Robert E Dewar
Biographic Data
| ID | 98067 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert E Dewar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert E |
| FAMILY NAME | Dewar |
| SIGNATURE | DEWAR R E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Connecticut |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 581 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Additions to Penrose nonperiodic tiling
Extinctions in Madagascar
Early human settlers and their impact on Madagascar’s landscapes
The deep history of environmental variability and change in Madagascar provides a benchmark against which to assess conditions today and design management interventions for the future (Willis et al., 2007). As knowledge of the island’s palaeoecology and the role played by people in changes over the past few thousand years has increased, it has forced abandonment of the widespread but simplistic story of a lost Garden of Eden, destroyed by the Mal…
The early pre-Islamic history of the Comores Islands
The Comores Archipelago is a chain of four volcanic islands between the east coast of Africa and Madagascar stretching across the Mozambique Channel (Figure 1). Those four islands were all formed rather recently, in geological terms, by volcanic action. The oldest one, Mayotte (Maore), is in the east and is thought to be about eight million years 01d;1 the youngest one at the extreme western part, Ngazidja, still has an active volcano almost 3,00…
Madagascar
Most of the ancestors of today's human and animal populations reached Madagascar over the last 65 million years, by a variety of routes at a variety of times. Settlers encountered a big, isolated island with an unpredictable climate and a wide array of landscapes. Although patterns of diversification were driven by different mechanisms in humans and animals, the complex interplay between historical contingency and responsiveness to local conditio…
Evolution in the hypervariable environment of Madagascar
We show that the diverse ecoregions of Madagascar share one distinctive climatic feature: unpredictable intra- or interannual precipitation compared with other regions with comparable rainfall. Climatic unpredictability is associated with unpredictable patterns of fruiting and flowering. It is argued that these features have shaped the evolution of distinctive characteristics in the mammalian fauna of the island. Endemic Herpestidae and Tenrecida…
Rainfall Variability and Subsistence Systems in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific
Subsistence systems in insular Southeast Asia and the western Pacific are geographically patterned: from west to east, grain crops disappear while root and tree crops become more important, and south of the Torres Strait no crops are grown. Previous explanations for these patterns have assumed either a historical cause (the expansion of root and tree crops before grain crops) or some form of environmental filter. Paralleling the agricultural patt…
Life in the slow lane? Demography and life histories of male and female sifaka ( Propithecus verreauxi verreauxi )
A 16‐year study of wild, unprovisioned sifaka Propithecus verreauxi verreauxi at Beza Mahafaly in south‐west Madagascar provides estimates of age‐specific fertility, mortality, and dispersal in a population of 426 marked animals, and longitudinal records of individual life histories. Sifaka females give birth for the first time later and live longer, for their size, than mammals in other orders; they also give birth later and continue reproducing…
Faunal Extinction in an Island Society
Faunal Extinction in an Island Society: Pygmy Hippopotamus Hunters of Cyprus. Alan H. Simmons and Associates. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 1999. 381 pp
Mass change, environmental variability and female fertility in wild Propithecus verreauxi
Tools Underfoot
A series of eight replication experiments tests the proposition that human trampling of stone flakes can produce edge damage that mimics deliberate retouch. Retouchlike edge damage, breakage, and other forms of macroscopic mechanical damage were observed on large numbers of pieces in all trampled sets. Experiments measured the relative contributions of three variables-raw material, artifact density, and substrate-in generating damage. Results ind…
Does It Matter that Madagascar is an Island
Of nets and trees
Archaeological accounts of cultural origin and development often take one of two forms: a dendritic model of diversification and adaptation from a single root or a reticulate model of cultural blending and diversification from multiple ancestral stocks. Madagascar has been described as an example of a dendritic development. The formal features of dendritic and reticulate models are described, and then a summary is presented of the current evidenc…
Early Settlement and Irrigation on the Deh Luran Plain
Contending with Contemporaneity
While Kintigh's (1994) proposed modifications of the methods I described in 1991 for estimating the mean number of simultaneous occupations and mean use span of occupations have certain strengths and weaknesses, they do offer a viable alternative approach. However, I show here that the original and revised methods derive from a different conception of settlement-pattern processes
The culture history of Madagascar
Incorporating Variation in Occupation Span into Settlement-Pattern Analysis
Settlement patterns recovered by archaeologists differ fundamentally from synchronic settlement patterns analyzed by geographers since they are a static record of occupations that may often have had differing periods of use in the past. Many maps of the “settlement pattern” of prehistoric phases show more occupations than were ever simultaneously occupied. After discussing some of the problems this can cause, I describe a way of characterizing pa…
Weed macaques
The Pitfalls of Supply‐Side Ecology
Environmental Productivity, Population Regulation, and Carrying Capacity
Carrying capacity, as used by anthropologists, is a label for two different concepts: a measure of environmental productivity, and a description of equilibrial population density. Additionally, carrying capacity is sometimes defined by reference to the preservation of the balance of nature. The confusion surrounding these ideas conceals some common but dubious axioms of human ecology, which are isolated here for consideration.ROBERT E. DEWAR is A…
