Paleoethnobotany (Other Keyword)
476-500 (572 Records)
This is an abstract from the "American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous studies of the northern Chihuahuan Desert and Trans-Pecos region of west Texas primarily used plant macrofossils from Neotoma sp. middens to reconstruct Holocene and late Pleistocene paleoenvironments, offering researchers a general understanding of bioclimatic change for the period of record. Given the...
Relatos de Juncos y Totoras en el Desierto de Atacama: Uso y Significados en el Sitio Aragón 1 (3000 AC-1000 DC), Región de Tarapacá, Norte de Chile (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Desde el Perspectivismo amerindio se ha puesto énfasis en los mundos relacionales y las lógicas simétricas entre los humanos y no humanos. Sin embargo, desde este enfoque la arqueología ha dejado en un segundo plano la relación entre plantas y humanos. A partir del caso de estudio del sitio Aragón 1 (ca. 3000 AC-1000 DC), Desierto de Atacama, este trabajo...
Revealing La Playa's Cultural Landscape during the Early Agriculture Period through Paleoethnobotanical Research (2024)
This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents a reconstruction of the cultural landscape of the La Playa Site in Sonora (SON F:10:3) during the Early Agriculture period (3450–1800 BP). We employ a paleoethnobotanical approach, analyzing 150 macrobotanical samples alongside ethnobotanical investigations, ethnographic data, and oral tradition...
Ritual and Domestic Plant Use on the Southern Pacific Coast of Mexico: A Starch Grain Study of the Formative to Classic Period Transition at Izapa (2018)
In southern Mesoamerica, the transition from the Formative period to Classic period (100 B.C.- A.D. 400) was a time of population decline, cessation of monumental construction, and the abandonment of many sites. Environmental explanations such as drought and volcanic activity have been proposed as potential trigger factors for the widespread collapse at the close of the Formative period. Current evidence suggests that residents of the early capital of Izapa, located on a piedmont environmental...
Ritual Production, Commodity Production, and Cultivating Agricultural Heritage in Ravni Kotari, Croatia (2018)
Agricultural crops may be selected not only because they "work" from the perspective of agroecology, but also for their value in maintaining religious affiliation, historical memory, and community identity. Drawing on emerging archaeobotanical evidence from the Ravni Kotari region of southern Croatia, this paper discusses the challenges of understanding continuities of cultivation practices over multiple millennia in relation to changing political-economic contexts within which cultivation has...
Ritual Use of the Rejolladas of Tahcabo, Yucatán (2018)
In Tahcabo, Yucatán, 5% of the town’s municipal land is contained within rejolladas. Rejolladas, like cenotes, are sinkholes formed in the karstic bedrock of Yucatán, although they do not reach to the level of the water table. They make for ideal gardens when located within settlements, as their low elevation allows for the collection of deep and moisture-rich soil that provides an advantage for the cultivation of almost any plant. At the nearby site of Kulubá it has also been shown that...
The Role of Ritual in Early Food Producing Economies: Seed Keepers and Seed Exchange in Ethnography and in the Archaeological Record of Eastern North America (2017)
The ethnographic record is replete with examples of farming societies for whom the maintenance and exchange of seed stock was imbued with ritual significance. Seed keeping is often an institutionalized role for families or individuals: a matter of pride, as aspect of identity, and a heavy responsibility. The establishment of these rituals and institutions may have been crucial to the domestication of annual plants and the development of food producing economies. What would seed keeping and seed...
Roots and Tubers in Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene China: Experimental Paleoethnobotany and Preliminary Case Studies (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent advances in paleoethnobotanical research reveal that plants have been critical to the human diet for longer and in more diverse ways than previously assumed. This paper addresses the relative dearth of paleoethnobotanical information on the early uses of vegetatively propagated plants in China, despite their significant representation in modern...
Roots in the Community: A Macrobotanical Analysis of Enslaved African-American Households at James Madison's Montpelier (2016)
In 2008, the archaeology department at James Madison’s Montpelier began a multi-year project that sought to understand the community dynamics between enslaved workers at the plantation in the early 19th century. This study excavated and analyzed four sites: South Yard, Stable Quarter, Field Quarter, and Tobacco Barn Quarter. Each of these sites represents a different community of enslaved workers, from those who worked in the mansion to field hands. This paper will compare the macrobotanical...
