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The article offers a selection of papers drawn from thirty conserved objects and other materials written by George Catlin, which was preserved at the Archives of American Art. Papers presented, highlight Catlin's tireless efforts to promote and sell his works on Indian portraits, landscapes, manners and customs, and costumes, driven by the adamant conviction that the people of the United States should own and display his images of North America's disappearing native peoples. The entire collection of Catlin's work was arranged in acid-free folders and rehoused in standard archival containers, which were sent to the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Massachusetts for repairing.

This article looks at the goals of the Art and Design School type of library of the Art Libraries Society of North America as of September 1986. Users served by the Art and Design School libraries are described. A survey paper written by a graduate student on journal writings on art libraries is discussed.

This paper seeks to clarify the difference between two markers of future time reference in the Cree language. The preverbal particles ta- (∼ ka-) and wî- have both generally been treated as future tense markers. While future tense is found to be sufficient characterization for ta-, wî- requires further consideration, resulting in the conclusion that, rather than simple tense, it marks prospective aspect. The characterization of wi in this way ties together a number of alternate interpretations as secondary semantic and/or pragmatic offshoots of the basic category of the prospective. Though data are presented in the Plains Cree dialect, native-speaker judgments confirm the arguments for all the major western dialects, Plains, Woods, and Swampy Cree, as spoken in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes various changes which took place in the prehistory of Blackfoot as it developed from Proto-Algonquian. The topics include the formation of noninitial verb stems, verb stems with initial change, the outcome of Proto-Algonquian long vowels, other sound changes, and the body-part prefix mo-. The proposals in this paper are supported by many new etymologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an overview of the Gerd Muehsam Award Committee of the Art Libraries Society of North America. The 1987 winner of the Gerd Muehsam Award is Sigrid Docken Mount. Her paper is Evolutions in African Exhibition Catalogues. It was suggested that the Art Libraries Society members who teach art librarianship would be the best promoters of the award. The Professional Development Committee will share with the Muehsam Committee the art librarianship courses being compiled by the Professional Development Committee.

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]

Presents updates on issues and events concerning library materials preservation in North America as of 1989. Amount of grants awarded by U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities for projects that preserve books, manuscripts and other resources for scholarly research; Establishment of a preservation collection at the National Library of Canada; Use of permanent paper among members of the Association of American University Presses.

The article comments on the paper "Cultigens in prehistoric Eastern North America: Changing paradigms," by Thomas J. Riley, Richard Edging and Jack Rossen in a 1990 issue of "Current Anthropology." It is pointed out that carbon-14 and thermoluminescence dates suggest that the initial Neolithic migrants must have entered the West Indies by 500 BC.

The article presents an examination into the scientific paper published in 1676 regarding anthropogenic climate change. Details are given introducing the anonymously written letter, published by Henry Oldenburg in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London." The paper's description of contrasting cases of climate change in colonial America and Ireland, outlining and disputing theories of deforestation and cultivation as their cause, is addressed. Discussion is then provided noting the implications of such a debate over the human causes climate change.

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.

This article provides information on several decisions made by the board of the Art Libraries Society North America (ARLIS/NA) highlighted in an October 1989 issue of ARLIS/NA Update. They include the resolving of the transfer of inactive papers of all components of the society, initiate an oral history program and start support for research by ARLIS/NA members among others.

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 discusses the development of transitional research agenda for African Americans in the 20th century. It is believed that globalization should be a significant research agenda in the history of African Americans. The important part played by African Americans in the foundation of the U.S. shows that the country owed a profound debt to them. As part of research agenda, researchers must look at the condition of African Americans in North America.

Examines the Canadian Atlantic salmon fishery that add significantly to an understanding of the ideological, political, social conflicts that resulted from the introduction of modern wildlife management regimes in North America. Foundation of the salmon conservation program; Most important changes bought by the advent of federal administration of fisheries; Importance of sporting fraternity to the regulation of the salmon fishery extended beyond the practical matter of lending assistance to government wardens.

