Paleoethnobotany (Other Keyword)
426-450 (572 Records)
Landscapes are formed by diverse human actions and interactions with their surroundings through the performance of various tasks, or what Ingold referred to as the "taskscape." Recently archaeologists have turned their attentions to a previously neglected aspect of the landscape created through quotidian tasks, the agricultural field. These studies, however, tend to focus on preserved built structures still visible in the modern landscape. Direct study of agricultural fields in Eastern North...
Plants and Environment: A Paleoethnobotanical Analysis of the Vosburg Site (21FA002) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recognized archaeologically by their distinct material culture, Oneota sites exist in many ecological zones across the Upper Midwest. Consequently, the sites are hardly homogenous. Across localities, Oneota groups are recognized as late Precontact food producers who grew Zea mays (maize), Cucurbita pepo (squash), and later Phaseolus vulgaris (bean). The...
Plants and People in Ancient Ecuador: The Ethnobotany of the Jama River Valley (2004)
"Plants and People in Ancient Ecuador: The Ethnobotany of the Jama River Valley" explores the interrelationships between the prehistoric residents of a small valley in coastal Ecuador (South America) and the dry tropical forest habitat in which they lived. The book has three related objectives. First, "Plants and People in Ancient Ecuador" is an ethnobotany, a work that explores how, through the medium of culture, people shape and are shaped by the world in which they live. I take as my...
Plants and Steppe Hunter-Gatherers in Central Patagonia: A Case Study from the Aisén region (45° S, Chile) (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Histories of Human-Nature Interactions: Use, Management, and Consumption of Plants in Extreme Environments" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research on the use of plants among hunter-gathering groups has made visible the use of a predictable and ubiquitous resource that is locally and seasonally available, and that count with multiple potential uses. Recent studies at the Baño Nuevo 1 site (Aisén, Chile) have revealed...
Plants Are Friends and Food: Reinterpreting Fort Ancient Plant Use through Indigenous Ontologies and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Cultivating Food, Land, and Communities" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paleoethnobotanical analyses over the past several decades have shed light on the subsistence practices, agricultural strategies, and environmental interactions of members of the Fort Ancient culture, an Indigenous society that thrived in the Ohio Valley from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries. Largely absent from these conversations,...
Plants in Ancient Pots: A Comparative Study of Paleoethnobotanical Results from Unwashed and Washed Ceramics (2017)
Paleoethnobotanists study human-plant interactions in the past, including the role of plants in ancient foodways. Microbotanical remains (phytoliths and starch grains) enable the identification of many plants because their morphology can be diagnostic to the family, genus, and species. Microbotanical samples can be extracted from specific artifacts, such as ceramics, enabling a better understanding of their use. Paleoethnobotanists can thus discern associations between certain vessel types and...
Political Ecology of Postclassic Maya Plant Use at Lake Mensabak, Chiapas, México. (2016)
This presentation examines a case study of changes in Maya plant use at several closely located sites during the middle-to-late Postclassic Period (~1300-1525 CE) at Lake Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico. These sites were inhabited contemporaneously and exhibit substantive differences in size and political/economic importance, making the archaeobotanical assemblages recovered from them uniquely suited for a study focusing on how they were created by social processes. It specifically examines whether...
Political Economy at a Casma Valley Middle Horizon Center: Evidence from Pan de Azúcar de Nivín, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2017 the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológico Nivín seeks to clarify the cultural affiliation of the groups that occupied the middle Casma Valley, Peru. Architectural and ceramic features demonstrate the influence of both Wari and Casma cultural traditions at Pan de Azúcar de Nivín (PAN), a site occupied AD 950-1150. While the Wari Empire expanded from...
Pollen Analysis as a Proxy for Land Use Practices in Massachusetts, 1500-1700 CE (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Questions of land—who owns it, who controls it, who alters it—are central to human relationships, particularly in colonial contexts where power dynamics are embedded within the physical landscape. In Massachusetts, land was central to cooperation and conflict between the Wampanoag and English. Land...
Pollen Analysis at El Campanario (Peru): Preliminary Study from a Public Architecture (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The present research analyzed pollen samples recovered from public architecture at the site of El Campanario in Huarmey Valley (Peru). This exploration focuses on issues regarding archaeological palynology by presenting a case study with a preliminary set of samples in an attempt to open a line of research at El Campanario. The adobe platform, where the...
Pollen in Nautical Archaeology (2018)
The inclusion of pollen analysis into the excavations of shipwreck sites has improved our understanding of the cargoes these vessels carried, the timing of the wrecking event, and, in some cases, the processes of ship construction. Vaughn Bryant spearheaded many of these advances in the palynology of nautical archaeology through his mentorship of nautical archaeologists at Texas A&M, of which, the author here is one. This paper will highlight the important steps Bryant and his students have...
Pollen, Contamination, and Interpretation at Paisley Caves Archaeological Site (2018)
In studying the early inhabitants of North America, some of the frequently revisited questions involve how they lived, what they ate, and what their world was like. Archaeological Palynology is a well understood method for addressing these questions. Because of the constant pollen rain and the purposeful and incidental ingestion of pollen and spores, well-preserved pollen is repeatedly found in association with human habitation sites and human artifacts. Paisley Caves, Oregon, established itself...
Poorly Provenienced Perishables at the USU Eastern Prehistoric Museum: New Directions for Old Utah Collections (2016)
The Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum in Price, Utah contains an impressive collection of textiles and other perishable artifacts from Eastern Utah. Many of these artifacts were donated by private individuals early in the museum’s history and have very limited information on their discovery and provenience. Despite these limitations, these items can become much more than striking art objects displayed to the public. Recent efforts have focused on expanding the useful data...
