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This Open Access volume highlights how tree ring stable isotopes have been used to address a range of environmental issues from paleoclimatology to forest management, and anthropogenic impacts on forest growth. It will further evaluate weaknesses and strengths of isotope applications in tree rings. In contrast to older tree ring studies, which predominantly applied a pure statistical approach this book will focus on physiological mechanisms that influence isotopic signals and reflect environmental impacts. Focusing on connections between physiological responses and drivers of isotope variation will also clarify why environmental impacts are not linearly reflected in isotope ratios and tree ring widths. This volume will be of interest to any researcher and educator who uses tree rings (and other organic matter proxies) to reconstruct paleoclimate as well as to understand contemporary functional processes and anthropogenic influences on native ecosystems. The use of stable isotopes in biogeochemical studies has expanded greatly in recent years, making this volume a valuable resource to a growing and vibrant community of researchers.
The 20th century has experienced environmental changes that appear to be unprecedented in their rate and magnitude during the Earth's history. For the first time, Stable Isotopes as Indicators of Ecological Change brings together a wide range of perspectives and data that speak directly to the issues of ecological change using stable isotope tracers. The information presented originates from a range of biological and geochemical sources and from research fields within biological, climatological and physical disciplines covering time-scales from days to centuries. Unlike any other reference, editors discuss where isotope data can detect, record, trace and help to interpret environmental change. - Provides researchers with groundbreaking data on how to predict the terrestrial ecosystems response to the ongoing rapid alterations - Reveals how ecosystems have responded to environmental and biotic fluctuations in the past - Includes examples from research by a wide range of biological and physical scientists who are using isotopic records to both detect and interpret environmental change
Society for Ethnobotany Daniel F. Austin Award How archaeology can shed light on past foodways and social worlds Through various case studies, Ancient Foodways illustrates how archaeologists can use bioarchaeology, zooarchaeology, archaeobotany, architecture, and other evidence to understand how food acquisition, preparation, and consumption intersect with economics, politics, and ritual. Spanning four continents and several millennia of human history, this volume is a comprehensive and contemporary survey of how archaeological data can be used to interpret past foodways and reconstruct past social worlds. This volume is organized around four major themes: feasting and politics; sacrific...
Irrigation has long been of interest in the study of the past. Many early civilizations were located in river valleys, and irrigation was of great economic importance for many early states because of the key role it played in producing an agricultural surplus, which was the main source of wealth and the basis of political power for the elites who controlled it. Agricultural surplus was also necessary to maintain the very features of statehood, such as urbanism, full-time labor specialization, state institutions, and status hierarchy. Yet, the presence of large-scale or complex irrigation systems does not necessarily mean that they were under centralized control. While some early states organ...
Is wealth inequality a universal feature of human societies, or did early peoples live an egalitarian existence? How did inequality develop before the modern era? Did inequalities in wealth increase as people settled into a way of life dominated by farming and herding? Why in general do such disparities increase, and how recent are the high levels of wealth inequality now experienced in many developed nations? How can archaeologists tell? Ten Thousand Years of Inequality addresses these and other questions by presenting the first set of consistent quantitative measurements of ancient wealth inequality. The authors are archaeologists who have adapted the Gini index, a statistical measure of w...
Gypsum is a type of habitat widely spread throughout the world, especially in arid climates (Somalia, Australia, Middle East, USA, circum-Mediterranean region, etc.). The vegetation present on this type of habitat has long attracted the attention of specialists in the study of flora adapted to special substrates, since gypsum represents an important barrier to the growth of most plants. These ecosystems are little known in comparison to other habitats present on special substrates, even though representing natural laboratories of evolution and ecology. In this context, the Gypworld project has been developed, as a global initiative to understand the ecology of gypsum ecosystems, comes under the European Horizon 2020 research program, and which brings together researchers specialists in the study of gypsum ecosystems, from five continents. Under the umbrella of this project, different scientific meetings have been taking place, being the one held in Almeria, the third of the four that will take place, with the name of 3rd Gypworld Workshop. Thus, this monograph presents the most recent advances in the research of these special ecosystems.
El papel de la interdisciplinariedad en el desarrollo de la arqueología ha pasado prácticamente desapercibido en la historiografía reciente. Los relatos autobiográficos reunidos en esta obra proporcionan una visión en primera persona de los recorridos personales de varias generaciones de investigadores que se han especializado en subdisciplinas tan diferentes como la antracología, la arqueopalinología, la malacología, la avifauna, la arqueobiología humana, la geoarqueología, la traceología y la arqueometalurgia, entre otras. Este es, por tanto, un libro único, ya que nos acerca al caleidoscopio humano de la mano de algunos de sus protagonistas trazando el desarrollo de sus disciplinas, que han marcado profundamente el devenir de la arqueología española en este último medio siglo.00.