Search

The status of species in freshwater systems shift over time due to natural and anthropogenic causes. Determining the magnitude and cause of these shifts requires a long‐term perspective. This process is complicated when there are also questions about the taxonomic validity of a species. Addressing these issues is important because both can undermine conservation and management efforts if incorrect. Pleurobema riddellii, Louisiana Pigtoe, is under review for protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, but its status in the Trinity River basin, where the taxon was described, remains in doubt due to questions about its taxonomy and occurrence within this basin. To address these questions, we compared shell morphometrics of P. riddellii dating to the late Holocene with modern P. riddellii, late Holocene Fusconaia sp., and modern Fusconaia sp. using multivariate analyses to test associations between the putative morphotypes. Based on these analyses, we demonstrate that P. riddellii was likely present in the Trinity during the late Holocene, which indicates questions about its taxonomic validity or presence in this basin are unfounded. Our study further highlights the role zooarchaeological studies can play in status assessments and their utility in better understanding biogeographic patterns for rare species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zooarchaeology is the study of animal remains (bone, shell, antler, and other organic tissues) from archaeological sites, which can provide conservation biologists with data on human–environmental interactions with greater time depth than historical records. Such data are of interest because they can be used to study whether or not contemporary animal communities (in this case of freshwater mussels) have changed in terms of species composition or range as a result of human-induced changes to habitat, which is essential for determining a species’ conservation status and formulating actions to protect remaining populations. This study considers whether or not the taxonomic composition of the freshwater mussel community from the Leon River in central Texas differs between the late Holocene and today. Specifically, we analyzed two zooarchaeological assemblages and compared those results with recent surveys conducted within the Leon River. Three species proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act are found in the zooarchaeological record, of which two are now extirpated from the river basin (Truncilla macrodon and Fusconaia mitchelli). The results of this study provide an example of how zooarchaeological data can be used to evaluate mussel community change through time and provide evidence of range curtailment for threatened mussel species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastic deposition in hydrological systems is a pervasive problem at all geographic scales from loci of pollution to global ocean circulation. Much attention has been devoted to plastic deposition in marine contexts, but little is known about inputs of plastics into local hydrological systems, such as streams. Attempts to prevent plastic litter must incorporate the role of people's behaviors, so we employ a behavioral archaeological framework to distinguish between various cultural inputs (e.g., littering) and noncultural forces (e.g., stream transport and wind) that affect litter patterns on the landscape. Four sites with varying cultural uses were surveyed monthly for eight months along a creek in Texas, and analysis of the data included chi-square and Kruskal Wallis tests, and abundance indices comparing material types across sites. We found that sites have drastically different distributions in plastic litter, and these patterns appear to align with the cultural uses (hiking, fishing, roadway) and presence or absence of noncultural forces at each site. This information can be used to inform efforts to reduce littering at these and potentially other locations with similar characteristics. This study illustrates that an archaeological framework provides an efficient and accurate way to generate local data on littering behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zooarchaeological freshwater mussel remains provide information about past environments, faunal communities, and human behaviors. However, one challenge of using archaeological assemblages of animal remains is differential preservation such that bones and shells of some taxa are more vulnerable to processes that destroy or remove them from the record over time. Thus, remains of some species of freshwater mussels may be underrepresented in terms of presence/absence data as well as abundance compared to the life or death assemblages. Evaluating the representativeness of assemblages before using such data to answer zooarchaeological and paleozoological research questions is common practice in archaeology, particularly for vertebrate remains. However, little research has focused on evaluating representativeness for molluscan assemblages. In this paper, three processes that potentially influence archaeomalacological data are addressed: mussel life history strategies, shell identifiability, and shell robusticity. Expectations about taxonomic abundances in unionid zooarchaeological assemblages are framed and assessed using two datasets from sites from the Leon River in central Texas. As expected, shell robusticity and identifiability