A bridge for two views: Checkland’s soft systems methodology and Maturana’s ontology of the observer

© 2019, © Operational Research Society 2019. Checkland and Maturana’s work aim to understand and to improve problematic situations in organisations and in our everyday life. Maturana’s phenomenological onto-epistemology (we are immersed in the praxis of living in an ontological multi-universe) seems to resonate with Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) interpretivist epistemology. We argue that this concurrence makes it possible to reflect and explore some of Maturana’s ideas (structural determinism/structural coupling/organisational closure) when they are grafted into the phases of the Checkland’s SSM seven-step process. This article aims to complement SSM by proposing a framework in which some key concepts from Maturana’s Ontology of the Observer (OoO) might enhance and expand the understanding of the SSM application process. An enriched and enhanced SSM process could have significant consequences in the Management Science/Operational Research (MS/OR) and Systems community practice. The framework proposed can have major social repercussions since it will incorporate the well-known influential OoO ideas into MS/OR practice

Limpet Shells from the Aterian Level 8 of El Harhoura 2 Cave (Témara, Morocco): Preservation State of Crossed-Foliated Layers

International audienceThe exploitation of mollusks by the first anatomically modern humans is a central question for archaeologists. This paper focuses on level 8 (dated around * 100 ka BP) of El Har-houra 2 Cave, located along the coastline in the Rabat-Témara region (Morocco). The large quantity of Patella sp. shells found in this level highlights questions regarding their origin and preservation. This study presents an estimation of the preservation status of these shells. We focus here on the diagenetic evolution of both the microstructural patterns and organic components of crossed-foliated shell layers, in order to assess the viability of further investigations based on shell layer minor elements, isotopic or biochemical compositions. The results show that the shells seem to be well conserved, with microstructural patterns preserved down to sub-micrometric scales, and that some organic components are still present in situ. But faint taphonomic degradations affecting both mineral and organic components are nonetheless evidenced, such as the disappearance of organic envelopes surrounding crossed-foliated lamellae, combined with a partial recrystallization of the lamellae. Our results provide a solid case-study of the early stages of the diagenetic evolution of crossed-foliated shell layers. Moreover, they highlight the fact that extreme caution must be taken before using fossil shells for palaeoenvironmental or geochronological reconstructions. Without thorough investigation, the alteration patterns illustrated here would easily have gone unnoticed. However, these degradations are liable to bias any proxy based on the elemental, isotopic or biochemical composition of the shells. This study also provides significant data concerning human subsistence behavior: the presence of notches and the good preservation state of limpet shells (no dissolution/recrystallization, no bioerosion and no abrasion/fragmentation aspects) would attest that limpets were gathered alive with tools by Middle Palaeolithic (Aterian) populations in North Africa for consumption

Temporal variability in shell mound formation at Albatross Bay, northern Australia

We report the results of 212 radiocarbon determinations from the archaeological excavation of 70 shell mound deposits in the Wathayn region of Albatross Bay, Australia. This is an intensive study of a closely co-located group of mounds within a geographically restricted area in a wider region where many more shell mounds have been reported. Valves from the bivalve Tegillarcca granosa were dated. The dates obtained are used to calculate rates of accumulation for the shell mound deposits. These demonstrate highly variable rates of accumulation both within and between mounds. We assess these results in relation to likely mechanisms of shell deposition and show that rates of deposition are affected by time-dependent processes both during the accumulation of shell deposits and during their subsequent deformation. This complicates the interpretation of the rates at which shell mound deposits appear to have accumulated. At Wathayn, there is little temporal or spatial consistency in the rates at which mounds accumulated. Comparisons between the Wathayn results and those obtained from shell deposits elsewhere, both in the wider Albatross Bay region and worldwide, suggest the need for caution when deriving behavioural inferences from shell mound deposition rates, and the need for more comprehensive sampling of individual mounds and groups of mounds

Changing collecting strategies of the clam Donax serra Röding (Bivalvia: Donacidae) during the Pleistocene at Pinnacle Point, South Africa

South Africa's Middle Stone Age (MSA) coastal sites have played a prominent role in documenting early evidence of systematic shellfish collection and adaptation to aquatic environments in the context of anatomically modern humans. Pinnacle Point 13B cave is important among these MSA sites not only because it holds the earliest yet known evidence for human use of marine resources (~162ka [thousands of years ago]), but because shellfish observations have been integrated more fully into discussions of MSA adaptations. This is particularly the case of Donax serra procurement on sandy beaches, where skills that are usually indicative of an aspect of behavioural modernity (in the context of hunting) were apparently used. In this paper, D.serra from 110 to 91ka old assemblages are studied in detail by way of metrical analyses and relevant biological and ecological literature of this species. Existing seasonality studies derived from oxygen isotope analyses on the same molluscs are incorporated into this reconstruction. Shellfish appear to have been collected in winter over many millennia when D.serra are most nutritious due to high gonad content. A dramatic change in collection strategies took place during the same millennia-long period. Earliest systematic collection of D.serra consisted of mostly unselective procurement of animals in terms of shell size along the tidal gradient and beach depth. In later visits, people collected mostly larger individuals by narrowing their collection to the mid-intertidal. This change increased the efficiency of D.serra collection, which reflects a positive adaptive behaviour that endured into Later Stone Age (LSA) times.Peer Reviewe

