Subsistence and Foodways (Other Keyword)
526-550 (650 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Histories of Human-Nature Interactions: Use, Management, and Consumption of Plants in Extreme Environments" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Atacama Desert, plant resources are scarce and unevenly distributed due to water availability. However, by compiling all the available archaeobotanical evidences since the late Pleistocene (ca. 13,000 BP) until the Inka epoch (ca. 450 BP) in a single database, we demonstrate...
Sowing the Seeds of Empire: Early Statecraft and the Emergence of Indigenous Agriculture on the Mongolian Steppe (ca. 250 BC–AD 150) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The end of the first millennium BC (ca. 250 BC–AD 150) marks the genesis of Xiongnu, eastern Eurasia’s first nomadic state, which emerged from central Mongolia to successfully integrate one of the largest-scale political configurations in prehistory. This transformative period also marks the appearance of Mongolia’s...
Sowing the Seeds of Empire: New Insights into Xiongnu Agriculture and Agronomy (2023)
This is an abstract from the "From the Altai to the Arctic: New Results and New Directions in the Archaeology of North and Inner Asia" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Xiongnu period (ca. 250 BC–AD 150) was a particularly transformative time in the history of the eastern Eurasian steppe. Intensive study of the dimensions of sociopolitical, technological, subsistence, and material cultural transformation associated with the emergence of the...
Spanning the Southern Appalachians and the Archaic-Woodland Transition: Comparing Patterns of Plant Use and Land Use in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The transition from the Late Archaic to the Early Woodland periods in the Southern Appalachians is visible archaeologically by the widespread adoption of pottery, associated with changes in mobility. Here we compare changes in plant use on both sides of the mountains, which suggest that Late Archaic groups in East Tennessee cultivated native crops by 4000...
Stable Carbon Isotope Enrichment of Archaeological Soil Organic Matter from Zea mays (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although δ13C values obtained on Soil Organic Matter (SOM) from archaeological sites have been used as isotopic fingerprints for the identification of ancient maize agricultural fields and the evaluation of the scale of maize production, determining the quantity and rate of 13C enrichment through time largely has been ignored. The focus of this study is to use...
Stable Isotope Analysis of Charred and Desiccated Plant Remains from the North Coast of Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Challenges and Future Directions in Plant Stable Isotope Analysis in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the key findings of early work that utilized isotopic analysis of macrobotanical remains was that charred remains seemed to produce reliable isotopic measurements, while uncharred (desiccated) remains did not. This early research contrasted charred remains from the highlands of Peru with uncharred...
Stable Isotope Analysis of Humans, Pine Nuts, and Acorns from the Central Sierra Nevada, CA (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In stable isotope analysis of human remains, δ13C enrichment is often interpreted as a marine or C4 contribution to the diet. There are instances when neither of these interpretations is supported by the archaeological evidence, such as in the central Sierra Nevada of California. Archaeological evidence for this region suggests that pine nuts and acorns...
Stable Isotope Analysis of the Diet of Romans and Langobards in the Veneto from Late Antiquity to the Medieval Period (2018)
Limited isotopic research has been conducted in the Veneto, Italy during the transitional period after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and arrival of the Germanic Langobards in the sixth century AD. Questions remain of the local implications of diet during this period of instability, when invasions and population decline occurred. Thus, this research compares Roman and Langobard populations from late antiquity to the medieval period using stable isotope analysis on bone collagen, apatite,...
The Stable Isotope Ecology of Agriculture in the Eastern Maya Lowlands from the Preclassic through Colonial Periods (2018)
The reconstruction of subsistence strategies using stable isotope analyses is integral to understanding the role of maize agriculture in the development and decline of ancient Maya society. Here we present stable carbon, nitrogen, and sulphur isotope data from over 230 radiocarbon dated human skeletal remains from western Belize dating from the Preclassic through Colonial periods (~1000 BC-AD 1700). Stable isotope data are also compared to paleoclimate proxy records to interpret the climatic...
Starch and Phytolith Analyses from Ceramic Residues in the Llanos de Mojos (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Llanos de Mojos in the Bolivian Amazon is a tropical savanna that saw increased archaeological attention beginning in the latter half of the 20th century. However, paleoethnobotanical research has been limited up until this decade despite significant results and great potential. Paleoethnobotanical inquiry in Mojos can enhance our understanding of...
Starch Grain Analysis of Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene Coprolites and Ground Stone from Two Northern Great Basin Rockshelters (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Hearths, Earth Ovens, and the Carbohydrate Revolution: Indigenous Subsistence Strategies and Cooking during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent macrobotanical analyses of late Pleistocene rockshelters in the Great Basin have shown that plants have always made up a portion of Indigenous peoples’ diets. This is despite a relative lack of ground stone...
Starch Remains from Human Teeth Reveal the Bronze and Early Iron Ages Vegetal Diet of Xinjiang, Northwest China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has long been a vital link between Europe and eastern Asia. In the past, understanding prehistoric diets in Xinjiang was based mainly on carbonized plant remains unearthed from archaeological sites and isotopic analyses of excavated human bones. Here, we report on our analysis of human dental residues preserved on...
