Paleoethnobotany (Other Keyword)
251-275 (657 Records)
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 Staple to Shameful (and Back Again?): The Changing Fortunes of Seaweeds in the North Atlantic (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Seaweeds are in vogue: new initiatives tout seaweed farming as a solution to global problems of food insecurity that can simultaneously combat climate change through carbon sequestration and regenerate damaged marine environments....
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 Terrace to Tray: Agriculture and Foodways at a Thirteenth-Century Alqueria (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Food and Foodways: Emerging Trends and New Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The preparation of a meal begins with the acquisition of ingredients—and for much of our human past, this has meant growing or gathering. Thus, food production through farming is a natural starting point for investigating foodways, especially for communities that are self-sufficient or have limited access to...
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...
From the Mountains to the Sea: A Deep-Time Perspective on the Heritage of Foods in Papua New Guinea (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeobotany of Early Peopling: Plant Experimentation and Cultural Inheritance" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) geography ranges from the high alpine mountains of its Highland provinces to remote oceanic islands and is home to a diverse spectrum of subsistence practices, most notably intensive tuber-focused horticulture, but also arboriculture and polycultures featuring many endemic...
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 and Growing from Past to Present: Building Future Foodways and Indigenous Landscapes in Turtle Island (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Cultivating Food, Land, and Communities" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How can archaeological data contribute to Indigenous food sovereignty efforts and biocultural restoration of Indigenous landscapes? We present two projects from northern Turtle Island from vastly different ecologies (Saskatchewan and Ontario), where paleoethnobotanical research has been effective for connecting archaeologists, Indigenous scholars,...
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...
Goin’ on Forever: A Retrospective on Karen Adams and Relationships with Maize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Enduring Relationships: People, Plants, and the Contributions of Karen R. Adams" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For over three decades Dr. Karen R. Adams has been at the forefront of research on the origins and long-term evolution of maize (Zea mays subsp. mays) in the US Southwest and northwestern Mexico. Dr. Adams has approached untangling the complex and oft convoluted histories of maize in a collaborative and...
"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,...
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...
Grain Size Variation and Culinary Traditions: Insights into Prehistoric Food Globalization in Eurasia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Food and Foodways: Emerging Trends and New Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past 15 years, research into prehistoric food globalization has shed light on the timelines, routes, and tempos of crop diffusion across the Old World. This diffusion not only involved the spread of plants but also the reproduction and transformation of cultures, technologies, and ideologies associated...
The Growth and Scale of Agricultural Adaptation in the Kaʻū Field System (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Evolutionary and Ecological Perspectives on Oceanic Archaeology: Papers to Honor the Contributions of Melinda Allen" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Place-based agricultural adaptations are widespread across the Hawaiian archipelago. These adaptations, as Melinda Allen has demonstrated, are situated within ecological and social contexts that organize the scale and development of these adaptations. Understanding how...
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...