Great Plains Studies

In recent years, carbon emission from land use change have become major global issues. How land use and land cover change affect carbon sequestration is important for carbon neutrality and climate change mitigation. This study evaluated the effect of urbanization on land use and the carbon cycle in Pakistan in the years 2050 and 2100. The outcome was achieved through the mapping of land use and land cover for the years through geosimulation. Using Geographic information system (GIS) to analyzed the territorial dynamics in Pakistan Land use change data and soil organic carbon density data (SOCD) to assets the country's carbon stocks. The study noted an increase in farmland and urban area and a reduction in forestland, shrub land, and barren land areas during the study period. In 2050, the estimated areas for urban land under the four scenarios are (A1B 25,

In recent decades, there has been growing interest among farming and scientific communities toward integrated crop–range–livestock farming because of evidence of increased crop production, soil health, environmental services and resilience to increased climatic variability. This paper reviews studies on existing cropping systems and integrated crop–range–livestock systems across the USA which are relevant in the context of summarizing opportunities and challenges associated with implementing long-term crop–range–livestock systems research in the highly variable environment of the central High Plains. With precipitation ranging from 305 to 484mm and uncertain irrigation water supply, this region is especially vulnerable to changing moisture and temperature patterns. The results of our review indicate that diverse crop rotations, reduced soil disturbance and integrated crop–livestock systems could increase economic returns and agroecosystem resilience. Integrating agricultural system ...

El Palacio. ISSN: 0031-0158

Parker, Quanah (Comanche Chief) (Quahadi Comanche), 1845?-1911.
United States. Office of Indian Affairs. Kiowa Agency
Comanche Indians -- Biography
Comanche Indians -- Politics and government
Comanche Indians -- Law and legislation
Comanche Indians -- Government relations
Comanche Indians -- Historiography
Comanche-White relations
Indian-White relations
Judges -- Oklahoma
Judges -- Oklahoma -- Indian Territory
Courts -- Oklahoma
Courts -- Oklahoma -- Indian Territory
Court of Indian Offences
Kiowa Indians -- History
Indian agents -- History
West (U.S.) -- History
West (U.S.) -- Race relations
Indian Territory -- History
19th century
Fort Sill (Okla.)
Anadarko (Okla)

The feminist movement in the United States like other countries has tried to establish equality for women. From the first attempts to gain constitutional right for vote, up to the current radical demands, feminists have struggled to make changes in the U.S. party politics and obtain their rights within the parties. One of the important issues in which women played a key role in party politics is the issue of abortion. In this article, U.S. party politics on abortion, the role of the feminist movement in the process of legalization and the controversies regarding it are studied. Through two major social movements known as "pro-choice" and "pro-life", feminists mainly follow their goals and attitudes on abortion. In political realm, Democrats, due to their liberal approaches, are commonly known to be pro-choice, while Republicans are known as pro-life supporters. Being pro-choice or pro-life for these two political parties has created debates and controversies which are examined in this article. U.S. feminists from the beginning have tried their best to elect women to send to the Congress and political parties; since they believe that if they want to get things done in U.S., they have to enter the parties and work for change inside them. Therefore, as indicated in this paper, U.S. party politics have been remarkably influenced by the feminist movements about abortion. This paper, arguing abortion from the lens of the two major US party institutions, focuses on the political and social domains and feminist movements' arguments.