Postclassic Firewood Management at Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico: Using Forest Surveys and GIS Modeling to Predict Charcoal Midden Composition (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last several decades, research in anthracology (the study of charcoal recovered from archaeological sites) has become increasingly relevant to our understanding of human-environment dynamics. The field’s understanding of human fuelwood collection is currently based on a model guided by the “Principle of Least Effort,” which expects wood gatherers to...
Practical and social storage among the Ohio Hopewell: Archaeobotanical and ethnoarchaeological evidence for delayed return of pre-maize crops (2015)
Social storage and social complexity indicated in the scale of Hopewell earthwork building, craft specialization, and mortuary goods suggest surplus created though subsistence intensification. However, artifacts and features associated with practical storage of such a surplus are uncommon at most Ohio Hopewell habitation sites. This study takes a step toward resolving this apparent contradiction by developing a predictive model from descriptive and quantitative characteristics of storage...
Pre-colonial Griddles in Central Nicaragua: An Archaeometric and Archaeobotanical Approach to Foodways at the Barillas Site, Chontales (2018)
Since 2007, the Proyecto Arqueológico Centro de Nicaragua, directed by Alexander Geurds, has excavated several archaeological sites in Chontales, Nicaragua, northeast of Lake Cocibolca. This papers reports on fragments of ceramic griddles recovered in layers dated to cal AD 1275 and 1290 at the Barillas site - unprecedented find challenging our views on ancient foodways in the region. The paucity of these comales has hitherto co-determined narratives on human mobility from Mesoamerica, due to...
Pre-Columbian Introduction of Legume Trees Prosopis Algarobia Section and Geoffroea decorticans into the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile during the Late Holocene (2018)
Our recent research in the Atacama Desert (18-27°S) proposed that Prosopis trees, Algarobia section (Algarrobo) were introduced during the late Holocene by humans and dispersed through cultural and natural factors. At least 41 direct AMS on seeds and pods retrieved from archaeobotanical and paleoecological contexts (rodent middens and leaf litter deposits) show that the earliest presence occurred ~4200 cal BP but most dates fall over a thousand years later, during and after the Formative period....
Preclassic Maya Plant Use along the Usumacinta River: A Microbotanical Approach (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paleoethnobotanical evidence, in conjunction with other archaeological data, provides key information regarding ancient practices. This paper presents the results of microbotanical analyses —specifically the study of starch grains—carried out on diverse Preclassic Maya archaeological...
Prehispanic plant remains from Altica, Teotihuacan Valley Mexico (2017)
Altica, situated in the southeastern sector of the Teotihuacan Valley, represents the earliest known farming community in this region. Its importance lies in the potential for the recovery of evidence for domestic plant use by these early inhabitants. Plant remains recovered over several decades in the Teotihuacan Valley provide an idea of the predominant plant communities in the area during the Early-Middle Formative, an indicator of local environmental conditions. Preliminary results from the...
Prehistoric Agriculture in South Tibet: Archaeobotanical Perpespective from Bangga Site (2018)
To understand the evolution of agricultural economy in south Tibet, a large number of flotation samples and phytolith samples were collected during 2015-2017 field seasons at Bangga site. Preliminary analysis on these samples shows clues to the subsistence strategy, the nature of the site （pastoral or agropastoral）and probably the seasonality of the occupation of the site. Comparison with Changguogou site which is earlier in time indicates changes in subsistence strategy over time in this...
Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherer Plant Food Use in the Northern Zagros: New Evidence from Carbonized Plant Macro-remains (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. Research on plant remains over the past two decades increasingly point to the importance of plant foods in Paleolithic hunter-gatherer subsistence. In this paper I will present recent results of archaeobotanical research on carbonized plant macro-remains from late-Middle, Upper Paleolithic and...
Prehistoric Plant Utilization in Southeastern New Mexico: A unique publication merging academic and public interests (2015)
The investigation of plant use, in southeastern New Mexico, in prehistory has been widely covered, this project continues this tradition by synthesizing and compiling all of the information to date in the region. The Carlsbad Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management, administrators of the Permian Basin Mitigation Program, is sponsoring the publication of a reference book on prehistoric plant use in Southeastern New Mexico. This free text will bring together recent work in radiocarbon...
Preliminary Analysis of Archaeobotanical Remains Recovered from Late Classic Maya Marketplaces in Northwestern Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Prehispanic Maya Marketplace Investigations in the Three Rivers Region of Belize: First Results" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeobotanical analysis of Late Classic Maya remains is a rapidly growing field of study. While much has been written about the different types of plants that the Maya used, very little is known about how and where these plants were traded and their connection to regional integration and...
A Preliminary Botanical Analysis of the Quinebaug Falls Site in Preston, Connecticut (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Section 106 process, Heritage Consultants, LLC, personnel identified the Quinebaug Falls Site along the Quinebaug River in Preston, Connecticut. Phase II investigations of the site yielded diagnostic cultural materials indicating the presence of Middle and Late Woodland occupations, including a Fox Creek and potential Jack’s Reef component. The...
A Preliminary Comparison of Paleoethnobotanical Remains from Cerro Baul and Cerro Mejia in the Upper Moquegua Valley, Peru (2015)
This paper presents preliminary analysis of macrobotanical remains from the Middle Horizon Wari Imperial sites in the Upper Moquegua Valley, Peru. Plant remains from the sites Cerro Baúl and Cerro Mejía are compared to begin contracting a baseline for Wari residential subsistence at the colony, and the greater Empire. Additionally, paleoethnobotanical remains from the sites are compared to further develop archaeological interpretations of Wari social practices surrounding food. SAA 2015...