scholarly journals Iconography of domesticated sunflower

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 1116-1129
Author(s):  
Jules JANICK

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is indigenous to the New World with domesticated types characterized by a single stem with a large seed head. Archeological evidence has indicted that domestication occurred in the Eastern United States. However, images of domesticated sunflower are found in a pre-Hispanic Aztec stone sculpture, various 16th century images from New Spain (present day Mexico), and 16th century European herbals based on imported seed. Iconographic, linguistic, and archaeological evidence confirm that the domesticated types were known by the Aztec previous to the conquest of Cortés in 1522. This evidence suggests either an independent domestication of sunflower in Mexico or a pre-Hispanic migration from North America.

1978 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin L. Seeger

There were many kinds of money in use in New Spain from the time of the conquest to the opening of the mint in Mexico City in 1537. Some was Spanish; other was Indian and dated back centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards. After the conquest, Spanish coins were the official media of exchange, but there were very few in New Spain.Once the mint was in operation, Spanish coins became the first legal tender in the New World—begun 256 years before the first authorized coin was struck at Philadelphia. Furthermore, these “Mexican” coins served as a medium of exchange the world over. The real circulated freely in the Orient; many specimens bear “chop-marks” indicating the official validation of each individual bank through which they passed.In fact, the Spanish real became the standard of the currency of the United States and circulated with official sanction until 1857. One real was equal to twelve and one-half cents and was called a bit. A quarter of a dollar or twenty-five cents was equal to two bits, hence the present day expression.


1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard G. Klein

Archeological evidence from the USSR suggests that cultural adaptations to the most rigorous (most continental) environments of northern Eurasia were not achieved until 35–40,000 BP. This presumably sets an absolute basement date for the entry of man into Alaska through the region of Beringia. The absence of evidence for pre-14,000 yr old man in the 48 adjacent United States comparable in any sense to the evidence that has been developed for man prior to 14,000 y.a. in the Old World suggests that movement south out of Alaska only occurred after 14,000 BP.


1993 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 1064-1080 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Bollinger ◽  
M. C. Chapman ◽  
M. S. Sibol

Abstract This study investigates the relationship between earthquake magnitude and the size of damage areas in the eastern and western United States. To quantify damage area as a function of moment magnitude (M), 149 MMI VI and VII areas for 109 earthquakes (88 in the western United States, 21 in the eastern United States and Canada) were measured. Regression of isoseismal areas versus M indicated that areas in the East were larger than those in the West, at both intensity levels, by an average 5 × in the M 4.5 to 7.5 range. In terms of radii for circles of equivalent area, these results indicate that damaging ground motion from shocks of the same magnitude extend 2 × the epicentral distance in eastern North America compared to the West. To determine source and site parameters consistent with the above results, response spectral levels for eastern North America were stochastically simulated and compared with response spectral ordinates derived from recorded strong ground motion data in the western United States. Stress-drop values of 200 bars, combined with a surficial 2-km-thick low velocity “sedimentary” layer over rock basement, produced results that are compatible with the intensity observations, i.e., similar response spectral levels in the east at approximately twice their epicentral distance in the western U.S. distance. These results suggest that ground motion modeling in eastern North America may need to incorporate source and site parameters different from those presently in general use. The results are also of importance to eastern U.S. hazard assessments as they require allowance for the larger damage areas in preparedness and mitigation programs.


2013 ◽  
Vol 127 (3) ◽  
pp. 224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M. Catling ◽  
Ross A. Layberry

The couperi subspecies of the Silvery Blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus couperi) has expanded its range southward in northeastern North America using introduced legumes and open anthropogenic habitats. The discovery of a population of the Silvery Blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus) in an eastern Ontario alvar woodland in 2011 suggests that the Silvery Blue may have been long established (although restricted) in southern Ontario. Three larvae from this population were reared from eggs deposited on native Neglected Milk-Vetch (Astragalus neglectus) by free-flying females in 2012. The three larvae, pupae, and single reared adult, as well as other adults from the alvar woodland, are described and compared with specimens associated with open anthropogenic habitat and introduced legumes. The alvar woodland specimens were closer to the northern Ontario subsp. couperi than to the subsp. lygdamus of the eastern United States. Although the alvar woodland larvae were darker green than subsp. couperi and the spots on the adults were on average larger than in subsp. couperi, the alvar woodland Silvery Blues could not be definitively distinguished from subsp. couperi, including specimens from northern Ontario and those from southern Ontario associated with open habitats. Nevertheless, there is a possibility that the alvar woodland population of the Silvery Blue dates from early postglacial times and represents a distinct race separate from the Silvery Blue of open habitats.


