scholarly journals Along the Rivers and into the Plain: Early Crop Diversity in the Central and Western Balkans and Its Relationship with Environmental and Cultural Variables

Quaternary ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Anne de Vareilles ◽  
Dragana Filipović ◽  
Djurdja Obradović ◽  
Marc Vander Linden
Keyword(s):  
Crop Diversity ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Plant Resources ◽  
Multivariate Statistical ◽  
Cultural Variables ◽  
Archaeological Cultures ◽  
Hungarian Plain

Agriculture is a complex and dynamic socio-ecological system shaped by environmental, economic, and social factors. The crop resource pool is its key component and one that best reflects environmental limitations and socio-economic concerns of the farmers. This pertains in particular to small-scale subsistence production, as was practised by Neolithic farmers. We investigated if and how the environment and cultural complexes shaped the spectrum and diversity of crops cultivated by Neolithic farmers in the central-western Balkans and on the Hungarian Plain. We did so by exploring patterns in crop diversity between biogeographical regions and cultural complexes using multivariate statistical analyses. We also examined the spectrum of wild-gathered plant resources in the same way. We found that the number of species in Neolithic plant assemblages is correlated with sampling intensity (the number and volume of samples), but that this applies to all archaeological cultures. Late Neolithic communities of the central and western Balkans exploited a large pool of plant resources, whose spectrum was somewhat different between archaeological cultures. By comparison, the earliest Neolithic tradition in the region, the Starčevo-Körös-Criş phenomenon, seems to have used a comparatively narrower range of crops and wild plants, as did the Linearbandkeramik culture on the Hungarian Plain.

scholarly journals Atlas of the Baltic languages: plant names of Slavonic origin

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 499-513
Author(s):  
Ilga Jansone ◽  
Anna Stafecka
Keyword(s):  
Solanum Tuberosum ◽  
Wide Area ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Cultivated Plants ◽  
Achillea Millefolium ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Cherry Tree ◽  
Centaurea Cyanus ◽  
Plant Names ◽  
The Baltic

Atlas of the Baltic Languages: Plant Names of Slavonic OriginThe article investigates Slavonic-derived plant names in dialects of the two surviving Baltic languages – Latvian and Lithuanian. Historically, these Slavonisms were originally adopted by small-scale regional dialects, which are now disappearing. In 2009, a pilot study for the Atlas of the Baltic Languages was published. It comprised 12 geo-linguistic maps with Latvian, Lithuanian and English commentaries. 2012 saw the publication, in CD format, of the Atlas’s first volume: Lexis 1: Flora. The material analysed concerns names for: (1) wild plants, e.g., cornflower, nettle, waybread, milfoil, dandelion, plantain; (2) cultivated plants, e.g., onion, potatoe, garlic, cucumber, Swedish turnip, [winter] wheat; (3) trees (juniper, hazel-tree, pear-tree, plum-tree, cherry-tree, etc.) and words related to a tree (top of the tree, cone, etc.).Borrowed plant names can generally be grouped as follows: 1. Common borrowings located in a wide area in Lithuania and used all over Eastern part of Latvia – the region of Latgale. These usually denote fruits and vegetables, e.g. the potatoe (Solanum tuberosum) – Latv. buļve and its variants, buļba and variants, uļbiks / Lith. bulvė and variants, bulbė and variants; or garlic – casnags, casnāgs and variants / Lith. česnākas, šešnākas and variants. 2. Common borrowings located in wide area in Lithuania and used in some subdialects in Latgale, e.g. Lith. vosilka / Lat. Vasilka ‘cornflower (Centaurea cyanus)’; Lith. kriváunykas and variants / Lat. kravavņiks and variants ‘yarrow (Achillea millefolium L.)’. 3. Slavonisms whose origin differs in Latvian and in Lithuanian, e.g. Lat. klevers (< Russ. клевер, Bel. dialectal клéвер, клевiр / Lith. kaniušina < Bel. канюшына, Pol. koniczyna for ‘clover (Trifolium)’.The Atlas of the Baltic Languages, reflecting the language contacts, could be an important source for further investigation not only in Baltistics but also in Slavistics and Indo-European comparative linguistics.Атлас балтийских языков: названия растений славянского происхожденияВ статье рассматриваются названия растений славянского происхождения в диалектах единственнo живых балтийских языков – латышского и литовского. Исторически эти славянизмы были заимствованы региональными территориальными диалектами, которые в настоящее время исчезают. В 2009 г. был опубликован пилотный проект Атласа балтийских языков, включающий 12 геолингвистических карт с комментариями на латышском, литовском и английском языках. В 2012 г. первый том атласа: Атлас балтийских языков. Лексика I: Флора – был опубликован в формате CD. Связанную с растительним миром лексику представляют названия, обозначающие: 1) дикорастущие растения – например, василек, крапиву, подорожник, тысячелистник, одуванчик, 2) культурные растения – например, лук, картофель, репу, (зимнюю) пшеницу, и 3) деревья (можжевельник, орешник, грушу и др.), а также части деревьев (макушку дерева, шишку). В качестве основных групп заимствованных названий растений можно выделить: 1. Общие заимствования, которые встречаются в широком ареале в Литве и во всей восточной части Латвии – в Латгалии. Обычно это названия овощей и фруктов, например, картофеля (Solanum tuberosum) – лат. buļve и вар., buļba и вар., uļbiks / лит. bulve и вар., bulbe и вар., чеснока: лат. casnags, casnāgs и вар./ лит. česnākas, šešnākas и вар. 2. Общие заимствования, которые встречаются в широком ареале в Литве и в некоторых говорах Латгалии, например, лит. vosilka / лат. vasilka ‘вaсилёк (Centaurea cyanus)’, лит. kriváunykas и вар. / лат. kravavņiks и вар. ‘тысячелистник (Achillea millefolium L.)’. 3. Славянизмы несовпадающего проиcхождения в латышском и литовском языках, например, лат. klevers (< рус. kлевер, бел. диал. клéвер, клевiр) / лит. kaniušina < бел. kанюшына, поль. koniczyna ‘клевер (Trifolium)’. Атлас балтийских языков отражает языковые контакты и служит важным источником для дальнейших исследований не только в балтистике, но также в славистикe и индоевропейском сравнительном языкознании.