Sacred Landscapes, Spaces, and Ritual Offerings as the Materialization of Environmental Narratives at the Site of Pacbitun, Belize (2018)
Material culture studies allow archaeologists to examine the social implications of the physical world in which people are embedded. Sacred landscapes, for example, inspire social narratives regarding how people should interact with the environment. Components of those landscapes, such as caves and mountains, become active participants in the establishment, maintenance, and mobilization of environmental narratives. They serve as hegemonic tools for conveying morality and proper behavior, and as...
Sacred Worlds and Pragmatic Science in the Aftermath of Conquest: The Hidden Caves of Cerro del Convento (2017)
In the 16th century, Dominican priests attempted to eradicate various non-Catholic ritual practices in Nejapa. Native peoples apparently regularly visited Cerro del Convento, a Sierra Sur landmark, to perform rituals and leave offerings. In the late 1500s, priests from the Dominican doctrina in Nexapa visited Cerro del Convento to destroy and burn all evidence of "idolatry". Between 2009 and 2013, members of the Proyecto Arqueológico Nejapa Tavela surveyed and excavated at Cerro del Convento to...
Sacrificial Rituals and Dietary Complexity on the Eve of State Formation: New Insights from Dental Calculus Microbotanical Analysis at the Kangjia Site in China (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Neolithic Longshan culture in China witnessed profound social and political transformations, characterized by the emergence of increasing social competition, long-distance trade, and inter-polity warfare. These developments eventually culminated in the formation of the first state-level societies in the Central...
Savor Your Subsistence: Foodways at Kotið, a Small Viking Age Dwelling in Northern Iceland (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Small Dwellings on the Viking Frontier: New Research from Kotið, North Iceland" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present food production data from the 2022–2023 excavations at Kotið, a small, non-elite Viking Age (ninth century AD) domestic dwelling located in Skagafjörður, North Iceland. Macrobotanical and zooarchaeological remains provide key data to better understand early subsistence strategies, including...
Searching for Clues: Processing-Wear Analysis on Waterlogged Edible Plant Remains in Archaeobotanical Samples (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Culinary Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeobotanical remains of several cesspits and wells from Delft were analyzed to determine if “preparation marks,” marks on plant remains resulting from specific preparation methods, are present and if these marks can be used to differentiate between kitchen refuse and consumption waste or excrement. By combining the results from archaeobotanical analysis with...
Secrets from Within the Shell: Exploring the Differences between Shell-Bearing and Shell-Free Deposits at 40DV307 along the Cumberland River, Tennessee, USA. (2016)
The Bell Site is a multicomponent prehistoric site located along the Cumberland River in Central Tennessee. Archaeological fieldwork conducted in the summer of 2010 and 2012, including riverbank profiling, auger testing, unit excavation, and column sampling, revealed a long and dynamic occupational history of the site. Here, we integrate multiple lines of evidence including paleoethnobotany, zooarchaeology, and geoarchaeology, to unravel the site's complex (pre)history and explore the functional...
Seeds for the gods: chía (Salvia hispanica) in Teotihuacan ritual offerings (2017)
Over the last decades, as a result of archaeological research inside of the Sun and the Moon pyramids in Teotihuacan, significant concentrations of chía (Salvia hispanica) seeds have been recovered in association with ritual contexts. This is particularly true in Offering 2, pit 59 of the Sun Pyramid and in Burial 6 of the Moon Pyramid. The archaeological artifacts were similar in both contexts, for example Tlaloc vessels, projectile points, pyrite disks and faunal remains, among others. In this...
Seeds of Complexity: An Archaeobotanical Study of Incipient Social Complexity at Late Chalcolithic Çadır Höyük, Turkey (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Chalcolithic (LC: 4250–3000 B.C.E.) is an understudied period of Anatolian prehistory even though the roots of Anatolian social complexity lie in this period. Çadır Höyük, a mounded site on the north central Anatolian plateau has yielded over 460 m2 of excavated LC remains. This period witnessed rapid cultural and environmental change providing an...
