The Curious Douglas-Fir (Pseudotsuga Menziesii) Trees in Schulman Grove, Mesa Verde National Park, Southwestern Colorado, USA

In 1954, archaeologists James Allen Lancaster and Don Watson and dendrochronologist Edmund Schulman asserted that a small grove of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii [Mirbel] Franco var. glauca [Beissener] Franco) trees in Navajo Canyon on the west side of Chapin Mesa in Mesa Verde National Park contained evidence of stone-axe-cut tree limbs. In 1965, archaeologists Robert Nichols and David Smith published an article entitled “Evidence of Prehistoric Cultivation of Douglas-Fir Trees at Mesa Verde,” in which they supported the Lancaster/Watson/Schulman assertion with tree-ring dates from suspected stone-axe-cut limbs. If correct, Nichols and Smith (1965) document the only trees in the entire U.S. Southwest that contain ancient stone-axe-cut stubs and evidence of precolumbian forest management. Rather than accept their interpretations at face value, we attempt to replicate their dates through the (re)analysis of archived and recently collected tree-ring samples, and through a controlled analysis and comparison of archived and published records. We could not confirm their results, and we have no option but to reject their claim that Schulman Grove contains evidence of precolumbian tree manipulation by Ancestral Puebloan inhabitants of Mesa Verde.

Prior Biliary Tree Instrumentation Does Not Preclude Hepatic Arterial Therapy for Malignancy

Hepatic arterial therapy (HAT) has become an accepted alternative for patients with unresectable hepatic malignancies. HAT has an acceptable toxicity profile, yet its safety for use in patients who have undergone significant biliary manipulation is undocumented. A retrospective review identified 18 consecutive patients with unresectable hepatic malignancies who had undergone significant prior biliary tree manipulation. All patients received peri-HAT antibiotics. Clinicopathologic, treatment-related, and outcomes data were collected and analyzed. Eighteen patients who had HAT were analyzed; 72 per cent were men, the median age was 61 years, and 61 per cent had greater than 25 per cent hepatic parenchymal replacement by tumor. Seventy-eight per cent of patients had an indwelling biliary stent and 22 per cent had undergone a hepaticojejunostomy Twenty-two per cent of patients developed a complication, none of which were infectious, and there were no peri-HAT deaths. The majority of patients had evidence of either a partial response (55%) or stable disease (22%) upon follow-up. One patient had a complete response to HAT. The median survival was 27 months. Hepatic arterial therapy seems to be safe for patients with unresectable hepatic malignancies and a history of significant biliary instrumentation. There is no increased risk of infectious complications in this population after HAT