Historical Ecology

Environmental science classes often ask students to examine changes in species or their environments to determine the human impact on a particular habitat or ecosystem. It is not always practical to take students out for a field study to do this kind of analysis; instead, the scientific method and diversity analyses can be utilized while students compare topographic maps, photographs, or paintings over time. In this article, we present three laboratories that use artwork (e.g., paintings or photographs) to have students examine anthropogenic alterations in the character of landscapes and explore how our connection with nature has changed over time. These laboratories can benefit educators looking for an interdisciplinary STEAM approach to introduce both biology majors and nonmajors to environmental science concepts and the scientific method in a highly relatable way.

The disappearance of Buddhism from the land of its birth after approximately 1,700 years of profound influence constitutes one of the most significant and complex puzzles in Indian and religious history. Dominant narratives have often attributed this decline to the cataclysm of Turkic-Mongol invasions in the medieval period. This paper argues that such monocausal explanations are insufficient. Through a multifactorial analysis, it posits that Buddhism's disappearance was a "silent retreat"-a protracted process stemming from the synergistic interplay of internal weaknesses and external pressures. This paper systematically examines four interconnected causal domains: 1) the transformative Brahmanical resurgence, which engaged Buddhism philosophically and absorbed it theologically; 2) the decisive shift in political economy, which withdrew the vital patronage sustaining the monastic institution; 3) the internal dynamics of the Sangha, including intellectual elitism and a failure to embed itself in the social fabric of the laity; and 4) the final, devastating blow of foreign invasions, which destroyed a religious infrastructure already in an advanced state of decay. By synthesizing these factors, this paper demonstrates that the decline was not a single event but a slow-motion collapse, where the confluence of these elements created a "perfect storm" from which Indian Buddhism could not recover. The invasions were the coup de grâce, not the sole cause, of a tradition that had already been hollowed out from within and marginalized from without.

The disappearance of Buddhism from the land of its birth stands as one of the most intriguing puzzles in Indian history. While traditional historiography has often emphasized the cataclysmic role of Turkic-Mongol invasions, this paper argues that these events were the coup de grâce to a tradition already in profound decline. The primary engine of this decline was a multifaceted process of absorption into the resurgent Hindu mainstream. Through philosophical engagement and reform, the strategic theological co-option of the Buddha, and the gradual social and ritual assimilation of the Buddhist laity, Hinduism systematically eroded the distinct institutional, intellectual, and social identity of Buddhism. This paper traces these mechanisms of assimilation, arguing that the Buddhist Sangha was not so much defeated as it was dissolved, its boundaries permeated until it ceased to exist as a separate entity in the medieval Indian religious landscape.

The extent to which pre-Columbian societies altered Amazonian landscapes is hotly debated. We performed a basin-wide analysis of pre-Columbian impacts on Amazonian forests by overlaying known archaeological sites in Amazonia with the distributions and abundances of 85 woody species domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples. Domesticated species are five times more likely than nondomesticated species to be hyperdominant. Across the basin, the relative abundance and richness of domesticated species increase in forests on and around archaeological sites. In southwestern and eastern Amazonia, distance to archaeological sites strongly influences the relative abundance and richness of domesticated species. Our analyses indicate that modern tree communities in Amazonia are structured to an important extent by a long history of plant domestication by Amazonian peoples.

Identifying open-air assembly sites is notoriously difficult, and even more so is demonstrating the activities that took place there. This is certainly true for areas where such sites fell out of use early on due to various social changes, and where any traces have often been erased as a result of intensive land use. In this paper, we will focus on an area like that: the Netherlands, but will include data from neighbouring countries. The variation is considerable. Moreover, there is an essential difference between gathering as a goal in itself, arising from social obligation or necessity and forms of gathering that result from activities in a particular place, as is the case with markets and trading places. We explore this diversity, addressing function, organisation, manifestation, landscape setting and identification. We distinguish 1) trading places; 2) rural markets and fairs; 3) court- and meeting places (in the sense of places where meetings took place at local or supra-local level) and 4) honor courts ('courts of fealty'). Broad outlines will be identified for these types of assembly sites: dominant features and developments in time and space, and then also underlying factors/determinants.

