Niche construction (Other Keyword)
1-13 (13 Records)
Did humans affect global climate before the Industrial Era? While this question is hotly debated, the co-evolution of humans and the natural environment since the last Ice Age had an undisputed role in influencing the development and present state of terrestrial ecosystems, many of which are highly valued today as economic, cultural, and ecological resources. Yet we still have a very incomplete picture of human-environment interactions over the last 21,000 years, both spatially and temporally....
Archaeological Proxies of Early Modern Human Niche Construction in Northern Malawi (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis and Human Origins: Archaeological Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most archaeological literature dealing with niche construction avoids hunter-gatherer behaviors, in part because they can be difficult to detect archaeologically. As the role of humans in shaping environments over long time scales becomes increasingly apparent, it is critical to develop archaeological...
Bird and Fish Remains from Isla Cilvituk: Evidence of Ecological and Market Niche Construction in a Postclassic Maya Lacustrine Environment (2015)
The archaeofauna of Isla Cilvituk, a Postclassic (A.D. 900-1520) Maya site in the state of Campeche, Mexico, offers a unique opportunity to understand differential subsistence and economic strategies across the Postclassic Yucatan. With significant ecological diversity found throughout the peninsula, the production of empirical data from the zooarchaeological record can provide a contextual framework through which the evolution of prehistoric human behavioral ecology may be interpreted in terms...
Building Expectations to understand the Evolutionary Significance of Archaeological Assemblages (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis and Human Origins: Archaeological Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although the past thirty years has witnessed tremendous advances in our understanding of the geographic and temporal scope of the Paleolithic record, we still know remarkably little about the evolutionary and ecological consequences of changes in human behavior. Are there events in human evolution that...
Early Millet Cultivation, Subsistence Diversity, and Wild Plant Use at Neolithic Anle, Lower Yangtze of China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study examines the macrobotanical assemblage of Anle, a middle Neolithic site in the Lower Yangtze region of China. The Lower Yangtze is thought to be the origin of domesticated rice and most studies of this region to date have focused on rice domestication and cultivation within its paleoenvironmental setting. In contrast, we highlight here diverse...
Islands as gardens: plant translocations by Caribbean Indians as a dynamic and multiscalar form of cultural niche construction, with emphasis on Puerto Rico and the evidence for psychoactive/ritual plant use. (2016)
I consider pre-European plant introductions of exotic fruit trees and other useful plants as a multi-faceted reflection of indigenous plant use, culminating a mosaic of vegetative components in a constructed environment. I focus in particular on the plant constituents of the cajoba ritual complex, drawing especially on recent data from Tibes and Jácana (Puerto Rico), along with relevant ethnographic records from mainland South America that describe ethnobotanical practices associated with...
Mesocarnivores and the Human Niche (2015)
Human settlements and occupations of any size or length present novel selective pressures and scenarios not only for the human populations composing them, but also for wild plant and animal communities surrounding them. The presence of human settlements, particularly those with increasing sedentism and intensified local landscape use, have lasting effects on wild animal communities as they interact with, tolerate, and even utilize human spaces. What happens to wild animal populations when they...
Niche Construction and Common Pool Resource Management in Marginal Environments: A Diachronic Approach (WGF - Dissertation Fieldwork Grant) (2018)
This resource is an application for the Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Anthropologists have long been concerned with the immense variety of collective institutions developed by small-scale societies to foster solidarity, inculcate values, and manage resources. Long-term studies tracking the development and maintenance of such institutions would greatly benefit a range of social science disciplines, but are unfortunately rare. To this end, the proposed project...
Niche Construction and Cultural Complexity in Small-Scale Societies (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis and Human Origins: Archaeological Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Identifying the factors that influence variation in cultural complexity among groups is an important task for archaeologists. In this paper, I argue that niche construction may be one of these factors. I begin by showing that empirical work on the drivers of technological complexity in small-scale...
Niche Construction of Predictable Landscapes: Redundant Caching in Ecological Niches on the Central Plains (2016)
Prehistoric groups were able to anticipate the use of redundantly visited landscapes by constructing niches with toolkits, called caches. The small size of caches and frequent absence of diagnostic tools limited the information available from studying individual caches. It was hypothesized that caches were examples of anticipated mobility to provision predictable ecological niches with tools for the presence or absence of resources in potential activity areas. Sixty-two caches from the Central...
Plant niche construction; from forager to planter in the Zagros Mountains, Iran (2015)
In terms of niche construction, the development of agriculture at the end of the Palaeolithic was a realignment and expansion of existing hunter-gatherer plant ecology modifications to a transforming human and natural setting. This paper suggests that people's engagement with their surroundings altered under pressure of changes in the environment and their subsistence, residence and mobility strategies. Increased foraging efficiency and stability were sought. These relied on a suite of...
Zooarchaeological Evidence of Human Niche Construction at Cottonwood Spring Pueblo (LA 175) (2016)
Cottonwood Spring Pueblo (LA 175), an El Paso Phase (A.D. 1275-1450) horticultural village in southern New Mexico is one of the largest pueblos in the region. Understanding what animal communities were included in the subsistence strategies people living in this village used will aid in understanding strategies that people relied upon to support a large population in the Northern Chihuahuan Desert. Were prey animals (such as desert cottontails, black-tailed jackrabbits, whitetail deer, mule...
Zooarchaeological Evidence of Human Niche Construction at the Harris Site (LA 1867) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Mogollon, Mimbres, and Salado Archaeology in Southwest New Mexico and Beyond" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Harris Site (LA 1867) is a Late Pithouse period (AD 550–1000) agricultural village located along the upper Mimbres River Valley in New Mexico. This period is seen as a time of great demographic and social change linked to changes in the environment. This site provides an excellent case study looking at...