Subsistence and Foodways: Domestication (Other Keyword)
76-99 (99 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Research, Education, and American Indian Partnerships at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maize farming represents a fundamental aspect of Pueblo people’s identity. This paper focuses on an experimental farming program conducted as part of the Pueblo Farming Project (PFP). The PFP represents one of Crow Canyon’s longest-running projects and one of the center’s most important...
Radiocarbon Dating and Carbon/Nitrogen Stable Isotope Analysis of Human Skeletons from the Lambayeque Valley, North Peru (Formative to Inca) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We analyzed 73 human bone/tooth samples from the following archaeological sites of the Lambayeque Valley, North Peru: Huaca Rajada, Huaca Zarpán, Huaca Santa Rosa, Huaca El Pueblo, Huaca El Chorro, Huaca El Triunfo, Huaca Saltur and Huaca Ventarrón. The associated material culture indicates that this sample encompasses a deep and continuous time transect going...
Raising Dogs for Meat and Sacrifice: A Comparative Study of Classic Period Sites in Oaxaca, Mexico (2018)
The domestic dog (Canis familiaris) became a staple in the meat diet of Zapotec peoples during the Formative period (1500 BC – AD 200) in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, and continued to be increasingly important in subsistence and ritual into the Classic and Postclassic periods. Recent zooarchaeological research has identified low-intensity household management/production of animals and animal by-products at sites throughout the valley, with each settlement marked by its own unique signature of...
The Relationship between Humans and Camels in Late Prehistoric Southeastern Arabia: The Problems of Distinguishing between 'Wild' and 'Domestic' Camels Using Zooarchaeological Materials and Methods (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius) is a crucial component of the lifeways of humans in arid regions. Delineating the nature of the early relationship between humans and dromedaries is therefore critical to our understanding of the ancient human societies that co-existed with the dromedary in these areas. Many studies...
Río Chico in the Distant Past of the Pastaza Valley, Ecuador (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the last 50 years, from Amazonian archaeology there has been a remarkable and growing debate about the origin and dispersion of the cultures of the area, their carrying capacity, population number and density, political structure, and links with the adjacent geographical areas, such as the Andes to its western border. More recently, paleobotanical...
The Shangshan Culture and Agricultural Origins (2018)
The Shangshan Culture is among the first in China to be associated with at least one domesticated organism: rice (Oryza sativa). A decade of research on Shangshan is providing critical insight on events leading to Neolithic developments in the Lower Yangtze Valley. So far, some expectations are not yet confirmed: e.g., the Shangshan ancestors developed from a local Palaeolithic population, and the first farming developed in the rich lowlands. Collaborative research is documenting potential...
Spread of Maize into Temperate North America (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Subsistence Crops and Animals as a Proxy for Human Cultural Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maize entered the southwestern United States nearly 2,000 years before maize agricultural practice is visible in the archaeological record on the Colorado Plateau. Previous work found that the early cultivated maize on the Plateau, 2,000-year-old samples from Turkey Pen Shelter, were already at least partially adapted,...
Stable Isotope Analysis of the Early Agriculture Period at La Playa (SON:F:10:3), Sonora, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable isotopic analyses of carbon and nitrogen in bone can provide insight into the consumption of plants and animals. Bone collagen differentially tracks the consumption of proteins, and bone apatite reflects individual’s diet through the intake of lipids, protein, and carbohydrates. Analyses of 29 individuals from the Early Agricultural period (EAP)...
Stable Isotope Analysis of the San Pedro and Cienega Phases at the La Playa Site (SON: F: 10: 3), Sonora, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous stable isotopic studies of bone from 12 dated individuals from the site of La Playa in Northern Sonora suggest a diet dominated by C4 and CAM resources. For collagen δ13C, an average value of -8.5‰ (n=5) was recorded in the San Pedro phase (1200 BC to 800 BC) which shifted to an average value of -10.0‰ (n=7) in the Cienega phase (800 BC to AD 150)....
Stable-Isotope Analysis and Dental Micro-Wear Texture Analysis of Domestic Dogs from the Tennessee River Valley (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. In the Southeastern United States, the relationship between indigenous peoples and their domestic dogs is known to be long and complicated. Dog burials and dog skeletal remains are ubiquitous from archaeological sites in the region from as early as 7,000 years ago through the Historic Period. A previous paleopathology study of...
The Suitability of Dry-Farming and Its Impact on Fremont Paleodemography in the Northern Uinta Basin (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Global Perspectives on Climate-Human Population Dynamics During the Late Holocene" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent work in Utah’s northern Uinta Basin shows close relationships between precipitation variability and population dynamics during the Fremont period, AD 300-1350. In this study, we evaluate the role that changes in the suitability of local dry-farming conditions had on observed regional settlement...
Tamsagbulag: New Center of Cattle Domestication in East Asia? (2021)
This is an abstract from the "New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tamsagbulag, in the far eastern steppe, is the only known example of high-density site occupation in Mongolia that predates the Iron Age. Based on the frequency and treatment of cattle remains, mid-twentieth-century excavators interpreted Tamsagbulag as an agropastoralist community. New excavations in 2018 revealed several hundred years of...
