This is an anthropological study of peasant economy and culture, derived from field research on patterns of social organization and production of two ethnically different rural communities (Han and Mosuo) in northwest Yunnan, China. Its aim is to explore the local contexts for understanding the changes that recent economic reforms have brought to peasant life, and the cultural as well as ecological factors that constrain peasant economic activities. Current economic reforms have been accompanied by institutional changes, of which the most important for this research is the change in political relations between local and central governments. The expansion of local autonomy has had significant implications for the management of resources. The study shows that the behavior of the two local governments has had remarkably different economic consequences. The most noteworthy policy change in the economic reforms affecting rural society has been the implementation of the household responsibility system which brought down the twenty-year old collective system and has since altered the economic landscape of the countryside. This study emphasizes how kinship systems affect the form of household organization in both Han and Mosuo communities, and how existing social relationships are manifest in economic activities. "Rice Ears" and "Cattle Tails" are images drawing attention to the culturally salient differences in the patterns of production of the two communities. Rice ears constitute a cultural image of subsistence security in the Han community; and cattle tails constitute a cultural image of prosperity and development in the Mosuo community. Apart from the ecological factors which give rise to the particular patterns of livelihood in each community, cultural values associated the particular pattern of production account for many of the economic choices of the peasants and the persistence of economic forms. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

The Dai and Bulang people are ethnic minorities in China. Most of them live in Yunnan province, which is located in the southwestern part of China. This study aimed to describe the oral health status, oral health-related behaviors of the 5-and12-year-old children of the Dai and Bulang ethnic groups, the oral health-related knowledge of the 12-year-old Dai and Bulang children living in Yunnan Province, and the factors that influence their oral health status. An oral health survey was conducted on a sample of 5-and 12-year-old Dai and Bulang children in Yunnan, China. The children were selected using a multi-stage and purposeful sampling method for examination by a trained dentist. Dental caries experience was measured using the “dmft/DMFT” index,o ral hygiene status with VPI index and periodontal status with CPI index. A questionnaire was used to collect information on the children’s background, oral health-related knowledge and behaviors. A total of 833 Dai and 723 Bulang 5-year-old children were examined. The prevalence of dental caries among the Dai and Bulang children was 89% and 85%, respectively. There were 49%of the Dai and 38%of the Bulang children had carious tooth with pulp involvement. Their mean (±SD) dmft score was 7.0±5.3 and 5.8±4.9, respectively. Their mean (±SD) dt score was 6.8±5.2 and 5.6±4.8, respectively. Higher dmft scores were found among Dai children who were girls, were currently bottle-fed, took sweet snacks daily, had higher VPI scores, had visited a dentist within last year, and whose father had up to secondary school education. The Bulang children, who took sweet snacks daily, had visited a dentist within the last year and had higher VPI scores had higher dmft scores. A total of 823 Dai and 873 12-year-old Bulang children were surveyed and their prevalence of dental caries was 40% and 35%, respectively. Around 90% of the carious teeth were left untreated. Their mean DMFT (±SD) score was 0.9±1.5 and 0.6±1.1, respectively. Most of them (Dai, 93%; Bulang 71%) had gingivitis and around half of them (Dai, 46%; Bulang, 58%) had dental calculus. The Dai and Bulang children who were girls and those who had visited a dentist during the previous year had higher caries risk. The mean dental knowledge score of the 12-year-old Dai and Bulang children was 7.2 ± 3.7 and 7.8 ± 3.6, respectively. In conclusion, the prevalence of dental caries of the 5-year-old Dai and Bulang children in Yunnan, China was high and most of them were left untreated. The caries experience of the 5-year-old Dai children was associated with gender, father’s education, bottle feeding habits, snacking habits, dental visit behavior, and oral hygiene status. The caries experience of the 5-year-old Bulang children was associated with their snacking habits, dental visit habitsand oral hygiene status. Dental caries was common among the 12-year-old Dai and Bulang children and associated with gender and dental attendance. Most of the decay were left untreated. Their oral health-related knowledge was moderate. Their periodontal condition was poor. / published_or_final_version / Dentistry / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / China Area Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology and Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, March 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 293-312).

Göttingen, Univ., Diss., 2004.

Yunnan, southwestern China, represents a modern biodiversity center for Rubus (Rosaceae). The history for this high modern diversity remains poorly known due to the lack of fossil evidence. In this report, fossil pyrenes of Rubus are taxonomically studied from the late Pliocene (Piacenzian) of Lanping County, northwestern Yunnan. These pyrenes show a greater morphological variation than that of extant Rubus pyrenes within the same species, indicating that they belong to different taxa of Rubus. Based on comparisons with both modern and other fossil species, our fossil pyrenes are assigned to five taxa, including a newly established one, Rubus lanpingensis nov. sp. These fossils suggest a somewhat high species diversity of Rubus in Lanping, a small area in northwestern Yunnan, during the late Pliocene. This provides the first fossil perspective for an understanding of the historical background of the modern Rubus diversity in a limited geographic area of Yunnan. The inferred palaeobiodiversity is probably associated with a large environmental heterogeneity in a limited area of Yunnan at that time.

