Arboreal crops on the medieval Silk Road: Archaeobotanical studies at Tashbulak.

During the first millennium A.D., Central Asia was marked by broad networks of exchange and interaction, what many historians collectively refer to as the "Silk Road". Much of this contact relied on high-elevation mountain valleys, often linking towns and caravanserais through alpine territories. This cultural exchange is thought to have reached a peak in the late first millennium A.D., and these exchange networks fostered the spread of domesticated plants and animals across Eurasia. However, few systematic studies have investigated the cultivated plants that spread along the trans-Eurasian exchange during this time. New archaeobotanical data from the archaeological site of Tashbulak (800-1100 A.D.) in the mountains of Uzbekistan is shedding some light on what crops were being grown and consumed in Central Asia during the medieval period. The archaeobotanical assemblage contains grains and legumes, as well as a wide variety of fruits and nuts, which were likely cultivated at lower elevations and transported to the site. In addition, a number of arboreal fruits may have been collected from the wild or represent cultivated version of species that once grew in the wild shrubby forests of the foothills of southern Central Asia in prehistory. This study examines the spread of crops, notably arboreal crops, across Eurasia and ties together several data sets in order to add to discussions of what plant cultivation looked like in the central region of the Silk Road.

A Behind-the-Scenes Glimpse into the Princeps Edition of Coloquios dos simples (Goa, 1563).

Considered by many to be the most learned Portuguese physician who lived in Goa during the sixteenth century, Garcia de Orta (c. 1500-1568) was the author of CoIoquios dos Simples, e Dro gas he cousas medicinais da India [Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India] (Goa, 1563). Devoted entirely to the description of Asian natural resour ces, very little is known about how this treatise came into existence. Publish ed at the edges of the Portuguese empire, and a hostage to technical, structural and human constraints, the princeps edition had a limited circulation. The diffusion around Europe of the novelties described in Col6quios dos Simples owed in part to the efforts of Clusius (1526-1609), one of the leading botanists of the time. This scholar promptly published Aromatum et Simplicium (Antwerp, 1567), a Latin epitome of Coloquios dos Simples. This complete reframing of Orta's treatise guaranteed the wide dissemination of the new knowledge about Asian plants, fruits and drugs validated by the Portuguese physician on the periphery of the empire. In this essay I analyse the background to the publication of the Portuguese treatise and demonstrate that, especially due to structural constraints, the princeps edition had a limited circulation. I show that the wide diffusion of the novelties about the natural resources of the Indies was dependent on the technical equipment, artistic skills and editorial criteria dictated and managed by European academics, artists and printers. I propose that the appropriation of local knowledge collected and validated in the Iberian Empires by imperial agents challenged European academics and typographers to create innovative treatises about the Indies' natural resources that assured the widespread circulation of an entirely new natural knowledge.

Diálogo de saberes ambientales entre Europa-América. Agroecosistemas oasianos en Baja California Sur s. XVIII-XX / Environmental knowledge dialogue between Wurope and Latin American. Agroecosustems oasiens in Baja California Sur s. XVIII-XX

Desde hace más de dos siglos, las Comunidades Oasianas de Baja California Sur han estado viviendo en íntima conexión con su medio ambiente. Con la llegada de los Jesuitas se produjo un intenso proceso de exterminio biocultural de los saberes sociambientales de esas comunidades, repoblando estas huertas y llanos con población -en muchos casos colonos- procedentes del sur de España-, redimensionado la identidad territorial como ranchera que gestionó los ecosistemas bajo pautas de autosuficiencia y subconsumo, dadas las fuertes constricciones socioambientales de agroecosistemas sudcalifornianos. A inicios del siglo XXI, las comunidades oasianas luchan contra la pérdida de sus saberes comunitarios, enclavados en edenes de enorme potencial biocultural, rescatando y manteniendo los cultivos traídos con la llegada de los jesuitas. Este marco nos permite describir un proceso de colonización de los ecosistemas a lo largo de los dos últimos siglos (AU)