influence zooarchaeological abundance data; differences in life history strategy can be used to interpret past stream environments. The expectations derived in this paper can be used as interpretive tools for understanding factors that influence archaeomalacological taxonomic abundance data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple cultural identities converge in Mesa Verde archaeology. Archaeologists have engaged research questions for the last half century, leading to cultural reconstructive summaries about how Pueblo people lived prior to migrating out of the Mesa Verde region. The importance of this narrative centers on the identity of the researcher as an archaeologist. An increasingly recognized narrative among archaeologists is that of Pueblo identity, in which contemporary Pueblo people claim Mesa Verde villages and landscapes as part of their heritage. Generally speaking, Pueblo people and archaeologists navigate separate moral terrains, which pose multiple obstacles for both archaeologists and Pueblo people pertaining to the past, present, and future of the Mesa Verde region. A conceptual framework from environmental philosophy opens a platform for reconciliation by providing a relational narrative that empowers Pueblo identity and recalibrates archaeology. This environmental justice lens is applied to two archaeological research narratives, one centering on chemical analysis of biomolecular artifact residues and the other on paleohydrology and Pueblo farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zooarchaeological data are increasingly important for establishing late Holocene conservation baselines for species of concern. The blue sucker ( Cycleptus elongatus) is experiencing range reduction and is endangered in the State of New Mexico. The early historic (ca. AD 1540) distribution of blue sucker is poorly understood, and the extent of habitat loss is unclear. In 1961, two blue sucker skeletal elements were recovered from a late prehistoric/early historic archaeological site in northern New Mexico called Rainbow House (LA 217). Those remains suggest that the past range of blue sucker was larger; however, since that publication, little consideration has been given to the past presence of this species in the Upper Rio Grande. New zooarchaeological data from a site in northern New Mexico called Ponsipa (LA 297) have revealed the presence of multiple blue sucker skeletal elements. Additionally, a review of site reports and regional archaeological journal publications increased the abundance of blue sucker elements found at Rainbow House and added three archaeological sites where blue sucker has been reported in the region. Collectively, this information suggests a broader pre-impoundment distribution for blue sucker than previously recognized and can help establish a new baseline for their conservation or restoration in New Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on intensification in hunter gatherer strategies from Central West Argentina ca. 2000 years BP states that human demographic packing and overhunting of guanacos ( Lama guanicoe ) may have caused resource depression of this large prey animal. As a result, people broadened their diet to include smaller prey animals. Evidence supporting this conclusion includes an increase in Shannon's Diversity Index and a decrease in the abundance of artiodactyl remains over time in southern Mendoza. However, these studies about change in diet breadth did not consider the importance of spatial scale on analysis of prey choice and diet breadth and used the entire region as a unit of analysis. This is problematic because southern Mendoza has a heterogeneous landscape. In this paper we analyze different faunal abundance indices considering different spatial scales and the representativeness of the zooarchaeological samples. The results of the analyses show distinctive patterns of resource use over time at the macro- and subregional scales. Some of the difference can be explained by environmental differences between subregions and others might relate to differences in sample representativeness between subregions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no standard for reporting faunal identifications in zooarchaeology. Zooarchaeologists are open to accusations that reported conclusions are invalid. Other sciences counter such problems through use of quality assurance, consisting of quality control (QC), and assessment (QA). QC is a standard for procedures adopted during laboratory practice. A rarely cited standard was published by Driver in 1992. QA focuses on criteria for faunal identification and is becoming more common in zooarchaeology. QC and QA must be integral parts of zooarchaeology if identifications are to be accepted. The stakes are high because paleobiological datasets are now used to study problems in conservation science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral depression is a decline in prey availability because of enhanced alert response, movement away from areas, increased social behavior, and other responses to predators. This form of resource depression is an alternative hypothesis to be contrasted to over-exploitation that potentially explains a decrease in hunting efficiency over time should the zooarchaeologist observe a decline in the relative abundance of remains of high-rank prey. Gregarious ungulates, such as many North American