Editors' Comments

Since its inception, the journal Culture & Agriculturehas offered a forum for discussion of a wide arc of agri-cultural and food-related issues. As the new editors ofC&A, we are especially interested in fostering morehistorically-attuned perspectives on agrarian practice. Wehave chosen, therefore, to expand the breadth and impactof C&A's dialog even further by encouraging manuscriptsubmissions from a still wider array of researchers thatincludes archaeologists and historians.

To launch our efforts, we present a special doubleissue of the journal that showcases a selection of archaeo-logical work in the New World tropics. In these papersyou will recognize archaeology's time-honored repertoireof tools: the material, the ecological, the spatial. The mes-sages communicated, however, are anything but conven-tional, and their relevance to contemporary issues cannotbe overstated. What emerges most clearly from our set ofarchaeology papers is the somewhat dubious kinship be-tween indigenous agrarian practices of the past and pres-ent. Denevan, in particular, confronts this issue head on inhis argument for the anthropogenesis of certain soils inthe Amazon Basin. The intensity of cultivation indicated

by these soils and their distributions provides a stark con-trast to the shifting agriculture zealously pursued today.The papers by Chase and Chase, Baker, Dunning et al.,and Hughbanks all add to our understanding both of theenormous diversity that characterized prehispanic agrar-ian regimes, and of their variable ecological, political, andinstitutional entailments. Together, these papers alert usto the many missteps (and sometimes harsh economicconsequences) that may accompany the rush to locate thesustainable in the "traditional."

Finally, to underscore C&A's continuing commitmentto contemporary issues, we offer you Durrenberger's trib-ute to the influential work of Marshall Sahlins. In the faceof a globalizing anthropology that must make sense ofmultiple voices and discourses, this piece compels ac-knowledgment of the abiding worth of certain analyticalconstructs. Of equal importance, Durrenberger allows usinsight into his own intellectual history and personalquest for an empirically based science of anthropology.

Jim McDonald and Laura Levi

Culture & Agriculture 53 Vol. 20, NOS. 2/3 Summer/Fall 1998