Subsistence and Foodways: Domestication (Other Keyword)
51-75 (126 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The avocado has a complicated evolutionary history resulting from landscape-level management and domestication practices. Cultivars of the species are well-documented and categorized into three botanical races based on genetic differentiation, morphology, and adapted environment. However, we have very little knowledge of the avocado’s genetic variation...
"A feast of meat, a day of sociability": Examining Patterns in Turkey Management in the Cibola Region, AD 1150-1400 (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. Recent genetic and isotopic studies highlight important variations in the nature, timing, and intensity of domesticated turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) management practices across the northern U.S. Southwest. While a degree of intensification in turkey production has been associated with widespread settlement aggregation in the...
Food storage and processing. A cross-cultural study of the Neolithic/Formative period of Central Europe and the USA (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We introduce the start of an international project focusing on the interpretation of prehistoric food preparation and storage in cross-cultural perspective—both different prehistoric cultures and different traditions of archaeological research. We consider archaeological patterns in Central Europe (the European temperate zone) and in US Southwest,...
The Four Corners Potato: A Starch Granule Analysis of Ground Stone Artifacts from 5MT3873, Cortez, Colorado (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. New research suggests the utilization of a wild potato (Solanum jamesii) may have been an important resource in the arid West in general and particularly among Ancient Puebloan communities. This research tests for the role of S. jamesii in Ancient Puebloan societies by expanding upon the research goals and archaeological investigations of the Ladle House...
Fox Farm, a Large Fort Ancient Village in Mason County, Kentucky: Evidence of Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) Management? (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. Investigations of wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) remains from archaeological sites in Central America and the American Southwest have generated new data about the management and domestication of this species. We applied the methods used in those studies to our analysis...
Friends in High Places. An Integrated Examination of the Long-Term Relationship between Humans and Dogs in Arctic Prehistory (2018)
Dogs are arguably the most significant domestic species in the circumpolar North, in both their universal importance to life-ways and their near-uniqueness as a regional domesticate. The Arctic was the gateway for at least 4 independent waves of migration of dogs into the Americas, beginning as early as ~17,500-13,000 years ago, making this region particularly important for investigating not only the cultural and technological functions of Arctic dogs, but also the impact of successive...
From Hunting to Herding in the Lake Titicaca Basin: A Preliminary Investigation of Faunal Assemblages, 9.0–3.5 ka (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Approaches in Zooarchaeology: Addressing Big Questions with Ancient Animals" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As the sole large-bodied animal domesticate in South America, camelids constituted a central component in Andean socio-economies and were pivotal for the expansion of early complex societies. The timing and nature of domestication, as well as the subsequent spread of husbandry practices,...
From North America to Europe: Preliminary Biomolecular results Regarding the Transatlantic History of the Turkey (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. While there is a growing body of studies on turkey domestication and use in North America, many questions remain unanswered regarding its introduction to Europe and its subsequent breeding. Which populations of turkeys were imported in Europe and when? How fast did they...
From the Early Holocene to Amazonian Forest Groves (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ecological studies in the Amazon increasingly report groves of economically useful tree species thought to be legacies of past human occupation and management practices, in contrast to an inherent composition with high species diversity and low species concentration. Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa – Lecythidaceae) trees occur in grove-type forest formations...
The Future of Paleogenomics in Archaeology: Insights from a Multidisciplinary Study on Sunflower Domestication (2018)
Ancient DNA (aDNA) methodologies have rapidly developed over the past three decades, and today these tools provide a powerful means to investigate a wide range of archaeological inquiries, including human evolution, animal and plant domestication, and paleoenvironmental reconstructions. In this talk, I will summarize general approaches in paleogenomics research, focusing on concerns and questions from archaeologists. To demonstrate how state-of-the-art paleogenomic techniques can contribute to...
The Genetic History and Diffusion Routes of Early Maize in North America (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological and genetic evidence from modern and ancient maize (Zea mays) samples indicate that maize initially reached the southwestern United States (U.S.) by around 4,000 years ago via a highland Mexican route, followed by a second introduction via the Pacific coast, around 2,000 years ago. However, maize diffusion routes northward from the...
Genetic Species Identification of Large Birds from the Dadiwan Neolithic Site in Northern China (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present information and insight drawn from the Neolithic of northern China (ca. 8,000 – 5,000 BP) about the manner by which large, meaty birds (including potential precursors of the domestic chicken) were drawn into the human biome. Long before they were essential staples, they (along with a range of different, but similar birds) were an occasional, and...
Geographic and Temporal Variation in Canid Dietary Patterns from Five Huron-Wendat Village Sites in Ontario, Canada (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable isotope analysis of bone collagen in 48 dogs (Canis familaris) was conducted to investigate geographic and temporal variation in diet at five Huron-Wendat sites (A.D. 1250-1650) in southern Ontario, Canada. Carbon and nitrogen isotope data indicate intra- and inter-site variation in dietary protein for these dogs, as well as temporal variation in diet...