Starch Spherulites: What We Know and What Is Next for This Promising New Method of Paleoethnobotanical Analysis (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Starch spherulites are a promising new paleoethnobotanical discovery. Well-studied in food sciences, starch spherulites form when amylose from plant starch recrystallizes in spherulitic morphology. This requires processing by humans (mainly through heat, although pH impacts this dynamic) in an aqueous environment. The...
The State of the Field: Emerging Approaches to the Archaeology of Agricultural Landscapes (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Fields: Locating and Interpreting Ancient Agricultural Landscapes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Twenty-five years ago, Naomi Miller and Katheryn Gleason edited the seminal volume, *The Archaeology of Garden and Field, an authoritative guide to the identification and interpretation of archaeological field systems and other evidence of past agricultural practice inscribed within the landscape. This paper...
Strategizing Food Security under Colonial Rule at Purun Llaqta del Maino, Chachapoyas, Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How does colonialism impact local food strategies? This paper considers this question at Purun Llaqta del Maino (PLM), Chachapoyas, Peru; a site with continuous occupation from the Late Intermediate Period (LIP; 1000-1450 AD), the Late Horizon (1450-1535), and the Early Spanish Colonial Period (1535-1700). Like many Andean regions, Chachapoyas was...
Strategizing Food Security under Colonial Rule at Transconquest Purun Llaqta del Maino, Chachapoyas, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How does colonialism impact local food strategies? This paper considers this question at Purun Llaqta del Maino (PLM), Chachapoyas, Peru, a site with continuous occupation from the Late Intermediate period (LIP) (AD 1000–1450), the Late Horizon (1450–1535), and the Early Spanish colonial period (1535–1700). Like many Andean regions, Chachapoyas was...
The Study of Isotopic Baseline in the Gan-Qing Region, Northwestern China (2018)
We analyzed the baseline for dietary study through stable isotopes in the Gan-Qing (Gansu and Qinghai provinces) region in prehistory. Total 283 animal samples from 4 sites were collected and analyzed. We found that herbivorous δ15N values did not change much in the Hehuang region between 3200 BCE and 2000 BCE, indicating that the range of nitrogen isotopic baseline was relatively stable in different time. The range of herbivorous δ15N values from the Hehuang region around the 2000 BCE is from...
Study on Animal Remains Excavated from G1 of Dongshantou Site in Da'an, Jilin Province, China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Da'an Dongshantou is a fine stone cultural site in the Neolithic period. A large number of animal skeletons were found in site G1, totaling 2,456, including mollusks, fish, birds, and mammals. Statistics and analysis of the individual and population of the animal skeletons unearthed from site G1 provide clues for restoring the ecological environment of the...
A Study on the Animal Remains Unearthed from the Jirentaigoukou Site in Nilka, Xinjiang, China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Jirentaigoukou site in Nileke, Xinjiang is an important Bronze Age site in the Ili River area of Xinjiang. From 2015 to 2016, the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology excavated the Jirentaigoukou site and cemetery in Nileke County. A total of more than 1,000 animal skeletons were unearthed in the two excavation years, all of which were...
Subsistence and Daily Needs at the Basketmaker Communities Project: Insights Through the Microscope from Plant Remains, Wood, and Pollen (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Adopting the Pueblo Fettle: The Breadth and Depth of the Basketmaker III Cultural Horizon" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Large archaeobotanical datasets concentrated in a specific region are rare, especially those representing multiple sites excavated over several years. The Basketmaker Communities Project is one such rare research program that resulted in the analysis of hundreds of macrobotanical, flotation, and...
Subsistence and Exchange in the Chincha Valley (Peru) Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Chincha Valley was one of the most productive regions on the southern coast of Peru, yet little is known about the subsistence practices of the pre-Inca communities that existed in the inland valley of Chincha during the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000-1476). The Chinchas formed...
Subsistence and Space within an Historical Central New York Household (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Food is a foundational element of people’s everyday lives. The remains of what people did and did not eat can provide data as to how people lived, both within a household and as a society. This is true for historical assemblages, where physical remains can provide a more concrete picture of past lifeways than historical records alone. This poster...
Subsistence Diversity During the Western Stemmed Tradition in the Intermountain West (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Perspectives on the Western Stemmed Tradition-Clovis Debate in the Far West" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We have learned more about Western Stemmed subsistence patterns in the Intermountain West over the past decade than we learned during the previous half century. Remarkable subsistence assemblages recovered from sites such as Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, Paisley Cave 2, Weed Lake Ditch, Little...
Subsistence Economies Among Bronze Age Steppe Communities in the Southeastern Ural Mountains Region, Russia (2018)
The long-standing subsistence model for Bronze Age Steppe Communities in the Southeastern Ural Mountains Region has been defined as a sedentary agro-pastoral strategy with dominant use of livestock. However, based on recent studies, the nature and variability of the subsistence economy, especially wild plant resource exploitation for both humans and livestock, are not well understood. As sedentary pastoral communities, the relationship between increasing livestock productivity and decreasing...
Subsistence in the Peripheries: Modeling Ancient Maya Milpa Cycles in Western Honduras and Southern Belize (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Provisioning Ancient Maya Cities: Modeling Food Production and Land Use in Tropical Urban Environments" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient Maya agricultural practices varied based on heterogenous landscapes across the Maya Lowlands. While such variations may cause hesitation in comparative models, we find utility in assessing such differences to understand dynamic past human behaviors. Following the methods...