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.

The present study was conducted to explore library users' desired service quality levels on the twenty-two core LibQUAL+ items. Specifically, we explored similarities and differences in users' desired library service quality levels across user groups (i.e., undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty), across geographic locations (i.e., institutions using the American English version of the protocol, as against institutions using the British English language version); and across time (i.e., the years 2004-6, during which time the protocol was not altered). The sample consisted of 297,158 LibQUAL+ participants from the years 2004, 2005, and 2006, who completed either the American English (nAE = 227,808) or the British English (nBE = 69,350) version of the protocol. Here, the language version was used as a marker for whether the 297,158 respondents were located in North America or Europe. The heterogeneity of user desires across disciplines was also evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Public Library Catalog (PLC) as an example, we show how a wellrespected collection development tool contains ideological frames. Graduate students at a library science program at a North American university were asked, as part of a class assignment, to evaluate PLC recommendations for subject areas in which they had background knowledge. The PLC often makes recommendations that have an imbalance of perspectives (for example, missing theoretical perspectives, overemphasis of a particular facet or theory within a field, missing voices), lack authority, do not have a close match between recommended title and topic area, do not provide a comprehensive framework for the subject area, and are problematic in terms of their usability (for example, lack of balance between scholarly and popular titles, datedness, and format). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the development of American archival education in North America. Improvement of graduate library and information sciences programs; Strength and individualization in graduate level archival education programs; Lack of understanding about the archival education.

The article presents information on a study on the patterns of collection development and management for East Asian art materials at college libraries in North America. Evaluation of collection is one of the significant functions of collection development and management. A questionnaire was distributed to academic libraries with East Asian collections in 1984. Data is provided for the results of the study including percentages of institutions that collect such art materials.

The article details the members of the Art Libraries Society of North America in 1986. At the end of the year, the Art Libraries Society of North America had a total of 1,228 members/subscribers, compared with 1,261 at the end of 1985. 171 members joined the Society in 1986, 26 of whom had belonged to the Art Libraries Society of North America in 1984 or earlier.

The article presents the financial report of the treasurer of the Art Libraries Society of North America for fiscal year 1991. It reveals the financial performance of the society for the year. It offers a detailed financial report of the society. It presents the society's statement of operations for the present fiscal year as well as its budget for fiscal year 1992.

This article reports on the financial operations of the Art Libraries Society of North America for the year ending May 1989. The Society had a stable financial performance for the year. Income from membership and conference have attained 96.3% ad 102.0% respectively. Management fees was at 66.0% expenditure. Income from fund raising was at $7,960, while fund raising expenditure was at $3,575.68.

Discusses the financial performance of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) at the close of the fifth month of the 1988 fiscal year which began on October 1, 1987. Factors that contributed to the stability of the society's financial pattern; Overview of the Art Libraries Society's current statement of operations; Information on the spending attitudes of ARLIS/NA members.

The article provides the highlights of the midyear meeting of the Art Libraries Society of North America Executive Board held at the Orrington Hotel, in Evanston, Illinois in 1985. It presents the central issues discussed and acted upon by the board such as the approval of the revised 1986 New York Conference budget and the appointment of the Nancy Allen to continue negotiations with Bowker for increased coverage of libraries in the American Art Directory.

