As regional chronologies become better defined, we are better able to track large-scale population movements and related cultural change. A dataset of 156 radiocarbon dates from the Middle Cumberland Region (MCR), evaluated with 199 more dates from the Ridge and Valley portions of northern Georgia and East Tennessee, enable modeling of population movements from the Central Mississippi Valley into the MCR, as well as subsequent movements and effects in the Ridge and Valley between AD 1200 and 1450. The dissolution of Cahokia is of particular interest, because the MCR falls geographically between the American Bottom and the Ridge and Valley province. This large-scale chronological perspective places key events in this part of the Southeast and Midwest into a unified historical framework that increases our understanding of the timing of cultural events. A related goal is to sort out possible external events and influences that may have affected this large region. This study makes apparent the relationships between cultural events and natural events, such as the drought sequences reported for the Central Mississippi Valley and beyond.

This study provides insight into the seasonality of Class I price differentials in the southeastern dairy industry. This is accomplished by analyzing monthly estimates of Class I price differentials obtained from the imputed price solution or dual solution of a generalized capacitated minimum cost network flow model of the dairy industry. A smooth seasonal pattern emerges through the monthly sequence with the lowest and highest estimated Class I price differentials occurring in April and September respectively. Miami and Jacksonville areas reach $ 5.40 and $ 4.36 per hundredweight in April and $ 6.79 and $ 5.53 per hundredweight in September.

A wetland deposit from the southern Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, USA, has been radiocarbon dated and shows continuous deposition from the early Holocene to the present. Non-coastal records of Holocene paleoenvironments are rare from the southeastern USA. Increased stable carbon isotope ratios (?13C) of sedimentary organic matter and pollen percentages indicate warm, dry early- to mid-Holocene conditions. This interpretation is also supported by n-alkane biomarker data and bulk sedimentary C/N ratios. These warm, dry conditions coincide with a mid-Holocene hypsithermal, or altithermal, documented elsewhere in North America. Our data indicate that the southeastern USA warmed concurrently with much of the rest of the continent during the mid-Holocene. If the current "warming hole" in the southeastern USA persists, during a time of greenhouse gas-induced warming elsewhere, it will be anomalous both in space and time.

The purpose of the study was to ascertain the competitive and complementary potential of fresh vegetable production relative to traditional row crop production using a regional partial equilibrium model. It seems clear from the analysis that vegetable crops are not destined in the near future to replace row crops in terms of land utilization. Nevertheless, vegetable crops appear to compete with and complement row crops well as evidenced by substantial increases in production as market share was assumed to increase. However, fresh vegetables cannot be considered as residual enterprises to which producers move when the demand for row crops declines. Even with a simulated 20 percent decrease in the demand for row crops, the acreage of fresh vegetables did not increase.

This paper examines the linkages among agricultural total factor productivity, farm size, and farm household participation in the off-farm labor market for the Southeastern states for the period 1960-1996. We find evidence of a simultaneous relationship between productivity and measures of farm structure. The results support the expected relationships between the endogenous variables, namely that productivity and farm size are positively related, farm size and off-farm work participation are negatively related, and off-farm work and productivity are negatively related. We find positive and significant impacts of government policies (investments in public research, extension, and highways) on productivity growth.