No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Travels into North America
... I also demonstrate that Jews settled in different communities in the northern Saharan termini rather than in the Sahel because of the social and political protection these northern oases offered. As strangers, Jews were generally not owners of agricultural A. Boum 326 property in the different oases and they were constantly on the move between major desert settlements that connected the eastern and western caravan routes between al-Maghrib al-Aqsa and Tripolitania (Slouschz 1927, Mauny 1949; Figure 1). Finally, I highlight how some post-colonial African communities have used these historical constructions today to claim a Jewish heritage and identity based on the belief that they are descendents of the Jews who settled in the Sahara since the destruction of the First Temple (Halbwachs 1990, Anderson 2006. ...
... (2006, p. 329) Prussin notes that if we examine iconographic material we have 'convincing evidence' for historical Jewish presence in the sub-Saharan tapestry. Yet, I argue that, with the exception of Ethiopia, long-established Jewish communities with deep cultural and religious roots have existed mainly in the northern settlements, namely oases above the Sahel (Slouschz 1927, Mauny 1949. This presence is due to a set of trading strategies that consisted of extensive social networks and stable patron -client relations. ...
Scholars of North African Jewries have recently begun to study, rethink and challenge some of the field's terminology and conceptualisations of the Maghribi Jewish experience, including, for example, terms such as ‘Berber Jews’, ‘Arab Jews’ and even the most deeply entrenched ‘Sephardic Jews’. Such categories of analysis remain largely unexamined, despite the fact that they constitute an essential part of larger colonial and post-colonial discourses on the Islamic world and its diverse populations. In this article, I focus on one such category, ‘Saharan Jews’, and attempt to assess its meanings and articulations within the history and imagined identities of the Sahara. Using source materials including the reports of European colonial travellers, the communications of Mardochée Aby Serour to the Société de Geographie de Paris in 1870, French ethnological sources, local Arabic sources, select post-colonial writings, and blogosphere material, I debate the meaning of ‘Saharan Jews’, moving us from Sijilmasa to Timbuktu by way of the Saharan oases Tuat, Akka and other areas of Jewish settlement in the region. In these contexts, I pay particular attention to the construction of group identity through mechanisms like trade, minority–majority relations and local religious practices. As I evaluate the concept of ‘Saharan Jews’ for better understanding Jewish history in North and sub-Saharan Africa, I simultaneously call for a more nuanced approach to the social imagination of Jewish identities in post-colonial African societies.
... In his study of the encounter between rural Jews and Zionism in the High Atlas, Yaron Tsur argued that the rise of nationalist sentiments among Jews of the High Atlas villages 'had nothing to do with religion or religious feelings. . .. Religious feelings, if they played any role in the turn of these Jews to nationalism, were secondary' (Tsur 1998, p. 317). Tsur argued that the success of Zionism to enlist rural Jewries is part of what Ernest Gellner referred to as 'diaspora nationalism' which tends to develop among people of 'originally foreign status, scattered, and lacking their own agrarian stratum' (Tsur 1998, p. 313). ...
... .. Religious feelings, if they played any role in the turn of these Jews to nationalism, were secondary' (Tsur 1998, p. 317). Tsur argued that the success of Zionism to enlist rural Jewries is part of what Ernest Gellner referred to as 'diaspora nationalism' which tends to develop among people of 'originally foreign status, scattered, and lacking their own agrarian stratum' (Tsur 1998, p. 313). Tsur largely saw the Jewish membership to Zionism as an instance of a competition over economic opportunities with members of the dominant society. ...
This article provides an ethnographic and historical perspective on the migration of rural Jewish communities from the region of Sous, southern Morocco, to Israel in the early 1960s. Building on theories of the relationship between diaspora, homeland, and nationalism, and using ethnographic data collected among Moroccan Jews and Muslims from the region, I argue that even though the economic factors played a substantial role in persuading rural Jews to migrate to Israel, historical symbols of traditional messianic Zionism played a major role in the migration of rural Jewry. Unlike urban Jews who settled in different Moroccan cities after the Spanish Inquisition, Jews from Akka and other neighbouring hamlets have a particular view of history to which Zionism appealed. In this article, I use a historical narrative to argue that southern Moroccan Jews, whether their memory is based on supposition or fact, imagined their history as connected to Palestine. Accordingly, Zionists invoked these historical messianic symbols to which local rural Jews from Akka and other neighbouring villages subscribed to capture their political, religious, and national support. Henceforth, my contention is that although local and global social, political, and economic stresses in the first half of the twentieth century influenced this migration, the underlying cause is largely attributed to the imagined or real historical roots of these populations towards Palestine as opposed to the roots of Andalusian Jews.