Global and Regional Frameworks for Comparing Agricultural Intensification and Productivity Across Cases (2018)
Understanding variation in the stability and productivity of subsistence strategies is fundamental to explaining patterns of variation in long-term human demography. This poster addresses under what conditions societies intensify food production at both global and regional scales using frameworks ranging from relatively abstract environmental measures to models based on detailed historical and archaeological data relating to agricultural productivity. At a global scale, the combination of...
Goosefoot Galore: Results from the Analysis of a Goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri) Cache in the American Bottom (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In precontact eastern North America, Indigenous peoples domesticated a unique crop system called the Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC) before the arrival of maize (Zea mays). The EAC likely sustained past Indigenous populations beginning around 3900 B.P., to approximately 600 B.P. The EAC fell out of cultivation prior to European contact, so their...
Hydrogen and Oxygen (δ2H and δ18O) Isotopes and the Study of Human-Turkey Relationships in the Northern US Southwest (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. Previous studies have established consistency, but also substantial anomalies, in how turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) were managed across the US Southwest/Mexican Northwest. In this paper, we present bone collagen derived stable hydrogen (δ2H) and bone apatite derived stable oxygen (δ18O) isotopes in turkeys from Tijeras Pueblo...
Initial Timing and Spread of the Eastern Agricultural Complex: Need for a Comprehensive Database (2018)
Extensive research has illuminated many aspects of the emergence of the Eastern Agricultural Complex, yet gaps remain surrounding the origin and spread of these early domesticated plants. The long-term goal of our research is to create a comprehensive, online database of accurately dated EAC plant samples similar to the Ancient Maize Map project (Laboratory of Archaeology, University of British Columbia). Compiling this chronology will contribute to our understanding of the social, economic, and...
Insights from Commensal Pathways into Domestication Origins (2018)
Research on the origins of animal domestication has relied heavily on the use of morphometric characteristics of skeletal remains as diagnostic markers for important shape and size changes, which supposedly signaled the beginnings of domestication processes. However, the utility of this approach for pinpointing the timing and geographic and cultural context of initial domestication has been recently questioned. This approach has been undermined by empirical findings from geometric morphometric...
Integrating Grapevine Palaeogenomics with Archaeobotanical Methods to Explore the History of Winemaking (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Increasing the Accessibility of Ancient DNA within Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Genomic analyses of archaeological seeds and other plant remains are playing an increasingly important role in unravelling domestication histories. In some cases, these findings are revising longstanding interpretations developed from archaeobotanical methods, and questions remain on how archaeological and genomic methods...
Introducing Paleoethnobotany to Machine Learning: A Case Study in the Genus *Capsicum (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chili peppers (*Capsicum spp.) are an incredibly diverse and abundant crop across the Americas whose domestication began around 10,000 BP as a complex co-evolutionary process between humans and these plants. This genus has served many culinary, medicinal, and ritualistic uses throughout its evolution and diversification. With an interest in tracking the...
Investigating the Principles of “Good Farming”: A Comparison of Traditional Agrarianism and Indigenous Land Use and Cultivation (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. In his long career as an agrarian writer, Wendell Berry has documented and endorsed the precepts of “good farming” as those that require care, knowledge, self-mastery, good sense, cultural memory, and fundamental decency. This carefully crafted set of practices stands in stark opposition to the aggressive colonial...
Investigating Turkey Husbandry on the Chacoan Frontier: Stable Isotope Results from Three Pueblo II Great House Communities in West Central New Mexico (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. Growing research in animal domestication in the prehistoric western hemisphere has revealed a complex relationship between humans and the only originally domesticated animal in North America, the turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Research suggests reasons for turkey...
Iron Age Agriculture at the Multi-Component Site of Kakapel Rockshelter, Western Kenya (2019)
This is an abstract from the "African Archaeology throughout the Holocene" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The domestication of African cereals and origins and spread of plant agriculture in eastern Africa remain poorly understood. Questions about the timing of farming, crop packages, and correlations with migration events, endure largely due to a lack of paleobotanical recovery and high-resolution dating on inland eastern African sites. In this...
Island Horticultural Technology Wooden and Woven: An Ethnoarchaeological Case from Taiwan (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Horticultural knowledge played an evolutionary role in the successful colonization and occupation of islands. Compared to more durable fishing and hunting tools, gardening tools are made of perishable wooden and woven materials that rarely preserve in the archaeological record. Because women perform a large proportion of gardening tasks, their technologies...
An Isotopic and Proteomic Investigation of Uruk Period Faunal Remains from Tepe Farukhabad, Iran (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Stability and Resilience in Zooarchaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Located in southwest Iran and occupied since the fourth millennium BCE, Tepe Farukhabad is a prime example of an Early Uruk town. Numerous faunal remains were recovered from excavations in the 1960s, including those from wild animals, such as gazelle and horses, as well as from domesticated sheep, goats, and cows. Interestingly, between the...