A fossil whale barnacle from the Middle Pleistocene human settlement of cave PP13B (Pinnacle Point, South Africa), and its paleobiological significance

Site PP13B is a sea cave overlooking the Indian Ocean in the quartzitic coastal cliffs at Pinnacle Point near Mossel Bay (South Africa). Archeological evidence indicates that around 164 ka, in the midst of the Middle Stone Age, PP13B was inhabited by early modern human populations which fed on shellfish and other seafood. Pinnacle Point preserves the archeologically oldest evidences for human use of marine resources. Such a diet and habitat expansion has been interpreted as a response to the generally harsh environmental conditions which affected southern Africa during the predominantly glacial MIS 6. Among the fossil marine invertebrates recognized at Cave PP13B, an isolated whale barnacle rostrum was tentatively determined as Coronula diadema and regarded as an indirect evidence of human scavenging and consumption of a baleen whale, most likely Megaptera novaeangliae. Here we redetermine the whale barnacle plate found at PP13B as belonging to Cetopirus complanatus, an unusual but characteristic coronulid species currently known as a highly genus-specific phoront of the right whales (Cetacea: Mysticeti: Eubalaena spp.). This record significantly improves the most fragmentary fossil history of the genus Cetopirus and permits various paleobiological inferences. To our knowledge, the fossil whale barnacle plate from cave PP13B represents the first occurrence of the genus Cetopirus in Africa. Moreover, this record significantly expands the fossil history of C. complanatus, of about 150 ky, to the Middle Pleistocene: in fact, to this date, the geologically oldest published record of C. complanatus dated back to the Late Glacial period of southern Spain. Furthermore, the Middle Pleistocene C. complanatus specimen from Pinnacle Point partially bridges the occurrence of Cetopirus fragilis in early Pleistocene (1.95-1.73 Ma) deposits of Otranto (South Italy) to the Late Pleistocene to Recent C. complanatus record. Since C. complanatus is a strictly genus-specific phoront of the right whales, we propose that the Middle Pleistocene groups that inhabited cave PP13B fed on a stranded southern right whale (Eubalaena australis), a cetacean species which currently approaches the southern coasts of Africa in the late austral winter. Weighing up to about 50 tons (more than 40% of the body weight being possibly contributed by the thick layer of nutritionally valuable subcutaneous fat), a southern right whale should have been a fitting dinner for Pinnacle Point foragers. Some authors recently proposed that, during the Last Glacial Period, southern right whales could have migrated to the Northern Hemisphere as a response to Antarctic sea-ice expansion. In turn, the whale barnacle from cave PP13B suggests the persistence of a southern right whale population off southern South Africa during the predominantly glacial MIS 6, thus supporting the continuity of cetacean migration paths and antitropical distribution during that global cold phase. Due to their coastal habits, large size, huge abundance of blubber, and slow swimming speed, right whales have been the main target worldwide of whalers for centuries. It is therefore puzzling to note that the most ancient evidence of humans feeding on a whale involves Eubalaena, likely the most historically exploited cetacean genus, and currently still seriously threatened with extinction due to anthropic impact and poorly sustainable trade

Cetopirus complanatus (Cirripedia: Coronulidae) from the late Middle Pleistocene human settlement of Pinnacle Point 13B (Mossel Bay, South Africa)

The late Middle Pleistocene cave site of Pinnacle Point 13B (PP13B, South Africa) has provided the archaeologically oldest evidences yet known of human consumption of marine resources. Among the marine invertebrates recognised at PP13B, an isolated whale barnacle compartment was tentatively determined as Coronula diadema and regarded as indirect evidence of human consumption of a baleen whale (likely Megaptera novaeangliae). In this paper we redetermine this coronulid specimen as Cetopirus complanatus. This record significantly extends the fossil history of C. complanatus back by about 150 ky, thus partially bridging the occurrence of Cetopirus fragilis in the early Pleistocene to the latest Quaternary record of C. complanatus. Since C. complanatus is currently known as a highly specific phoront of right whales (Eubalaena spp.), we propose that the late Middle Pleistocene human groups that inhabited PP13B fed on a stranded southern right whale. Therefore, the whale barnacle from PP13B suggests the persistence of a southern right whale population off South Africa during the predominantly glacial MIS 6, thus evoking the continuity of cetacean migrations and antitropical distribution during that global cold phase. Interestingly, the most ancient evidence of humans feeding on a whale involves Eubalaena, historically the most exploited cetacean genus, and currently still seriously threatened with extinction due to human impact