William E. Doolittle

GARDENS ARE US, WE ARE NATURE: TRANSCENDING ANTIQUITY AND MODERNITY*

The history of gardens and the history of humans are linked inextricably, especially in the context of environment. As people and their institutions have changed, so too have gardens. This brief essay illustrates some important aspects in the evolution of gardens, exploring three seemingly discrete, but actually interconnected, notions: the antiquity of gardens, combining archaeological data with ethnographic parallels; the role of gardens in the changing spatial manifestations of agriculture, from dump heaps to amber waves of grain; and the transformation of domestic space, the literal and figurative reconstruction of garden fences into house walls. Changes are discussed as inadvertent products, rather than as consequences of deliberate actions. Modern ideas about categorizing landscapes are challenged further. The nature/culture dualism is a myth even at the household scale, as is our traditional way of looking at the world.

Phytoliths as indicators of prehistoric maize (Zea mays subsp. mays, Poaceae) cultivation

Maize (Zea mays L. subsp.mays) has been identified in archaeological contexts by a high proportion of large cross-shaped phytoliths. Given the numerous races of maize, this study was undertaken to determine if differences below the species level could be noted. It was also designed to see if phytoliths differed in various plant parts at various stages of growth. Several races were grown under experimental conditions. No significant differences were found. Furthermore, few phytoliths alleged to be diagnostic of maize were discovered. Systemic studies of maize and analyses of prehistoric cultivation by means of phytoliths seem not to be as promising as some researchers have argued.

Channel Changes and Living Fencerows in Eastern Sonora, Mexico: Myopia in Traditional Resource Management?

ABSTRACT The riverine landscape of the eastern half of the state of Sonora, northwest Mexico, is characterized by cultural features that may well be unique to the region. Living fencerows are constructed by fanners planting willow and cottonwood saplings well out into river channels during the dry season, when discharge is low and restricted to rivulets in the middle of the otherwise dry streambeds. They are arranged more or less parallel to the channels and the edges of adjacent fields, and eventually sprout and establish roots. Brush is woven between the saplings, to stabilize them, and to slow stream flow along the channel edges during the rainy season when discharge is at its annual peak. Diminished velocities behind the fencerows result in decreased stream bank erosion, and increased sedimentation, at least in theory. On the whole, living fencerows are envisaged by the farmers who construct them, and by environmentalists, as ecologically sound strategies to protect, fertilize, and enlarge fields. As advantageous as they may seem, however, there is at least one negative consequence of living fencerows. This paper suggests that by narrowing and straightening stream channels, living fencerows contribute to increased stream velocity, and hence, increased stream bank erosion and field destruction, especially downstream from these features. Advantages that accrue to the builders of living fencerows come at the expense of their neighbors. The assumptions of farmers having total knowledge of their environments, and total understanding of their actions are questioned.

Agricultural Expansion in a Marginal Area of Mexico

ARMING by smallholders in arid northern Mexico has historically been limited by a shortage of land. In general, well-watered agricultural land is not abundant, and it either is owned by large-scale farmers or is controlled by the government.1 The smallholders have minimum access to this type of land, and they have two options when increased production is needed: to intensify activities on land already in use, or to expand cultivation to poorly watered land. Intensification is pursued in some cases, but smallholders usually encounter land-tenure and monetary constraints.2 With the exception of the Sistema Alimentario Mexicano (SAM), an integrated program for the accelerated production of basic foodstuffs that began in 1980 but was abandoned early in 1983 because of funding problems, the central government has been guided by the prevalent belief that lands not currently under cultivation are marginal and cannot be economically improved.3 Preference has been given to the development of large-scale mechanized agriculture and off-farm employment in urban areas rather than to the cultivation of marginal lands from which the return is slightly greater than production cost. Expansion of cultivated hectarage has not been encouraged in Mexico, but it is the option pursued by many smallholders. It will probably be used more frequently as demographic and urban problems worsen. The farmers who cultivate temporales, the fields that are dependent on direct precipitation or runoff, in bottom lands of arroyos near the pueblo or town of Baviacora in the valley of the Rio Sonora in eastern Sonora are only one group of Mexican smallholders who are expanding agriculture into marginal lands. The pueblo of Baviacora, with a population of 2,297 in 1980, is located in a municipio (the equivalent of a county in the United States) of the same name

