Island Today Research Articles

Cerion uva gouldi, a new fossil subspecies from Aruba (Gastropoda, Pulmonata, Cerionidae)

Cerion uva gouldi is described as a new subspecies to include only fossil and subfossil Cerion uva from Aruba. The name Cerion uva arubanumBaker, 1924 had previously been applied to all Cerion uva from Aruba, living and fossil. A recent molecular study has shown that Cerion uva arubanum, a taxon based on living type material from Aruba, is a synonym of Cerion uva uva (Linnaeus, 1758), with which it shares a preponderance of mitochondrial haplotypes. Cerion uva was widespread on Aruba during the Pleistocene, but became extinct on that island and was subsequently reintroduced from a population near Willemstad in eastern Curacao by humans within the past 800 years. Earlier authors had recognized that fossil Cerion from Aruba differ in morphology from those living on the island today, with fossils being more similar to specimens from western Curacao and Bonaire, while those living on Aruba today are most similar to Cerion uva uva from eastern Curacao. Cerion uva gouldi may be distinguished from living populations of Cerion on Aruba on the basis of its cylindrical rather than ovate shell shape, its more closely spaced whorls, and its round aperture with a uniform rather than anteriorly expanded parietal rim.

Aging in Place: Changing Socio-ecology and the Power of Kinship on Smith Island, Maryland

This article examines how the people known as Smith Islanders interact with their environment over the life-course. The purpose of the study is to contribute to a better understanding of aging in a small, rural, coastal community which changes are environmentally driven. To address the aging process in changing environments in this essay, I explore the relationship between the place, sense of self, and knowledge. Because the majority of people on the island today are in late life, the main threads in the fabric of this ethnographic narrative weave themselves into stories about aging experiences. I focus on males’ experiences, their traditional knowledge, and the role of kinship over their life-courses. The life history narratives of a Smith Island waterman known as Eddie Boy, discusses two elements present in both his childhood narratives and his late adulthood: work and kinship. I show how changing socio-ecology has altered the potential for intergenerational relations, which older islanders cherish, and how such changes in late life pose a new aging dilemma for current Smith Islanders.

Falkland Islands Toponymy through the Prism of Territorial Disputes

The toponymy of the Falkland Islands today needs a thorough investigation: at present, the authors of scientific articles and monographs devoted to certain aspects of the life of the region relate to the description of the geographical names of the islands in fits and starts, there is no single comprehensive toponymic dictionary of the archipelago, the web pages of the cities contain extremely limited information about the etymology of the names or have no such information at all. The long-standing territorial dispute between Argentina and Britain led to an armed conflict in 1982. Argentina tried to gain a foothold on the islands, which the UK had been controlling since 1833. In the 72-day war, Britain won. However, even after losing the war, Argentina did not give up claims to the islands. This article is devoted to the peculiarities of the formation, development and modern functioning of the toponymy of the Falkland Islands through the prism of territorial disputes. The purpose of the article is to highlight the characteristic features of the formation of the regional toponymic corpus, to study the influence of historical events on the changes in the geographical nomenclature and to carry out a linguo-pragmatic analysis of the toponymic units identified. For the first time the article presents a historical-linguistic and etymological description of the geographical names of the islands and a quantitative estimation of English-speaking, Hispanic and French-speaking toponyms. The authors draw conclusions about the main nominative traditions in the Falkland Islands and provide numerous examples.

Redescripción de <i>Percnon pascuensis</i> (Brachyura, Grapsoidea, Percnidae) de Rapa Nui

Percnon pascuensis is redescribed based on adult specimens collected in Easter Island (today Rapa-Nui). The gonopod (first two pair of pleopod of males) structure is described by first time and compare with the other species of the genus. The analysis conclude that P. pascuensis is closely to P. sinensis based on the gonopods morphology. P. sinensis is distributed to China Sea. Earlier papers claim that P. pascuensis is closely related with P. planissimum, a widely distributed species, but both species are different morphology of the gonopods. P. pascuensis is a valid species seemingly endemic of the Easter Island.

Hyperrealism and Other Indigenous Forms of ‘Faking It with the Truth’

This essay introduces Visual Anthropology Review’s Hyperrealism and Other Indigenous Forms of ‘Faking It with the Truth,’ a special collection of essays on new media art, ceremony, animation, sensory immersion, and other hyperreal interventions by Aboriginal and First Nations artists, curators, and academics. This essay introduces the contributing Indigenous and non‐Indigenous authors who are working across this emergent field of cultural production. Developing key concepts in critical dialogue with Indigenous practice‐based activism and history, it argues that works of the Indigenous hyperreal serve to challenge dominant frameworks of anthropology and canonical art theory. It provides historical and conceptual background for understanding the importance of these works as vital strategies of survival taking shape in neocolonial contexts across Indigenous territories of Australia and Turtle Island today.