L’Afghanistan ricopre un ruolo speciale nella recente storia russa così come nell’immaginario collettivo del popolo russo. È in questo paese incastonato tra le montagne che si è consumato uno degli ultimi atti della ‘gloriosa’ Unione Sovietica che, nei dieci anni di guerra contro i muǧāhidīn, ha visto sgretolarsi lentamente e inesorabilmente la convinzione della sua invincibilità fino a quando, pochi anni dopo, ha assistito alla sua inesorabile dissoluzione che portò all’epilogo della Guerra Fredda, alla vittoria degli Stati Uniti e sancì la ‘fine della storia’ secondo l’allora pensiero di Francis Fukuyama .
Parlando di Afghanistan e Russia potrebbe tornare in mente ai nostalgici il documentario Afgancy, prodotto nel 1988 dalla britannica Yorkshire Television, che descriveva la vita dei soldati russi durante la Guerra in Afghanistan (1979 – 1989) delineandone le difficoltà e una realtà molto meno eroica di quella che gli organi di stampa e comunicazione dell’Unione Sovietica raccontavano ai propri cittadini. Soltanto alcuni anni dopo, nel 1991, il regista russo Vladimir Mazura produrrà Afganec, un film drammatico che narrava le vicende di un soldato dell’Armata Rossa tenuto in prigionia proprio dai muǧāhidīn, una risposta forse o una conferma al documentario britannico.
Ma chi erano gli afgancy e quale è stato il loro destino? Il termine, diffuso nell’Unione Sovietica a indicare i reduci e veterani della Guerra in Afghanistan, è l’emblema di un popolo che ha vissuto la tragedia della guerra afghana tramite la sofferenza dei giovani soldati che andavano a combattere quei muǧāhidīn che, grazie al finanziamento e supporto militare statunitense, riportarono una clamorosa vittoria contro la potente, ma oramai decadente, Unione Sovietica, e che ‘rispedirono a casa nella casse di zinco’ circa 14 mila soldati sovietici .
Due facce della stessa medaglia che si intersecano nella storia russa e che permettono di comprendere quanto il legame tra il mondo russo e quello afghano sia ancora vivo come dimostra, ad esempio, la continua attività della Rossijskij Soûz veteranov Afganistana (Associazione russa dei veterani dell’Afghanistan) fondata nel 1990 che custodisce ‘gelosamente’, ma con fierezza, il Kniga Pamâti o sovetskih voinah, pogibših v Afganistane (Libro della memoria dei soldati sovietici morti in Afghanistan) .
Se la storia non bastasse, la letteratura ha consacrato un posto speciale all’Afghanistan nel mondo culturale russo. La produzione letteraria e scientifica, favorita dalla caduta dell’Unione Sovietica, ha dato vita a diverse opere, alcune delle quali ancora sconosciute ai molti o difficili da reperire. Così nel 1990, poco dopo il ritiro delle forze militari sovietiche dall’Afghanistan, Petra Tkachenko, Evgenij Besschetnov, Ivan Dynin e Elena Losoto pubblicarono i racconti e i ricordi degli afgancy che combatterono o morirono per l’Unione Sovietica confermando la drammaticità degli eventi e la debolezza di un paese che aveva mandato i propri giovani a ‘esportare’ e ‘internazionalizzare’ l’ideologia sovietica in una società basata sui valori tribali e religiosi islamici che aveva sperimentato in pochi anni significativi cambiamenti con il passaggio dalla monarchia alla repubblica .
Queste prime opere hanno lasciato il passo a diversi libri, romanzi, saggi, e ricerche sull’esperienza e presenza sovietica in Afghanistan fino ai nostri giorni data l’esigenza da parte del mondo russo di leggere o rileggere la storia della guerra afghana in una chiave critica o differente: in tale contesto, ad esempio, è possibile collocare la recente pubblicazione scritta dal giornalista Vladimir Snegirev e dall’ex colonnello del KGB nonché orientalista Valerij Samunin nella quale si è descritto l’Afghanistan come un ‘virus’ il cui contagio portò alla dissoluzione dell’Unione Sovietica e, di conseguenza, alla diffusione dell’Islam radicale e del terrorismo nella regione euroasiatica, fenomeno che divenne una delle principali minacce per la Federazione Russa degli anni ’90 e che si unì all’etnonazionalismo ceceno per poi dare vita alla minaccia dell’Emirato del Caucaso nel 2007 .
L’obiettivo che questa ricerca si prefigge è quello di ripercorrere la storia per comprendere se l’attuale governo talebano di Kabul rappresenti una minaccia oppure no per Mosca, delineando il processo storico che lega la Russia all’Afghanistan, o per meglio dire gli afgancy ai muǧāhidīn, prendendo come punto di partenza il 1979 fino ad arrivare al momento del ritiro delle truppe statunitensi da Kabul nell’agosto del 2021 e la conquista del potere da parte dei talebani.
Il processo storico, che si limiterà in questa ricerca a delineare gli eventi principali e ritenuti più importanti dall’autore, verrà contestualizzato nel quadro geopolitico euroasiatico con il fine di indagare le motivazioni che hanno spinto in passato l’Unione Sovietica e spingono oggigiorno la Federazione Russa ad interessarsi alle dinamiche afghane rinsaldando un legame storico-culturale e sociale forte che in maniera troppo frettolosa qualcuno tra le stanze del Cremlino ha cercato di dimenticare.

Il presente volume raccoglie i risultati del convegno Culture, economie e politiche del bosco in Italia dal medioevo all'età contemporanea, svoltosi a Torino tra il 23 e il 24 gennaio 2025 1 . L'idea di organizzare un incontro sui temi della storia forestale nasceva da una discussione avviata nell'ambito di due progetti attivi presso il Dipartimento di Studi storici dell'Università degli Studi di Torino. Il primo è rappresentato da una ricerca frutto di una convenzione con il Comune di Perarolo di Cadore (Provincia di Belluno), il cui obiettivo era raccogliere e sistematizzare le fonti relative a questa località, contribuendo a ricostruire la storia del paese che, per tutta l'età moderna e almeno fino alla fine dell'Ottocento, è stato uno snodo decisivo nel commercio del legname ricavato dalle foreste delle Alpi nord-orientali e destinato all'emporio commerciale di Venezia. Un successivo finanziamento PRIN-PNRR, per il progetto 'In Search of an Old Resource in the Industrial Era. Wood and the Historical Roots of the Italian Forests (1870s-1960s)', ha permesso di estendere l'indagine in chiave comparativa, confrontando le trasformazioni che hanno caratterizzato Perarolo in epoca contemporanea con le vicende di altri casi studio, ma anche arricchendo la ricerca sul piano tematico e metodologico, grazie ai contributi dei colleghi delle altre due unità che fanno parte del progetto, basate rispettivamente all'Università Politecnica delle Marche e all'Università degli Studi di Genova 2 . 1 Oltre ai testi presentati in quell'occasione, il volume comprende anche un saggio di Lucia Tedesco che è stata coinvolta nell'organizzazione del convegno sin dalle prime fasi. I curatori desiderano ringraziare le autrici, gli autori e tutti coloro che hanno animato il convegno torinese di cui questo volume è il frutto. Un ulteriore ringraziamento va a Elisa Antole,