The volume of proceedings entitled “Climatic Constraints and Human Activities” contains a summary essay and seven invited papers from the Task Force meeting on the Nature of Climate Society Research convened in February 1980 at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. This, the introductory essay, examines the differences in research methods on questions of short-term climate variability and longer-term climatic change, identifies some important avenues for research, and briefly surveys the papers. Ausubel and Meyer-Abich take broad looks at climate and public policy. Ausubel offers arguments from an economic point of view as to why the atmosphere is increasingly associated with developments, like climatic change, which are threatening to human activity. The paper by Meyer-Abich surveys from a political point of view the reasons that regulation of activities which could control or prevent climatic change is unlikely to take place, and why adaptation is the most likely path to be followed, especially given the current weakness of the interdisciplinary analysis of the problem of climatic change. The paper by Biswas narrows the focus and illuminates the uncertainty associated with one specific but very prominent area, the relationship between climate and crops, which one might easily assume otherwise to be a more secure area of knowledge. Three case study approaches follow, two emphasizing a geographical perspective and one a social group. Warrick’s historical study of the possible “lessening” of drought impacts in the Great Plains of the United States emphasizes the need for a clear setting out of the hypotheses to be tested in research on the relationship of climate and society and the need for improvements of the modeling of the overall system. Spitz develops a model of a food producing class which is also self-provisioning, that is, where food has a dual nature as both a basic need and as merchandise to be traded, and explores the significance of drought to such a group, with particular reference to Eastern India. Czelnai’s paper on the Great Plain of the Danube Basin offers interesting insights into the extent into which natural systems have already been transformed by man and proposes ways in which sensitivity and vulnerability to climatic factors may be defined and explored. Finally, Sergin proposes a method of estimating plausible patterns of climatic change based on the similarity between seasonal changes and climatic changes of physical fields on longer time scales.

Garment buttons and other artefacts incorporating mother-of-pearl (nacre) are significant items of material culture frequently found on archaeological sites and in museum collections. From around 1860 until the end of the Second World War, Australia was the foremost international source of mother-of-pearl for buttons, which were mechanically mass produced during that time. Since nacre formation is impacted by climate, water chemistry and other environmental factors at the time of shell formation, mother-of-pearl is potentially well suited to geochemical investigations of provenance. And yet, this avenue of inquiry, and the impact of button manufacturing on the compositional nature of mother-of-pearl, have received little attention to date. This study comprised stable carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope analysis of six mother-of-pearl samples from at least four different species sourced from the major pearling areas of Australia. It found oxygen isotope to be an effective marker in discriminating between most sample source locations, although some regions were not distinguishable. Additional and much higher density sampling and analysis of modern pearl shell might resolve this issue. The study also determined that mechanical processing during button manufacture has no significant impact on the trace element and isotope compositions of the mother-of-pearl. In doing so, it demonstrates the potential for source tracing mother-of-pearl material culture items to shed new light on the history of the pearling industry in Australia, one of the country's most historically important maritime industries.

Sustainable intensification is an emerging model for agriculture designed to reconcile accelerating global demand for agricultural products with long-term environmental stewardship. Defined here as increasing agricultural production while maintaining or improving environmental quality, sustainable intensification hinges upon decision-making by agricultural producers, consumers, and policy-makers. The Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network was established to inform these decisions. Here we introduce the LTAR Common Experiment, through which scientists and partnering producers in US croplands, rangelands, and pasturelands are conducting 21 independent but coordinated experiments. Each local effort compares the outcomes of a predominant, conventional production system in the region ('business as usual') with a system hypothesized to advance sustainable intensification ('aspirational'). Following the logic of a conceptual model of interactions between agriculture, economics, society, and the environment, we identified commonalities among the 21 experiments in terms of (a) concerns about business-as-usual production, (b) 'aspirational outcomes' motivating research into alternatives, (c) strategies for achieving the outcomes, (d) practices that support the strategies, and (e) relationships between

Agriculture in the United States must respond to escalating demands for productivity and efficiency, as well as pressures to improve its stewardship of natural resources. Growing global population and changing diets, combined with a greater societal awareness of agriculture's role in delivering ecosystem services beyond food, feed, fiber, and energy production, require a comprehensive perspective on where and how US agriculture can be sustainably intensified, that is, made more productive without exacerbating local and off‐site environmental concerns. The USDA's Long‐Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network is composed of 18 locations distributed across the contiguous United States working together to integrate national and local agricultural priorities and advance the sustainable intensification of US agriculture. We explore here the concept of sustainable intensification as a framework for defining strategies to enhance production, environmental, and rural prosperity out...

