Readings

In addition to the required readings listed below, some students may wish to keep abreast of some of the current literature in this field. Fortunately, the UT Library has electronic subscriptions to a number of fine professional journals. A few of these are Agricultural Systems; Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment; Agriculture and Human Values; and Agricultural Water Management. If you are interested in examining these or any other journal, simply click HERE and type in a title or key word.

Introduction

All Students: Brooks, "What Does Sustainable Development Really Mean?;" Malkin, "Ways of Ancient Mexico Reviving Barron Lands"

Graduate Students: Ilberry, "Agricultural Decision-Making;" Johns, "Cacao Cultivation in Bahia, Brazil"

Antecedents

All Students: Sauer, "Man-Ecologic Dominant;" Harris, "The Farther Reaches of Human Time;" Holly, "Rethinking Hunter-Gatherers"

Graduate Students: Pringle, "The Slow Birth of Agriculture;" Neumann, "New Guinea: A Cradle of Agriculture"

Mutation and Hybridization

All Students: Coyne, "Speciation in Action," Acosta, "Transgenic Foods: Promise or Peril?" Lubinsky "Tahitian Vanilla Originated in Maya Forests"

Graduate Students: Salick, "Crop Domestication and the Evolutionary Ecology of Cocona"

Domestication Processes

All Students: Rindos, "The Evolution of Domestication," Smith "The Ultimate Ecosystem Engineers"

Graduate Students: Mueller, Rehner, and Schultz, "The Evolution of Agriculture in Ants."

Dump Heaps

All Students: Anderson, "Dump Heaps and the Origins of Agriculture"

Graduate Students: Balter "Seeking Agriculture's Ancient Roots"

Gardens

All Students: Kimber, "Dooryard Gardens" (unpublished remarks), Keys "Kaqchikel Gardens: Women, Children, and Multiple Roles of Gardens among the Maya of Highland Guatemala."

Graduate Students: Kimber, "Spatial Patterning in the Dooryard Gardens of Puerto Rico," Slinger, "Peri-Urban Agroforestry in the Brazilian Amazon."

Automatic Selection

All Students: Pollan, "The Human Bumblebee," Tanno and Willcox "How Fast was Wild Wheat Domesticated?" Jones and Liu "Origins of Agriculture in East Asia"

Graduate Students: Harlan, DeWet, and Stemler, "Plant Domestication and Indigenous African Agriculture," Li, Zhou, Sang "Rice Domestication by Reducing Shattering"

Deliberate Selection

All Students: Johannessen, "Domestication Process of Maize Continues in Guatemala"; Hardman "Weeds for Wellness"

Graduate Students: DeWet, and Harlan, "Weeds and Domesticates"

Sexual Translocation Theory, etc.

All Students: Iltis, "Homeotic Sexual Translocations and the Origins of Maize (Zea mays, Poaceae): A New Look at an Old Problem;" Fedoroff, "Prehistoric GM Corn."

Graduate Students: Crosswhite, "Corn (Zea mays) in Relation to its Wild Relatives;" Iltis, "From Teosinte to Maize: Catastrophic Sexual Transmutation"

Diffusion

All Students: Darlington, "Regions of Plant Domestication" (table); Grigg, "Source Areas of Major Crops" (table); Andrews, "Diffusion of Mesoamerican Food Complex"

Gradutate Students: Larson, et al., "Worldwide Phylogeography of Wild Boar Reveals Multiple Centers of Pig Domestication;" Knapp, "Some Like it Hot"

Swidden Cultivation

All Students: Harris, "The Ecology of Swidden Cultivation in the Upper Orinoco Rain Forest, Venezuela"

Graduate Students: Nations and Nigh, "The Evolutionary Potential of Lacandon Maya Sustained-Yield Tropical Forest Agriculture"; Steinberg, "Political Ecology and Cultural Change: Impacts on Swidden-fallow Agroforestry Practices among the Mopan Maya in Southern Belize."

Technological Change: Land and Labor

All Students: Boserup, "Number of Operations Needed for Different Food Supply Systems" (table); Doolittle, "Aboriginal Agricultural Development in the Valley of Sonora, Mexico"