O respeito e a valorização da fitofisionomia do Recife — especialmente da vegetação e da fauna associadas ao rio Capibaribe — constituem o eixo central do projeto Parque Capibaribe, concebido como uma estratégia de educação ambiental e patrimonial. Para isso, foi essencial compreender a composição vegetal dos fragmentos florestais remanescentes e selecionar espécies adaptáveis ao ambiente urbano, culminando na elaboração de uma paleta vegetal específica para o projeto. Reconhecida como uma das cidades mais vulneráveis às mudanças climáticas no mundo, ocupando a 16ª posição em rankings internacionais, Recife enfrenta desafios significativos no planejamento urbano sustentável. Este artigo apresenta o processo de construção da paleta vegetal do Parque Capibaribe e a lista de espécies selecionadas, destacando o caráter pioneiro da introdução de essências nativas em espaços públicos como estratégia de mitigação climática. A pesquisa baseou-se em dados produzidos pelos projetos “Botânica aplicada ao paisagismo — Parque Capibaribe” e “Identificação e ilustração botânica de espécies da Mata Atlântica aplicada ao paisagismo”, ambos vinculados ao grupo de Pesquisa e Inovação para as Cidades (INCITI), do Laboratório de Tecnologias de Investigação da Cidade da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. A experiência de projetar um espaço público com foco na requalificação ambiental revelou desafios importantes, sobretudo no que se refere à produção de mudas de espécies nativas, uma prática ainda incipiente no Brasil. Diante de sua condição climática crítica, Recife desponta como referência na busca por soluções baseadas na natureza, consolidando-se como pioneira em pesquisas voltadas à valorização da paisagem urbana, onde o verde assume papel central.

O respeito e a valorização da fitofisionomia do Recife -especialmente da vegetação e da fauna associadas ao rio Capibaribe -constituem o eixo central do projeto Parque Capibaribe, concebido como uma estratégia de educação ambiental e patrimonial. Para isso, foi essencial compreender a composição vegetal dos fragmentos florestais remanescentes e selecionar espécies adaptáveis ao ambiente urbano, culminando na elaboração de uma paleta vegetal específica para o projeto. Reconhecida como uma das cidades mais vulneráveis às mudanças climáticas no mundo, ocupando a 16ª posição em rankings internacionais, Recife enfrenta desafios significativos no planejamento urbano sustentável. Este artigo apresenta o processo de construção da paleta vegetal do Parque Capibaribe e a lista de espécies selecionadas, destacando o caráter pioneiro da introdução de essências nativas em espaços públicos como estratégia de mitigação climática. A pesquisa baseou-se em dados produzidos pelos projetos "Botânica aplicada ao paisagismo -Parque Capibaribe" e "Identificação e ilustração botânica de espécies da Mata Atlântica aplicada ao paisagismo", ambos vinculados ao grupo de

O respeito e a valorização da fitofisionomia do Recife -especialmente da vegetação e da fauna associadas ao rio Capibaribe -constituem o eixo central do projeto Parque Capibaribe, concebido como uma estratégia de educação ambiental e patrimonial. Para isso, foi essencial compreender a composição vegetal dos fragmentos florestais remanescentes e selecionar espécies adaptáveis ao ambiente urbano, culminando na elaboração de uma paleta vegetal específica para o projeto. Reconhecida como uma das cidades mais vulneráveis às mudanças climáticas no mundo, ocupando a 16ª posição em rankings internacionais, Recife enfrenta desafios significativos no planejamento urbano sustentável. Este artigo apresenta o processo de construção da paleta vegetal do Parque Capibaribe e a lista de espécies selecionadas, destacando o caráter pioneiro da introdução de essências nativas em espaços públicos como estratégia de mitigação climática. A pesquisa baseou-se em dados produzidos pelos projetos "Botânica aplicada ao paisagismo -Parque Capibaribe" e "Identificação e ilustração botânica de espécies da Mata Atlântica aplicada ao paisagismo", ambos vinculados ao grupo de

Archaeological and environmental research by an international and interdisciplinary team opens new perspectives into the settlement histories of Kansyore, Early Iron Age, and Bigo period peoples in the once forested regions of the Ndali Crater Lakes Region (NCLR) of western Uganda. The research examines the role of Kansyore agropastoralists and their Early Iron Age and Bantu-speaking contemporaries in remaking a once forested environment into a forest-savannah mosaic from circa 500 BC to the end of the first millennium AD. Archaeological settlement and subsistence evidence is examined within a framework of social interaction of Sudanic speakers with Bantu speakers, drawing on historical linguistics and environmental studies to arrive at a new synthesis of late Holocene history in western Uganda. This perspective also unveils the significance and chronology of Boudiné ware, a long enigmatic ceramic tradition that we identify as contemporary to Transitional Urewe and deeply influenced through social interactions with those making Kansyore ceramics and inhabiting the same landscape. Using archaeological evidence from fifteen sites and multiple burials spanning from 400 to 1650 calAD, new views of ceramic histories, lifeways, and

Az Elfer család A tavalyi esztendőben elkezdett munkát, - amikor is a Gansel és Heksch családok történetét igyekeztem a fennmaradt levéltári, anyakönyvi és egyéb források bevonásával bemutatni - ezúttal az Elfer família históriájának hasonló módú feltárásával folytatom.

Jewish Families of Balassagyarmat II – The Elfer Family.

The work begun last year—with the aim of presenting the history of the Gansel and Heksch families through the use of surviving archival, parish register, and other sources—I now continue with a similar exploration of the history of the Elfer family.