Compiling rarely-seen stories from the renowned author's first years as a writer -- including some previously out of print for decades-this annotated collection brings together thirty of Willa Cather's earliest published pieces, from the lighthearted ("Wee Winkie's Wanderings" and "The Strategy of the Were-Wolf Dog") to the personal ("Tommy, the Unsentimental" and "A Resurrection") to the transcendent ("Paul's Case"). From her work as an undergraduate at the University of Nebraska to her nascent career as an author and journalist in the Northeast US, these selections chart Cather's growth into one of the Twentieth Century's leading voices.

We propose to investigate factors that support sustainability in sugar beet production on farms in the Big Horn Basin, Northwestern Wyoming. Increasing costs, changing markets, and off-site environmental concerns interact to create a need for better understanding of production efficiency and ecological impacts of irrigated sugar beet systems. The project will provide data that is lacking for these systems, including soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics, nitrogen (N) cycling, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and tradeoffs between economic performance and soil sustainability. This data will provide decision support in the short term and will leverage funding for future, more in-depth research and extension in the mid to long term. This interdisciplinary project would build upon past AES-CGP-funded work by analyzing how rotation systems for pathogen control affect soil quality and productivity under different soil and water conditions. Our primary objectives are to describe ecological and economic sustainability and to make results available to growers. The 16 scenarios include four on-farm crop rotations in place for 10 or more years on clayey and sandy soils and under furrow-and sprinkler-applied irrigation. Each production scenario will be replicated three times and will include an unfertilized pair. The four rotations will be defined by a project advisory team of producers and agricultural advisers. The primary pitfall of this study design is the variability of production practices from farm to farm. We plan to minimize variability through the field selection process and by carefully recording practices within each of the 16 scenarios. The project addresses the first and second priorities of the 2008 RFP by: 1) assessing economic viability and maintenance of the resource base; and 2) evaluating long-term impacts of farming systems on the resource base as on-farm soil quality and off-site contributions to air and water quality. The project addresses the discovery and dissemination focus areas defined in the University of Wyoming College of Agriculture mission. Working closely with a project advisory team of Big Horn Basin producers and ag advisers, along with inclusion of University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service (CES) Area Agricultural Educators on the research team, will ensure both the relevance of research questions and the dissemination of results. The instruction mission of the College is also addressed because both graduate students and College faculty with teaching appointments in three departments will participate in the project. Though this proposed work is broad in scope, it's coincidence with complementary projects managed by the Project Director will facilitate field and laboratory work and sharing of human resources and equipment. It parallels a similar on-farm project funded by the USDA-NRI Soil Processes Program that will investigate soil processes and economic factors in dryland cropping systems of Southeastern Wyoming. A PhD student paid through this proposed project and the dryland wheat NRI project will combine investigations of soil quality and economics.

Balancing weed suppression, beneficial insect conservation, soil quality and profitability is challenging in organic cropping systems due to reliance on soil disturbance for weed control. We hypothesized that the benefits of tillage can be retained while mitigating adverse impacts on soil quality by alternating tillage with practices that can build soil organic matter. We conducted a four-year experiment in central Pennsylvania, USA, to compare four organic feed and forage cropping systems, each differing in tillage, manure management, and cropping strategies. Each system was designed to address baseline soil quality and weed pressure conditions arising from practices implemented during the previous three-year transition period. To assess cumulative system effects, we established a soybean (Glycine max) uniformity trial across all systems in year four. Systems that were in perennial forage for 2 years outperformed annual crop-based systems in weed control and beneficial insect conservation, while maintaining overall profitability over the four-year study period. Soybean yields during the uniformity trial were more than 30% greater in systems that had included perennial forages than in systems with only annual crops. Labile soil carbon pools, an indicator of soil quality, were maintained over time in all systems. Our results indicate that soil quality, weed management, beneficial insect conservation, and profitability can be maintained in organic systems when periodic tillage is coupled with perennial forage crops in rotation.