Seeds, Weeds, and Feed: Macrobotanical Analysis of Enslaved African-American Plant Use and Foodways at a James Madison's Montpelier (2015)
In 2008, the archaeology department at James Madison’s Montpelier began a multi-year project that sought to understand the community dynamics between enslaved workers at the plantation in the early 19th century. This study excavated and analyzed four sites: South Yard, Stable Quarter, Field Quarter, and Tobacco Barn Quarter. Each of these sites represents a different community of enslaved workers, from those who worked in the mansion to field hands. In this paper, I discuss and compare the...
Setting the Table at the ca. 1638 Waterman House Site, Plymouth Colony (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The early period of settlement in New England has most often been examined through the available historical documents and accounts, with little in the way of tangible material culture or features to connect what we read to the lived experiences of the colonists. However, AHS, Inc.’s 2013 extensive data recovery of the ca. 1638 Waterman House site in...
Shaded Canyons and Mesquite Fires: 13,000 Years of Ethnobotany in Eagle Nest Canyon (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Eagle Nest Canyon, Texas: Papers in Honor of Jack and Wilmuth Skiles" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The value of several significant archaeological sites investigated by the Ancient Southwest Texas Project in Eagle Nest Canyon (Val Verde County, Texas) is a testament to the conservation and stewardship of landowners Jack and Wilmuth Skiles. From the beginning it was anticipated that these...
The Shift From Tobacco To Wheat Farming: Using Macrobotanical Analysis To Interpret How Changes In Agricultural Practices Impacted The Daily Activities Of Monticello’s Enslaved Field Laborers. (2016)
In 1997 Site 8 was uncovered at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello through excavations conducted by the staff of the Monticello Department of Archaeology and students in the Monticello-University of Virginia Archaeological Field School. Six features identified as either storage pits or cellars provide evidence of four buildings that once stood to house enslaved field hands between c. 1770 and c. 1800. This occupation is contemporaneous with the period in which Thomas Jefferson shifted Monticello’s...
Site Formation and Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction at a Terminal Archaic/Woodland Period Site in Central Nova Scotia, Canada. (2015)
Despite being the area of earliest European occupation in Canada, with ample Contact period ethnohistorical evidence, very little is known about Pre-Contact occupation along the Annapolis River drainage system, in central Nova Scotia. At present there are less than 50 recorded Pre-Contact sites and virtually no private collections. This has long puzzled local archaeologists, as the Annapolis River is an obvious travel route to the interior, and a large (2130 km2) watershed rich in plant and...
Situating Power and Locating Knowledge: A Paleoethnobotanical Perspective on Late Classic Maya Gender and Social Relations (2008)
Viewing household production in terms of a political economic balance of “give and take” circumvents difficulties related to gender attribution in archaeology and challenges timeless gender stereotypes. This chapter proposes such an archaeological approach to gender by examining the charcoal assemblages from two Late Classic period Maya archaeological sites in the upper Belize Valley of western Belize. These sites occupied distinct positions within a complex political economic landscape, and...
So Many Chenopods: Paleoethnobotany of the Late Intermediate Period, Puno, Peru (AD 1100-1450) (2016)
Following the collapse of Tiwanaku in the Andean altiplano, warfare, sociopolitical balkanization, and a severe drought lead to economic hardships during the Late Intermediate period (LIP) between A.D. 1100 and 1450. Previous research in the region has shed light on how martial conflict between and possibly among competing ethnic groups incited people to live in defensive fortified hilltop villages. Although scholars have previously speculated on the severity of lifeways for residents of...
The Social Dynamics of Ceren's Household Gardens (2018)
The Late Classic Maya village of Joya de Ceren’s extraordinary preservation by the Loma Caldera eruption allows for a unique opportunity to not only understand what plant species the ancient inhabitants utilized in their daily lives but also how the cultivation of these plants shaped the social and economic environment. While Cerén has spectacular preservation of extensive outfields of maize, manioc, and numerous weedy species, this paper will focus on the cultivated spaces surrounding the...