New opportunities, new challenges: Harnessing Cuba’s advances in agroecology and sustainable agriculture in the context of changing relations with the United States

Cuba’s transition to agroecology is perhaps as widely known as it is misunderstood. In response to the economic crisis of the early 1990s, the Cuban agricultural sector largely departed from the industrial model of food production that it had previously pursued. The subsequent transition towards an agroecological model has been a dynamic and uneven process, elevating Cuba on the world stage as a global leader in sustainable agriculture while at the same time producing unique challenges for Cuban farmers, policy makers, researchers and academics. This article synthesizes and updates contemporary literature on the Cuban agricultural system, paying attention to both successes and shortcomings of agroecology in Cuba to date. In particular, it situates these literatures alongside contributions from academics and practitioners alike, bringing a number of data sets, experiences, and perspectives into conversation in the context of changing realities within Cuba and the nation’s evolving geopolitical relationship with the United States. By analyzing both the historical and contemporary processes through which agroecology has taken root in Cuba, we demonstrate that, despite its uneven and incomplete implementation, such a sustainable agroecological transition holds great, untapped potential. Agroecology in Cuba currently faces pressure from normalizing Cuba-US relations, with potentially profound implications for agriculture in both countries. But increasing opportunities are also emerging for investment, collaboration, knowledge exchange, and solidarity. In this paper, we provide an overview of the evolution of the Cuban agroecology movement; analyze the state of food security and challenges to food sovereignty on the island today; outline US-Cuba policy changes occurring since December 2014 that may affect the agrifood sector; and conclude with recommendations for supporting agroecology – for food security, food sovereignty, and sustainability – under this new and evolving relationship. Please refer to Supplementary Materials, Full text Spanish version of this article, for a full text Spanish version of this article.

Enslaved Laborer and Sharecropper Fishing Practices in 18th-19th Century Martinique: A Zooarchaeological and Ethnozoohistorical Study

Throughout the modern day Caribbean, artisanal fishing constitutes an important part of domestic subsistence and household economies. Many of the traditional fishing practices on the islands today were established during the Colonial Period, as enslaved Africans and their descendants developed social, economic, and subsistence strategies to persist under the plantation system. The historical record provides little insight into the day-to-day experiences of these enslaved laborers, including their subsistence regimes and practices. Fishing by slaves in the colonial French Antilles is portrayed in the historic literature as a practice reserved primarily for an “elite” group of fisherman held on wealthy plantations. Archaeology provides insight into the pieces of history left out of the written record and offers valuable information regarding the everyday lives of the enslaved peoples and communities underrepresented in this record. This article presents the results of the zooarchaeological analysis of faunal remains recovered from enslaved laborer and sharecropper occupations at Habitation Creve Cœur, an eighteenth–nineteenth century sugar plantation on the island of Martinique. The data reveal that fishing was an important economic activity for the slaves on this plantation and that the practice of fishing was likely more of a communal act than one for a privileged few. Furthermore, analysis indicates that fishing techniques that continue on the island today originated centuries ago, traditions developed by enslaved laborers living under the severe constraints of the oppressive plantation system.