Sustainable intensification is an emerging model for agriculture designed to reconcile accelerating global demand for agricultural products with long-term environmental stewardship. Defined here as increasing agricultural production while maintaining or improving environmental quality, sustainable intensification hinges upon decision-making by agricultural producers, consumers, and policy-makers. The Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network was established to inform these decisions. Here we introduce the LTAR Common Experiment, through which scientists and partnering producers in US croplands, rangelands, and pasturelands are conducting 21 independent but coordinated experiments. Each local effort compares the outcomes of a predominant, conventional production system in the region ('business as usual') with a system hypothesized to advance sustainable intensification ('aspirational'). Following the logic of a conceptual model of interactions between agriculture, economics, society, and the environment, we identified commonalities among the 21 experiments in terms of (a) concerns about business-as-usual production, (b) 'aspirational outcomes' motivating research into alternatives, (c) strategies for achieving the outcomes, (d) practices that support the strategies, and (e) relationships between

This volume presents the results of several decades of archaeological research in the Sheyenne Bend region of southeastern North Dakota. Piecing together evidence from disparate field projects, along with the work done by previous researchers, Archaeological Cultures of the Sheyenne Bend offers a status report on the pre-European era cultures of southeastern North Dakota. Presented in ordinary language, this book constitutes the essential details to make sense of the regional archaeological record. Michael Michlovic is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Minne- sota State University Moorhead. He is a former editor of the Minne- sota Archaeologist and past president of the Council of Minnesota Archaeology. George R. Holley is currently Emeritus Professor, Minnesota State University Moorhead. He is presently working on a Handbook for Minnesota Precontact Ceramics.

Rare and often questionable occurrences of southwestern pottery and turquoise artifacts have been reported in northeastern Texas. These artifacts may mark major interaction networks. Both southwestern pottery and turquoise artifacts have been found at the Sanders site, which is located in the core distribution of these "erratics."

Hybridization between endangered species and more common species is a significant problem in conservation biology because it may result in extinction or loss of adaptation. The historical reduction in abundance and geographic distribution of the American plains bison (Bison bison bison) and their recovery over the last 125 years is well documented. However, introgression from domestic cattle (Bos taurus) into the few remaining bison populations that existed in the late 1800s has now been identified in many modern bison herds. We examined the phenotypic effect of this ancestry by comparing weight and height of bison with cattle or bison mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from Santa Catalina Island, California (U.S.A.), a nutritionally stressful environment for bison, and of a group of age‐matched feedlot bison males in Montana, a nutritionally rich environment. The environmental and nutritional differences between these 2 bison populations were very different and demonstrated the phenotypic e...

This paper summarizes research related to the 2012 record drought in the central United States conducted by members of the NASA Energy and Water cycle Study (NEWS) Working Group. Past drought patterns were analyzed for signal coherency with latest drought and the contribution of long-term trends in the Great Plains low-level jet, an important regional circulation feature of the spring rainy season in the Great Palins. Long-term changes in the seasonal transition from rainy spring into dry summer were also examined. Potential external forcing from radiative processes, soil-air interactions, and ocean teleconnections were assessed as contributors to the intensity of the drought. The atmospheric Rossby wave activity was found to be a potential source of predictability for the onset of drought. A probabilistic model was introduced and evaluated for its performance in predicting drought recovery in the Great Plains.

Integrated crop–livestock systems (ICLSs) can help increase food production while benefiting soils and the environment. This review summarizes recent impacts of ICLSs on crop and livestock production and rural economics and discusses lessons learned in the northern Great Plains (NGP). Research on ICLS conducted in the NGP indicates that the crop residue grazing, swath grazing, and annual forage grazing can positively influence crop production; whereas, livestock performance varies with season, forage nutritive value, and grazing management. Furthermore, ICLSs can reduce the costs and risks of agricultural production. The success of ICLSs in NGP region depends on trade‐offs, planning, economic benefits, policies, regulations, community acceptance, and management skills. The ICLSs could play a strategic role in future agricultural production. The lessons learned from adopting ICLSs in the NGP include the lack of available land for fertilizer (manure) management, that to implement ICLS...

