The symbiotic relationship between people and the genus Agave spans millennia and a vast geographical area encompassing Mexico, the southwestern United States, and the Texas borderlands. In the early 1950s, Richard MacNeish's investigations in Tamaulipas yielded evidence of past agave use in the mountains of northeastern Mexico. Excavations in the Ocampo Caves revealed 9,000 years of sporadic occupations by hunter-gatherers, mixed forager-farmers, and finally, periodic visits by residents of nearby agricultural villages. Although these discoveries are incompletely published—and existing publications largely underemphasize the range of utilized wild resources in favor of domesticated maize, beans, and squash—agave is among the wild plant taxa most often mentioned in use throughout the Holocene. Unpublished field notes, curated plant assemblages recovered during MacNeish's excavations, and data from recent archaeological survey complement the published literature to explore the role of this prominent plant in this important archaeological region.

Using textile production in Postclassic Western Mesoamerica as a case study, this article explores how to differentiate low levels of craft production caused by household provisioning from low levels of craft production due to market reliance and regional specialization. I use a sample of 52 excavated site/phase components to establish baselines for the intensity of production and to evaluate whether participation in the market allowed craftspeople in some regions to underproduce textiles relative to local needs. Highland and lowland sites have comparable low frequencies of spindle whorls during the Early Postclassic, which I interpret as characteristic of household self-sufficiency. Whorl frequencies increase above this baseline earlier and to a higher degree in lowland sites than in highland sites. During the Late Postclassic, some regions may have formed pairs of over- and underproduction zones linked by the market. Because of changes in spinning technology, it is not possible to extrapolate the results of this study to earlier time periods. I then present data from Calixtlahuaca as an example of how macroregional data can be used to interpret craft production at a particular site. Textile production at Calixtlahuaca was generally low, but this was more likely a function of a strong dependence on maguey fiber, rather than underproduction caused by a reliance on the market.

Places such as Poverty Point, Mound City, and Chaco Canyon remind us that the siting of ritual infrastructure in ancient North America was a matter of cosmological precedent. The cosmic gravity of these places gathered persons periodically in numbers that challenged routine production. Ritual economies intensified, but beyond the material demands of hosting people, the siting of these places and the timing of gatherings were cosmic work that preconfigured these outcomes. A first millennium AD civic-ceremonial center on the northern Gulf Coast of Florida illustrates the rationale for holding feasts on the end of a parabolic dune that it shared with an existing mortuary facility. Archaeofauna from large pits at Shell Mound support the inference that feasts were timed to summer solstices. Gatherings were large, judging from the infrastructure in support of feasts and efforts to intensify production through oyster mariculture and the construction of a large tidal fish trap. The 250-year history of summer solstice feasts at Shell Mound reinforces the premise that ritual economies were not simply the amplification of routine production. It also suggests that the ecological potential for intensification was secondary to the cosmic significance of solstice-oriented dunes and their connection to mortuary and world-renewal ceremonialism.

Recently, researchers investigating the origins of domestication have debated the significance of resource intensification in the shift from foraging to food production. In eastern North America, one of several independent centers of domestication, this question remains open. To determine whether initial domestication may have been preceded by intensification in eastern North America at approximately 5000 cal BP, I evaluated the archaeofaunal assemblages from six sites in the middle Tennessee River valley. Analyses of these data suggest that overall foraging efficiency gradually declined prior to initial domestication, but patch-specific declines in foraging efficiency occurred in wetland habitats and not terrestrial ones. Climatic warming and drying during the Middle Holocene, growing human populations, and oak-hickory forest expansion were the likely drivers of these changes in foraging efficiency. These results support the hypothesis that initial domestication in eastern North America was an outcome of intensification driven by environmental change and human population increases. Finally, while the debate concerning the relationship of intensification to domestication has been framed in terms of a conflict between niche construction theory and optimal foraging theory, these perspectives are compatible and should be integrated to understand domestication more fully.

Indigenous cattle support approximately 26.1 percent of Ugandan families through provision of food and income in addition to the supply of socio-cultural wealth and security. Cattle keepers have developed and maintained variations of indigenous cattle phenotypes and genotypes suited to their agro-ecological zones through traditional management practices and socio-cultural aspects. The Ankole (Bos taurus indicus), East African shorthorn Zebu (Bos indicus) and their crossbred cattle constitute the main indigenous breeds, adding up to 93.3 percent of the Ugandan herd. With intensions to increase productivity, state policies encourage livestock farmers to upgrade local genotypes towards high yielding exotic dairy cattle. This if not appropriately planned is likely to result into loss of local genetic diversity, well endowed with resilience to local climatic conditions, endemic diseases and feed resource constraints. Here in, we review literature related to indigenous cattle in Uganda including how diverse landscapes, local management practices and socio-cultural aspects have enriched patterns of indigenous cattle variations. Then we highlight potential challenges of intensive management, increased selection for higher productivity and threats to genetic diversity of indigenous cattle populations. Since indigenous cattle vary with landscapes and socio-cultural values, have taken decades to establish, efforts to save them through genetic diversity studies, conservation and farmers sensitization should be undertaken immediately.