Maros Macrobotanicals: An Archaeobotanical Analysis of Bronze Age Agriculture in The Maros Site of Santul Mic

Honors (Bachelor's)AnthropologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79457/1/saelizab.pd

A Landscape Perspective on Climate-Driven Risks to Food Security: Exploring the Relationship between Climate and Social Transformation in the Prehispanic U.S. Southwest

Spatially and temporally unpredictable rainfall patterns presented food production challenges to small-scale agricultural communities, requiring multiple risk-mitigating strategies to increase food security. Although site-based investigations of the relationship between climate and agricultural production offer insights into how individual communities may have created long-term adaptations to manage risk, the inherent spatial variability of climate-driven risk makes a landscape-scale perspective valuable. In this article, we model risk by evaluating how the spatial structure of ancient climate conditions may have affected the reliability of three major strategies used to reduce risk: drawing upon social networks in time of need, hunting and gathering of wild resources, and storing surplus food. We then explore how climate-driven changes to this reliability may relate to archaeologically observed social transformations. We demonstrate the utility of this methodology by comparing the Salinas and Cibola regions in the prehispanic U.S. Southwest to understand the complex relationship among climate-driven threats to food security, risk-mitigation strategies, and social transformations. Our results suggest key differences in how communities buffered against risk in the Cibola and Salinas study regions, with the structure of precipitation influencing the range of strategies to which communities had access through time

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Revisiting Bosumpra: Examining 10,000 years of plant use at the Bosumpra rockshelter, Ghana

In recent years there has been a growing interest in understanding the nature of prehistoric occupations and subsistence practices in the tropical forest regions of sub-Sahelian West Africa. These regions have long been considered as promising areas for investigating the antiquity and origins of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) use and cultivation, a resource of immense economic importance today. This thesis examines Later Stone Age (LSA) subsistence practices and explores the interrelationships between LSA populations and plant resources in the tropical forests of Ghana during the Holocene. Using archaeobotanical evidence, I provide a long-term view of plant use at the Bosumpra rockshelter in southern Ghana over the course of the 10,000 years occupation, and I present the first detailed archaeobotanical analysis for pre-Kintampo LSA populations in Ghana. This research documents the use and perhaps early management relationships with the oleaginous , incense tree (Canarium schweinfurthii L.) and oil palm, which are the most abundant food remains for all phases of occupation at Bosumpra. The collection and processing of these taxa, especially incense tree, were important activities performed at the shelter, and likely influenced the timing of the use of the shelter. The results of this study show the gradual displacement of incense tree by oil palm as the dominant tree-fruit resource at Bosumpra, and demonstrate the longstanding importance of both tree-fruit resources at the shelter well past the advent of food-production in Ghana. Remains of pearl millet and cowpea at Bosumpra document the appearance of plant domesticates in these forested habitats. Although this analysis of plant materials from Bosumpra provides data from only a single site, the findings resonate with more widespread work on LSA subsistence practices, especially in regard to the importance of incense tree and oil palm to forest inhabitants. It also provides archaeobotanical evidence supporting previous models of the introduction and spread of West African plant domesticates. Altogether, archaeobotanical data from Bosumpra provide insights into changing practices of plant use and management during the LSA, and a subtle indication of what may be the earliest evidence of interaction and exchange between hunter-gatherers and food producers in this forest region

Mainstreaming African Diasporic Foodways When Academia Is Not Enough

More than a decade after Britain's bicentennial commemoration of the 1807 Abolition Act to end the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Scotland still struggles to reconcile her colonial past. Unlike in North America, historical archaeology centered on the history and legacy of the transatlantic slave trade is still highly marginalized in British academia. Furthermore, Scotland's roles in slave-based economies is only recently being considered a relevant area of historical studies. This paper emerges from my evolving perspective as a Black American scholar and resident in the United Kingdom, as I strive to create intellectual spaces in and outside of academia. Through civic engagement, I use my work on African diasporic foodways in the French Caribbean to link with a similar material basis of resistance in the British Caribbean and engage British audiences whose connections to Atlantic slavery are yet to be fully recognized