Catalog essay for the exhibition "Invisible Prairie" (July 7 - Oct 14, 2023) Tinworks Art, Bozeman, MT

The show included work by A.K. Burns, Abigail Flanagan, Suzanne Kite, Tracy Linder, Julie Ann Nagle, Layli Long Soldier, Laurel Sparks, and immersive soundscapes by Jeff Rice from the Acoustic Atlas sound archive. Featured performers include Roots in the Sky, Local Earth Collective, and Montana Insite Theatre.

This was printed before many of the commissioned projects were completed. See link below or my website for updated images:

Many Indigenous groups in North America have long-held practices of using migration and movement in response to environmental and social changes. Diasporic communities, composed of migrants maintaining significant connections to their former homelands, were likely once common in refuge areas of North America, but not always recognized by archaeologists. Many Puebloan peoples in the Northern Rio Grande region of the US Southwest used movement as a way to escape Spanish colonial control after AD 1600, yet retained connections to their homelands. This Puebloan diaspora had far-reaching consequences for Native peoples across the Southwest and neighboring regions like the Great Plains. Here, we briefly summarize how diasporas are defined globally and the ways in which these definitions could shift to help us model diasporas in North America. Using the Pueblo diaspora and a multi-generational Pueblo-Ndee (Apache) community in the Central Great Plains as example, we explore the intricacies of identifying diasporas for North America within the contexts of Indigenous resistance and adaptation.

Here, we consider the last decades of ceramic manufacture among the Pawnee in the Central Great Plains, using petrographic analysis to explore raw material availability and use at the Kitkahahki Town site (14RP1). Historical documents reveal tremendous regional pressures and conflicts in the Kitkahahki Town area during its occupation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries-processes that could have altered or restricted the movement of women outside village boundaries. Contact-era Pawnee pottery from Kitkahahki Town exhibits atypical paste textures, atypical inclusions, or both. At least one potter used atypical materials available immediately adjacent to the village, which suggests that ceramic raw material collection was at least occasionally adjusted to reduce risk. Petrographic analysis contributes to our understanding of Indigenous communities in colonial settings, particularly to questions of technological change and landscape use when both were intensely negotiated and rapidly changing.

With the rise of organic farming worldwide, researchers are being presented with new opportunities to study organic systems and also to compare them to their conventional counterparts. This paper focuses on farming systems research comparing organic and conventional agroecosystems. The types of farming systems comparison studies, some of the metrics used, and integrative research approaches to farming systems studies are discussed. To hasten implementation of more sustainable agricultural systems, more farming systems comparison research, especially interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, is needed, which brings together multiple disciplines and, when possible, non-academic participants to measure key sustainability indicators and/or ecosystem services. Such research does not just need to compare organic and conventional systems. In addition to organic farming systems, other innovative systems make up a modest, but growing, component of US and global agriculture and include alternative livestock production (e.g., grass-fed), mixed crop/livestock systems, conservation agriculture, integrated farming, agroforestry, and perennial grains. Such systems integrate production, environmental, and socioeconomic objectives and reflect greater awareness of ecosystem services. These systems can be studied in farming systems research, in which they are compared with each other or with conventional systems.

Keys to Willet (Tringa semipalmata inornata) management include providing large expanses of native grasslands and wetland complexes. Wetland complexes should contain a diversity of wetland sizes and classes, such as ephemeral, temporary, seasonal, semipermanent, and permanent wetlands, as well as intermittent streams. Willets use wetlands of various salinities. Willets require short, sparse upland grasslands for nesting and foraging and wetland complexes for foraging. Broods use taller, denser grass cover than do nesting adults. Willets have been reported to use habitats with less than or equal to 70 centimeters (cm) average vegetation height, 4–23 cm visual obstruction reading, 15 percent bare ground, 38 percent litter cover, and 1–9 cm litter depth.

