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The Number 2 Dairy (No. 2 Dairy) unit at Ruakura, Hamilton, New Zealand was established as a dairy research farm in 1943 and became recognised globally as one of the leading institutes for farm systems science. The research undertaken was fundamental to the 'systemisation' of component research into replicable, efficient, competitive, and sustainable dairy systems. From McMeekan's seminal research in the 1950s on rotational grazing to the experiments of Carter, Campbell, Bryant, Penno and others, who brought greater resolution to the key principles influencing successful outcomes on-farm, the more than 60 years of experimental research led to 'good practice' rules that were to transcend geographical, climatic, and system-level interactions. Much of the research can only be found in Annual Reports or in summary form in conference proceedings and not in an electronic form. Our objective was to collate and discuss the research undertaken, thereby ensuring that the legacy of this great work and the wisdom amassed are not lost. To this end, we have compiled a compendium of the research undertaken at No. 2 Dairy, with the hope that it be used to inform the scientific rationale for system design and to stimulate future hypotheses for system improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on exposing many of the fragilities and imbalances in the world's economic and political structure. Topics include striking a balance between in-person meetings and widening access through live-streaming becoming an ever more important part of future conference planning; and Africa's cultural heritage and debates over the global significance moving ever more centre stage outside the academy.

The aim of the study was to determine if existing technologies could reduce nitrate leaching by 50%; while maintaining high levels of milk production and profitability. One farmlet, typical of the Waikato ('CURRENT') was stocked at 3.2 cows/ha and compared with a farmlet stocked at 2.6 cows/ha ('FUTURE'), focusing on higher cow production through the use of higher genetic merit cows, lower N fertiliser usage and removing cows from pasture (to a stand-off pad) during critical N leaching periods. The mitigation methods employed on the FUTURE farmlet reduced N leaching by 43% but meant the FUTURE farmlet was more expensive to run than the CURRENT (Control) farmlet. Although cows on the FUTURE farmlet each produced 68 kg more milksolids, production per hectare was 50 kg lower. Thus, the FUTURE farmlet yielded on average $279/ha/yr less profit than the CURRENT farmlet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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An editorial is presented on pandemics in access to education, health care, and justice. Topics include emphasising the topic of societal resilience with reference to environmental change; combining the systematic analysis of satellite and aerial images with existing site survey data and future ground verification; and equally balancing between African and non-African scholars splitting between men and women.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles within the issue on topics including archaeology, landscapes and excavations during the Holocene period.

The article presents author's views related to current happening including referendum held for the exit of Great Britain from European Union, U.S. presidential election won by Donald Trump, and kidnapping of Professor Peter Breunig and his colleague Johannes Behringer in Kaduna State, Nigeria.

An obituary for Professor Thurstan Shaw is presented.

The penetration of Sahelian West Africa by Europeans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries revealed landscapes dotted with fortified settlements of every size and shape; none more so than that of Segou, the pre-eminent Mande polity of the era. This is not surprising given the insecurity which reigned at that time, with interminable warfare or raiding linked to the capture of slaves, whether for the state itself, or for the brokers of the Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Saharan trades (Richards 1987; MacDonald and Camara 2011). Since 2005, I have worked on the archaeology and place-specific oral traditions of Segou with Seydou Camara (MacDonald and Camara 2011, 2012). In the present text, and with an eye to Graham Connah's (2000) own interest in African city walls, I seek to exploit both three seasons of field research and French colonial sources to examine the technology, function and social role of these walls in Segovian settlements. Finally, I consider the history of fortified settlements along the Middle Niger and whether or not the ubiquitous walls of Segou are something new, or something connected with earlier traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impressive array of papers pulled together by Liza Gijanto and Akin Ogundiran to form the present issue of Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa engage forcibly with key issues evolving on both sides of the Atlantic. There is much ‘grist for the mill’ here for both African historical archaeology and that of the Diaspora: new ways of studying social practice and ruptures as well as warnings about overly simplistic cultural associations of African material culture. In the following paragraphs, as one of the handful of Africanist archaeologists who also do field research on the Diaspora, I try to make some observations and distil some lessons from this heady brew. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dhar Nema, easternmost of the Tichitt escarpment chain, was neglected by archaeologists throughout the twentieth century. However, since 2000, two separate archaeological teams have conducted survey and test excavation work in the region. This article presents the final research results of one of these teams. Two sites in particular are closely examined: the settlement mound of Djiganyai with stratified intermittent occupation between c. 2000 and 800 cal. BC, and the multi-component site of Bou Khzama II, featuring structural elements, inhumations, and large scale iron-smelting remains. It is argued that Dhar Nema, although an ecologically favourable zone, was politically peripheral to the central Tichitt-Walata polity and comparatively sparsely settled. A period of relative regional abandonment, or widespread shifts in settlement, between 1400 and 1100 cal. BC is also noted. Regardless, a range of Pre-Tichitt and Tichitt Tradition settlements are documented for the region, including evidence for millet agriculture equivalent in age to that of the Dhar Tichitt region. It is suggested that the origins of Tichitt agriculture must now be sought in the third millennium BC. Concerning more recent periods, putative new data for first millennium BC iron metallurgy in the Dhar Nema region are presented and their technical aspects analysed. Finally, a revised hypothesis for the role of incoming Berber populations in the denouement of the Tichitt Tradition is considered, with cultural syncretism rather than replacement advocated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on the impact of Brexit on future funding of archaeological research in Africa by British-based researchers or the possibilities for foreclose for the kind of productive, pan-European collaborative investigations. It mentions that the archaeology of urbanism at Great Zimbabwe, iconic archaeological sites, previous orthodoxies concerning the size of its population and the supposed monopolization by local élites of the objects of power.

For both humans and animals, domain-general mechanisms are fallible but powerful tools for attaining evolutionary goals (e.g., resources) in uncertain, novel environments that were not recurrent features of the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. Domain-general mechanisms interact in complex ways with domain-specific, information-encapsulated modules, most importantly by manipulating information obtained from various modules in attempting to solve novel problems. Mechanisms of general intelligence, particularly the executive functions of working memory, underlie analogical reasoning as well as the decontextualization processes that are central to human thought. Although there is a variety of evolved, special purpose learning devices, learning is also characterized by domain-general mechanisms that are able to achieve evolutionary goals by making novel and serendipitous associations with environmental cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses the changes in the journal's editorial board, the increase in output subscription, and informs about the upcoming archaeological conferences.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including review of an article on the Middle Stone age and archaeological theory in Africa.

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one on the state of archaeology in Niger, one on cultural research management in Africa, and one on materialising identities of marginalised potters in Ethiopia.