During two centuries, Oasis Communities of Baja California had been living in a intense connection with their environment. With the arrival of Jesuits, a deep extermination of biocultural heritage and socioenvironmental knowledges of these communities, repopulating of vegetable garden and drylands with people - in many cases, settler from the south of Spain - reconstructing the territorial identity as ranchera to manage the ecosystems under pattern of self-competence and under-consumption, due to the strong environmental constraints of lower california agro-ecosystem. At the beginning of XXIth century, Oasis Communities are fighting against the loss of community heritage, embedded in Eden with enormous bio-cultural dimension, rescuing and keeping crops from Europe with the Jesuits arrival. This frame allow us to draw a colonization process of ecosystems during contemporary age (AU)

Ingesta de fruita dels nens i nenes en edat escolar / Ingesta de fruta de los niños y niñas en edad escolar / Fruit intake by school-age children

Fonament: el consum de fruita recomanat en l'edat escolarés de dues a tres racions al dia. Objectiu: conèixer el consum de fruita dels pacients de 3 a14 anys visitats en la nostra consulta d'atenció primària. Investigar alguns factors que podrien influir en la seva ingesta. Mètode: estudi observacional transversal mitjançant enquesta única sobre el consum de fruita de l'infant. Descripció de freqüències relatives (%) o mitjanes (DE) de lesvariables següents: edat, nombre de racions i tipus de fruitaque van menjar el dia anterior a la visita, en els momentssegüents: esmorzar (casa i escola), dinar (casa i/o escola), berenar, sopar i altres. Analitzar la relació entre el nombrede racions de fruita que menja un infant segons l'edat, lapoblació on viu i el nivell d'estudis dels pares. Resultats: s'analitza la ingesta de fruita durant el curs esco-lar 2011-12 de 778 infants entre 3 i 14 anys (mitjana 7,27anys). La majoria consumeixen entre una i dues racions aldia (1,89 racions/dia) amb les excepcions dels infants de 10 anys (2,2) i els de 14 anys (1,7). Els infants que viuenfora de la província de Barcelona i els fills de mares universitàries són els que van menjar més fruita. Les tres fruitesmés consumides van ser el plàtan, la poma i la pera. Conclusions: la majoria d'infants enquestats mengenmenys de 2 racions de fruita al dia (1,89 racions/dia), perla qual cosa hem de continuar fomentant-ne el consumdiari, així com aconseguir diversificar-ne els tipus

Introducción. El consumo de fruta recomendado en la edad escolar es de dos a tres raciones al día. Objetivo. Conocer el consumo de fruta de los pacientes de 3 a 14 años visitados en nuestra consulta de atención primaria. Investigar algunos factores que podrían influir en su consumo. Mètode. Estudio observacional transversal mediante una encuesta única sobre el consumo de fruta del niño el día anterior a la visita. Descripción de frecuencias relativas (%) o medias (DE) de las siguientes variables: edad, número de raciones y tipo de fruta que comieron el día anterior de la visita en los siguientes momentos: desayuno (casa y colegio), comida (casa y/o colegio), merienda, cena y en otros momentos del día. Analizar la relación entre el número de raciones de fruta que come un niño en función de su edad, la población donde vive y el nivel de estudios de los padres. Resultados. Se analiza la ingestión de fruta durante el curso escolar 2011-2012 de 778 niños entre 3 y 14 años (mediana 7,27 años). La mayoría de niños consumieron entre una y dos raciones al día (1,89 raciones/día) con la excepción de los niños de 10 años (2,2) y los de 14 años (1,7). Los niños que viven fuera de la provincia de Barcelona y los hijos de madres universitarias fueron los que comieron más fruta. Las tres frutas preferentes son el plátano, la manzana y la pera. Conclusiones. El consumo de fruta recomendado en la edad escolar es de dos a tres raciones al día. La mayoría de niños encuestados comen menos (1,89 raciones/día), por lo que tenemos que seguir fomentando el consumo de fruta en diferentes momentos del día, así como conseguir diversificar los tipos de fruta (AU)