Paul Kane’s Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America is a work in which Kane draws illustrative pictures of North American Indians and writes his experiences he had during the time span of a four year that he spent travelling among the Chippeways, Crees, Sioux and Blackfeet tribes of North American Indians. Though Kane’s work reflects a European gaze on Indians which can be framed with the ideology of white supremacy, it is not grounded on hostile intentions for Indian people. Kane acknowledges Indian people’s “wild nature”, yet, contrary to the ideology of settler colonialism which is mainly based on the claim for land and gradual erasure of native agency, he mostly insists on the valuable aspects of native people’s cultural life. Accordingly, this paper aims to show Paul Kane’s awareness of this erasure, and his effort to catch the image of Indian as an Other that struggles to exist in his/her Self which will diminish in time.

Paul Kane's Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America is a work in which Kane draws illustrative pictures of North American Indians and writes his experiences he had during the time span of a four year that he spent travelling among the Chippeways, Crees, Sioux and Blackfeet tribes of North American Indians. Though Kane's work reflects a European gaze on Indians which can be framed with the ideology of white supremacy, it is not grounded on hostile intentions for Indian people. Kane acknowledges Indian people's "wild nature", yet, contrary to the ideology of settler colonialism which is mainly based on the claim for land and gradual erasure of native agency, he mostly insists on the valuable aspects of native people's cultural life. Accordingly, this paper aims to show Paul Kane's awareness of this erasure, and his effort to catch the image of Indian as an Other that struggles to exist in his/her Self which will diminish in time.

Agriculture in the United States must respond to escalating demands for productivity and efficiency, as well as pressures to improve its stewardship of natural resources. Growing global population and changing diets, combined with a greater societal awareness of agriculture's role in delivering ecosystem services beyond food, feed, fiber, and energy production, require a comprehensive perspective on where and how US agriculture can be sustainably intensified, that is, made more productive without exacerbating local and off-site environmental concerns. The USDA's Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network is composed of 18 locations distributed across the contiguous United States working together to integrate national and local agricultural priorities and advance the sustainable intensification of US agriculture. We explore here the concept of sustainable intensification as a framework for defining strategies to enhance production, environmental, and rural prosperity outcomes from agricultural systems. We also elucidate the diversity of factors that have shaped the past and present conditions of cropland, rangeland, and pastureland agroecosystems represented by the LTAR network and identify priorities for research in the areas of production, resource conservation and environmental quality, and rural prosperity. Ultimately, integrated long-term research on sustainable intensification at the national scale is critical to developing practices and programs that can anticipate and address challenges before they become crises.

Willa Cather's distinctive plain style is generally understood in terms of the Modernist movement towards simplicity. Her aesthetic desire to "throw the furniture out of the window" resonates not just with Modernist aesthetics, however, but with events in Early Modern Europe: to throw the furniture out of the window is a deeply Protestant gesture, echoing the Defenestrations of Prague. While many critics have noted the presence of Catholic content and sympathies in Cather's novels, Cather's work can be better understood in terms of a Protestant aesthetic, and more specifically an Ulster Protestant one. Her ghostwriting of the autobiography of Ulsterman S.S. McClure offers a lens for exploring their mutual values of home, hard work, hygiene and perspicuity. Cather's interest in print culture can be understood in terms of this Protestant aesthetic, whereby unruly physical bodies and sensations are translated into fixed typographical images. Her celebration of the Great Plains is another example of her attraction to blank spaces emptied of the pictorial. This clean well-lighted style is a stay against a disordered world. In moments of uncertainty, Cather evokes the aesthetic of her Ulster Protestant heritage, and reaches for the familiar shape of the word. Willa Cather's aesthetic manifesto "The Novel Démeublé" (1922) ends with a violent image of defenestration, the act, that is, of throwing someone or something out of the brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

Modifications to continuous corn production systems can reduce environmental impacts and soil degradation, yet the social viability of these modifications is linked to the degree to which they also influence yields and crop quality. In this study, we focus on forage production systems and evaluate how yields, crop quality, soil health indicators, and associated ecosystem services are influenced by corn-hay rotation treatments, cover cropping, and tillage reduction in silage production using a unique 10-year dataset from Borderview Research Farm in Vermont, United States. Physical, chemical, and biological soil health indicators were monitored annually alongside yields and crop quality in a randomized complete block design experiment. We use a mixed model analysis of variance approach to demonstrate significant influences of time and treatments on yields, crop quality and soil health parameters (at p < 0.05). The winter rye cover crop treatment had no significant influence in this...