Mammalian body mass strongly correlates with life history and population properties at the scale of mouse to elephant. Large body size is thus often associated with elevated extinction risk. I examined the North American fossil record (28-1 million years ago) of 276 terrestrial genera to uncover the relationship between body size and extinction probability above the species level. Phylogenetic comparative analysis revealed no correlation between sampling- adjusted durations and body masses ranging 7 orders of magnitude, an observation that was corroborated by survival analysis. Most of the ecological and temporal groups within the data set showed the same lack of relationship. Size-biased generic extinctions do not constitute a general feature of the Holarctic mammalian faunas in the Neogene. Rather, accelerated loss of large mammals occurred during intervals that experienced combinations of regional aridification and increased biomic heterogeneity within continents. The latter phenomenon is consistent with the macroecological prediction that large geographic ranges are critical to the survival of large mammals in evolutionary time. The frequent lack of size selectivity in generic extinctions can be reconciled with size-biased species loss if extinctions of large and small mammals at the species level are often driven by ecological perturbations of different spatial and temporal scales, while those at the genus level are more synchronized in time as a result of fundamental, multiscale environmental shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine adoption of land demarcation in the British Empire during the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. We develop a model and test its implications against data from temperate British colonies in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Three arrangements were implemented: individualized, idiosyncratic metes and bounds; a centralized, uniform rectangular system; and a centralized, nonuniform demarcation system. The choice of arrangement is determined using demarcation, topographical, and soil quality data sets with qualitative, historical information. We find that centralized systems provide coordination benefits, but adoption is less likely when implementation is slow and controlling settlement is costly. In centralized systems, we find that uniform rectangular demarcation lowers transaction costs, but its rigid structure is costly in rugged terrain, and alternatives are adopted. [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]

Alliaria petiolata is a Eurasian biennial herb that is invasive in North America and for which phenotypic plasticity has been noted as a potentially important invasive trait. Using four European and four North American populations, we explored variation among populations in the response of a suite of antioxidant, antiherbivore, and morphological traits to the availability of water and nutrients and to jasmonic acid treatment. Multivariate analyses revealed substantial variation among populations in mean levels of these traits and in the response of this suite of traits to environmental variation, especially water availability. Univariate analyses revealed variation in plasticity among populations in the expression of all of the traits measured to at least one of these environmental factors, with the exception of leaf length. There was no evidence for continentally distinct plasticity patterns, but there was ample evidence for variation in phenotypic plasticity among the populations within continents. This implies that A. petiolata has the potential to evolve distinct phenotypic plasticity patterns within populations but that invasive populations are no more plastic than native populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Material culture studies compel us to recognize the global nature of early North America. Objects of many sorts circulated within and across the colonies of the northern New World. Whereas matters of commercial trade have tended to frame analyses of material life in the Atlantic littoral, the studies in this issue of Winterthur Portfolio expand past the world of commodities to explore artifacts exchanged through gift giving, collecting, display, performance, theft, looting, and other practices. Moreover, by tracking objects from the Pacific to North America, they challenge existing models of Atlantic studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The taxonomy of the Centaurea stoebe complex is controversial. Diploid and tetraploid plants occur in its native European range, but to date only tetraploids have been recorded from its introduced range in North America. We examined morphological differentiation of C. stoebe using multivariate and univariate approaches to clarify the taxonomic status of the known cytotypes. We measured more than 40 morphological traits on plants originating from 78 populations, grown from seed under uniform glasshouse conditions. The ploidy of almost 300 plants from 2 native and 20 introduced populations from Canada was assessed to test for the absence of diploids from North America. Finally, we explored whether postintroduction processes have resulted in phenotypic changes in introduced plants which may have contributed to the invasion success of C. stoebe. Morphometric analyses showed a clear separation of 2x and 4x plants and thus supported recognition of both cytotypes as separate taxa. Differences in the life cycle, the number of florets, the shape of capitula, and the shape of young rosette leaves were the best discriminant characters. Only minor differences were found between native and introduced tetraploids. All plants from the introduced range except for one hexaploid were found to be tetraploid. Rare diploids from Canada were identified as Centaurea diffusa or Centaurea psamogenna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the authors discuss aspects on agricultural origin theories. They cite that the process of agricultural origin in the Middle East and North America was influenced by various factors operating in macroscale and microscale which is particular to each region. They assert that D. Rindos' coevolutionary model of mutual interdependence among plants, animals, and humans plays a vital role on domestication.

