Paleoethnobotany (Other Keyword)
26-50 (461 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2016, our teams carried out survey and excavation field work in the Inhambane Province, located in southern coastal Mozambique. At Praia da Rocha we have identified several previously unknown shell middens dated to the regional Iron Age (c. 700 BP). All sites are located within few hundred meters of each other and only one (Praia da Rocha 1) was, so far, ...
Appendix C: the Baca Flotation Analysis (1977)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Applied Ethnobotany in Arid Lands: The Importance of Time, context and Collaboration (2017)
This paper contributes to the field of applied ethnobotany, which focuses on the role that knowledge, institutions and cultural perspectives play in resource management and conservation (based on Cunningham). Through different case studies to understand people and their use of wild desert plants, this paper stresses the importance of collaboration between disciplines, principally among biological and social sciences; and secondly between formally trained researchers, and local people and...
Approaching Equifinality: Pollen and Non-pollen Palynomorphs as Complementary Paleoecological Proxies (2018)
In analyses of paleoenvironmental records, the specific effects of climate/precipitation patterns and human landscape impacts on ancient ecologies can be difficult to discern. As largely substrate-specific in nature, fungal spores may serve as proxy for a range of phenomena, such as soil erosion, landscape burning, vegetation clearance, moisture availability, and the existence of particular plant types in a given area. Microbotanicals, including pollen, fungal spores, phytoliths, and...
Arboriculture, Translocated Flora, and Ecological Inheritance in the Marquesas Islands, East Polynesia (2018)
Contact-period accounts point to considerable variability in Polynesian agronomic production systems. In the Marquesas Islands, a mountainous island group in the eastern Pacific, food production in the proto-historic period was narrowly focused on tree cropping and breadfruit cultivation in particular. Early western visitors remarked on the archipelago’s large and thriving island populations, and their stable and productive arboricultural systems. In this paper, we present the results of a...
An Archaeobotanical Analysis of Four Prehistoric Central Thai Sites: the Preliminary Results (2016)
Thailand is a relatively new frontier for archaeobotanists, having suffered in the past from a shortage of archaeobotanical research. While archaeologists in Southeast Asia have begun to chart when and how rice and millet agriculture developed and spread, a clear picture of prehistoric agriculture in central Thailand has yet to emerge. This paper describes some preliminary results from a series of sites that have been occupied from ca. 2500 BCE to 500 CE. These are Non Pa Wai, Non Mak La, and...
An Archaeobotanical Analysis of the Upward Sun River Site, Central Alaska (2016)
Vegetation and plant resources can impact forager mobility and subsistence strategies. However, misconceptions about the preservation of organics in subarctic archaeological contexts and underestimations of the importance of plant resources to foraging societies limit paleoethnobotanical research in high-latitude environments. This research addresses these issues with analyses of archaeobotanical remains found in hearth features from multiple components (approximately 13,300 through 8,000 cal...
Archaeobotanical Data from Middle to Late Holocene Sites on the Central California Coast: Implications for Resource Use and Prescribed Burning (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Insights into Pyrodiversity and Seascape Management on the Central California Coast" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our research team’s ongoing work on the Central Coast of California explores spatial and temporal changes in the use of natural resources by Native peoples and considers how archaeobiological data can be used to understand the history of traditional resource stewardship practices such as...
Archaeobotanical Evidence and Diachronic Changes in Foodways of Indigenous Groups in the Central Coast and San Francisco Bay Regions, California (2015)
The Central Coast and San Francisco Bay regions of California are areas of high climatic, ecological, and indigenous cultural heterogeneity. During the last two decades, archaeobotanical research in these regions has begun to document the contributions of botanical resources in indigenous foodways systems through time. In the San Francisco Bay Area, a large number of anthropogenic shell mounds were population aggregation sites used for thousands of years, and, for the period after ca. 1050 CE,...
Archaeobotany of Food & Craft near Bono Manso, Ghana, during the Transition from Trans-Saharan to Atlantic Trade (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Kranka Dada is a village site on the periphery of Bono Manso, a complex polity occupied between the 14th – 17th centuries AD, at the height of the trans-Saharan trade and the shift to early Atlantic trade. Questions remain about the degree and nature of the involvement of sites like Kranka Dada in these different trade networks. In this paper, we offer...
Archaeobotany of Ka'ūpūlehu (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Thousands of charcoal specimens from 23 traditional Hawaiian sites throughout Ka’ūpūlehu Ahupua’a in north Kona were analyzed to see how kama’aina (“people of the land”) interacted with their environment. Fifty-one plant taxa, including 36 plants of Hawaiian origin and six Polynesian introductions, were identified. Combining charcoal identification and...
Archaeofauna and Archaeobotany studies in Northwestern South Asia: Past, Present, and Future (2017)
Both Zooarchaeological and Paleoethnobotanical studies have been carried out on animal and plant remains from archaeological sites in northwestern South Asia for at least a century. These investigations, while providing important insights into the hunter-gatherer and agro-pastoral economies of the region, have lagged behind those carried out in other parts of the world in both quantity and quality. Indigenous practitioners of both sub-disciplines are few, and interest in these aspects of...
Archaeological and Ethnographic Plant Use in Mongolia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The history and prehistory of Mongolia and Central Asia is sometimes characterized as static nomadic pastoralism, with little to no change in resource use over hundreds of years. Many scholars have debunked this unnuanced image by showing the complexities of pastoral lifeways, as well as the adoption of other subistence strategies in areas traditionally...
