scholarly journals Multidecadal Climate Variability and the Florescence of Fremont Societies in Eastern Utah

2019 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judson Byrd Finley ◽  
Erick Robinson ◽  
R. Justin DeRose ◽  
Elizabeth Hora
Keyword(s):  
Precipitation Variability ◽  
Precipitation Reconstruction ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Maize Production ◽  
National Monument ◽  
The Social ◽  
Precipitation Record ◽  
Dinosaur National Monument ◽  
Multidecadal Climate Variability

Fremont societies of the Uinta Basin incorporated domesticates into a foraging lifeway over a 1,000-year period from AD 300 to 1300. Fremont research provides a unique opportunity to critically examine the social and ecological processes behind the adoption and abandonment of domesticates by hunter-gatherers. We develop and integrate a 2,115-year precipitation reconstruction with a Bayesian chronological model for the growth of Fremont societies in the Cub Creek reach of Dinosaur National Monument. Comparison of the archaeological chronology with the precipitation record suggests that the florescence of Fremont societies was an adaptation to multidecadal precipitation variability with an approximately 30-plus-year periodicity over most, but not all, of the last 2,115 years. Fremont societies adopted domesticates to enhance their resilience to periodic droughts. We propose that reduced precipitation variability from AD 750 to AD 1050, superimposed over consistent mean precipitation availability, was the tipping point that increased maize production, initiated agricultural intensification, and resulted in increased population and development of pithouse communities. Our study develops a multidecadal/multigenerational model within which to evaluate the strategies underwriting the adoption of domesticates by foragers, the formation of Fremont communities, and the inherent vulnerabilities to resource intensification that implicate the eventual dissolution of those communities.

ONGOING CRACK MONITORING AT THE CARNEGIE QUARRY, DINOSAUR NATIONAL MONUMENT, UTAH

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt W. Katzenstein ◽  
◽  
Robert Huber ◽  
Eric L. Bilderback ◽  
ReBecca Hunt-Foster
Keyword(s):  
National Monument ◽  
Dinosaur National Monument ◽  
Crack Monitoring

Age-related climate sensitivity in Pinus Edulis at Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado, USA

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 40-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin P. Hanna ◽  
Donald A. Falk ◽  
Thomas W. Swetnam ◽  
William Romme
Keyword(s):  
Climate Sensitivity ◽  
Pinus Edulis ◽  
National Monument ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Dinosaur National Monument

scholarly journals Mesolithic Fireplaces and the Enculturation of Early Holocene Landscapes in Britain, with a Case Study from Western Scotland

2019 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 131-159
Author(s):  
Steven Mithen
Keyword(s):  
Early Holocene ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Subsistence Economy ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
The Social

In light of the enculturation of landscapes by ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers, we should expect Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to have endowed their early Holocene landscapes with meaning. Attempts to find evidence for this have focussed on the unusual and exotic – those aspects of the archaeological record that seem immediately unrelated to subsistence. In this contribution, I suggest that fireplaces, ubiquitous on Mesolithic sites and often swiftly passed over in site reports as evidence for cooking alone, had played a key role in the process of landscape enculturation. Although we cannot reconstruct the specific meanings once attached to early Holocene landscapes, by appreciating the social and cultural significance of fireplaces we gain a more holistic view of the Mesolithic than is currently the case, whether in those studies that focus on settlement and subsistence or those that cite examples of ritual. In the course of making this argument, I summarise the evidence for fireplaces from Mesolithic Britain, noting the need for more systematic reporting. Finally, I provide a case study from western Scotland that seeks to view a suite of fireplaces in the context of the landscape topography, early Holocene environments, subsistence economy, and by drawing on selected ethnographic analogies.

scholarly journals Crossing Sociological, Ecological, and Nutritional Perspectives on Agrifood Systems Transitions: Towards a Transdisciplinary Territorial Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Lamine ◽  
Danièle Magda ◽  
Marie-Josèphe Amiot
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Environment And Health ◽  
Agrifood System ◽  
The Social ◽  
Territorial Approach ◽  
Reflexive Analysis ◽  
Analytical Frameworks ◽  
System Approaches

The need to reconnect agriculture, environment, food, and health when addressing agrifood system transitions is widely acknowledged. However, most analytical frameworks, especially in the expanding literature about “system approaches”, rely on impact-based approaches and, thus, tend to overlook ecological processes as well as social ones. This article aims at demonstrating that a territorial approach to agrifood system transitions is more appropriate to tackle the reconnection between agriculture, food, environment, and health than the larger scales (global or national food systems) or the smaller ones (such as those of alternative food systems) usually addressed in the literature. Co-elaborated by a sociologist, an ecologist, and a nutritionist, this article is based on a focused analysis of the literature that has addressed agrifood system transitions in the food and health sciences and in the social sciences and on the reflexive analysis of two past projects dealing with such transitions. It shows that a territorial approach allows including in the analysis the diverse agrifood systems’ components as well the ecological and social processes that may create functionalities for improving agrifood systems’ sustainability. This territorial approach is based on systemic and processual thinking and on a transdisciplinary perspective combining an objectification stance and a pragmatist constructivist one. It should allow actors and researchers to build a shared understanding of the transition processes within their shared territorial agrifood system, despite possibly different and diverging views.

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