A Method for Distinguishing between Prehistoric and Recent Water and Soil Control Features

ABSTRACTRock alignments built for controlling the flow of water and its effects on soil, and known by a number of terms including check dams, terraces, linear borders, and trincheras, have troubled Southwestern archaeologists for years. Especially problematical are attempts to determine the ages of such features; recently built rock alignments can be easily confused with prehistoric ones. This paper identifies 13 morphological elements of rock alignments and discusses their value in determining age. It offers a method for distinguishing between prehistoric and recent water and soil control features when no other evidence is available.

Cabeza de Vaca's land of maize: an assessment of its agriculture

Abstract The inhabitants of eastern Sonora were reported by the Spaniards to be more populous and culturally more advanced than other groups in northern Mexico and the southern portion of the American Southwest at the time of Spanish contact. They were also reported to have possessed a well developed agricultural complex. In spite of their achievements, the ancient people of this region have been the subject of few studies because of perceived data limitations. Although they are sparse, data are sufficient to reconstruct the agricultural base. Historical documentations, archaeological remains, and ethnographic analogs indicate that these people relied on a variety of cultivars and agricultural techniques. In addition to dry farming maize, beans, and squash, they also double cropped and irrigated through intricate canal systems. With such elaborate practices and techniques, enough was produced to feed a population of nearly 100,000 and to support a culture that was the only one in the region to be at its zenith when the Spaniards arrived.

Huêpac revisited: Cultural remapping of a Sonoran townscape

So recounts geographer Leslie Hewes, who visited the Sonoran village in 1931. Small, remote, and largely self-sufficient, Huépac was typical of many towns of La Serrana, Sonora’s eastern uplands and valleys that were the frontier of colonial settlement in this northwestern corner of historic New Spain, now Mexico (Dunbier 1968: 126–31; West 1993: 1). Today, Huépac remains one of a handful of pueblos that dot the fertile Sonora River valley, north and east of the capital city, Hermosillo, and south and east of the historic mining town of Cananea near the border with the United States. While Huépac persists as a tranquil village compared to Sonora’s thriving western desert cities, it is not exactly

Crimea and the Black Sea: An Environmental History

Language studies and earth science are typically viewed as very different subjects, as indeed they are, but they need not be envisaged as mutually exclusive. To wit, in this book Carlos Cordova melds his biogeographic and geoarchaeological expertise with his polyglot skills and insights to produce an environmental history like no other. Most environmental histories are crafted by historians who are masters at weaving beautiful—and all too frequently overly simplified, if not untrue—stories from often disjunct documentary sources, possessing minimal, if any, understanding of biophysical environments and earth surface and ecological processes. At best, these writers speak one language other than their own, and have only superficial knowledge of their subject region’s archaeology or prehistory. To state the case bluntly, environmental historians, wherever they work, will do themselves a huge favor by reading this book and following its methodological and conceptual leads.

Holocene book review: Biodiversity in Agriculture: Domestication, Evolution, and SustainabilityGeptsPaulFamulaThomas RBettingerRobert L. (eds) Biodiversity in Agriculture: Domestication, Evolution, and Sustainability, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2012; 606 pp: 9780521170871, US

