Transcript Document

The making of today:
cultural biogeography





Use of Tools and Fire
Domestication
Transplantation
Biocides
Conservation
Human impacts on the
world’s fauna and flora
MEANS
Tools
Fire
Domestication
Transplantation
Biocides
Conservation
ENDS (e.g.)
Hunting
Ecosystem change
Inc. food supply
Biotic homogenization
Pest control
Species maintenance
TIME (yrs)
~500,000
~50,000
~10,000
~500
~50
~50
Hunting: tools and effects
Wooden (spruce)
spears found in
association with
butchered horses
(plus elephant and
rhinoceros bones) in
middle Pleistocene
deposits (~ 400,000
BP) at Schöningnen,
north Germany.
Late Pleistocene extinctions of
megamammals
Major periods of extinctions of
large mammals in late Quaternary
0
10
20
30
40
Australia
S. America
N. America
Europe
Africa
50 ka BP
Was climate change to blame?
0
10
20
30
40
Australia
0
S. America
-5
N. America
Europe
-10
Africa
50 ka BP
The demise of
the Australian
megafauna
According to Roberts et al.,
(2001), the continent - wide
extinction of the Australian
megafauna occurred about 46
000 years ago, within 10±5 ka
of human arrival.
Graphic:
http://acl.arts.usyd.edu.au/research/cuddie/animalssm.gif
Roberts, R.G. et al. 2001. Science 292,
1888-1892.
e.g. Diprotodon a 2m tall,
3 ton wombat
Were humans to blame?

Roberts et al. (2001) found that:
12 of the 20 genera of megafauna survived
until at least 80 000 years ago; and
extinction occurred ± simultaneously across
the continent at about 46 ka BP.

Extinction may have been a product of:
butchering by hunters
ecosystem disruption (by fire?)by Aboriginal
colonists
climatic change
Are we also to
blame in the
Americas?
- the Pleistocene
“blitzkrieg”
hypothesis.
(15 genera go extinct
in North America
from 11.5 -10 ka BP)
(note ‘killing front’)
Post-colonial extinctions
(North America)
Some of the victims
Tool: fluted point
Times of extinction:
the initial phase
Post-colonial extinction:
New Zealand moas*
(*11 species of ratites; all now extinct)
Archaeological evidence
Population model (simulation
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Holdaway, R.N. and Jacomb, C. 2000. Science 287, 2250-2254.
Post-colonial extinction model:
eastern Polynesia
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Steadman, D.W. and Martin, P.S. 2003. Jour. Archaeol. Sci., 61, 133
Post-colonial extinction:
Dodo (Raphus cucullatus)
• A giant flightless pigeon
restricted to the the island
of Mauritius.
• First sighted ~AD1600, the
dodo was extinct by
~AD1693.
• Sailors butchered them for
food, and feral animals
(rats, cats and pigs)
destroyed their nests.
Graphic courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History
Post-colonial (near) extinction
of the buffalo
Post-colonial extinction:
the passenger pigeon
109
106
?
103
100
1800
1903
Post-colonial
extinction: the
Rocky Mountain
locust
1875: a swarm of ~3 trillion insects (the swarm covered
~300000
sq. km, 0.5 km deep) passed over central Great
Plains.
1876: US Congress declared the locust to be “the single
greatest impediment to the settlement of the country”.
1902: last pair observed in Manitoba.
Ploughing of floodplain areas in western plains
likely destroyed their breeding habitat
Extinctions since AD 1600
Mammals
Asia
4
Africa
11
S. America
1
N. America
10
Europe
6
Antarctica*
1
W. Indies
3
Hawaii
* incl. islands
Birds
5
2
7
1
68
22
24
Use of tools (axes and fire):
deforestation
Jerf-el-Ahmar
archaeological site
N. Syria;
~11,600 years old
Pollen record,
Ghab valley
5
8
10
15
ka,BP
Effects of
deforestation
On the landscape of Attica (central Greece), Plato commented:
“what now remains compared with what then existed is like
the skeleton of a sick man, all the fat and soft earth having
wasted away, and only the bare framework of the land being
left”
In the Mediterranean Basin deforestation as a result of
agricultural clearance and pasture led to permanent changes in
the character of the ecosystem.
Maori use of
fire
for forest
clearance
Maori colonization
~1000 BP
1. Charcoal in soil
2. Bracken (rhizomes gathered)
3. Moa habitat modification?
Fire as a tool of ecosystem “maintenance”
“the Indians of the interior have another intolerable method, .
. . which is to fire the plains and forests . . . both to drive the
mosquitoes away and at the same time drive lizards and like
things from the earth to eat. They also kill deer by encircling
fires; deprived of pasturage, the animals are forced to seek it
where the Indians may trap them”.
Cabeza de Vaca, A.N. Relación (1542)
Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked by a hurricane on the coast of Texas in
1528 after trying to sail a raft back to Havana with the few survivors of an
ill-fated Spanish expedition to search for gold in Florida. He reached the
Spanish settlements on the west coast of Mexico 8 years later.
Domestication: from
foraging to farming
Roots and tubers:
“Did roots precede grains?”
Forager:
dig up.
Transition:
dig up-replant part.
Early farmer: clear land, plant roots, weed,
harvest, save some roots,etc.
Grains:
David Harris
Forager:
pluck seedheads
Transition:
cut seedheads-save some*-replant.
Early farmer: clear land, plant seeds, weed,
harvest, save some seed,etc.
* easiest seeds to save were non-shattering
(e.g. changeover from einkorn to wheat)
Plant cultigens
Purpose
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Food