cervids, may exhibit such behavioral responses under predation. The white-tailed deer ( Odocoileus virginianus), one of the most common high-rank prey animals from Holocene archaeological sites in eastern North America, is less gregarious, more r-selected, and exhibits greater home-range fidelity than other cervids. As a result, whitetails are less likely to exhibit behavioral depression than other North American ungulates, which may explain their common occurrence in Holocene archaeological faunas, such as that from the Eagle's Ridge site in southeast Texas where resource depression appears to have occurred from 4,500 to 1,500 years ago. The behavioral ecology of ungulate species should be considered on a case-by-case basis to develop testable hypotheses about prehistoric human predation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bergmann's rule, which proposes a heat-balance explanation for the observed latitudinal gradient of increasing animal body size with increasing latitude, has dominated the study of geographic patterns in animal size since it was first proposed in 1847. Several critical reviews have determined that as many as half of the species examined do not fit the predictions of Bergmann's rule. We have proposed an alternative hypothesis for geographic variation in body size based on food availability, as regulated by the net primary production (NPP) of plants, specifically NPP during the growing season, or eNPP (ecologically and evolutionarily relevant NPP). Our hypothesis, "the eNPP rule," is independent of latitude and predicts both spatial and temporal variation in body size, as well as in total population biomass, population growth rates, individual health, and life history traits of animals, including humans, wherever eNPP varies across appropriate scales of space or time. In the context of a revised interpretation of the global patterns of NPP and eNPP, we predict contrasting latitudinal correlations with body size in three distinct latitudinal zones. The eNPP rule explains bodysize patterns that are consistent with Bergmann's rule, as well as two distinct types of contradictions of Bergmann's rule: the lack of latitudinal patterns within the tropics, and the decline in body size above approximately 608 latitude. Both types of contradictions of Bergmann's rule are consistent with the eNPP rule, as are a wide range of other phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method based on microwave-assisted enzymatic digestion and liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry analysis is presented for the identification of proteins incorporated within solid matrices using protein standards bound to experimental cooking pottery as a validation model. The implementation of microwave irradiation allowed for a significant decrease in overall analysis time in addition to select enhancement of peptide recovery as determined by label-free relative quantitation. We envision that the reported methodology will provide new avenues for scientific discovery in areas such as archaeology and forensics. Results of this series of experiments are part of an ongoing project directed at developing a comprehensive methodology for extracting proteinaceous residues from archaeological pottery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Expectations for survival of vertebrate remains have been well developed and intensely studied in the zooarchaeological taphonomic literature. Taphonomic studies of shellfish remains focus on marine species and on variables relevant to remains from paleontological contexts (e.g., fossil marine beds). In this paper we develop a conceptual framework from which to derive expectations concerning the preservation of freshwater mussel remains focusing on two parameters, shell microstructure and shell shape. Shell size does not influence survivorship. Our model is validated through application to late Holocene zooarchaeological mussel assemblages from north Texas. Taphonomically robust species are important regarding zooarchaeological and biogeographic interpretations based on mussel paleofaunas, and fragile species are important indicators of whether or not an assemblage is well preserved. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The body size of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) increases with latitude and thus exhibits the pattern predicted by Bergmann's rule on the basis of surface to volume ratios and heat loss. This pattern is more simply explained by the distribution of food available per individual animal, which is driven by two factors, the net primary production (NPP) of plants and deer population density. Food availability is often overlooked as a cause of an increase in body size in large terrestrial herbivores in temperate latitudes because of a fundamental misconception about the global distribution of plant productivity. Within a small latitudinal range, white-tailed deer body size as evidenced by modern deer and Holocene paleozoological remains is inversely related to population density and directly related to food availability. Food availability per animal is a product of plant productivity and population density, and is correlated with both local and regional body size variability. These local and regional food-body size patterns are consistent with recent analyses of global NPP datasets which show that ecologically relevant NPP is highest in the north