Jack Harlan was a hero to many of us, not only for his great contributions to plant science and agronomy but also for his equally important insights into ethnobotany. His studies of einkorn harvesting in eastern Turkey, for example, put a human face on crops and a botanical face on humans by revealing that domestication is a process, not an event, simultaneously simple and complex. This volume, the product of the Harlan II Symposium, held 14–18 September 2008 at the University of California, Davis, demonstrates that much has been learned about domestication in the past few decades, and that the topic will be vibrant for decades to come. As per the subtitle, domestication is not about the past, it is actually about the future! To wit, there are probably no two terms more in vogue today than biodiversity and sustainability. The contributors to this volume are all-stars from a myriad of fields. Geographers, ecologists, geneticists, archaeologists, economists, entomologists and ethnobotanists, each approach various dimensions of the topic with their unique but complementary perspectives, techniques and methods. Recognizing their disciplinary differences, contributors came into this venture with common goals. The introduction, jointly penned by the volume editors, raises 10 unanswered questions. To one degree or another, each contributor addresses one or more of these questions. Some of the questions are old (but seemingly never outdated), such as ‘Why did agriculture originate where it did?’ Some are relatively recent, such as ‘How did agricultural ecosystems develop?’ And, some are new, such as ‘How can biodiversity be maintained and enhanced in agroecosystems?’ I found two issues to be particularly intriguing for strangely similar reasons: characteristics that might predispose plants to domestication, and California. Worldwide, there are more than 400,000 plant species, fewer than 500 of which have been domesticated or are going through the process. California, in contrast, is a veritable cornucopia today but not a centre of domestication in the traditional sense of the term. Remarkably though, its indigenous people have been intimately involved in the husbandry of scores of plant species for centuries. Domestication, it seems, is not something humans do to plants, but something certain plants go through with human (and in some cases other animals) involvement. It is unlikely that our ancient ancestors originally intended to domesticate any species. With millennia of accumulated knowledge, however, we have reached a point where the process can be directed quite easily (e.g. GMOs). Taken as a whole, the individual contributions to this volume illuminate this transition from unintended consequences to deliberate manipulation. A total of 27 chapters are divided into five sections, ‘Early Steps in Agricultural Domestication’, ‘Domestication of Animals and Impacts on Humans’, ‘Issues in Plant Domestication’, ‘Traditional Management of Biodiversity’ and ‘Uses of Biodiversity and New and Future Domestications’. Each chapter stands alone in its own right, and together they form a compelling case that ancient and contemporary agriculture are more alike than dissimilar, and that agriculture is not at odds with environment. Biodiversity and sustainability may be relatively new academic concepts (and terms that unfortunately are sometimes politically charged in today’s popular climate), but there is nothing new or abstract about the underlying reality. As with any edited volume, especially one with as many contributions from such a diversity of fields as this one, there is plenty of room for disagreement and debate. A few authors overstate their claims a bit, most notably one of the more prominent personalities whose perspective is decidedly environmental deterministic. Two authors accept uncritically, and one relies on a technique for assessing palaeoenvironmental/agricultural evidence that has questioned protocol. Given that conflict is the basis of narrative, one should embrace challenges and appreciate that what remains to be known is far greater than what we already know. Indeed, Jack Harlan (1992) knew this better than anyone, as he noted, ‘Every model proposed so far for agricultural origins or plant domestication has generated evidence against it’ (p. 46). If ‘success is a journey, not the destination’ as tennis great Arthur Ashe stated, this volume is a magnificent step in the long journey of scholarship on people–plant interdependencies. It is an ideal text for graduate seminars on the subject, in no small way because it is sure to inspire, and attract, a new generation of scholars to the field. Although it probably won’t be, it also should be read by agricultural and environmental policy-makers whose decisions ultimately determine the existence of our destination. Until then, I look forward to the Harlan III Symposium and its volume.

74.00 (pbk).

Still, this is a very interesting book. I strongly recommend it for anybody interested in Puerto Rico because of the interesting points it makes about Puerto Rico being a disadvantaged colony because of its lack of sovereignty. I also like the comparisons it makes between Puerto Rico and six other small countries. Like migration, the debate about the island’s sovereignty has crossed the Caribbean to the U.S. mainland and has also become a favorite topic of heated discussions among Puerto Ricans living on in the U.S. This is interesting because today there are more people of Puerto Rican descent (including children born to migrants from Puerto Rico) living on the U.S. mainland than on the island (4.9 million vs. 3.7 million).