We present stable isotope and osteological data from human remains at Paloma, Chilca I, La Yerba III, and Morro I that offer new evidence for diet, lifestyle, and habitual mobility in the first villages that proliferated along the arid Pacific coast of South America (ca. 6000 cal BP). The data not only reaffirm the dietary primacy of marine protein for this period but also show evidence at Paloma of direct access interactions between the coast and highlands, as well as habitual mobility in some parts of society. By locating themselves at the confluence of diverse coastal and terrestrial habitats, the inhabitants of these early villages were able to broaden their use of resources through rounds of seasonal mobility, while simultaneously increasing residential sedentism. Yet they paid little substantial health penalty for their settled lifestyles, as reflected in their osteological markers of stature and stress, compared with their agriculturalist successors even up to five millennia later. Contrasting data for the north coast of Chile indicate locally contingent differences. Considering these data in a wider chronological context contributes to understanding how increasing sedentism and population density laid the foundations here for the emergence of Late Preceramic social complexity.

Molecular assays are often implemented by weed scientists for detection ofherbicide-resistant individuals; however, the utility of these assays can belimited if multiple mechanisms of evolved resistance exist. Waterhempresistant to protoporphyrinogen oxidase (PPO)– inhibiting herbicides isconferred by a target-site mutation in PPX2L (a gene codingfor PPO), resulting in the loss of a glycine at position 210 (ΔG210). ThisΔG210 mutation of PPX2L is the only known mechanismresponsible for PPO-inhibitor resistance (PPO-R) in waterhemp from fivestates (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri); however, a limitednumber of populations have been tested, especially in Illinois. To verifythe ubiquity of the ΔG210 in PPO-R waterhemp populations in Illinois, apreviously published allele-specific PCR (asPCR) was used for the detectionof the ΔG210 mutation to associate this mutation with phenotypic resistancein 94 Illinois waterhemp populations. The ΔG210 mutation was detected in allpopulations displaying phenotypic resistance to lactofen (220 g ai ha−1), indicating the deletion is likely the only mechanism ofresistance. With evidence that the ΔG210 mutation dominates PPO-R waterhempbiotypes, molecular detection techniques have considerable utility.Unfortunately, the previously published asPCR is time consuming, verysensitive to PCR conditions, and requires additional steps to eliminate thepossibility of false negatives. To overcome these limitations, a streamlinedmolecular method using the TaqMan® technique was developed, utilizingallele-specific, fluorescent probes for high-throughput, robustdiscrimination of each allele (resistant and susceptible) at the 210th aminoacid position of PPX2L.

O’Grady (1983) complains that in arguing for task-specific genetic principles the transformational-generative enterprise has not given proper consideration to the alternative Piagetian view that there are no genetic principles specific to language, but that the relevant principles hold for all cognitive domains (he does not specify what the “cognitive domains” are). Although he notes judiciously that “the current research program in linguistics cannot be undermined by simple reference to possible alternate analyses for one or two phenomena” (168), he nonetheless sketches alternatives to two analyses given in The Language Lottery (Lightfoot 1982), claiming that his alternatives do not require appeal to task-specific innate principles and are thus consistent with a Piagetian view of the mind.

I shall illustrate here the importance of syntactic ‘blends’ for a transformational conception of syntax and, in the light of this, I shall show that if one accepts the theory of syntax outlined in Chomsky (1965), one must discard the celebrated deep structure distinction advocated there for easy and eager and the rule of Tough- Movement.

If one asks how many languages there are, one can imagine at least three answers: one, over six billion, or 7,358.

According to a “selective” (as opposed to “instructive”) model of human language capacity, people come to know more than they experience. The discrepancy between experience and eventual capacity (the “poverty of the stimulus”) is bridged by genetically provided information. Hence any hypothesis about the linguistic genotype (or “Universal Grammar,” UG) has consequences for what experience is needed and what form people's mature capacities (or “grammars”) will take. This BBS target article discusses the “trigger experience,” that is, the experience that actually affects a child's linguistic development. It is argued that this must be a subset of a child's total linguistic experience and hence that much of what a child hears has no consequence for the form of the eventual grammar. UG filters experience and provides an upper bound on what constitutes the triggering experience. This filtering effect can often be seen in the way linguistic capacity can change between generations. Children only need access to robust structures of minimal (“degree-0”) complexity. Everything can be learned from simple, unembedded “domains” (a grammatical concept involved in defining an expression's logical form). Children do not need access to more complex structures.