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The widely accepted view that eastern North America was a separate center of plant domestication bas resulted in an increasingly isolationist perspective on the region's culture history and a neglect of research on the diffusion into it of tropical cultigens. New data on archaeobotanical macromorphologies, the chemical and chromosomal composition of arcbaeobotanical specimens, and the geographical distribution of archaeobotanical remains challenge old paradigms. In particular, the diffusion of tropical cultigens across the Caribbean must now be seriously considered. This paper reports on current research suggesting alternatives to existing paradigms in relation to four plants (maize, tobacco, beans, and chenopods) and stresses prehistoric eastern North America's relationship to, instead of isolation from, Mesoamerica and South America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's comments on the research paper "Environmental Imperatives Reconsidered," by Terry L. Jones and his colleagues. The author views that the paper lacks convincing demonstration of how climatic change affected the cultural growth of human population of four different studied region. He views that Jones and colleagues were correct to mention that economic factors depending on local factors influence population dynamic up to some extent.

The appropriation of Western visual media technology by indigenous peoples around the world, particularly in Australia, North America, and the Amazon Basin, has drawn the attention of anthropologists impressed with how such people have utilized visual self-representation as a mode of empowerment, political assertion, and cultural revival in the face of Western cultural and economic imperialism. In this paper I maintain, however that there are different relationships between signs, concepts, and sociality in different cultures and that visual media have embedded within them their own Western ontology of these semiotic relations. Anthropologists have by and large not sufficiently problematized their own participation in this modern ontology of representation, and they assume that it is the same framework as that operating in the representational practices of the indigenous peoples on which they focus their attention. I situate a critique of Western visual representation within the progress of marxist theory in the 20th century. I go on to suggest that a dialectical approach to this phenomenon preserves the anthropological perspective on non-Western ritual, art, and representation that was bequeathed to us by Victor Turner and is still an essential component of the "anthropological lens." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses his original argument in his findings of the article "The Caribou/Wild Reindeer as a Human Resource" in light of more up-to-date data on the trends of caribou/wild reindeer herd following by humans. The author argued that the people in northern Eurasia and northern North America could not follow caribou/wild reindeer herds because they could not keep up with them. After observing a Chipewyan group hunt the animals, the author changed his original views. However, his colleagues defended his 1972 article. The author concluded the paper by accepting the evidence of other researchers which showed his initial conclusions in 1972 to be wrong.

The article presents the author's views on the research paper "Environmental Imperatives Reconsidered," by Terry L. Jones and associates, which is published within the issue. He criticizes the overstated significance given to environmental flux as a factor responsible for the extinction of the late prehistoric population in western North America. He argues that there is a lack of convincing demonstration in the paper to support the vigorous effect of climatic anomalies on human system.

A hypothesized extraterrestrial impact in North America at -~12,900 calendar years BP (12.9 ka) has been proposed as the cause of Younger Dryas climate changes, terminal Pleistocene mammalian extinctions, and a supposed "termination" of the Clovis archaeological culture. In regard to the latter, however, an examination of archaeological, geochronological, and stratigraphic evidence fails to provide evidence of a demographic collapse of post-Clovis human populations, especially where the Clovis and post-Clovis site records are reasonably well constrained chronologically. Although few Clovis sites contain evidence of an immediate post-Clovis occupation, interpreting that absence as population collapse is problematic because the great majority of Paleoindian sites also lack immediately succeeding occupations. Where multiple occupations do occur, stratigraphic hiatuses between them are readily explained by geomorphic processes. Furthermore, calibrated radiocarbon ages demonstrate continuous occupation across the time of the purported "Younger Dryas event." And, finally, the relatively few sites purported to provide direct evidence of the 12.9-ka impact are not well constrained to that time. Whether or not the proposed extraterrestrial impact occurred is matter for empirical testing in the geological record. Insofar as concerns the archaeological record, an extra- terrestrial impact is an unnecessary solution for an archaeological problem that does not exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the methods of dating of early domesticated plants in the new world, especially in dating of maize. Direct accelerator mass spectrometry dating was done on maize from Mexico, the Greater Southwest, and Eastern North America and they show that previous estimates for the antiquity of maize agriculture at key sites are unsubstantiated and true dates may be significantly more recent. The earliest maize, now accepted as domesticated rather than wild, was observed in strata assigned to the Coxcatlán phase and dated by associated charcoal to 5000-3500 B.C. None of the original radiocarbon samples from Tehuacán rock shelter sites included any actual maize material because the available specimens were too small and too valuable to be sacrificed to the conventional method. According to the author, the evidence available makes it necessary to begin building new models for agricultural evolution in the New World. The absence of cultigens prior to 4000 B.C. at various sites in Mexico fits well with a scenario in which these plants were simply not domesticated until after 4000 B.C.