Food additives

Fibre

Wood

Beverages

Narcotics, stimulants 
Ornamentals

Examples
rice, cabbage
pepper, sugar
hemp, jute
radiata pine
tea, coffee
tobacco, grape
tulip, rose
The geography of domestication
Nikolai Vavilov
De Candolle, a Swiss botanist, investigated
areas of domestication in the 19th C.
The Russian botanist N.I. Vavilov undertook
extensive field collections to identify “hearths”
of domestication from the 1920’s until his
death in 1943. Vavilov contended that
diversity hotspots in domesticated species (e.g.
~50 varieties of Zea mays grown in southern
Mexico-Guatemala at present) were indicative
of hearths.
Jack Harlan (American geneticist), however,
noted that plant species are particularly prone
to radiate into diverse varieties in mountain
areas - these may not be the original hearths.
Plant domestication hearths
after Vavilov
Crop hearths
1. China
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
rice, soybean, rhubarb, apricots, citrus,
tea?
India / SE Asia eggplant, mango, jute, rice, banana, sugarcane
Pak-Afghanistan cotton, soybeans?
Middle East
wheat, onion, turnip, apple, fig, melon,
alfalfa, pea, lentil
Mediterranean date, olive, lettuce, sugar beet
Ethiopia
coffee, okra
Mesoamerica
maize, sweet potato, avocado, cotton,
capsicum
Andes / Brazil potato, pumpkin, tomato, runner bean /
peanut, pineapple, tobacco
African hearths
Early wheat varieties
Einkorn
Emmer
Spelt
Kamut
Biogeographic range of
wild cereals
Einkorn
Barley
Emmer
Domestication of wheat
bread wheat
wild emmer
Times of
initial
doemstication
Animal cultigens
Purpose
•
•
•
•
•
Food
Labour
Hunting
Animal products
Ornamentals
Examples