... Both physicians regularly shipped specimens from Québec City to Réaumur (Boivan 1974) but there are no records indicating what was sent. Kalm (1937), a botanist from Sweden, met Sarrazin and traveled with Gaultier in 1749-1750. Although Kalm recorded numerous species of birds, he made no mention of any warblers. ...
... Around the same time Lardner Vanuxem published on oyster "shell deposits" near the Atlantic coastline of the US (Vanuxem, 1843), while Ronald Campbell Gunn describes his findings on recent "shell heaps" along the coastlines of Tasmania (Gunn, 1846). Previously, Pehr Kalm saw links between abandoned North American shell middens and the indigenous population as early as 1748 (Kalm, 1770). ...
Shell middens are intentional anthropogenic accumulations in which marine or terrestrial mollusks play an important role. In many such accumulations, shell remains provide the structure for all or some of the deposits and thus provide a preservation environment predominantly influenced by the chemical buffer and shelter the hard carbonate mollusks provide. For these reasons, such accumulations contain valuable records of not only shellfish consumption and ecology but also a variety of other archaeological materials that would not be preserved otherwise.
... Roasting and heating molluscs over a fire are common methods of cooking and have been described in numerous ethnographies (e.g. Bird & Bliege-Bird, 1997;Kalm, 1966;McGee & Hewitt, 1898;Meehan, 1982;Oberg, 1973;Quinn, 1967) as taking a relatively short period of time, indeed only a few minutes (Meehan, 1982:87). Domestic fire temperatures can range between 317 and 950 °C (Wolf et al., 2013) depending on fuel type, whilst boiling cooks the mollusc at relatively low temperatures (100 °C); however, some form of water retaining vessel is necessary (Leach, 1981). ...
Thermal influences on marine molluscs are poorly understood across all disciplines, including archaeology. This presents potential issues for further analysis including radiocarbon dating and stable isotope analysis, as well as hindering our understandings of processing and preparation methods for shell in the past. Different methods of burning or heating may not always leave visual signs on a shell; however, a variety of structural and chemical changes may take place. Here, we present an experimental study using modern-day shells of five tropical marine species designed to explore how various thermal interventions modified shells in terms of microstructure (scanning electron microscope) and mineralogy (X-ray diffraction). We found distinct differences between the taxa using varied temperatures and durations, with shell microstructure playing a key role in responses to thermal stresses. This study highlights the importance of acknowledging this variation, both when structuring research as well as seeking to interpret archaeological shell remains.
... Despite an independent origin with respect to its New World counterparts, cassina featured notable similarities with the South American stimulant guayusa, including the use of toasted leaves and associated emesis. Nearly all knowledge of the North American holly stimulant is based on notes and descriptions found in the chronicles of early contacts between native societies and Europeans (e.g., Narvzlez in Alston and Schultes 1951; Cabeza de Vaca 1993; Ribault in Hale 1891; Laudonniere 1975; Le Moyne in Alston and Schultes 1951; Gourges in Connor 1968; Dickinson in Blosser 1996; Lawson 1966; Bossu 1962; Catesby in Vogel 1970; Adair 1974; Romans 1962; and Bartram 1998). Synthesis of the cassina accounts reveals a stimulant leaf decoction that historically occupied a position of pro-found importance in the cultures of the Creek, Catawba, Timicua, Alabama, Cherokee, Natchez , and Seminole as a ceremonial medicine and psychological aid (reviewed in Hudson 1979; Moerman 1998). ...
Indigenous people of southeastern North America drank cassina, a stimulant and emetic decoction that the colonial British
termed “black drink.” Though most authors citeIlex vomitoria Ait. as the botanical source of cassina, confusion persists because some researchers identify the source asI. cassine L. To clarify the link between plant and product, the methylxanthine alkaloid contents ofI. vomitoria andI. cassine were compared. Since methylxanthines (i.e., caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline) have pharmacological properties congruent
with the recorded effects of cassina consumption, the alkaloids provide a chemical basis for the evaluation of both taxa as
sources of the beverage. Methylxanthine levels are higher inI. vomitoria than inI. cassine, and the principal alkaloid of the former is caffeine. Based on its alkaloid content,I. vomitoria is the best-supported candidate source of cassina.
... Further limiting the potential observation of Native American plant dispersal was the affects of disease, war, and voluntary or forced geographical displacement (Hoffman, 1896;Speck et al., 1942;Kalm, 1964;Nuttall, 1966). As European influences increased, Native Americans appeared to reduce their reliance on native plant species, or changed the ways that the plants were used. ...