ATLANTIS IN SPAIN III

Plato three times in his text mentioned that the Atlantean events occurred 9000 years before Solon’s 6th century B.C. but once he also mentioned 8000 years for the same events. Taking into account the number of the Athenian Kings and the mean span of their successive generations which is more or less 30 years who governed Athens before the 12th century B.C., it is concluded that all of them together span a 350 year period which of course has nothing to do with the 10th millennium claimed by Plato. These Kings together with Theseus the first King of Athens correspond in the 2ed millennium B.C. The archaeological findings in the Acropolis mentioned by Plato, the collapse of the Achaean World, the loss of the writing system in Greece, the assault of the Atlantes have been proved to be of the 12th century B.C. The ancient sources and the archaeological findings in Egypt show a lunar calendrical system practised by the priests who transmitted the story of Atlantis to Solon in the 6th century B.C. Dividing therefore these thousands of years by 12.37 which is the number of the full moon in a year the platonic dates are landing in the end of the 13th to the beginning of the 12th century B.C. Considering the visibility from Atlantis of the celestial bears which are implied as general North indicators Plato himself invalidated the 10th millennium B.C., as the period of the Atlantean events, since no celestial bears can play such a role as celestial North’s constellation because the Earth’s axis of rotation does not pass through them. This conclusion forces a different interpretation in Plato’s thousands of years for the Atlantean events. The only logical explanation is that the thousands of years is moon months understood as years. Plato used the word island for Atlantis which is associated with events belonging in the late Bronze Age in which the word island had the meaning of either promontory or peninsula. The resolution of this major issue removed entirely the 2400 year misunderstanding between the word island and peninsula since Herodotus in the 5th century B.C. added the word peninsula for first time offering to the island today’s exclusive meaning. In other words Atlantis was as much an island as Peloponnesus was which an island was never. He also used with the common word Atlantis three different geological entities: a giant island, a horseshow basin and a system of concentric rings associated with geothermal springs and with black, white and red rocks.

A juvenile subfossil crocodylian from Anjohibe Cave, Northwestern Madagascar

Madagascar’s subfossil record preserves a diverse community of animals including elephant birds, pygmy hippopotamus, giant lemurs, turtles, crocodiles, bats, rodents, and carnivorans. These fossil accumulations give us a window into the island’s past from 80,000 years ago to a mere few hundred years ago, recording the extinction of some groups and the persistence of others. The crocodylian subfossil record is limited to two taxa, Voay robustus and Crocodylus niloticus, found at sites distributed throughout the island. V. robustus is extinct while C. niloticus is still found on the island today, but whether these two species overlapped temporally, or if Voay was driven to extinction by competing with Crocodylus remains unknown. While their size and presumed behavior was similar to each other, nearly nothing is known about the growth and development of Voay, as the overwhelming majority of fossil specimens represent mature adult individuals. Here we describe a nearly complete juvenile crocodylian specimen from Anjohibe Cave, northwestern Madagascar. The specimen is referred to Crocodylus based on the presence of caviconchal recesses on the medial wall of the maxillae, and to C. niloticus based on the presence of an oval shaped internal choana, lack of rostral ornamentation and a long narrow snout. However, as there are currently no described juvenile specimens of Voay robustus, it is important to recognize that some of the defining characteristics of that genus may have changed through ontogeny. Elements include a nearly complete skull and many postcranial elements (cervical, thoracic, sacral, and caudal vertebrae, pectoral elements, pelvic elements, forelimb and hindlimb elements, osteoderms). Crocodylus niloticus currently inhabits Madagascar but is locally extinct from this particular region; radiometric dating indicates an age of ∼460–310 years before present (BP). This specimen clearly represents a juvenile based on the extremely small size and open sutures/detached neural arches; total body length is estimated to be ∼1.1 m (modern adults of this species range from ∼4–6 m). This fossil represents the only juvenile subfossil crocodylian specimen reported from Madagascar.

IMPROVING THE LAE-LAE ISLAND ENVIRONMENT AND SETTLEMENT QUALITY AS A MARINE TOURISM DESTINATION IN MAKASSAR CITY

Lae-Lae is an island in the city of Makassar, Indonesia. The island area of 0.04 sqkm, inhabited by 420 families or about 1780 inhabitants, is located 1.5 km from Makassar and accessible in 10 minutes with a fishing boat from the city of Kayu Bangkoa port. Lae-Lae island has excellent potential for tourist development of Makassar city, and a paradise for fans of sunset. In addition, there are also historical sites of war comprising an underground tunnel, which was said to connect to the fortress city of Makassar / Fort Rotterdam. Conditions of Lae-Lae island today feel less than comfortable because of the condition of the heat and lack of shade to enjoy the sunset. In addition, the attractions offered are also still very poor compared with its potential. Another thing deemed less supportive of Lae-Lae as a tourist destination in the past was the condition of facilities. To improve the quality of Lae-Lae island as a tourist destination, it would be necessary to arrange development of new tourist objects and improvement in the attractions that already exist. So the potential of the island as a travel destination can be optimized. The goal was to plan the arrangement of Lae-Lae island, both the environmental aspects and the settlement, so that Lae-Lae can be an optimal attraction for fans of nautical tourism, both locally and internationally. The method used was direct observation in the field through recordings, interviews, and of the conditions that exist today, which would then be linked to theories, concepts, and literature, also field trip to other tourist attractions that are more advanced. Results were in the form of settlement planning and Lae-Lae island environmental improvement that would be safe, comfortable and of tourism value.