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]

An essay is presented on the historiography of women's and gender history studies which focus on seventeenth and eighteenth century North America. The author considers books on feminist history including "Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America," by Linda Kerber, "Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs," by Kathleen Brown, and "Peace Came in the Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands," by Juliana Barr.

In the wake of the “hermeneutical turn,” two approaches to textual interpretation have come to wield considerable disciplinary influence in North American political theory circles: those of Leo Strauss and Quentin Skinner. Their respective approaches to texts in the history of political thought are generally regarded as competitor endeavors; indeed, the view that these approaches are downright antithetical enjoys the status of a disciplinary commonplace. I interrogate this commonplace and attempt to clarify what exactly is at stake in the differences between these two thinkers' interpretative approaches. Such efforts are repaid, I believe, by a more nuanced methodological self-awareness that discloses a more cooperative, and less antagonistic, view of the relationship between the two thinkers' hermeneutical understandings.Polity (2009) 41, 235–255. doi:10.1057/pol.2008.29; published online 12 January 2009 [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]

Presents the book "People and Plants in Ancient Eastern North America," edited by Paul Minnis.

The article looks at the inadequacies of the Library of Congress (LC) classification system in describing materials on Native American in the U.S. and First Nations in Canada. According to library student Holly Tomren of San Jose State University in California, Native American materials in LC E class fall into three broad subclasses, which are geography, topic and tribes and cultures. To address such issue, the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has proposed to review various subjects headings used for works on Aboriginal peoples.

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.

The article determines whether the North American West, whether defined as a place or process, provides an ideal arena for exploring the historiographical and conceptual connections between labor and environmental history. Western labor and environmental historians have highlighted the causal importance of material conditions and shaped their narratives around changes molded by the growth and penetration of the market in North America. The common ground between labor and environmental history does not exist in the literal land of the West nor in the ideas of region or alienation. But, it is analytical in form, which the author calls as a geography of labor, which comprises of the spatial, material, and cultural connections between nature and labor. The concept of a geography of labor is used to recover the power of imagined visions of redeemed nature and labor and their impact on material constellations of labor and nature. Contributions of social theorists David Harvey and Heinrick Von Thunen to conceptualizing what a geography of labor is and how it provides a more productive starting for collaboration between labor and environmental history are discussed.