2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 1173-1190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Charles ◽  
Brian A. Colle

Abstract This paper verifies extratropical cyclones around North America and the adjacent oceans within the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System (GFS) and North American Mesoscale (NAM) models during the 2002–07 cool seasons (October–March). The analyzed cyclones in the Global Forecast System (GFS) model, North American Mesoscale (NAM) model, and the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) were also compared against sea level pressure (SLP) observations around extratropical cyclones. The GFS analysis of SLP was clearly superior to the NAM and NARR analyses. The analyzed cyclone pressures in the NAM improved in 2006–07 when its data assimilation was switched to the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI). The NCEP GFS has more skillful cyclone intensity and position forecasts than the NAM over the continental United States and adjacent oceans, especially over the eastern Pacific, where the NAM has a large positive (underdeepening) bias in cyclone central pressure. For the short-term (0–60 h) forecasts, the GFS and NAM cyclone errors over the eastern Pacific are larger than the other regions to the east. There are relatively large biases in cyclone position for both models, which vary spatially around North America. The eastern Pacific has four to eight cyclone events per year on average, with errors >10 mb at hour 48 in the GFS; this number has not decreased in recent years. There has been little improvement in the 0–2-day cyclone forecasts during the past 5 yr over the eastern United States, while there has been a relatively large improvement in the cyclone pressure predictions over the eastern Pacific in the NAM.


2019 ◽  
Vol 132 (3) ◽  
pp. 264-267
Author(s):  
Paul M. Catling ◽  
Brenda Kostiuk

The introduced Wormslug (Boettgerilla pallens Simroth, 1912) is reported from Quebec, Canada, for the first time, from two closely situated localities in Gatineau Park. It was previously reported from the Vancouver area of British Columbia and, very recently, from Newfoundland. Within the Americas, the species has been reported from northern California, Mexico, and Colombia, and, because it is easily overlooked, likely occurs elsewhere in North America, especially in the eastern United States. In Quebec, it was found in a natural Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum Marshall) woodland and an ornamental garden. Wormslug likely reached both sites with shrub plantings from commercial nurseries, probably quite recently, because the invasive spread of the species, worldwide, has occurred mostly during the last few decades. Although the woodland where it occurred is dominated by native plants, the gastropod fauna there is mainly introduced. Identification, characteristics, and ecology of Wormslug are discussed. The potential for impact on native soil and soil surface organisms, including native terrestrial slugs and snails, is noted.


1990 ◽  
Vol 64 (5) ◽  
pp. 857-857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsie Darrah Morey

William C. Darrah, educator, geologist, botanist, and historian, loved life, and he chose to share with others his genuine enjoyment of discovery and learning through his writing and teaching. His A Critical Review of the Upper Carboniferous Floras of the Eastern United States (1970) and nearly a hundred professional papers made his name familiar to many paleontologists in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States. It is interesting to note that early in his career Bill developed an interest in the early conifers, especially Walchia. At the time of his death, he had just completed a manuscript with Paul Lyons, “The Earliest Conifers in North America: Upland and/or Paleoclimatic Indicators?,” “which has been accepted for publication in PALAIOS. Most recently, having attended the International Geological Conference in the United States in 1933, Bill had hoped to present a paper on the Dunkard at the July 1989 IGC in Washington, D.C.


1986 ◽  
Vol 31 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 577-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Linthurst ◽  
D. H. Landers ◽  
J. M. Eilers ◽  
P. E. Kellar ◽  
D. F. Brakke ◽  
...  

1983 ◽  
Vol 61 (5) ◽  
pp. 1011-1022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl M. Bartlett

Dirofilaria scapiceps (Leidy, 1886) was found in 62% of 404 Lepus americanus, 27% of 89 Sylvilagus floridanus, 13% of 31 Orytolagus cuniculus (domestic), 4% of 26 L. capensis, and none of 15 L. timidus, 2 L. californicus, and 50 L. townsendii collected in various regions of North America. Dirofilaria scapiceps in L. capensis is a new host record. The two species of Dirofilaria, D. scapiceps and D. uniformis Price, 1957, known from lagomorphs are redescribed. Dirofilaria scapiceps occurs predominantly in connective tissue surrounding tendons in the ankle region and rarely in intermuscular fascia near the knee joint of the hind leg; D. uniformis occurs in subcutaneous tissues of the trunk. Both D. scapiceps and D. uniformis are known only from lagomorphs in North America, D. scapiceps from L. americanus, L. capensis, S. floridanus, S. palustris and O. cuniculus and D. uniformis from S. floridanus, S. palustris and O. cuniculus. Dirofilaria scapiceps is present in lagomorphs in Alaska, Canada, eastern United States and Wyoming whereas D. uniformis is known only from lagomorphs in southeastern and south central United States. Dirofilaria uniformis may have evolved, through paedomorphosis, from D. scapiceps.


2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 359-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Hale

AbstractHistorians like Oscar Handlin and Timothy L. Smith asserted that international migration, especially that of Europeans to North America, was a process which reinforced traditional religious loyalties. In harmony with this supposed verity, a venerable postulate in the tradition of Scandinavian-American scholarship was that most Norwegian immigrants in the New World (the overwhelming majority of whom had been at least nominal members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Norway) clung to their birthright religious legacy and affiliated with Lutheran churches after crossing the Atlantic (although for many decades it has been acknowledged that by contrast, vast numbers of their Swedish-American and Danish-American counterparts did not join analogous ethnic Lutheran churches). In the present article, however, it is demonstrated that anticlericalism and alienation from organised religious life were widespread in nineteenth-century Norway, where nonconformist Christian denominations were also proliferating. Furthermore, in accordance with these historical trends, the majority of Norwegian immigrants in the United States of America and Southern Africa did not affiliate with Lutheran churches. Significant minorities joined Baptist, Methodist, and other non-Lutheran religious fellowships, but the majority did not become formally affiliated with either Norwegian or pan-Scandinavian churches.


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