Search

The early and middle Holocene of North Africa was a time of dramatic climatic and social change, including rapid shifts in vegetation communities and the introduction of domesticated plants and animals. Recent research from the Fayum basin of Egypt, which holds archaeological evidence for early use of domesticates, aims to place inhabitants of that region within their contemporary environmental setting. We present here results of wood charcoal analysis from three early- and middle-Holocene deposits on the north shore of the Fayum and reconstruct both contemporary woodland ecology and patterns of anthropogenic wood use. In total, three woodland communities likely existed in the area, but inhabitants of this region made heavy use of only the local lakeshore woodland, emphasizing tamarisk ( Tamarix sp.) for fuel. While seasonally watered wadi woodlands were not harvested for fuel, more arid locations on the landscape were, evidencing regional mobility between ecological zones. Results indicate that wood was locally abundant and that inhabitants were able to select only preferred species for fuel. This study provides further evidence for low-level food production in the Fayum that preserved critical ecosystem services, rather than dramatic niche construction to promote agriculture as seen elsewhere in middle-Holocene Southwest Asia.

Archaeologists have developed tools to reconstruct the locations of farming and animal herding using ecological and digital modeling of ancient landscapes. The determination of where on a landscape farming and herding took place, however, can remain elusive in environments with evidence for substantial geomorphological and/or ecological change since the period of occupation. Archaeobotanical and geoarchaeological evidence from the site of Gordion, in central Anatolia, indicates substantial landscape change over the last 4000 years, including deforestation, overgrazing, erosion, and alluviation. These have been inferred to be the result of past agricultural practices, but no firm evidence has pointed to specific locations (geographic and temporal) where ancient farming and herding may have caused these changes. Integrating extant archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and geoarchaeological evidence with new isotopic data provides a more detailed reconstruction of the sequence of agricultural practices that shaped the present landscape and ecology of the region, offering a model for future archaeological research within substantially transformed landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The words and actions in the opening scene of Prometheus Bound, especially the piercing of Prometheus, have the effect of evoking ancient "binding curses," which would have been familiar to the Athenian audience.

Explaining the origins of agriculture is a topic of ongoing debate in anthropology. Traditional explanations have often been categorized as either push or pull models. The former considers the transition as an adaptive response to environmental change, and the latter views farming as a result of cultural innovations. The theoretical debates reflect the traditional dichotomy between materialism and idealism in archaeological research. Yet underlying both approaches is an anthropocentric ontology that privileges humans over nonhumans as the principal agents of historical change. This paper seeks to transcend the limitation through a close examination of the role of nonhumans in the origins of rice agriculture in southern China. Challenging traditional approaches that attribute the rise of agriculture to human interventions on the environment, this paper explores how the active agencies exercised by nonhumans, such as plants and material tools, entrapped humans into a long-term dependence and later into a sedentary lifestyle, eventually leading up to fully agricultural societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the memory of the ancient Nalanda University has often been invoked in recent years as a symbol of educational excellence and pan-Asian unity, particularly with reference to the creation of a new international university in Bihar, India, these discourses often overlook and erase the significance of Nava Nalanda Mahviahra that was created in India's postindependence period as an institute devoted to the study of Buddhist texts and languages near the archeological site of the ancient university. This article looks at the Indian Buddhist scholar Jagdish Kashyap and his role in creating the state-sponsored institute, the symbolism of cultural revival it represented, and the excitement it generated in international Buddhism, attracting monks and lay students from around the Buddhist world. The article also discusses the institute's links to China and its sensitive relation to the dynamics of the Cold War in the 1950s and '60s. It then discusses how these two Nalanda insitutions speak to issues of heritage diplomacy and the politics of revival in contemporary India and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Amendments of 1997 mandated a shift from reactive strategies toward proactive interventions with students who experience both disability and behavioral challenges. The author describes how the methodology of Life Space Crisis Intervention can provide a source of data for functional assessment and positive behavior intervention. (BF)

The Middle and Late Bronze Ages of western Anatolia (modern Turkey) remains poorly understood in comparison with its Mycenaean and Hittite neighbours, especially in agricultural economies and land use. Kaymakçı is the largest Middle and Late Bronze Age citadel excavated to date in western Anatolia and new archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data from the site presented here shed new light on regional agricultural economies and land use. Agricultural practices at Kaymakçı focused on barley and bitter vetch farming and pig, caprine, and cattle husbandry within a diverse and extensive economic system that made substantial use of wild plants and animals for food, technology, and fuel. Goats and pigs were managed primarily for meat, while sheep and cattle were managed to produce a range of secondary products. Wood charcoal analysis reconstructs both deciduous and evergreen oak woodlands, which also dominate the contemporary landscape. In regional perspective, Kaymakçı is most similar to the northern Aegean agricultural tradition, but with elements of Anatolian practices as well, representing a hybrid position between the Aegean and Anatolian worlds as seen in other lines of archaeological evidence from the site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]