Several recent studies have shed light on the migrations and admixtures that led to the peopling of the Americas. Very little is known, however, about the religious concepts and the ritual life of the Arctic groups that migrated between Asia and America. Shamanic worldviews based on oral transmission are often considered timeless, and their ancient history is supposedly impossible to know. This article provides a comparative study of ritual techniques to identify transcontinental connections between Siberian and North American groups. Through an extensive ethnographic comparison, it shows that indigenous peoples of the North share a ritual tradition, the "dark tent," across 10,000 km around the pole, from Western Siberia to Labrador and the American plains. Drawing on recent genetic data, it hypothesizes that this ritual technique, grounded in an animistic cosmology, expanded from Western Siberia to the east and was introduced into North America by the Paleo-Eskimo approximately 5,000 years ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The archaeological record of the American Eastern Woodlands has been the subject of research on the origins and organization of complex societies for decades. Much of this research, ultimately grounded in political-economic theories of accumulation, underscores how foraging, horticultural, and agricultural societies manifested complexity in different ways belying their similar signposts of complexity, including monumental architecture, long-distance exchange, and craft specialization. Here, we contend that aspects of these material practices, which span the Late Archaic, Middle Woodland, and Early Mississippian periods, are essential for sketching a historical ontology of social complexity in indigenous eastern North America. Drawing on political-economic theories developed in sub-Saharan Africa, we propose that the deep time ebb and flow of complex social formations in the Eastern Woodlands relied less on the quantitative accumulation of wealth in things and people and more on the qualitative composition of the diverse knowledge embedded in people and things. We discuss Poverty Point, Ohio Hopewell, and Cahokia from this vantage point in an effort to begin telling a "big history" of the Eastern Woodlands outside the frame of social evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The timing and sequence of the independent domestication of indigenous eastern North American seed plants (Cucurbita pepo, Helianthus annuus, Iva annua, Chenopodium berlandieri) and the subsequent development of a crop complex are discussed within a broader environmental and cultural context. The settlements that have yielded the earliest record of eastern domesticates are all small and situated in resource-rich lower-order river valley corridors within oak-savannah and oak-hickory forest regions. Well-preserved floral and faunal assemblages indicate continued substantial reliance on a wide range of wild species with no evidence of resource depletion. Similarly, there is no indication of landscape packing in terms of high site density in these resource-rich river valleys, calling into question developmental models of domestication and agricultural origins that rely on population pressure or resource imbalance as causal factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, dozens of studies have produced carbon and nitrogen stable isotope data on early human bones and teeth from North America. Because these data record individual diets, they provide one way to test various hypotheses about the uptake and continued dependence on maize agriculture that is complementary to floral, paleopathological, and demographic approaches to the same problem. The δ13C values in the organic fraction of bone (bone collagen) plotted against those in the mineral fraction of bone (bone apatite) from several regions across North America reveal that not all human groups responded in the same way to maize agriculture. Rather there was variation between and within geographic regions. Similarly, the δ15N values in bone collagen from sites from across the southeastern United States show variation in dependence on maize and on marine foods that cannot be fully explained by geography or technical expertise. In combination, the data emphasize the need to consider social forces, both internal and external, to the group under study as well as environmental and technological constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At this critical historical juncture of environmental degradation, awareness of needed cultural change, and an emerging sustainability movement, attention to "reenchantment"—the phenomena of sensory, emotional, and nonrational ways of connecting with the earth's living systems—strengthens our professional understanding as educators as well as our ability to contribute to institutional change. Research among participants in the Piedmont Project—a faculty development program for sustainability across the curriculum at Emory University—and among sustainability leaders in higher education across North America shows that wonder, delight, awe, and meaning are linked to both personal and political spheres of action. The experience of reenchantment can be understood in seven dimensions and provides restorative moments, fosters creativity for change, and supports a revised worldview. A stereoscopic paradigm that combines reason and reenchantment will serve an anthropology that seeks to think, in Roy Rappaport's words, "not merely about the world but on behalf of the world". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses an increase in crude birth rate between the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras as discovered through a survey of prehistoric cemeteries in Europe and Northern. The authors examine a drastic increase in the rate of immature skeletons catalogued between the two eras, which has been termed the "Neolithic demographic transition." The article also presents the findings of research conducted by the authors analyzing data from prehistoric U.S. cemeteries, which signals a similar transition period occurred in North America during those eras.

