A psychological perspective on elephant rewilding

Baker & Winkler describe the complexities of captive elephant conservation efforts in Thailand through multiple lenses. They advocate rewilding captive elephants within mixed elephant-human communities based on the benefits to captive elephants as well as to Karen mahout communities, given the entrenched economic and social systems in Thailand. From a psychological perspective, this advocacy is grounded in considerations of culture, cognition, speciesism, the differential valuing of others in social hierarchies, and the potential for positive interaction to build positive emotions and trust that enable successful rewilding in a world of elephants and humans

REPLY TO COMMENTS OF NOLAN AND COOK

We appreciate and would like to respond to the comments made by Nolan and Cook. We make three points in our reply, which are directed at clarifying our position and responding to a few of Nolan and Cook\u27s assumptions. First, as a matter of clarification, the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) is not a measure of summer rainfall as Nolan and Cook (2010) imply. Instead it is a theoretical measure of soil-moisture, the value of which evolves over several months in response to fluxes of precipitation, evaporation, and runoff. In practice, PDSI is usually heavily weighted toward the precipitation side of the soil water balance. Second, with regard to archaeological facts, the known developmental trajectory of the greater Cahokia region is not quite as Nolan and Cook describe it. In their discussion of the timing of the precocious development of social complexity in the American Bottom, Nolan and Cook refer to the American Bottom during both the Edelhardt (A.D. 1000-1050) and Lohmann phases (A.D. 1050-1100) as being relatively wet but not the wettest areas in the Upper Mississippi and Ohio Valleys. However, Cahokia\u27s big bang dates to the end of the Edelhardt phase and continued through the Lohmann phase, so the overall climatic state of the Edelhardt phase is not at issue. Nolan and Cook\u27s Figure 2 supports the concept that the Cahokia area was extremely wet during the Lohmann phase as opposed to the Edelhardt phase

Prospecting for New Questions: Integrating Geophysics to Define Anthropological Research Objectives and Inform Excavation Strategies at Monumental Sites

Geophysical data have the potential to significantly contribute to archaeological research projects when effectively integrated with more traditional methods. Although pre‐existing archaeological questions about a site may be answered using geophysical methods, beginning an investigation with an extensive geophysical survey can assist in understanding the function and archaeological potential of a site, and may even transform preconceptions about the type and spatial organisation of features that are present. In this way, these prospection tools not only accurately locate and map features to allow recovery of cultural material for identification and dating, we argue that they can go much further, allowing us to prospect for new and appropriate archaeological and anthropological research questions. Such an approach is best realised when geophysical and traditional archaeologists work together to define new objectives and strategies to address them, and by maintaining this collaboration to allow continual feedback between geophysical and archaeological data. A flexible research design is therefore essential in order to allow the methodologies to adapt to the site, the results, and the questions being posed. This methodology is demonstrated through two case studies from mound sites in southeast USA: the transitional Mississippian Washausen site in Illinois; and the Middle Woodland Garden Creek site in North Carolina. In both cases, integrating geophysical methods throughout the archaeological investigations has resulted in multiple phases of generating and addressing new research objectives. Although clearly beneficial at these two mound sites in southeast USA, this interdisciplinary approach has obvious implications well beyond these temporal and geographical areas. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106680/1/arp1476.pd

The meronomic model of cognitive change, and its application to Neolithic Çatalhöyük

The attempt to relate changes in human cognition to changes in human behaviour can be fruitful for cognitive science and archaeology alike. The process has the potential to enrich both our understanding of cognition, and interpretations of the archaeological evidence. A practical difficulty is the lack of clarity as to what cognitive change refers to. Characterisations vary considerably, even in regard to locus. Use of broad-brush terminology (e.g., `higher levels of consciousness') can add to the uncertainty. The present chapter argues that an effective way to understand cognitive change is in terms of conceptual structure, and the meronomic processes that apply. Building on the ontological distinction between meronomy and taxonomy, this approach allows cognitive change (by conceptual innovation) to be modeled precisely, while opening the way for quantification of conceptual creativity. This chapter shows how the model is derived, and explores some of the ways it might be connected with data from Çatalhöyük

Nothing Lasts Forever: Environmental Discourses on the Collapse of Past Societies

The study of the collapse of past societies raises many questions for the theory and practice of archaeology. Interest in collapse extends as well into the natural sciences and environmental and sustainability policy. Despite a range of approaches to collapse, the predominant paradigm is environmental collapse, which I argue obscures recognition of the dynamic role of social processes that lie at the heart of human communities. These environmental discourses, together with confusion over terminology and the concepts of collapse, have created widespread aporia about collapse and resulted in the creation of mixed messages about complex historical and social processes

Animating Idolatry: Making ancestral kin and personhood in ancient Peru

Historical and archaeological records help shed light on the production, ritual practices, and personhood of cult objects characterizing the central Peruvian highlands after ca. AD 200. Colonial accounts indicate that descendant groups made and venerated stone images of esteemed forebears as part of small-scale local funerary cults. Prayers and supplications help illuminate how different artifact forms were seen as honored family members (forebears, elders, parents, siblings). Archaeology, meanwhile, shows the close associations between carved monoliths, tomb repositories, and restricted cult spaces. The converging lines of evidence are consistent with the hypothesis that production of stone images was the purview of family/lineage groups. As the cynosures of cult activity and devotion, the physical forms of ancestor effigies enabled continued physical engagements, which vitalized both the idol and descendant group

Cahokia\u27s Boom and Bust in the Context of Climate Change

During the early Mississippian Lohmann phase (A.D. 1050-1100), the American Bottom experienced a political and economic transformation. This transformation included the abrupt planned construction of central Cahokia, a large-scale influx of people to downtown Cahokia, the abandonment of pre-Mississippian village settlements, the reorganization of farming in the Mississippi River floodplain, and the founding of the Richland farming complex in the Illinois uplands. New tree ring-based records of climate change indicate that this rapid development occurred during one of the wettest 50-year periods during the last millennium. During the next 150 years, a series of persistent droughts occurred in the Cahokian area which may be related to the eventual abandonment of the American Bottom. By A.D. 1150, in the latter part of a severe 15-year drought, the Richland farming complex was mostly abandoned, eliminating an integral part of Cahokia\u27s agricultural base. At about the same time, a 20,000-log palisade was erected around Monks Mound and the Grand Plaza, indicating increased social unrest. During this time, people began exiting Cahokia and, by the end of the Stirling phase (A.D. 1200), Cahokia\u27s population had decreased by about 50 percent and by A.D. 1350, Cahokia and much of the central Mississippi valley had been abandoned