacco, if not always its cultivation, rapidly spread, with introductions by the Dutch in Java in 1601 and almost immediate diffusion throughout what is now Indonesia, with Halmahera becoming a center of cultivation and export (as was Java) by 1616.
Utilitarian/Adaptationist Explanations Of Folk Bioglogical Classification, Terence E. Hays
Utilitarian/Adaptationist Explanations Of Folk Bioglogical Classification, Terence E. Hays
Terence Hays
Attempts to explain the complexity of folk biological classification systems may benefit from utilitarian or adaptationist arguments, focusing on the utilitarian or adaptive value of the behavioral consequences of folk distinctions among organisms. To adequately assess such perspectives it is necessary to resolve a number of theoretical, methodological empirical problems, which are identified and outlined in this paper as a first step toward the construction of such theories of ethnobiological classification.
Some Cultivated Plants In Ndumba, Eastern Highlands Province, Terence E. Hays
Some Cultivated Plants In Ndumba, Eastern Highlands Province, Terence E. Hays
Terence Hays
This paper reports on the cultivation and uses of 47 species of minor food crops and other useful plants in Habi'ina village, a Tairora speaking community in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea.
Farming Williamsburg: A Collaborative Oral History Project Of Williamsburg's Agrarian Past, Angela Labrador
Farming Williamsburg: A Collaborative Oral History Project Of Williamsburg's Agrarian Past, Angela Labrador
Angela M Labrador
No abstract provided.
Agrarian Scenario In Post-Reform India: A Story Of Distress, Despair And Death, Srijit Mishra
Agrarian Scenario In Post-Reform India: A Story Of Distress, Despair And Death, Srijit Mishra
Srijit Mishra
Indian agriculture today is under a large crisis. An average farmer household’s returns from cultivation would be around one thousand rupees per month. The incomes are inadequate and the farmer is not in a position to address the multitude of risks: weather, credit, market and technology among others. Social responsibility of education, healthcare and marriage instead of being normal activities add to the burden. All these would even put the semi-medium farmer under a state of transient poverty. The state of the vast majority of small and marginal farmers and agricultural labourers is worse off. An extreme form of response …