Adaptive radiations in prehistoric Panama
economies, for example, such a framework only seems to stand in the way. In this case, internal developments need to be articulated with external ones if headway is to be made on the problem. One risk of Barker's approach is that it might place the study of cultural change in a new conceptual straightjacket. It is difficult to evaluate the primacy given to subsistence in Barker's work. This is in part for practical reasons. Sites with evidence of the quality and quantity needed for the detailed reconstruction of subsistence patterns are still in short supply in central Italy. One way of getting around this shortage has been to look to the landscape. My own view is that a more critical approach is needed to employ the modern landscape in archeological studies. There is not enough space here to elaborate on the issues involved, but in most parts of Italy, today's landscape is not some timeless, natural "given" but the product in part of human behavior. Rather than simply projecting the modern landscape back into the past and seeing it as shaping early human behavior, we need first to understand it as a consequence of a long history of human action. Otherwise, we are likely to confound cause and effect.