Possibilities for Multispecies Approaches in Coffee Landscapes

Multispecies approaches can increase our knowledge around the social and ecological dimensions of coffee landscapes. Ethnobiologists combine the social and natural sciences to study the relationships between humans, the environment, and biota. Multispecies approaches can build from these strategies to further explore the social and biological elements that humans together with more-than-humans contribute to ecological landscapes. Using co-constitutions as a key concept, I highlight multispecies studies into agrarian worlds, review ethnobiological studies around coffee, and suggest potential research areas.

Yak Domestication: A Review of Linguistic, Archaeological, and Genetic Evidence

Yak, a species of bovid uniquely adapted to high-altitude environments, plays a critical role in the life of the inhabitants of the Tibetan Plateau and neighboring areas. There is currently no consensus on when these animals may have been domesticated. In this paper, we review the archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence relevant to this question, and suggest that the domestication took place following hybridization with taurine cattle from the end of the fourth millennium BCE. This study also shows that the original domesticators of yaks included not only the ancestors of the Tibetans, but also Rgyalrongic speaking people from Eastern Tibet.

The Flora of Azulejos in Maranhão, Brazil

The azulejo (tile) styles from the Iberian Peninsula and other regions in the New World are strongly influenced by Muslim aesthetics. Many of the azulejos in Maranhão, Brazil, depict plants and plant parts, but little is known about their species identity. In this paper, we investigated the origin of 94 plants species illustrated on the azulejos in Maranhão based on their phytomorphic elements. Among them, twenty-five were from Asteraceae and eight were from Rosaceae. Most of the pieces are of Portuguese origin and the illustrations on the azulejos show a European lifestyle. For Brazilians, there was certainly no sense of belonging since the illustrations depict characteristics that are different from what is seen locally. Although the phytomorphic illustrations do not reflect local flora, azulejos have become the most characteristic symbol of Maranhão. Our research provides a preliminary data base upon which future works can be based to propose new prints of Maranhão plants and create digital guides that link historical information with botanical identifications.

Host Plants Association with Longhorn Beetles of Food Value: Traditional Knowledge of the Guaraní as Cultural Identity Keepers

The study of plant-insect interactions and how cultural groups perceive and manage them constitutes one of the interests of ethnoentomology. This work describes the association between host plants and longhorn beetles (Order: Coleoptera; Family: Cerambycidae), an important food among the Guaraní peoples of the province of Misiones, Argentina. Different management methods of host tree species are analyzed in order to promote the rearing of larvae for edible use. We also discuss a story about the mythical origin of cerambicids relayed by the Ava Chiripa Guaraní community. We reflect on the importance of the local worldview in the maintenance of ancestral practices, such as the cultural tasks involved in slash-and-burn agriculture and the intimate knowledge of biological relationships between the cerambycids and their woody host plants.

An Intrasite Analysis of Agricultural Economy at Early Islamic Caesarea Maritima, Israel

The archaeological site of Caesarea Maritima in modern-day Israel was an important coastal town in the Early Islamic period (c. 636–1100 CE). In this article, I analyze 15 samples of carbonized wood and non-wood macrobotanical remains recovered from two residential neighborhoods to investigate the production and consumption of agricultural plant products. The identified crop and wood taxa are typical for the Mediterranean coast. Wild seeds point to crop cultivation in the vicinity of the site. Plant remains were collected from discrete contexts and are interpreted with associated features and artifacts, revealing cereal processing debris across a series of rooms in a former warehouse. Such a socioeconomic shift in this building, from a storage area to a crop processing space, is detectable by combining this intrasite analysis with the diachronic research previously conducted at the site.