Abstract Long-distance plant dispersal explains the rapid northward migration of plant species during the Holocene but the mechanisms by which it occurred are poorly understood. Given that Native Americans spread numerous cultigens over thousands of kilometres during the late Holocene, I examined historical literature for evidence of non-cultigen dispersal or cultivation in North America's eastern woodlands. Cultivation references are included because a strong relationship between dispersal and indigenous flora husbandry is assumed. Sixty-seven texts describing Native American lifestyle, cultural activities, and land management reported some form of plant use. Most accounts, however, focus on cultigen production or the use of indigenous flora for medicine or food without mention of dispersal. Twenty-four of the texts described the trade, transport, or cultivation of plants indigenous to eastern North American woodlands. Most accounts focus on the informal production of food plants, especially trees and shrubs. Confounding these reports was clear evidence of observer bias, limited botanical knowledge, acculturation, and secrecy by Native American informants. Because of these shortcomings, the likelihood of widespread long-distance plant dispersal by Native Americans could not be determined using historical literature. This activity was either not widespread or was not observed by, or revealed to, Europeans. To adequately test the Native American plant dispersal hypothesis, direct evidence from other sources (e.g. archaeobotancial data) will be required.
For centuries, people have understood that forests, and our utilisation of them, influence the climate. With modern environmental concerns, there is now scientific, governmental, and popular interest in planting trees for climate protection. This book examines the historical origins of the idea that forests influence climate, the bitter controversy that ended the science, and its modern rebirth. Spanning the 1500s to the present, it provides a broad perspective across the physical and biological sciences, as well as the humanities, to explain the many ways forests influence climate. It describes their use in climate-smart forestry and as a natural climate solution, and demonstrates that in the forest–climate question, human and sylvan fates are linked. Accessibly written with minimal mathematics, it is ideal for students in environmental and related sciences, as well as anyone with an interest in understanding the environmental workings of forests and their interactions with climate.
Archaeological investigations at Locus 1 of the Rumsey/Polk Tenant/Prehistoric site (7NCF112) in St. Georges Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware, United States unearthed spatially distinct features and artifacts providing information about the lives of eighteenth- through mid-nineteenth-century enslaved and free Black occupants. Some assemblages are intermixed with those associated with white tenants. Associated faunal remains reveal complex dynamics of meat consumption between social classes and cultural groups. Geographic Information Systems technology aids in visualizing data to reveal contrasts in faunal usage across space between groups and nuances in chronology and variability of meat consumption at Locus 1.
The sources, uptake, and assimilation of nitrogen by plants has a history that dates from the time of the ancient Greeks, and the elucidation of the interlocking questions occupied some of the finest philosophical and scientific minds of Europe for considerably longer than two millenia. Current acidic precipitation, containing a significant amount of nitrogen, has again focused attention on the role of precipitation nitrogen in plant nutrition.
This paper aims to redress serious imbalances in the research on ginseng. Most accounts of ginseng treat it as an exclusively East Asian commodity, and are dominated by the natural sciences. Ginseng, however, was much discussed in England and America in the early modern period: the discussion encompassed not only botanical and medical interests, but also discourses on the commercial marketability of ginseng; ginseng was also an item that embodied European prejudices, symbolizing perceived 'differences' between the West and East. As such, ginseng was an 'indigenous' item of 'the East' that was much discussed in 'the West', but one that resisted assimilation into its systems of knowledge.
This chapter focuses on emerging professional discourses and practices of fine art during the colonial and early national periods, when the means to and meaning of professionalism were in the midst of being defined. Painting as a trade constitutes the near and pervasive background apart from which American (and British) fine artists sought to distinguish themselves. West weighed the artists in the self-portrait. In Britain until the mid-eighteenth century and later in colonial America, painters held the status of artisans because they worked with their hands, along a spectrum of activities that fell under the rubric of “painter in general.” The American School is an allegory that constructs history, a painting that projects affirmative regionalism, even colonial nationalism, at a time of North America's expanded economic role in the British Empire and of attendant prophecies of American cultural greatness, most famously expressed in the poem.
THE UPPER MISSOURI RIVER was a strange place to find a woodcutter. The country seemed to be more sky than earth, and the earth was more like an endless sea of grass than anything resembling a forest. This was a land where winter temperatures plummeted to forty degrees below zero, where winds exceeded eighty miles an hour and could drive a person insane with their relentless howling. Summer heat could top one hundred degrees in the shade, except there was no shade. In July, the "whole prairie was dry and yellow, the least motion, even of a wolf crossing it raised the dust," the traveling German prince Maximilian of Wied wrote in 1833.
