Paleoclimate and Evolution, with Emphasis on Human Origins


Book Description

Addressing the relationship between climatic and biotic evolution, this work focuses on how climatic change during the last 15 million years - especially the last three million - has affected human evolution and other evolutionary events.







Biocomplexity of Plant-Fungal Interactions


Book Description

Plants interact with a wide variety of organisms in their natural growing environments. Key amongst these relationships is the interplay between plants and diverse fungal species that impact plants in complex symbiotic, parasitic and pathogenic ways. Biocomplexity of Plant-Fungal Interactions explores a broad spectrum of research looking at both positive and negative interactions of these relationships on plants and their ecosystems. Biocomplexity of Plant-Fungal Interactions takes a more holistic view of the plant-fungal interactions than most traditional volumes on the topic. Focusing on the truly complex biological interplay among plants and fungi, as well as other organisms—mammals, insects, bacteria, viruses, this book provides a unique perspective on this fundamentally important relationship. Chapters are written from molecular, evolutionary and ecological perspectives to provide readers with a full understanding of the diverse implications of plant-fungal interactions. Written by a global team of experts from varied scientific backgrounds, Biocomplexity of Plant-Fungal Interactions will be an essential title for readers looking for a better understanding of the diverse array of interactions between plants and fungi in natural ecosystems.




The Making of Feudal Agricultures?


Book Description

The Register of Laws of the Arabian Gulf offers a single, comprehensive source of key information in the field. No similar work exists in the English language. Drawing on original Arabic sources - invariably very difficult to find either individually or in series - this major loose-leaf work provides a complete database of all laws and regulations originating in each country of the Arabian Gulf.




New Aspects on Tethyan Cretaceous Fossil Assemblages


Book Description

The geologic term "Tethys" introduced by Eduard Suess (1893) into science was originally a paleogeographic one. Since its original description it has been used in various ways. One of them is Tethys as a paleo-biogeographic concept. This concept was adopted for IGCP Project 262, Tethyan Cretaceous Correlation. It was proposed by G. Czaszar and Heinz A. Kollmann and has been approved by the IGCP Board in February 1987. The project has its aims primarily in the improvement of the stratigraphic correlation between the heterogenous facies of the Tethyan realm. The requests to paleontology in this programme are of various kinds: The delimitation of the Tethyan realm in space and time needs clear statements on the composition of Tethyan faunal or floral assemblages. Biozones based on various fossil groups have to be established for biostratigraphic correlation. Finally, Tethyan bioprovinces have to be established. These problems have been discussed in a special meeting of the paleontological group of the project which was held on January 25-27, 1988, in Vienna. Papers presented at this meeting are published in this volume.




Times of Neolithic Transition along the Western Mediterranean


Book Description

The study of the Neolithic transition constitutes a major theme in prehistoric research. The process of economic change, from foraging to farming, involved one of the main transformations in human behavior patterns. This volume focuses on investigating the neolithization process at the periphery of one of the main routes in the expansion of the Neolithic in Europe: the Western Mediterranean region. Recent advances in radiocarbon dating, mathematical and computational models, archaeometric analysis and biomolecular techniques, together with new archaeological discoveries, provide novel insights into this topic. This volume is organized into five sections: · new discoveries and new ideas about the Mediterranean Neolithic · reconstructing times and modeling processes · landscape interaction: farming and herding · dietary subsistence of early farming communities · human dispersal mechanisms and cultural transmission This volume will also provide new empirical data to help readers assess different theoretical frameworks and narratives which underlie the models proposed to explain the expansion of farming from the Middle East into Europe.







The end of the lake-dwellings in the Circum-Alpine region


Book Description

After more than 3500 years of occupation in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, the many lake-dwellings around the Circum-Alpine region ‘suddenly’ came to an end. Throughout that period alternating phases of occupation and abandonment illustrate how resilient lacustrine populations were against change: cultural/environmental factors might have forced them to relocate temporarily, but they always returned to the lakes. So why were the lake-dwellings finally abandoned and what exactly happened towards the end of the Late Bronze Age that made the lake-dwellers change their way of life so drastically? The new research presented here draws upon the results of a four-year-long project dedicated to shedding light on this intriguing conundrum. Placing a particular emphasis upon the Bronze Age, a multidisciplinary team of researchers has studied the lake-dwelling phenomenon inside out, leaving no stones unturned, enabling identification of all possible interactive socioeconomic and environmental factors that can be subsequently tested against each other to prove (or disprove) their validity. By refitting the various pieces of the jigsaw a plausible, but also rather unexpected, picture emerges.




Tertiary Basins of Spain


Book Description

This is the first book to deal comprehensively with Spain's tectonic and sedimentary history over the past sixty or so million years. During Tertiary times, Spain had suffered compressional collision between France and Africa, and its Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts had been further modified by extensional rifting.