Insecure hope: the challenges faced by urban slum dwellers in Bhola Slum, Bangladesh

Bhola Slum, located in Bangladesh’s capital of Dhaka, originated as a consequence of out-migration from Bhola Island in 1970 following the devastating Bhola Cyclone. Since this original wave of migration, the Liberation War, numerous natural hazard events, climate change impacts, and limited economic opportunities have led new waves of migrants to leave Bhola Island for this urban enclave. Out-migrations from Bhola Island today are driven by a desire to leave behind hardship and risk, diversify livelihood options, and avoid the increasing frequency and intensity of environmental stressors such as riverbank erosion. This article discusses some of the challenges posed by rural–urban migration in Bangladesh, drawing on a case study undertaken with residents of Bhola Slum in Dhaka city. This case study shows how one set of risks are often replaced by another as rural migrants arrive in precarious urban settings that lack the resources and services necessary to meet basic human needs. Thus, migrants become enmeshed in a vicious cycle of vulnerability, leaving a situation that is untenable only to encounter new uncertainties and threats to their livelihoods, assets and economic stability. Given this situation, questions emerge around how to manage complex challenges and risks to ensure that livelihoods can be sustained and protected in these new environments in the short and long-term.

Por el camino verde: Long-term tropical socioecosystem dynamics and the Anthropocene as seen from Puerto Rico

Islands are traditionally considered sensitive to environment and climate change. The Caribbean Islands are a biodiversity hotspot, where conservation efforts should be a priority. However, the archaeological record suggests that the biotic characteristics of the islands, even within nature or forests reserves, are strongly shaped by thousands of years of intense human activity. This presents an issue for conservation efforts because defining what should be preserved and what should be reconstructed is not straightforward. Using Puerto Rico as case study, this article explores how socioecosystem dynamics influenced the biotic characteristics of the island at specific archaeological periods and to what extent these processes have affected the environmental resources on the island today. Climatic data, its implications on forest type and cover, and landscape characteristics as seen from sedimentary records, combined with archaeological data on human–environment interactions over time, from the mid-Holocene to the present are used to investigate these themes. This article brings forth more questions than answers, but it reflects the status of deep-time environmental research on the island, which is still in its early stages. I argue that, starting from the earliest occupations, human influence has altered the ecology of Puerto Rico so deeply that the natural resources we work toward preserving, conserving, or restoring today cannot be understood without considering the social contexts that shaped them. In this sense, if the Anthropocene is a proposal to rename the current geological period because of the overwhelming physical evidence of change that human activity has left behind, then the history of the Puerto Rico supports the proposal for the application of the term since at least 5 ka. Applying the concept would bring the relevance of human activity to the forefront, contributing to the reconsideration of the role of humans in the formation and preservation of modern ecological systems.

Foraging ecology of a reintroduced population of breeding Bald Eagles on the Channel Islands, California, USA, inferred from prey remains and stable isotope analysis

Successful management of reintroduced populations requires recognizing that ecological conditions may have changed between extirpation and reintroduction. For example, characterizing dietary patterns of generalist apex predators in the past and present can help to define how their functional role may change as translocated populations grow. We identified prey remains collected from Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) nests and used carbon (d 13 C) and nitrogen (d 15 N) stable isotope analysis to quantify diet composition of the recently reintroduced Bald Eagle population on the Channel Islands off southern California, USA. We collected .6,000 prey items from recently occupied nests on Santa Catalina, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Anacapa islands in 2010 and 2011. Prey identification and stable isotope analysis yielded similar results and showed that eagles on Santa Catalina Island consumed a high proportion (~60%) of marine fish and a lower proportion (25–30%) of seabirds, while their counterparts on the Northern Channel Islands consumed equal proportions (~40–45%) of these prey types. Terrestrial resource use was low with the exception of eagles from one nest on Santa Catalina Island, where eagles primarily consumed ground squirrels and freshwater fish. We suggest that a combination of natural and anthropogenic factors is responsible for the interisland differences in Bald Eagle diet. Bald Eagle interactions with a robust recreational fishery off Santa Catalina Island may enhance access to fish species that are not available to eagles on the Northern Channel Islands, where the availability of breeding seabirds is far greater. The proportion of seabirds consumed by eagles on the Northern Channel Islands today is similar to that consumed by eagles from this region historically and prehistorically. This suggests that the restoration of breeding seabirds on the Channel Islands will benefit the long-term viability of eagle populations in the northern archipelago.