Computer Art
The author has devised a ‘force’ field equation to apply to the attraction and repulsion of nuclear particles (nucleons) in hypothetical subatomic polyhedral arrangements. He points out that his model of a carbon-12 atom possessing an icosahedral arrangement of its nucleons and serving as a building block can be used to produce plausible models of crystals and amorphous clusters of carbon atoms and of hydrocarbon molecules. Although his atomic mo…
Maritime Hunter-Gatherers
In a recent discussion of prehistoric developments in coastal Peru, Osborn has drawn attention to the "uniqueness" of the Peruvian littoral in providing large amounts of nutrients to support locally high population densities and a base for the development of Peruvian civilization. This bounteous resource base is contrasted with that of other maritime environments, which are seen to be relatively unproductive. The present article takes issue with …
Tools Underfoot
A series of eight replication experiments tests the proposition that human trampling of stone flakes can produce edge damage that mimics deliberate retouch. Retouchlike edge damage, breakage, and other forms of macroscopic mechanical damage were observed on large numbers of pieces in all trampled sets. Experiments measured the relative contributions of three variables-raw material, artifact density, and substrate-in generating damage. Results ind…
Maritime Hunter-Gatherers
In a recent discussion of prehistoric developments in coastal Peru, Osborn has drawn attention to the "uniqueness" of the Peruvian littoral in providing large amounts of nutrients to support locally high population densities and a base for the development of Peruvian civilization. This bounteous resource base is contrasted with that of other maritime environments, which are seen to be relatively unproductive. The present article takes issue with …
The culture history of Madagascar
Weed macaques
Mass change, environmental variability and female fertility in wild Propithecus verreauxi
Of nets and trees
Archaeological accounts of cultural origin and development often take one of two forms: a dendritic model of diversification and adaptation from a single root or a reticulate model of cultural blending and diversification from multiple ancestral stocks. Madagascar has been described as an example of a dendritic development. The formal features of dendritic and reticulate models are described, and then a summary is presented of the current evidenc…
Environmental Productivity, Population Regulation, and Carrying Capacity
Carrying capacity, as used by anthropologists, is a label for two different concepts: a measure of environmental productivity, and a description of equilibrial population density. Additionally, carrying capacity is sometimes defined by reference to the preservation of the balance of nature. The confusion surrounding these ideas conceals some common but dubious axioms of human ecology, which are isolated here for consideration.ROBERT E. DEWAR is A…
Madagascar
Most of the ancestors of today's human and animal populations reached Madagascar over the last 65 million years, by a variety of routes at a variety of times. Settlers encountered a big, isolated island with an unpredictable climate and a wide array of landscapes. Although patterns of diversification were driven by different mechanisms in humans and animals, the complex interplay between historical contingency and responsiveness to local conditio…
Incorporating Variation in Occupation Span into Settlement-Pattern Analysis
Settlement patterns recovered by archaeologists differ fundamentally from synchronic settlement patterns analyzed by geographers since they are a static record of occupations that may often have had differing periods of use in the past. Many maps of the “settlement pattern” of prehistoric phases show more occupations than were ever simultaneously occupied. After discussing some of the problems this can cause, I describe a way of characterizing pa…
Rainfall Variability and Subsistence Systems in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific
Subsistence systems in insular Southeast Asia and the western Pacific are geographically patterned: from west to east, grain crops disappear while root and tree crops become more important, and south of the Torres Strait no crops are grown. Previous explanations for these patterns have assumed either a historical cause (the expansion of root and tree crops before grain crops) or some form of environmental filter. Paralleling the agricultural patt…
Does It Matter that Madagascar is an Island
Contending with Contemporaneity
While Kintigh's (1994) proposed modifications of the methods I described in 1991 for estimating the mean number of simultaneous occupations and mean use span of occupations have certain strengths and weaknesses, they do offer a viable alternative approach. However, I show here that the original and revised methods derive from a different conception of settlement-pattern processes
Faunal Extinction in an Island Society
Faunal Extinction in an Island Society: Pygmy Hippopotamus Hunters of Cyprus. Alan H. Simmons and Associates. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 1999. 381 pp
Maritime Hunter-Gatherers
In a recent discussion of prehistoric developments in coastal Peru, Osborn has drawn attention to the "uniqueness" of the Peruvian littoral in providing large amounts of nutrients to support locally high population densities and a base for the development of Peruvian civilization. This bounteous resource base is contrasted with that of other maritime environments, which are seen to be relatively unproductive. The present article takes issue with …
Computer Art
The author has devised a ‘force’ field equation to apply to the attraction and repulsion of nuclear particles (nucleons) in hypothetical subatomic polyhedral arrangements. He points out that his model of a carbon-12 atom possessing an icosahedral arrangement of its nucleons and serving as a building block can be used to produce plausible models of crystals and amorphous clusters of carbon atoms and of hydrocarbon molecules. Although his atomic mo…