The Black Death (1347–1352ce) is the most renowned pandemic in human history, believed by many to have killed half of Europe’s population. However, despite advances in ancient DNA research that conclusively identified the pandemic’s causative agent (bacteriumYersinia pestis), our knowledge of the Black Death remains limited, based primarily on qualitative remarks in medieval written sources available for some areas of Western Europe. Here, we remedy this situation by applying a pioneering new approach, ‘big data palaeoecology’, which, starting from palynological data, evaluates the scale of the Black Death’s mortality on a regional scale across Europe. We collected pollen data on landscape change from 261 radiocarbon-dated coring sites (lakes and wetlands) located across 19 modern-day European countries. We used two independent methods of analysis to evaluate whether the changes we see in the landscape at the time of the Black Death agree with the hypothesis that a large portion of ...

The management of environmental resources is a key theme in rural and environmental history, yet interdisciplinary dialogue remains limited. This paper examines how political transformations in 19th-century Southern Europe influenced environmental policymaking in Portugal and Spain. By integrating rural history, political discourse analysis, and 19th-century scientific and engineering texts, it enhances understanding of environmental governance and sustainable practices.

Expanding political participation in the 19th century reshaped environmental policies. As legislative bodies became more inclusive, they incorporated individuals with engineering and scientific expertise, fostering new approaches to environmental management. This shift shaped inland water and forestry regulations, as seen in Portugal’s late 19th-century environmental laws and Spain’s forestry and water policies. By linking rural history with engineers’ and scientists’ contributions, this study highlights how technical knowledge informed legislative debates and decisions.

This research contributes to broader efforts to integrate scientific and technical expertise into historical analysis. Examining engineering and scientific writings alongside legislative records reveals how expertise shaped governance, balancing private property rights with public conservation interests. These insights inform discussions on governance, sustainability, and the historical role of technical knowledge in policymaking.

Indigenous peoples have long histories and diverse contemporary practices of caring for and enhancing biodiversity at different scales, in rural and urban contexts. As has been researched and documented by the Convention on Biological Diversity and others, Indigenous peoples globally only constitute 5% of the world’s population and control and care for just 20% of the Earth’s surface yet protect nearly 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. Indigenous peoples have forms of biodiversity conservation that could be characterized as “nature-based solutions” (NbS), or would they be culture-based solutions? Given the extraordinary diversity of Indigenous peoples globally, there will never be a “one size fits all” solution. Yet there are general principles that have been articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that articulate global concepts of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). IKS, TEK, and Native ways of knowing and caring for biodiversity can find both resonance and conflict with what is currently being called NbS. This article articulates Indigenous concerns and critiques of the conceptual and ontological framework of NbS, demonstrating that Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems include a similar framework but extend it to include a distinctly biocultural and relational orientation that does not make an artificial division between nature and culture. Different Indigenous perspectives and approaches to sustainability will be highlighted, including two case stories. We conclude with recommendations for respectful, just, decolonial, and transparent ways to explore greater resonance between NbS and Indigenous peoples’ rights.

Past coastal reconstruction is useful for understanding archaeological coastal settlements and predicting how coastal change might affect modern populations. The ancient Maritime Maya inhabitants of Vista Alegre in the northeastern Yucatan were active seafaring peoples. However, the past coastal landscape environmental history is unknown. Previous research concentrated on the fully terrestrial component of the site, and did not approach the issue from an earth sciences, sedimentological perspective. In this study, a sediment core campaign in the shallow offshore of Vista Alegre aimed to reconstruct the coastal and environmental changes that occurred over the past 3000 years, and specifically identify the changes in sea-level. Nine cores were analyzed using a multiproxy approach including a range of sedimentological parameters such as granulometry, micropaleontology (foraminifera), radiocarbon dating, and loss on ignition. The sediment cores provided an archive of environmental changes related to sea-level change, anthropogenic influence, and shifting microenvironments which can be associated with cultural time periods. The environmental phases and shifts show some linkage to the archaeological chronology, suggesting an association between the environmental conditions and human activities. Sea-level changes and shifting shorelines have always been, and still are, a challenge for coastal settlements, and ancient sites can be a harbinger of what to anticipate in the future. In addition to this, current natural and anthropogenic pressures on coastlines are placing archaeological sites at increasing risk and thereby threatening this important scientific and cultural archive. Therefore, efforts to identify, characterize, and record natural and anthropogenic pressures prior to destruction are increasingly important.

Although Maya scholars have referenced coastal settlements in the more general discourse on past landscapes, coastal landscapes have only rarely been the explicit focus of research programs. Coastal peoples, however, faced distinct challenges and opportunities not shared by their inland neighbors. These had material ramifications in terms of the specific decisions coastal inhabitants made over time while trying to take advantage of opportunities and manage risks. The north coast of the Yucatan Peninsula is a complex physiographic mosaic that is categorically distinct from the inland expanses of the Maya lowlands. No doubt, the physically delimiting aspects of the north coast's diverse environment played a major role in shaping more localized concepts of landscape. Here, we employ an historical ecology framework to integrate the interdisciplinary studies conducted by the Proyecto Costa Escondida along the Yucatan's north coast. Specifically, we focus on the ancient Maya port site of Vista Alegre and what our research has revealed about the dynamic interplay of social and natural processes that shaped life at this ancient Maya port over the past three millennia.

Significance Academic debate about Indigenous fire stewardship's role in shaping North American forests has vital conservation, management, and policy implications. Our research, informed by oral histories, archaeological records, and tree-ring data, demonstrates how Anishinaabe fire stewardship maintained ecologically and culturally significant pine barrens communities along the shores of Lake Superior in central North American. The cessation of fires, driven by colonial policies that suppressed Indigenous practices, disrupted these systems, threatening their diversity and resilience. Braiding Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science highlights the need to reintroduce cultural fire to support these rare socioecological systems. This provides a globally relevant model for reciprocal collaboration that recognizes Indigenous sovereignty and land tending practices to enhance landscape diversity and resilience in the face of climate change.