Ethnographers wishing to capture images of “Vanishing Americans” in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries were beholden to a rather narrow viewpoint. Such figures were white, male, and narrowly honed “documentary” photography. It is not a great surprise that among the Blackfeet tribes one of the greatest spiritual traditions of the Northern Plains has received short shrift. The Old Women's Society (Matoki) were one of the most powerful and esteemed Medicine Societies. As information about the women tends to be dispersed, this article is an attempt to re-view that identity and, perhaps, expand the discussion about them.
Ostrich feathers have long been an important export from Africa to different European markets. The ostrich plume was a key part of the luxury trade across Mediterranean shores for centuries. The main source of ostrich feathers was from wild ostriches especially from North and West Africa. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the rising economic value of ostrich plumes triggered colonial French and British competition over this luxury commodity, leading to the establishment of domesticated ostrich farms by the French in North and West Africa and by the British in South Africa. This article uses an economic historical framework to understand colonial ostrich feather trade and its impact on French and British relations during the nineteenth century in Africa. We examine the ostrich feather commercial networks that began to emerge particularly by the middle of nineteenth century, and focus on the sources of ostrich feathers and the local practices for hunting and raising ostriches. We argue that by looking at the need for ostrich plumes in European markets and the rise in public consumption of fashion goods based on the ostrich plume, nineteenth-century European capitalism destroyed not only the wild African ostriches, but also local African livelihoods based on wild ostriches.
Plants adapted to sunny, open habitats in Vermont have different origins, times of arrival, ecological positions, and human associations. Weeds had uses during the self-sufficiency phase of early settlement. After 1860, commercial-farming orientation, infestations of newly arrived adventives, and activities of state agronomic institutions led to changed policies and intensive weed control. Since 1960 the contraction of agricultural landuse and the rise of alternative ideas hae brought a reevaluation of these peregrinating plants. Weeds are signifiers of a rural society whose preoccupations have changed from preindustrial to postmodern values.
Discriminant function analysis is an invaluable statistical tool for the taxonomic identification of hybrids between various extant species of Canis in the eastern United States. This technique has recently been applied to the taxonomic identification of canid skulls from several Wyoming archaeological sites. Analysis indicates most canid remains, originally identified as wolf (Canis lupus), to be wolf/dog hybrids exhibiting constant and continual backbreeding to the local wolf populations. The spatial and temporal extent of the form is discussed.
This paper presents data on the exploitation of coastal shell middens within the framework of formation and transformation processes for this type archaeological deposit. The extensive use of shell middens worldwide for agricultural, construction, and commercial purposes indicates that the archaeological record for past shellfishing cultures may be distorted by secondary sites or complete loss of evidence.
This research illuminates the historical context and cultural significance of ribbon-bordered dress of the Native Americans in the Great Lakes region in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Period manuscripts and print materials were studied to document access to European-produced silk ribbon, to trace the spread of ribbon-bordered dress among Great Lakes tribes, to explore the origins of cut-and-sewn ribbonwork borders on dress, and to interpret the cultural context in which ribbon-bordered dress arose. In summary, ribbon-bordered dress was found to embody a creative and innovative response to an imported material by Great Lakes Indian women. Moreover, through its use and transformation in Native American dress, silk ribbon both established cultural boundaries and bound cultures together.
At least 175 food plants and 52 beverage plants were gathered by Native Peoples in eastern Canada. Iroquoian agriculturalists of southern Ontario cultivated corn, beans, squash, tobacco, and sunflowers, and gathered the greatest variety of food plants. Southern and eastern Algonkian hunters and gatherers ate a wide variety of wild plant foods including fleshy fruits, nuts, greens, and underground parts. Little is known about the use of wild food plants by northern Cree and Naskapi.Nutritional data for gathered plants indicate that many of these species exceed conventional plant sources for vitamins and minerals. Vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, and fibre are particularly well represented in certain gathered plants. Some wild plant foods require special preparation or must be consumed in limited quantities because they contain toxic secondary metabolites.Over 400 plants are used in native medicine. Native medicine consists of rational and ritualistic components. Treatment of physical disorders, whose origin could be determined, was effective. At least 105 medicinal plants have a real effectiveness based on phytochemical constituents. Conifers were the most widely used group of plants in this category. Antibiotic monoterpenes, polyacetylenes and alkaloids, astringent tannins, and analgesic monoterpenes and salicylates are among the most rationally and widely used plant constituents.There is need for more research into nutritional constituents and pharmacological properties to assess the value and potential of plants used by Native People of eastern Canada.
