Henry De la Beche’s pioneering paleoecological illustration, Duria antiquior

Author(s):  
Tom Sharpe ◽  
Renee M. Clary

ABSTRACT In late 1829 or early 1830, Henry Thomas De la Beche (1796–1855), in collaboration with William Buckland (1784–1856), published Duria antiquior [A more ancient Dorsetshire], the earliest known paleoecological illustration of ancient life. De la Beche’s interpretation was based largely on fossils then recently uncovered from Lower Jurassic (Lias) rocks near Lyme Regis on the south coast of England. Many of these were brought to scientific attention by local fossil collector and dealer Mary Anning (1799–1847). De la Beche published Duria antiquior as a lithograph, copies of which were sold as a fundraiser for Anning, who was then in straitened circumstances. Duria antiquior represented a new style of paleontological illustration that pioneered a new scientific genre addressing the history of nature and an innovative viewpoint where the observer glimpses lifeforms through the water. Other authors modified and adopted De la Beche’s visionary illustration, and the style became commonplace in popular geological publications in the later nineteenth century. Duria antiquior can be acknowledged as the pioneering graphic from which fossil organisms’ reconstructions and modern computer-generated paleoecosystem animations trace their origins.

1974 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Nicholls

One of the striking facts about the social and political history of Haiti from independence in 1804 to the present is the deep gulf separating the largely mulatto elite groups from the predominantly black masses. The war of the South in 1799 between Toussaint and Rigaud, and the conflicts between Christophe and Pétion, while not primarily caused by color factors, were reinforced by suspicions and hostilities between black and mulatto, with each group accusing the other of prejudice and discrimination. Politics in the rest of the nineteenth century can generally be seen as a tussle between a mulatto elite centered in the capital and in the cities of the South, on the one hand, and a small black elite often in alliance with army leaders and peasant irregulars, on the other. In the years following 1867 these groups formalized themselves into a largely mulatto Liberal Party, and a preponderantly black National Party.


2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 512-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Urton ◽  
Alejandro Chu

The site of Inkawasi (or Incahuasi) is located in the Cahete Valley, on the south coast of Peru. It was a major garrison and storage facility for the Inka expansion onto the south coast, built for housing and provisioning troops in the Inka assault on the Huarco peoples. Archaeological excavations of the storage facility have exposed what is to date a collection of 34 khipus (or quipus), the Inka knotted-string recording devices. We first explain why we consider the collection to constitute an “archive” and what the implications of that classification are for considering the significance of such a large collection of accounting devices associated with state storage. Several of the khipus were found associated with, or covered by, aji (Capsicum sp.), peanuts (Arachis hypogaea), and black beans (Phaseolus vulgaris). We suggest that these may be the products that the khipus recorded. Several khipus were tied together, and two sets of tied, paired samples are shown to contain very similar quantitative records. Close study of the paired samples, as well as the numerical values knotted into several other khipus, reveal different strategies that were being used by the khipu-keepers to maintain “checks-and-balances” accounting. Evidence was also found of possible standardized accounting units for agricultural produce brought to Inkawasi. These took the form of a grid-like array of squares produced by impressing ropes into the floors of two rectangular sorting spaces in the storage complex. The grid-work of squares may have served in the process of spreading out the produce on the floor and collecting and accounting for these products in standardized units. We conclude with reflections on how the processes, procedures, and routines of accounting observed at Inkawasi provide information for approaching the writing of an autochthonous history of the Inka state based on the study of accounting practices.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 10647-10672
Author(s):  
M. Philipp ◽  
H. Adsersen