Tarcísio Jose Gualberto Fernandes -(Ufac) Jorge Mardini -(Ufac) A arqueologia amazônica tem experimentado uma nova realidade com a descoberta dos Geoglifos ou estruturas de terra delimitadas por valetas. Os geoglifos, como estão sendo chamados, são caracterizados como estruturas arqueológicas construídas mediante valas continuas formando recintos de diferentes formatos geométricos com vários tamanhos. Nessas estruturas existem caminhos ou trilhas que começam na própria estrutura e estão direcionadas a varias direções, ou podem remeter a ideia ou quiçá nos de um esforço de imaginar figuras. Dado a tal complexidade destas estruturas e seus caminhos, considerando os diferentes estudos já publicados nesta região, pode-se afirmar que essas estruturas arqueológicas indicam a existência de uma população expressiva, organizada regionalmente e, que viveu por centenas de anos em um habitat que anteriormente era considerada uma região inóspita para grande populações. Palavras chaves: Arqueologia amazônica, geoglifos do Acre, estruturas de terra imagens de satélites.

Evolutionary ecology is a theoretical framework that has been widely applied to problems in human evolution and prehistory. Because the approach often focuses on how behavioral adjustments to changing socio-ecological conditions create novel selective pressures that in turn drive other changes in morphology and behavior, it draws on the same evolutionary logic that underlies niche construction theory. We illustrate here the important role that niche construction has played in archaeological applications of evolutionary ecology with two detailed case studies: one from Late Holocene hunter-gatherer populations in Central California and one from Mimbres-Mogollon agriculturalists in New Mexico. These examples illustrate that evolutionary ecology-based approaches, with an emphasis on formal predictive modeling, allow for the incorporation of niche construction as it affects model parameters with reference to specific problems involving past behavior. Further modeling and empirical applications will expand the synergies between these complementary approaches and advance our understanding of the human past.

The use of Nicotiana species among pre-Hispanic populations in the Americas has a long and diverse history. This study provides direct evidence of early tobacco consumption on the hyper-arid coast of Antofagasta, Chile, dating to the Archaic period (ca. 6000 BP). Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), we analyzed dental calculus samples from 12 individuals and detected cotinine-a metabolite of nicotine-in seven samples. These findings extend the regional timeline of tobacco use by about 4000 years compared to previous evidence. The absence of smoking or snuffing paraphernalia suggests alternative consumption methods, such as chewing, possibly for medicinal purposes. The presence of cotinine in both male and female individuals suggests that tobacco use may not have been limited to one gender, although further research is needed to confirm possible patterns of access or consumption. This research highlights dental calculus as a valuable bioarchaeological substrate and offers new insights into early cultural practices and human-plant interactions associated with Nicotiana in South America. Due to the small sample size and variable preservation, these results should be viewed as preliminary and require confirmation through further archaeological and botanical analyses.

The proposal that we have entered a new geological period, the Anthropocene, has gained currency both inside and outside of scienti c circles. It is, therefore, worth understanding where this idea comes from and how the science behind it has developed. This article discusses both the nature of empirical support for the Anthropocene proposal as well as the analytical apparatus supporting and surrounding it. To a surprising extent, the notion of an Anthropocene represents an e ort to expand homogenized European historical experiences, frameworks and chronologies onto the rest of the world. This focus

AimRevisits of non‐permanent, relocatable plots first surveyed several decades ago offer a direct way to observe vegetation change and form a unique and increasingly used source of information for global change research. Despite the important insights that can be obtained from resurveying these quasi‐permanent vegetation plots, their use is prone to both observer and relocation errors. Studying the combined effects of both error types is important since they will play out together in practice and it is yet unknown to what extent observed vegetation changes are influenced by these errors.MethodsWe designed a study that mimicked all steps in a resurvey study and that allowed determination of the magnitude of observer errors only vs the joint observer and relocation errors. Communities of vascular plants growing in the understorey of temperate forests were selected as study system. Ten regions in Europe were covered to explore generality across contexts and 50 observers were involved, ...

Justinianic Plague of the mid-sixth century and the Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century. Over the past decade, our understanding of these events has grown considerably as more scholars study the plague and as the sciences of human history begin to explore the premodern aspects of plague. Still, many significant research questions remain unanswered, numerous critical gaps exist, and debates continue over key elements of each pandemic's history. The demographic effects of the Justinianic Plague have become Scholars and others have long been fascinated by the scale of death reported during the First and Second Plague Pandemics, as well as the cultural, economic, environmental, political, and social impacts of those deaths. Although both pandemics lasted for centuries, most focus has been on their initial spread in Western Eurasia and North Africa: the

The extent to which pre-Columbian societies altered Amazonian landscapes is hotly debated. We performed a basin-wide analysis of pre-Columbian impacts on Amazonian forests by overlaying known archaeological sites in Amazonia with the distributions and abundances of 85 woody species domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples. Domesticated species are five times more likely than nondomesticated species to be hyperdominant. Across the basin, the relative abundance and richness of domesticated species increase in forests on and around archaeological sites. In southwestern and eastern Amazonia, distance to archaeological sites strongly influences the relative abundance and richness of domesticated species. Our analyses indicate that modern tree communities in Amazonia are structured to an important extent by a long history of plant domestication by Amazonian peoples.