scholarly journals WHY SHALL WE CONSIDER THE GENDER IMPLICATIONS OF BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT? THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION

New Medit ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-111
Author(s):  
Ilaria Sisto ◽  
Maurizio Furst
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Rural Women ◽  
Mediterranean Region ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Director General ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Food And Agriculture ◽  
The Mediterranean

Women as farmers, livestock keepers, fishers and forest dwellers play vital – often overlooked – roles in natural resources use and management in the Mediterranean region. Women’s exclusion from decision making bodies and unequal access to productive resources represent a missed opportunity in terms of sustainable management of available resources and economic development. Recent studies indicate that if men and women equally participate in the labour market, in the southern Mediterranean region the GDP could rise by 47% over the next decade, meaning an annual benefit from an economic impact of €490 billion (Woetzel et al., 2015). The Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), José Graziano da Silva, at the fourth Regional conference on women’s empowerment in the Euro-Mediterranean region stressed that rural women’s contributions and leadership is crucial to feed the Mediterranean region’s growing population and achieve sustainable food production: «By enabling rural women to reach their full potential, we can make food systems more inclusive, efficient and effective» (FAO 2018). In the region women sustain such food systems by gathering wild plants for food, medicinal use, fuelwood and other purposes, acting as herbalists, tending home gardens, selecting, managing and storing seeds, managing crops, trees and small livestock, domesticating plants, participating in small-scale fisheries and aquaculture, and storing, preserving and processing foods after harvesting. They have a unique knowledge about local biodiversity, which is often passed from generation to generation (FAO, 2019; World Bank, FAO and IFAD, 2009). Nevertheless, still too often women have less access than men to land and livestock, production inputs and services such as education, extension and credit, and are not represented in decision-making processes related to food and agriculture (Lehel 2018; World Bank, FAO and IFAD, 2009).

scholarly journals Diversity of wild edible plants traditionally used by the Galo tribe of Indian Eastern Himalayan state of Arunachal Pradesh

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Padma Raj Gajurel ◽  
Tajum Doni
Keyword(s):  
Relative Frequency ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Leafy Vegetables ◽  
Wild Edible Plants ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Wild Plant ◽  
Edible Plants ◽  
Arunachal Pradesh ◽  
Plant Resources ◽  
Edible Plant

