Paleoethnobotany (Other Keyword)
176-200 (461 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Atacama Desert, northern Chile, human groups settled during the Archaic and Formative periods (ca. 4000–2000 BP) in the Tiliviche and Aragon sites, located between the coast and the hinterlands. We analyzed and identified the macrobotanical and microbotanical remains from the sites of Tiliviche-1 and Aragón-1 to evaluate the ontologies among the...
From Present-Day Fields to Ancient Samples…and Back Again: Strategies for Establishing Principles of Interpretation in Plant Stable Isotope Work (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. Plant stable isotope analysis presents a series of ‘middle range’ challenges for archaeologists, but also unique opportunities for reconstructing ancient agroecologies. Here we focus on the potential and limitations of modern crop studies for informing interpretation of archaeobotanical cereal and pulse...
From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Trans-Regional Movements of Artifacts, Cereal Crops and Animals (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Pan-Eurasian Exchange of Crops and Objects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Scholarly interest has been growing in an episode of trans-Eurasian exchange of agricultural systems and tangible material goods in late prehistory. The trans-regional movement of a number of artifacts, cereal crops and animals occurred within a series of transformative process that...
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...
From the First to the Last Amazonian Dark Earths: The Longue-Durée of Landscape Management at the Teotônio Site, Upper Madeira River, SW Amazonia (2018)
The Teotônio site, situated on the right bank of the Madeira river near Porto Velho, Rondônia, is a key location for understanding the deep history of human-environment interactions and landscape management in southwest Amazonia. Its archaeological record stretches back to the early-mid Holocene and includes vestiges of 6,000-year old Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE) belonging to the Massangana Phase, hypothesised as marking the beginning of widespread landscape transformations in the Upper Madeira...
Fuel Use and Management at the Specialized Fishing Site of Bayovar-01 in Northern Coastal Peru (5th–8th Centuries AD), Contributions of Charcoal Analysis (2018)
The Sechura desert located on the extreme northern coast of Peru is one of the most arid places on the planet. Nonetheless, human settlements have been recorded from 5000 BC up to the 15th century. Recent archaeological excavations have been carried out at the site of Bayovar-01 (occupied from the 5th to 8th centuries AD). The new data provide insight into the activities and adaptations of the desert’s ancient inhabitants. The presence of two small structures, a large activity area containing a...
Fueling Earth Oven Useage: Differential Trends in the Southern and Central Plains (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. The work of Alston Thoms and colleagues has highlighted the importance of earth oven cooking technologies throughout the world, and especially within North America. One advantage of earth oven (heated rock) cooking is...
Gardening for Victory: War Gardens in the Ancient Andes (2018)
During times of social and political crisis humans’ most basic biological needs still need to be met: they need to eat. This means that during times of war, when state infrastructure breaks down and supply chains are threatened, people often take food security matters into their own hands. During 20th century conflicts, families ensured food security on the home front by building household gardens. Practically, the construction of war gardens resulted in decreased individual reliance on often...
Gardens in the Aleutian Islands: Landscape Management by Unangan/Unangas Ancestors (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prehistoric large village midden sites in the Aleutian Islands provide soil chemistry and drainage environments optimal for the growth of plants that feature prominently in Unangan/Unangas traditional subsistence. Previous interpretations view this as fortuitous and non-deliberate. We argue that evidence suggests instead that plants useful in subsistence and...
Gardens, Infields and Outfields: Cultivation Intensity, Neotropical Landscapes and the Evolution of Early Agricultural Systems (2018)
Plant cultivation in and around residential locations and at greater distances from settlements are options early cultivators employed, supplemented by wild resources, to meet subsistence needs. The mix of plants, soils and cultivation practices varied by environment, distribution of resources, population density and other factors. This paper examines the role of gardens over the long transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture in tropical lowland environments. Ethnographic data,...
Gathering Evidence: Terrestrial Plant Resources of California’s Islands (2015)
The abundance and diversity of terrestrial plant resources on the islands off the Pacific coast of southern Alta and Baja California vary in terms of island biogeographic distribution, ranging from pine forests and oak/juniper woodlands, to chaparral, cactus scrub and grassland habitats, among others. These plant resources provided food, medicine, and raw materials for island populations. However, island plant resources have long been described in the literature as "depauperate," an idea based...
Gathering, Gardening, and Agriculture: Arkansas Archeological Survey’s Plant-based Public Archeology (2018)
The Arkansas Archeological Survey has been practicing citizen science and developing educational tools for engaging local communities in the study of the past since the 1960s. In this paper, we discuss recent efforts by the Survey to develop educational content specifically aimed at highlighting the history of plant use through time in the southeastern United States. The Survey received grant funds to develop the 5th grade social studies curriculum, Gathering, Gardening, and Agriculture:...
Genomics and Archaeological Survey: Elucidating Ancient Mesoamerican Human-Plant Interactions (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Regional and Intensive Site Survey: Case Studies from Mesoamerica" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeogenetics, a term coined by Colin Renfrew in 2000, is a relatively new line of inquiry into the archaeological past. Archaeogenetic techniques use ancient DNA and genomic sequencing to reveal population-level data that may be used to elucidate processes central to archaeological research, such as group migrations...
Geographical Margins as Key to Understanding Crop Dispersal Mechanisms in Prehistory: Case Study for Kyrgyzstan (2018)
More than 8000 years ago, a variety of crop species began to spread across Eurasia, reaching its edges approximately 4000 years later. The chain of mountains that stretches across Central Asia constituted a geographical obstacle that slowed down the dispersal process. Special high altitude adaptive strategies were required not only by humans, but also by plants due to changes in the length of the growing season, climatic conditions, UV intensity, among other factors. Therefore, the mountain...