In the context of recent debates and focus upon the Anthropocene, Deltaic ecology, climate change, and geopolitics, this paper has attempted to unsettle the established and popular narratives on climate change, geopolitics, and fascism in reference to Bangladesh. Taking recourse to various thinkers, from a transdisciplinary perspective, the normalized notions of human and non-human separation with regard to fascism and geopolitics have been questioned, and it has been proposed that without a radical rethinking of the space categorized as 'the Bengal Delta' as a living entity comprising multiple microcosmic living and sentient entities, it is not possible to grasp the increasingly destructive entanglement of subjective and objective conditions. The idea and practice of fascism can be extended beyond the domain of the nation-state and externalist agents, and the authoritarian, totalitarian, and extractive anthropocentric worldview of the earth, and the delta is as fascist as the human-centric management and mitigation policies pertaining to the water and land in the Bengal Delta.

O Parque Natural Municipal da Taquara (PNMT) é uma área de conservação localizada no bioma Mata Atlântica, está situado no município de Duque de Caxias, estado do Rio de Janeiro, sendo recoberto por Floresta Ombrófila Densa Submontana. A Floresta Atlântica é um bioma que possui uma grande diversidade de espécies vegetais e apesar de recentes estudos na região, o conhecimento de muitos táxons ainda é incipiente. Distribuída dentro desse domínio da Mata Atlântica, a família Solanaceae compreende cerca de 3000 espécies e 150 gêneros com ampla distribuição, principalmente em regiões tropicais e subtropicais da América do Sul. No Brasil ocorrem 350 espécies e 32 gêneros, caracterizadas por árvores pequenas, arbustos, ervas ou trepadeiras inermes ou com acúleos, glabros ou com pelos simples, ramificados ou estrelados. Este trabalho teve como objetivo apresentar o levantamento florístico da família Solanaceae no Parque Natural Municipal da Taquara, contribuindo para a ampliação dos conhecimentos sobre a flora, a ecologia e a conservação desta família e complementando a lista de espécies do estado do Rio de Janeiro. Para elaboração deste trabalho analisou-se coleções de Solanaceae ocorrentes na área de estudo depositadas nos principais herbários do Estado. Realizou-se coletas mensais com duração de 1 dia durante 1 ano. Os materiais botânicos coletados foram herborizados segundo técnicas usuais para plantas vasculares e incorporados ao acervo dos herbários da Universidade do Grande Rio (UNIGRANRIO), Alberto Castellanos -INEA (GUA) e Instituto de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro (RB). Como resultado foram encontradas três espécies representantes de um mesmo gênero, são elas: Solanun ciliatum, Solanum paniculatum e Solanum pseudoquina.

Prostor i vrijeme glavne su odrednice klasičnog povijesnog istraživanja, pa ipak, veliki broj povjesničara s vremena na vrijeme se odvaži razbiti ove graničnike. I ovo moje otiskivanje tokom Briježnice ima takav istraživački oblik. Ono što je u njemu ključno, i što želim naglasiti, je to, da sve zapisano unutar ove knjige ima znanstvenu, dokumentarnu podlogu, ali sam se, ponesen avanturom, u njihovom interpretiranju ponekad odmaknuo od faktografskog pozitivizma i zašao u sferu pjesničke slobode. Dakle, stavove i mišljenja koja ovdje iznosim – ponavljam, utemeljene na činjenicama – ne mogu potvrditi i nikad ih ne bih iznio u ozbiljnom istraživačkom radu, ali s emotivne strane mislim da mi je sasvim dozvoljeno kontekstualizirati pojedine događaje onako kako ih ja vidim, ili barem kako ih želim vidjeti u nastojanju da stvorim zanimljivu priču. I kao paradoks će ispasti mišljenje da mi ozbiljan čitatelj to neće uzeti za zlo.

Iako sam ih pokušao kronološki uvezati, poglavlja u ovoj knjizi ostaju fragmentirana, što je i normalno, jer pišem jednu subjektivnu povijest i taj međuprostor koji se između tekstova javlja je prostor za ostale subjektivne povijesti čitatelja ove knjige. O nekim općepoznatim stvarima nisam htio raspredati naširoko, čitatelj ih može naći na drugim mjestima. Ja sam se potrudio u ovim zabilješkama donijeti nov, do sada nepoznat ili manje poznat materijal. Pišući i o nekim poznatijim događajima trudio sam se potkrijepiti ih manje poznatim dokumentima, najčešće iz rukopisâ. Nadam se da će tako oblikovana knjižica čitateljima biti zanimljiva i korisna.

Čitatelj će se u ovoj knjizi susresti s metatekstovima na koje upućuju brojevi u uglastim zagradama. Na taj način nude mu se dvije mogućnosti čitanja: klasično, iz poglavlja u poglavlje, i usmjereno čitanje, kojim čitatelj prekida klasični tok narativa kako bi stekao dodatne spoznaje o određenim mjestima u tekstu. I sam tekst, kao i Briježnica, podijeljen je na dva dijela. Prvi dio drži se konkretnih, stvarnih događaja koji su se zbili. Ovaj dio traje dok govorim o Briježnici koja i danas teče od svog izvora do mjesta gdje je 1971. prekinuta lateralnim kanalima. Drugi dio je imaginarni, on počinje u trenutku kada Briježnica više nema svoju vodu i prati je njezinim starim, bivšim tokom. Ovaj dio knjige više je usmjeren na predaje, folklor i običaje. Ovakvim načinom pripovijedanja pokušao sam ostati usklađen sa stvarnom pozicijom rijeke čiji je tok u gornjem dijelu itekako postojeći, dočim je donji dio toka samo odraz nekadašnjeg.