Soil microbial activity is important for crop production. Soil microbes are involved in nutrient and water cycling within the soil, and interact with crop plants to provide the basic nutrient and water resources needed for crop production. Claypan soils have unique physical characteristics that impact soil biology. This study explored the temporal changes in soil microbiology in a claypan soil under conventional and no-till production during a crop rotation of corn/winter wheat/soybean/fallow commonly planted in southeast Kansas. We found soil microbial activity changed more in the top two inches of soil than in the lower soil layers. Wheat resulted in higher soil microbial activity and biomass than corn. Soybeans had a more stable microbial activity in the soil than either corn or wheat. The no-till plots had greater microbial biomass and activity than conventionally tilled systems, and the temporal changes in soil microbial properties were more apparent in no-till plots. These results offer an interesting insight into the soil biological properties that impact soil health for crop production.

After I recovered the lost history of Blackdom Oil Company, the utility of the Afro-Frontier thesis helped me reimagine the history of Black Peoples across time and space. Employing the Afro-Frontier thesis humanized Blackdomites, bridged gaps in the historical narrative of Blackdom, New Mexico, and allowed for a more accurate story. For example; In September of 1919, Joe Blue, Henry Smith, Erastus Herron, and Clinton Ragsdale from Blackdom were signers on a homestead patent proof for the infamous bootlegging, gunslinging madame named Mittie Moore of Roswell, New Mexico. Prior to the Afro-Frontier thesis, no one included the activities of the surrounding areas. The current myths of Blackdom authorized by the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, and echoed by the Smithsonian, argue that the states' only incorporated all-Black town was abandoned in the mid-1920s. The Afro-Frontier thesis included oil exploration in "Little Texas," where Mittie Moore (Wilson) was best known for her whore house and bawdy ventures. Through the lens of Afro-Frontierism, Blackdom's history includes the ambitions of women. Mittie Moore's Blackdom legacy reveals a third decade beyond the original idea for the town and imagination of early chroniclers. Mittie ran her bawdy empire from 201 South Virginia Ave, 20 Miles north of Blackdom, and the Afro-Frontier framework assumes that "Blackdom" extended beyond the borders of the 40 acre town square. The old frameworks didn't allow other scholars to recognize all of the major influences on the "Exclusive Negro Town." In the winter of 1920, Mittie proved up a whole square mile of Blackdom Commons 3 miles south of Blackdom Town Square. By the summer, the original settlers of Blackdom sold the church and migrated outward. Many saw the event through the lens of failure and previous scholars overlooked the economic transition of Blackdom from revival times into Boomtimes. The Afro-Frontier hypothesis was correct and instead of abandonment, Black people pooled their land and leased it to oil speculators. Blackdomites received oil royalties through the Roaring 20s. Without a full view, the various intellectual genocides of the past will continue in the 21st Century. For the sake of brevity and coherence, ambition serves as a foundational start point to avoid some of the flawed narrative constructs of the 20th Century. The Afro-Frontier thesis framework offers a new way to achieve the goals of recovering and reimagining histories with ambition at the center. In the "North American" continental interior within the "Permian Basin" of the Southeastern section of the "Territory of New Mexico" on Mescalero Reservation land; Black People, in a town called Blackdom, struck oil. After the Plessy decision in 1896, and during "Red Summer" of 1919, Black People named their oil company Blackdom Oil Company. After 1929, when Blackdom Township faded into the "Great Depression," according to Francis "Frank" Marion Boyer (Blackdom Townsite Company's 1st President), oil royalties flowed well into the post-World War II era.