Testing the Dual Origin Dog Domestication Hypothesis (2018)
Despite numerous investigations leveraging both genetic and archaeological evidence, the geographic origins of dogs remain unknown. On the basis of an ancient Irish dog genome and an assessment of the spatiotemporal appearance of dogs in the archaeological record, a recent paper suggested that dogs may have been domesticated independently in Eastern and Western Eurasia from distinct wolf populations. Following those independent origins, a mitochondrial assessment suggested that the Mesolithic...
Turkey Husbandry at Pueblo Bonito and Its Relationship to Turkey-Human Interactions in Chaco Canyon (2018)
Domestic turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) husbandry at Chaco Canyon has been the subject of considerable debate. Previous research has argued, among other things, that turkeys were rare in the Canyon (Akins 1985); that turkeys first were a source of feathers for ritual and ceremonial activities, and only later treated as food (Akins 1985; Badenhorst et al. 2016; Windes 1977); that local wild turkeys were not present in Chaco Canyon and domestic turkeys were imported from the Four Corners region...
Turkey Provisioning, Exchange, and the Isotopic Zooarchaeology of Social Transformations in the Mesa Verde Region (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Isotopic and Animal aDNA Analyses in the Southwest/Northwest" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Changes in resource acquisition patterns are important components of larger social transformations, including shifts in the source areas and transport patterns of important animal resources. In the Mesa Verde region, increasing population aggregation and shifting settlement locations from AD 750 through 1225 also increased...
Turkeys in the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico: Pottery Iconography, Genetics, and Diet (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. Understanding the cultural and environmental context of turkey (*Meleagris gallopavo) domestication and husbandry contribute to key issues in anthropological archaeology and social zooarchaeology. Despite recent advances in turkey studies in recent years, the extent of domestication and...
Understanding the Interplay between Domesticate Choice and the Environment: The Case of the Humble Australian Sheep (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Domestication could be described as a drawn out, nuanced dance between humans and animals – a dance that shapes not just the animal actors – but the physical, cultural and economic environment of all the players. Recent examples of this effect abound in areas colonized by Europeans, particularly those with drastically...
Unentangling Hotspots and Episodes in Pre-domestication Cultivation of Cereals: Examples from West and East Asia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Subsistence Crops and Animals as a Proxy for Human Cultural Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The growth of empirical archaeobotanical data has highlighted that domestication processes in cereals were spread out over both time (millennia) and space (100,000s rather than 10,000s of km2). Updated data from West Asian cereals and pulses, alongside Chinese millets and rice, are analyzed. These data allow...
Unravelling the Origins of Pre-Columbian Agave Domestication in Present Day Arizona (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Botanical exploration over the last thirty years in Arizona has revealed at least six putative domesticated agaves still surviving in their archaeological context. These agaves share characteristics of relictual domesticated plants including clonality, reduced genetic diversity compared to wild agaves and reduced seed set or complete sexual sterility....
Variety Is the Spice of Life: Chili Pepper Domestication and Agrobiodiversity in the Americas (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chili peppers (Capsicum spp.) are one of the extremely rich and varied crop genetic resources of the Americas. The independent domestication of five chili pepper species (C. annuum, C. baccatum, C. chinense, C. frutescens, and C. pubescens) across the Neotropics beginning around 10,000 BP was an intricate co-evolutionary process between these piquant...
Was Setaria Domesticated in Tehuacan? (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Subsistence Crops and Animals as a Proxy for Human Cultural Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavation of Coxcatlan cave recovered remains of Setaria cf. macrostachya. Analysis suggested early increase in abundance of florets (so-called seeds) in deposits associated with El Riego Phase contexts and later decrease in Coxcatlan Phase deposits. Callen observed a size increase of Setaria florets recovered from...
Were Turkeys Domesticated by Prehistoric Farmers in Oklahoma? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Research on Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) Domestication, Husbandry and Management in North America and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) were domesticated by Basketmaker peoples in the American Southwest and independently by prehispanic Mesoamerican groups, yet relatively little is known about the nature and origin of ancient Oklahoma turkeys. In this project, we analyze...
What’s in a Seed?: Identifying Archaeological Chili Pepper Remains from Mesoamerica (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The chili pepper (Capsicum spp.) has cemented its place in ancient and modern Mesoamerica as a fixture in medicine, ritual, and cuisine. The timing and context of its domestication which began around 10,000 years BP, however, remains unclear. To address this, we conducted morphometric analyses of a diverse array of modern seeds from multiple species of wild...
Why Do We Farm?: Risk Assessment of the Foraging Farming Transition in North America (2018)
The evolution of the genus Homo is characterized by the emergence of numerous biological and cultural traits including bipedalism, encephalization, and language. A more recent adaptation led humans to transition from a foraging subsistence strategy to one based on farming. This is significant because foraging persisted for approximately 95% of human existence until farming emerged about 12,000 years ago. For nearly a century, anthropologists have studied the foraging-farming transition and...