A clear deficit in the theoretical and methodological development of archaeological research exists with regard to migration; attributing archaeological distribution patterns to migration as opposed to diffusion or trade is still a major problem. This article uses the example of North American colonization to develop an approach that distinguishes the changes brought about by migration from those produced by other forms of cultural transfer. Because methods for gathering evidence do not sufficiently explore migration processes in their complexity, a model based on the study of historic and modern migrations is developed, and its practicability is demonstrated using the example of Anglo-Saxon migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's reply to the comments in response to his article "Environmental Imperatives Reconsidered," which was focused on the correlation between environmental factors and cultural development. The author expresses happiness over the successful accomplishment of his objectives behind writing the article. His hypothesis of medieval-drought in western North America emerged successful in evaluating the ecological themes of the region during the pre-historic age.

Review of late Holocene paleoenvironmental and cultural sequences from four regions of western North America shows striking correlations between drought and changes in subsistence, population, exchange, health, and interpersonal violence during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (AD. 800-1350). While ultimate causality is difficult to identify in the archaeological record, synchrony of the environmental and cultural changes and the negative character of many human responses—increased interpersonal violence, deterioration of long-distance exchange relationships, and regional abandonments—suggest widespread demographic crises caused by decreased environmental productivity. The medieval droughts occurred at a unique juncture in the demographic history of western North America when unusually large populations of both hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists had evolved highly intensified economies that put them in unprecedented ecological jeopardy. Long-term patterns in the archaeological record are inconsistent with the predicted outcomes of simple adaptation or continuous economic intensification, suggesting that in this instance environmental dynamics played a major role in cultural transformations across a wide expanse of western North America among groups with diverse subsistence strategies. These events suggest that environment should not be overlooked as a potential cause of prehistoric culture change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical censuses of Inuit (Canadian and North Alaskan Eskimos) often contain highly male-biased juvenile sex ratios that have been interpreted as evidence of female infanticide. We use model life tables to estimate elements of historic Inuit population structure missing from the censuses themselves and use these estimates to examine the major explanations for Inuit sex-ratio bias found in the literature. The argument that sex-ratio bias is primarily an artifact of incorrect age assessment due to early marriage of females is not upheld, although this factor appears to account for some proportion of the bias. Psychological explanations based on male dominance fail to explain variation among Inuit populations. Functional explanations that portray female infanticide as a form of population regulation or as a device for balancing the numbers of adult men and women are inconsistent with empirical evidence as well as ecological and evolutionary theory. We conclude that estimated rates of female infanticide (ranging from o to 40% and averaging 21% for the ten populations analyzed] are best explained as consequences of parental efforts to match the number of sons with locally prevailing but regionally variable rates of sex-specific mortality and economic productivity. We argue that these findings have broad significance for the analysis of sex-specific parental investment in many human populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on the sources of the tropical prehistoric domesticated plants of eastern North America. In this context, the author comments on the views presented by anthropologists Thomas J. Riley, Richard Edging, and Jack Rossen on the sources of plants. The author says that Nicotiana rustica, a kind of tobacco, was cultivated widely in eastern North America.