temperate latitudes where white-tailed deer attain their largest body size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution of the diversity and abundance of life on Earth is thought to be shaped by the patterns of plant growth (net primary production, NPP) in the oceans and on land. The well-known latitudinal gradient of species diversity reaches its maximum in tropical rain forests, which are considered to be the most productive ecosystems on the planet. However, this high tropical productivity on land is the opposite of the well-documented distribution of marine productivity, which is greatest in the high-latitude oceans around the poles. This paradox can be resolved by a reevaluation of the terrestrial productivity gradient. Compilations of direct measurements of forest NPP show that annual NPP in tropical forests is no different than annual NPP in temperate forests, contrary to recent syntheses and to the output of global vegetation models. Other properties of forest ecosystems, such as basal area of trees, wood density, and the ratio of wood to leaf production, as well as animal properties such as body size, population density, and reproductive rates, support the conclusion that ecologically relevant terrestrial productivity is actually highest in the temperate latitudes, reaching a maximum between 30° and 50° before declining toward the poles. This "reversal" of the latitudinal productivity gradient, if substantiated by a systematic global sampling effort, will necessitate a major reevaluation of ecological and evolutionary theory, as well as conservation strategies and international development policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Biometry is useful for a suite of analyses relevant to zooarchaeology, which include analysis of mortality profiles, taphonomy, paleoecology, among other purposes. Here, size-age prediction models are developed for 10 freshwater mussel species found in north Texas to develop a method for studying paleoenvironmental conditions. Shell length is often used to evaluate the structures of modern mussel populations, but its use on paleozoological specimens is not feasible because complete shells rarely preserve. Instead, pallial line-to-lateral teeth length (PLL) and pseudocardinal teeth-to-pallial line length (PSP) are evaluated as proxy measures for shell length. Linear regression models based on PLL and PSP using modern mussels demonstrate that they are accurate proxies of shell length for multiple species from a variety of habitats. In addition, ontogenetic-age structures for a modern sample and for two late Holocene assemblages from north Texas are developed using PLL and PSP. These techniques are useful tools for evaluating past ecological conditions of freshwater mussel populations when large samples are available for study, which expands analytical potential of zooarchaeological studies of prehistoric unionid remains. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Remains of 22 American black bears (Ursus americanus) were excavated from 2 natural trap caves in Missouri during the late 1950s. Age, sex, and size characteristics based on analysis of ursid teeth from the caves corroborates wildlife studies that suggest that subadult to young-adult male bears are relatively vulnerable to accidental deaths in their search for food compared to members of other age-sex cohorts. This information is of interest to wildlife biologists given that North American bears and humans increasingly share habitat. Data on native Missouri black bears are also of general interest because little is known about this population, which was extirpated by the beginning of the twentieth century, and because a reintroduced population is expanding in the southern portion of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zooarchaeologists have long realized the analytical potential of ungulate mortality data in studies of temporally shifting foraging efficiency. An additional but seldom examined form of evidence from ungulate remains is the morphometry of age-independent body size. Together simple bivariate morphometric and mortality data from ungulate remains reveal shifts through time in harvest pressure and/or environmental carrying capacity. A proposed model of these effects is validated using wildlife biology data from white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), an ungulate taxon that is very common in North American archaeological faunas. Several archaeological implications that bear on studies of foraging efficiency in subsistence hunting economies arise from this ordinal-scale model, such as the conditions under which harvest pressure increases or decreases or when carrying capacity rises or declines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Ursid mortality data have long been used to evaluate associations between cave-bear remains (Ursus deningeri and U. spelaeus) and hominin (Homo sp.) remains. Typically, such ursid assemblages produce mortality patterns that indicate that juvenile and old bears died during hibernation, a pattern that is used to suggest that humans and bears occupied the same caves at different times. However, a different kind of mortality pattern can also be used to suggest human influence on cave bears, particularly under circumstances when bears and humans compete for habitat. In particular, data from Lawson Cave and Jerry Long Cave, Missouri indicate that young-adult