Background. The recommended daily intake of fruit for school-age children is two to three servings. Objective. To describe the fruit intake by children between 3 and 14 years of age attending our primary clinic and to determine factors that could influence it. Methods. Cross-sectional study, using a single survey on fruit consumption the day before the visit. The following variables were collected: age, type and number of servings of fruit taken the day before the visit, at the following times: breakfast (home and school), lunch (home or school), snack, dinner, and other times in the day. We analyzed the relationship between the number of servings of fruit the children ate and the age, the area where they reside, and the educational level of their parents. Results. During the 2011-2012 school year a total of 778 children between 3 and 14 years (mean 7.27 years) were included in this study. Most children had one or two servings per day (median 1.89 servings/day); the highest intake was among 10-year-old children (2.2 servings/day) and the lowest was among 14-year-old adolescents (1.7 servings/day). Children residing outside the province of Barcelona and children whose mothers have a University degree ate more fruit servings. The three most commonly consumed fruits were bananas, apples, and pears. Conclusions. The children surveyed ate fewer than the 2-3 servings of fruit per day recommended in school-age children. The consumption of fruit at different times of the day and the diversification of the fruit offered should be encouraged (AU)

Oldest fruits of the grape family (Vitaceae) from the Late Cretaceous Deccan cherts of India.

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Despite the inferred Cretaceous origin of the Vitaceae, fossils of the grape family are relatively young, with the oldest previously known examples limited to the Paleocene of Europe and North America. New fossil evidence indicates that the family was already present in India in the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian), about 10-15 million years before the tectonic collision of India with Eurasia. • METHODS: Fruits and seeds were investigated by serial sections and peels of chert from the Deccan Intertrappean beds of central India, and compared anatomically with those of extant genera. • KEY RESULTS: Indovitis chitaleyae gen. et sp. n. is described based on immature fruits bearing four to six seeds, and isolated mature seeds. The seeds possess paired ventral infolds and a dorsal chalaza, features diagnostic of the order Vitales. Characters of chalaza shape, infold morphology, and seed coat anatomy place I. chitaleyae within Vitaceae and favor a phylogenetic position either sister to the Vitis-Ampelocissus clade or sister to the Ampelopsis-Clematicissus-Rhoicissus clade. • CONCLUSIONS: Presence of the oldest known vitaceous fossils in the latest Cretaceous of India indicates a previously undocumented Gondwanan history and a possible southern hemisphere origin for the Vitales. An "out-of-India" scenario might explain the relatively sudden appearance of diverse Vitaceae in the Late Paleocene and Early Eocene of the Northern Hemisphere.

"Der Bleistift roch nach Rosmarin": the art of foraging in Stifter, Handke, and Beuys.

Taking as its starting point the notion of 'reading' as 'gathering', implied by the word Lesen, this essay examines some correspondences between foraging, naming, writing, drawing, and reading to establish a clear distinction between foraging and collecting more generally. By way of example, three kinds of foraging are addressed: berry picking, in Adalbert Stifter's short story Der Waldsteig; mushroom collecting, in Peter Handke's fairy-tale Lucie im Wald mit den Dingsda; gathering medicinal herbs, in particular rosemary, in the drawings, performances, and social sculptures of Joseph Beuys (including Manresa, Barraque D'dull Odde, Geruchsplastik, Blitzschlag mit Lichtschein auf Hirsch). In the literary and visual works discussed here, foraging and its products are therapeutic both physically and spiritually, what Handke terms 'traumerweiternd'. Moreover, in the case of Beuys in particular this healing process has explicitly social and political implications. The essay also examines foraging as an analogy for the construction of meaning and concludes with a discussion of the clearing as a privileged space in which foraging and gathering, both literally and figuratively, can take place.