The Miocene Lincang leaf assemblage is used in this paper as proxy data to reconstruct the palaeoclimate of southwestern Yunnan (SW China) and the evolution of monsoon intensity. Three quantitative methods were chosen for this reconstruction, i.e. Leaf Margin Analysis (LMA), Climate Leaf Analysis Multivariate Program (CLAMP), and the Coexistence Approach (CA). These methods, however, yield inconsistent results, particularly for the precipitation, as also shown in European and other East Asian Cenozoic floras. The wide range of the reconstructed climatic parameters includes the Mean Annual Temperature (MAT) of 18.5-24.7°C and the Mean Annual Precipitation (MAP) of 1213-3711. mm. Compared with the modern Lincang climate (MAT, 17.3°C; MAP, 1178.7. mm), the Miocene climate is slightly warmer, wetter and has a higher temperature seasonality. A detailed comparison on the palaeoclimatic variables with the coeval Late Miocene Xiaolongtan flora from the eastern part of Yunnan allows us to investigate the development and interactions of both South Asian and East Asian monsoons during the Late Miocene in southwest China, now under strong influence of these monsoon systems. Our results suggest that the monsoon climate has already been established in southwest Yunnan during the Late Miocene. Furthermore, our results support that both Southeast Asian and East Asian monsoons co-occurred in Yunnan during the Late Miocene.

The late Miocene Xiaolongtan megaflora from Kaiyuan in southeast Yunnan (23°48′45″N, 103°11′52″E, 1050 m a.s.l.) was chosen for palaeoclimatic reconstruction using three quantitative techniques, i.e. the Coexistence Approach (CA), Leaf Margin Analysis (LMA), and the Climate-Leaf Analysis Multivariate Program (CLAMP). The reconstructed climatic parameters are also compared with those of the two adjacent Miocene floras currently available in Yunnan, i.e. the early to middle Miocene carpological Mangdan flora (24°24′N, 97°49′E, 1620 m a.s.l.) and the late Miocene Lühe palynoflora (25°10′N, 101°22′E, 1930 m a.s.l.). Quantitative analyses of the Xiaolongtan flora supports the previous qualitative results of a southern, humid subtropical climate, being more humid and having a slightly higher mean annual temperature (MAT) than today. The MATs calculated by CA, LMA, and CLAMP overlap (16.7-19.2 °C, 22.3 ± 2.05 °C, 18.1 ± 1.2 °C, respectively) and are close to the present day value (19.7 °C). The overlapping of temperatures derived using the three techniques is unusual and probably related to the low latitude of the Xiaolongtan area and the southern subtropical nature of its vegetation. Both the mean temperatures of the warmest month (WMT) and of the coldest month (CMT) reconstructed by CA (WMT = 25.4-26.0 °C, CMT = 7.7-8.7 °C) and CLAMP (WMT = 25.9 ± 1.6 °C, CMT = 10.8 ± 1.9 °C) are similar to those of today (WMT = 24.3 °C, CMT = 12.8 °C), but great changes appear in the mean annual precipitation (MAP). The CLAMP results suggest a higher precipitation (1964 ± 335.9 mm) than CA (1215-1639 mm), but they are much higher than the present MAP (820.5 mm). This is consistent with results from the Lühe palynoflora, which also developed under a warmer subtropical climate with higher precipitation (803.6-1254.7 mm) than that of today (815.9 mm). In contrast, the Mangdan flora, situated in a more complicated topographic region to the west of Xiaolongtan and near the Sino-Myanmar border, implies a slightly lower precipitation (1170-1300 mm) than that of today (1300-1400 mm). Overall, the wetter climate during the late Miocene around the Xiaolongtan area suggests that the Himalayas had not yet uplifted to its present altitudes at that time.

Bibliography: leaves 280-288. / xix, 288, [36] leaves, [15] leaves of plates : ill. (some col.), maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / This study examines the medium sized sedimentary manganese deposit of Dounan, Yunnan Province of China, to determine the sedimentary environments controlling the distribution of ores and rocks, and to establish the relationships between ore mineralization and changes in the sedimentary environment. The thesis also aims to work out the sequence of events after the primary ore is formed, to determine which processes lead to secondary enrichment of the ore. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, 1994