Environmental Productivity, Population Regulation, and Carrying Capacity
Carrying capacity, as used by anthropologists, is a label for two different concepts: a measure of environmental productivity, and a description of equilibrial population density. Additionally, carrying capacity is sometimes defined by reference to the preservation of the balance of nature. The confusion surrounding these ideas conceals some common but dubious axioms of human ecology, which are isolated here for consideration.ROBERT E. DEWAR is A…
The Pitfalls of Supply‐Side Ecology
Weed macaques
Incorporating Variation in Occupation Span into Settlement-Pattern Analysis
Settlement patterns recovered by archaeologists differ fundamentally from synchronic settlement patterns analyzed by geographers since they are a static record of occupations that may often have had differing periods of use in the past. Many maps of the “settlement pattern” of prehistoric phases show more occupations than were ever simultaneously occupied. After discussing some of the problems this can cause, I describe a way of characterizing pa…
The culture history of Madagascar
Early Settlement and Irrigation on the Deh Luran Plain
Contending with Contemporaneity
While Kintigh's (1994) proposed modifications of the methods I described in 1991 for estimating the mean number of simultaneous occupations and mean use span of occupations have certain strengths and weaknesses, they do offer a viable alternative approach. However, I show here that the original and revised methods derive from a different conception of settlement-pattern processes
Of nets and trees
Archaeological accounts of cultural origin and development often take one of two forms: a dendritic model of diversification and adaptation from a single root or a reticulate model of cultural blending and diversification from multiple ancestral stocks. Madagascar has been described as an example of a dendritic development. The formal features of dendritic and reticulate models are described, and then a summary is presented of the current evidenc…
Does It Matter that Madagascar is an Island
Tools Underfoot
A series of eight replication experiments tests the proposition that human trampling of stone flakes can produce edge damage that mimics deliberate retouch. Retouchlike edge damage, breakage, and other forms of macroscopic mechanical damage were observed on large numbers of pieces in all trampled sets. Experiments measured the relative contributions of three variables-raw material, artifact density, and substrate-in generating damage. Results ind…
Mass change, environmental variability and female fertility in wild Propithecus verreauxi
Faunal Extinction in an Island Society
Faunal Extinction in an Island Society: Pygmy Hippopotamus Hunters of Cyprus. Alan H. Simmons and Associates. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 1999. 381 pp
Life in the slow lane? Demography and life histories of male and female sifaka ( Propithecus verreauxi verreauxi )
A 16‐year study of wild, unprovisioned sifaka Propithecus verreauxi verreauxi at Beza Mahafaly in south‐west Madagascar provides estimates of age‐specific fertility, mortality, and dispersal in a population of 426 marked animals, and longitudinal records of individual life histories. Sifaka females give birth for the first time later and live longer, for their size, than mammals in other orders; they also give birth later and continue reproducing…
Rainfall Variability and Subsistence Systems in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific
Subsistence systems in insular Southeast Asia and the western Pacific are geographically patterned: from west to east, grain crops disappear while root and tree crops become more important, and south of the Torres Strait no crops are grown. Previous explanations for these patterns have assumed either a historical cause (the expansion of root and tree crops before grain crops) or some form of environmental filter. Paralleling the agricultural patt…
Evolution in the hypervariable environment of Madagascar
We show that the diverse ecoregions of Madagascar share one distinctive climatic feature: unpredictable intra- or interannual precipitation compared with other regions with comparable rainfall. Climatic unpredictability is associated with unpredictable patterns of fruiting and flowering. It is argued that these features have shaped the evolution of distinctive characteristics in the mammalian fauna of the island. Endemic Herpestidae and Tenrecida…
Madagascar
Most of the ancestors of today's human and animal populations reached Madagascar over the last 65 million years, by a variety of routes at a variety of times. Settlers encountered a big, isolated island with an unpredictable climate and a wide array of landscapes. Although patterns of diversification were driven by different mechanisms in humans and animals, the complex interplay between historical contingency and responsiveness to local conditio…
The early pre-Islamic history of the Comores Islands
The Comores Archipelago is a chain of four volcanic islands between the east coast of Africa and Madagascar stretching across the Mozambique Channel (Figure 1). Those four islands were all formed rather recently, in geological terms, by volcanic action. The oldest one, Mayotte (Maore), is in the east and is thought to be about eight million years 01d;1 the youngest one at the extreme western part, Ngazidja, still has an active volcano almost 3,00…
Early human settlers and their impact on Madagascar’s landscapes
The deep history of environmental variability and change in Madagascar provides a benchmark against which to assess conditions today and design management interventions for the future (Willis et al., 2007). As knowledge of the island’s palaeoecology and the role played by people in changes over the past few thousand years has increased, it has forced abandonment of the widespread but simplistic story of a lost Garden of Eden, destroyed by the Mal…
Additions to Penrose nonperiodic tiling
Extinctions in Madagascar
Geography (16 works) · Biology (12 works) · Archaeology (11 works) · History (10 works) · Ecology (9 works) · Ecology (9 works) · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · History (6 works) · Philosophy (5 works)