Wild edible plants are found very useful in the fulfilment of food and nutritional requirements. Because of the availibity and cultural preference, the consumption of these plants among the tribes is high. To find out the diversity, utilisation pattern and sociocultural importance of the wild plants, a study was conducted in the state of Arunachal Pradesh selecting the Galo tribe, and accordingly the wild edible plants consumed are documented here. Data were collected through extensive field surveys and interviews with the community in the selected 12 villages in Upper Subansiri and West Siang districts of Arunachal Pradesh. Overall, 125 wild edible plant species under 99 genera and 54 families are reported. These species are consumed mostly as leafy vegetables, fruits, medicine, spices and condiments and as a substitute to food grains. The Urticaceae with ten species is the most utilised family followed by Asteraceae, Moraceae and Lamiaceae with at least five species in each. Herbs with 47 species were found to be the most dominant growth form followed by trees with 44 species. Based on parts used leaves with 66 species were recorded to be the most used plant parts followed by fruits. The highest edibility index of 50 % was reported in Solanum americanum. The analysis of relative frequency of citation revealed that total 78 species exhibits more than 0.50 relative frequency of citation value with highest value in Pouzolzia hirta (0.95). It has been found that the wild plant resources play a vital role in the socio-economic aspects of the Galo tribe.

scholarly journals Foraging and farming as niche construction: stable and unstable adaptations

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1566) ◽  
pp. 849-862 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Rowley-Conwy ◽  
Robert Layton
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Wild Plant ◽  
Population Increase ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
History Of ◽  
Abrupt Climatic Change

All forager (or hunter–gatherer) societies construct niches, many of them actively by the concentration of wild plants into useful stands, small-scale cultivation, burning of natural vegetation to encourage useful species, and various forms of hunting, collectively termed ‘low-level food production’. Many such niches are stable and can continue indefinitely, because forager populations are usually stable. Some are unstable, but these usually transform into other foraging niches, not geographically expansive farming niches. The Epipalaeolithic (final hunter–gatherer) niche in the Near East was complex but stable, with a relatively high population density, until destabilized by an abrupt climatic change. The niche was unintentionally transformed into an agricultural one, due to chance genetic and behavioural attributes of some wild plant and animal species. The agricultural niche could be exported with modifications over much of the Old World. This was driven by massive population increase and had huge impacts on local people, animals and plants wherever the farming niche was carried. Farming niches in some areas may temporarily come close to stability, but the history of the last 11 000 years does not suggest that agriculture is an effective strategy for achieving demographic and political stability in the world's farming populations.

scholarly journals Uses of Local Plant Biodiversity among the Tribal Communities of Pangi Valley of District Chamba in Cold Desert Himalaya, India

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pawan Kumar Rana ◽  
Puneet Kumar ◽  
Vijay Kumar Singhal ◽  
Jai Chand Rana
Keyword(s):  
Wild Plants ◽  
Wild Plant ◽  
Fuel Wood ◽  
Plant Resources ◽  
Cold Desert ◽  
Tribal Communities ◽  
The World ◽  
Local Plant ◽  
Pangi Valley ◽  
First Time

Pangi Valley is the interior most tribal area in Himachal Pradesh of Northwest Himalaya. An ethnobotanical investigation is attempted to highlight the traditional knowledge of medicinal plants being used by the tribes of Pangi Valley. Various localities visited in the valley 2-3 times in a year and ethnobotanical information was collected through interviews with elderly people, women, shepherds, and local vaids during May 2009 to September 2013. This paper documented 67 plant species from 59 genera and 36 families along with their botanical name, local name, family name, habit, medicinal parts used, and traditional usage, including the use of 35 plants with new ethnomedicinal and other use from the study area for the first time. Wild plants represent an important part of their medicinal, dietary, handicraft, fuel wood, veterinary, and fodder components. These tribal inhabitants and migrants depend on the wild plant resources for food, medicines, fuel, fibre, timber, and household articles for their livelihood security. The present study documents and contributes significant ethnobotanical information from the remote high altitude and difficult region of the world, which remains cut off from rest of the world for 6-7 months due to heavy snowfall.

scholarly journals Spatial Distribution of Local Forest Products at the End of the 19th Century: A Case Study of Former Villages in Iwate Prefecture

Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1044
Author(s):  
Keiko Izumi
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Forest Products ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Gis Mapping ◽  
Plant Resources ◽  
Edible Wild Plants ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Tree Sap ◽  
Iwate Prefecture