North American black bears (Ursus americanus) are prone to capture in natural-trap caves. Similar faunal data from Sima de los Huesos in Spain, where cave-bear and hominin remains are found in the same deposit, might also suggest that the bears died from falling into a natural trap. It is concluded that mortality analysis of ursid remains from caves is a useful tool with which to evaluate accumulation histories of cave deposits and relations between humans, artifacts, and cave-bear remains. In particular, ursid mortality data are relevant to the Kurtén Response, a hypothesis reiterated in the recent literature that implicates human encroachment on ursid habitat (e.g., cave den sites) as a potential cause in cave-bear extinction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Archaeological studies of temporal changes in human predation strategy using foraging theory tend to focus on the role of overexploitation of important prey resources and resulting resource depression. An alternative use of the prey- choice model framed under foraging theory is to investigate the influence of environmental changes, such as increases in climate stress, on prey availability. Environmental change can be expected to produce many of the same effects on human predation strategy as resource depression. Here analytical techniques typically used to study the effects of over-predation and resource depression caused by humans are used to monitor their response to fluctuations in prey availability related to climate change during the Holocene in Missouri. Data and interpretations presented here add to the growing body of zooarchaeological foraging theory literature implicating environmental change as a critical factor in human diet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies report that remains of prairie taxa are common in western Missouri archaeological sites. There is no reported evidence of prairie taxa, such as Bos bison, from sites within the northern Ozark Highlands of Missouri. New data indicate that prairie taxa inhabited the area during the warm and dry mid-Holocene (8500–5000 14C yr B.P.). Evidence suggests prairie taxa were farther east and south than previously documented in central Missouri and underscores the importance of biogeographic data in studies of prehistoric environments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Historical data provide valuable information on ecosystem structure, function, and processes. The number of big game killed by the Corps of Discovery in 1805–1806 and recorded by Lewis and Clark suggests that ungulates were abundant in central and eastern Montana and rare in western Montana, central Idaho, and southeastern Washington during the early nineteenth century. Paleoecologists Paul Martin and Chris Szuter conclude that this difference was a function of human predation. They support their conclusion that ungulates would have been abundant in southeastern Washington had humans not hunted them by arguing that the nineteenth-century livestock industry was successful without supplemental feeding. The livestock industry was, however, not consistently successful until artificial feeding was initiated. Archaeological data from eastern Washington indicate that ungulates have been taken by human hunters more frequently than small-mammal prey throughout the last 10,000 years and that ungulates decreased relative to small mammals coincident with changes in climate. Bison ( Bison bison ) and elk (Cervus canadensis ) were present in eastern Washington throughout the Holocene, but bison were abundant there only during a cooler and moister period; elk have been abundant only in the twentieth century, subsequent to transplants and the extermination of predators. Geographic variation in the abundance of bison across Montana, Idaho, and eastern Washington has been influenced by human predation but has also been influenced by biogeographic history, habitat differences, and climatic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a study on the isotopic ecology of guanacos in central western Argentina. We examine the historical population ecology of guanacos using stable isotope analysis of bone collagen from pre-Hispanic and modern guanaco populations (n = 129), considering variability in two ecoregions: the Monte hot desert and the Andean-Patagonian cold desert. Our study addresses the consistency of guanaco diets over time, evaluating palaeoecology to provide information for conservation of this taxon. We found significant differences in isotopic niche size between modern and archaeological guanacos. When analyzed by ecoregion, there were significant differences in niche size through time, indicating that guanacos had distinctive dietary habits and occupied different ecological niches across the ecoregions. Comparing Standard Ellipse Areas (SEA) through time and across space, we observed that the archaeological SEA for guanacos is smaller than its modern counterpart in the Andean-Patagonia ecoregion. Conversely, in Monte, the archaeological SEA is larger than the one established for modern samples. The contrast between pre-Hispanic and modern populations highlight the impact of human activity and conservation efforts on the distribution and ecology of guanacos. These findings have important implications for understanding guanaco ecology with consequences for conservation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on a study conducted on the history of Americanist archaeology, while discussing seriation, superposition and interdigitation. What does frequency seriation involves; Indication that interdigitation is an important component of several percentage-stratigraphic studies; Results of the study.

