- Vandana Shiva on Indian farmer suicides.
- Make mine a tejate.
Brussels hearts vultures
No sooner do we nibble a scientific paper describing how traditional transhumance supports ecosystems, and in particular vulture populations, than the EU parliament passes legislation allowing farmers to leave carcasses on their land. It’s great to be heard in Brussels!
Nibbles: James McWilliams, Flowering plant origins, Moon plant, Satellites
- “Should we be working to create local foodsheds in areas that have to import water in order to be fertile?” Dude, you had me at foodsheds.
- Endosperm “made human civilization possible.”
- First plant on moon a brassica?
- Eye in sky finds missing sweet potatoes.
- Can you think of a better way to use a rooftop than to grow rice on it and then to brew sake? Didn’t think so.
Language and the spread of agriculture
Whatever you think about the link between the spread of languages and that of farming — and the correspondence between the two postulated by Bellwood is controversial — there is no denying the similarities between a map of language diversity in a recent paper
and that of the places where agriculture originated.
At least in Africa, Near East and New Guinea. The dissimilarities, in particular in South and East Asia, are just as striking.
A little little barley goes a long way
Like I say, not a day goes by. Yesterday, ramie. Today, little barley. As in:
They likely ate sunflower, marsh elder, two types of chenopod—a family that includes spinach and beets—and possibly squash and little barley, according to the findings. The people also grew bottle gourd to make into containers.
That would be the Riverton people living three thousand years ago along the Wabash River in present-day Illinois.
The Riverton crops may have “added to what was [already] a successful life” for the ancient Americans, said Brian Redmond, curator and head of archaeology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio.
Yes, because…
…[b]efore they began farming, the Riverton people lived among bountiful river valleys and lakes, apparently eating a healthy and diverse diet of nuts, white-tailed deer, fish, and shellfish, the study says.
So the Riverton people were not reacting to some environmental stress as a matter of survival when they became agriculturalists, but rather “engaging in a bit of gastronomic innovation.” Good for them.