cattle
horse, yak
dog*
silk, wool, honey
budgies, goldfish
*or did the dog domesticate us?
Animal hearths
China
India / SE Asia
Iran-Afghanistan
Central Asia
Middle East
Europe
Africa
North America
Mesoamerica
Andes
pig, duck, (carp?)
pig, dog, zebu cattle, chicken, elephant,
water buffalo
bibos cattle, sheep, goat
horse, bactrian camel, yak
cat, dromedary
auroch cattle, rabbit, goose, reindeer
ass, guinea fowl
turkey
dog, turkey
llama, alpaca, guinea pig
Artificial selection for variable
traits in domesticated species
e.g.
cabbages
dogs
Would Neolithic folk recognize a cauliflower or poodle?
Selection for gigantism of
desirable traits
Zea mays from Mexican
archaeological sites
7500 BP
500 BP
“French grow giant snails even bigger”
Globe & Mail (1999/02/04)
Above: 2 yr-old coho “Frankenfish”
Below: 2 yr-old wild coho
The Province (2001/02/16)
Domestication and
agricultural technology
e.g. the ‘tribulum’ - a
threshing sled (flints
inserted in wooden
planks) designed to
separate the grain from
the chaff and straw,
and break up the straw
for animal feed. Still
used in some areas of
the Middle East.
Agricultural transference in the Neolithic: crops,
technology and language diffuse from hearth
[Eng.]
barn
barley
bar
far (farina) [Lat. = emmer]
Agricultural transference in recent times
e.g. the grape (Vitis vinifera)
Agricultural transference:
the “Columbian Exchange”
From the New
World to the Old:
From the Old
World to the New:
Potatoes
Corn
Tomatoes
Squashes
Peppers
Tobacco
Rubber
Pineapples
(+ diseases?)
Wheat
(many vegetables)
Grapes
Bananas
Horses
Cattle
(+ weeds and diseases)
Agricultural transference:
tropical plantation crops
cacao
bananas
rubber
Why? protection from co-evolved pests and pathogens;
consider effects: slavery and indentured labour
Silvicultural transference:
introduction of exotic trees into
Britain (AD 1600-1950)
Biological introductions:
invasive species
Deliberate introductions:
e.g. rabbits in Australia;
prickly pear in Australia and Mediterranean;
starlings, pigeons and house sparrows in North
America; bullfrogs in B.C.
Inadvertent introductions:
e.g. brown rat (almost everywhere);
knapweeds and cheatgrass in western North
America; ballast stowaways (worldwide)
Deliberate introductions:
prickly pear (Opuntia stricta), Australia
• Introduced into Australia in 1788 to form the basis of a cochineal
dye industry. Opuntia was late planted for emergency cattle
fodder and as hedging by farmers in NSW;
• Invaded huge areas of pastureland in NSW and QLD from 19001930;
• Largely (but not completely) controlled by introduction of
Cactoblastis cactorum (a moth from Argentina that feeds
exclusively on Opuntia) in 1926
Graphics: http://www.northwestweeds.nsw.gov.au
Deliberate introductions: American
bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana), BC
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompress ed) dec ompres sor
are needed to s ee this pic ture.
• Introduced into BC in the 1930’s by frog farmers;
• Spreading rapidly in SW BC (>1 km/yr on southern
Vancouver Island), often by deliberate introdcutions
into backyard ponds;
• Feeds on native frogs, garter snakes, etc.
Inadvertent
introductions
Many recent introductions
of aquatic aliens have
resulted from release of
ballast water.
Zebra mussel (Dreissina
polymorpha): released from
ballast waters into the Great
Lakes in 1986.
Invasive species: mitigation
B.C. woman fined for importing crabs in suitcase
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
“A Richmond, B.C., woman has been fined $10,000 after pleading guilty
to importing 70 live Shanghai hairy crabs - a delicacy in Asia and one of
the world's most invasive species……It's prohibited in Canada because
of its ravenous appetite that can outcompete native species, harming
the ecosystem and the fishing industry.It also burrows into riverbanks
and dikes, causing instability and erosion.The Shanghai hairy crab,
named for its furry claws, is also a carrier of the Oriental lung fluke, a
parasite that can cause tuberculosis and even death in humans if
improperly cooked…..The crab has been found in Quebec, Ontario's
Great Lakes area, the U.S. eastern seaboard, California and the
Columbia River estuary in Washington state, according to the U.S.
Geological Survey”
Canwest News Service