A recent test for the existence of suture zones in North America, based on hybrid zones studied since 1970, found support for only two of the 13 suture zones identified by Remington in 1968 (Swenson and Howard 2004). One limitation of that recent study was the relatively small number of hybrid zones available for mapping. In this study, we search for evidence of clustering of contact zones between closely related taxa using data not only from hybrid zones but from species range maps of trees, birds, and mammals and from the position of phylogeographic breaks within species. Digital geographic range maps and a geographic information system approach allowed for accurate and rapid mapping of distributional data. Areas of contact between closely related species and phylogeographic breaks within species clustered into areas characterized by common physiographic features or predicted by previously hypothesized glacial refugia. The results underscore the general importance of geographic barriers to dispersal (mountain chains) and climate change (periods of cooling alternating with periods of warming, which lead to the contraction and expansion of species ranges) in species evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientists played a key role in the first systematic introduction of nature study into North American public schools in the late nineteenth century. The initiatives of Wilbur Jackman and John Merle Coulter, affiliated with the young University of Chicago, and Liberty Hyde Bailey and Anna Botsford Comstock, at Cornell University, coincided with the "new education" reform movement that found object lessons and experience-based education superior to textbook teaching. Educational psychologists and philosophers of the 1890s, including G. Stanley Hall, related curriculum methods to perceived developmental stages in children, with a focus on immediate experience. Putting these pedagogical ideas--gained in summer institutes, normal schools, and programs at Chicago and Cornell--into practice were administrators and classroom teachers in both urban and rural classrooms. By 1900, a consensus about the value of nature study among scientists, community leaders, and teachers established it as the recognized general method of studying the natural world in public schools across much of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide a new and more complete analysis of the origins of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, one of the most severe environmental crises in North America in the twentieth century. Severe drought and wind erosion hit the Great Plains in 1930 and lasted through 1940. There were similar droughts in the 1950s and 1970s, but no comparable level of wind erosion. We explain why. The prevalence of small farms in the 1930s limited private solutions for controlling the downwind externalities associated with wind erosion. Drifting sand from unprotected fields damaged neighboring farms. Small farmers cultivated more of their land and were less likely to invest in erosion control than larger farmers. Soil conservation districts, established by the government after 1937, helped coordinate erosion control. This "unitized" solution for collective action is similar to that used in other natural resource/environmental settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is commonly assumed that closely related animals are similar in body size, the degree of similarity has not been examined across the taxonomic hierarchy. Moreover, little is known about the variation or consistency of body size patterns across geographic space or evolutionary time. Here, we draw from a data set of terrestrial, nonvolant mammals to quantify and compare patterns across the body size spectrum, the taxonomic hierarchy, continental space, and evolutionary time. We employ a variety of statistical techniques including "sib-sib" regression, phylogenetic autocorrelation, and nested ANOVA. We find an extremely high resemblance (heritability) of size among congeneric species for mammals over ∼18 g; the result is consistent across the size spectrum. However, there is no significant relationship among the body sizes of congeneric species for mammals under ∼18 g. We suspect that life-history and ecological parameters are so tightly constrained by allometry at diminutive size that animals can only adapt to novel ecological conditions by modifying body size. The overall distributions of size for each continental fauna and for the most diverse orders are quantitatively similar for North America, South America, and Africa, despite virtually no overlap in species composition. Differences in ordinal composition appear to account for quantitative differences between continents. For most mammalian orders, body size is highly conserved, although there is extensive overlap at all levels of the taxonomic hierarchy. The body size distribution for terrestrial mammals apparently was established early in the Tertiary, and it has remained remarkably constant over the past 50 Ma and across the major continents. Lineages have diversified in size to exploit environmental opportunities but only within limits set by allometric, ecological, and evolutionary constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evidence for change in frequency of the melanic carbonaria morph in the peppered moth Biston betularia (L.) (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) in England and Wales is reviewed. At mid-20th century a steep dine of melanic phenotype frequency running from the north of Wales to the southern coast of England separated a region of 5 % or less to west from 90 % or more to northeast By the 1980s the plateau of 90% frequency had contracted to northern England. The frequency has since continued to drop so that the maximum is now less than 50% and in most places below 10%. There have been similar declines in Europe and North America. Evidence from surveys and from two-point records shows the change to require 5 % to 20% selection against the melanic. The melanic is more disadvantageous in regions where its frequency was initially high than in regions where it was low. Experiments to investigate predation by birds show a net advantage to carbonaria morphs in regions where typical frequencies were low at the time of the experiment, and a disadvantage where typical frequencies were high. This would be expected if environment and frequency were associated, and selective predation played a part in generating the association. The cryptic advantage of carbonaria was large in areas of heavy pollution where typical frequencies were 20% or less. The moth usually has a low density but is relatively highly mobile. The ability of present information to explain the patterns has been tested in simulations. They indicate a system under strong selection that has always been in a dynamic state without equilibria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the effect of feminism on archaeology according to archaeologists in North America. Purpose of feminist-inspired archaeology; Significance of visual representations in feminist-inspired archaeology; Discussion on the epistemological implication of feminist archaeology.

Shows that five of nine families of North American freshwater fishes exhibit an evolutionary trend of decreasing body size, using phylogenetic relationships of extant species. Synthesis of Cope's rule; Scenario that could result in the generation of the size-frequency distribution of North American freshwater fishes.

Discusses constraints and possibilities of birthing bodies through an ethnographic analysis of North American home-birthing women's narratives. Definition of the phrase home birthing movement; History of home birth in North America; Language women use to talk about their births.