Recent research in Japan has investigated how local people historically utilized natural resources, using geographic information systems (GIS). These works have helped to clarify the role of forest provisioning services in the past, and have shown how modern landscapes were formed. The aim of this study was to elucidate the utilization of plant resources in forest landscapes of both fields and mountains, in the late 19th century in Iwate Prefecture, located in northeastern Japan. This study focused on a different area and a larger scale than previous studies, and included information from 642 villages. This study specifically focused on what kinds of forest products were historically used and shipped, which species were used, and how these uses were distributed around the prefecture. A combination of historical documents and GIS mapping, named MANDARA, was employed. The primary historical document was “The topography of Iwate Prefecture” that was published from 1876 to 1885, and recorded the products used in each village. A wide range of forest products were recorded, which contained both edible and inedible plants further split into 10 primary categories: edible wild plants, mushrooms, nuts and berries, medical herbs, timber, agricultural and construction materials, fuel, tree sap, bark, and others. Many villages also produced various secondary processed goods. Fifty-two species were specified as forest products, which included some estimation, and were composed of 19 herbaceous and 23 arboreal species. GIS mapping of each village indicated that firewood and charcoal were shipped to towns located in southern Iwate, from around Kesen County. People might trade these fuel woods on markets. On the other hand, chestnut (Castanea crenata S. et Z.) and acorn were produced in the low-density populated area all around Iwate.

The Relationship between Intentional Dental Ablation and Hereditary Agenesis in Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age China

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Lee
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Rare Occurrence ◽  
Supernumerary Teeth ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Original Source ◽  
The One ◽  
Archaeological Cultures ◽  
Tooth Removal ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Distinguishing Features

Dental ablation is a rare occurrence in ancient China. While previous studies have looked at cultural reasons for this practice this study examines possible biological causes for intentional tooth removal. Could a hereditary dental anomaly have been the original source for a cultural marker? The dentitions from 243 individuals were examined, representing five late Neolithic archaeological cultures. Each individual was scored for evidence of dental ablation, dental agenesis, and supernumerary teeth. Patterns of dental agenesis did not match regions with dental ablation. The one distinguishing trait among the Dawenkou was a higher frequency of supernumerary teeth. In conclusion, the Dawenkou sample had some biologically distinguishing features in their dentition, but their relationship with dental ablation is not supported.

The Collfryn Hillslope Enclosure, Llansantffraid Deuddwr, Powys: Excavations 1980–1982

1989 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Britnell ◽  
Jenny Britnell ◽  
Timothy C. Darvill ◽  
Stephen Greep ◽  
Elizabeth Healey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Drainage Ditches ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
High Social Status

The report on partial rescue excavations of the Collfryn enclosure between 1980–82 presents a summary of the first large-scale investigation of one of the numerous semi-defensive cropmark and earthwork enclosure sites in the upper Severn valley in mid-Wales. Earlier prehistoric activity of an ephemeral nature is represented by a scattering of Mesolithic and Late Neolithic or early Bronze Age flintwork, and by a pit containing sherds of several different Beaker vessels. The first enclosed settlement, constructed in about the 3rd century bc probably consisted of three widely-spaced concentric ditches, associated with banks of simple dump construction, having a single gated entranceway on the downhill side. It covered an area of about 2.5 ha and appears to have been of a relatively high social status, and appropriate in size for a single extended-family group. This was subsequently reduced in about the 1st century bc to a double-ditched enclosure, by the recutting of the original inner ditch and the cutting of a new ditch immediately outside it. The habitation area between the 3rd and 1st centuries bc probably focused on timber buildings in the central enclosure of about 0.4 ha, whose gradually evolving pattern appears to have comprised between 3–4 roundhouses and 4–5 four-posters at any one time. Little excavation was undertaken between the outer ditches of the first phase settlement, but these are assumed to have been used as stock enclosures. A mixed farming economy is suggested by cattle, sheep/goat and pig remains, and remains of glume wheats, barley and oats. Industries included small-scale iron and bronze-working. The Iron Age settlement was essentially aceramic, although there are significant quantities of a coarse, oxidized ceramic probably representing salt traded from production centres in the Cheshire Plain. The entranceway was remodelled in about the late 1st or early 2nd, century AD by means of a timber-lined passage linked to a new gate on the line of the inner bank. There is equivocal evidence of continued occupation within the inner enclosure continuing until at least the mid-4th century AD, possibly at a comparatively low social level, associated with domestic structures of uncertain form sited on earlier roundhouse platforms, and including some four-posters and possible six-posters. Drainage ditches were dug across parts of the site during the Medieval and post-Medieval periods, which were associated with various structures, including a corn-drying kiln inserted into the inner enclosure bank in the 15th century.

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