Rewriting the Legacy of Chiang Kai-shek on the Diaoyu Islands: Chiang's Ryukyu policies from the 1930s to the 1970s

The intensifying disputes between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands today have reminded both academia and the general public of the Ryukyu problem. Reportedly, during the Cairo Conference in 1943, Chiang Kai-shek let slip opportunities to recover the Ryukyus, which later resulted in Japanese control of the Diaoyu Islands. Until now, scholarship has maintained that Chiang narrowly missed regaining Okinawa at Cairo, which never again appeared on his agenda. However, a more nuanced historical account can be found in rarely accessed primary resources such as Chiang's diaries and presidential papers, which yield a different conclusion—that he was, in fact, committed to the Ryukyu issue throughout his political career. However, Chiang lost multiple opportunities to resolve the issue as a result of competition with his communist rival, the security dynamics of the Cold War, and his personality. Chiang eventually failed to stop America from returning the Ryukyus to Japan, which, thereafter, generated the Diaoyu Islands disputes and continues to serve as a primary source of nationalist friction today in Sino–Japanese relations.

What's New on Rapa Nui: Te Kuhane o te Tupuna – The Spirit of the Ancestors film released

What's New on Rapa NuiTe Kuhane o te Tupuna – The Spirit of the Ancestors film released Antoinette Padgett (sources: www.mahatu.cl and www.elcorreodelmoai.com) The documentary film Te Kuhane o te Tupuna has been officially released, with a showing on September 24 at Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) in Santiago. Directed by Leonardo Pakarati of Mahatua Productions, and produced by Paula Rossetti, the production of the film was enhanced by winning the 13th Concurso de Desarrollo de Proyectos para Cine in 2011 and by a grant from the Fondo Audiovisual del Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes in 2014. The film chronicles a Rapanui grandmother and child in search of ancestral objects containing mana, or power that was geographically torn from where it belonged when the objects were removed from the island. It also touches on the political and social movement alive on Rapa Nui today. The grandmother Noe tells her granddaughter Mika the story of the moai Hoa Hakananai'a, removed from the island over 100 years ago and never returned, and about other objects taken from the island that possessed the supernatural power of their ancestors, which now has been weakened. Noe believes that as a result, there are problems on the island today that include the Rapanui distrust of each other and the Chilean State. She believes one way to regain the lost mana is to bring back the spirit of Hoa Hakananai'a to the island. She feels that the moai, housed in a museum in London, is lost in the museum environment, where the temperature and lighting are alien and that he is crying to return to the island. Noe wants to see this moai before she dies, but because illness prevents her from traveling, she asks Mika to go with her grandfather Bene, a prestigious sculptor on the island. They do not want to miss the opportunity to visit and pay homage to these objects from their culture, and are convinced that this trip will bring back the sacred and restore the peace and understanding that is lacking today. The two travel to the Quai Branly Museum in Paris and to the British Museum in London, where hundreds of objects from Rapa Nui are housed. There they see Hoa Hakananai'a in the museum environment, removed from his special place at the ceremonial center of 'Orongo. Click for larger view View full resolution The film includes scenes of curators talking about the importance of the objects from Rapa Nui in their collections; the president of the council of elders of Rapa Nui describing how objects on the island were removed without the consent of its people; and the director of the Museo on Rapa Nui handling replicas of pieces and lamenting the removal of the original objects from the [End Page 64] island. The most talented sculptors on the island use images from books as the models for their carvings, while dreaming of seeing those objects in person. This documentary portrays a journey in search of lost mana, but also records the political and social movement alive on Rapa Nui today, seeking to vindicate its own value, reclaiming land and objects that give meaning to one of the most complex and extraordinary places in the world. The trailer can be viewed at: http://www.mahatua.cl/trailer.html Increased tension between Rapa Nui and Chile (source: intercontinentalcry.org) The Indian Law Resource Center in Washington D.C. has filed a request for protection orders with an international human rights body on behalf of the Rapa Nui people as a result of increased tension between Rapanui and Chileans. Leonardo Crippa, senior attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of the center stated that "four prominent Rapa Nui leaders were unjustly arrested and jailed for trying to exercise their right of self-determination and their right to protect their sacred sites. The repressive measures aimed at disabling the Rapa Nui Parliament must stop." In September, Rapanui rights advocate Santi Hitorangi addressed the 30th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, seeking international support for Rapa Nui's right of...