The extent to which pre-Columbian societies altered Amazonian landscapes is hotly debated. We performed a basin-wide analysis of pre-Columbian impacts on Amazonian forests by overlaying known archaeological sites in Amazonia with the distributions and abundances of 85 woody species domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples. Domesticated species are five times more likely than nondomesticated species to be hyperdominant. Across the basin, the relative abundance and richness of domesticated species increase in forests on and around archaeological sites. In southwestern and eastern Amazonia, distance to archaeological sites strongly influences the relative abundance and richness of domesticated species. Our analyses indicate that modern tree communities in Amazonia are structured to an important extent by a long history of plant domestication by Amazonian peoples.

Archaeological and environmental research by an international and interdisciplinary team opens new perspectives into the settlement histories of Kansyore, Early Iron Age, and Bigo period peoples in the once forested regions of the Ndali Crater Lakes Region (NCLR) of western Uganda. The research examines the role of Kansyore agropastoralists and their Early Iron Age and Bantu-speaking contemporaries in remaking a once forested environment into a forest-savannah mosaic from circa 500 BC to the end of the first millennium AD. Archaeological settlement and subsistence evidence is examined within a framework of social interaction of Sudanic speakers with Bantu speakers, drawing on historical linguistics and environmental studies to arrive at a new synthesis of late Holocene history in western Uganda. This perspective also unveils the significance and chronology of Boudiné ware, a long enigmatic ceramic tradition that we identify as contemporary to Transitional Urewe and deeply influenced through social interactions with those making Kansyore ceramics and inhabiting the same landscape. Using archaeological evidence from fifteen sites and multiple burials spanning from 400 to 1650 calAD, new views of ceramic histories, lifeways, and

Artículo de investigación Resumen Este estudio examina las relaciones de poder y dependencia en el enclave agroindustrial del aguacate en Michoacán, México. Mediante un enfoque cualitativo, se muestra cómo corporaciones, intermediarios, grandes productores y el Estado controlan la cadena productiva y de valor. Los hallazgos revelan una estructura neoextractivista dominada por empresas transnacionales que concentran capital y mercados, generando una dependencia estructural que restringe la autonomía local. La acumulación de capitales simbólicos refuerza estas desigualdades. Se concluye que este modelo reproduce tanto la dependencia externa como la interna, por lo que se requieren acciones del Estado y actores locales organizados para reducir las vulnerabilidades resultantes.

The Holocene zooarchaeological record of the subarctic and Arctic can be used to aid in the conservation and management of marine mammals. A synthesis of selected zooarchaeological data indicates that there have been significant changes in species ranges, that northern marine ecosystems varied temporally and spatially, and that changes in sea ice extent may be accessible through retrospective research. Despite some limitations, the analysis of faunal collections from regionally appropriate coastal prehistoric and historic-era archaeological sites can be used to provide baseline information on marine systems that is less likely than more recent data to be compromised by intensive and extensive human impacts. The long-term time series data derived through zooarchaeology are particularly relevant to marine conservation and management decision-making in the Arctic where climate change scenarios predict accelerated environmental changes in the coming decades.

Ecological understanding of the oceans is based on an unnatural mix of mostly small species whose trophic relations are distorted to an unknown degree by the overfishing of megafauna including sharks, sea turtles, sea cows, seals, and whales. Living habitats like seagrass beds, kelp forests, and coral reefs that once provided critical 3-dimensional habitats for refuge and reproduction of most of the biodiversity of the oceans are also greatly reduced by fishing and other factors. Successful restoration and conservation require a more realistic understanding of the ecology of pristine marine ecosystems that can only be obtained by a combination of retrospective analyses, modeling, and intensive studies of succession in very large marine reserves.

Ecological understanding of the oceans is based on an unnatural mix of mostly small species whose trophic relations are distorted to an unknown degree by the overfishing of megafauna including sharks, sea turtles, sea cows, seals, and whales. Living habitats like seagrass beds, kelp forests, and coral reefs that once provided critical 3-dimensional habitats for refuge and reproduction of most of the biodiversity of the oceans are also greatly reduced by fishing and other factors. Successful restoration and conservation require a more realistic understanding of the ecology of pristine marine ecosystems that can only be obtained by a combination of retrospective analyses, modeling, and intensive studies of succession in very large marine reserves.

Potsherds from 7 Venezuelan islands have been studied using a two-fold magneto/dielectric technique in order to identify clay sources and characterize different stages of pottery craftsmanship. This is the first study of archeological material using this technique. Petrographic analyses appear to agree with the clusters of data identified in scatter plots of initial magnetic susceptibility versus saturation isothermal remanent magnetization (SIRM), and natural remanent magnetization (NRM). Thus, these magnetic parameters appear to be suitable for describing clay source characteristics. Effective magnetic grain sizes, investigated via stability analyses of SIRM and anystheretic remanent magnetization (ARM) upon alternating field (AF) demagnetization, and SIRM acquisition and AF demagnetization crossover plots, seem to be related to different steps of pottery craftsmanship, namely clay preparation, finishing and firing. Thermomagnetic curves might also provide valuable information abo...

En esta investigación se evaluó el impacto de las aguas residuales domésticas y agroindustriales en la cuenca del río La Vieja, Colombia, considerando como factores para la evaluación el crecimiento poblacional, el desarrollo agroindustrial y los efectos de la variabilidad y el cambio climático. La evaluación de la calidad del agua se logró mediante la integración de las herramientas de modelación WEAP (Water Evaluation And Planning System) y QUAL2K, que permitió realizar el análisis dendrítico (sistema ramificado de 11 fuentes hídricas que tributan al cauce principal) del comportamiento de la cantidad y la calidad del agua del río La Vieja. La cuenca del río La Vieja se localiza al centro sur de Colombia, con una extensión aproximadamente de 2.880 km2. Las principales ventajas de la integración de los modelos corresponden a la posibilidad de modificar la cinética de degradación de los contaminantes por tramo de río en el modelo QUAL2K y la dinamización de los resultados de este mod...

