The measurement of skeletal strontiudcalcium (Sr/Ca) ratios can provide information on the proportion of meat and vegetable foods in the diets of prehistoric peoples. This information is based in the well-documented reduction of SrlCa ratios in terrestrial food chains. The reduction, and therefore the paleodietary technique, is complicated by (a) differences in Sr/Ca ratios entering food chains, and (b) metabolic considerations such as age, pregnancy, etc. Changes in Sr/Ca ratios during interment may also obscure biological Sr/Ca levels.The theoretical basis of the technique, its complications, and practical use by anthropologists are reviewed, in an attempt to define the quality of information currently and potentially available from Sr/Ca analyses. "One farmer says to me, 'You cannot live on vegetable foods solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;' and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle. Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries merely, and in others still are entirely unknown." Henry David Thoreau, Wulden, 1854

Juvenile winter steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss at Eagle Creek National Fish Hatchery in Estacada, Oregon, were reared for three brood years (2004–2006) at raceway densities of 7,500 (214 fish/m3), 15,000 (429 fish/m3), and 22,500 fish (643 fish/m3) to determine the effects of rearing density on growth, fin erosion, survival, adult yield, and migration behavior. Coded wire tags were used to evaluate adult survival, and fish were radio‐tagged to monitor migration times from the hatchery to the mouth of Eagle Creek following volitional release from the hatchery. We found rearing density had a significant effect (P < 0.05) on steelhead growth, fin erosion, and adult survival. Winter steelhead reared in low‐density raceways (13.6 kg/m3 at release) were significantly larger at release, larger at return, had significantly better dorsal fin condition, and had significantly greater smolt‐to‐adult survival rates than did those reared in medium (23.4 kg/m3) and high (35.2 kg/m3) density raceways. No significant relationship between smolt size at release and migration timing was detected; however, the effect of rearing density on fish migration was noticeable in brood year 2004. In that year (2004), smolts from the medium‐ and high‐density groups took from 6 to15 d longer to out‐migrate than those from the low‐density group.

The use of electronarcosis as a fish immobilization technique has reemerged in recent years. Previous studies have investigated behavioral effects of the technique. But investigations of the physical and physiological effects on fish of electrical immobilization have focused on different electrical waveforms or higher power densities than are used for electronarcosis. This study was designed to determine whether there was a significant negative effect on embryo survival or fry growth among the progeny of adult Coho Salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch immobilized by electronarcosis prior to spawning as compared with being immobilized by tricaine methanesulfonate or not being immobilized at all (control). Embryo mortality in family lots ranged from 0.67% to 55.05%, with no statistically significant differences among the treatments and the control. There were significant differences in the size of fry from adults subjected to electronarcosis rather than the other two treatments, but in all cases the fry from adults treated with electronarcosis were larger. These findings support the continued use of electronarcosis as a fish immobilization technique.

In far western Maryland, the Middle Woodland is marked by a probable Ohio Valley influence. The Late Woodland appears directly related to expansion of Monongahela groups in southwestern Pennsylvania. The Great Valley represents a buffer area between coastal and western groups during the Middle Woodland. During the Late Woodland, occupation by northeastern and northwestern populations overlaps in the Great Valley. In the Blue Ridge and Monocacy Valley, there appears to be no resident Middle Woodland population, and occupation is restricted to Coastal groups exploiting rhyolite. This is followed by a Late Woodland expansion of northern Owasco-related groups. Except for along the Potomac, die Eastern Piedmont appears to have been virtually uninhabited throughout the Middle and Late Woodland periods. On the Western Shore of the Coastal Plain, the Middle Woodland is represented by the Selby Bay complex, with an apparent concentration in the Patuxent drainage. The population appears fairly sedentary, and in situ development to Late Woodland Townsend groups is likely.