Abstract. Honckenya peploides is the most common plant species on the island of Surtsey. It arrived in 1967 and after a juvenile period of 4 years it produced seeds and has increased its number from below 100 to several millions. Most populations have the individuals distributed in a regular or random pattern, suggesting that intraspecific competition is important. H. peploides has a subdioecious reproductive system consisting of pistillate plants producing capsules, and staminate plants delivering pollen and some in addition are producing capsules and are denoted hermaphrodites. Populations at the south coast of Iceland had around fifty–fifty pistillate to staminate plants. At Surtsey we found more pistillate plants probably due to the higher water stress tolerance by pistillate plants. We also found a tendency to a higher frequency of hermaphrodite plants with a higher number of seeds per capsule compared to populations at the south coast of Iceland + Heimaey. We suggest that this is a reminiscence from the time right after the colonization of Surtsey where population size was small and the small generalist pollinators were not able to deposit sufficient pollen on pistillate plants causing the hermaphrodites to have an advantage by being able to set seed after selfing. The result of this initial advantage of the hermaphrodites in combination with the inheritance of the sexes can still be seen due to the longevity of the individuals. A generalized account of the colonization history of H. peploides is given.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (23) ◽  
pp. 6657-6665 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Philipp ◽  
H. Adsersen

Abstract. Honckenya peploides is the most common plant species on the island of Surtsey. It arrived in 1967 and after a juvenile period of 4 years it produced seeds and had increased its number from below 100 to several millions. Most populations had the individuals distributed in a regular or random pattern, suggesting that intraspecific competition is important. H. peploides has a subdioecious reproductive system consisting of pistillate plants producing capsules, and staminate plants delivering pollen. Some of the latter are in addition producing capsules and are denoted hermaphrodites. Populations at the south coast of Iceland had around equal numbers of pistillate and staminate plants. At Surtsey we found more pistillate plants, probably due to their higher water stress tolerance. We also found a tendency to a higher frequency of hermaphrodite plants with a higher number of seeds per capsule compared to populations at the south coast of Iceland and the nearby island of Heimaey. We suggest that this arises from the time right after the colonization of Surtsey where population size was small and the small generalist pollinators were not able to deposit sufficient pollen on pistillate plants, causing the hermaphrodites to have an advantage by being able to set seed after selfing. The result of this initial advantage of the hermaphrodites in combination with the inheritance of the sexes can still be seen due to the longevity of individuals. A generalized account of the colonization history of H. peploides is given.


1988 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merid W. Aregay

This article draws attention to the possible importance of coffee exports from Ethiopia before the mid-nineteenth century. They may well have been a factor in attempts by Ethiopian emperors in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to develop trade in Yaman, in India and with the Dutch in Java. By 1690, coffee was being exported from Zayla, and perhaps by other outlets. In 1705 and 1737 there were unsuccessful attempts by Europeans to obtain coffee direct from Ethiopia, though meanwhile the growth of plantations in European colonies had rendered such effort superfluous. Nonetheless, Ethiopia contributed to the Red Sea coffee trade during the eighteenth century, and it seems likely that coffee was exported from Enarya as well as from Harar. The kingdom of Shawa was well situated to exploit the development of coffee exports from the south-western highlands, and they would have assisted Shawa's efforts to distance itself from upheavals further north during the Zamana Masafent. The coffee trade may therefore have been more significant in the rise of Shawa in the later eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries than historians have hitherto allowed.


Author(s):  
Andrey Vasil'evich Karagodin ◽  
Mariya Mikhailovna Petrova

The subject of this research is the history of the first of country-style resort appeared on the South Coast of Crimea at the turn of the XIX – XX centuries on the lands of country estates of New Mishor belonged to Shuvalov-Dolgorukov family. The phenomenon of country-style construction on the South Coast of Crimes, which starting point was the foundation of the Novyi Mishor, is viewed in the context of the processes of economic and sociocultural modernization of Russian society, formation of self-identification mechanisms of the emerging “middle class”, and new urban culture. Special attention is given to the period from 1917 to 1920, when the cultural figures left the capital and resided in the villages of Novyi Mishor. Based on examination the body of historical sources, many of which introduced to the scientific discourse for the first time, the author formed the database of villages and countryside residents of Novyi Mishor. A vast array of archival funds, reference literature, sources of personal provenance (memoirs, correspondence), and visual sources was attracted in the course of research. The novelty of consists in establishment of identities and social status of the residents of country resort of Novyi Mishor, determination of a range of sources for its further research, reconstruction of chronology of the development of this resort, details of everyday life and mentality traits of the residents, among which were the prominent figures of culture and art of Russia of that time – writers, actors, painters, scholars, and philanthropists.


