The domestication and spread of maize (corn) has been a hot topic in archaeology for a number of years. Recent research from University of Calgary PhD student Sonia Zarrillo and archaeology professor Dr. Scott Raymond using a new technique for examining cooking pots shows that the “spread of maize out of Mexico more than 9,000 years ago occurred much faster than previously believed and provides evidence that corn was likely a vital food crop for villages in tropical Ecuador at least 5,000 years ago”, according to a news report from EurekAlert, an online news service operated by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

You can read the news alert here, or find the full article “Directly dated starch residues document early formative maize (Zea mays L.) in tropical Ecuador” in the March 24 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Today’s Globe and Mail has an article on an 850 BC archaeological excavation near Victoria. Archaeologists have been sifting through remains of a large house-pit, clay oven and fire pit unearthed at a housing development near the Esquimalt Lagoon.

The article is currently available for free on the Globe and Mail site, but will require subscription later on in the archives. Don’t forget that we have electronic access to the past issues of the Globe and Mail via the Canadian Newsstand database.

Students of Anth 351 (Ethnography of Melanesia) will be holding a fund-raiser and raffle tomorrow at the Gallery in the SUB from 4:30 to 6:30. The funds raised will go directly to local NGOs involved in relief efforts in Oro province, Papua New Guinea, which was hit by devastating floods about ten days ago resulting in much loss of life and destruction. Two areas where Dr. Bill McKellin and Dr. John Barker work, Uiaku village and Managalase, are especially affected.

For news updates on the disaster and relief efforts, view this Google News feed:
http://news.google.ca/news?hl=en&ned=ca&ie=UTF-8&q=oro+flood&btnG=Search

In the ghostly spirit of Halloween, we offer you a few books at UBC Library on the pagan holiday:

• Death makes a holiday : a cultural history of Halloween, by David J. Skal.
• Halloween : from pagan ritual to party night, by Nicholas Rogers.
• Halloween and festivals of death and life, edited by Jack Santino.

(Photo by urban bicyclist)

Dr. Bill McKellin of the Anthropology Department forwarded a segment from CBC Radio’s The Current this morning on Human Terrain Systems:

“Some say it’s humanizing the military. Others charge that it’s militarizing the profession of anthropology. What’s at issue is something called Human Terrain Systems, a new Pentagon counter insurgency initiative in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the heart of each team is an anthropologist who conducts field research on the local people and helps military commanders make more effective decisions on the ground. The Pentagon is in full support pledging that there will eventually be two dozen of these teams – one with every brigade operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

You can listen to an edited audio file of the program here.

Thanks to Greg Feldman for following up with a note about the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, of which he is a founding member, along with 9 others including Roberto Gonzalez who gives the counterpoint in the broadcast to the Human Terrain Systems. The Network of Concerned Anthropologists asks anthropologists to sign a pledge as a way of saying that “anthropologists should not engage in research and other activities that contribute to counter-insurgency operations in Iraq or in related theaters in the “war on terror.””

The site has a list of background reading on this complex ethical issue at:
http://concerned.anthropologists.googlepages.com/articles

Many of the linked articles are freely available; the other journals (such as Anthropology Today and Anthropology News) are subscribed to by UBC Library, so as long as you’re on campus or using the VPN you will be able to access them.