The conservation agenda to re-wild North America may or may not be realistic in terms of political ecology. However, it represents a real conservation recommendation to re-wild North America with the extant megafauna most closely related to those that became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene. The recommendation is based on the presumption that society bears an ethical responsibility to re-wild because humans caused the extinctions. However, the extent to which Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions were the result of overkill is hotly debated. As a result, the ethical imperative for North American re-wilding should be questioned. It will not be questioned unless members of the conservation community read the extensive archaeological and geological literature concerning the North American Pleistocene extinctions. Overlooking the assumptions underlying this particular recommendation is costly to conservation science and to archaeology because it represents an over-simplified, unwieldy and troubling fusion of the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frameworks derived from evolutionary ecology are often applied to hunter-gatherers but less often to societies representing the transition to agriculture. Our case study of Mesa Verde subsistence utilizes optimal foraging theory models from evolutionary ecology to study small animal resource use during the Pueblo II to Terminal Pueblo III periods. Turkey and lagomorph indices have been used extensively in the Southwest, but these measures can be more explicitly tied to foraging theory. We frame these indices as measures of changing patch exploitation using faunal data from eleven sites in the McElmo Dome area of the Mesa Verde region and contextualize our results within the greater regional assemblage. Our results indicate that turkey husbandry became increasingly important at the same time that wild game populations were depressed by harvest pressure. Just before the region was depopulated, however, turkey and lagomorph populations declined, possibly as a result of deteriorating environmental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prehistoric peoples chose farming locations based on environmental conditions, such as soil moisture, which plays a crucial role in crop production. Ancestral Pueblo communities of the central Mesa Verde region became increasingly reliant on maize agriculture for their subsistence needs by AD 900. Prehistoric agriculturalists (e.g., Ancestral Pueblo farmers) were dependent on having sufficient soil moisture for successful plant growth. To better understand the quality of farmland in terms of soil moisture, this study develops a static geospatial soil moisture model, the Soil Moisture Proxy Model, which uses soil and topographic variables to estimate soil moisture potential across a watershed. The model is applied to the semi-arid region of the Goodman watershed in the central Mesa Verde region of southwestern Colorado. We evaluate the model by comparing the Goodman watershed output to two other watersheds and to soil moisture sensor values. The simple framework can be used in other regions of the world, where water is also an important limiting factor for farming. The general outcome of this research is an improved understanding of potential farmland and human-environmental relationships across the local landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on human‐environment interactions that informs ecological practices and guides conservation and restoration has become increasingly interdisciplinary over the last few decades. Fueled in part by the debate over defining a start date for the Anthropocene, historical disciplines like archeology, paleontology, geology, and history are playing an important role in understanding long‐term anthropogenic impacts on the planet. Pleistocene overkill, the notion that humans overhunted megafauna near the end of the Pleistocene in the Americas, Australia, and beyond, is used as prime example of the impact that humans can have on the planet. However, the importance of the overkill model for explaining human–environment interactions and anthropogenic impacts appears to differ across disciplines. There is still considerable debate, particularly within archeology, about the extent to which people may have been the cause of these extinctions. To evaluate how different disciplines interpret and use the overkill model, we conducted a citation analysis of selected works of the main proponent of the overkill model, Paul Martin. We examined the ideas and arguments for which Martin's overkill publications were cited and how they differed between archeologists and ecologists. Archeologists cite overkill as one in a combination of causal mechanisms for the extinctions. In contrast, ecologists are more likely to accept that humans caused the extinctions. Aspects of the overkill argument are also treated as established ecological processes. For some ecologists, overkill provides an analog for modern‐day human impacts and supports the argument that humans have "always" been somewhat selfish overconsumers. The Pleistocene