How ancestral subsistence strategies solve salmon starvation and the "protein problem" of Pacific Rim resources.

This article provides a theoretical treatment of hunter-gatherer diet and physiology. Through a synthesis of nutritional studies, informed by ethno-archaeological data, we examine the risk of protein-rich diets for human survival, and how societies circumvent "salmon starvation" in the northeastern Pacific Rim. Fundamental nutritional constraints associated with salmon storage and consumption counter long-standing assumptions about the engine of cultural evolution in the region.

The earliest farmers of northwest China exploited grain-fed pheasants not chickens.

Though chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) are globally ubiquitous today, the timing, location, and manner of their domestication is contentious. Until recently, archaeologists placed the origin of the domestic chicken in northern China, perhaps as early as 8,000 years ago. Such evidence however complicates our understanding of how the chicken was domesticated because its wild progenitor - the red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) - lives in tropical ecosystems and does not exist in northern China today or in the recent past.

Current perspectives and the future of domestication studies.

It is difficult to overstate the cultural and biological impacts that the domestication of plants and animals has had on our species. Fundamental questions regarding where, when, and how many times domestication took place have been of primary interest within a wide range of academic disciplines. Within the last two decades, the advent of new archaeological and genetic techniques has revolutionized our understanding of the pattern and process of domestication and agricultural origins that led to our modern way of life.

Particularism and the retreat from theory in the archaeology of agricultural origins.

The introduction of new analytic methods and expansion of research into previously untapped regions have greatly increased the scale and resolution of data relevant to the origins of agriculture (OA). As a result, the recognition of varied historical pathways to agriculture and the continuum of management strategies have complicated the search for general explanations for the transition to food production. In this environment, higher-level theoretical frameworks are sometimes rejected on the grounds that they force conclusions that are incompatible with real-world variability.

Storytelling and story testing in domestication.

The domestication of plants and animals marks one of the most significant transitions in human, and indeed global, history. Traditionally, study of the domestication process was the exclusive domain of archaeologists and agricultural scientists; today it is an increasingly multidisciplinary enterprise that has come to involve the skills of evolutionary biologists and geneticists. Although the application of new information sources and methodologies has dramatically transformed our ability to study and understand domestication, it has also generated increasingly large and complex datasets, the interpretation of which is not straightforward.

Patterns of East Asian pig domestication, migration, and turnover revealed by modern and ancient DNA.

The establishment of agricultural economies based upon domestic animals began independently in many parts of the world and led to both increases in human population size and the migration of people carrying domestic plants and animals. The precise circumstances of the earliest phases of these events remain mysterious given their antiquity and the fact that subsequent waves of migrants have often replaced the first. Through the use of more than 1,500 modern (including 151 previously uncharacterized specimens) and 18 ancient (representing six East Asian archeological sites) pig (Sus scrofa) DNA sequences sampled across East Asia, we provide evidence for the long-term genetic continuity between modern and ancient Chinese domestic pigs.

Agricultural origins and the isotopic identity of domestication in northern China.

Stable isotope biochemistry (delta(13)C and delta(15)N) and radiocarbon dating of ancient human and animal bone document 2 distinct phases of plant and animal domestication at the Dadiwan site in northwest China. The first was brief and nonintensive: at various times between 7900 and 7200 calendar years before present (calBP) people harvested and stored enough broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) to provision themselves and their hunting dogs (Canis sp.) throughout the year.