Prologue Terminology and Taxonomy Origin and Trends Under Domestication Cucurbita pepo in Periods of Recorded History History of the Pumpkins and Squash History of the Gourds Summary Epilogue Literature Cited
abstract. The American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) falls into a category of wild organisms, called “synanthropes,” that have developed an affinity for, or dependency on, human interventions in the landscape. The distribution and numbers of crows in North America east of the Mississippi River have been largely tied to the anthropogenic fragmentation of the forest. As ground feeders, crows need open space for foraging, but they also need trees for nesting and roosting. Conflicts between corvids and people centered on the former's damage to agriculture. Both Native American peoples and Euro-American settlers sought to thwart corvine preference for maize through a series of ingenious measures. After 1950 rural concern about corvine depredations greatly diminished. The appearance of large winter roosts in cities shifted the conflict with crows. Like humans, crows have undergone change, and their synanthropic character can be seen as fundamental to their biogeography.
There is a long history of human interaction with plants of the Aroideae subfamily (Araceae). Despite these plants' chemical defenses against animal and vegetal predation, humans have targeted their starchy corms, tubers and rhizomes for dietary purposes. In the Eastern Woodlands of North America, early Europeans described the Native population as utilizing the highly acridic Peltandra virginica (arrow arum) for subsistence needs. In order to render this resource edible, however, the acridic principle first needs to be eliminated. Our study investigates the affect these processing activities have on the integrity of arrow arum starch grains. Findings from this study demonstrate that environmental variables specific to individual processing procedures may be more influential on starch grain survival than simply the temperatures reached during cooking.
Native food production in the Eastern Woodlands of North America before, and at the time of, European contact has been described by several writers as slash-and-burn agriculture, shifting cultivation, and even swidden. Select quotes from various early explorers, such as John Smith of Pocahontas fame, have been used out of context to support this position. Solid archaeological evidence of such practices is next to non-existent, as are ethnographic parallels from the region. In reality, the best data are documentary. Unlike previous assessments, this paper evaluates sixteenth and seventeenth century ethnohistorical references to anything that can be even remotely construed as supportive of previous claims. Analyzed as a group these sources reveal something completely different from what common knowledge would have us believe. References to the slashing, the burning, and the shifting of fields are reasonably abundant. Rarely, however, are all three activities mentioned in a single passage, or by one chronicler. Furthermore, subtleties often overlooked in these quotes reveal great insight into native practices. This paper assesses explorers' and early settlers' descriptions in the context of the larger body of literature dealing with the ecology of swidden agriculture today. Indigenous fields in the Eastern Woodlands tended to be large, numerous, contiguous, and cleared of roots and stumps. Fields previously cleared of trees were covered with grass prior to preparation for planting. They were permanently cultivated. This condition stands in marked contrast to present-day swidden fields in other parts of the world that tend to be small, few, scattered, partially cleared of trees, and cultivated for only a year or two before being abandoned. Slash-and-burn shifting cultivation became common only after European settlers introduced steel axes. It was then practiced on uplands, not the formerly cultivated floodplains that were usurped by interlopers.
In 1943 the U. S. Federal Government erected a milk weed floss- and seed-extracting plant at Petoskey, Michigan, the only
one of its kind in the world, and in one year this plant furnished to the armed forces two million pounds of milkweed floss
that was used in lieu of kapok from Java in the manufacture of life saving equipment. Two million pounds of seed and tons
of fibers were by-products as potential commercial sources of oil and cellulose, respectively.
Archaeological investigation of the economic role of domestic versus wild canids among late prehistoric and historic villagers in the Northern Plains has long been hindered by difficulties in reliably distinguishing between remains of different species, especially dogs (Canis familiaris) and wolves (Canis lupus). Taxonomic confusion is the result of deliberate human selection for large, strong dogs for use as draft animals, and occasional but probably consistent hybridization between dogs and wolves. Discriminant analysis is used to help identify 33 archaeological canid crania from the Northern Plains, many of which are taxonomically confusing. Reference samples for classification of these specimens consist of six groups of modern or archaeological dog, wolf and coyote (Canis latrans) crania from North America. Thirteen measurements are used. Analysis indicates that, relative to wolves, the dogs tend to have proportionally wide posterior cranial vaults, short snouts and palates, steeply rising foreheads, and small teeth. Although convincing evidence for dog—wolf hybrid specimens from recent Plains archaeological contexts is lacking, the identification of such specimens probably has little practical significance with regard to canid domestication in general. Compared to dogs, a greater proportion of specimens identified as wolves exhibit evidence of butchering.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.