Aspects of psychodynamic neuropsychiatry IV: love, ripe fruit, and other addictions.

Passionate love is a powerful emotional/biological force. So too is heart-break a powerful emotional/biological force. This article studies the neurobiological underpinnings of the two. The argument is that passionate love is best understood not as an affective dysregulation but rather as an addiction. And similarly that heart-break is best understood, and treated, not as an affective dysregulation but as an addiction. Clinical examples are given.

Under the trees: the Georgia peach and the quest for labor in the twentieth century.

The Georgia peach boom around the turn of the twentieth century was often hailed as a successful experiment in diversification. Peach growers, the story went, threw off the tyranny of King Cotton by pledging their allegiance to the "Queen of Fruits." This portrayal is partly true; unlike other proposed alternatives to cotton, peaches flourished in many places. But the history of the "labor problem" in the Georgia peach belt makes it clear that peach production depended on the cotton economy. Peaches required large amounts of labor only at harvest time, which came during a lull in the cotton season. Thus, for many years, growers found a ready labor supply in a rural population otherwise at loose ends. As this population relocated to cities, and as cotton farmers mechanized their operations, peach growers turned increasingly to the federal government to help shore up their workforces.

Causal (mis)understanding and the search for scientific explanations: a case study from the history of medicine.

In 1747, James Lind carried out an experiment which proved the usefulness of citrus fruit as a cure for scurvy. Nonetheless, he rejected the earlier hypothesis of Bachstrom that the absence of fresh fruit and vegetables was the only cause of the disease. I explain why it was rational for James Lind not to accept Bachstrom's explanation. I argue that it was the urge for scientific understanding that guided Lind in his rejection and in the development of his alternative theory that humidity was the primary cause of the disease. Central in this process was the search for causal mechanisms which could provide understanding of how the disease developed and which fitted in with the knowledge of the time. Given that the relevant background knowledge and statistical methods were not yet available to Lind, he was right to prefer his own explanation to that of Bachstrom. Although his explanation turned out to be wrong, and Bachstrom's right, from a historical point of view it offered deeper causal understanding of both the development of the disease and the preventive and curative effects of fresh vegetable food. This case study illustrates how the search for causal mechanisms can not only be enlightening, but also very misleading.

Cartier, Champlain, and the fruits of the New World: botanical exchange in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Much has been written of the Columbian exchange, the transfer between New World and Old of people, pathogens, flora and fauna. The biota of two hemispheres, once seemingly irredeemably separated, were interpenetrated, both through accident and through human agency. Part of this exchange involved medicinal and food plants, discovered in the New World and adopted into the Old. This paper examines the translation of a number of New World plants that were part of the 'Cartierian' or 'Champlinian' exchange that followed the voyages to North America by Jacques Cartier (1491-1557) between 1534 and 1541, and the explorations and settlements undertaken by Samuel de Champlain (1580?-1635) from 1603 to his death at Quebec in 1635. During this period, a number of North American plants were propagated in European nurseries and even found their way into everyday use in gardens or kitchens. How were these new plants viewed on their introduction and how were they incorporated into Europe's "vegetable" consciousness? Where did these new plants fit in the classification of the edible and the exotic?

Colletotrichum Gloesporioides Fitopatógeno asociado a la nutrición humana / Collectotrichum Gloeosporioides Phytopathology Associated with Human Nutrition

