historical ecology (Other Keyword)
1-25 (1,017 Records)
Whiskey Flats, an archaeological site on the Llano Estacado (western Texas), is dated to the mid-18th century and represents Comanche occupation. Ongoing fieldwork has produced a vertebrate assemblage that includes coyote (Canis latrans) and a larger canid (Canis spp.) of a species that remains undetermined. The species of canids that may have been present at the time of deposition are grey wolf (C. lupus), coyote, domestic dog (C. lupus familiaris), and possibly red wolf (C. rufus). The Canis...
Across a Threshold: The Columbian Exchange in the Land of Tiguex (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In August 1540 Hernando de Alvarado, a member of the Coronado expedition, entered what he termed “the province of Tiguex” (today known as the Middle Rio Grande Valley of Central New Mexico), kicking off several centuries of socioeconomic transformation. As a case...
The Ahistorical Shell Middens at the Northern Tip of South America (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part II: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Subject to different historical forms of colonialism, the northern tip of South America is a politically marginalized area that is arguably the least understood from an archaeological perspective. While there is a basic understanding of ceramically defined periods, little is known about human interactions...
Alutiiq Use of Birds during the Ocean Bay Period at Rice Ridge (49-KOD-363), Kodiak Island (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rice Ridge (49-KOD-363) is a deeply stratified archaeological site on Kodiak Island, with well-preserved faunal remains dated to the Ocean Bay tradition (7600–4200 cal BP; Kopperl 2003, 2012). The site contained an extensive bird bone assemblage that has not been analyzed before now. Casperson (2012) studied bird bones from Mink Island (49-XMK-030), located...
Amazonian Landscapes: the characteristics of anthropic landscapes in the Middle Xingu River (Pará, Brazil) from pre-colonial to Contemporary times (2016)
Based on a historical ecology approach, this work aims to investigate interactions between indigenous societies and the natural environment expressed in landscape changes through the analyses of their long term occupation of the Middle Xingu River. My goal is to show the specificities of the indigenous settlements in the region considering the multiple aspects of this process in the human settlement of Amazonia. Although not producing great changes in the landscape, small groups of...
Amino Acid d13C Analysis of Ancient Marine Consumers Quantifies Environmental Change in a Nearshore Ecosystem through the Late Holocene (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Interdisciplinary Isotopic Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Kelp forests are some of the most biodiverse and ubiquitous temperate marine ecosystems. Here, we employ d13C analysis of individual essential amino acids (EAA) from ancient top consumers to evaluate the dynamics of southern California kelp forests across a period of rapid cultural change and accelerating human impacts (~3500 ybp –...
Ancestral Chickasaw Migration and the Makings of the Anthropocene in Southeastern North America (2018)
We describe recent investigations of Indigenous communities who vacated the Tombigbee drainage of eastern Mississippi in the mid-fifteenth century A.D. These and surrounding groups migrated into nearby uplands known as the Blackland Prairie. Populations continued to move northward within the prairie and coalesced around what is today Tupelo, MS, in the 1600s. The move from a riverine to upland setting involved a dramatic shift in practices of historical ecology. The rich soils and open terrain...
Ancient and Medieval Agricultural Terraces in Italy: Chronology, Geoarchaeology, and sedaDNA (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Agricultural terraces are ubiquitous in the Mediterranean. The pan-European TerrACE Project has been using new methods to deepen our understanding of the chronology and cultural ecology of terraces. The terraces investigated in Italy span later-prehistory to the post-medieval period. We have applied portable luminescence (pOSL/pIRSL), luminescence dating...
Ancient Clam Gardens and Ecological Enhancement on Northern Quadra Island, BC (2017)
Clam gardens, anthropogenic rock-walled terraces built at the lowest intertidal, are part of an ancient system of mariculture of the Indigenous people of the Northwest Coast of North America. The construction of clam gardens increased shellfish production by increasing ideal clam habitat and creating substrate preferred for clam growth. On Northern Quadra Island, where there is a dense concentration of clam gardens, we assess bivalve productivity of clam gardens by 1) calculating how much clam...
Ancient Clam Gardens of the Southern Gulf Islands (2015)
Clam Gardens of the Southern Gulf Islands and southeastern Vancouver Island, British Columbia This paper describes a comprehensive, five-year archaeological project to identify and document the location of ancient intertidal clam garden features in the Southern Gulf Islands and southeastern Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It is discovered that clam gardens in the Southern Gulf Islands region are extensive, exhibit clear patterning in location and morphology, and demonstrate a monumentality...
Ancient DNA and Historical Ecology: An Innovative Approach to Environmental Conservation (2017)
It is now generally accepted that humans are the primary drivers of environmental change; virtually no ecosystem has escaped our influence. With increasing awareness of the impact of humanity on the biosphere, researchers have begun to focus on understanding, protecting and perpetuating biological diversity at all scales and levels of biological organization. One of the best ways to understand current and future anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity is by studying their effects in the past....
Ancient Mitogenomes from Oregon Sea Otters (Enhydra lutris): Genetic and Archaeological Contributions to the Historical Ecology of an Extirpated Population (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Zooarchaeology and Technology: Case Studies and Applications" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The sea otter (Enhydra lutris) was nearly driven to extinction on the Pacific Coast in the 19th century due to the commercial maritime fur trade. Despite successful reintroduction efforts in North America, the Oregon sea otter population remains locally extirpated and endangered. Prior studies have used precontact and modern...