Wheat (Triticum spp.) dominates dryland grain crop production in the North American Great Plains and other regions with semi-arid steppe climates. A common practice is to alternate winter or spring wheat with a 14-to 21-mo fallow period to allow for soil-water recharge, despite economic inefficiencies and environmental degradation. Replacing fallow with noncereal grain and seed crops often reduces future wheat yields due to increased water stress during grain fill. The use of annual forages may not have the disadvantages associated with grain and seed crops. The objective of this review was to determine benefits and challenges of incorporating annual forages into dryland wheat systems in semi-arid steppe climates, using the Great Plains within the United States as a model system. Results indicate that: (a) cool-and warm-season, annual grass and broadleaf species can be grown for forage across the region; (b) forage production will be less risky than grain and seed crop production under predicted climate-change scenarios; (c) grazing annual forages may offer advantages (e.g., nutrient cycling, improved soil structure, added revenue from livestock) over mechanically harvesting annual forages; (d) the lack of infrastructure and local markets impede the use of annual forages to diversify wheat-based cropping systems in the region; and (e) limited networking among researchers hinders the advancement in knowledge on how annual forages can be used to improve dryland wheat system resilience.

Balancing weed suppression, beneficial insect conservation, soil quality and profitability is challenging in organic cropping systems due to reliance on soil disturbance for weed control. We hypothesized that the benefits of tillage can be retained while mitigating adverse impacts on soil quality by alternating tillage with practices that can build soil organic matter. We conducted a four-year experiment in central Pennsylvania, USA, to compare four organic feed and forage cropping systems, each differing in tillage, manure management, and cropping strategies. Each system was designed to address baseline soil quality and weed pressure conditions arising from practices implemented during the previous three-year transition period. To assess cumulative system effects, we established a soybean (Glycine max) uniformity trial across all systems in year four. Systems that were in perennial forage for 2 years outperformed annual crop-based systems in weed control and beneficial insect conservation, while maintaining overall profitability over the four-year study period. Soybean yields during the uniformity trial were more than 30% greater in systems that had included perennial forages than in systems with only annual crops. Labile soil carbon pools, an indicator of soil quality, were maintained over time in all systems. Our results indicate that soil quality, weed management, beneficial insect conservation, and profitability can be maintained in organic systems when periodic tillage is coupled with perennial forage crops in rotation.

Analysis of the ceramics from the Pammel Creek site examined decorative styles for chronological refinement, and other characteristics for method of manufacture, primary and secondary function, and patterns of deposition. Distinctive decorative attributes indicate that the main Oneota occupation of the Pammel Creek site represents a transitional period during which the Brice Prairie Phase type Perrot Punctate evolves into the Valley View Phase types Allamakee Trailed and Midway Incised. A tight suite of radiocarbon dates places this transition in the first half of
the fifteenth century AD.
Vessels were manufactured on the site by forming globular jars from single lumps of shell-tempered clay, and firing them in open-air burnings that may have contained heat by covering new vessels with sections of previously broken vessels. Wear on some sherds also indicates secondary use as digging tools. Finally, the nature of ceramic artifact deposition at this and other Oneota sites suggests that broken vessels were frequently left on the surface of the site, with some sherds selected for secondary use, before cleaning up and tossing multiple, partial vessels into refuse
pits.

Lester Brown\u27s edited volume acquaints social workers with two spirits, that is, those Native Americans who are gay, lesbian, or who may adopt mixed-gender practices and roles. Although well-intended, the attempts to sensitize social workers to Natives\u27 lives are occasionally thwarted by overgeneralizations and weak analyses. In the three chapters on identity, the intricacies of culture, gender, and sexuality theory are watered down and confused. In their comparison of Lakota and Dakota practices, Little Crow, Judy Wright, and Brown conjure the odd label non-heterosexual gender identity and collapse gender into sexuality. Mary Ann Jacobs and Lester Brown\u27s piece often homogenizes the American Indian, although the authors\u27 interviews with eight Native American lesbians and gays demonstrate a rich diversity of identities and experiences

Anderson ed., 1992). 11. Many property law scholars and social scientists have recognized, in other contexts, the importance of carefully designing default rules for jointly owned property to promote co-owner cooperation and achieve the most efficient use of resources, while also satisfying personal, familial, and community goals.