Historical ecology: a critique of François Péron’s account of Southern Elephant Seals, Mirounga leonina (Linn.),

Francois Peron’s quite detailed observations of Southern Elephant Seals, Mirounga leonina (Linn.), at King Island, Tasmania, in December 1802, are considered in the light of current knowledge of this species. Acute observations of the elephant seal and its behaviour, as well as remarks about its life history, which appears to have differed slightly from that observed recently at sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island, the nearest current breeding site, were recorded. There is a suggestion that the breeding season at King Island may have been earlier than where Southern Elephant Seals now occur in the sub-Antarctic, possibly due to King Island being closer to the equator. Peron noted that Aborigines at Port Jackson called them Mirourong, from which their current generic name was derived, and they still frequent this coast. He does not mention seeing small immature elephant seals at King Island in December when this age class hauls out to moult on Macquarie Island. The presence then of (probably exaggeratedly) large males again suggests that the annual cycle at King Island may have been in advance of that observed at Macquarie Island today. Peron’s growth rates were far in excess of those now known for the species anywhere: how he arrived at them he does not record; possibly this and other information was related to him by the sealers.

Drum Travel: Ensemble Drumming Traditions on Kikaijima—Cultures, Histories, Islands

This article discusses ensemble drumming on Kikaijima (Kikai island) in Japan. We apply the metaphor of travel to these drum groups, which reveals how this small island culture is able to sustain, invent, or adopt styles of drumming within the national context as a result of its geographic location, cultural heritage, and island identity. Ethnographic research on Kikaijima revealed a deeply embedded notion of travel, which helps explain how and why Kikaijima’s ensemble drum groups exist on the island today. We use this metaphor with the aim of showing cultural flows in connection with cultures, histories, and islands.

Lanzarote, “l’isola differente”. Turismo, place branding e la creazione della "Marca Lanzarote”

The article deals with the influence that Lanzarote-born artist Cesar Manrique has had on the development of tourism in Lanzarote from the 1960s on, and in particular, with how his aesthetic ideals have affected the appearance of the Island today. The article aims at demonstrating that the peculiar tourism development that occurred in Lanzarote can be considered as a pioneer attempt at enacting a particular marketing strategy today known as “place branding”. Considering the effects caused by Manrique’s work and by his environmental ecologic activism, it is evident how the marketing of Lanzarote as an Island with no equals has highly influenced its appearance, in accordance with the image that was created for it. Undoubtedly, this process has differentiated Lanzarote from other destinations in the tourist market; yet, as a result, a conflict between identity, authenticity and thematization has arisen, culminating in the creation of the so-called “Lanzarote trade-mark”.

Majorca's tourism cluster: The creation of an industrial district, 1919–36

The Balearic Islands today form the largest tourism cluster in the Mediterranean, an extensive industrial district whose origins date back more than a century. This article explores the key period during which the hotels and travel firms built up their relations of cooperation and competition which explain the subsequent dynamism of the island's tourist trade and its remarkable expansion in the second half of the twentieth century.

The Contributions of Donald Lee Johnson to Understanding the Quaternary Geologic and Biogeographic History of the California Channel Islands

Over a span of 50 years, native Californian Donald Lee Johnson made a number of memorable contributions to our understanding of the California Channel Islands. Among these are (1) recognizing that carbonate dunes, often cemented into eolianite and derived from offshore shelf sediments during lowered sea level, are markers of glacial periods on the Channel Islands; (2) identifying beach rock on the Channel Islands as the northernmost occurrence of this feature on the Pacific Coast of North America; (3) recognizing of the role of human activities in historic landscape modification; (4) identifying both the biogenic and pedogenic origins of caliche “ghost forests” and laminar calcrete forms on the Channel Islands; (5) providing the first soil maps of several of the islands, showing diverse pathways of pedogenesis; (6) pointing out the importance of fire in Quaternary landscape history on the Channel Islands, based on detailed stratigraphic studies; and (7), perhaps his greatest contribution, clarifying the origin of Pleistocene pygmy mammoths on the Channel Islands, due not to imagined ancient land bridges, but rather the superb swimming abilities of proboscideans combined with lowered sea level, favorable paleowinds, and an attractive paleovegetation on the Channel Islands. Don was a classic natural historian in the great tradition of Charles Darwin and George Gaylord Simpson, his role models. Don's work will remain important and useful for many years and is an inspiration to those researching the California Channel Islands today.