Archaeological Data Recovery at AZ U:9:8 (ARS), A Prehistoric Hohokam Site Near Mesa Grande, Mesa, Maricopa County, Arizona (1987)
Site AZ U:9:8 (ARS) was initially defined by Archaeological Research Services, Inc. (ARS) on April 26, 1985. At that time, Salt River Project (SRP) was excavating a footings trench for a concrete panel wall to be erected around a well site, and the construction crew encountered and reported archaeological remains in one of the excavated trenches. ARS was then requested by SRP to inspect the exposed remains, and to provide recommendations for the disposition of any identified cultural materials....
Archaeological Evidence of Multiple Domestication of Rice (2018)
The first domestication of rice in the Yangtze river valley in China is recently informed by genetic, archaeological, palaeoenvironmental, and archaeobotanical data. Archaeological sites where rice remains between 10000 and 4000 BP have been unearthed are concentrated in the middle and the lower Yangtze valley, a distance of over 1000 km apart. This study focuses on the morphological and histological features of spikelet bases of rice between 8300 and 4800 BP found in the Liyang Plain of the...
Archaeological Excavations in the Carrizo Wash Valley, East-Central Arizona: Data Recovery on the Fence Lake Mine Transportation Corridor, Volume II (2004)
Between May 15 and October 11, 2002, SWCA Environmental Consultants (SWCA) conducted archaeological data recovery at 11 sites along the proposed Fence Lake Mine Transportation Corridor (FLTCA) between the New Mexico state line and the Coronado Generating Station in St. Johns, Apache County, Arizona. The project was conducted for the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District (SRP). The lead federal agency was the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Socorro Resource Area, New...
Archaeological Plant Remains from the Lower Xingu (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in the Xingu River Basin: Long-Term Histories, Current Threats, and Future Perspectives" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent archaeological excavations at the sites of Jacupí, Carrazedo, and Gurupá in the Lower Xingu in the Brazilian Amazon have implemented a significant program for the recovery of plant remains, resulting in a large archaeobotanical assemblage currently undergoing analysis. Recent...
Archaic Period MRG-6 and the Deep Culinary Roots of Oaxacan Cuisine (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The rich cuisine of contemporary Oaxaca sprouted from deep roots. Archaic Period plant remains recovered from the MRG-6 rockshelter enhance prior work at Guila Naquitz and grant us insight into some of the managed and wild food plants still used in contemporary Oaxacan dishes. Over 70 different botanical taxa were identified from samples excavated at...
Arts and Sciences of Ancient Plants at McMaster University (2017)
Since 2013, the McMaster Paleoethnobotanical Research Facility (MPERF) has explored questions surrounding the relationship between humans and plants, including plant cultivation and collection, consumption and social uses of flora, and interactions between people and landscape. Active projects address human-plant dynamics throughout different regions of Mesoamerica, South America, and Ontario, at time periods ranging from the Late Pleistocene through historic periods. With recent support from...
Assessing Botanical Diversity of Late-to-Terminal Classic Households at Xunantunich, Belize (2018)
Understanding household plant use can provide a wealth of data about subsistence practices, past agricultural systems, and strategies used to mitigate climatic stress. Plant use may also vary between households. By examining this variation, botanical data may yield further information on personal preference and cuisine differences between households. Aside from consumption for subsistence, plants were used for a wide range of activities conducted by individual households. Botanical datasets may...
Assessing the Impacts of the Atlantic Slave Trade and American Crops on African Agriculture (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Approaches to Slavery and Unfree Labour in Africa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although the Columbian Exchange had a significant impact on local agroecologies, we still know very little about the African side of the exchange. This is particularly complex knot to unravel given that the Atlantic slave trade peaked during those same centuries. Both processes were to have major impacts on...
Aventura’s Watery Landscape: Communities of People, Water, Houses, and Ancestors (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Households at Aventura: Life and Community Longevity at an Ancient Maya City" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Water was essential for the longevity of ancient Maya cities, and Aventura was no exception. The site’s watery landscape consists of pocket bajos, defined as karstic depressions less than 2 km2 in area. While they are seasonally inundated today, this paper presents data from excavation, oral histories, and...
Beating Swords into Plowshares: The Role of Agricultural Colonization in Imperial Histories (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Households to Empires: Papers Presented in Honor of Bradley J. Parker" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In his 2001 monograph, The Mechanics of Empire, Bradley Parker methodically utilized archaeological survey data and historical texts to track the Neo-Assyrian empire’s growth through the agrarian settlement of deportees in newly conquered territories. Parker’s emphasis on agricultural colonization marked an...
BETWEEN SERI, CAHITA AND TEPIMA: PALEOETHNOBOTANICAL RESEARCH ON THE CENTRAL COAST OF SONORA, MEXICO (2017)
The sixteenth century Spaniards that arrived at the Central Coast of Sonora described the region between the Río Sonora and the Río Yaqui, as a transitional territory between the Comcáac (Seri) nomadic bands of the coast, and the farmers of the river Yaqui (Yoeme) and Pima. Unfortunately, the archaeology of this region is very little known and very little is known about the prehistoric history of the area. Recent investigations at several sites in this area, have yielded a variety of...
Beyond Boiling and Baking? Cooking Plant Foods in the Early US Midsouth (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. In the Eastern Woodlands of North America, researchers tend to discuss cooking technologies of early foragers at the close of the Pleistocene and early Holocene in terms of nut processing rather than for use of...