Ancestral sea gardens in British Columbia (BC) were managed to provide high long-term yields for millennia before European contact. While the ubiquity and productivity of sea gardens are well known, the ecological and cultural impact of the transition from ancestral to settler-colonial fisheries has not been investigated in a historical ecology context. Here, we examine that transition in the BC clam fishery, documenting the social and legal mechanisms used to dispossess Indigenous clam harvesters and identifying the ecological impacts of settler-colonial fisheries. Our results document a rapid change in clam tending, harvesting and processing that relied on Indigenous land, knowledge, labour and skill being directed away from traditional harvesting and towards unsustainable catches for commercial gain. We identify evidence of serial depletions and declines in relative abundance as measured by spatial shifts in harvesting, declines in catch per unit of effort, and a transition from native to non-native clam species. Finally, we identify additional evidence of the legacy of Indigenous tending 50 years after the start of the commercial fishery, demonstrating sustained productivity on beaches that continued to undergo Indigenous harvesting. Ongoing efforts in BC aim to restore ancestral clam beaches and tending practices. Historical insights can play a crucial role in restoration efforts by identifying ecological baselines and helping support the Indigenous reclamation of ocean spaces and the responsibility to tend them. This article is part of the theme issue 'Shifting seas: understanding deep-time human impacts on marine ecosystems'.

In this chapter, we examine the iconic disappearance of the Medieval Norse Greenlanders and use qualitative scenarios and counterfactual analysis to produce lessons for policymakers. We stress the role that archaeologists and historians have in adding context to contemporary social and environmental challenges and use human-environmental histories as 'natural experiments' with which to test scenarios. Rather than drawing direct analogies with discrete historical case studies

Pela análise da novela O colonizador, de G. G. Diniz (2020a), discutimos a representação da simbiose entre humano-fungo e sua correspondência na realidade social latino-americana e caribenha marcada pela colonialidade do poder. A narrativa passa-se no futuro, em um planeta glacial usado pela mineradora Astra para extração de metais. Em meio à exploração, foram encontradas reminiscências de vida senciente, e, nas amostras de gelo recolhidas, havia bolhas de ar com traços de uma espécie desconhecida de fungo que seria reanimada e analisada pela equipe de exobiologia, composta apenas do Dr. Costa e de sua auxiliar, Jandira. Por meio da experiência persecutória dessa personagem, a narrativa explora o medo de contaminação na perspectiva de uma protagonista cujos marcadores sociais de diferença representam, para a cultura gótica tradicional, “desvios” raciais e de gênero tratados como “contagiosos”. Assim, Diniz (2020a), como autora brasileira contemporânea comprometida com a questão ambiental e social, atualiza aquela tradição ao tensionar a ansiedade sobre a relação entre humanos e “não humanos” e a ideia de natureza como fonte de horror. Desse movimento, emerge uma alternativa ao modelo exploratório de se relacionar com o outro total do humano. Para fundamentar essa discussão, baseamo-nos no pensamento de Ochy Curiel e Generoso (2020) para relacionar o conceito de colonialidade do poder ao extrativismo. Em seguida, contextualizamos os modos como o conceito de ecogótico pós-colonial é articulado em O colonizador como uma tecnologia discursiva que serve como antídoto à ecofobia de raiz colonialista.

n their recent paper entitled "Steller's sea cow genome suggests this species began going extinct before the arrival of Paleolithic humans", Sharko et al. use novel genomic methods to infer the demographic history of this species. Based on a single specimen from the Commander Islands, the authors conclude that the species suffered a single catastrophic population decline approximately 400,000 years ago and was thus already on the verge of extinction well before human arrivals in the Late Pleistocene. Here we suggest their demographic assumptions warrant reinterpretation given the ecological barriers that likely structured sea cow populations along the North Pacific Rim. Our preliminary range simulations suggest that the Commander Is. population may have been physically isolated from others, making it unsuitable as a demographic inference for the entire sea cow North Pacific range. Under these assumptions, Sharko et al.'s findings are more likely indicative of the time since the isolation of this remnant population from the rest of the sea cow range, rather than representative of the population contraction of the species. This perspective highlights the importance of considering historical ecology and paleobiogeography when interpreting genomic data to infer past demographic histories. Since Li and Durbin 2 published their milestone paper on the development of pairwise sequentially Markovian coalescent (PSMC) models to infer species demographic histories from a single diploid genome, their approach has become extremely popular with iconic endangered (e.g., giant panda 3 ) and extinct species (e.g., passenger pigeon 4 , woolly mammoth 5 ). Although there are significant methodological questions, such as the effects that natural selection can have on vertebrate genomes 6 , and separating population size variation from population structure 7 , we believe this method will contribute in impactful ways to our understanding of species demographic histories, especially given the possibility of using few, or single specimens. However, to appropriately substantiate assumptions, demographic analyses derived from such models must carefully

AimThe global decline of megafauna is believed to have had significant and widespread ecological impacts. One such extinction of likely important consequence is the 18th century extinction of the Steller’s sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas); however, little has been written about how the loss of this megaherbivore may have impacted coastal ecosystem dynamics. Drawing on historical evidence, sea cow biology, kelp forest ecology, and the ecology of extant sirenians, we propose several discrete hypotheses about the effects Steller’s sea cows may have had on kelp forest dynamics of the North Pacific.LocationNorth Pacific Ocean.Time periodPre‐1760s.Major taxa studiedSteller’s sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas).Results & conclusionsThe evidence we review suggests that Steller’s sea cows exerted substantial direct and indirect influences on kelp forests, likely affecting the physical ecosystem structure, productivity, nutrient cycling, species interactions, and export of nutrients to surrounding ecosy...