A Glimpse of Domestic Space at Tenahaha from the Cotahuasi Valley, Peru (2016)
In the field seasons of 2004-2007 Justin Jennings and his field crew conducted archaeological excavations at the Middle Horizon (600-1100A.D.) site of Tenahaha in the Cothuasi Valley of the Peruvian Andes. During 2013-2014 floatation samples from the site were analyzed in the Archaeology Laboratory at the University of South Dakota. The Tenahaha site contained five domestic areas from which macrobotanical data was collected and interpreted. It is believed that the Tenahaha necropolis was only...
"Good to Eat and Good to Think": Interpreting the Role of Plants in the Tiwanaku Temple of Omo M10, Moquegua, Peru (2015)
Much is known nowadays about the role of plants in Tiwanaku households and political economy, yet, their function in ceremonial contexts is still unclear. Unlike the state's heartland in the Bolivian altiplano, where preservation conditions are not always favorable for the systematic recovery of paleobotanical remains, excavations of Tiwanaku sites in the hyper-arid environment of the Moquegua valley in southern Peru have resulted in the recovery of a wide array of ancient organic finds,...
Hands-On Archaeological Pedagogy: A Case Example of Teaching Food Pathways in Ancient and Modern Times (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Broader Impacts and Teaching: Engaging with Diverse Audiences" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Active participation and hands-on analysis and activities in college-level classes can draw students with diverse interests into classes of archaeology. To move away from straight lecturing about archaeological principles, the authors developed a class on paleoethnobotany and zooarchaeology that actively involves students...
Harvesting, Management, and Possible Cultivation of Chenopods (Chenopodium spp.) in the North American Southwest (2017)
Chenopodium seeds are ubiquitous in archaeobotanical samples from sites across the U.S. Southwest, commonly interpreted as representing the harvest of wild populations or weedy plants that were encouraged to grow in garden plots and agricultural fields. Up to 75% of projects from various SW U.S. regions contained Chenopodium, and/or Amaranthus, and/or Cheno-am seeds. Archaeobotanists differ in how they recognize and report these seeds. At least 22 wild species of Chenopodium are native to one or...
Health Care in the Marketplace: Exploring Medicinal Plants and Practices at Piedras Negras (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Medicine and Healing in the Americas: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Botanical residues recovered from the proposed marketplace area of Piedras Negras have revealed rich information about healing and medicinal activities of Classic Period inhabitants. Excavations in this sector yielded a high quantity of identifiable plant remains in the same contexts as human dental...
Hearth Features in High-Latitude Environments (2018)
The depositional context of many high-latitude archaeological sites often inhibits preservation of hearth features and associated organic remains. When preserved, subsurface hearth features provide insight into the role of plant resources in prehistoric hunter-gatherer economies. This research addresses questions of taphonomy, paleoecology, and prehistoric plant use with archaeobotanical analysis of hearth features from sites located in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve and Gates of the...
Hidden Labor: Exploring Food, Gender, and Ritual in the Prehispanic Moche Valley of North Coastal Peru (2018)
Archaeologists have successfully used spatial analyses of different contexts (elite/non-elite, ritual/domestic, public/private, etc.) to examine the intersection of food-related activities with status, political economy, gender, ritual, and the public/private division. In this paper, I consider the intersections of food processing, ritual, and gendered labor through an examination of paleoethnobotanical data from Cerro León, a Gallinazo/Early Moche phase (A.D. 1-300) highland colony in the Moche...
The Hidden Voice of Forests: Revisiting Archaeobotanical Legacy Collections from Southeastern U.S. Shell Rings (2019)
This is an abstract from the ""Re-excavating" Legacy Collections" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees as a metaphor conveys that we sometimes cannot assess situations while we are in the midst of them. Archaeobotanists often report that the most ubiquitous plant type at a site is charred wood. But have we really assessed what these once trees represent: fuel, building remains, indirect evidence of food, or something...
Historical Ecologies of Botanical Gardens: Archaeobotany at Bartram’s Garden (Philadelphia, PA) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The collection and transport of natural specimens during the long eighteenth century had political, intellectual, and ecological effects. Botanical gardens are key loci to examine the material histories of these processes. Bartram’s Garden, the most prominent botanical garden in North America during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,...
Historical Ecology and Management of Marine Estuaries: Paleoethnobotanical and fine grained constituent results from the Manila Site (CA-HUM-321), Humboldt Bay, Northwestern California (2017)
The Manila site (CA-HUM-321) is a stratified prehistoric midden site with a long history of use by the Wiyot people. This study, the first of its kind from Humboldt Bay, reveals the results of constituent analyses of excavated materials. Fine-grained analysis of dietary residues from Manila reveals the earliest documented (1,309 cal BP) evidence of mass harvested foods, smelt fishing, and intensive shellfish procurement on the North Coast of California. Paleoethnobotanical analysis of seeds and...
Historical Ecology of Demographic and Economic Change in the Highlands of Western Kenya: Archaeobotanical and Mycological Evidence (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The last several millennia of cultural history in the western Kenyan highlands have been marked both by punctuated periods of considerable demographic and economic change, and by continuous in-situ processes of genetic, linguistic, and economic interaction and admixture. Historical linguistic and archaeological models of the peopling of this region have, among...