Ancient Shoreline Management on the Central California Coast (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Insights into Pyrodiversity and Seascape Management on the Central California Coast" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While extensive archaeological investigation regarding indigenous landscape management practices has been conducted in this region, little work has been done regarding shoreline management practices affecting intertidal and wetland regions, such as kelp harvesting and the exploitation and...
Anna and the Sea: Reflections on Anna Kerttula's Influence on a Generation of North Pacific Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Celebrating Anna Kerttula's Contributions to Northern Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological research in Alaska and the broader North Pacific Rim has revealed a long and complex history of human occupation, dynamic human-environmental interactions, and – above all - underscores the relevance of archaeology to people living across the region today. These developments span the nearly two decades of Dr....
Anthropogenic Fire and the Origins of Agricultural Landscapes during the Neolithic Period (7,700–4,500 cal. BP) in Eastern Spain (2018)
Humans have intentionally set fires for millennia to transform the arrangement and diversity of resources within their landscapes, often altering the relationship between fire and ecosystems at multiple scales. Although scholars regularly identify human-altered fire regimes through paleoecological studies, archaeological research has not yet fully incorporated the spatial, temporal, and cultural dimensions of human-caused fire into discussions of the development of agricultural landscapes. This...
Aquaculture in the Ancient World: Ecosystem Engineering, Domesticated Landscapes, and the first Blue Revolution (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Aquaculture is the world’s fastest growing food sector and accounts for more than 50% of the world’s fish food supply. The significant growth in global aquaculture since the middle of the 20th century has been dubbed the Blue Revolution. However, it is not the first Blue Revolution to take place in human history. While historically classified as...
Archaeobotanical Data from Middle to Late Holocene Sites on the Central California Coast: Implications for Resource Use and Prescribed Burning (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Insights into Pyrodiversity and Seascape Management on the Central California Coast" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our research team’s ongoing work on the Central Coast of California explores spatial and temporal changes in the use of natural resources by Native peoples and considers how archaeobiological data can be used to understand the history of traditional resource stewardship practices such as...
An Archaeogeochemical Perspective on Ancient Maya Land Use and Climate Change: The Case of Lagunas de Yalahau, Yucatan, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent theoretical advances emerging from Historical Ecology have reoriented thinking regarding human-environment relations in many ancient contexts. Consistent with this research program, the concept of the Maya Forest-Garden introduced by Ford and Nigh and Rivera-Núñez and Fargher’s work on Kanan Ka’ax, among others, have provided a more integrated...
Archaeology and Ethnobiology of Late Holocene Bird Remains from the Northern Oregon Coast (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological bird remains from the Oregon coast have recently received renewed attention. We contribute to this discussion with an analysis of bird remains from the Late Holocene Par-Tee site (35CLT20) in Seaside, Oregon. We sampled the Par-Tee avifaunal assemblage to near-redundancy and...
The Archaeology of Herring: A 10-Year Effort to Overcome Technical Challenges, Part 1 (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Alaska Natives and BC and Washington State First Nations have maintained sustainable relationships with herring over millennia. Over the past 10 years, we have been using molecular methods to study the ancient and modern DNA of Pacific herring to track changes in genetic diversity through time. Analysis of over 260 herring bones from 24...
At the Gateway to Vermont: Recent Investigations at the Galick Site, West Haven, VT (2018)
In 2016, the South Champlain Historical Ecology Project (SCHEP) initiated investigations at the Galick Site as part of a regional study focusing on long-term human-environment interaction within the South Lake Champlain area. Situated at the confluence of long-distance trade routes and within an area of remarkable ecological diversity, the Galick Site constitutes a key setting for examining historical ecology at the southern end of Lake Champlain. To date, SCHEP has conducted two field seasons...
At the Intersection of Academia and Activism: Using the Historical Ecology Framework Toward the Conservation and Restoration of Natural and Cultural Heritage (2018)
Historical ecology has become one of the most relevant research paradigms in understanding the long-term relationships between humans and their environments. Its multidisciplinary approach dissolves the boundaries between the social and natural sciences to bring together disciplines such as archaeology, ecology, biology, anthropology, ethnohistory, and geography toward the conservation and restoration of natural and cultural heritage. This paper specifically explores archaeology’s unique...
Avifaunal Remains from the Palmrose Site (35CT47): Establishing Seasonality and Investigating Endangered Species (2018)
Avifaunal remains have great potential to improve archaeological understanding of the economy and subsistence of peoples who lived in the past, as well as to yield information about local ecology, environmental change, and past bird species distribution. The large assemblage of faunal remains from the three archaeological sites comprising the Seaside Collection from Seaside, OR, contains significant quantities of bird bone. Previous analyses of vertebrate remains (including birds) by Greenspan...
Beekeeping in the Yucatán Hacienda: The Role of the Melipona beecheii in the Nineteenth-Century Rural Landscape from an Environmental History Approach (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Adventures in Beekeeping: Recent Studies in Ecology, Archaeology, History, and Ethnography in Yucatán" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines the role of the stingless bee Melipona beecheii in nineteenth-century Yucatán and shows how the rise of the hacienda system played a contingent role in reshaping beekeeping practices and human-bee relationships. Using primary sources such as beekeeping manuals and...
Beyond the Fields: Lenape Domesticated Landscapes in the Minisink National Historic Landmark (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Discussions of Indigenous agricultural systems in the Northeastern United States have focused almost exclusively on the cultivation of maize, beans, and squash. General models focus on the cultivation of these plants in ridged fields or fields of small hillocks. While the fields and crops grown within them are important, I argue they are only one part of a...