Durante la última década se ha incrementado la demanda interna de frutas, comportamiento éste asociado a diferentes factores como el aumento de los procesos de urbanización, el conocimiento sobre las características y beneficios de estos productos, el desarrollo tecnológico, el mejoramiento de las comunicaciones, el desarrollo de la agroindustria, lo cual posibilita la utilización de las frutas como uno de los componentes principales de diferentes productos (jugos, néctares, pulpas, mermeladas, dulces, encurtidos), asociados a una oferta tecnológica adecuada, lo cual permite una gran diversidad en cuanto a formas de presentación del producto1. Las frutas, alimentos fundamentales en la alimentación, están adquiriendo cada vez más importancia como consecuencia de su favorable valor energético, riqueza en vitaminas y minerales, abundante fibra y p.H. 5-7 muy favorable para el crecimiento de numerosas especies microbianas, cualidades que se consideran beneficiosas en una nutrición y dieta saludables, y algunas veces, en los tratamientos de diversas patologías como la obesidad e hiperlipidemias, diabetes, trastornos cardiovasculares, dificultades en el tránsito y diverticulosis intestinales, tumores de colon y recto, hiperuricemias y gota, cataratas, degeneración macular, etc.2. En general los consumidores buscan buena calidad, asociada principalmente al consumo de alimentos inocuos que permitan mantener el buen funcionamiento del organismo. Pero esta calidad se ve afectada por diversos microorganismos (mohos u hongos, levaduras y bacterias) que causan considerables efectos nocivos a los alimentos, tanto en su desarrollo como en su almacenamiento. La presencia de microorganismos en los alimentos produce resultados que llevan a reducirlos y descomponerlos, alterando las cualidades nutricionales y gustativas, y en algunos casos por causa de la presencia de microorganismos, los alimentos pueden volverse tóxicos al hombre y a los animales.

Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historic China.

Chemical analyses of ancient organics absorbed into pottery jars from the early Neolithic village of Jiahu in Henan province in China have revealed that a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey, and fruit (hawthorn fruit and/or grape) was being produced as early as the seventh millennium before Christ (B.C.). This prehistoric drink paved the way for unique cereal beverages of the proto-historic second millennium B.C., remarkably preserved as liquids inside sealed bronze vessels of the Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties. These findings provide direct evidence for fermented beverages in ancient Chinese culture, which were of considerable social, religious, and medical significance, and help elucidate their earliest descriptions in the Shang Dynasty oracle inscriptions.

Maternal dietary advice as an artifact of time and culture: post-World War II Queensland, Australia.

Dietary advice to breastfeeding mothers in post-World War II Queensland, 1945-1965, was not evidence-based, but based on cultural beliefs. Diet-based recommendations for boosting the breastmilk yield included increased intake of milk and protein foods, food supplements, especially chocolate-flavoured supplements, and tablets. Although community beliefs about foods to be avoided during lactation were reflected in informal advice, foods such as green leafy vegetables were specifically recommended by the print materials of the period as part of a healthy diet during breastfeeding.

Fermenting fruit and the historical ecology of ethanol ingestion: is alcoholism in modern humans an evolutionary hangover?

In the field of addiction research, the possibility of ancestral exposure to psychoactive compounds has generally been excluded. A paleobiological approach to the human diet, however, illustrates the potential utility of historical data in interpreting modern-day addictive behaviors. Low-level dietary exposure to ethanol via ingestion of fermenting fruit has probably characterized the predominantly frugivorous anthropoid lineage for about 40 million years. Potentially adaptive primate behaviors associated with the natural occurrence of ethanol include the olfactory use of ethanol plumes to localize fruit crops, the use of ethanol as an appetitive stimulant to facilitate rapid consumption of transient nutritional resources, and the physiological exploitation of the caloric benefits of ethanol. Such behavioral and energetic advantages probably pertain to all animal taxa that consume fermenting fruit, and may have been retained in modern humans in spite of considerable dietary diversification over the last several million years. In contemporary human environments, excessive consumption of ethanol would then represent maladaptive cooption of ancestrally advantageous behaviors given essentially ad libitum access to a compound otherwise found only within scarce nutritional substrates. Epidemiologically demonstrated health benefits of low-level alcohol consumption are consistent with an ancient and potentially adaptive exposure of primate frugivores to this most common of the psychoactive substances.