rewilding and de‐extinction movements are built upon these perspectives. The use of overkill in ecological publications suggests that despite increasing interdisciplinarity, communication with disciplines outside of ecology is not always reciprocal or even. The overkill model of Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions has had a significant influence on ideas about anthropogenic impacts on the environment. We conducted a citation analysis showing that archaeologists and ecologists differ significantly in how they interpret the model and its supporting data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impoundment of running waters is a threat to freshwater mussels and has only been cursorily examined in Texas. To address this, we evaluate mussel assemblage structure in the Sabine River downstream of a flood control and hydropower reservoir. We use the serial discontinuity concept (SDC) and the Life History Continuum model (LHCM) to explain relationships between stream position (i.e., downstream distance from either dam) and mussel species richness, catch-per-unit effort (CPUE), and life history strategy. Using 90th, 85th, and 80th quantile regression models, we observed that mussel species richness and abundance were reduced for stream segments located near Lake Tawakoni and Toledo Bend Reservoir and that these reductions decreased with distance from either reservoir. We also observed significant shifts in life history composition of mussel assemblages depending on stream position from either dam. Opportunistic strategists were more abundant in reaches located immediately downstream of Lake Tawakoni and Toledo Bend Reservoir whereas periodic and equilibrium strategists were most abundant in reaches located at intermediate distances from either reservoir. Findings from this study confirm the negative impact large impoundments have on downstream mussel populations and demonstrate the value of using the SDC and LHCM for evaluating mussel response to river impoundment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including zoo-archaeology, three-dimensional imaging and data acquisition systems.

A constrained stochastic weather generator (CSWG) for producing daily mean air temperature and precipitation based on annual mean air temperature and precipitation from tree-ring records is developed and tested in this paper. The principle for stochastically generating daily mean air temperature assumes that temperatures in any year can be approximated by a sinusoidal wave function plus a perturbation from the baseline. The CSWG for stochastically producing daily precipitation is based on three additional assumptions: (1) In each month, the total precipitation can be estimated from annual precipitation if there exists a relationship between the annual and monthly precipitations. If that relationship exists, then (2) for each month, the number of dry days and the maximum daily precipitation can be estimated from the total precipitation in that month. Finally, (3) in each month, there exists a probability distribution of daily precipitation amount for each wet day. These assumptions allow the development of a weather generator that constrains statistically relevant daily temperature and precipitation predictions based on a specified annual value, and thus this study presents a unique method that can be used to explore historic (e.g., archeological questions) or future (e.g., climate change) daily weather conditions based upon specified annual values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The southern boundary of prehispanic farming in South America occurs in central Mendoza Province, Argentina at approximately 34 degrees south latitude. Archaeological evidence of farming includes the recovery of macrobotanical remains of cultigens and isotopic chemistry of human bone. Since the 1990s, archaeologists have also hypothesized that the llama (Lama glama), a domesticated South American camelid, was also herded near the southern boundary of prehispanic farming. The remains of a wild congeneric camelid, the guanaco (Lama guanicoe), however, are common in archaeological sites throughout Mendoza Province. It is difficult to distinguish bones of the domestic llama from wild guanaco in terms of osteological morphology, and therefore, claims that llama were in geographic areas where guanaco were also present based on osteometric analysis alone remain equivocal. A recent study, for example, claimed that twenty-five percent of the camelid remains from the high elevation Andes site of Laguna del Diamante S4 were identified based on osteometric evidence as domestic llama, but guanaco are also a likely candidate since the two species overlap in size. We test the hypothesis that domesticated camelids occurred in prehispanic, southern Mendoza through analysis of ancient DNA. We generated whole mitochondrial genome datasets from 41 samples from southern Mendoza late Holocene archaeological sites, located between 450 and 3400 meters above sea level (masl). All camelid samples from those sites were identified as guanaco; thus, we have no evidence to support the hypothesis that the domestic llama occurred in prehispanic southern Mendoza. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing body of evidence demonstrating that proteins can survive for thousands to even millions of years in selected contexts, there are relatively few examples of the successful recovery and identification of archaeological protein residues from ceramic artifacts. Claims of positive results are sometimes contentious and frequently challenged. One source of confusion in the debate is a general lack of consideration for the taphonomic histories of ceramic-bound proteins. To gain insight into this issue, we conducted an integrated, mass spectrometry-based study examining ceramic-bound protein that was experimentally aged over the course of 12 months. Results demonstrate the rapid degradation of proteins, raise questions about the degree to which ceramic-bound proteins can be expected to survive over time, and reveal some of the limitations of non-targeted mass spectrometry-based analyses. Further, by comparing results from our experimentally-aged samples to the those we obtained from a multi-pronged study of archaeological ceramics from the American Southwest, we are able to draw more confident conclusions regarding our lack of meaningful matches in the archaeological samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Identification of protein residues from prehistoric cooking pottery using mass spectrometry is challenging because proteins are removed from original tissues, are degraded from cooking, may be poorly preserved due to diagenesis, and occur in a palimpsest of exogenous soil proteins. In contrast, bone proteins are abundant and well preserved. This research is part of a larger method-development project for innovation and improvement of liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry analysis of protein residues from cooking pottery; here we validate the potential of our extraction and characterization approach via application to ancient bone proteins. Because of its preservation potential for proteins and given that our approach is destructive, ancient bone identified via skeletal morphology represents an appropriate verification target. Proteins were identified from zooarchaeological turkey (Meleagris gallopavo Linnaeus Phasianidae), rabbit (Lagomorpha), and squirrel (Sciuridae) remains excavated from ancient pueblo archaeological sites in southwestern Colorado using a nontargeted LC-MS/MS approach. The data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange Consortium with the dataset identifier PXD002440. Improvement of highly sensitive targeted LC-MS/MS approaches is an avenue for future method development related to the study of protein residues from artifacts such as stone tools and pottery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extraction of protein residues from archaeological matrices, such as pottery clay, lithics, and grinding stones, has proven to be methodologically challenging. Protein residue analysis is fraught with technical challenges in analytical chemistry. In cooking pottery, protein residues are thought to bind to clay surfaces in vessel walls through a variety of primarily non-covalent interactions. Removal of protein residues requires the disruption of these interactions, and a diverse set of tools has been proposed and applied. Here, we test extraction procedures through varying combinations of physical parameters and solvents to derive an optimal approach yielding efficiencies of recovery from experimental pottery above 60%. The utility of our extraction approach was further validated through liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of experimental residues. We have identified several hurdles to developing a successful study of protein residues from pottery, each of which is surmountable with additional method development in the realm of archaeological chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zooarchaeologists have relied upon various approaches to study the impacts of harvest pressure and environmental change on ungulate populations, such as analysis of prey mortality patterns and morphometrics. Analysis of ancient DNA from ungulate bones and bone fragments from archaeological sites provides an additional means for studying prey population dynamics related to environmental change and human ecology over time. In this paper, we study the population history of the largest game animal in northwest Patagonia, the guanaco (Lama guanicoe). Our study relies on the use of Bayesian Skyline Plots to determine shifts in estimated guanaco population size based on analysis of ancient mitochondrial DNA. Our results indicate that hunting by humans in addition to increases in aridity during the late Holocene led to a decline in the guanaco population in the region, which is in contrast to the harvest and environmental history in other parts of Patagonia (south of our study area). Using a weight of evidence approach that includes proxies of environmental change, human population dynamics, exploitation of guanacos, and estimates of guanaco population size, we argue that the late Holocene shift in guanaco population size was a driving factor in subsistence and settlement change related to resource intensification during the late Holocene in northwest Patagonia. • Demographic reconstruction of guanaco population dynamics during the Holocene. •Estimated population size is based on ancient DNA analysis through Next Generation Sequencing. •There are key changes in guanaco population size during the late Holocene. •Late Holocene guanaco population relates to increased hunting pressure in northwest Patagonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]