2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-171
Author(s):  
Winfried Dolderer

De Fläming is een streek ten zuidwesten van Berlijn die haar naam te danken heeft aan het feit dat ze in de 12de eeuw door Flamingi en Hollandi werd gekoloniseerd. Het onderwerp van deze bijdrage is evenwel niet de geschiedenis van deze middeleeuwse kolonisatie, maar de latere beeldvorming sedert de 19de eeuw. Toen prikkelde het idee dat de Fläming nog steeds bewoond werd door een authentiek Vlaamse bevolking die over de eeuwen heen haar taal, zeden en gebruiken gaaf had weten te bewaren, de verbeelding van heemkundigen, historici en filologen aan weerszijden. Aan Vlaamse kant was het de jurist en diplomaat Emile De Borchgave die dit idee in 1865 voor het eerst lanceerde. In Duitsland was het vooral dominee Otto Bölke die in een decennialange heemkundige bedrijvigheid de theorie van een nog steeds authentiek Vlaamse Fläming poogde te staven. Na de Duitse eenmaking in 1990 was het Fläming-verhaal aanleiding tot nieuwe Vlaams-Duitse contacten. De bijdrage schetst ook de ideologische gedaanteverwisselingen die dit verhaal in de loop van anderhalve eeuw heeft ondergaan.________ Der Fläming. History of a Flemish-German StoryThe Fläming is an area to the south-west of Berlin, which owes its name to the fact it was colonized by “Flamingi” and “Hollandi” in the twelfth century. However, the subject of this article is not the history of this medieval colonization, but the creation of an image thereof much later, from the nineteenth century on. At that time, the idea that the Fläming was still inhabited by an authentic Flemish population that had been able to fully preserve its language, manners, and customs throughout the centuries piqued the imagination of folklorists, amateur and professional historians and philologists on both sides of the border. On the Flemish side, it was the jurist and diplomat Emile De Borchgave who first put forth this idea in 1865. In Germany it was mostly the pastor Otto Bölke who attempted to support the theory of a still authentically Flemish Fläming, through decades of folkloric and historical activity. After German reunification in 1990, the story of the Fläming led to new Flemish-German contacts. This article also sketches the ideological metamorphoses that this story has undergone over the course of a century and a half.


1983 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Leckie ◽  
S. B. McCann

During late Wisconsinan glaciation, the northern part of the Hermitage area was glaciated by Newfoundland-centred ice and the southern part by a small, complex, upland ice field, broken by nunataks. During deglaciation a lobe of Newfoundland ice dammed a lake at the head of Bay d'Espoir in which a series of small glaciolacustrine deltas were deposited. Valley glaciers from the southern ice cap reached the south coast at several locations, most notably near Harbour Breton, where a large glaciomarine delta was formed during deglaciation when sea level stood 22–24 m above present HWM. Except for three occurrences of till, no deposits were found that can be attributed to glacial events older than late Wisconsinan.


Author(s):  
David Beresford-Jones

The loss of riparian woodland recorded in the archaeological and geomorphological records of the basins of the lower Ica Valley is but one early part of a larger and still ongoing history of the deforestation of the coast of Peru. This is an old and gradual story that can be read through the Spanish chronicles, administrative records, and recent memory. This chapter follows the traces of this tale, beginning in the deep past with the archaeology of the south coast, beyond the lower Ica Valley. It then turns to historical documentation, firstly to review the uses of Prosopis by humans on the coast of Peru and in arid lands elsewhere in South America, before finally returning to focus on the south coast to examine the historical record of deforestation there.


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